Here’s a clip from a recent episode of 20/20 about the fundamentalist subculture. This particular clip is the story of Tina Anderson, a former member of Trinity Baptist in Concord NH, part of the the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) church network.
Tina’s story is horrific. She was raped by a deacon of the church, and left pregnant at the age of fifteen. The pastor of the church, Chuck Phelps (no relation to Fred), covered for the rapist, then actually forced Tina to take responsibility and apologize in front of the congregation.
You can watch the whole 40 min. episode, with commercials, at the 20/20 site.
Darrell has a lengthy post about this episode at Stuff Fundies Like (SFL). Darrell covered Tina’s story back when it broke, as did Jeri at Blog on the Way and Christa Brown at Stop Baptist Predators.
[redacted by Dan]
I imagine she hasn’t done that because she does not follow the vicious, sociopathic example of the faith she grew up surrounded by. She actually has a conscience, and a conscience can work both ways. It not only tells us if our own actions are wrong, it can tell us if the actions being done to us are wrong. Sadly certain faith communities try to demolish one side of this and often end up gutting the whole thing, so it is, while obviously very painful for her, to her credit that she retained the capability to know right from wrong after all of this.
I’ve banned this guy before, he’s posted under a number of different aliases. I don’t know if he’s insane, a jerk, or a xian pretending to be an atheist, but he’s not welcome here.
I’m pretty sure I’ve SpamHammered him a few times myself, actually.
All three maybe. They are by no means mutually exclusive.
erm … maybe he’s a pastor :-)
The location of the church in question is Concord, NH, not “Concorn,” Mass.
We focus so much on what Catholics have done… It just goes to show that they don’t hold the monopoly on child abuse and misogyny. This was so sad to watch…
I grew up catholic, and was an altar boy (though I wasn’t cute enough to be molested, I suppose). I’ve said for years that the catholic church by its very size and power structure gets all the rape publicity (and deserves what they get), but the rest of christianity gets away with just as much abuse and dodges the headlines due to its segmented distribution. I’m quite sure that Joe and Mary Christian would be quite stunned if they had any idea just how much abuse has been levied on children and women in the name of god over the centuries. Much easier to ignore it and praise jesus.
where can people who aren’t in America stream it?
What really bothers me about these church rapist stories is that suddenly it seems like rape isn’t illegal anymore.
Is it still?
When you really examine Western civilisation, it’s incredible how ingrained rape and objectification of women is. Really. Watch some late night TV for the old films in which the strong male character forces a kiss onto the fiery female lead, who protests at first and then meltingly accepts. Or the media representation of college fraternities, depicting higher education as an opportunity to get chicks naked and grope (i.e. sexually assault) them. Or in movies like Observe and Report, in which the protagonist drugs a woman and rapes her while she’s unconscious (and audiences passively accept that it’s okay, because she consents after the fact). It’s not just in churches. Of course, in some churches the majority will listen to a girl tell a story of being raped by an old man and automatically blame the victim, and it’s to be hoped that isn’t so true of wider society.
What is wrong with those people? If a girl gave a plausible account of the story to where I believe her, I’d GO TO THE FUCKING POLICE before doing ANYTHING else about it, blaming her or not.
That always pissed me off; the accepted sexual assault that’s in a lot of movies and shows; not even old ones, I see it in fucking current movies in shows(last 10 years) and I don’t watch many movies. Good fucking idea; sexually assault someone who is screaming at you and she’ll marry you!
I also hate the plot device where someone is crazy but actually right; IE they’ve seen aliens eat their dog, and they tell everyone, but they aren’t believed until the end when everyone is sorry. It happened in Evan Almighty too; it exasperates fucking mental illness. There are fucking crazy people who are encouraged by these kinds of stories to keep being crazy.
Jesus shiteating Christ fuck…it makes me angry as shit damn; eloquence goes out the fucking window.
The same thing happened to me, man. Look at my post above yours: random capital words everywhere. But it gets me so damn foaming at the mouth…
I know…how can we as reasonable human beings not foam at this?
Oops Just too angry to type right
Fortunately UF has loving mods who care :-p
When my “favourite fellow” was a young teenager, his mom joined the local church, which was a baptist denomination.I found the atrocities committed against this single-parent led family just too atrocious to list right now. He was raped by a deacon, and told such things as it was for the good of his soul, to help him submit to god’s will and the like. His family also endured many hardships at the church’s’ hands when his mom tried to leave “god’s true church.(She did her best to stand by her son, but the family was made more vulnerable by these monsters and at the time there was only so much she could do)To this day he carries a sense of guilt and shame. He knows logically it wasn’t his fault, but those b@st@rd’s left a scar that will never heal.
I am crying and screaming and wishing I could help my friend and wanting to gather up every kid and save them from this barbaric horrific thing they call religion