sexual abuse | Cindy Wity

Victims of Vestment Veneer

July 19, 2025 Leave a comment

“The vulnerable have not been adequately protected and this has brought harm to many and offense to the Church at large.”

That indictment is from The Bishops’ Presentment in the Matter of Stewart E. Ruch III, Bishop of the Diocese of the Upper Midwest.

A 10-person board of inquiryfound grounds to try Ruch for violation of his ordination vows and for “conduct giving just cause for scandal or offense, including the abuse of ecclesiastical power” and for “disobedience, or willful contravention” of the denominational or diocesan bylaws.”

Ruch framed his own mishandling of the matter as “regrettable errors,” as I noted in my September 10, 2023 post What Say You. (There, you will find many links and background to the sordid matter.)

Kathryn Post writes:

Ruch has admitted to making “regrettable errors” in the case. After learning of the allegations in 2019, Ruch took two years to initiate an investigation or even share the news with members of his diocese. By that time, at least nine others had told abuse survivor’s advocates that they had been abused and groomed by Mark Rivera, a lay leader at Christ Our Light Anglican Church in Big Rock, Illinois, who had previously been a volunteer leader at Church of the Resurrection in Wheaton, Illinois, which is the diocesan headquarters. . .

The presentment lists more than 10 cases where lay or clergy leaders in Ruch’s diocese were “credibly accused of misconduct” and claims Ruch “habitually neglected” to appropriately handle abuse allegations. (Emphasis mine.)

You can download and read the Presentment’s charges and the extensive allegations of misconduct below.

Pictured From left: Chris Lapeyre, Mark Rivera, Stewart Ruch, Rand York

From the Anglican Church in North America website, News and Updates on The Ecclesiastical trial of Bishop Stewart Ruch III:

In December 2022, Mark Rivera, a former Lay Catechist in an Illinois church affiliated with the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA), was convicted of multiple counts of child sexual abuse. The alleged mishandling of the disclosure of this abuse led to scrutiny of the ACNA’s Diocese of the Upper Midwest, the ecclesiastical entity primarily responsible for overseeing the parish where Rivera volunteered. Other accusations of misconduct and canonical violations by leaders of the Diocese were also made and investigated.

Mark Rivera, convicted of felony child sexual abuse and assault, was sentenced on March 6, 2023 to 15 years in the department of corrections. On April 12 Rivera also pled guilty to one count of felony criminal sexual assault in connection to rape allegations made against him by his former neighbor and was sentenced to 6 years in the department of corrections.

A House Divided

May 25, 2025 Leave a comment

A case study of Mike (not his real name) from the archives of Primrose Path Behavioral Health Center. This session took place when Mike was 55. . .

Mike recalled that as a ten-year old he had gone out exploring the undeveloped area behind the new subdivision where his family had bought a house. He came across a page torn out of a magazine. It was almost hidden in tall grass. He described what he found.

On the glossy page were two barely dressed women. One was seated and bound with rope and another was standing over her holding a whip.

He thought about folding the page up and putting it in his pocket. But after five minutes he put the page down and walked away.

He related that a month before he had given his testimony and was baptized before a full church. He thought the world would somehow look different after that. He was given a baptismal certificate and was considered “saved and going to heaven.”

Mike reflected on that event. He said that after he was baptized no one prayed that he would receive the Holy Spirit. No one discipled or mentored him. No one came alongside. He was on his own. He felt “abandoned to his own devices and the osmosis of Sunday preaching and teaching about salvation, heaven and hell, and not being shameful.”

Mike shared that what he saw in the field that day affected him. He felt guilt and shame. He tried to put the image out of his mind but it kept coming back into his imagination.

To deal with this he said that he began mentally separating himself. On the one side was the good Mike –his baptized self-image that he could present to the world. On the other side– the desire for images that brought him pleasure – Mike would keep to himself.

He did this, he said, to avoid the conflicting thoughts and emotions brought on by the tremendous battle going on inside. He said that this compartmentalization carried on throughout his life. It was defense mechanism. He feared being found out.

By the age of twelve his parents had given him the “birds and bees” talk. But his sexual development had already formed with symbols far from what his parents presented.

He recalled looking for more and more images of the opposite sex. He had neighborhood friends who shared the porn magazines of their older brothers and fathers.

Mike began to tear out images from magazines. He would then take them somewhere to be alone – the bedroom, the bathroom, or the basement – and masturbate to them. He had a great fear of being discovered.

Mike felt that if anyone knew about his addiction to images, he would be considered a horrible sinner. The church denounced fornication but no one he knew in church or in life talked about this addiction. He did not view the church as a healing community. The church was there to scold. So, he continued to hide.

He felt that castigation was not enough to rid him of the addiction. He already carried shame and the fear of being outside rather than “a part of” a community. The scolding would only push him toward the comfort of more sexual release.

Mike felt that if anyone knew who he truly was, they would never accept him. He never accepted himself in this state. His self-hatred at being weak and fleshy grew.

Mike related that his seeing the first image was in the 1960s. When the internet came around, he began spending his time looking at porn on the computer. His sexual addiction escalated. Whenever he was alone, he’d be looking at porn.

Mike’s job had him traveling about sixty percent of the time. He was alone a lot.

He began going to strip clubs and was involved with women there. Women at this point, he said, were objects to comfort him in his loneliness, loneliness that he admitted had been brought on by his need to be alone with his addiction.

Mike’s porn sources included in-room-pay-for-view, VHS videos, adult magazines, the internet, and human interaction involving visits to strip clubs. The men he worked with would go to strip clubs. He said that he felt the need to fit in to keep up a persona of being a man and that persona, he felt, was needed for the job.

It was easy, he said, to convince himself to look at women as objects, as women were posing and what man doesn’t look at a woman?

His sexual addiction affected his marriages. They ended in divorce. He described being unable to be intimate with his wives. He said that porn was like another presence in the room and his conscience was another. The back and forth of the two kept him from intimacy with his wives.

Mike stated that in his fifties he came to the bitter realization after failed marriages and the financial and spiritual costs of his addiction, that the out-of-control sexual behaviors he engaged in were destroying him and hurting those around him. He said that his compulsive sexual thoughts, desires, and behaviors wreaked havoc on his self-image as a man, on his relationships with women, on his finances, on his body, and on his soul. All aspects of his life, he said, suffered.

He said that it was easy to feel misunderstood and on his own throughout his life because no one he knew had issues like his. The guys he worked with acted like it was a natural thing to go to a strip club and view porn. Nobody in the church ever talked about sexual addiction.

Mike learned through reading that the reason he kept coming back to porn was the pleasure derived from dopamine released during masturbation.

The loss of self-control and the negative consequences, Mike said, had him experiencing guilt, shame, hopelessness, powerless over his addiction, depressed, lonely, fearful, and anxious.

When asked if he was ever suicidal, Mike said “No. But something had to give. I was going crazy.”

Mike said he reviewed his options to deal with his sexual addiction. He could become a monk or hermit. He could move to Alaska and go off the grid and avoid all contact with porn.

