Research shows most patients in Dutch epidemics belong to Protestant fundamentalist groups who refuse to vaccinate children

Epiphenom   -   April 29, 2011

Religious groups reduce vaccination rates

By Tom Rees

The Netherlands has a healthcare problem. Despite a high overall vaccination coverage, in the last two decades there have been epidemics of poliomyelitis (1992-1993), measles (1999-2000), rubella (2004-2005) and mumps (2007-2008).

These epidemics were all largely confined to an area stretching from the south-west to the north-east of the country. This is the Dutch Bible belt - shown in the graphic - where there are a relatively high number of orthodox (aka fundamentalist) Protestants. Almost all patients in these epidemics belonged to the orthodox protestant minority and were unvaccinated because of religious objections.

But what's not clear is whether Protestant minorities have a low vaccination rate, and whether that is really linked to their religion. After all, they are also more likely to be rural, and low-income.

So Wilhelmina Ruijs (Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre) and colleagues looked to see whether regions of the Netherlands with more Orthodox Protestants have lower vaccination rates, after controlling for urbanization, poverty, and immigration.

It turns out that they do. Vaccination was a little lower in areas with a lot of Orthodox Protestants - 93.6%, compared with 96.9% elsewhere. That's a small difference, but it only takes a small drop in vaccination rates to decrease 'herd' immunity to the point where an epidemic can break out.

More interestingly, 84% of the variation in vaccine coverage from one area to the next was down to the presence of these churches. The other factors had relatively little influence.

Ruijs, W., Hautvast, J., van der Velden, K., de Vos, S., Knippenberg, H., & Hulscher, M. (2011). "Religious subgroups influencing vaccination coverage in the Dutch Bible belt: an ecological study" BMC Public Health, 11 (1) DOI: 10.1186/1471-2458-11-102



This article was found at:

http://epiphenom.fieldofscience.com/2011/04/religious-groups-reduce-vaccination.html

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Lutheran sect leaders in Finland admit they neglected to protect children from abuse by pastors and members

IceNews  -  Iceland      April 15, 2011

Religious group admits child abuse blunders

Leaders of a religious movement in Finland have admitted that cases of child abuse within its ranks have not been handled properly. An internal study into the Central Committee of Conservative Laestadian Congregations (SRK) – a revival group within the Evangelical Lutheran Church – has identified between 70 and 100 members as child abusers in the last 30 years.

At a press conference last Thursday, SRK leaders conceded that they did not always act on allegations of abuse within the movement. Most of the cases are believed to have taken place within families, with some of the crimes happening so long ago that they can now no longer be prosecuted.

The probe concluded that matters were not investigated early enough by SRK administrators and that the guidance given to those involved in child abuse cases was often contradictory or wrong. “There are situations in which forgiveness has been misunderstood, and where people have not been guided to take responsibility before the law,” said SRK Secretary-General Tuomas Hanninen at the press conference.

The SRK also expressed regret that previous statements were deemed to be protecting the perpetrators while downplaying the status of the victims. “We have not had a sufficient overall picture in the matter,” said SRK deputy chairman Matti Taskila in a Helsingin Sanomat report.

The internal inquiry was launched at the end of last year after allegations of extensive child abuse began to emerge from the Lutheran Church and its revival movements. Of the cases which were reported, around 30 have been put through court or have legal proceedings pending.

Between 10 and 15 of the alleged abuses are preachers, all of which have now lost their positions, according to Conservative Laestadian administrators. The management of the movement has, however, not been changed.

This article was found at:

http://www.icenews.is/index.php/2011/04/15/religious-group-admits-child-abuse-blunders/

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Children have a right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion, including the right to be free from religion

Huffington Post - February 14, 2011

We Need Freedom From Religion Not Just Freedom of Religion

by Frank Schaeffer | New York Times best-selling author


What do you think the reaction would be from "respectable" conservative religious and political leaders if -- since 1982 -- over fifty American couples had been convicted of murdering their children in "Muslim religious rituals?" What would Glenn Beck be saying?

Yet according to the New York Times there have been at least 50 convictions in the United States since 1982 in cases where medical treatment was withheld from a child for "religious reasons." And there have been hundreds more cases that weren't brought to trial out of over solicitous "respect" for religious freedom and parents' rights.

And that's just the killings in the name of God done in the Evangelical/fundamentalist and so-called charismatic community where medical care is withheld from children while parents "trust God" to heal them. That doesn't even touch the bizarre world of other American cults, tax-deductable cults that is...

In "The Apostate Paul Haggis vs. the Church of Scientology" by Lawrence Wright in the New Yorker (Feb 14, 2011), [see related articles link below] child abuse is alleged -- in detail and with detailed back-up -- as taking place in the "church" of Scientology. The New Yorker alleges that David Miscavige, the current leader of Scientology is, to put it mildly, a bit over the top:

The defectors told the newspaper that Miscavige was a serial abuser of his staff. "The issue wasn't the physical pain of it," Rinder said. "It's the fact that the domination you're getting--hit in the face, kicked--and you can't do anything about it. If you did try, you'd be attacking the C.O.B."--the chairman of the board. Tom De Vocht, a defector who had been a manager at the Clearwater spiritual center, told the paper that he, too, had been beaten by Miscavige; he said that from 2003 to 2005 he had witnessed Miscavige striking other staff members as many as a hundred times. Rathbun, Rinder, and De Vocht all admitted that they had engaged in physical violence themselves. "It had become the accepted way of doing things," Rinder said. Amy Scobee said that nobody challenged the abuse because people were terrified of Miscavige. Their greatest fear was expulsion: "You don't have any money. You don't have job experience. You don't have anything. And he could put you on the streets and ruin you." 

