Kevin Ezell Said Nothing Concerning Child Clergy Sex Abuse In His Church!

Tag: usa

We have all read by now the ABP report on how Kevin Ezell feels about bloggers and criticism. SBCVoices had a post on the subject.

While that had me concerned about a candidate, now President of the NAMB, this concerns me even more, and beyond concern, I am angered and wondering is there no one who has treated a victim of clergy sexual abuse in the right, lawful, compassionate way, anywhere in the SBC? It’s looking as if they have not.

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I was initially supportive of Kevin Ezell’s appointment as President of the NAMB. I want to support appointments to any SBC post, a denomination I love, but as I have found out in the last 5 years, sin has entered into the SBC in the form of dirty politics, behind closed-door meetings, plotting to destroy people who have done nothing but disagree, question and as I have found out within the last few years, has had an epidemic of child clergy sex abuse cases that rival the number in the Roman Catholic Church child clergy sexual abuse cases.

This from Christa Brown, who, unlike us, keeps a record of all Baptist clergy sexual abuse cases and the list seems to be growing. Kevin Ezell’s silence and refusal to testify at Bill Maggard Jr’s trial, “who was a volunteer in the Sunday School and choir programs at Highview Baptist Church. Maggard had also worked as an employee of Highview Baptist School, which was operated by the church.”

Not only did Dr. Ezell refuse to testify at the trial, but he also decided to not tell his congregation of Bill Maggard Jr.’s arrest. Christa writes:

In 2004, Maggard was charged with molesting two boys while working at a Louisville elementary school prior to his work at Highview.

Prosecutors were seeking to investigate those charges and to obtain more information. For example, they wanted to find out “the circumstances under which Maggard’s employment ended” at the Highview Baptist School. The prosecutors had received reports that Maggard had been fired from Highview, but they hadn’t been able to confirm that information.

So . . . was pastor Kevin Ezell up-front and forthcoming about his knowledge concerning Highview’s former employee and Sunday School volunteer?

Did pastor Ezell beseech his congregants to take any and all information to the police so that they might conduct a thorough and complete investigation?

Did pastor Ezell preach to parents that they should talk to their children about it – including their adult children?

Did pastor Ezell use his “leadership” role to reach out to any others who may have been wounded?

No. . . not according to what was reported by the Louisville Courier-Journal.

When prosecutors subpoenaed pastor Ezell to testify before the grand jury, Ezell invoked the clergy-penitent privilege. In other words, Ezell claimed that he couldn’t be required to testify under oath (i.e., under penalty of perjury) because he claimed that, as pastor, he was entitled to keep secret whatever Bill Maggard had told him. (Do you think Ezell used offering plate dollars to pay the attorney who made that argument? I wonder.)

On that day, in Louisville, Kentucky, a judge accepted pastor Ezell’s argument, and so Ezell was able to avoid testifying about whatever he knew. (But note that Ezell’s position is not universally accepted. Some other Kentucky judge might not have accepted it, and certainly, many judges in many other states would not accept an argument for secrecy about information concerning possible child molestation.)

How many more will we hear about? How far does this go? My suspicion is pretty far. The one’s suffering from all these wrong decisions, wrong attitudes, sinful displays of politics and looking good to the world, are the children. How many more children will be sacrificed? How many more victims re victimized? And for what? Surely God has to be weighing us and finding us wanting. May God grant us through the Holy Spirit and has a denomination who dares to name the name of Christ, full down on our knees, tears pouring down on our faces, repentance, as we ask forgiveness of God, forgiveness of the victims, and admit to the world what it already knows.

We as a denomination have sinned, our leaders have gravely sinned, and there can be no true Christ honoring Great Commission until we make it right, change our evil ways, yes evil ways, and call on God to cleanse us through the Holy Spirit.

There are those who are pointing at Obama, America, and crying out for repentance, we should look inside of ourselves before we dare make such a gesture. For too many years we as a denomination have been as corrupt or more so than America and the ones we are yelling at to turn to Christ. We need to do that very thing ourselves.

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Isaiah 5:20.

http://www.abpnews.com/content/view/5694/53/

https://debbiekaufman.wordpress.com/2...is-church/