Jack Schaap, pastor of First Baptist Church in Hammond, IN, was one of the pastors shown in the 20/20 expose of IFB churches I talked about in my last post. He’s the one who said “It will be a cold day in hell before I get theology from a woman.”

This is a clip of his sermon the following Sunday.

This past Friday night, 20/20 aired an investigative report on the Independent Fundamental Baptist (IFB) Church, looking into allegations of child abuse (see it here).

I find myself conflicted as I write this post. On the one hand, I despise a lot of things about IFB churches. I was born and raised in this sort of community (though, for full disclosure, we did not attend church for 10 of my formative years). When I left that church, my senior year in college, I referred to it as a cult. I disagreed with 90% of the words that came out of the pastor’s mouth. I felt the church was neither loving nor compassionate. It was full of hatred, bigotry, and arrogance.

But on the other hand, I do still think back on those years somewhat fondly. It was the first time I ever felt the spirit of community. The general population among the congregation is good hearted and trying to please God in the ways that they have been taught. I don’t want to be too disparaging because these people were the biggest part of my life for a very long time. My earliest memories are of church.

As I write this, I’m realizing just how deep-seated the brainwashing really was. Yes, I removed myself from it. But I find myself wanting to defend their actions and justify church positions despite knowing how unforgiving and detrimental these churches can be.

This episode of 20/20 focuses on three women and the abuse they faced in church, primarily sexual abuse. Tina Anderson (I wrote about this story last summer), the primary focus of the piece, was a 15 year old girl who was raped by a male member of the church. When she became pregnant and came forward to her pastor, she was accused of adultery and made to apologize in front of the entire congregation for her sin. She was sent away until the baby was born, and afterwards, while allowed to return to church, she was not allowed to re-enroll in the church school she had formerly attended.

The abuse and the church’s response to the abuse is disgusting and reprehensible.

However, 20/20 takes the actions of one church (or 3, since there are 3 women interviewed) and presents every IFB church as the same. Sexual abuse was not a part of the churches I was involved with – these churches, these women, are the exception, not the rule. Not all IFB churches are the same; sweeping generalizations like this don’t do anyone any good (let’s think about how the whole world is fairly quick to realize that Fred Phelps and the WBC are not indicators of all Christian behavior).

Let me be clear: I’m not saying IFB churches are not bad churches. They absolutely are. But I find that I have a problem with the implication that all IFB churches are pastored by monsters and sexual predators.

These pastors are elitist, racist, prejudiced, homophobic… yes. They embrace a strict, literalist interpretation of the Bible… yes. They treat women as second-class citizens in their patriarchal worldviews. But none of that makes them sexual predators. And presenting this as a dangerous-to-the-children (physically) religious movement is dishonest. I know several male members of an IFB church who would string a child rapist up in the closest tree.

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