He could, as Jesus taught, lose one part of his body so his whole body wouldn’t be thrown into hell. He then could, as Jesus said about breaking the bonds of marriage, become a eunuch for the kingdom of heaven’s sake as others had done.

These options, he admitted, were severe but his compulsive sexual behavior was severe. He had repeatedly tried to abstain only to fall again and again. The repeated failures caused more self-hatred and more unresolved anger.

Everything he cared about – marriage, family, being a Christian, his soul – everything hung in the balance. He knew that the next relapse may be what took it all down. Every choice he made was “either the ascent of the soul or the descent of the soul.”

Mike told a previous counselor that he carried around a “hurt locker.” This was a term he borrowed from the 2008 film. It described the deep pain and psychological distress that he held on to and carried throughout his life.

He said that he never considered himself a victim in the Me Too sense except in that first instance of sexual abuse in the field at ten-years old. Seeing that first image was traumatizing. After that he came back to porn on his own.

~~~~~

01:55:36 Pornography

Controlling Your Dopamine For Motivation, Focus & Satisfaction

~~~~~

Resources for Combating porn:

Dealing with a porn addiction: Integrity Restored
Internet filter: Covenant Eyes
A book for junior high and high school level: Plunging Pornography
A book for the very young: Good Pictures Bad Pictures

Porn’s Effects on the Brain, Body, and Culture

With the invention of the internet, porn ceased being a back-alley issue and became easily accessible by anyone with a computer, smartphone, or tablet. Learn who uses porn and why it’s not merely a personal sexual choice, but a physiological, emotional, and even cultural problem.

https://www.covenanteyes.com/e-books/

Book: The Healing Church: What Churches Get Wrong about Pornography and How to Fix It

Porn is rewiring your brain.

Learn the top five ways porn rewires your brain and what you can do about it in Your Brain on Porn.

Download free copy: https://learn.covenanteyes.com/your-brain-on-porn-1/

https://www.ascensioncounselingutah.com/

~~~~~

Fr. Meyer: Why We Must Talk About Pornography in the Church

By Road to Purity

In this episode of the Road to Purity podcast, we sit down with Fr. Meyer from the Archdiocese of Illinois for a candid and compelling conversation about one of the most pressing spiritual battles of our time: pornography. Fr. Meyer shares how he addresses this issue both within the Church and in the wider culture, offering powerful insights, pastoral wisdom, and hope for those struggling.

Whether you’re in ministry, in the fight yourself, or walking with someone who is, this episode offers clarity, truth, and encouragement in the battle for purity.

Tell Them For Me – Catholic Sexual Integrity Podcast | Road to Purity

~~~~~

Instead of serving the devilish insanity of the lawless “Welcoming the Stranger” illegal immigration crisis created and financed by George Soros, do something to change lives. Support Prison Fellowship.

Prison Fellowship Founded in 1976, Prison Fellowship® is the nation’s largest Christian nonprofit equipping the Church to serve currently and formerly incarcerated people and their families, and to advocate for justice and human dignity both inside and outside of prison.

Because I support Prison Fellowship, I recently received a copy of I surrender: A 14-day Devotional Written by Prisoners. It is a blessing.

The Prison Fellowship Academy is “an intensive long-term, biblically based discipleship program that targets and address the issues at root in criminal behavior.”

“It’s statistically proven that the Academy dramatically reduces recidivism.”

I urge to you walk away from “Welcoming the Stranger,” the psyop conditioning that invites in more criminals and criminal activity (and chaos) and is a perversion of love such that a person values a “cause” more than his proper duty to himself or his neighbor.

Instead, support Prison Fellowship and the men and women who are incarcerated.

Right now, as the recent literature stated, there are 24,716 prisoners in Indiana.

