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He told her that their "relationship" was approved by Jesus, among other things, according to the Chicago Sun Times.
Here's a few quotes from the article:
Former First Baptist Church of Hammond pastor Jack Schaap’s affair with a 17-year-old girl last summer not only wasn’t wrong but was desired by Jesus Christ.
That’s what he claimed in one of several letters he wrote to the victim during his crime, couching the sexual relationship as part of her personal salvation and something Jesus Christ wanted.
“In our ‘fantasy talk,’ you have affectionately spoken of being ‘my wife,’ ” Schaap wrote in one letter. “That is exactly what Christ desires for us. He wants to marry us + become eternal lovers!”
Schaap has pleaded guilty to causing the girl to be transported to Illinois and Michigan last year for a sexual relationship. Schaap resigned from the megachurch, one of the largest in the country, last summer after church members discovered his relationship with the girl and reported it to local law enforcement.
In his letters to the girl, Schaap often discusses how he helped save her from self-destruction, helping to put her on a “better path of living — that’s what we call Righteousness.”It always annoys me when I see media reports refer to his sexual encounters with this teen girl as an "affair" or use similar terms. Though technically she was of the age of consent in Indiana (that's why he is being prosecuted on federal instead of state charges, his conviction was for taking a minor across state lines for sexual purposes). I still consider it sexual abuse.
She was a teen, he was a grown adult (and married none the less), who had come to him for counseling for previous sexual abuse. She was vulnerable enough in this position, but add in the fact that he was a pastor in a cult where ministers have a great deal of control over people in a very closed environment, where people are taught to shut out the outside world, and only associate with fellow members, and her vulnerability was even worse.
If you are unfamiliar with why I consider the IFB a cult, or want to know more about them, check out these past posts of mine on this dangerous group:
The Horrors of Hezpibah House (Part 1)
The Horrors of Hezipbah House (part 2)
Bob Jones University
The Late Jack Hyles and First Baptist Hammond (part 1)
Jack Hyles/First Baptist Hammond (Part 2)
(First Baptist Hammond was the church that Jack Schaap pastored, his father in law, Jack Hyles, was it's most well known minister)
Bruce Gerencser also wrote a great guest post about Jack Schaap this for the blog No Longer Quivering, check it out.
Sickening. It's bad enough that Schaap hid behind God to achieve power in his church, but using God to justify sexually abuse is vile.
ReplyDelete....and yet there were members of FBC Hammond that sent letters on his behalf to the federal court where he plead guilty.
DeleteThe man was obsessed with trying to mix religion and sexuality. In one of his old books, and in a few of his sermons, he took some passages of the Bible to mean that God wants to have sex with us. I'm serious.
The bizarre irony of this article talking about it is that it's from Steven Anderson, who is just as crazy as Schaap:
http://www.faithfulwordbaptist.org/schaap.html
The same Steven Anderson that the Friendly Atheist blog has been snickering at? Yikes!
DeleteYes, the one and the same.
DeleteWow. Scary stuff, but in a strange sort of way, I suppose it's the logical extension of typical Christian behaviour - I know a few couples who rushed into getting married because they "made a mistake" and concluded that they were effectively married in God's eyes as a result.
ReplyDeleteI can see how that would happen. Fundamentalists attach such a spiritual significance to sex that they would probably say those two people have already shared so much of themselves with each other, that they should just get married.
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