A reader has tipped me off to the fact that Andrew L. Thomas, a youth minister and track coach in Rossville, Illinois, has been charged with five counts of sexual exploitation of a child in Federal Court (additional link). This is in addition to local charges of criminal sexual assault with an underage boy from earlier this year.

“According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Thomas used a scheme in which he identified himself on social Internet networking sites and in text messages or e-mails as a female under the names of Stephanie, Jenn, Jessica or Kayla. Thomas is accused of using the personas to entice the minor-age boys, sending them pornographic female images and in return soliciting pornographic images of the young boys. Thomas, the charges indicate, also used the names Stephanie Danielson, Kayla Wilson, Jennifer Martinez, Jessica Gonzalez, Justin Danielson and Justin Williams with the e-mail addresses: justjock89@aim.com, Kaylaw21to@aol.com, Foryouhopeulike@aol.com, Luknfrmystudboy2@aim.com, Stephaniedanielson89@hotmail.com and stephaniedanielson1989@yahoo.com. The indictment alleges a timeline for each of the counts, starting as early as January 2007 and running through March 2010.”

This is relevant to our communities because while Thomas was allegedly abusing young boys, he was also leading an anti-Pagan crusade in order to drive Witch School out of Rossville, Illinois.

“Andy Thomas, youth minister at the Rossville Church of Christ, said residents had a spiritual responsibility to drive the witches out. If they didn’t, he said, young people were in danger of being pulled off the Christian path …”

The tensions between the residents of the Rossville-Hoopeston area of Illinois and Witch School are touched on in the documentary “Hoopeston”.

Ultimately, the ongoing local hostility did prove successful in driving the Witches out of the area, and Witch School relocated to the friendlier climes of Salem.

“Witch School Headquarters are closing in the Rossville-Hoopeston area of Illinois. Witch School settled from Chicago to Central Illinois in 2003, and became the center of protest by many of the Christian Churches in the area. A well-documented spiritual battle has been waged for the last six years, with open hostilities and long quiet truces by various Christian factions. Simply put, this has not allowed Witch School the staff and resources needed to keep up with their growth. On Halloween, Witch School Rossville will close permanently, and Witch School will be moving its HQ to ‘The Witch City’, Salem Mass.”

If there’s a larger lesson to be learned from the sad incident, it may be that those most willing and eager to persecute others often have some sort of dark secret of their own to deal with. Usually these secrets are pedestrian when exposed to daylight, an affair, simple hypocrisy, fraud, but occasionally true monsters are exposed when scrutiny is shifted from the targets to those pointing the finger. Andrew L. Thomas was considered a pillar of his community, a moral leader, and there’s no telling how these revelations, and the resulting trial, will affect a community that is already dealing with severe problems. Here’s hoping the victims will see justice done.

News media in East Central Illinois have been following the case of Andrew L. Thomas, a youth minister and track coach in Rossville, Illinois who’s been charged with the rape of 16-year-old boy he was mentoring.

“Andrew Thomas made his first appearance in court today. He’s been the youth minister at Rossville Church of Christ for three years, according to court records. Prosecutors say he had sex with a 16 year old boy he was mentoring. They say it happened over the last few months. The victim came forward to police. Thomas was arrested last night. If convicted, Thomas faces up to 15 years in prison. His friends, family, and church community are standing behind him. Prosecutors say more charges could be filed. They are investigating whether he may have child pornography on his computer.”

While these accusations against a Christian clergyman seem sadly pedestrian in an age of massive abuse scandals, this case draws special attention for our community. For while Thomas was allegedly abusing young boys, he was also leading an anti-Pagan crusade in order to drive Witch School out of Rossville, Illinois.

“Andy Thomas, youth minister at the Rossville Church of Christ, said residents had a spiritual responsibility to drive the witches out. If they didn’t, he said, young people were in danger of being pulled off the Christian path …”

The bitter irony of a man trying to protect “young people” from Witches while allegedly abusing them hasn’t escaped the folks at Witch School (since relocated to Salem, Massachusetts), who have released a statement concerning the matter.

“Pastor Andy Thomas, which claimed superior rights has now been arrested for Criminal Sexual Assault against a minor, and will face trial for them. He is alleged to have had sexual encounter with a 16 year old boy under his mentorship, and is under investigation for child pornography. He is still innocent until proven guilty, these are serious charges that question the intentions and his moral standing in the community. Our heart goes out to his alleged victim and there families, as this must be very difficult to deal with. We feel for the Rossville community, which trusted this man to give them clear spiritual advise, and instead betrayed them, in this case with their own children. In truth, he abused their trust as well, when he led them in vigorous protest against Witch School, which had never once involved in any activity to harm the community. Pastor Andy Thomas worked hard to assure the community and the nation knew how awful it was that Witch School was, while he was the individual who was bringing real harm to the community.”

You can see further reactions from Witch School at Rev. Don’s Vlog.

While his church community claims to be standing behind him, one has to wonder how many in Rossville are now questioning the past actions of this pastor, and if his obsession with driving out the “harmful” Witches wasn’t an externalization of the same deep seated psychosis that allegedly drove him to abuse children. Did he believe that by driving out the “other” he could also drive out the same demons that haunted him? Or was his religious zeal all a smokescreen for a deep-seated abusive nature? In any case, no matter what the ultimate outcome, this Witch-hunter has fallen.

After years of Witch School International trying to build a “Salem of the Midwest” in the Rossville-Hoopeston area of Central Illinois, a move that garnered plenty of publicity and hostility as the Witches tried to co-exist in a town dominated by conservative Christians dealing with a depressed economy and a troubling meth problem, the school has decided its time to move on.

