[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, everybody.
[SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back to the Preacher Boys podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: My name is Eric Scresinski.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was born and raised in the independent fundamental Baptist movement.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as a former fundamentalist, I'm now shedding light on the dark side of the church from the pulpit to the pew through this podcast, Preacher Boys.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, at the end of the last couple of months, I've been putting together compilations of all of the major headlines relating to abuse within Baptist churches that people should be aware of.
[SPEAKER_00]: Both the independent federal Baptist movement and the Southern Baptist movement, and even a couple other Baptist branches that people should be aware of as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: And while it's been a lot of hard work, it's been really fulfilling to put these together and to help people see the patterns of abuse within these denominations.
[SPEAKER_00]: The issue is there are so many stories in each month that I feel like summer getting left out or pushed to the side or not talked about as much as they should be because I'm trying to cram eleven or twelve stories into one individual video.
[SPEAKER_00]: So what I'm going to try to do this week is take a look at July first through July seventh and cover three headlines relating to abuse within Baptist churches, one SBC, and one independent fundamental Baptist church.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I'm going to give it update on a story that I've covered previously and share that with you guys as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm hoping that this allows me to again dedicate more time to stories that really deserve it and helps when I get to the end of the month, make it a little bit simpler to just compile these episodes together into one digestible piece of content that allows people to really get an overview of the month of July.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I'm going to go ahead and start with a follow up story and I just want to mention here by the way, you may have already seen some of these stories if you're subscribed to the Prejudice Substack.
[SPEAKER_00]: I am posting very consistently over there and even in June, you know, I shared a couple of additional stories that I did not share over on the YouTube page just because
[SPEAKER_00]: They happened after my deadline for creating that video.
[SPEAKER_00]: So be sure to head over to Prigabois.substack.com to get access to some of these stories even before I cover them here on the Prigabois podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, my sub stack right now is completely free.
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's no paywall.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can go in.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can see these stories.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, of course, if you do want to support the show financially, I always appreciate that.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can head over to patreon.com slash preacher boys to do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But any of the content that I think is relevant or helpful, I don't keep behind a paywall.
[SPEAKER_00]: So my sub stack, this YouTube channel,
[SPEAKER_00]: in the podcast is completely free.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's available to you to be able to access these stories.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will never put something that is going to be a raise awareness about an abuse case or something like that behind a paywall.
[SPEAKER_00]: So don't worry about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I may do some bonus episodes about more fun topics or like more random behind the scenes content.
[SPEAKER_00]: But in terms of these stories, I want to get them out to you as quickly as possible, which is why I'm doing this video, which is why I have the sub stack and so on and so forth.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to go ahead and turn over here to the first story I want to talk about, which is kind of an update of a previous story I covered here on the show.
[SPEAKER_00]: I talked a little bit about sure foundation Baptist Church, which is planted by Pastor Aaron Thompson and is operated by Justin Zong, who is a quote unquote evangelist.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I shared a story that ended up getting some attention from a station in Indiana where the church is located.
[SPEAKER_00]: and I'll share this over on Substack.
[SPEAKER_00]: On July second, in the end of the year, on July second, in the end of the year, on July second, in the end of the year, on July second, in the end of the year, on July second, in the end of the year, on July second, in the end of the year, on July second, in the end of the year, on July second, in the end of the year, on July second, in the end of the year, on July second, in the end of the year, on July second, in the end of the year, on July second, in the end of the year, on July second, in the end of the year, on July second, in the end of the year, on July second, in the end of the year, on July second, in the end of the year, on July second, in the end of the year, on July second, in the end of the year, on July second, in the end of the year, on July second,
[SPEAKER_00]: that I'll link to it somewhere around this video.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the particular sermon that they highlighted urged LGBTQ plus people to commit suicide.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's nothing good to be proud about.
[SPEAKER_01]: Be a faggot.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're a boy yourself in the head in the back of the head.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're so disgusting.
[SPEAKER_00]: On July third, twenty twenty five, Evangelist Justin Song, one of the primary leaders of the church, posted a statement to Facebook and X doubling down on this messaging.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said in part, quote, I want to take a moment to address some recent developments concerning the men's preaching night last Sunday.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will not apologize for preaching the word of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will not apologize for stating facts.