According to the book-length, must-read article (deserving of a Pulitzer) Scientology is not just another organization with an odd leader. The New Yorker also alleges that it breaks up families, forces people to drop contact with those who drop out -- including family members -- and hurts children not least through the "Sea Org" youth training program. The article alleges that this church even uses minors for what amounts to virtually unpaid labor, deprives them of an education, has used forged documents to bolster its founders' reputation... and that's only a start. (Lawyers for the church of Scientology denied the accounts in the New Yorker).

No, my article isn't about Scientology it is about almost all religion in America today.

Take the antifeminist Evangelical "Quiverfull Movement." The name of the Quiverfull Movement alludes to Psalm 127:3: "Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed." In other words women must rent their wombs to God, or at least to their patriarchal leader/husbands.

Some Quiverfull leaders don't allow daughters to attend college, as "worldly outsiders" might destroy their faith.

Daughters, they say, should stay at home after they graduate from homeschooling. Daughters should practice being a "helpmeet" to their fathers, training to someday "serve" those godly husbands God will send their way. Some Quiverfull women are not allowed to drive. Others make lists of daily tasks to submit to their husbands for an okay. Quiverfull wives believe that it is their duty to be sexually available to their husbands at all times. If a husband strays because of a wife's refusal, it's her fault. And Quiverfull wives are baby farms, contraception is right out! Plus they must indoctrinate their children.

The Christian homeschool movement drove the Evangelical school movement to the ever-harsher world-rejecting Far Right.

This happened because Evangelical homeschoolers were demanding ever-greater levels of "separation" from the Evil Secular World. It wasn't enough just to reject the public schools. How could the Christian parent be sure that even the Evangelical schools were sufficiently pure? And so the Christian schools radicalized in order to not appear to be "compromising" with The World in the eyes of increasingly frightened and angry parents.

The Roman Catholic Church... as it has tried to make "eunuchs which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake" via a "celibate" priesthood, has had its sexual "ethics" discredited ever since Giovanni Boccaccio called the Church's bluff when he wrote the Decameron in the fourteenth century. Nothing has changed since. Boccaccio's wonderfully ribald satire at the expense of the Roman Catholic Church's gross sexual hypocrisy is as apt today as ever. And the Evangelicals find themselves in the same mess, from the sexual-scandal-mired Evangelical leadership to the nefarious enablers like the so-called Family and its C Street enclave of congressional adulterers.

When it comes to religion in America (and worldwide) we're talking not about "a few bad apples" but about the whole edifice of religion top to bottom. An impartial inquiry into child abuse at Roman Catholic institutions in Ireland found that the top Church leaders knew that sexual abuse was endemic in boys and girls institutions. A nine-year government inquiry investigated a sixty-year period when more than 35,000 children were placed in a network of "reformatories," "industrial schools," and "workhouses." The children suffered physical and/or sexual abuse that more than two thousand witnesses confirmed to the commission.

Church authorities in league with government enablers were placing children in these camps until the 1980s. Physical and emotional abuse was a built-in deliberate feature of these "homes" for young men and women. The inquiry proved that child rape defines Irish Catholicism as surely as the sign of the cross once did. The state-ordered investigation into cover-ups by the Dublin Archdiocese revealed that church officials had shielded scores of priests from criminal investigation over several decades and did not report any crimes to the police until the mid-1990s.

This was much the same behavior as happened in the United States: The Church's leaders spent much more time protecting their institution than their flock, let alone children. For instance, an acquaintance of mine in the Boston area, Cardinal Bernard Law, with whom I'd worked on various Massachusetts "pro-life" initiatives and fund-raising efforts, left Boston for Rome "in a hurry" after he was being investigated for enabling child-molesting priests to remain in ministry.

As a relic of my days as a Religious Right leader -- I have long since changed my mind as I describe in my forthcoming book Sex, Mom and God -- I have a photograph of the two of us (back when Law was a mere archbishop), with Law sitting next to me at the head table at a banquet held by Massachusetts Citizens for Life, where we both spoke. Law was a hand-on-your-forearm political operative. He possessed the sort of smoothness that is achieved only after years of deftly "handling" people in a climb to power. Those sorts of political instincts depend on the practitioner being perceived as a "good guy" and had transformed Law into a glad-handing, remember-everyone's-first-name shell of jovial bonhomie.