“I was in prison and you came to visit me.” – Jesus, Matthew 25:36

~~~~~

Edward Hopper – room interior in New York -1932

Filed under Christianity, pornography, sexual abuse, sexuality Tagged with Christianity, pornography, sexual abuse, Sexual addiction

That Summer

April 21, 2024 Leave a comment

A short story . . .

I couldn’t pedal any faster. Heart and legs pumped and pumped and pumped until I threw my bike down in the front yard and heard “Wash your hands, Dennis. It’s time for supper.”

Summer, like a best friend ready to pal around, came around again before my freshman year in high school. I was ready that summer to go and do a lot of things, except for one. Did I tell you this story? After sixty years, some memories, like which stories I may have told, become muddled and others remain clear as the day they happened.

Before the start of my freshman year in the fall of ’67, I received a letter from the high school that detailed all the programs the school offered. The two that interested me were sports and band.

That summer I began cross country training under Coach Howard. I was a runner. The kids on my block called me Flash. I was always chosen first for street football and sandlot baseball. But that hot and sweaty five-and-ten-mile practice summer I found out that I was not a long-distance runner. I had only enough wind for sprints and to play the trumpet.

To play in the concert band, I had to tryout that summer. I auditioned with the band director Mr. Gilles. He had me play all the major and minor scales and sight-read several pieces. I learned a week later that I was accepted into the band. This was huge. I had played the French horn in the Junior High band.

My stint with the French horn came about when the Junior High band director Mr. Palmero decided that he didn’t like the sound coming out of my beat-up Conn trumpet. The horn was a gift from an uncle who used it, from its appearance, for anything but playing. Mr. Palmero had me switch to a rental French horn. This lasted two years.

That summer – the summer before high school – my father, bless his soul, bought me a brand-new Bach b-flat trumpet. The new horn and lots of practice paid off. And that part of my Junior High experience was behind me. But how could I forget those two years?

Junior High School had a social system of Greasers and Climbers. You were lumped into one or the other based on your appearance. Greasers, like my colorful friend Juan, wore a black leather jacket, black pants, black socks and shoes and a white tee shirt. The absence of color except for the tee was Juan’s Greaser uniform.

Climbers, like most of my friends, sometimes wore paisley shirts with white collars, bell bottoms and white socks, but mostly dressed in color. I wore simple button-down shirts and sometimes a paisley shirt with bell-bottoms and black socks. I walked around with a French horn case. I wasn’t sure of the privileges accrued to either group other than being liked for what you weren’t.

I remember Juan pestering me to become a Greaser. He even had his girlfriend Lucille tell me that she would doing anything for me if I would become a Greaser. This conversation took place one morning in one of my eighth-grade classes. Lucille, who sat in front of me, turned around and offered herself on the altar of Greaserdom. I declined the invitation. I had more than I could handle. Three girls wanted my attention – in the hallways and in the band. All three played an instrument.

Diane, who I sat next to, was first chair French horn. Mary K. was a flutist and Mary E. played the clarinet. In the social scheme of things, we were considered Climbers because we played in the band and dressed in more than black and white.

I liked the attention of Diane, Mary, and Mary, but I didn’t want to go “steady” as was their intention. I put “going steady” in the same category as having to choose to be either a Greaser or a Climber. I was an independent sort. I was wary of anyone pressuring me to do something I wasn’t inclined to do, as when I was told to play the French horn. I continued on the horn because it kept me playing music. But I should return to telling you about that summer before high school.

Several days a week I had cross country practice. I also practiced my trumpet every day and I worked a part time job at a photo store. At church, I was moved up into the Senior High Youth group.

Our teens group met on Sunday mornings and after church on Sunday nights. Those evening times included going out for pizza or ice cream. During these outings I noticed that the older girls in the group were cliquish and something of a mystery. I wondered what they were saying when they whispered to each other. They weren’t like the junior high girls. They weren’t passing me notes telling me what they were thinking. But that secretiveness, as I recall, made those times wait-and-see fun.

One of the first weekday outings for our group that summer was a picnic at a local park. When we gathered in the parking lot of the Bible church there was a lot of discussion about who was riding with whom. There were only a couple of drivers and cars. I was a freshman. I had no driver’s license or car yet. Neither did my best friend Bill, also a freshman.

A ‘63 convertible T-bird, radio blasting, pulled into the lot. The guy driving was Ken. I’d seen him in the Sunday meetings. He had said that he transferred from another area high school and would be a senior in the new high school. He asked Bill and I if we wanted a ride to the park. We agreed. I remember thinking that going my own way, in James Dean fashion, would be noticed by the girls.

After several group outings, Ken started calling me and asking me to come over. He said that he had a Triumph TR3 that he was rebuilding and that he needed some help. I told him I didn’t know anything about cars. It didn’t matter to him. He begged me to come over. I finally accepted his invitation one hot, boring summer afternoon. I thought why not learn about cars. I would be driving soon enough.

That afternoon I rode my bike across town to his parent’s house. I found the garage door open with Ken standing inside. He was holding an oily car part in his hand. The TR3 was parked in the garage with the hood up. I asked about his parents. He explained that his mother worked in a clothing store and that his father worked at the local country club in the men’s locker room. ‘They’re never home during the day’ he told me. I remember hearing this and feeling a bit uneasy not knowing the neighborhood or Ken that well. It must have shown. He immediately began talking about what he was trying to do.

As best as I can recall, he said something to the effect that the Triumph had a stock positive earth electrical system and he was trying to connect a radio. Positive earth and negative earth connections had me at a loss. I knew about magnets. They had positive and negative poles and that opposites attract and like polarities repel.

I remember becoming interested in seeing the sporty little car repaired when Ken said that he might let me drive it. To help him make the polarity conversion, I read aloud the steps in the Triumph manual as he made the changes. The first step, as I recall, was to disconnect and remove the battery.

After the polarity conversion was completed, Ken invited me inside. We washed up and Ken offered me something to drink. He handed me a glass of lemonade and we sat in the kitchen. We talked for a while and then I went home. And that is how things went the next two times I came over to work on the car. We cleaned the carburetor, worked on the engine, and talked afterward.

I learned that Ken liked golf, Edgar Rice Burroughs books, and Edgar Cayce books. All three of his likes were not in my universe. I told him about cross country practice, summer band practice, and my job. I didn’t have any time to read that summer.

When I was invited over a fourth time, we worked on the brakes. After we finished, he invited me in again for a drink. This time he offered me a Coke and some rum to put in it. I said no. Then he asked me if I wanted to play cards. I told him I didn’t know how to play cards. He said he’d show me. I thought that here was something else that I could learn, so I agreed.

Ken left the room and came back with a deck of cards. He began to tell me the different hands and their value and the rules of the five-card stud, his favorite game. He dealt the cards and I gathered them up, holding them fanned out in my hand just like in a TV western.

I quickly lost every hand I played but Ken convinced me to keep trying. After winning one hand he asked me if I wanted to bet on the next hand. I told him I don’t bet. He said it would only be for candy. So, I continued to play. When my pile of M&Ms disappeared, I said I had to get home for supper. I got on my bike and headed back across town toward home.

I should remind you that while I was meeting with Ken on free afternoons, I was still doing all the things I mentioned before.

Ken called again the following week. I came over and we worked on replacing the radiator. When that was done, we cleaned up and sat down for a couple Cokes. Again, Ken wanted to play cards. And again, we played several hands. After I won a few hands, Ken wanted to know if I wanted to play for stakes. I told him that I just like playing.

But Ken persisted, asking me if I wanted to “up the ante.” I told him no. After several more hands he asked me again and I said “what are you talking about.” He said that if I were to lose the next hand that I would have to do whatever he wanted and that if he was to lose that he would do whatever I wanted. The “stakes” as he called them sounded weird to me. But at the same time, I knew that I always had the power to say no, so I played along thinking that friends don’t mess with friends. What could he ask me to do? Buy him a Coke or an ice cream the next time the teens group went out?

I lost the next hand. He then told me that he wanted me to clean the house – sweep, vacuum, everything. I looked at him like he was crazy. He then said that I had agreed to the stakes and had lost and must do what he wanted. I told Ken that I wouldn’t clean his house.

He came back and said that I had to because I gave my word and because I am a Christian. He then left the room and came back to the kitchen with a small men’s Speedo swimsuit. He told me that he wanted me to wear the Speedo while I cleaned the house. I had no idea that Ken would impose that on me. I remember a feeling of revulsion and saying “No way!”

I would not do what he wanted. I’d pay the bet some other way. Rattled, I got up and headed for the door. I promised to come back another day and help him with the TR3. That was the best I could offer. I got on my bike and sped off toward home.

Some weeks passed. At the start of August, twenty days before school started, I got a phone call from Ken. He wanted me to come over. He said the Triumph was ready to roll. I agreed to come over, thinking that this would be a harmless way to honor my bet and be done with the whole business. And maybe I’d have the chance to drive the car, as he had said.

I headed over to his house and found the Triumph parked on the street. Ken walked out of the garage and asked me if I was ready for a ride. We got in the sports car and Ken started the engine. He shifted into first and then turned on the newly installed radio. He drove the TR3 out of the neighborhood and headed for the nearby highway. The convertible sports car responded quickly, moving effortlessly through five gears. But since I hadn’t learned to drive stick shift, he wouldn’t let me drive the car.

We returned to his house an hour later. Ken parked the car in the garage and we went in for a Coke. He asked about playing cards again. I said I wouldn’t. Then he said that he had a roulette game in his room. Ken wanted to show me. I went with him to his bedroom thinking that I would see this thing he was so interested in and then head home.

When we got to his bedroom, Ken uncovered the roulette game from a box that was stored under a bunk bed. He spun its center wheel, showing me how it worked. He handed it to me and I sat down on his bed to hold the wheel on my lap. I spun the wheel to see where the ball would land. As I did, Ken sat down next to me. I quickly moved over to make room for him. Ken then moved closer, put his arms around me, and started wrestling me down to the bed.

At this point in the story, a reader might view me as naïve or even stupid for hanging around Ken after the Speedo incident. I was both and wound up tight. In church, Ken acted one way and with me he acted so weird. I do remember feeling mortified at being attached to what happened and for not picking up what Ken was doing.

I never told my parents about Ken. I had thought that I was on my own and what would they understand anyway. And I remembered the sting of humiliation I felt once before.

My mother had asked me to do something – maybe wash the supper dishes. I said that I wouldn’t. I was being defiant. She got my father involved. He had me go into my bedroom and pull my pants and underpants down in front of my mother. Then he smacked me hard with a wooden stick.

No twelve-year old boy wants to pull down their pants. Not in the Junior High locker room. Not ever in front of their mother. I deserved the punishment but not the process. But I digress.

I would remind the reader that I was fourteen years old that summer and about to enter high school. And it was the sixties. There was no internet, no social media. I had to figure things out myself with the information that came from an eighth-grade sex education class and a birds-and-bees sit-down with my parents.

The Sex-Ed talk, the graphic charts, the film strips and the short movies made the class squirm and giggle. I squirmed again when my parents took me aside to talk about sex.

They showed me a series of prenatal pictures from the 1965 April issue of Life magazine. On the cover was a photograph called Foetus 18 Weeks and the words “Drama of Life Before Birth.”

My father talked about how a woman becomes pregnant. He talked about waiting until marriage to have sex. He told me about nocturnal emissions. He said that I should masturbate if I can’t contain myself. He told me how. And then he ended our talk saying that I should never ever let a man put his penis in my mouth. I had never had such a thought and it wasn’t mentioned in the sex ed classes. This sounded like Drama of Life After Birth and something bizarre.

Things were changing rapidly in my life and in the world. Like any teenager, I wanted to fit in and be accepted. I thought the acceptance of an older friend would be a good thing. I believed in friendship. Hanging around with Bill, my best friend, I learned to value friendship as the most important and most freeing of relationships. And I still do today. I can’t tell you why being free is so important to me. I can tell you that friendship is not suffocating.

Trying to be a friend to Ken kept me coming back one more time. But as I found out, he wanted to be a predator and not a friend. I should return to what happened that afternoon.

Ken, taller than me, leveraged himself on top of me on the bed. He used his feet against the footboard of the bed and his tall frame as a lever to pin me face down. I kept thrashing about, trying to push myself out. I was telling him to stop. He grabbed one of my legs and pulled it up onto the bed. I tried to roll out sideways but couldn’t. He kept forcing my shoulder back down. Then I saw him grab a rope from the wall side of the bed. He must have hidden the rope for a time like this.

Ken tried to loop my neck and hands to the bunk bed post. I fought to keep the rope off of my neck. Then, with his full weight on top of me, I felt Ken’s pelvis thrusting back and forth on my backside. In that moment, with Ken rubbing himself on me and me thinking that my life might end, I felt a huge surge of adrenaline.

I pushed myself straight up from the bed with all of my strength. Still face down, I put one leg on the floor and then the other. I had to forcefully wrench my head out the headlock he put on me. When I finally pulled myself free from the rope and his grip, I ran out of the room, headed straight for my bike, and fled. That summer.

How do these things I’ve told you not mess with someone’s head? If I told you that this story is true and you know me, then you know it is true.