[SPEAKER_00]: I will not negotiate with terrorists among whom the LGBT HIV crowd is full of domestic terrorists.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Bible is crystal clear that Sodomites in parentheses homosexuals deserve the death penalty carried out by a government that actually cares about the law of God.
[SPEAKER_00]: We are not to take the law into our own hands.
[SPEAKER_00]: He then continued reaffirming the idea that all LGBTQ plus people should commit suicide.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, quote, Jesus teaches that if anyone harms little children, it's better for them to drown themselves or commit suicide.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Bible says that the Sodomites or, again, parentheses homosexuals are filled with all on righteousness.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's why I believe all satellites are capable of molesting children and committing all kinds of wickedness.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, in response to this statement by Justin Zong, of course, the OG and IFB hate preacher, Stephen Anderson voiced his support saying, I'm Stephen Anderson and I approve this message retweeting the original post.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then later, over on the wish TV Facebook post, he said, the preacher's right no lies detected.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now Steven Anderson of course is no stranger to controversy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Most recently his adult children came out and made public allegations of past child abuse and I actually interviewed Steven Anderson's son John Anderson about his experiences in September of twenty twenty four.
[SPEAKER_00]: You can watch that video here on the channel and I will make a note here that in spite of the testimony of three of his adult children Anderson has yet to be formally charged by law enforcement though many people are still calling for that to happen.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's the update there on Steven Anderson.
[SPEAKER_00]: The next term to cover involves a Christian school teacher named Tory Lemon.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll just go ahead and pull up an article by the indie star and read along with you.
[SPEAKER_00]: The indie star reported that an arrest warrant was issued for a former kindergarten teacher at a private Christian school in northern Indianapolis after she was charged with child seduction of a teenage student.
[SPEAKER_00]: Tory Lemon, twenty three was charged by Hamilton County Prosecutors Office on June thirty if with two felony counts of child seduction as a care worker.
[SPEAKER_00]: On July first, the Hamilton County Judge issued a warrant for arrest and set her bond at fifteen thousand dollars according to court records.
[SPEAKER_00]: The alleged abuse had transpired over several months in early twenty twenty five.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, school officials at Colonial Christian School didn't learn about the misconduct until April tenth while the two were on a school trip in South Carolina according to court documents.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lemon was present during the trip, acting as one of the school's chaperones, according to court documents.
[SPEAKER_00]: A friend of the female student was going through the student's film when they found a video of Lemon and the student kissing and a hidden folder on the device.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the friend saw the video, they immediately informed a male teacher of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Upon learning of this information, the male teacher confiscated the student's phone, informed the student's parents of the situation, dismissed Lemon from the school trip, and filed a report with the Indiana Department of Child Services, and a South Carolina Police Department, according to court records.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just going to go ahead and point out that I'm so glad that this teacher made the right decision and informed the parents contacting law enforcement and immediately filing report with the Department of Child Services.
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't even sad how many times the proper steps are not taken and so shout out to that teacher.
[SPEAKER_00]: An officer with the Greenville Police Department spoke with the student and lemon about the video and the two told the officer that they were quote in a relationship according to court records.
[SPEAKER_00]: The student told the Greenville officer that she had sexual or inappropriate messages with lemon on her phone and that she stayed in lemon's room during the school trip.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, the student noted that nothing sexual had happened between the two.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Greenville officer interviewed Lemon where she explained that she was having an inappropriate relationship with a student from her school for a few months.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lemon also told the officer that she had been confronted by a student's parent about the inappropriate relationship and that she had been, quote, struggling with it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The article continues that on April, fourteenth of detective with the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department interviewed the student in hopes of learning how the alleged sexual misconduct started.
[SPEAKER_00]: The student explained that she started texting and hanging out with lemon in January, twenty twenty five as friends, but the messages quickly turned sexual.
[SPEAKER_00]: First and foremost, you should not be friends with a teacher to the point that you're texting back and forth.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like that's a huge no, no red flag right there.
[SPEAKER_00]: It says she told the detective that she never intended for the relationship to turn sexual since she knew it was wrong to kept developing with the two eventually having sex in March of twenty twenty five.
[SPEAKER_00]: Upon further question, the detective learned that the two had sex at Lemman's on-campus apartment in a church and at the student's house.