After his "fall" Law was whisked off to the Vatican and "reassigned." Then Pope John Paul kept him on as a cardinal! In what has to be one of the strangest (and unintentionally revealing) "defenses" of Cardinal Law, according to a report by National Public Radio, Deal Hudson (a conservative Roman Catholic activist) tried to somewhat exonerate Law by saying that, after all, what Law did wasn't so unusual! National Public Radio's Boston station (WBUR) filed this report: "'There is a particular animus being manifested toward Cardinal Law,' said Deal Hudson, president of Catholic Advocate and director of InsideCatholic.com, two conservative Catholic Web sites. 'When you stand back and look across the United States at all the dioceses and the way this scenario was repeated in so many dioceses and in some cases with even higher levels of abuse cases, I don't think that animus is fair.'"

After rescuing Law from his American accusers, Pope John Paul II made Cardinal Law a member of the so-called Pontifical Council for the Family! According to the Boston Globe, the pope's new "family expert" had, under questioning by the Boston police, admitted that when a priest committed a sex crime, his practice was to only seek the analysis of "therapists" in residential treatment centers before deciding whether to return a priest accused of sexually abusing a child to the pulpit.

According to countless media reports from the Boston Globe to WBUR, Cardinal Law became the first bishop in America shown to have actively participated in the cover-up of child molestation. Despite substantial amounts of documentation that demonstrated his deep involvement with covering up the molestation of children, Law refused to step down as archbishop of Boston.

After he left Boston, there remained a significant number of undisclosed priests in the Boston area who had confessed to molesting children and who -- as I write this -- continue to work as priests. Law declined to disclose the names of these "shepherds."

The forms of child abuse recognized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)...include slavery, human trafficking, debt bondage, serfdom, forced labor, armed conflict, prostitution, pornography, illicit activities (drugs, genital mutilation of girls). However, these ignore Article 14 Charter of Right of Children which concerns the right of the child to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.

Religious indoctrination should be considered a form a child abuse when it is coercive, cuts children off from the larger society or is promulgated through fear. Be they in Scientology families or Roman Catholics or evangelicals, children are often placed in schools which further indoctrinate the religious views of the church of the parents. Many are also taught not to question -- especially not to question authority figures and this has played in a role in the Catholic Church's many sexual abuse scandals. The New Yorker article details how certain Scientology schools all but make sure their children can't function outside of their cult by stripping them of any contact with the outside world, and that -- according to the article -- is accompanied by brutality every bit as sordid as what the Irish Roman Catholics have been doing.

That's just the tip of the abuse iceberg. The Protestant evangelical/fundamentalist/charismatic "community" is also hoc deep in scandal.

According to the New York Times, (Oct 8, 09) a Wisconsin couple was just sentenced to jail time for failing to seek medical attention for their daughter because they believed in "faith healing" instead of science. Dale and Leilani Neumann, were ordered to spend 30 days in jail each year for the next six years and were placed on 10 years' probation: a disgustingly lax slap on the wrist.

Mr. Neumann, 47, and Ms. Neumann, 41, who live in Weston, in central Wisconsin, had been convicted of second-degree reckless homicide in August. Their daughter, Madeline Kara Neumann, 11, died from untreated diabetes on March 23, 2008. When the girl became ill and could no longer walk or talk, her parents prayed for her instead of taking her to a doctor, prosecutors said.

The Neumann case is hardly unique. One of the most disheartening media appearances I've ever made -- in terms of my being an author and commentator -- was on Court TV a few years ago. I was commentating on Oregon v. Carl and Rayle Worthington, involving fundamentalist parents who refused to give their child medical care on the basis of their trust in faith healing. (I was invited because as a former religious right leader -- long since departed from that subculture -- they thought I'd bring an "inside" perspective.)

The Worthington's fifteen-month-old little girl died (of something easily treatable) surrounded by her parents and other members of their congregation praying for healing. No one called 911.

As far as I'm concerned they used their daughter to try to "prove" a faith-related "point" the way some extremist suicide bombers sometimes use children to carry their bombs. And our reaction to their crime -- and another obscenely light sentence -- should be the same as it would be to an extremist bomber of a day care center.

Would the IRS give al Qaeda tax-deductable status?

Then why does the Roman Catholic Church, which has done so little to make up for the pedophilia abuses, have that status? Why do the Scientologists? Why do countless fundamentalist Protestant schools that are more like madrassas than schools as most of us understand the term? Why aren't parents who kill their children for God not serving life sentences? If The New Yorker article is true, why aren't the leaders of Scientology in jail? Why wasn't Cardinal Law prosecuted?

Answer: Because of our crazy ideas about religious freedom that on so many fronts trump not just common sense but the rule of law.

It's bad enough that we allow parents in the far right evangelical home school and Christian school movements to pour anti-gay, anti-science, and anti-America (God is judging us) garbage into their children's heads. But surely a line should be drawn at murder and/or slave labor, and at bishops and popes who are child abusers and/or enablers.

Why the silence from the right (and from too many people on the left too) about the proven danger that evangelical/fundamentalist Christians of certain denominations pose to their children because of their religion?

Why the silence in "liberal" Hollywood about Scientology's alleged child abuse as reported in the New Yorker?

