BishopAccountability.org

Hyperfundies Think A Sexual Assault Victim ‘Asked For What She Got’

By Darrell Lucus
Liberal America
July 01, 2016

http://www.liberalamerica.org/2016/07/01/hyperfundies-think-sexual-assault-victim-asked-got/

The main fountain at Bob Jones University–where if you’re a sexual assault victim, you get washed down the rabbit hole

Two months ago, I was dumbfounded to discover that two girls who graduated with by girlfriend’s son are on their way to Bob Jones University in the fall. For the better part of four years, the ultrafundamentalist school in Greenville, South Carolina has been under well-deserved fire for its shameful response to sexual assault–including victim blaming and victim shaming of the worst type. As much lunacy as I’ve seen over the years from fundies, I couldn’t understand how any parent would send their children to a school that finds it acceptable to treat a sexual assault victim in this way.

Recently, I’ve gotten at least a few answers. On the same day of the graduation, now-former BJU student Micah Pretlove was arrested for molesting at least two girls during his days at BJU’s attached Christian school, Bob Jones Academy. Since I told you about that arrest, a number of walkaways from the independent fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) churches that are BJU’s main constituency have reached out to me to share some insights on what drives the rampant rape culture in that world.

When I first read about how rampant victim blaming and victim shaming are at BJU, my first impression was that it was mainly driven by the desire to get more notches in everyone’s Bibles. Former student Cathy Harris learned that the hard way when she tried to tell then-dean of students Jim Berg about how she had been victimized by a sex trafficking ring when she was younger. Berg told her that if she went forward, she would be “damaging the cause of Christ.”

Harris told me that when Berg said that, he meant that if she reported her abuser, BJU’s image would be so tarnished that it could prevent someone from being saved. Berg stepped down as dean in 2010 to teach counseling to graduate seminary students, so it can be safely assumed that they’re being taught to counsel parishoners along similarly degrading lines.

Along similar lines, Camille Lewis, who spent the first two decades of her adult life at BJU, told me that for much of her tenure there, people feared that reporting sexual assault would “mar their perfect image.” In the IFB world, Lewis said, getting people saved is “like a beauty pageant.” If a sexual assault victim comes forward, many people at BJU feared it would result in a “bad reputation” and “bad testimony” for the school.

This sounded a lot like a line I’ve been fed since walking out on a highly abusive hypercharismatic outfit that stole my first six months at the University of North Carolina. Whenever I speak out against them, I’m told that I shouldn’t say “bad things about Christians,” and that “God’s going to shut your mouth” if I keep it up. On other occasions, I’m warned that I shouldn’t “touch God’s anointed.” Basically, it’s omerta, fundie style.

But former BJU student Karen Lee told me it goes much deeper than that. You may recall that Lee’s older brother, Dan Nelson, has a very close relationship with Chuck Phelps, an IFB pastor who is the central figure in one of the worst cases of victim blaming ever uncovered. While pastoring a church in New Hampshire, Phelps learned that one of his teenage parishoners, Tina Anderson, had been raped by another member, Ernie Willis. Phelps forced Anderson to apologize to the entire congregation for “getting into a compromising situation.” Even after this story broke in 2010, Nelson remained principal of a Christian school attached to Phelps’ current church in Indianapolis.

Lee told me that many IFBers–including a large portion of her own family–believe that a sexual assault victim is “a different class of woman” and “a lower class of human being.” And they justify it by using a number of verses in Proverbs warning us about being led astray by the “strange woman.” Specifically, Proverbs 2:16, 5:20, and 7:5. In more contemporary versions, “strange woman” is rendered as “adulterous woman,” “immoral woman,” or “wayward woman.”

Translation–in the IFB world, a sexual assault victim is no different from a slut and an adulteress. And children aren’t exempt either. Lee told me that IFBers interpret Psalm 58:3 to mean that when a child is assaulted, it’s proof that they “go astray as soon as they’re born.” There are no words for how hurtful and degrading this is.

We saw this in the Anderson case. In 2010, Anderson recalled that when she told Phelps and his wife about what Willis did to her, Phelps’ wife asked her, “Did you enjoy it?” Lee heard this first-hand from her own brother in December 2011, not long after he took the reins at BJA. They were discussing the Anderson case when Nelson told her, “Chuck Phelps is a great man, and Tina Anderson asked for what she got.” In other words, Phelps and Nelson held a sexual assault victim responsible for somehow leading her attacker astray.

Seen in that light, it’s no wonder so many IFB women and girls who are sexually assaulted wait years to come forward, if they come forward at all. Remember, folks, Pretlove first molested someone in 2010–and waited six years to come forward. And she was a senior at BJA when Phelps spoke at chapel in October 2012–at Nelson’s invitation. Is it any coincidence that both she, and another sexual assault victim whose parents kiboshed an investigation in 2013, waited until they were adults to come forward? Not from where I’m sitting, two hours north of this dung pile.

The thing that really angers me is that BJU was told how hurtful this was and more or less ignored it. A scathing report from Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment held Berg largely responsible for teaching and encouraging this bilge, and recommended that his books and DVDs be yanked from the shelves. However, BJU rejected this out of hand.

Now, it looks like the bill has finally come due for years of sweeping sexual assault under the rug. Last week, it emerged that another former BJU student, Ben Adams, was forced to withdraw after several minors claimed he’d assaulted them. However, neither Berg nor then-president and current chancellor Bob Jones III reported this to the police. This didn’t come to light until Adams was arrested for molesting a 14-year-old boy half a continent away in California. Police on both coasts believe there are more victims.

Do the math–in a near-exact replay of the Penn State scandal, a child predator was allowed to remain at large for 12 years because BJU failed to do what it was legally and morally required to do–protect a sexual assault victim. Given the near-certainty that there are more victims and that BJU has been purveying this for so long, it’s not too soon to wonder whether this school should get the treatment Massey Energy got after Upper Big Branch and what JPMorganChase should have gotten after the Bernie Madoff scandal. When an institution acts with such blatant disregard for public safety, you really have to wonder if that institution should be allowed to exist.

But there’s something that can be done right now–ensure that Berg and Jones pay for putting their school’s image over protecting victims. Sign this petition telling Berg and Jones to resign.




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