CLA: Obey Man or God? The Sad Tragedy at Wildomar

TidesofTruth

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I was reading Kathy Durbin's Story on facebook as I was researching out her abuser Paul Fox. It is amazing to me the exact scenario I have been warning/hammering IFB leadership about played out in that scenario to a T - Lack of Church Discipline. It was absolutely shameful. The problem there is that Pastor Bruce Godard fell into the trap born out of fear (I believe) of what to do with a nasty sinful situation. In the early 90s, A Bus Director and School teacher in His ministry had groomed and seduced a 15 year old girl that had been his babysitter and got her to think that she was in love with him. She already being compromised from a broken home, imo made her more vulnerable. This allowed Paul to take advantage of Ms. Durbin and abuse her mentally and sexually. When Goddard got wind of this, instead of turning to his Bible and following scripture he sadly followed what all the previous generation Baptist Churches did and went to the LAWYER. Now I am not one to hate all Lawyers but when it comes to matters of faith they have done more to harm churches than they have to help because their advices is ALWAYS against God's word. The Bible gives a clear presentation of how things are to be handled and the written law gives us the civil responsibilities. CLA and their ilk have constantly gone against the Word of God in their advice multiple times. And they did in this incident. And because of that the consequences born out were devastating to many other girls, Goddard and their Church.

Paul Fox was not disciplined. He was sent packing and ended back in Hammond Indiana. He led a pretty quiet life there and there was never again an instance known from him. So while that is all well and good right. Here leadership thought that they could ship him off, His family was spared the humiliation. He continued to serve in his new church and he and his wife remained married. The church in Wildomar was spared the drama and CLA's Charlie Craze's advice was seen as heroic. According to Ms. Durbin: "My mom told him that the relationship did happen, thinking that maybe he didn’t believe that the relationship really happened. Charlie Craze explained it didn’t matter if it happened or not, that CLA didn’t represent laymen, only pastors and churches. He then proceeded to tell her that he would make me look like it was all my fault." Where is there anything biblical about that CLA? I have been told by very high ups in IFB who have gone through some of the most tortuous of these kind of incidence "That's how it was always was done" When a boy got a girl pregnant she went off to the unwed mother's home and the boy got sent away to the Military or a relative. When a pastor got in trouble in was hushed up and he was sent away for a while until it all blew over. But there is a God on the throne who is smarter than them all and He wrote the rules on church discipline for a reason and a purpose. And it became quite evident why.

Some nearly 30 years later there was a disturbance in Wildomar. This time many girls were coming forward about a youth pastor Victor Montero. The odd thing about this story is that Victor was Kathy Durbin's Bother-In-Law. For 18 years This pervert molested girls as young as 14 years old. 7 of them came forward and as the investigation ramped up. Pastor Goddard immediately went for the same method used before and Called the LAWYER, because it worked so well the last time. UNGODLY! The internet now was a thing and these molested girls all started comparing stories and this thing blew up to high heaven. No longer could CLA's Fear Filled Unbiblical advice could be followed and this thing turned into a train wreck.

All this time Kathy was cowered into believing none of what she experienced mattered and then suddenly, after one of Victor's victims contacted her, Kathy Durbin got her voice back once she realized: "Victor has used my story and the cover-up of my situation to keep multiple teen girls quiet about what he was doing to them. Victor told these girls my story and that nothing happened to Paul Fox. Pastor Goddard just moved Paul and his family away. It was the teenage girl that stayed and suffered."

THIS IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF WHAT SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF THE BIBLE HAD BEEN OBEYED!

While the Bible clearly lays out the prescription for all this It also explains why:
I Timothy 5:20 Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear.

Victor never saw the church take Paul Fox's sin Seriously and He never feared for his own piety.​

That is 7 Girls Molested CLA and a church again put in turmoil because of your unbiblical UNGODLY "Advice"! These women will have this follow them all their life and it will affect their relationships with their spouses and their children on into many generations.
When speaking of sin and Church Discipline , the Apostle Paul was clear. it must be purged.
1 Corinthians 5:6 Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump?
Sadly now Paul Fox and His wife are divorced, Their kids are devastated, Paul is finishing out his term in jail.​
Victor has finished out his term in jail.​
The Church in Wildomar has been stained in front of the world,​
Pastor Goddard ruined his reputation.​
And worst of all the Cause of Christ was tarnished.​
So how did that work out for you? Was anybody saved by following CLA's advice in 1992?
So CLA Who is Right? You or God? They have a lot of explaining to do and so do the pastors who turn to them for their advice above the Word of God.
My only hope is that IFB Churches would now hear the end of this tragedy and would ALWAYS obey God rather than Man.