The state needs to take away tax deductible status from any religious organization where child abuse is condoned (or hidden). This stripping of tax deductible status should apply to the extremist faith healing Evangelicals and pedophile enabling Catholics and to the Scientologists as well. And child abusers should be jailed be they in robes or hiding out behind "respectable" Hollywood stars.

While Americans worry about the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood "taking over Egypt" or "Muslim terrorism" right here at home, we face a far greater actual threat: Unhinged manipulative (greedy and power-besotted) religion invading millions of lives and covering up -- even propagating -- a multiplicity of abuses.

Religious freedom means freedom to worship in the church of your choosing and to believe anything you want or not to believe. But before a child reaches 18, society should protect her or him from people hiding behind our overly religion-friendly laws. Our American idea of open-ended religious freedom is dumb. We need freedom from religion as much as we need freedom of religion.

Frank Schaeffer is a writer and author of his forthcoming book Sex, Mom, and God: How the Bible's Strange Take on Sex Led to Crazy Politics--and How I Learned to Love Women (and Jesus) Anyway


This article was found at:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frank-schaeffer/we-need-freedom-from-reli_b_822980.html

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The Huffington Post - September 28, 2010

The Protestant Clergy Sex Abuse Pattern

by Valerie Tarico


One of the most striking aspects of the Protestant clergy sex abuse pattern is that most people don't realize it is a pattern. The Catholic Church has taken a well deserved beating in the courts and in the court of public opinion as former altar boys, orphans and ordinary parishioners come forward with appalling stories of sex abuse. Yet equally egregious violations by Protestant clergy fail to generate the same level of outrage. Why?

You might answer that the problems in the Catholic Church are uniquely widespread, but that would be the wrong answer. Last week's Eddie Long scandal, in which one of the nation's most politically connected and homophobic mega-ministers was accused of strong-arming gay sex out of teens, was just one tip of an enormous Protestant iceberg. The news monthly Freethought Today has a regular feature called "Black Collar Crime Blotter," typically a two-page sampler of fraud, theft, and sexual abuse taken from the media across the country. They just turned their archive over to the Kinsey Institute. A website called ClergyGoneWild.com provides links to recent crime stories, including child abuse (206 articles) and internet solicitation (18).

This problem is nothing new. The first book on clergy sex abuse in this country, Betrayal of Trust, was published in 1988. The perception that Catholic priests are overrepresented among offenders is correct. They do offend at a higher rate. But because this country is predominantly Protestant, more children are abused by Protestant ministers than by Catholic priests. In 1990, the Freedom from Religion Foundation issued a study on pedophilia by clergy. At that time, two clergy per week were being arrested in North America for sex crimes against children. Fifty-eight percent of them were Protestant.

Why do we largely overlook the horrific pattern of Protestant pedophilia and sexual exploitation? Here are a few factors to consider:

• The Catholic Church is easier to think of as a monolithic entity. That means it is easier for the press to cohere the abuse incidents into a single story and our brains to grok it. The idea of one big conspiracy appeals to us: "The Church" did it and then covered it up.

• The centralized hierarchy of Catholicism makes Catholic offenders easier to sue and guarantees deep pockets. The lawsuits in turn both generate their own news cycle and bring victims out of the closet.

• Since most Americans are Protestants, the Catholic sex abuse scandal is a story about "them." Protestant Pedophilia is a story about "us," which makes it less gratifying and more uncomfortable.

• Most Americans find the idea of celibacy peculiar at best. It makes for a more interesting narrative than a generic story about abuse of authority.

Has the priestly pledge of celibacy contributed to a pattern of inappropriate and exploitative sex by Catholics? Probably. But a look at the behavior of politicians and Protestant ministers -- even just those iceberg tips that actually emerge into daylight -- should tell us that celibacy is a small part of the story. The reality is that power is arousing for many male humans (and that male power and status are arousing for many females). The pattern is plain as day in Hollywood dramas, rape statistics, sexual fantasies, D.C. dramas, and clergy sex abuse. (Where is the university research on the topic?) And yet we continue to delude ourselves that Protestant ministers are somehow exempt from the endemic, that the incidents are isolated. We say that "absolute power corrupts absolutely," and yet we give ministers a level of deference that is unparalleled -- and expect our vulnerable children to do the same.

When Annie Laurie Gaylor wrote Betrayal of Trust 22 years ago, the pattern in Catholic congregations was to huddle the wagons around accused clergy. She quotes one defense witness who described the abuse as "one drop of ink in crystal clear water." Today, after years of repeated exposure, Catholics are less likely to rally to the side of pedophiles, turning potentially devastating ire and scorn on the victims. To Gaylor, the New York Times stories this week of Eddie Long taking the pulpit amidst standing ovations and catcalls of love is déjà vu. "Some Protestants are where Catholics were 20 years ago," she says. "We have a long ways to go."


Valerie Tarico is author of Trusting Doubt (formerly: The Dark Side) and founder, WisdomCommons.org


This article was found at:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/valerie-tarico/the-protestant-clergy-sex_b_740853.html


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Youth Preacher Found Guilty of Sexual Abuse

WSAZ-TV West Virginia     January 29, 2009


CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- A former preacher accused of sexual abusing a teenager was found guilty on three counts Wednesday night.

