Posted by Helen on: 09.18.2007 /
I ran across this news story recently: Local pastor was known sex offender
A Romeoville Southern Baptist congregation allowed a convicted child sex offender to preach for the last few years — despite his past, and a warning from his previous church that he might still be dangerous, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.
Some more details
In 1996, Jeff Hannah was sentenced to nine years in prison for having sexual relations with four underage girls — ages 15 to 17 — while a married youth minister at Crossroads Church in Libertyville.
Hannah was paroled in 2001 and joined the First Baptist Church of Romeoville, where his new wife was a member. Soon after, the pastor moved on, and church members — aware of Hannah’s crimes — asked him to step into the pulpit until a replacement was hired, according to church members, Hannah and others.
Hannah served in that role for three years and ever since has been a fill-in preacher, teacher and music minister at the church.
The church’s reason for hiring this man?
“In our church, we believe in forgiveness,” said Del Kirkpatrick, one of the deacons who hired Hannah.
This church seems confused about forgiveness. My understanding is that forgiveness means not holding something against a person any longer. It doesn’t have to mean putting them in a position of authority where they might be tempted to do the same thing again. Especially if what they did hurt people and was a criminal offense.
Not only that, showing forgiveness to a person doesn’t make any sense unless that person agrees they did something wrong and takes responsibility for it. That doesn’t seem to be the case here!
In talking to the Sun-Times last week, Hannah, 42, was unapologetic about his crimes, saying his first marriage had been troubled and he’d had “urges.”
“I honestly believe that had I been a college pastor, I’d slept with college girls,” he said. “But I was a youth pastor. It was less about age and more about who I spent all my time with.”
I agree with Christa
Christa Brown, founder of StopBaptistPredators.org, was outraged that Hannah went from prison to the pulpit.
“When Southern Baptists put perpetrators into positions of spiritual trust again, it sends the message that this denomination doesn’t care about victims,” Brown said.
Is the denomination responsible? The association this church belonged to says they did all they could to end the situation
Dan Eddington, director of missions for the Three Rivers Baptist Association — of which the church voluntarily is a member — said that when he heard about Hannah’s past, he urged the church to remove him from leadership roles.
When the Sun-Times story broke, the association was in the process of changing its constitution so it could discipline the congregation.
“[T]hat would have given us a little bit more bite in being able to move them to possibly a limited membership status while we continued to deal with it, and then possibly disfellowship,” Eddington said. “We had to rewrite our constitution in order to be able to move in that direction.”
With a limited membership, he said, the church would not have had its associational rights.
“We would be in a reconciliation mode trying to reconcile with them,” he said.
The new associational constitution will be voted on at the next associational meeting, Eddington added.
I found this news story because I was looking up a church which talked about Hemant in a sermon. A youth pastor from that church was convicted of crimes against teenagers in 1996. It turns out that he was invited to lead worship at this Romeoville church recently
A second convicted sex offender was invited into a worship role at a southwest suburban Southern Baptist church, where Jeff Hannah, a multiple sex offender, had been preaching with the church’s blessing since being paroled from prison in 2001, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.
Anyway, here’s the good news
The convicted man, Jeff Hannah, since has resigned his position at First Baptist Church in Romeoville, Ill., a congregation that now is down to about 21 people and considering the possibility of folding. The resignation took place after the Chicago Sun-Times — which first reported the story — approached Hannah and others at the church about the matter.
I wonder how long it would have taken for this to happen had the Sun-Times not reported the story. I’m very glad they did.
Comment by: Stephan
1I actually have a friend who is a sex offender and is serving as a music pastor at a church. The church is aware of his situation and has put safeguards in place to keep him accountable. If it is handled correctly, I think it can be done, but it is certainly risky. Despite the fact that he is my friend, I don’t think I would be comfortable with him in that position at my church.
