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Bob Jones U. student denied diploma, alleges retaliation for activism

Former Bob Jones University student Chris Peterman expected to graduate on May 4. But on April 24, nine days before he was set to receive his diploma, the 23-year-old poli-sci major was suspended from school. . . .
He claims to have been forced out of school in retaliation for his activism against Chuck Phelps, a former BJU Board of Trustees member who was accused of covering up a sex-abuse scandal at the church where he served as pastor.

Tina Anderson, a 15-year-old who lived in New Hampshire, was raped and impregnated in 1997 by one of her church’s deacons, then in his late thirties, while she was a babysitter for his family. When Anderson and her mother told their pastor, Bob Jones graduate Chuck Phelps, what had happened, Phelps had Anderson stand before the congregation while he read a confession of her pregnancy. She was then sent to a family in Colorado until the baby was born and given up for adoption. Anderson’s rapist, a registered sex offender, was made to confess as well—but to adultery, not rape—and he remained at the church for years.
. . .
A senior named Christopher Peterman started a Facebook group and website called Do Right BJU, which aimed to remove Phelps from the board and called for a range of reforms; he organized the first campus protest in the university’s history to raise awareness of sexual abuse. Phelps resigned from the board of trustees in December 2011, just days before the rally. But then a few months later, on the eve of graduating, Peterman was expelled for watching Glee, among other violations.

Bob Jones, founded in 1927, isn’t just any conservative Christian college; it’s the de facto center of the national Independent Fundamental Baptist network, which functions almost as a denomination unto itself, with thousands of affiliated churches, feeder schools, and businesses including Bob Jones’s textbook company, radio station, and music publisher. Outsiders call the school the “mother ship” of fundamentalism; the university prefers another moniker, “the fortress of faith.”

All too often, he says, a pastor would come to court in a supportive role, almost always sitting on the perpetrator’s side of the aisle, not the victim’s. The Wisconsin case made Tchividjian think back on those pastors. He began to realize that he had a calling of his own: to teach the Protestant church to be part of the solution, instead of part of the problem. “I was encountering survivors who were absolutely eviscerated as a result of disclosing abuse in the Protestant church,” Tchividjian says, “and the long-term damage is sometimes more from how the church responded, or failed to respond, than the abuse itself.”

“The reason why offenders get away with what they do is because we have too many cultures of silence,” Tchividjian said. “When something does surface, all too often the church leadership quiets it down. Because they’re concerned about reputation: ‘This could harm the name of Jesus, so let’s just take care of it internally.’"

“Jesus doesn’t need your reputation!” Tchividjian declared. “When somebody says that, it’s a lie. Keeping things in the dark and allowing souls to be destroyed by abuse, that shames the Gospel. Jesus is all about transparency.”

http://prospect.org/article/next-christ ... se-scandal

GRACE report on Bob Jones University

http://netgrace.org/wp-content/uploads/Final-Report.pdf

Page 98

"The alleged perpetrator graduated from BJU and now serves overseas as a missionary."

"[I]t is recommended that the university impose personnel action upon Dr. Jones, III."

Page 231, Grace report on Bob Jones University

http://netgrace.org/wp-content/uploads/Final-Report.pdf


Footnote 23 on page 231 defines "personnel action" as including, but not limited to, "termination, suspension, probation . . .," etc.


Even if BJU's personnel action against Dr. Bob Jones III ends up amounting to diddly squat, GRACE had the courage to call it like they see it. The grandson of Billy Graham and the grandson of the founder of Bob Jones College (later University).....incredibly brave on the part of Boz. Hopefully Boz' courage will bring freedom and openness across the country....and tremendous comfort and healing to survivors.

In less than an hour, the GRACE report on BJU appears in the national journal of record, the New York Times.

I am sure the IHART report on Vianopolis will be appear on the Times' website before supper....in 2087.

Did you notice in the GRACE report as to BJU how GRACE insisted their report be made public?
This is the main reason NTM abhors GRACE.....NTM wants nothing in the public eye.

It's made the Washington Post too!

Thank you for sharing the links and your observations, Demostenes.

I agree with you, and I am sure others do as well.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ ... story.html