Romans 3:4 God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.

Every man a liar yes but ESPECIALLY LAWYERS!
 
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For more on the cover-up activities of Christian Law Association, see this article (regarding Bob Gray, former pastor of Trinity Baptist in Jacksonville, FL, not the former pastor of Longview Baptist Temple).

Did Trinity Baptist Leadership Cover-up the Bob Gray Mess? (CSTNews)

Christian Law Association advises its client churches to cover up abuse allegations. From the CLA Legal Alert, May 2012: "If abuse allegations are made, the pastor should immediately contact the church's attorney to ensure proper handling of the situation. The church should then conduct an internal investigation of the allegations. . . . After discussing the findings with your attorney, you would then decide whether this situation requires reporting to the authorities." This is very bad legal advice, which ignores the mandatory legal reporting requirements in every state, which require pastors to immediately report abuse to the police, when they become aware of it.

David Gibbs, Jr. is director of CLA. His son, David Gibbs III, was a partner of CLA but he has left CLA and has publicly repudiated and denounced that firm.

Confucius say, "CLA lawyer like toupee on top of head of bald man - is there for cover-up."
 
one of the things my mom was charged with... and confessed to... (among many other charges some people considered more serious..).... was that she actively intimitated a victim of sexual abuse into silence.... ...at the time... even in liberal california.... it was also a felony crime to have knowledge of a sexual crime having been comitted against a child and to fail to come forward and report it..... i know most states across the mainland even in those considered bastions of fundamentalism such laws also exist today... and have existed for a long time.....

so when i read these sickening stories of what happened to the girls in many of these fundamentalist churches... and how other church members and even so called "legal" council from outside and assciated churches, aided the wrong doers in both intimidating their victims into silence and in covering up their crimes... the question i am left with is why are they not also doing prison time along side the actual perpetrators?....... ....in california over 2 decades ago they did..... and in hawaii if someone has knowledge of a crime like that and fails to report it they will do prison time today.... they will be charged and sentenced right along side the person who commited the original crime......

obviously quite a few in fundamentalism think that is a wrong approach... or that it is an unjust law and therefor they shouldn;t have to to abide it...... ..and that it is why their churches are sending out young women previously abused by a person in leadership who i fear will undoubtabley have a much harder time dealing with what happened to them than i have had........ ......and i am often driven to tears for them......

i saw everyone who could be found associated with what happened to me go to prison.... and yes... seeing that helped me settle it in my heart just how wrong the things they had done were... ...though it didn;t heal the mental side of it... or fix the damage done in brain structure or functionality done by suffering that abuse during my developmental years.... it never the less left me with a kind of armor i could use against those who would try to use that past against me in the future.... and i know both what it is like to successfully wear that armor and also have it fail at times, only to stand back up and repair the gaps in it.... then put it on again.....

the crimes committed against me were properly adressed by law.... any sin i committed by being emersed in it at the age of 5 were paid for by Christ....though i will probably always suffer from the mental and physical disabilities... i do not have to wear the guilt or the shame that i see so many of the girls coming out of your fundamentalist churches are, to this very day, still being expected to bear alone and deal with on their own..... ..and though i know in my heart i don;t have to be angry about what happened to me anymore i definitely understand why so many of those girls are still angry about what happened to them.... and about the way it was handled .... and also about the way they continue to be treated...... they deserve better from the people both raising them and also from those claiming to minister to them in those churches...

stop being so concerned about the fallen predatory "pastors" .... they had their day in the sunlight of Gods service and they threw it away.... their heads are impaled on spears in the temple of dagon... and there is no way you will ever place those heads back on their shoulders again, or retore them to service... no matter how much you might desire to.... let them serve as the examples of what happens to those given the honor of a pastorate only to betray it.... ......

instead, focus on helping these many girls who were abused by them... and who were then mishandled and further abused by corrupt leaders in the church.... and not only them but also address the abuses done to other children in the churches who witnessed all that wrong doing and now have come away with the wrong ideas of what christianity and christian service is all about....