~~~~~

“I’ve learned a lot in these last four years. Most importantly, I’ve learned that I’m not alone. One in six men have an abusive sexual experience before they turn 18. Secrecy, shame and fear are the tools of abuse, and it is only by breaking the stigma of childhood sexual abuse that we can heal, change attitudes, and create safer environments for our children.”

–Anthony Edwards Writes about Sexual Molestation at Hand of Gary GoddardAnthony Edwards Writes About Sexual Molestation At Hand Of Gary Goddard (deadline.com)

Filed under sexual abuse Tagged with art, grooming, mental health, PTSD, sexual abuse, Sexual Molestation, technology, therapy

What Say You?

September 10, 2023 9 Comments

“Regrettable errors” is a deplorable defense in the mishandling of sexual abuse in a church. But that was the response of a Bishop who failed to act quickly on allegations against a lay minister.

As reported by Kathryn Post on Sept. 30, 2022, “A long-awaited third-party report on sexual abuse reveals that leaders in an Anglican Church in North America diocese failed to act on tips about sexual misconduct and abuse and defended an alleged abuser as innocent while questioning reported survivors’ credibility.”

As you’ll learn, Bishop Stewart Ruch of the Upper Midwest Diocese had made a “secret appeal “to ACNA’s seven-member Provincial Tribunal to call off the investigation. This deliberate act began a power struggle with Foley Beach, primate and archbishop of the Anglican Church in North America.

The following reports by Kathryn Post and the abuse survivor’s accounts that include grooming are disturbing to read and more so for me. I knew the leaders – the “shepherds” – involved in the “regrettable errors”.

I attended the Church of the Resurrection for many years. Stewart Ruch became pastor of “Rez” while the church gathered in the auditorium of Glenbard West High School before moving to Wheaton. I lived around the corner from Stewart and Kathryn. I was in small group with Eirik Olsen and Randy York, now priests in Bishop’s Ruch’s close-knit diocese. My thoughts follow the reports.

How would you assess the handling of the sexual abuse situation, the attempted cover up, and the ensuing power struggle from the following reports? Is Bishop Ruch’s paltry mea culpa and a claim of spiritual attack a CYA defense designed to protect himself from discredit and from being discharged from a coveted position? What Say You?

~~~~

Kathryn Post of Religion News Service in her April 29, 2022report ACNA Bishop, Alleging ‘Spiritual Attack,’ Makes Appeal for His Return:

“(RNS) — In July 2021 Stewart Ruch III, bishop of the Anglican Church in North America’s Upper Midwest Diocese, went on leave after making what he called “regrettable errors” in handling cases of abuse in the diocese.

By that time, many who attended the roughly 30 churches in Ruch’s diocese knew that the missteps Ruch was referring to had to do with his delay in informing them of the accusations against Mark Rivera, a volunteer leader at Christ Our Light Anglican, an Upper Midwest Diocese church in Big Rock, Illinois.”

~~~~

What had happened was this, according to Bishop Stewart’s Letter Regarding Devastating Situation in Diocese of May 4, 2021.

“Two years ago, on May 20, 2019, Mark Rivera, a volunteer lay leader (with the title of Catechist) at Christ Our Light in Big Rock, Illinois, was accused of a sexual offense against a minor. Christ Our Light was part of the Greenhouse Missionary Society, which is within our diocese. When Greenhouse leadership learned of this accusation, Mark was immediately removed from his position as Catechist. On June 10, 2019, Mark was arrested and jailed in Kane County.”

~~~~

Fast forward. A March 6, 2023 article by Kathryn Post in Religious News Service:

“(RNS) — Mark Rivera, a former lay pastor in a conservative Anglican denomination who was convicted in December of felony child sexual abuse and assault, was sentenced on Monday afternoon (March 6) to 15 years in the department of corrections.

Judge John Barsanti of Illinois’ 16th Judicial Circuit Court in Kane County granted Rivera the minimum sentences for his crimes. The judge earlier found Rivera guilty of two counts of predatory sexual assault of a victim under 13 years old (a Class X felony) and three counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse of a victim under 13 (a Class 2 felony). Rivera will get credit for time already served in jail and spent under electronic monitoring and will be eligible for parole before completing his full sentence.”

