Fundamentalist pastor accused of child molestation in Jacksonville

[Questioninggeller]

Bob Gray the founder of Trinity Baptist College and pastor at Trinity Baptist Church is accused of molesting over 20 children. According to the victims, "church leaders at Trinity Baptist Church knew about the allegations and tried to sweep everything under the rug."

The latest person to accuse Gray of molestation is a man.

Gray already has been charged with three counts of capital sexual battery. He is accused of molesting three girls decades ago. The victims are now adults in their 30s and 40s.

More than twenty women have come forward with molestation claims since First Coast News began working with JSO sex crimes investigators and the State Attorney's office months ago.


Source: http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/local/news-article.aspx?ref=rss&storyid=60563

Interestingly, there is nothing mentioned about this on the church's website (http://www.tbc.org). As for the college he started, that website is more interesting. On there current history page there is nothing about him (http://www.tbc.edu/cms/page.aspx?pageid=140), but if you use archive.org he is clearly the founder of the school (http://web.archive.org/web/20040509113451/http://www.tbc.edu/cms/page.aspx?pageid=140). It seems the church members are rewriting the history of this school.

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

As a general question; are there any other organizations (non-religeous) that have the same, or higher, levels of child abuse reports as Christian churches? For example, do the Boy Scouts or FFA or 4H or whatever have similar levels, but they just don't get the airtime; or are churches just statistically higher in rates of abuse?

[adler]

the Catholics are not the only religion as of late to have a problem with this issue, although they may be the most reported in the news, I am a former Jehovah's witness, I have been clean for 10 years now. and not had an urge to pray or go to meetings [church for non dubbers] since my mind cleared and I saw the forest through the trees.
The dubbers as us xdubs like to call them, have a policy that any thing that happens from one dubber to another dubber you can not take it to the "worldly courts" you have to take it to an elder in the congregation and if the other party does not confess, the elders can only take action if there are two or more witnesses. This is some good news for child molesters, since they usually don't work in front of a crowd.
And if you have a child and that child tells you that elder so and so or ministerial servant [deacon for the nondubb] touched their no-no place, and you then bring it to the elders, and so and so says the kid is lying, well tough crap. sit there and shut the hell up. and don't think of treating so and so with any thing but great respect because you as a dubber always have hanging over your head the threat of disfelowshipment, that is the practice of shunning you, and I mean if your whole family is in the religion, well then if they talk to you eat a meal with you, visit you, and are seen by [2] witness or you confess. then you are disfellowshipped.
And if you don't like them rules. and then go to the police, well you brought a bad light on the kingdumb hall and will be DF'ed as we X'ies call it.
So you see how child molesters have a perfect growing environment for their activities at the jw's religion.
I was a dubber for 30 years, and I tell you it takes a long time to deprogram yourself and learn Mom and Dad were not always right on everything they tought you.
The jehovah's are a destructive cult. more so than most any other religon excpt maybe the scientoligest, or Christian science.
I give my thanks to the people who left from the top and told the world and wrote book on how the cult lied and manipulated its people, for my freedom.
When you are told you can not get a higher education, got to school function, join the military,join in politics,or be part of most any thing or even have a birth day present or Christmas present, children in the dubdom are treated with harsh discipline. I have seen it over 30 years with my own eyes.

[Cleon]

I think every religion or branch thereof has had to face this issue. I know every once in a while a rabbi is raked over the coals for molestation. It's a power thing more than anything else, IMO.

The reason the Catholics have had such a tough time of it is not because a whole lot of priests were doing it (it was really only a few), but because the Church officialdom tried to cover it up and moved molesting priests from parish to parish. Less centralized religions, like Judaism, Protestantism--well, just about everything that isn't the Roman Catholic Church--wouldn't have that issue to such an extent.

[Darat]

Bob Gray the founder of Trinity Baptist College and pastor at Trinity Baptist Church is accused of molesting over 20 children. According to the victims, "church leaders at Trinity Baptist Church knew about the allegations and tried to sweep everything under the rug."

...snip...

Interestingly, there is nothing mentioned about this on the church's website (http://www.tbc.org). As for the college he started, that website is more interesting. On there current history page there is nothing about him (http://www.tbc.edu/cms/page.aspx?pageid=140), but if you use archive.org he is clearly the founder of the school (http://web.archive.org/web/20040509113451/http://www.tbc.edu/cms/page.aspx?pageid=140). It seems the church members are rewriting the history of this school.