Timothy Edmonds was arrested back in 2006. Police say he sexually assaulted a 16-year-old girl.

Edmonds was a youth preacher at the Chesapeake Apostolic Church in Kanawha County.

The victim was a student at the church school.

Edmonds faces up to 25 years in prison when he is sentenced.

This article was found at:

http://www.wsaz.com/home/headlines/38593327.html

[following is a background article that provides more details to the above story]


West Virginia Record    March 21, 2008

Putnam Pastor, Wife on Witness Lists in Sexual Abuse Civil Case

By Lawrence Smith
http://www.wvrecord.com/news/209506-putnam-pastor-wife-on-witness-lists-in-sexual-abuse-civil-case


CHARLESTON - The names of a Putnam County minister and his wife, whose son is accused of repeatedly violating a domestic violence protective order, have surfaced in a civil suit alleging one of their former parishioners sexually abused a teenage girl at an Upper Kanawha Valley Pentecostal church in 2006.

A recent deposition taken of the former parishioner shows him accusing the couple of telling lies about him, and that they aided in fostering the sexual abuse allegations.

Recently, The West Virginia Record reported on the various charges pending against Jonathan D. Carter for domestic violence-related crimes. Carter's history of domestic violence, court records show, included protective orders he and his parents, William and Dixie Carter, filed against each other in 1996.



Chesapeake Apostolic Church

Since first reporting the story, The Record has learned that William, pastor of Hometown Apostolic Church, and Dixie, are named as fact witnesses by both sides in a civil suit filed by a Hernshaw couple against Timothy C. Edmonds, the Chesapeake Apostolic Church, the Upper Kanawha Valley Christian School and the church's pastor, P.D. Priddy.

According to court records, the suit alleges Edmonds, 36, sexually abused the couple's then 16-year-old daughter two years ago while he was an assistant youth pastor at the church, and she was a student at UKVC, which the church oversees. Likewise, the suit alleges the church and Priddy were negligent in hiring Edmonds since they were made aware of his "prior sexually deviant behavior at a previous congregation."



11937 MacCorkle Ave. in Chesapeake

Though the initial complaint and suit does not specify the previous congregation, a deposition of Edmonds taken in November suggests it is Hometown Apostolic. Despite him declining to answer some questions due to a collateral criminal investigation at the time, Edmonds referred to the Carter's as liars, and accused them of using people.

Abuse allegations not taken seriously

According to court records, James and Debbie Green filed suit against Edmonds, Priddy, CAC and UKVC on April 26. With the assistance of Charleston attorney Henry E. Wood III, the Greens filed their suit as the guardians and next of friend of their daughter, who was 17 at the time.

In the suit, Wood alleges that prior to May 10, 2006, Edmonds, acting as CAC's assistant youth pastor, "did sexually abuse and/or assault the individual plaintiff both at Chesapeake Apostolic Church building proper and at a house located at 11937 MacCorkle Ave."

Edmonds committed these acts to "gratify a perverted sexual need," Wood said, and specifically targeted the Green's daughter because "at the time of the sexual assault, she was mentally and emotionally less developed than a normal 16-year-old individual."

The Green's daughter, Wood alleges, is not Edmond's only victim.

Though he does not specific how many or who, Wood states that Priddy and CAC were aware of "prior complaints of sexual assault which were communicated to prior victims to both Chesapeake Apostolic Church and its parent church."

In their replies dated July 19, CAC, UKVC, Priddy and Edmonds all denied the allegations. According to court records, the church, the school and Priddy are represented by Cheryl H. Ledbetter and Brian J. Moore, with the Charleston law firm of JacksonKelly, with George J. Joseph and Todd M. Sponseller, with Bailey and Wyant, providing counsel in Edmonds.

Ledbetter and Wood deny all of Wood's allegations except the factual ones of the church's and school's location. Also, they deny that Edmonds "was a member of the church administration, but admit that Rev. Priddy is pastor of the church."

Likewise, Joseph and Sponseller admit to Priddy being the pastor, and Edmonds having no role in the church's administration. Furthermore, they aver that "Timothy Charles Edmonds denies that acts described therein did not occur."

Edmonds takes Fifth

Prior to filing the suit, the Greens lodged a complaint against Edmonds with the West Virginia State Police. According to court records, their daughter wrote them a letter on April 20 saying there'd been kissing between she and Edmonds of "an intimate nature."

Also, she told police that on several occasions she'd been alone with Edmonds for long periods of time at both the church, and 11937 MacCorkle Ave., a home owned by the Priddy's which was being remodeled. During these times along, Edmonds would ask her to wear pantyhose, and would take pictures with her "dress pulled up and wearing the pantyhose in a sexually explicit position."

According to court records, one witness observed Edmonds and the girl entering the house alone together. Another witness observed Edmonds pick-up the girl one day "as she was walking home in the rain and transport her to her residence."

After finding probable cause, police arrested Edmonds on May 2, and charged with one count of sexual abuse by a parent or guardian. According to court records, Edmonds was released on May 11 after his wife, Karin, who is Priddy's daughter, posted his $5,000 bond.

