Sexual abuse victims find healing in GRACE report

By Lyn Riddle
Greenville News
December 27, 2014

http://www.greenvilleonline.com/story/news/local/2014/12/27/sexual-abuse-victims-find-healing-grace-report/20938675/

An exhaustive report by GRACE found problems with how Bob Jones University handled reports of sexual abuse and assault.

Cathy Harris quickly read through the report criticizing Bob Jones University leaders for the way they handled reports of sexual assault and abuse.

Now she's making her way through it again, deliberately this time, trying to sort it all out, letting herself feel all the emotions she tries hard to hold back.

Harris is one of the survivors of sexual assault who spoke with investigators from GRACE, Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment, which was paid by Bob Jones University to look into the school's counseling practices.

GRACE's two-year investigation found that counseling services were harmful, some students were dissuaded from making police reports, and sermons and classroom lectures made victims feel as if they had brought the abuse on themselves by what they wore or how they acted.

The report singled out Bob Jones III, the chancellor and former president, and Jim Berg, the former dean of students who counseled between 200 and 300 sexual abuse victims in 30 years. GRACE recommended personnel action against Jones and suggested that Berg not be allowed to counsel students, teach counseling and that his books on counseling be removed from the bookstore and online.

Jones and Berg could not be reached for comment.

BJU spokesman Randy Page said in an email, "For this particular story, President Steve Pettit is our primary spokesman. No other member of the faculty, staff or administration will be making comments or granting interviews. At this point, President Pettit has made all of the comment he is going to make publicly regarding the GRACE Report."

In a chapel service the day before the report was released, Pettit apologized to victims and announced he would form a committee to study the report and respond to the report's recommendations. The study would take 90 days and no changes would be made until then, he said.

Several people who spoke to GRACE administrators criticized Pettit, saying his apology sounded half-hearted, as if a lawyer wrote it.

"Bob Jones University, in my opinion, needs to own the report," Harris said in an interview with The Greenville News. "Steve Pettit needs to own the report. They try to minimize everything."

Like all the people who spoke to GRACE investigators, Harris was not named in the report, but she agreed to tell her story to The News.

Harris said she was counseled by Berg for six months in 1996 after she started to have flashbacks of childhood sexual abuse. She said she'd go to his office on the second floor of the Administration Building weekly and sit in a wing-back chair. He remained seated behind his desk.

She told him she wanted to go to the police, she said.

"He said the police wouldn't believe me," she said.

He told her a report would bring shame on the cause of Christ.

Legal action

Solicitor Walt Wilkins has said he intends to investigate the allegations made in the GRACE report, most especially whether people who by law should have reported abuse or assault did not and if university officials told victims not to report, which could be considered obstruction of justice.

Wilkins said he had one report of sexual assault that came from the GRACE investigation. He encouraged anyone who wanted to report an assault or abuse to contact his office.

Survivors have said they are considering bringing civil actions against the university and are looking for law firms that have had experience going up against religious organizations. Harris said she has spoken with a firm in Minnesota that has offices in eight states, including South Carolina, and has represented victims in dozens of lawsuits against priests, bishops and the Roman Catholic Church.

"People need to be careful," Harris said. "This is a big deal and you want people equipped to handle this."

Harris said her experience with counseling at BJU was much the same as others who spoke to GRACE investigators, that her problem was rooted in sin. She said Berg told her that when the flashbacks came she was to repeat Bible verses. GRACE said in its report that flashbacks are commonplace for abuse victims and are rooted in post-traumatic stress syndrome.

"The epitome of victim blaming is to tell rape victims that their severe symptoms of PTSD are their own fault," the report said. "Their debilitating fear, their wildly unpredictable flashbacks, their frequent dissociative blackouts, and their terrifying nightmares would all disappear if only they would: stop dwelling on the past, forgive and forget, memorize more scripture, and be a better Christian."

Berg also asked whether she felt any pleasure during any of the abuse and, if she did, she needed to repent, she said.

The trust exercise

During one session, she said Berg told her he wanted to do a trust exercise. He pulled a rat trap from his desk, set the hammer and put a pencil on it. The trap broke the pencil into pieces.

She said he then told her to put her finger on the trap. When she refused, he got angry and put another pencil in. The trap did not snap shut.

If she couldn't trust the people God put over her, how could she trust God? she recalls him asking.

"I kept being told how unspiritual I was," she said.

The counseling ended when he told her he couldn't help her and God couldn't help her either.

"His counseling was more harmful than the abuse," she told The News.

In his interview with GRACE, Berg acknowledged that his counseling was often hurried due to his heavy workload and that he did not have extensive training in counseling sexual abuse victims. He said he did not know until 1992 that South Carolina had a law that required certain professionals, including educators, to report abuse, despite the law having been passed in the 1970s.

He also acknowledged that some cases were not reported to authorities.

Berg has operated an addiction recovery program and counseling program associated with Faith Baptist Church in Taylors, but the information on his services has been removed from the church's website. His own website now requires a password for access.

Berg is scheduled to teach Crisis Counseling next semester, according to the BJU website. His biography on the site says, "Under the direction of his pastor, Dr. John Monroe, Dr. Berg began Faith Counseling Institute to provide biblical counselor training for pastors and laymen. As part of his seminary duties he provides phone support for pastors dealing with difficult counseling situations in their churches. He also continues to counsel students, other university family members, and members of his local church who need biblical help for dealing with life's challenges."

Monroe declined a request for an interview.

Healing

Camille Lewis, a former BJU professor who also graduated from the university, said she told GRACE investigators what she observed when she went to counseling with a friend who had been abused since childhood by her father.

"I heard Jim Berg say, don't go to the police. That ruins families," she told The News.

Harris said the victimization continued when she left school and information she gave during counseling was relayed to pastors and others.

GRACE noted several instances of the school's failure to keep information confidential.

Several survivors praised GRACE for being especially mindful of not identifying anyone who talked to them.

"It is just amazing to me how well they did," Harris said. "They didn't re-victimize anyone."

She also said the report was thorough in its collection of information and assertive in its findings and recommendations.

Among the recommendations were a memorial on campus to victims, face-to-face meetings to hear them and to apologize, removal of all sermons that advance the idea that victims are to blame for the abuse and outsourcing all sexual abuse counseling to an organization that deals with sexual abuse such as Julie Valentine Center.

Harris said an outgrowth of the investigation is that many of the survivors met while in Greenville, Charlotte or Hendersonville for their interviews. They had meals together and talked.

They've kept in touch through Facebook and in phone calls. Harris said she speaks every day to one woman she met through the investigation.

"It's been healing for me," she said.