~~~~

July 19, 2021, an article by Kathryn Post on Ministry Watch website:

The mother says leaders in the Anglican Church in North America pressured her not to report her daughter’s abuse allegations

“In May 2019, Cherin’s 9-year-old daughter told her that she had been abused by [Mark] Rivera. She reported the alleged abuse to [Rev. Rand] York, believing that her great uncle and the others in church leadership would protect her daughter.

According to Cherin, who asked that her last name not be used in order to protect her daughter’s identity, church leaders not only failed to report the allegations to the police or to the Department of Children and Family Services, but some also pressured her not to go to the police.

Despite this pressure, Cherin reported the alleged abuse to the police. In June 2019 Rivera was arrested and later charged with felony child sexual assault and abuse. He is currently out on bond.

In November 2020, Rivera’s neighbor, Joanna Rudenborg, reported to the Kane County Sheriff’s office that Rivera had raped her twice between 2018 and 2020. The Kane County Sheriff’s office would not comment beyond saying there is an ongoing investigation. Rivera’s lawyer did not respond for comment. (Emphasis mine.)

Also reported here:

In ACNA Abuse Case, Mother of Alleged Victim Says Church Urged Silence (julieroys.com)

~~~~

July 28, 2021, an article by Kathryn Post on Ministry Watch website:

Ten people in all have come forward with allegations of sexual abuse against a volunteer leader in the Anglican Church in North America.

“Church leaders and members in the Diocese of the Upper Midwest, of the Anglican Church in North America, trusted Rivera’s spiritual authority. According to reports from former Christ Our Light Anglican Church parishioners, they dismissed his frequent physical affection — his habit of kissing young girls on the cheek or inviting teenagers to sit on his lap — as “just Mark being Mark.””

After 9-year-old child told her mother that Rivera had abused her, “nine additional people have made allegations of abuse by Rivera, including child sexual abuse, grooming, rape, and assault, and Rivera has been charged with felony child sexual assault and abuse of the 9-year-old. To date, the diocese has publicly acknowledged only some of the allegations, and according to abuse prevention advocates, has downplayed the access he had to children and others while in church leadership.”(Emphasis mine.)

~~~~

April 29, 2022, article by Kathryn Post for Religious News Service:

““Both my diocese and the ACNA got hit this summer by a vicious spiritual attack of the enemy,” Ruch wrote to the denomination’s top official, Archbishop Foley Beach, on Jan. 14. “I believe this is the case because both entities are doing robust Gospel work, and Satan hates us.”

The ongoing investigative process, he further said, was neither “canonical or, more importantly, biblical.”

Despite an advising chancellor and others expressing solidarity with Ruch through some ecclesiastical mumbo-jumbo, “others say that Ruch and other leaders have made the situation worse by defending the church instead of attending to Rivera’s alleged victims.” (Emphasis mine.)

~~~~

“A long-awaited third-party report on sexual abuse reveals that leaders in an Anglican Church in North America diocese failed to act on tips about sexual misconduct and abuse and defended an alleged abuser as innocent while questioning reported survivors’ credibility.

The probe into events in the Upper Midwest Diocese, conducted by the investigative firm Husch Blackwell, also found that an ACNA priest did not report abuse by a lay pastor to the Department of Child and Family Services, claiming a church lawyer told him he was exempt from mandatory reporting laws. It also found that Bishop Stewart Ruch III and others allowed a church volunteer to have contact with teenagers after he had lost his teaching job for inappropriate behavior with students.” (Emphasis mine.)

Also reported here:

Third-Party Report Details ACNA Leaders’ Inaction on Sexual Abuse Allegations – MinistryWatch

~~~~

A November 17, 2022 article by Kathryn Post for Religious News Service:

Returning from self-imposed hiatus, ACNA Bishop Stewart Ruch works to regain trust

“After 16 months of a self-imposed hiatus after admitting to mishandling sexual abuse allegations in his diocese in Wheaton, Illinois, Bishop Stewart Ruch — a charismatic, controversial figure in the Anglican Church in North America — is taking steps to revive trust in his leadership. But a meeting last week held to soothe concerns of members of Church of the Resurrection showed he has work to do to restore trust.”

At a staged meeting where “Ruch and other leaders at Resurrection sat in armchairs in front of a packed church, according to church members who attended . . . Ruch read several statements, answered questions chosen from those submitted by congregants and read by church leaders. Ruch answered by reading from a script.”

“It gave me hope that the church realized that they needed to make some institutional programmatic changes or implementation and policies that would make it clear to everybody what their roles were when and if these kinds of crises hit,” one Resurrection member told RNS.

“But Ruch and other church leaders also appeared to want to manage the narrative about the bishop’s handling of the case and his return. Attendees were asked not to record the meeting, and clergy, accompanied by two police officers, were stationed at the sanctuary entrance. Audrey Luhmann, who stopped attending Resurrection in person over her concerns about church culture and who has been an outspoken member of ACNAtoo, an anti-abuse advocacy group, was barred from entering the meeting. ACNAtoo also reported that another clergy staffer tried to compel an alleged abuse victim’s mother to leave the meeting.” (Emphasis mine.)

A September 30, 2022 article by Kathryn Post on the Roys Report:

~~~~

From a June 9, 2023 article by Kathryn Post on Church Leaders website:

“Archbishop Foley Beach, the primate of the Anglican Church in North America, accused his denomination’s highest court of attempting to stop an investigation into an Illinois bishop’s alleged misconduct.

“According to a statement Beach issued Wednesday (June 7), Bishop Stewart Ruch of the Upper Midwest Diocese made a “secret appeal” earlier this year to ACNA’s seven-member Provincial Tribunal to call off the investigation. After the tribunal issued a stay order, Beach and other denominational leaders questioned the impartiality of four tribunal members. He also asserted that the denomination’s bylaws don’t give the tribunal authority to issue a stay order.

“This power struggle, which had been conducted behind closed doors for months, broke into the open Wednesday with Beach’s Sept. 7, 2022 “Update on the Diocese of the Upper Midwest.””

~~~~

August 15, 2023, an article by Kathryn Post on BishopAccountability.Org:

A 10-person board of inquiry found there was probable cause to present Ruch for trial for violating denominational bylaws.

“Bishop Stewart Ruch, a controversial figure in the Anglican Church in North America, will be brought to a church court trial, according to an announcement published to the denomination’s website on Tuesday afternoon

On July 10, a 10-person board of inquiry selected by the denomination’s leader, Archbishop Foley Beach, received a presentment (or list of charges) against Ruch. The board submitted a public declaration on Friday that said at least two-thirds of the board found there was probable cause to present Ruch for trial. Specifically, per the denomination’s bylaws, they found grounds to try Ruch for violation of his ordination vows, for “conduct giving just cause for scandal or offense, including the abuse of ecclesiastical power” and for “disobedience, or willful contravention” of the denominational or diocesan bylaws.” (Emphasis mine.)

