Child Abuse, Scandal

Defense Lawyers Claim “Clergy/Congregant Privilege” in the Tina Anderson Rape Case

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Here’s an interesting tidbit from the ABC 7 News about the ongoing trial of Ernie Willis for the rape of Tina Anderson.

Smukler [the judge in the Willis case] has yet to rule on whether Phelps must testify about admissions Willis made to him about the alleged assaults. Willis’ lawyers claim that they are privileged. Coull argued that Phelps had a lawyer present during the conversations and that undermines any privilege between a member of the clergy and a congregant

This is interesting on a couple of levels.

1. It means that Willis did talk to Phelps about his crimes AND had his lawyer present while he did so.

2. It means that Phelps is not voluntarily forthcoming about this conversation and the lawyers are trying to keep him from having to testify about what Willis told him.

3. The lawyers are invoking a religious privilege that is normally reserved for confessions made in the Roman Catholic church. So is Phelps tacitly agreeing that Willis was making a Roman-style confession to him…with his lawyer present?

The longer this case goes the more Phelps appears to not only be ignorant and impotent as a pastor but also to be plain evil. If you want the truth to come out, why not just take the stand, Chuck? Why not just tell the prosecution that you’ll make a clean breast of it and that there’s no such thing as a clergy/congregant privilege in an Independent Fundamental Baptist Church?

Someone needs to be asking these questions…

Baptists

The Baptist Standard

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A while back we took a look at the Baptist Flag, a separated and sanctified flag for Baptists who don’t want to use the same one as all the other Protestants.

Well, in typical fashion, some Baptists have decided to separate from that flag and make their own “more Biblical” model. So now, in addition to the Baptist Flag, there is the Baptist Standard:

As the site explains:

There is no pledge, this is not an idol or a symbol of arrogance, but rather a statement and a stand that this is what we believe. This flag doesn’t unite all of Christendom, but separates Truth from error.

Boom! Take, that, Mr. Baptist Flag Pledge Man!

So if this new flag is all about separating from error, would it be correct to assume that it is a “Standard Standards Standard”? The mind boggles.

Outreach

Oblivion

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A bearded man in a car grinds to a stop near a group of children and asks them a question out of the window.

“Come closer kids,” he calls when they answer, “I can’t hear you.”

The children stop their playing and stare at the beckoning stranger. Then they wisely choose to tell some adults about this character instead of approaching him. So the man drives off…and goes and finds another group of kids to try it on again.

Multiple people call the cops who interview the scary stranger and eventually release the following message:

Ah, it wasn’t a child molestor. It was a soulwinner. Evidently some of them are hard to tell apart.

I guess that whole “wise as serpents; harmless as doves” thing just doesn’t quite register with some people. All too often soulwinning is seen as carte blanche permission to engage in behavior that would otherwise get you arrested.

A silly blog dedicated to Independent Fundamental Baptists, their standards, their beliefs, and their craziness.