[SPEAKER_00]: So not only was this happening within her apartment, which was house of the church, they were having sex within the church and at the students own home.
[SPEAKER_00]: The detective then interviewed the students mother who explained that she had seen lemon as a family friend and was upset after learning about the alleged sexual misconduct.
[SPEAKER_00]: The family had allowed lemon to stay at their home on several occasions after she had moved to Indiana from New Hampshire according to court documents.
[SPEAKER_00]: And this was noting that she was at the school, I think she started working there relatively recently.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think in my research, I came across her LinkedIn, and she had been at the college, Maranatha Baptist University.
[SPEAKER_00]: Up until I think, twenty twenty four was the date that I had seen.
[SPEAKER_00]: So she must have started working at the school very, very recently.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the woman who was the mother of the victim said she didn't believe women have any friends in the state invited her to hang out with her daughter at the family Super Bowl party.
[SPEAKER_00]: Although she had noticed that the two's friendship had developed quickly over the next few months, she did not believe they developed an intimate relationship, however in March, which I guess would be a month later, for thinking of the Super Bowl.
[SPEAKER_00]: She had seen some text messages between the two that concerned her.
[SPEAKER_00]: The messages were things like, I can't wait to see you and I saw you cross the room and wanted to give you a hug, according to the court documents.
[SPEAKER_00]: The students' mother then confronted the two about the possibility of the pair being in a relationship, but lemon told her that nothing inappropriate was happening between the two.
[SPEAKER_00]: The detective then asked some other if they could take her daughter's phone for evidence.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, upon further investigation, police learned that most of the texts between the student and lemon had been permanently deleted.
[SPEAKER_00]: On April, sixteenth, IMPD detectives attempted to get in contact with Levin, but Levin, the chief, moved back to New Hampshire.
[SPEAKER_00]: Levin later told police that she could not answer any questions until she spoke with a lawyer.
[SPEAKER_00]: The next day, the police received a call from Levin's lawyer who explained that she would provide a statement by April, twenty-fourth, twenty-five, giving yourself a lot of time to give a statement.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, lemon never ultimately provided police with a statement, prior to the prosecutor's office filing charges against her, according to the court documents.
[SPEAKER_00]: On April twenty-third, the case was transferred to the Fisher Police Department since the initial crime report had been filed in Hamilton County.
[SPEAKER_00]: Police also learned that lemon had been dismissed from the school after academic officials learned at the allegations, according to court documents.
[SPEAKER_00]: In our exit interview with the school's principal, she admitted to having an inappropriate relationship with a student and said, quote, it started with hugs, then longer hugs, then kissing, and then sexual acts and quote, then on my second police were informed that the IMPD digital forensic student could not recover most of the deleted data from the phone, but it was able to recover a few text messages between the two.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of the messages read as quote, thank you for an amazing night and morning and quote, and quote, I love you more than I can describe and quote.
[SPEAKER_00]: As of July first, the Hamilton County prosecutor filed a warrant for arrest and set her bond at fifteen thousand dollars.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, as right now, she is not in custody, but the warrant is still active.
[SPEAKER_00]: As of July first, I was checking in today's July eighth, as of the time of this recording, and I still haven't seen any updates related to this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now one of the things that I found particularly interesting about the story that is not in any of the articles that I read is that she was employed by Colonial Christian School, which is a Ministry of Colonial Hills Baptist Church, which is passed by Dr. Charles Phelps.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, Phelps himself was at the center of controversy in two thousand eleven when he shamed a then teenage rape victim named Tina Anderson and there was actually an ABC twenty twenty documentary that came out in twenty eleven that featured quite a lengthy segment about Phelps and I'm going to include some of that here in this particular episode so you can take a listen
[SPEAKER_03]: Between the ages of nine and eleven, Tina says her stepfather sexually molested her and threatened to kill her if she told anyone.
[SPEAKER_03]: Tina says only after Leaf was sent to prison a second time for sexually molesting another minor did she have the courage to confide in her pastor.
[SPEAKER_03]: Chuck Phelps.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was told by Master Phelps that a good Christian forgives and forgets and moves on with their life and doesn't press charges.
[SPEAKER_03]: Your pastor told you you should forgive and forget?
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: He made me go to the prison to grant Daniel forgiveness.