An Update Regarding Allegations Against Bishop Ruch – The Anglican Church in North America

Public Declaration from Board of Inquiry – The Anglican Church in North America

I will update this post as more information becomes available.

~~~~

There’s more to the story . . . ACNAtoo

Per Wikipedia: “ACNAtoo formed in June 2021 when Joanna Rudenborg took to Twitter and alleged that she had been raped twice by ACNA catechist Mark Rivera and decried the subsequent mishandling of multiple survivors’ allegations by leadership in the Diocese of the Upper Midwest.”

Survivor stories and statements – firsthand accounts written by survivors of abuse in ACNA contexts:

Abuse survivor and advocate Joanna Laurel shares her story of sexual abuse and subsequent mishandling by the Upper Midwest Diocese of the ACN

Part 1: Joanna’s Story — ACNAtoo

Rand York — Survivor Stories | Upper Midwest — ACNAtoo

“Ursa” alleges that Christopher Lapeyre abused his power as a teacher and mentor to groom her while she was a minor and enter a manipulative sexual relationship with her when she was a very young adult.

Ursa’s Story — ACNAtoo

Chris Lapeyre — Survivor Stories | Upper Midwest — ACNAtoo

Report abuse:

To local family services

To police, who will direct you to help

Julie Roys | Reporting the Truth. Restoring the Church.

~~~~

My Thoughts

As mentioned above, I had personal connections with Stewart and Kathryn Ruch, Eirik Olsen, and Randy York while attending Church of the Resurrection during its GWHS days. I was in a small group with Eirik and Randy and their wives. Wheaton College grads, Stewart and Eirik and Randy and their wives, Jeannie and Kaye respectively, are especially close.

I’ll start by saying that I knew each of them to be decent people who expressed love for the Lord.

The following two statements, which I find reliable, are based on Stewart Ruch – Wikipedia:

-It is said that after a spiritual crisis, Ruch returned fully to the Christian faith in September 1991.

-Stewart had been the rector of the Church of the Resurrection since 1999 and later consecrated as the first bishop of the Diocese of the Upper Midwest on 28 September 2013.

I knew Stewart to be a high-spirited guy whose heart, as he said from the platform, was for evangelism. He came across to me as someone who could spur excited devotion but also as someone all over the place. So, I was surprised that a young inexperienced guy who was known to have panic attacks was made rector of “Rez” and doubly surprised when he was made a bishop.

Though a decent guy who loves the Lord, Stewart was in no wise of the caliber needed for those positions. Stewart, in my estimation, was not a spiritually mature candidate for either position. His becoming pastor was one of the main reasons I left “Rez”. Another was that there was a “Leanne Payne” contingent that concertedly wanted Stewart in those positions. (More about my Leanne Payne experience in a future post.)

As revelations of the mishandling of sexual abuse under Ruch’s oversight became known to me, I was confirmed in my assessment of Stewart.

Eirik Olsen and Randy York are working priests and leaders in Ruch’s diocese. I know them as very capable in the business world. They both operate in a corporate milieu that does not tolerate sexual misconduct. HR depts rush in to handle allegations. So, I was surprised to find that they were slow to act in these matters.

I understand the scriptural criteria for accusations in a church setting. I also understand that sexual abuse and the grooming that precedes it happen in private. Allegations of abuse turn into “he said she said” scenarios. Two or three witnesses are not around to corroborate allegations. In matters of alleged abuse, a wait-and-see-what happens attitude, as reported above, leads to more abuse.

If there is any question, you separate out the alleged perpetrator immediately and provide counseling for the alleged victim. You don’t make excuses for the alleged perpetrator. Blind allowance is not an act of grace. You work to uncover, not coverup, what is taking place. In general, when someone is reluctant to press an issue, are they compromised by similar issues?

Do the proper work of a shepherd as you look after God’s flock which has been entrusted to you.

From the accounts presented above – remember Mark Rivera was found guilty of sexual abuse and sentenced to 15 years – one does not let more chips fall where they may before acting. Act to sort out what is true from the posturing obfuscations.

And one does not hide behind a subjective defense of “spiritual attack” to fend off accountability. If Bishop Stewart can sense a “spiritual attack on himself and the church, why didn’t he (and Leanne Payne-discipled others) sense it around Mark Rivera and the abused in Big Rock?

Incompetence by all three men is my finding. And a lack of spiritual discernment on the part of all three men and the church that put them in those positions. Stewart must be removed from his position.

Putting well-liked good-natured people into positions of oversight is deceptively easy. If you want to test someone’s maturity before placing them upwards, place them under the direct oversight of someone spiritually mature and give them a responsibility for several years. If you don’t know what spiritual maturity is then learn, not from books, but from obedience to Christ in all things.

Do the proper work of a shepherd as you look after God’s flock which has been entrusted to you, not under compulsion, but gladly, as in God’s presence; not for shameful profit, but eagerly. 1 Peter 5: 2

If one member of the body suffers, all members suffer with it. 1 Cor. 12: 26

What Say You?

~~~~~

Added 5-22-2024:

“On Monday, a group of ACNA clergy published an open letter expressing concern that there have not been public updates about a promised church trial for Ruch since November 2023. The letter pushes for regular updates on the trial’s progress and for information about why Ruch has not been inhibited, or limited in his duties, because of his alleged laxity in the past.”

Open Letter to ACNA Clergy – Google Docs

Also on that day …

An ACNA bishop, Todd Atkinson, tapped to assist during Bp. Stewart Ruch’s (short term) absence, was removed from ordained ministry after a church trial found he had engaged in inappropriate relationships with women and interactions with minors.

Anglican Bishop Deposed for Inappropriate Relationships Amid Calls for Transparency (julieroys.com)Atkinson Deposed From Ministry – The Anglican Church in North America

Added on 6-6-2025:

Updates on the Ecclesiastical Trial of Bishop Stewart Ruch III

Filed under Anglicaism, Christianity, sexual abuse, The Church Tagged with ACNAtoo, Anglican Church of North America, Bishop Stewart Ruch, Church of the Resurrection Wheaton, Foley Beach, sexual abuse

Positive Earth, Negative Earth

November 12, 2017 Leave a comment

–Anthony Edwards Writes about Sexual Molestation at Hand of Gary Goddard

~~~

A true account by Denny Moody

What do I recall of the summer of ’67? Well, I’ll feel safer if you came back into that memory with me. I share the details so that others will see what’s coming.

By the summer of 1967, at age 14, I felt that I had shaken off the junior high school gawkiness and was ready to take on the world of girls. The world of “them” had been in my social gaze while I was trying so hard to be like and bond with junior high male classmates.

That summer was the first time I acknowledged my human existence – myself as apart from others and responsible. That frame of reference also brought a new-found loneliness. It didn’t help socially that hormones and organic circumstances made my incoming high school freshman’s face breakout. And though my skin would eventually settle down, life in that the skin would never be the same after the summer of 1967.

