UPDATE: Friday, Feb 23, 2024 · 7:46:06 PM +00:00
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Dem
This diary is directed at (1) my previous fundamentalist church, Denton Bible Church and (2) fundamentalist churches in general.
This diary is not a diatribe against other people of faith, especially not against my fellow democrats. If I offended my fellow Kossacks who are democrats while being people of faith, I am truly sorry as this was not my intent.
UPDATE: Friday, Feb 23, 2024 · 5:08:24 PM +00:00
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Dem
I will share as I have before here how I ended up with them. I had an extremely painful childhood that led to suicide attempts and self-harm in middle school. That has never left me. I still struggle with self-harm and it's bad.
I know that this is what led me to fundamental Christianity. I literally took a Bible and burned it (I lived on my own) and said, 'God if you exist which I doubt, then come down and do something about it ' Six months later, in my dorms, my next door neighbor shared the fundamental gospel and I became a fundamentalist born again Christian and I started going to Denton Bible Church.
UPDATE: Friday, Feb 23, 2024 · 5:03:05 PM +00:00
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Dem
I am appalled by the fact that they were notified about this in 1999 and did nothing substantive about it until 2019, 20 years later. In addition, it is awful that after having relieved Shiflet of his duties because of what they saw, Tommy still wrote a recommendation letter for him and this led to more victims and then after he was fired from the other church, let him preach again at their church. They sent this guy to Dallas Theological Seminary.
Their strawman definition of woke is so stupid, it's not worth the words to show how stupid they are except to point out that Charlie apparently doesn't understand that chattel slavery was real in the United States.
Woke as I understand it simply means you are aware of the ugly history of bigotry in this country and the structural discrimination that still exists in addition to people who are bigots. And I fail to see how anybody on Earth 1.0 can deny these obvious truths.
They cannot abide people who are not white straight men being equal with white heterosexual men. They just can't.
I just learned within an hour of writing these very words that my previous fundamentalist church and its elders failed to protect young girls and despite bright warning lights chose not to act. There are many victims in this story. Denton Bible Church grew from a dozen people meeting in buildings they rented to a reasonably large church to a very large, fundamentalist, Calvinism, dispensational church. In graduate school, I moved from fundamentalist Christian and republican to independent to democrat having left fundamentalism by late 2005 to progressive democrat.
When I was a fundamentalist, I can hardly begin to tell you how much I admired the senior pastor. He is extremely smart, was a starting quarterback at a division 1 university who was extremely strong physically and as a marathon runner in excellent condition, charismatic, and a gifted speaker. He earned a graduate degree from Dallas Theological Seminary, but his knowledge of the Bible is as deep as anybody in the country. He avoided charismatic and health, wealth, and prosperity errant theology. He studied and taught word by word, phrase by phrase, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, chapter by chapter through each book of the Bible. He only rarely taught on topics.
Even though I disagree with him profoundly, I didn't expect to learn that my old church would have had a child molester on staff. I wrote previously about how I was pretty certain that he had given a speech from the pulpit at a church meeting endorsing Donald Trump and warning against former Secretary Hillary Clinton whom he said would fundamentally change the country. I wrote that although I couldn't find that message, I found a video of him teaching from the pulpit during a church service celebrating the win of Donald Trump and explaining how the Bible taught essentially a completely unregulated free market capitalism among other things. I found something even more explicit. I also found him railing against 'wokeness' and making other statements that simply made me feel sick. I am going to present some news stories exposing the fact that they had a child molester on staff. I will present a lot of one victim's statements. I will also share some stories on him speaking on political issues he doesn't understand.
From the Dallas Morning News, a MAJOR newspaper
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Denton megachurch pastor retires a year after report alleged church ignored signs of abuse
Senior pastor Tommy Nelson led Denton Bible Church for decades. Last year, his church was accused of failing to adequately respond to sexual abuse allegations against their now-convicted former youth pastor.
Tommy Nelson, the longtime senior pastor of Denton Bible Church, announced his retirement earlier this month exactly a year after a FOX 4 report alleged his church ignored red flags of abuse by a former youth pastor. Nelson is also a bestselling author of several books on marriage and family.
