Liberty Christian School Scandal.

Reading Writing and arrests seems to be the theme here at Liberty Christian School um I don't know if you've heard about this Scott but um they're having some abuse problems over there really again yeah well not again but that too I guess is a better way to say it yeah I know but like like aside from you know from from book learning you know there's been there's been four victims that have been found so this this started off initially with a single victim um that the police were investigating uh the local sheriff's office and then they discovered in their investigation three more victims ah so so we don't know how many more victims are going to be found in this right um but you know that's that's the situation of course you know anybody for whom that that's a trigger thing you know kill the episode now go on your Merry way we'll we'll talk to you next time around yeah like you had said uh like earlier you know like Liberty Christian School like what's with like the word liberty and just horrible horrible Christian Schools yeah like the most oppressive schools in the United States all have the names like Freedom High and Liberty Catholic you know it's like the most oppressive places to learn in the earth God like I don't get it ends in in like the worst thing about this is like there's so there's two people involved there is the school secretary slash homeschooling coordinator right um so and and that will become a a bit of a bad pun um in a bit but then also the principal of the school who is also a teacher at the school and the school's pastor so both of these um the this is the first victim um had accused both of them this happened in the principal's home so the victim was spending the night at the principal's home in which the principal lived with his wife and the secretary of the school what yeah right like we're we're like straight up in in freaking soap opera territory with this one and yeah I don't I'm not going to recount any of the of the Tales of Horror um if anybody wants go ahead and you know search you know uh you know Liberty Christian School abuse and you'll find you'll find what you need to find but like some of the the accusations of abuse there are like they're they're like great a gnarly like WTF things yeah um and unfortunately with all the other things that we've seen you know when it comes to abuse like it doesn't really feel like the people are just making this up especially when the investigators are the one another they found three more victims it wasn't like people just you know came forward and now they're looking for more people to come forward you know so like they have their information out there so you know if if you happen to have gone to Liberty you know like the Sheriff's Office wants you to contact them if you were a victim as well like that's what this situation is holy cow yeah like where there's smoke there's fire right and so if you scratch the surface and you find three more people that have been abused like the minute that like you really get out of Shuffle start digging like all sorts of stuff's gonna come out of the woodwork you know and it's not like we haven't covered issues of abuse I mean like just just those past couple of days um the southern baptist conference was like defending the cost of their abuse hotline yeah and you know so I guess it's like you know I don't know if this school has anything to do with the southern baptist conference or not but like it's like like there's a need for you know for these people to be able to you know be safe yeah Leah not not to uh not to linger on the southern baptist thing for too long but what kind of monster do you have to be to go a sexual abuse hotline is it worth the money like how horrible do you have to be to have that thought you know you got to be kind of just a nightmare of a human to have that thought especially after your denomination has been raked through the coals for a month or months over this Scandal and the report that came from it yeah but like there's all sorts like so coming back to this story again like even with just a little bit that you've described like red flags are just should be going up in everybody's mind everywhere and when I say everybody what I really mean to say is you know all the other teachers and all the other staff and all the other parents and all the other students here at Liberty Christian School Red Flag should have been going up in their minds like crazy like hey why does the principal and his wife have the secretary living with them and why are students coming over to their houses for sleepovers so like you're asking bad questions because you're asking questions that you know a person with an IQ above 10 should have asked right ahead of time I mean this may be a weird example but in the Marquis de sad wrote this wonderful little short story and it's called at least the translation that I have the fortunate ruse right and it's this this husband who thinks his wife is cheating on him and so he fake poisons himself and gets her to basically like to get her to admit that like she had done this but she like like on like on his supposed death bed right like she confesses that she she acted inappropriately but that nothing ever had happened and then he Springs up he's like oh thank goodness thank goodness I know the mark he decides not the kind of person we think and we think of like moral lessons right but it's a great story for like saying look even giving the appearance of you know bad behavior or like not giving like things like the appearance of being like at arm's length like that's that's a problem yeah the Bible says that leaders and a school leader at a Christian School really has very little distinction from a church leader in the minds of a student so our leaders are supposed to be above reproach is the way the Bible would say it you know these are supposed to be men and women who have been tested who have been through trials and have emerged to them words is hard yes having emerged from them having made the right decisions the hard decisions the decisions that are in the best interest in this case the decisions that are in the best interest of the students yeah you know and having a track record of having that maturity of thought and having that wisdom of experience to not fall into these pitfalls it's like really frustrating to week after week unearth these stories of incredible failures of judgment failures of character I guess yeah I mean it's it's a failure of just what I think everything in this like everything possible in this system like we've talked about this before right so it's like when we ask a question like how does this break the church yeah it's kind of obvious at this point at least I would hope that it's obvious um I mean it it I think first and foremost it's just disgraces Jesus right and right and when you're clearly doing things that are like uncool from Biblical teaching you know it's just going to make just makes the church look bad it makes all believers look like they're you know full of garbage and it just makes people not trust the church I don't know if there's anything you want to Heap onto that pile the list is endless right you cannot preach a message of redemption while you are stepping on people