The church and the denomination can certainly be held liable if anything should happen. I respect the desire to rehabilitate and restore someone, but sexual predators are rarely cured and often re-offend. I would not support this at my church.
Comment by: Karen
2Unbelievable. I think the danger here is that people in a congregation often put the pastor up on a pedestal, think he can do no wrong because he’s “annointed by god,” “called to ministry,” etc.
This makes it possible for him to get away with a lot of things that wouldn’t be tolerated in mere “lay people” (no pun intended!). And of course we’ve seen the evidence of that over the past 5-6 years with all the church sex scandals.
Another thing that shocks me: There’s a whole organization that exists just to stop Baptist predators!? Whoa. That tells me this is a large problem - and if it’s Baptists, why not Methodists, Presbyterians and others? I’ve seen Protestants point to the Catholic clergy abuse scandal and say, “Well, that’s because they’re required to be celibate! That doesn’t happen in our churches!”
Apparently not true…
Comment by: Helen
3Stephan, I wouldn’t be comfortable with it either.
Karen, maybe I missed it - I didn’t notice there was an organization specifically to stop Baptist predators? The alliance mentioned here was a general one for Baptist churches, I think - not one specifically focused on stopping predators.
In general I agree with you that Protestants should be careful to keep their own churches safe. I don’t know if the celibacy rule increases abuse in Catholic churches; not having that rule certainly hasn’t kept Protestant churches completely free of it. (As this news story shows).
Comment by: Stephan
4I think Karen was referring to the link to “stopbaptistpredators.org”. Of course, anyone can start an organization and have a web site. I could start “stopatheistsfromeatingbabies.org”, but that wouldn’t necessarily make it a significant organization.
Comment by: Steve S.
5I think anyone can be forgiven of anything, and can be healed of anything, but I agree that the first step is repentance, this has been a truth that is affirmed by thousands of years of spiritual and ‘recovery’ experiences.
I think we should note that ’sexual offender’ is a term that scares the dickens out of people, but often enough gets applied to people who don’t deserve it. I have a cousin who will be on a website for the rest of his life, his crime? Having sex with his underage girlfriend (who was older than he was!!!)
Granted, in this case, that is not the issue…
Comment by: Karen
6I looked over the stop baptist predators website and it’s quite extensive. Here’s a list of crimes or alleged crimes perpetrated by Baptist leadership, as well as news stories on the topic. There are several dozen instances linked here - all just from 2007 alone.
I knew personally of three peers when I was a kid who were sexually involved with Christian youth pastors, two heterosexual and one homosexual. There was almost no supervision in those days, frankly. A youth leader could take kids camping for weeks at a time and no one would dream of questioning his motives, particularly of suggesting there might be sexual predation involved.
That was unthinkable because we believed these were “men of god” lead by the holy spirit. They were to be commended for their time and effort in discipleship, not questioned about their motives. The sad thing is that I’m sure the majority did have good motives, but that mindset let a minority of pedophiles get away with murder, pretty much.
Comment by: David H
7I don’t agree that repentance necessarily has anything to do with it. Even if it does, how do you know that the words of repentance are real? How long should someone live a repentant life before being put in a position of leadership? How do you watch them all the time to make sure they stay “clean”? What if their desire for ministry is part of the problem?
Hannah’s own words struck me as terribly familiar.
This isn’t simply about sex. It is an issue of opportunity (thus the predator label) and power (someone younger than him over whom he had authority). It would seem Hannah wasn’t particularly concerned with who would receive his advances.
My father was a minister and is a sexual predator. He has said similar things to me. His victims — he has named more than 60 children, some as young as 9, in one spiritual healing exercise — have not just been little boys and girls. I am aware of teens and young adults he has preyed upon.
For my father availability was a big part of the issue. When he taught elementary school his prey was children from that age group. As a pastor he leaned toward teens up 16-17 years of age. When on “missionary” trips he has been involved with young men up to mid-20s. The only common denominator appears to be the vulnerability of the victim.
