It is not a coincidence that the most outspoken SBC survivors are almost always those who are plagued by guilt/trauma because "leaders" failed to stop their abusers from hurting others.
I feel like that's worth noting, given the current convo about motivations.
Left: Debbie right around the time of her first abuses
Right: Her at Caring Well four decades later, in 2019, waiting to plead with SBC leaders for help
And you know who went out of their way to meet Debbie that day? @R_Denhollander, who'd just wrapped that interview with Russ Moore during which she told the story of @ThigpenTiffany, whose Tweet started this whole thread.
Y’all. I appreciate the shout outs re: Jerry Falwell, but many, many people have spent many, many years speaking out/reporting on issues at Liberty University — often at great personal cost.
All I did was tweet some publicly available photos that I thought were odd. #Falwell
A reminder that there was a recent effort to censure @jdgreear because he said churches should consider Paige Patterson’s history before hosting him.
~10yrs ago, Patterson called @ChristaBrown777 & other rape survivors “as reprehensible as sex criminals.”
Off hand I can name at least a few other people just on this site who would say they were libeled by Paige and others.
So I guess I’m wondering why, given that libeling teenagers is now such a concern, there was an effort to silence an SBC president who spoke out.
Granted, the Covington students’ situation is a bit different.
They were teenagers when the “libel” against them occurred, whereas Christa and other were children when they were assaulted, but adults by the time they were called “as reprehensible as sex criminals.”
By my count, roughly 20 percent of the Conservative Baptist Network are/have been affiliated with Council For National Policy, an uber-secretive group of right-wing politicians, media folks and activists.
That includes some longtime Southern Baptist exec committee members:
Whoops. Meant "roughly 20 percent of the *steering committee* for the Conservative Baptist Network."
Here's (to my knowledge) the only CNP membership directory that's ever been made public:
@JJ_Denhollander "OK but I get to take a few moments to myself and try to calculate the best trajectory right?"
"Nah you gotta run full-speed away from the small ass metal thing for 22 seconds straight and then do it."
"yeah that doesn't sound possible."
@JJ_Denhollander "OK fine. But that small ass metal circle only looks really small from here, right?"
"Nah you idiot it's only like slightly bigger than this thing you gotta throw at it LOL"
@JJ_Denhollander "Alright. Sounds silly. But clearly the small metal thing is easily visible?"
"hahahah no you can barely see it from your height. AND the thing keeping it up is see-thru and there's a bunch of Sig Chis standing behind it in T-shirts with your girlfriend's face on them."
NEW: In an interview today, Southern Baptist President @jdgreear strongly denounced disgraced leader Paige Patterson, and advised churches to consider Patterson's history of mishandling sex abuses before inviting him to preach. #SBCtoo#ChurchToohoustonchronicle.com/news/houston-t…
@jdgreear Greear's comments came after I asked him about decisions by two churches to host/honor Patterson, including a Dallas-area church that recognized him as a "defender of the faith" earlier this month. #SBCtoo#ChurchToo#CaringWell
@jdgreear Greear: I advise any Southern Baptist church to consider this severe action before having Dr. Patterson preach or speak and to contact trustee officers if additional information is necessary. #SBCtoo#ChurchToo#CaringWell
First off: Debbie is one of the kindest people I've ever met. And despite everything she has gone through, she has not once lost her faith in God. Not that that matters, but it's worth saying that she is not a person who wishes ill on the church or anyone in it.
When we wrote our first story, I promised Debbie that I wouldn't even mention her whereabouts. It's been five-plis decades since her abuse, and she is still terrified that her family is unsafe.