Due Diligence

[Gregory Matthews]

Due Diligence is often used as a legal term.  Briefly, it prescribes the level of care that  care that a reasonable person must exercise in order to not harm another person.  That is the term that comes to my mind as I reflect on a published report that I will reference below. 

To be frank, I am deeply conflicted by this published report:

*  It presents a view that is neither  balanced nor objective.  In short, I do not believe that it exercised due diligence.

*  It smears a number of named individuals who are not given a chance to present their side of the story.

*  This does not mean that I consider the story to be false.

*  It fails to recognize that there are times when the SDA Church must act on the best available known facts regardless of whether or not they meet the legal standard of criminal  proof and conviction.  I am reminded of a former pastor who came to me.  He had been. he said, falsely accused by a string of teen-females, of inappropriate behavior.   Folks, the number of accusations made it impossible for the Church to continue to employ him.  

*   The article fits my personal bias that we SDAs may promote self-proclaimed experts who advocate views that lie outside of recognized scholarship, but support what we want to hear.  To be specific, this includes psychological counseling services.

*  Yet, I acknowledge that we have learned to be more careful as requiring that we require our experts in human relations to be qualified.

*  Yes, the Church sometimes may make it worse.  But, that can occur on both sides of the spectra.   It can ignore as well as act pre-maturely.  

*  I have some concerns that this article may have been published prematurely.  Yes, it may be that it should be published.  But, I would have preferred that it had been written from a more balanced perspective with input from people named in the article.

*  In addition, I would have preferred that the article present some of the gains that we have made as a denomination in addressing such claims.

 

https://atoday.org/how-false-recovered-memories-ended-my-ministry-and-hurt-my-family-and-how-the-church-made-it-worse/

 

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

I could write a lot about what was in the article.  But I won't.

 

3 hours ago, Gregory Matthews said:

In short, I do not believe that it [the article] exercised due diligence.

I'm inclined to disagree with you, Gregory.

The church *also* has a responsibility to perform due diligence.  I think they dropped the ball. 

from the article:  "Satanic ritual abuse"  ....Oh come on.  Give me a break.  

3 hours ago, Gregory Matthews said:

The article fits my personal bias that we SDAs may promote self-proclaimed experts who advocate views that lie outside of recognized scholarship, but support what we want to hear.  To be specific, this includes psychological counseling services

Totally agree with you there.  And therein lies my personal opinion that avoidance of SDA "experts" in any field is in my best interest.

[Gregory Matthews]

Pam:  You probably know me well enough to know that I do not have a problem with you disagreeing with me.

I have expressed my feelings to an editor of Adventist. Today.  He does not agree with me.  

 

[B/W Photodude]

The article, surprisingly, was one I read with a bit of interest as many from atoday are ones I disagree with. The events of this article seemed all to familiar as being typical of someone being so accused. I sympathize with this retired pastor.

False memories and the damage done to people thru false allegations is also something I have studied for quite a few years. I also used to get the newsletters from the False Memory Syndrome Foundation < http://www.fmsfonline.org > and have even read article by Dr Loftus and seen her on TV. Unfortunately, things like this where people get carried away by emotions and start harming innocent people is something that happens in the SDA church. Nothing about this article surprised me at all as I read many very similar stories. And I have even been accused online with being a predator for speaking out about this problem.

There were several types of false memory themes that came out back then. Right off the top of my head they were satanic ritual abuse, child molestation, and alien abduction (seriously!). They all came about in much the same way. Satanic ritual abuse was one time estimated to have involved over 50,000 individuals even though the FBI could not substantiate even a single case at the time. Geraldo Rivera forever discredited himself with me as a journalist when his TV show did a number of episodes regarding Ritual Satanic Abuse.

There were a couple of books that came out in the 90s which also instrumental in these situations for the public and the Adventist church. The first was a book called "Courage to Heal." It was written by a couple of lesbians and their catch phrase was "if you think you were abused, your probably were." Funny thing was though, by the end of the book the phrase was "if you think you are a lesbian, you probably are!" This book was seriously part of that hysteria. It was thought that many psychologists were just bored with hearing the boring mundane complaints of their clients and it was far more exciting to come up with these wildly graphics stories of abuse. Part of the practice for some was that they would have people write down their fantasies and then assure them that they were true.

Another book called "Sexual Abuse in Nine North American Subcultures" came out. Seventh-day Adventists were one of the nine subcultures. One of the children in the SDA story told such graphic stories (detailed in the book) that had her being molested by family and had some of the strangest details of the occult and church members being present. The co-author of this article was someone who was working with  officials in a certain conference to write the guidelines in dealing with sexual abuse. This person seemed to have had a real agenda.

My opinion is that there were far too many of these reports in the nineties as evidence by their extreme graphical highly improbably details. Unfortunately, by encouraging these "memories," they created "victims" who were never even touched. Ultimately, the accused began fighting back and some psychologist lost their credentials and suffered huge financial catastrophes after losing lawsuits. Also, unfortunately, many went to prison as innocent people and had their lives destroyed. 

[B/W Photodude]

8 hours ago, rudywoofs (Pam) said:

And therein lies my personal opinion that avoidance of SDA "experts" in any field is in my best interest.

I sometimes think anyone promoting Christianity in the business setting should be avoided. Many years ago, I needed a minor plumbing job done. I called Christian Brothers Plumbing and they quoted me $2000 for the job. "Oh man!," I said. Not something I could afford. I then called Sun Devil Plumbing who came right over, fixed my problem and charged me $89!

I could tell more distressing stories of seeing Adventist professionals, but .... not something I want to go into.

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

14 minutes ago, B/W Photodude said:

could tell more distressing stories of seeing Adventist professionals, but .... not something I want to go into.

same here...

[Gregory Matthews]

And, for privacy reasons, the names were changed.