Why 2 Women Are Speaking up about Pastoral Abuse 17 Years after Being Told to Stay Silent

By Jennifer Babich
Usa Today
November 6, 2019

https://news.yahoo.com/why-2-tennessee-women-speaking-030210567.html

Why 2 women are speaking up about pastoral abuse 17 years after being told to stay silent

Corrections & clarifications: Megan Frey and JoAnna Hendrickson are from Indiana. A previous headline for this story misidentified their state of residence.

CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. — The first time the two women came forward to disclose allegations of pastoral abuse, they were 18. They were told to keep quiet and that speaking up would be bad for their reputations.

Recently, they tried again to speak up, and once again, they were urged to stay silent.

Their accusation: The top candidate for lead pastor at First Baptist Clarksville in Tennessee manipulated them both into secret relationships – one of them sexual – while he was serving as their youth group leader in 2002.

The two women say their calls for action by the church have gone unheeded, not just when the abuse happened 17 years ago, but again today, with the chairman of the FBC pastoral search committee continuing the cover-up.

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Megan Frey and JoAnna Hendrickson, who are both from Evansville, Indiana, told The Leaf-Chronicle in separate interviews that Wes Feltner — now lead pastor of preaching and vision at Berean Baptist in Burnsville, Minnesota — engaged in this pastoral abuse at First Southern Baptist Church in their hometown of Evansville, Indiana.

Their claims came to light recently when the chairman of FBC's pastoral search committee, Paul Batson, reached out for information about Feltner's past, and spoke with another pastor who was friends with both Feltner and the two women at that time. That pastor has confirmed their accounts to The Leaf-Chronicle. Ultimately, their conversations with that pastor led the two women to talk with Batson, and then to write detailed statements about their relationships with Feltner, which they sent to Batson.

Batson responded in a statement to The Leaf-Chronicle, saying in part: "The intent was not to downplay the events, or sins as we call them in church, except to say that they were in a dating context. ... The important thing to know is that if there is any angst at this point in the process, point it at me, not at the church."

Neither FBC nor Berean Baptist officials have responded to Leaf-Chronicle requests for official comment.