Thread by @ChristaBrown777

Dear @FirstOrlando: Despite being a documented clergy predator who sexually abused me as a kid, Tommy Gilmore has had 50 years’ worth of care, cover-up & career advancement within the #SBC & the support for him obviously continues to this day. 1/10 #SBCtoo thewartburgwatch.com/2020/07/01/ope…

Meanwhile, I’ve been shamed, blamed, bullied, intimidated, ignored, threatened & vilified by Southern Baptist leaders – lots of them. The contrast is stark and painful.

Photo: Me at time of abuse in #SBC Girls Auxiliary regalia. 2/10 #SBCtoo #institutionalbetrayal #ChurchToo

Each time when he was done with me, he always ended by saying, “God loves you, Christa.”

You all are likely people who value your faith...imagine how much his conduct affected mine. Whenever someone wants to tell me about “God’s love” I feel a visceral urge to vomit & run. 3/10

Grooming: it’s the word people use to describe the kinds of things Gilmore did before the full-on sexual assaults began...But it’s a word that doesn’t even begin to convey the premeditated malfeasance of what actually happens...there is profound conniving evil. 4/10 #ChurchToo

Eventually, after many months of grooming, there came a long drive down a dark road...With me pinned between that baby blue station wagon & his hard-pressed body, he sexually assaulted me. The girl I was died then & there, & after that the assaults escalated in severity. 5/10

“Think of Abraham Noah & Moses” he said. “Do you think what God wanted made sense to them?”

“Where would we all be if Mary hadn’t trusted God even when her special role was something she couldn’t understand?”

God makes for a powerful weapon when used by a pastoral con-man. 6/10

He twisted all of it–Bible verses, prayer, God’s will & God’s love–into weapons for his own unholy ends of molestation & rape. For a faith-filled kid like me, taught from toddlerhood to be trusting of pastoral authority, they were as effective as any knife could have been. 7/10

Gilmore made me kneel in his office while he stood over me gripping my shoulder & praying...for God to cast Satan from me. He insisted that I was the one at fault...He also insisted I apologize to his wife...I stood in his office blubbering & begging for Sue to forgive me. 8/10

Church leadership instructed me to never speak of it & they allowed Gilmore to simply move on...He continued his career in children's ministry at prominent churches in TX GA & FL (@FirstBaptistATL: He spent a lot of yrs in ur church too. Were u told he was a child molester?) 9/10

Gilmore has never shown a shred of remorse.

That's him in photo.

Thank u @wartwatch for publishing the whole of my letter to the people of @FirstOrlando along with your own apt remarks on "cheap grace." 10/10

#SBCtoo #ChurchToo #MeToo #InvestigateSBC #SBCTruthnReconciliation