In his initial interview with police, Edmonds maintained his innocence saying he'd never been alone with the girl, and that she was never in his vehicle. Eventually, Kanawha Circuit Judge Tod J. Kaufman dismissed the charge against Edmonds on Nov. 27 following a motion made by Assistant Kanawha Prosecutor Scott Reynolds.

Ironically, that same day Wood was taking Edmonds' deposition in the civil suit. Though, on the advice of legal counsel, he asserted his Fifth Amendments right on many of Wood's questions, Edmonds, and the line of questions posed to him, suggest the Carter's played a role in leveling the sexual abuse allegations against him.

According to his deposition, Edmonds first came to know William Carter when he visited Hometown while on leave from the Army. A native of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, Edmonds said he learned of the area through his cousin, Mark, who owns a body shop there.

In his deposition, Edmonds said he does not believe Carter to be an honest man, and later called him "a liar." Later, when Wood asks him "Do you know anything he's lied about?" Edmonds answers "Yes. And he uses people."

After asking Edmonds to be specific about what Carter has lied about, Joseph interjects saying he's instructed Edmonds to decline to answer any "an aspect of this lawsuit that is part of the criminal investigation in Mr. Edmonds." When Wood follows up asking "I gather from that that somehow answering this question - what this man has lied about, it somehow related to criminal conduct?" Joseph again instructs Edmonds not to answer.

Later in the deposition, Wood asks Edmonds if he knows Carter's wife, Dixie, in which he replies yes. When Wood asks him "So basically you hold the same opinion of Dixie as you do Mr. Carter?" Edmonds replies, "Pretty much the family."

In two follow-up questions, Wood asked Edmonds "did you witness William Carter or Dixie Carter actually lying to other individuals about events or matters?" and "Did you see those two people, quote, unquote using other people?" Again, Joseph instructed Edmonds not to answer the questions.

The day following Edmonds' deposition, the Greens and their daughter where scheduled to give theirs. However, according to court records, because Edmonds asserted his Fifth Amendment rights, the daughter was not made available for questioning.

In a joint motion filed Jan. 22, the defense counsels asked that Kanawha Circuit Judge Louis H. "Duke" Bloom compel the girl's deposition. In their motion, the defense counsels called Wood's position "untenable" and that "These two depositions are separate, distinct events which are not co-dependent nor interrelated in the fashion that plaintiffs' counsel asserts."

Bloom agreed, and granted the motion on Jan. 23. According to court records, on March 11, Wood was served with a notice to take the girl's deposition.

Banking on a settlement

The Record attempted to gain additional comments from the parties in the suit. Joseph did not return repeated telephone calls, and Ledbetter declined to comment.

However, Wood said though a prospect of settlement looks likely, "We're ready for trial."

"We believe that there's significant evidence of sexual misconduct," Wood said. "It's my client's hope that his matter can be resolved short of open trial."

"We're looking forward to constructive discussion with defense counsel," Wood added.

According to Wood, he has completed the depositions his side feels necessary with the exception of CAC's parent church in Martinsburg.

When asked if he felt comfortable calling the Carters as witnesses, Wood said, "I certainly am today along with probably every other witness in this case."

According to court records, the case is slated for trial on Aug. 11. A mediation hearing is scheduled for April 1.

Kanawha Circuit Court, Case Nos. 07-C-814 and 06-F-1044

This article is also archived at:

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2008/03_04/2008_03_21_Smith_PutnamPastor.htm

Church of God in Christ Pastor Charged with Multiple Counts of Sexual Child Abuse

Southern Maryland Online

January 20, 2009

Charles County Sheriff's detectives seeking additional victims




LA PLATA, Md. -- The Charles County Sheriff's Office Special Victims Unit arrested Tony Ray Malbrough, 44, of Indian Head, on Sunday and charged him with multiple counts of sexual child abuse and sex offenses in connection with incidents that allegedly occurred at his residence. At the time of the alleged abuse, Malbrough was a pastor at a church in Charles County. As of Dec. 2008, various websites indicate Malbrough was affiliated with Safe Haven Ministries, Church of God in Christ (COGIC), in Indian Head.

On Jan. 18, at 10:20 a.m., Charles County Sheriff's officers received a call in which a 14-year-old male reported he had been sexually abused by the suspect while receiving music lessons at the suspect's residence. Detectives learned the abuse occurred on multiple occasions over a period of years and involved other children known to the victim. Those victims were contacted and confirmed they, too, had been abused, say police.

Malbrough was charged with second-degree child abuse, third-degree sex offense, fourth-degree sex offense, and possession of child pornography. He was remanded to the Charles County Detention Center with a $500,000 bond.

Based on this information and other leads in the case, detectives believe there may be additional victims. Investigators are encouraging parents to speak with their children about this matter and to contact the Sheriff's Office at 301-609-6558 if they have additional information. The investigations are conducted in a discreet manor and the identity of the victims or potential victims will not be disclosed.

