Tell NC to investigate school run by pastor who thought joking about child abuse is OK

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Sunday August 05, 2012 · 12:56 PM PDT

2012/08/05 · 12:56

If you'll remember, back in May--just a few days before North Carolina voters approved the blatantly discriminatory Amendment One--Pastor Sean Harris of Berean Baptist Church in Fayetteville encouraged the parents in his flock to give their kids "a good punch" if they display gay tendencies. The video went viral, and apparently someone told Harris that he would have been in deep legal doo-doo had any of the parents in his congregation actually taken him up on his advice. He issued a retraction three days after preaching that sermon. There's just one problem. It wasn't sincere.

Three months later, the video of that sermon is still available on the church's YouTube channel. See for yourself (the screed begins at the 45:46 mark):

Maybe it's just me, but if Harris were a bit sorry about this, you'd have thought the first thing he'd have done was to delete that video. But it's been three months now--well beyond any good-faith explanation for why it's still up.

Now here's the really disturbing part--this church operates a full-fledged Christian school, Berean Baptist Academy. Is this the kind of environment that is at all appropriate for a school? I should say not!

Private schools in North Carolina are under the supervision of the state Division of Non-Public Education. Sign this petition and help make it happen.

Even without the video still being up, there is pretty good reason to question the environment in that church. After all, Harris told The Fayetteville Observer that the majority of his flock knew that he was only joking.

Harris said he polled his pastoral staff and members of the congregation Tuesday after he started getting telephone calls and abusive emails once his comments went viral.
From within the church, Harris said, "the response was, 'Pastor, we know you didn't mean that.' "

"We know when you're saying something seriously and when were supposed to just understand the intent and not the application,' " Harris said.

During my freshman year at Carolina, I was suckered into joining a hypercharismatic campus ministry that found it perfectly acceptable to out-and-out lie about its true nature so as not to scare anyone away. So I'm used to seeing disconnect between what the fundie world and the normal world finds acceptable. But even if you allow for the nature of a church like Berean, there is something fundamentally wrong (the pun was intended) with a church where a pastor can even think joking about child abuse is acceptable. To my mind, that's about the only plausible explanation for why that video is still there--the congregation "knows" it's a joke. I find it hard to believe any fair-minded person would find this to be a joking matter.

All things considered, Harris needs to be made to explain why he has any business at all running a school. So tell the state Division of Non-Public Education to investigate this church's fitness to run a school.

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