But back to the issue of repentance. My father has been caught many times. Yet he has never been prosecuted. The church I grew up in allowed him to lead their Cambodian church ministry even though they had been told by his children (confirmation from my mother) about his sexual activities. My father was able to convince them he was “repentant.” In talking with him, he sometimes genuinely appears to be disgusted with himself and understand that he is horribly wrong. From reading about sexual predators, that sense of being wrong is frequently present. But pulling against the sense of personal hatred are the “urges.” The urges almost always win unless there is significant intervention (e.g. prison, chemical neutering). And the ministry, for my father, was as much a way to expiate his guilt as a modus for finding new targets. The two things seem almost inseparable to him. The feeling that has the upper hand at the moment seems to determine which pursuit (spiritual repentance vs carnal pursuit) is paramount at that time.
The thing that I have asked of my father’s church is to take my father away from a ministry that could contribute to his problem. Sweeping floors can be a ministry. But janitorial work is one form of Christian service that may be less likely to put a sexual offender in a position to have power and authority over a vulnerable person.
My father’s church and Christians in general seem to have a problem with such an approach. They talk about healing and witness and all sorts of other things that don’t really have anything to do — at least in issues such as are being discussed here — with the people who need the most concern: the potential victims.
The problem with habitual sexual offenders is that their urges can be far harder to overcome than even the desire for drugs or alcohol. There are mental components to their problem that still confound people trained to deal with them. A sexual predator can be truly sorry for the terrible thing they did and still do it again at the very next opportunity. Touch-feely concepts of forgiveness and restoration don’t work with the vast majority of people like this. And the power and trust thrust upon them as a witness to God’s healing power can be an aphrodisiac in the worst way.
Hannah, my father, and people like them don’t need to be put in leadership roles no matter what their abilities. Much more can be done for them and for others if they take a small role in the church — one that emphasizes service in its most subservient form. The depth of their repentance — at least — may become apparent if they are willing to accept such a small and constrained role, especially if it is not seen as stepping stone to a full return. My father has fought against such restraints from his family. For me, that tells me all I need to know about the state of his “healing.”
Comment by: Helen
8Steve wrote:
Steve, I understand that it’s not really fair for your cousin to be listed with people who prey on minors as if they all committed the same crime. But I still want everything possible done to protect people against actual predators, including notifying people where appropriate.
Karen, I went to that site and yes, it does seem extensive. When I was at church I remember reading encouraging things indicating they took precautions to avoid situations where adults had the opportunity to do anything inappropriate with children. I can’t remember the specifics, though. Anyway, hopefully churches in general are getting better at taking appropriate precautions than when you were young.
David, it must be very frustrating for you, seeing your father’s church continue to give him roles which fail to protect him and others from his problem. Like you, I question the depth of his repentance since he resists your family’s efforts to put protective restraints in place.
Comment by: David H
9To re-emphasize a couple of points from what I said previously.
1. I don’t get the relentless march to full restoration that seems to be behind how many Christian groups handle some of these problems. The power and authority attached to pastors should indicate that very frequently their sexual misconduct is more akin to rape than anything else even when the other participant is an adult. When the issue is sexual misconduct, why would putting the pastor back into the pulpit be a reasonable goal?
2. When the issue is sexual and abusive, why are the victims and potential victims seldom accorded the same amount of concern as the victimizer? If the spiritual leader has a problem with coercing people into sex, especially by using the prestige, power and/or authority of his office to get away with it, why are Christian groups always so focused on how to bring that person to healing? Why is there so much attention focused on forgiving him and bringing him back into a position of authority? His repentance and the forgiveness by others should have nothing to do with whether he gets to step back into a position where he can possibly victimize others. That isn’t good use of grace or discernment. That is closer to blind stupidity. So God can heal. Why should we take the victimizer’s word that such “healing” has taken place.