“Witch School Headquarters are closing in the Rossville-Hoopeston area of Illinois. Witch School settled from Chicago to Central Illinois in 2003, and became the center of protest by many of the Christian Churches in the area. A well-documented spiritual battle has been waged for the last six years, with open hostilities and long quiet truces by various Christian factions. Simply put, this has not allowed Witch School the staff and resources needed to keep up with their growth. On Halloween, Witch School Rossville will close permanently, and Witch School will be moving its HQ to ‘The Witch City’, Salem Mass.”

As rumored since earlier this year, Witch School will stop trying to build their own Salem, and simply join the Salem that already is. Becoming a part of the massive tourist-friendly oasis custom-built for media-hungry Witches with outsized personalities. With the move now underway, Witch School CEO Ed Hubbard wants us to know it wasn’t because of Christian hostility that they are going, but because of a lack of communications resources.

“The Churches are not the cause, they are a symptom of the problems in rural areas, and that is the lack of useful educational resources. While the United States Urban areas have been undergoing a communications and information revolution, the Digital Divide between those areas and places like Rossville IL, which has very few Internet carriers, all very expensive, and very undependable, has continued to grow. Our Internet provider has terrible customer service, and been down as much as a week at a time, on a regular basis, and we use the same one the city government uses. Also attempts to provide computer training and employment saw pressure on participants to quit and boycott the business. The Churches believing that they were ‘protecting’ the community, have rejected and blocked several attempts by Witch School to improve Internet Service in the area. So it has become necessary to find a place where we can get the online access and staff we need to continue our growth.”

Not that it will stop Hoopeston-area pastors from bragging anyway. While I’m fairly certain their Internet service will be better (and the neighbors friendlier) in Massachusetts than in rural Illinois, it isn’t a leap to assert that the costs of doing business will be far higher in Salem, so it remains to be seen how well Witch School will actually do. As for Witch School’s students, they seem for the most part to be understanding and optimistic about the change in location. No doubt you can expect Witch-School folks to be popping up on reality television shows and taking advantage of national Halloween-oriented coverage of Salem any time now.

It seems that the hardships faced by Don Lewis and Witch School by moving operations to the tiny troubled town of Rossville, Illinois has been something of a blessing in disguise. Tales of the decidedly unfriendly reactions by the predominately Christian town have graduated from regional papers, to the Chicago Tribune (which in turn prompted a mention at Get Religion), and now USA Today is reporting the story.

“Witch School opened in July on Chicago Street, the main drag here, between the Harris Insurance Agency and Wally’s Pub & Eatery. Since then, it has been the chief topic of conversation, rumors and speculation around town. The witches couldn’t be happier. ‘It’s been great for business,’ CEO Donald Lewis says. ‘I do understand that some people, not understanding what we are, might be afraid, but they shouldn’t be. – There are no headless cats, there are no missing children.’”

“Great for business” indeed, you simply can’t buy that much sympathetic press. Not only has this flood of publicity helped dampen opposition, it has also provided the school with thousands of dollars of free publicity. Which I’m sure helps when enduring some hostile prayer-circles and billboards targeting your faith. It raises the question of if the Rev. Don Lewis is far cannier than we have given him credit for, or if Witch School just happened to move to the wrong town at the right time.

Now we just have to wonder if all this press is good for modern Paganism as a whole, or simply good for Witch School’s profit margin. I’m sure many Witches and Wiccans have decidedly mixed emotions about Lewis and Witch School becoming a major public face of Wicca. Time can only tell if Witch School stays in the spotlight once the controversy fades.

The Chicago Tribune takes a closer look at Witch School’s recent move to Rossville, IL and finds a troubled town deeply unhappy with its new Pagan neighbors.

“Things were already going downhill in this small farming community when the witches arrived. Area factories had shut down. So had the local high school. A suspicious fire had gutted much of the downtown. The use of methamphetamine was destroying families. So when a group of Wiccans from out of town moved into a storefront this summer and erected a sign advertising “Witch School,” it was only a matter of time before alarm bells sounded and tempers started to boil in this village of 1,200, about 125 miles south of Chicago near the Indiana border.”

It seems that anti-Witch canvassing, regular prayer meetings, and even an anti-Pagan billboard reading “Worship the Creator not Creation” have all emerged since Witch School’s move here from Hoopeston with dreams of building a new “Salem” in the Midwest. But it may not be the Salem they were hoping for.

“‘Remember the Salem witch trials?’ resident Adam Marganski said. ‘That’s what is happening here.’ … more than 150 people filed into the shuttered high school Wednesday night for the meeting, Andy Thomas, youth minister at the Rossville Church of Christ, said residents had a spiritual responsibility to drive the witches out. If they didn’t, he said, young people were in danger of being pulled off the Christian path … ‘They’re trying to make us scapegoats,’ [Don Lewis] said as he slipped into the meeting unannounced.”

On Wednesday, another meeting was held concerning the “Witch problem” featuring speaker Robert Kurka. While Kurka presented a message of tolerance instead of hostility, this new truce seems fragile at best.

“When the meeting was over, many of the opponents appeared calmed. They vowed to turn down their anger and increase their prayers. Lewis was pleasantly surprised. “It seemed like he was trying to uphold the peace,” he said. But it was unclear how long the peace would last. When a local pastor approached Lewis shortly after to say he would pray for him, the exchange between the two men quickly heated up. It looked as if a fistfight might break out. Then Lewis decided Kurka was right. He turned and walked away.”

It remains to be seen if something like Witch School can survive in a small Christian town already troubled by economic and social problems. While tolerance should be practiced (and enforced) on all sides, one has to wonder if such ingrained hostility will ever allow the enterprise to truly flourish.