This article was found at:


http://somd.com/news/headlines/2009/9174.shtml

Time ranks SBC rejection of sex-offender database as 'under-reported' story

Associated Baptist Press

December 17, 2008


by Bob Allen | ABP senior writer



NEW YORK (ABP) -- Time Magazine ranked the Southern Baptist Convention's refusal to establish a database of clergy sex offenders one of the most under-reported news stories in 2008.

A ranking of under-reported stories in Time's "Top 10 Everything of 2008" special feature placed the story at No. 6, behind a mix-up that accidentally sent U.S. nuclear-warhead fuses to Taiwan, the Congolese civil war, violence in Sri Lanka, and new guidelines for insurance coverage for mental health and regulation of food from animals that are genetically altered.


"Facing calls to curb child sex abuse within its churches, in June the Southern Baptist Convention -- the largest U.S. religious body after the Catholic Church -- urged local hiring committees to conduct federal background checks but rejected a proposal to create a central database of staff and clergy who have been either convicted of or indicted on charges of molesting minors," the magazine noted.

"The SBC decided against such a database in part because its principle of local autonomy means it cannot compel individual churches to report any information. And while the headlines regarding churches and pedophilia remain largely focused on Catholic parishes, the lack of hierarchical structure and systematized record-keeping in most Protestant churches makes it harder not only for church leaders to impose standards, but for interested parties to track allegations of abuse."

Christa Brown, Baptist outreach leader for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, agreed the story was under-reported.

"It's such an extremely important story," she said. "The largest Protestant denomination in the land -- a denomination that claims 16.2 million members -- refused to even attempt to implement the sorts of proactive measures for routing out predators that other major faith groups have."

Brown, a survivor of clergy sex abuse, worked two years to draw attention to the problem of unreported sexual abuse in Southern Baptist churches before seeing denominational leaders recommend against her suggestion of a national database.

Last month Brown and SNAP National Director David Clohessy wrote SBC President Johnny Hunt asking for a meeting about establishing a system to report abusive clergy.

"As president of the Southern Baptist Convention, you now have the opportunity to show genuine leadership on the issue of clergy sex abuse and cover-ups," the letter said. "This may be one of the greatest leadership challenges in the history of Southern Baptists."

The SNAP leaders said Southern Baptists' local-church autonomy makes it all-the-more imperative that congregations have enough information to make responsible decisions about whom they call as ministers.

"The only way people in the pews will find out about clergy child molesters is if victims feel safe in reporting them," they said. "And victims are never going to feel safe if they have to report abuse by going to the church of the accused minister."

"Telling clergy victims to 'go to the church' is like telling them to go to the den of the wolf who savaged them," the letter said. "It is cruel to the victim and unproductive toward the end of protecting others."


This article was found at:

http://www.abpnews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3719&Itemid=53

 

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Church-run homes investigated for abuse

Anglican Journal - November 1, 2008
Ecumenical News International

Trier, Germany
Protestant leaders in Germany say they will investigate and expose past cases of mistreatment in church-run children’s homes after an investigation found that children had been physically and sexually abused in such institutions.

“We have established to our horror that even in church-run homes children were brought up with violence,” Bishop Margot Kässmann of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover said Sept. 22. -

The bishop’s comments follow the preliminary findings of an investigation she commissioned into claims of violence and abuse at children’s homes run by the social welfare agency of the Hanover church in the 1950s and 1960s.

“Our investigations that have been undertaken by our social welfare agency have shown that there were infringements of human rights, and sexual assault by individuals in our institutions,” said Bishop Kässmann. “We need to listen to the victims, and the perpetrators must be brought to justice.”

Hans Bauer, the researcher employed to investigate the claims, found cases of physical and even sexual abuse, the German Protestant news agency EPD reported.

“Children in homes had to scrub tiles with toothbrushes or were locked into windowless cells for days on end,” Mr. Bauer was quoted as saying by the news agency on Sept. 15.

“The violation of the most vulnerable was the order of the day,” said Bishop Kässmann.

This article was found at:

http://www.anglicanjournal.com/issues/2008/134/nov/09/article/church-run-homes-investigated-for-abuse/

German Protestants pledge to expose child abuse in church-run homes

Ecumenical News International

September 22, 2008



Trier (ENI). Protestant leaders in Germany have said they will investigate and expose past cases of mistreatment in church-run children's homes, after an investigation found that children had been physically and sexually abused in such institutions. "We have established to our horror that even in church-run homes children were brought up with violence," Bishop Margot Kässmann of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover said. Her comments follow the preliminary findings of an investigation she commissioned into claims of violence and abuse at children's homes run by the social welfare agency of the Hanover church in the 1950s and 1960s.


This article was found at:


http://www.eni.ch/

Dutch Reformed conservatives at root of Canadian mumps outbreak

The Vancouver Sun - August 30, 2008

by Todd Douglas | The Search blog



A retired physician in Chilliwack vividly remembers the conservative Christian mushroom farmer who came to him in 1978 severely ill with polio, which was starting to paralyze his body.

The B.C. polio victim was a member of an arch-conservative arm of the Dutch Reformed church, which held it goes against God's will to accept vaccinations for polio or other infectious diseases, Dr. R. W. Van der Flier said in an interview.