It was June, 1967, when I first met Ken. He pulled into the parking lot of the Bible Church driving his ‘63 convertible T-bird, the AM radio blasting. Getting out of his car, his lanky body navigated over toward us guys and then over to right in front of me.

“Hi, I’m Ken.”

“Hi.” I responded looking at my best friend Bill. “I’m Denny.”

“Do you think that we’ll get everyone together and get over to the park? He asked.

“I think the girls are figuring out who they are going to ride with.” I responded looking at the ground.

‘Yeah, I think your right.’ “Are you just starting high school?

“Yeah, I’m a freshman.” I started kicking loose gravel.

“I’m a senior this year. I transferred from York High School because they finished building the high school here in town.”

“I’m in summer band and I’m on the cross-country team,” I answered, trying to leverage my freshman standing.

“You can ride with me to the park.”

“OK.” was my answer, with an instant pride at being selected by a senior to ride in a rag-top. I asked my best friend Bill to ride with us. With the T-Bird filled with just the guys and with me in blue jeans and a white tee shirt, I was on top of the world, or at least a James Dean world. The girls in our group just had to notice – a freshman riding around with a senior. Yet, years later I finally realized that the girls perceived something about Ken that I was too childlike to notice. They avoided him. When they later saw that I hung around Ken that summer they must have thought the same about me as they did about Ken. This explains a lot and way too late.

That summer there were many such church teen outings. I joined them all in hopes of making new friends before entering high school. It was after several of the group outings that Ken started calling me and asking me to come over to his house. He said that he had a Triumph TR3 that he was rebuilding and that he needed some help. I told him I didn’t know anything about cars except something about oil changes but he begged for me to come over. I finally accepted his invitation on one hot, boring summer day. I was eager for friends and to learn about cars. I figured that I would be driving soon enough.

I rode my bike across town to Ken‘s house. I pulled up to his parent’s house and found the garage door open with Ken standing inside. His hands were black, holding an oily car part in his hand. The TR3 was parked in the garage with the hood up. I said “Hi” and then asked about his parents. He explained that his mother was at work and that his father worked the men’s locker room at a country club. He told me, “They are never home during the day”. I felt a little unsettled not knowing the neighborhood or Ken that well. It must have showed. Ken immediately began talking about the TR3 and what he was trying to do.

Looking at the Triumph, Ken explained: “The Triumph has a positive earth electrical system and I’m trying to connect this radio I just bought. There are only three items on a stock positive earth TR3 electrical system that care what the polarity of the system is: the ammeter, the coil and the generator.” I just nodded my head and looked informed. The most I knew about what he was saying was that there were positive and negative forces in the world. Opposites attract and like polarities repel.

I went on to handle a few car parts trying to look into the whole matter. My hands soon became like his, greasy, with fingernails covered with the black muck of spent oil. I remember being extremely interested in seeing the sporty little car repaired, especially if Ken would let me drive the car. At fourteen, I was eager to drive fast sporty cars. At that time, I believed a new friendship was forming and one focused on cars.

After we completed the polarity conversion for the radio Ken invited me inside the house. There, we washed up. He then offered me something to drink. He handed me a glass of lemonade and we sat down in his kitchen, talking for a while. After about half-an-hour, Ken asked me if I wanted to play cards. I told him I didn’t know how to play cards. He said “I can show you.” I thought that here was something else that I could learn from another guy. So, I agreed.

Ken left the room and came back shortly with a deck of cards. He began to shuffle the deck in ways I had seen on the TV show Gunsmoke. He began to tell me about the different hands and their value and the rules of five-card stud, his favorite game. He dealt the cards and I gathered them up, holding them, fanned out in my hand, just the way I saw Maverick hold them in the TV western.

I quickly lost every hand I played but Ken he convinced me to keep trying. After seven games and only one win, Ken asked me if I wanted to bet on the next hand. I said “I don’t bet.” He came back, “It will only be for candy.” He threw a handful of M&Ms on the table. I hesitated and then said, “Why not.” I continued to lose the rounds and my pile of M&Ms disappeared. I said I had to get home for dinner. I grabbed my bike and headed back across town toward home. It felt good knowing that I had a new friend and that I had learned ‘guy’ stuff in the process.

The rest of June I hung out with the teens from our church. I sought ways to be with the girls as much as possible. Then in July Ken began calling my family’s house often. He was inviting me to come over to his house. I finally went over to see him.

We again worked on his TR3, this time cleaning the carburetor. He asked about my family. While cleaning out the butterfly valve with some solvent, I told him about my family.

When Ken and I finished the carburetor repair we cleaned our hands and then grabbed a couple of Cokes from his parent’s icebox. I soon noticed a deck of cards on the kitchen table. With our cold drinks we sat down and played several hands. After winning a few rounds, Ken wanted to know if I “wanted to play for stakes?” “I don’t know. I just like playing,” I responded.

Ken then pestered me to “up the ante” and I kept saying “No”. After several more hands he asked me again and I said “what are you talking about.” He said that if I were to lose the next hand that I would have to do whatever he wanted and that if he was to lose that he would do whatever I wanted. It felt weird to me but at the same time I knew that I always had the power of “No”, so I said “OK”. I desired his friendship and socially, I thought it would help to have a senior as a friend in high school. And, he would probably ask me to do something like polish the TR3.

I lost the next hand. He then told me what he wanted me to do: “I want you to clean the house. Sweep, vacuum, everything.”

I looked at him incredulously. “What?’

“You lost. You said you would play and now you lost. You must do what I want.”

I resisted, looking everywhere for a way out of the bet. “I’m not going to clean your house.”

“You have to,” he insisted. “You gave your word. You’re a Christian, aren’t you?” He left the room and came back to the kitchen with a tiny men’s Speedo swimsuit. “I want you to wear this while you’re cleaning.”

My face flushed lobster red. I said, “No way!” I immediately began trying to lower the debt to just cleaning the house. I felt like running. I also felt that I needed to somehow save face, to be a Christian and honor my word. I had no idea of the consequences this bet imposed on me. Rattled, I got up from the kitchen chair I promised to come back another day and help him with the TR3 and maybe even play cards again, “Without betting,” I added while heading for the garage. I got on my bike and sped off towards home.

That July I was invited to play trumpet in the concert band after an audition. Soon I began to generate friendships in the band and with the cross-country team during their summer training runs. Along with the church teens group I was developing many positive relationships.

At the start of August, twenty days before school started, I got a phone call from Ken. He wanted me to “come over”. “The TR3 is ready to roll. I’ll take you for a ride.”

Thinking that this would be a harmless way to honor my unpaid “bet”, I said,” OK”. I headed over to his house and found the Triumph parked on the street. Ken walked out of the garage and asked me if I was ready and I nodded “yes”.