Nelson shared news of his retirement in a letter sent on Oct. 4. “A church like Denton Bible Church needs to always be, to always exist,” he wrote to congregants. “A church that is fundamental, premillennial, Calvinistic, dispensational, discipleship-focused, elder ruled, complementarian, and ‘non-woke’ must continue.”
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Fox local news
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FOX 4 Investigates: 14 girls sexually abused by North Texas youth pastor; the red flags the church ignored
Published October 4, 2022
FOX 4 Investigates: 14 girls sexually abused by North Texas youth pastor; the red flags the church ignored
A North Texas megachurch recently released an investigation that revealed a former youth pastor sexually abused 14 girls at two different churches. Now, one of his many victims is sharing her story publicly for the first time. She wants to shine a light on what happened because she says the church kept it in the dark for too long.
DENTON, Texas - A North Texas megachurch recently released an investigation to church members that revealed a former youth pastor sexually abused 14 girls at two different churches.
The former Denton Bible Church youth pastor is in federal prison serving a sentence for sexually assaulting two girls on church youth trips.
Now, one of his many victims is sharing her story publicly for the first time with FOX 4 News.
The victim says she wants to shine a light on what happened to the 14 girls because Denton Bible Church kept it in the dark for too long.
FOX 4 is not showing the victim’s face and has altered her voice to protect her identity.
"I felt special, and that is what he was preying on," she said.
Denton Bible Church Pastor Tommy Nelson, who is also a best-selling author of Christian books, told his congregation on May 1 that he was not only deceived but used, by Robert Shiflet, the church's now-former junior high youth director.
Tommy portrayed there was no cover-up," the victim said. "If there was no cover-up, what did you do in 1999? If there was no cover-up, what did you do in 2005, 2015?"
"What there was, was times changed on us, and we didn't change," Nelson said. "A ‘pedophile’ was a term I never heard from 1974 to 2005,"
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Christian Post
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The 15-member, all-male elder board of Denton Bible Church in Denton, Texas, has admitted that they failed to prevent the sexual abuse of at least 14 girls by a former youth pastor, didn't involve women leaders when evaluating abuse allegations and failed to provide adequate care for the victims.
"Our church culture lacked involvement of women in decision-making processes related to the abuse of these girls. Further, in almost all meetings with the victims, no women were present, which was inappropriate," said board chair Curtis Elder and Senior Pastor Tommy Nelson in a May letter to the congregation first published by Fox 4 on Tuesday.
Robert Shiflet, 51, the former Denton Bible youth pastor, was sentenced to 33 months in federal prison in June 2021 for child sex trafficking charges, The Denton Record-Chronicle reported. He is set to be released in 2023 In total, the investigators found credible accounts that at least 14 girls were victims of Shiflet's abuse: 11 at Denton Bible and 3 at Fellowship Bible. The misconduct described in these accounts was characterized by everything from grooming behavior and sexual harassment to criminal sexual abuse, abuse of power, and spiritual abuse," the elders said. "Equally troubling, was the consistent accounts that Denton Bible did not shepherd and care for the victims after they showed great courage coming forward."
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Only Sky
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The biggest issue in the report, however, was that church leaders didn’t seriously take action into the matter until 2019. While they had heard troubling stories long before then, the most they had done was confront him directly. One time, they asked him to write an apology letter to a child… which he didn’t do. In 2005, they revoked his ordination, a punishment that means next to nothing outside his church bubble. (He was still able to get a job at another church after that.)
They never went to law enforcement.
Nelson’s report in May, summarizing the investigation
Nelson’s report in May, summarizing the investigation, admitted the church failed to recognize the warning signs, didn’t prioritize care for the victims, and created an environment where abuse could thrive… but all of that was a superficial apology. It suggested everyone was doing everything they could, but they simply didn’t know any better.
Now one of the victims has spoken with FOX 4 in order to talk about the church’s failures.
“You know what frustrates me the most about this story? Is the number of times we’ve been told, ‘We did not know what to do,’” the victim said. “I don’t have words for that. I don’t think you need a seminary degree to know what to do. You need to do the right thing. Take care of the victims and report to police and [Child Protective Services].“
One of the bombshells? ..
The May letter revealed that no information about Shiflet’s time at Denton was shared with his new church.
In fact, the victim says, Nelson recommended him.