The B.C. mushroom farmer had caught the polio virus from a visitor from the Netherlands who was a member of the same traditionalist Protestant Reformed denomination, which was at the time the focus of a severe polio outbreak in Holland.

That decades-old drama is echoing again this week. Fraser Valley Health officials have acknowledged an outbreak of mumps that originated in the Chilliwack area was linked to a Christian group that doesn't believe in vaccinations.

Of the more than 196 cases reported since the outbreak began in Chilliwack in February, 10 to 20 are still active. Half of the people who have been infected had not been immunized.

Van der Flier joins with other residents of Chilliwack, university professors and health researchers around the world in confirming that some members of the Reformed tradition in the valley, as well as in other parts of Canada and the Netherlands, continue to refuse vaccinations for polio, measles, rubella, mumps and other infectious diseases.

Although Fraser Valley Health officials have not named followers of the tradition as a source of the mumps outbreak, health officials in southern Ontario confirmed that some new cases of the viral disease in that province are tied to members of the "Netherlands Reformed Church" who shun vaccinations.

Eurosurveillance, a leading journal on infectious disease, also reported that a 2005 outbreak of rubella among unvaccinated Reformed Christians in the Netherlands had spread to hundreds of members of the same highly conservative Protestant sect in southern Ontario.

Van der Flier said his emergency treatment of the Dutch farmer appears to have saved his life.

Van der Flier, who is also of Dutch origin, still sees the man, whom he won't name out of patient confidentiality, walking around Chilliwack, with a limp.

At the time, Van der Flier said he scolded the man's pastor for preaching against vaccinations. "I had the minister in and gave him hell. I told him: 'Of all the ridiculous things to do, to bring polio into the country to which you'd immigrated.'"

A Vancouver Sun story at the time said other Reformed Christians had contracted polio in Alberta and Ontario in an extremely rare Canadian outbreak of a disease that had virtually been eradicated by mass vaccinations.

The story said that in the Netherlands in the 1970s, scores of members of Reformed groups that opposed vaccinations had contracted polio, with some dying. Many victims were children.

The anti-vaccination beliefs of conservative streams of the Dutch Reformed tradition remain a concern to public health officials in the Netherlands.


A report in the 2001 American Journal of Epidemiology reported 275,000 members of the tradition in that country (roughly one-eighth of the total) were refusing vaccinations.

The unvaccinated Christians were the only victims of a Dutch polio outbreak in the early 1990s. Virtually all were members of conservative or orthodox branches of the Reformed tradition that make their home in the Netherland's so-called Bible Belt, known as "De Bijbelgordel."

A Dutch government report says the existence of the anti-vaccination Reformed Christians, representing about two per cent of the country's total population, means the country cannot reach the highest protection from infectious diseases that is possible for a nation.

Telephone calls to a number of congregations and schools with Reformed links in the Chilliwack area were not returned this week.

The 2001 census says there are at least 115,000 people affiliated with the Reformed tradition in Canada, which has splintered into various denominations, many of which now welcome people of non-Dutch origins.

Other denominations with roots in the Netherlands include the Christian Reformed and Reformed churches. Some of these do not officially oppose vaccinations, although individual members might choose to do so.

Some secular Canadians also avoid them for various health concerns.

Adam Slingerland, of Chilliwack, grew up in an arch-conservative Dutch Reformed community in Alberta that shunned vaccinations.

Although Slingerland remains respectful of the Christian tradition founded by theologian John Calvin in Geneva in the 16th century, he is disturbed "hyper-Calvinists" in the Fraser Valley and elsewhere still hold what he considers dangerous beliefs against vaccinations.

"I was born into this particular community. I have deep personal feelings on the issue," said Slingerland, who remembers being in hospital when he was 13 for an unrelated problem and being allowed no visitors because there was a diphtheria outbreak and he had not been immunized.

"I was not immunized because my parents were taught that to do so was defying God, who you were to trust for your well-being. My faith had played no part in this decision, yet I was perhaps the most at-risk person of all," said Slingerland.

"One of my parents sincerely believed that God's care was imminent, and I have always respected that. This faith was amazing, but real. The other parent lived in dread of all that could happen, but felt it to be an obligation to follow the church line. I am afraid that that is the norm in this particular community."

Even though Slingerland, who is of Dutch origin and remains a devout Christian, said he doesn't want outsiders to attack conservative Reformed adherents in B.C. for their beliefs, he acknowledged it's a problem that some "hyper-Calvinists" don't think for themselves.

"I say that because, almost to a man, they believe that they will miss out on the grace of God. ... To them God is an austere God whom you had better serve in every way imaginable, or else."

Ultra-conservative Dutch Reformed generally believe they should put their faith in God to protect them, not in human medical techniques or voluntary programs like immunization.

Of any of his teachings, Calvin is most famous for urging followers to have strong faith that God has predestined their fate.


This article was found at:

http://communities.canada.com/vancouversun/blogs/thesearch/archive/2008/08/30/dutch-reformed-conservatives-at-root-of-canadian-mumps-outbreak.aspx