Well so far he has only been accused of these terrible crimes so we have to wait a while to see if he is guilty of them. It's a shame that the Church does not seem to acknowledge that his has happened - whilst I wouldn't expect them at this stage to make a big deal of it on their website I do think they should at least acknowledge the publicly available news.

[David Swidler]

Is the phenomenon any more common among clergy than the general population? I understand that it's more sensational when it occurs among religious leaders, but are there reliable stats?

Edited for speeling.

[Ryokan]

As a general question; are there any other organizations (non-religeous) that have the same, or higher, levels of child abuse reports as Christian churches?

NAMBLA? :p

[Darat]

Is the phenomenon any more common among clergy than the general population? I understand that it's more sensational when it occurs among religious leaders, but are there reliable stats?

Edited for speeling.

I'm sure someone once posted some stats that showed it was no higher in then in the general population. (I've done a quick search but couldn't find anything.)

[slingblade]

As a general question; are there any other organizations (non-religeous) that have the same, or higher, levels of child abuse reports as Christian churches? For example, do the Boy Scouts or FFA or 4H or whatever have similar levels, but they just don't get the airtime; or are churches just statistically higher in rates of abuse?

Schools, possibly, as a whole. I'm just speculating, but I imagine you'd find just as high or higher an incidence in any kind of group that focuses on kids.

[grayman]

As a general question; are there any other organizations (non-religeous) that have the same, or higher, levels of child abuse reports as Christian churches? For example, do the Boy Scouts or FFA or 4H or whatever have similar levels, but they just don't get the airtime; or are churches just statistically higher in rates of abuse?

A I recall from the P&T BS show, the Boy Scouts are now run by the Mormons.

[blutoski]

Is the phenomenon any more common among clergy than the general population? I understand that it's more sensational when it occurs among religious leaders, but are there reliable stats?

Any stats you find on this topic will be 'hot', in the sense that any publication that shows a higher rate among the clergy will be contested by a flurry of counter-publications that the reader would have to wade through to be fair.

Richard Selik has published research showing that AIDS is more prevalent among Catholic priests and nuns than among the general population (remember: most Catholics are in the third world). He was a director of the Atlanta CDC&P at the time.

John Cornwell dedicates a chapter to abusing priests in his book Breaking Faith, with citations. He cites Sipe's work, which, in summary, indicates that 7% of Catholic priests have been involved in sexual abuse, 2% with minors. That compares high, but within the average, for the overall population (1-2%) (I got this general population estimate from Gene Abell's work on pedophile estimates for the general population)

I think the previous poster hit the nail on the head by focusing on the problem of cover-ups.

There's also the problem of disproportionate under-reporting, and subsequent lack of justice and healing: the victim of priestly pedophelia is not fighting the priest: he's fighting the church AND family members who adhere. Estimates are that for every reported molestation in the general public, 25 go unreported (1:25), but that victims of religious molesters underreport 1:60.

To generalize: when a teacher abuses a kid and tells her parents, the parents march down to the school with a baseball bat. When a priest abuses a kid, the parents send the kid to her room 'until she gets her head straight'.

[Foster Zygote]

The following is purely speculative on my part and I make no claims regarding its content. But I wonder if the sexual attitudes of Christianity in general and the Catholic Church in particular don't draw a certain percentage of sexual deviants, or at least self-perceived sexual deviants to the clergy? As for the self-perceived variety, imagine you are a young man with newly forming homosexual interests growing up within the Catholic Church. You are taught that the people who have those sorts of feelings are terribly sinful and you begin to form a certain self-loathing. In trying to atone for your "sinfulness" you are drawn to the clergy which, oddly perhaps, seems to have a sort of homo eroticism about it. Now of course, being homosexual has nothing to do with being a predatory child molester. These are two completely different things despite what homophobes would have us believe. But if one had pedophilia tendencies and had even an ounce of conscience one might begin to feel some measure of self loathing... Reading back over the whole thing makes me see it as a bit shaky but I'd be interested to read anyone else's thoughts.

And let me say that I do recognize that there are many good, caring people in the clergy and I don't mean to characterize them all as sexual deviants in one broad stroke in case anyone reading this post misunderstands my intent.

Steven