you cannot you cannot preach a message of healing when you are hurting people when we talk about hypocrisy it's not just that you say one thing and do the other it's that and doing the other things you are actually in reality and in significant ways making other people's lives worse and that is actually the opposite of what the message of Jesus is the message of Jesus is a redeeming message it makes people's lives better and like I think one of the worst parts of the story is that like the principle at one point um you know allegedly had said to uh the first victim that this was okay to for things for things to happen but then that she shouldn't tell anybody about it you know because you know people could get in trouble and it's like that right there just speaks to like the issues of somebody when when you have authority over somebody else real or perceived especially you know a teenager you know for you know con words is hard we're just compared to the the principle of the school the pastor of the school that that sentence like this is okay but don't tell anybody like that that girl should have just gotten up and flat out of there right but that's not what happens when somebody like you feel like you can't you know push back against somebody else's Authority right and if that's how you know people are executing their Authority in the office in the church like what does that say about the authority of God yeah absolutely I mean I don't like nothing nothing good there's no way around it especially for a young mind there is no way to unentangle the the parallels the young mind is going to draw between the authority figure they see standing in front of them and God right in a lot of ways they kind of become one in the same and even if you can make the jump to say this person is not God you you are always going to see elements of this person in that abstraction that you're trying to conceptualize you know yeah I mean because when you have I mean especially like if if this is in a certain vein of of Christianity like there is a strong obey your Leader's teaching within for sure numerous France is a Christianity we are kind of telling people it's like yeah like listen to your leaders but don't just like obey them obey them mindfully obey them intentionally

I think you know when we when we look at like you know what can we do to be fixing this problem yeah I mean I say we like you and me have any capacity to fix this but like we as a church um I mean there's so many things that can be done um but I mean like we we've said it before and we'll say it many many times you know accountability like there always needs to be that accountability but then like this story just kind of seems to throw in another thing like Common Sense folks like this girl's parents should never have let her spend the night at the School principal's house exactly I don't care who else is living there it just shouldn't have should not have happened but what would you do as a parent if like that came up with one of your kids oh I don't know that we can talk about such things on a family-friendly YouTube channel I I will just say that hopefully somebody's smarter and wiser and more compassionate compassionate than I am has the mindfulness to call the police before I get involved suffice to say you're not going to let your your child whichever you know whatever gender they are like spend the night at like and this wasn't like a sleepover thing with like the principal's daughter who they're friends with like right there was no mention of any friends yeah didn't want to like shame anybody for having made the wrong decision because we make crap decisions sometimes and and bad things can happen yeah but at the same time you know we have an obligation especially to protect our own children and to apply common sense right and to ask those Common Sense questions like you ask like what when like you have this the secretary of the school living with the principal and his wife I mean there may be an explanation for that but none of the Articles involved had that but it's just it's just like this should have been something people saw the potential for yeah I think the only thing I would want to add is covet has really brought to the surface a lot of fears we never even realized we had right like five years ago nobody would even know how to vocalize the idea of we don't have enough qualified teachers and administrators how do we keep the school open right that that was never even a concept we don't have enough qualified nurses how do we keep the hospital open we don't have enough qualified whatever how are we going to keep this thing going yeah look sometimes you don't like if you don't have the person who who does is not properly credentialed and doesn't have the character to lead a school of young girls young boys that maybe you close the door instead of letting letting the inmates run the Asylum because because you're not just the school you're a Christian School if you fail to be the light of the world in your little school then you haven't just failed your students you've failed the kingdom you know what I mean severely and so we need to do a better job of of knowing the ends doesn't justify the means we don't keep the train rolling at all costs like sometimes you put the train in the in the in the train house and you just let it sit there I think that works it's just heartbreaking it's hard to talk about these stories week after week especially these stories because they are so fundamentally heartbreaking we are everywhere to everybody's Chagrin right if you go to Twitter and say churches Lane you'll find us if you go to Facebook you'll find us but I have noticed an uptick in recent weeks of um of stories of predominantly um younger women who are telling their stories of um of abuse at the the hands of Christian leaders and it's so incredibly heartbreaking because Men of Integrity men of God their first instinct is to want to fix it and to want to make the bad people go away and to want to heal all the hurts of all these young girls and you can't right we're not in these people's lives and so all you can do is stew and pray and and hope that people who are wise people who are compassionate people who have good judgment and are willing to do the hard things do the hard flipping things we are churches lame Mark and I we love the church but we are absolutely convinced that churches and church leaders do crazy things that break the perception of the entire body um so if you have something you want to add if you have your own story we would love to hear it we would love to interview you on the show hear your story hear how the church has failed you and most importantly hear your perception of what the church needs to do better how the church could have been an agent of healing in your life if you have that story we would love to hear it so please shoot us an email at churcheslane podcast gmail.com and by all means for everybody feel free to leave a comment and click the Thumbs Up Button thumbs down button like And subscribe and all those clicky things and then yeah once again if you're listening to the podcast Church's lame podcast gmail.com and with that go in peace and serve the Lord if you got 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