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Roy's Report
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Shiflet worked at Denton Bible Church from 1996 to 2001. He then served as youth pastor at Fellowship Bible Church in Little Rock from 2001 to 2003.
According to a five-page summary of the independent investigation’s findings released in May, youth workers told Denton Bible leadership, including Nelson, about Shiflet’s inappropriate behavior as early as 1999.
When speaking to The Roys Report (TRR), she called Nelson’s statement in May “incredibly selfish and calloused.”
“It is the role of a pastor to shepherd the flock of God,” the woman, who requested we call her “Deborah,” told TRR. “He lacked remorse, lament, and a sense of brokenness. Systemic injustice was perpetuated by egotistical narcissists and cult-like behavior at this church. I know that sounds harsh, but all the victims’ experiences have been nothing short of an abomination.”
Nelson claimed that prior to 2005, he had never heard the word “pedophile.” He added that the betrayal by Shiflet—someone Nelson had personally mentored—
.After he was fired in Arkansas, Shiflet went back to Denton and was invited to speak at the church.
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Here's the real danger according to Tom Nelson: being woke
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Tommy Nelson, the 70-year-old senior pastor of Denton Bible Church and a conference speaker, says, “I have been in the ministry almost 50 years, and [wokeness] is the most insidious and dangerous and pervasive ideology that I have ever seen in all of my life, in all of my ministry. And it is dangerous to the Christian church as well as to our culture.”
Charles Stolfus, the church’s associate pastor, told a local newspaper, “Wokeness describes the belief among some who claim to have been ‘awakened’ to the idea that American society is so irredeemably racist that it must be overthrown through moral, political and economic revolution. It is an insidious belief system that holds that America is a nation founded on white supremacy and oppression and that these forces must be rooted out by any means necessary.”
Instead of viewing people “as individuals created in the image and likeness of God,” says Stolfus, wokeness categorizes them by groups, “whether male or female, black or white, gay or straight [and] then as either an oppressor or as an oppressed individual according to their group identities.” The movement also “favors the normalization of the LGBTQ identity,” he says.
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au
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It’s not just national politics that can divide faith communities – local issues can be just as divisive. Leaders of a Denton, Texas, church were conflicted when the church distributed a flyer endorsing specific city council and mayoral candidates in September. At first, Denton Bible Church posted on social media that the Johnson Amendment was known to be unconstitutional (it’s not) and that no church has been “punished” for violating it (also not true – for instance, a New York church lost its tax-exempt status after AU reported it to the IRS for publishing a newspaper ad opposing Bill Clinton for president in 1992).
After the endorsements received media attention, Denton Bible Church backtracked and issued a statement that claimed the flyer didn’t go through the proper review process and shouldn’t have been distributed.
But the church went ahead and sponsored a political campaign rally featuring Allen West, chairman of the Texas Republican Party, and Jeremy Dys, a lawyer for the Christian nationalist law firm First Liberty.
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Weird people said
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EPIC: Denton Bible Church Gives the Finger to Feds and Devil Worshipers
The People of God, having lost their country, are finally starting to realize they don’t have anything left to lose.
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San Antonio Current
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Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas reads sermon from pastor of church accused of ignoring sex abuse
An investigation highlighted church leaders' failures to heed warning signs about a youth pastor later imprisoned for crimes related to child sex trafficking.
Far-right Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert on Monday treated fellow U.S. House members to a 25-minute recitation of a sermon written for him by Pastor Tommy Nelson, whom he lauded as as teller of "profound truth."
For all the praise Gohmert lavished on Nelson before launching into the sermon, the East Texas Republican neglected to mention that the pastor's Denton Bible Church has been at the center of a high-profile sexual abuse case, news site OnlySky reports.
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WFAA
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The Rev. Tom Nelson of Denton Bible Church said his friends in Irving are on "dangerous" ground.
"If the Bible is not true and authoritative on the roles of men and women, then maybe the Bible will not be finally true on premarital sex, the homosexual issue, adultery or any other moral issue," he said. "I believe this issue is the carrier of a virus by which liberalism will enter the evangelical church."
Mr. Nelson added that his church's recent sermon series on the Bible and gender roles came in part because of Irving Bible Church's conclusions about women and preaching.
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