[SPEAKER_03]: He made you go to the prison and say what?
[SPEAKER_02]: I forgive you for what she's done.
[SPEAKER_03]: In a statement, Pastor Phelps denies Tina told him that her stepfather molested her, but Tina says she remembers vividly going to the prison to carry out her pastor's instructions.
[SPEAKER_03]: What was that like?
[SPEAKER_02]: It's torture.
[SPEAKER_02]: But I thought I was doing what God wanted me to do.
[SPEAKER_03]: At age fourteen, Tina began babysitting for an IFB church family, Ernie and Tammy Willis, often spending the night.
[SPEAKER_03]: And she says confiding in them that her stepfather had molested her.
[SPEAKER_03]: Did you feel safe with them?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: But in nineteen ninety seven, when Tina was fifteen, she says that illusion of safety was shattered.
[SPEAKER_03]: When Ernie Willis volunteered to give her driving lessons.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he pulled me in the back seat and ran me.
[SPEAKER_03]: Did you try and fight back?
[SPEAKER_02]: I have kind of blocked out a lot of those memories.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so I don't remember a lot of it.
[SPEAKER_02]: I do remember saying no.
[SPEAKER_03]: How did you deal with the aftermath of that?
[SPEAKER_02]: I think you just kind of like try to think it never happened.
[SPEAKER_02]: A good Christian doesn't press charges and doesn't, you know, do anything.
[SPEAKER_02]: Forget, forget, move on.
[SPEAKER_03]: But a month after the alleged rape, Tina says Ernie Willis came knocking on her door.
[SPEAKER_03]: She was alone.
[SPEAKER_03]: I opened it, and I lied to man.
[SPEAKER_02]: I... stupid.
[SPEAKER_02]: Choice?
[SPEAKER_03]: You were just a teen.
[SPEAKER_03]: You were a girl.
[SPEAKER_03]: I still struggle to not blame myself.
[SPEAKER_03]: Tina says she doesn't remember what happened next, only that for a second time, Ernie Willis raped her.
[SPEAKER_02]: And again, Tina says she remembered Pastor Felt's instructions to forgive and forget.
[SPEAKER_02]: She told no one, not her mother, not her pastor.
[SPEAKER_03]: not the police."
[SPEAKER_00]: As ABC reported, Anderson was only sixteen when she said she was forced to stand terrified before her entire church congregation to confess her quote-unquote sin, that she had become pregnant.
[SPEAKER_00]: She said she wasn't allowed to tell the group that the pregnancy was result of being allegedly raped by a fellow congregant, a man twice her age.
[SPEAKER_00]: In court, a prosecutor asked Phelps a hypothetical question.
[SPEAKER_00]: The prosecutor said, let's say that a fourteen-year-old girl who goes to your school gets kidnapped by a guy who rapes her, then beats her up and leaves her out in the woods.
[SPEAKER_00]: She comes to you and tells you she's pregnant.
[SPEAKER_00]: Would you spell her from her school?
[SPEAKER_00]: Phelps said, it depends on the situation.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, I just thought that was a really interesting connection that the school itself is operated by someone who's been part of a really horrific, controversial attention where he did not stand with the victim.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so on, glad that this particular teacher did the right thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm really curious to know what the outlook on this situation is from someone like a doctor Charles Phelps, who historically is not stood on the side of the victim.
[SPEAKER_00]: The third story I want to talk about involves a pastor of a SBC church.
[SPEAKER_00]: This particular man's name is Devon Carroll.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is a former employee of South Carolina Middle School, and he's also a pastor in North Carolina, and he's now charged with the alleged sexual assault of a thirteen year old.
[SPEAKER_00]: WMBF reported that the Conway Police Department booked twenty-two-year-old Devon Carroll, which first and foremost, and we're going to say something about this article, a twenty-two-year-old should not be a pastor of a church.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's get that out of the way right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no reason that he should be the senior pastor of a church somewhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, he was booked into jail Saturday on account of third degree criminal sexual conduct with a minor.
[SPEAKER_00]: I actually, before this article came out, I think this article dropped today.
[SPEAKER_00]: I looked at his court record and it was relatively vague in terms of the age of the victim, but this article discloses that it says that horny county schools confirm Carol of Laura's
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, Loris was an in school suspension aid at Conway Middle School.