We got in the sports car and Ken started the engine. Ken drove the TR3 out of the neighborhood and headed for the nearby highway. About an hour later we returned to his house. Ken parked the car in the garage and we went in for a Coke. I knew at this point that I would not play cards. So, when he asked I said, “No.” He persisted in asking and I persisted in resisting. Then he said that he had a roulette game in his bedroom. I had heard about roulette from a TV show but I knew nothing about the game. Ken persisted in his desire to show me. I went with him to his bedroom thinking that I would see this thing and then head home.

When we got to his bedroom, Ken uncovered the roulette game from a box that was stored under a bunk bed. He spun its center wheel, showing me how it worked. He handed it to me and I sat down on his bed to hold the wheel on my lap. I spun the wheel to see where the red, black and white balls would land. As I did, Ken sat down next to me. I quickly moved over to make room for him. Ken then moved closer. He then put his arms around me and started wrestling me down to the bed. I was shocked.

Taller than me, Ken leveraged himself on top of me, grappling every which way to confine me. I squirmed under him, thrashing my arms every which way, trying to push myself out. I was yelling “Stop it!” over and over.

Ken began to use his feet against the footboard of the bed and his tall frame as a lever to hold me down against the bed. He then grabbed one of my legs and pulled it up onto the bed. As I lay face down across the bed, I struggled in vain to get out from under him. I had wrestled many kids when I was younger so I reacted to his “take over” by trying to roll out sideways from his body. When I started to do this Ken grabbed a rope from the wall side of his bed. He must have hidden the rope for a time like this.

While on top of me, Ken tried to loop my neck and hands to the headboard. I continued to struggle, turning sideways, but with no luck. Then, I felt his pelvis thrusting into my backside. I immediately pushed myself up from the bed with all of my strength and put a shaky leg on the floor and then another. I wrenched my head out the headlock he put on me. When I finally pulled myself free I ran out of his room. I headed straight for my bike and took off for home. The summoned surge of adrenaline enabled my feet to pump the pedals faster than ever.

That night, I ate dinner silently. I have never mentioned what had happened that summer of ‘67, not to my parents or to anyone until now. I felt shamed and wounded. I felt dirty, dirtier than when I worked on his car. I felt used. I felt used as a car part, as a means to an end.

At fourteen years of age I had some understanding that someone would take advantage of me and my desire for friendship. Some of my Junior High pals, my fickle friends, would offer me sex with a girl to lure me into their clique. I said “No” to their offers. I came to expect their attempts to sway me in their direction. What I wasn’t expecting was that some guy, using the ruse of friendship, would want me to join his private clique by raping me.

I have always wanted to have close friends–male or female. In fact, friendship means more to me than marriage does. With Ken, friendship meant forced and unnatural things, things born out of his brokenness.

From that summer on, throughout high school and into college, I always made a point of never being alone with Ken and others like him (I gained a “sense” of things.). My ‘67 summer was forever flawed. Would I be? Would a new friendship become a vehicle for an attempt at violating my boundaries? More would try but I would distance myself from them. Thankfully, there have been trustworthy and correctly-connected friends in my life. Friends like Bill. Friends like Steven (now with the Lord).

The above account is true. Denny Moody is a pseudonym.

~~~

Years later I would learn that Ken would go on to become an attorney and then a mayor of a small village outside of Chicago. Ken had always boasted to me of his being a lifelong Democrat. He said this deliberately, knowing that my family and I were Conservative Republicans. No matter, in any election, he would never get my vote of confidence.

Filed under Homosexuality, sexual abuse Tagged with Homosexuality, LGBT, sexual abuse

THIS SIDE OF PARADISE

“We have entered, as I see it, a spiritual limbo. Our educational institutions are no longer the bearers of high culture, and public life has been deliberately moronised. But here and there, sheltered from the noise and glare of the media, the old spiritual forces are at work” Roger Scruton

*****

“When a common culture declines, the ethical life can be sustained and renewed only by a work of the imagination.”-Roger Scruton
*****
“Jesus prayed, “This is eternal life, that they may know You . . .” (John 17:3). The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything it has to face without wavering. If we will take this view, life will become one great romance— a glorious opportunity of seeing wonderful things all the time. God is disciplining us to get us into this central place of power.” Oswald Chambers
*****
“No power on earth or in hell can conquer the Spirit of God in a human spirit, it is an inner unconquerableness.” Oswald Chambers
*****
To those who have had no agony Jesus says, “I have nothing for you; stand on your own feet, square your own shoulders. I have come for the man who knows he has a bigger handful than he can cope with, who knows there are forces he cannot touch; I will do everything for him if he will let Me. Only let a man grant he needs it, and I will do it for him.” The Shadow of an Agony,Oswald Chambers
*****
“If we wish to erect new structures, we must have a definite knowledge of the old foundations.” John Calvin Coolidge
*****
Atheism is a post-Christian phenomenon.
*****
If social justice looks like your hand in someone else’s pocket then you are stealing.
*****
“In Sweden, giving to charity, absurdly, came to be considered a lack of solidarity, since it undermined the need for the welfare state.” – Roland Martinsson
*****
“…to love democracy well, it is necessary to love it moderately.” Alexis de Tocqueville
*****
Capitalism seeks to help others through a servce or product it provides. Free Market Capitalism is the most moral and fair economic system available to man. Capitalism augments personal growth, responsibility and ownership. Charity flourishes under capitalism. Charity dies under subjective “fair share” government confiscatory policies. Socialism redistributes ambivalence and greed.
*****
“We are to regard existence as a raid or great adventure; it is to be judged, therefore, not by what calamities it encounters, but by what flag it follows and what high town it assaults. The most dangerous thing in the world is to be alive; one is always in danger of one’s life. But anyone who shrinks from that is a traitor to the great scheme and experiment of being.” G.K. Chesterton
*****
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.
It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction. Albert Einstein
*****
“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.” Flannery O’Connor
*****
“There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him.” C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
*****
“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).
*****
God’s grace is not about the allowance for sin. God’s grace is about the conversation God allows regarding sin.
*****
From the book of Proverbs: We are not to favor the rich or the poor. We are to pursue justice.
*****
“Always keep in contact with those books and those people that enlarge your horizon and make it possible for you to stretch yourself mentally.” Oswald Chambers
*****
One goldfish says to another, “If there is no God who keeps changing the water?”
*****
“The truth is always there in the morning.”
From Cat On A Hot Tin Roof script – playwright Tennessee Williams
*****
God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.
*****
“America’s greatness has been the greatness of a free people who shared certain moral commitments. Freedom without moral commitment is aimless and promptly self-destructive.” John W. Gardner
**
“Men of integrity, by their very existence, rekindle the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor. We need that belief; a cynical community is a corrupt community.” John W. Gardner
*****
“In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair, the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.” Dorothy L. Sayers
*****
“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.”
G. K. Chesterton
*****
“The battle line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn
*****
This is what the LORD says:

“Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls.
But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’

-The prophet Jeremiah, 6:16
*****
“…our common task is not so much discovering a truth hiding among contrary viewpoints as it is coming to possess a selfhood that no longer evades and eludes the truth with which it is importunately confronted.” James McClendon, Ethics: Systematic Theology, Vol. 1
*****