Comment by: Karen
10Oh, definitely. Actually around the time that sexual abuse began to be something people talked about in public, instead of something whispered about and routinely covered up, there were safeguards put into place. (I’m talking about the 1980s here, btw.)
Of course, some people still did not want to believe their Christian leaders/Catholic priests could commit sexual abuse, so sometimes the safeguards did not go far enough. In most places I recall, the congregations actually supported accused abusers vociferously and refused to even entertain the idea they were guilty. Often, the victims and their families were demonized for “tearing down the pastor/priest” and they became very unpopular or even had to leave the church. The tide only turned after the sheer numbers of abuse victims started coming out publicly and standing up for justice, which obviously took a whole gut-load of courage on their parts.
Isn’t this tendency due to the wish of those in the congregation to believe that there’s a “magic bullet” that will take away the sin, wash the sinner clean and make him or her immune to further problems? It seems to me to be human nature that we all love a “repentent sinner” scenario so much that we are willing to suspend skepticism and buy into it - particularly when it involves a practiced con artist and a story about supernatural “saving” from sin.
Comment by: Steve S.
11I hope I didn’t come across as saying we should put offending wolves back in the sheep pen…
I merely was commenting on this:
As for repentance, I agree that repentance is easily faked, but the fact still remains, it is (according to the experts) the first step in any true change of internal character…
How else would change occur if the person doesn’t start by intending to change??
Comment by: David H
12But why do Christians rush from a statement of repentance to thrusting the offender back into a position of prominence and/or power? With Mr. Hannah, as just an example, why wouldn’t his past infidelity with children preclude him from being a pastor? Why wouldn’t the people helping him back to the “right” path tell him that his ministry no longer needs that involves leading a church?
Comment by: seekingsomething
13Exactly, David.
It never fails to surprise me the amazing grace that can be extended to sex offenders sometimes…. at the risk and likely expense of vulnerable others.
Comment by: Elaine
14While I am called to forgive - I am not called to forget.
Sometimes people confuse the 2 and think they are one. How foolish and unwise.
If I know you are a predator and I put you in a position of authority - especially over children - am I not responsibile in some measure when you harm another?
We had a man who came to our church leadership and told them he was a pedophile. Because he was in counseling and actively being mentored, he was allowed to volunteer with us - but it was made known to all that he had this illness and he was to be supervised and never allowed to be near children. If a co-worker showed up with their children - he removed himself. He was very open with everyone and was treated with respect - but knew his boundaries with us.
While knowing Jesus had changed him, he knew this was a part of him that would not “just” be healed. He took safeguards to protect others and himself.
Knowing of his childhood abuse at his father’s hands, filled me with compassion. It did not make me forget that he was a damaged person. Dave has a good heart, but is deeply wounded and knows it.
Comment by: Helen
15Elaine, it’s encouraging to hear about a church that sets appropriate boundaries.
Comment by: Steve S.
16We had similar experiences in our Church. Our pastor actually told someone to leave who had been a part of the community for several years before finally coming forward with his past… but others who came in and were up front about who they were were handled much in the way Elaine described…
I just hear too many people trash on pedophiles as though they weren’t also deeply loved by God. Of course it is heinous, but I have yet to meet one who did not deserve sympathy (once you heard their story)
Comment by: David H
17As I told my father once: God loves lions, too. But I don’t want one in my house.
I am all too aware of the stigma attached to pedophiles and those to who they are related. I didn’t demand that his church ostracize him, just that they stop allowing him into positions of leadership. I didn’t tell them to stop loving him, just be realistic about who he is, what he does and what that could mean for the most vulnerable people in the congregation.
Being realistic with the pedophile is more beneficial than telling him everything is fine. That goes for a whole host of issues faced by people who might be in churches: Alcoholics, drug abusers, rapists, etc. The structure of restrictions on ministry and activities might be even more important for church leaders caught in such problems. How they respond to the restrictions and structure will tell a lot about their “repentance.”