[SPEAKER_00]: He submitted his resignation in January with an effective date of June seventh.
[SPEAKER_00]: Carol's charge stems from a alleged sexual assault reported at the school on May, twenty-nine.
[SPEAKER_00]: According to a restaurant, Carol grabbed the thirteen year old in the private parts, quote, with the intent of arousal.
[SPEAKER_00]: So this pastor was literally molesting a girl who is almost a decade younger than him.
[SPEAKER_00]: Carol is currently listed as the pastor of Happy Home Baptist Church in Columbus County, North Carolina, and the church website states he's been the position since May, twenty twenty four, which again, has been there for a relatively short time.
[SPEAKER_00]: I did some research into their affiliation, so the last church that I just covered with the teacher that's an independent Baptist Church, Happy Home Baptist Church in Nakina, North Carolina,
[SPEAKER_00]: is an SPC Affiliated Ministry has membership with the Doc Missionary Baptist Association, and, like I said, according to the website, Carol has been the pastor since May, twenty-six, twenty-four, and notably the church Facebook page has been taken offline.
[SPEAKER_00]: Carol was booked at J. Rubenlong Detention Center, but J.O.
[SPEAKER_00]: Records show he was released Monday on a thirty thousand dollar bond.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, and I just actually went to go pull up their website and they've actually removed any mention.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll share a link here as well.
[SPEAKER_00]: They've actually removed him from their website, which was not the case when I initially released my article about it.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I released particle July seventh yesterday.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I guess it got removed immediately after he bailed out.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's go ahead and pop this in here so you can take a look.
[SPEAKER_00]: So right now the church website is literally just this.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they removed all of their pages for the church.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that was the third story there.
[SPEAKER_00]: What's really fascinating to me about these particular stories in this first week of July is that both of these predators are so young.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're an initial predator, a Tory lemon, she was a twenty-three year old who was abusing a seventeen year old student that she met at the school.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you've got this twenty-two-year-old pastor who is, you know, sexually molesting a thirteen-year-old girl who's almost a decade younger.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is one of those areas where like, you just have to look at these ministries and go, why are you employing twenty-somethings in these positions of authority within your ministry?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think of Devon Carroll specifically.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why is a twenty-two-year-old a lead pastor of a ministry?
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't make any sense.
[SPEAKER_00]: Why does he have the access that he does within this ministry to do things like this?
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just a really interesting coincidence between these two stories
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, as I say in all of these episodes, like, my goal is not to just show these one-off stories.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, that's certainly part of it.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I just want people to start recognizing some of the patterns here.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, when you're giving people these positions where they shouldn't have a position with as much power as they have, or they shouldn't be this young in a position like this, or a senior pastor who's been there a long time should not be alone with a
[SPEAKER_00]: really, you know, young child.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like there's so many pieces in these stories that repeat over and over again.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think like the big takeaway from this week's stories is let's stop taking these really young people who have no track record, who have not had the time to build up any trust, who have not had the time to have a reputation of any kind with anybody and giving them unfettered access to potential victims.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, again, I cover a lot of stories where it is
[SPEAKER_00]: really old guys in ministry, where people are shocked that things like this happen, there's no full proof way to prevent some of this stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: But taking these people who have literally just got out of Bible College and giving them unfettered access to, again, potential victims to children within these ministries when they have no track record, when they have no ability to prove themselves and earn trust with these organizations.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just foolish and I think the ministries do bear some responsibility when things like this happen when they're this foolish over and over and over again And so anyway, that's that's the three headlines I want to cover on this week's episode Let me know your thoughts on these stories or if there's any stories that you think I missed that should be covered I'll be doing another story here next Wednesday That's going to be covering the time period from July eighth through the fifteenth
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, like I said at the end of the month, I'll come back and do kind of an overall recap.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know exactly what that's gonna look like just yet, but just keep an eye out for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And again, I really appreciate you guys watching the channel.
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that there's somebody who's like this sort of a little bit more unpolished or kind of off the cuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think the information itself is important.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you want a more polished kind of condensed version, be sure ahead over to preachabois.substack.com.
[SPEAKER_00]: But for now, I'll go ahead and leave you here on the preachboy's podcast, and I'll see you in the next episode.