Jesus told his disciples that He would establish His church and the gates of hell would not be able to stand against it...... i always took that scripture to mean the church would be storming the gates of hell and bringing back converts to Christ in their efforts.. .. but it;s kinda hard to go out and storm the gates of hell when a church has invited hell into the pulpit....allowed it to mix in among church leadership.... and then seems more concerned with protecting hells system of abuses within their church rather than sending it back to where it belongs,... not to mention concerning themselves with going back out as comissioned, to fight the dominions of where it came from.....

a lutheran theologian in a previous century once said... "the greatest trick the devil ever played was to convince the world he didn;t exist"..... that seems more true today that it ever has before.....

that;s all i know to say about it.... sorry... i know this post is way too long as it is..... i have written more than enough already......
 
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Here is a devastating critique of the Christian Law Association "ministry" prepared by David Gibbs Jr.'s own son and former law partner David Gibbs III in 2014. (This is not the first exposure of CLA by any means. In 1987 former CLA staffer Wally Metts published his critique of CLA in his excellent book "Faith Brokers - Professional Christians and Their Ungodly Gains.)" And yet some fundamental churches continue to send money to CLA.

"The following chart was pieced together from material provided by Attorney David C. Gibbs, III, via email and from his National Center for Life and Liberty (NCLL) website. The few short statements after that were lightly edited from quotes he provided. Attorney Gibbs III then reviewed and approved them before I posted them here at Spiritual Sounding Board. [Click on the chart below to see a larger, clearer version; and click here for a downloadable PDF of this article and the chart.]

Which Gibbs - Father or SonWhich Gibbs - Father or SonAbout His Father’s Philosophy

"It turns out that the son is not very much like his father. The professional paths of the two Gibbs attorneys diverged when the son could not endorse his father’s old-school theology with its patriarchal philosophy.

"Embarrassingly to David, his father has stood with many child abusers in the Independent Fundamental Baptist (IFB) world over the years rather than publicly renouncing their sin. David’s father is of that old-school philosophy that tends to cover-up and hide as opposed to being transparent, open, and honest. That is why David’s father meets with Bill Gothard’s board as they try to cover-up and ignore Dr. Gothard’s immoral activities. In stark contrast, David Gibbs III is suing Doug Phillips on behalf of the woman he victimized, Lourdes Torres-Manteufel.

"Attorney Gibbs III disagrees with many of the positions, decisions, and recommendations that his father and Christian Law Association support as they spend donated church money to protect and cover-up the moral failings of sinful leaders. Attorney Gibbs III supports and promotes child protection and full ministry transparency and accountability. In David’s opinion, CLA and his father have been on the wrong side of these issues for a number of years. That is one of the many reasons why David Gibbs III cannot endorse and work alongside his aging father in ministry."
 
The CLA is a business first, a law office second, and really not Christian at all.
They exist to protect their clients. They will never disclose the truth because that would result in them not getting money.
They have no interest in doing the "right" thing, they want to do the "financially beneficial" thing.
 
Just so I'm clear, which David C. Gibbs have I been calling the "mob lawyer for the fundamentalist crime family" for years? Junior, or The Third?
 
Scott, I would hope it was "Jr", not the III.
 
David Gibbs Jr. is the "mob lawyer." I would characterize David Gibbs III as a good guy, having met him, heard him preach and conversed with him. Based on the chart in post #4, David III means well and wants to do the right thing. However, there are some doubts about his legal competence. When girls who had worked for Bill Gothard tried to sue him for sexual harassment, David III represented them, but the judge removed him from the case because it appeared that he had simultaneously attempted to represent both Bill Gothard and the girls who were suing him.

Attorney Representing Victims of Bill Gothard Disqualified; Support for Survivors – Spiritual Sounding Board

Getting back to Christian Law Association, their model constitution which is used by many IFB churches includes this statement: "The eligible membership of the church has certain limited areas to exercise a vote. Members may not vote to initiate any church action, rather the vote of a member is to confirm and ratify the direction of the church as determined by the pastor and the board of deacons." I suppose this clause is somewhat ambiguous, but it appears to nullify the Baptist principle of congregational rule. It sounds similar to elections in Communist countries such as the People's Democratic Republic of Dungeon, where voters are allowed only to vote "Yes" on proposals of the leadership.

When this model constitution was proposed for discussion at the IFB church where I was a member, I asked the pastor in a congregational meeting to give us his interpretation of this clause. He never did so, but he did add me to his enemies list for bringing up the subject, and I had to leave the church in disgrace shortly afterwards. The attitude of the congregation was that the CLA language was sacrosanct and that any effort to change it would be sacrilegious. However, David Gibbs III, who was still with CLA at that time, had stated that the CLA model constitutions were meant as suggestions only, and that local congregations were free to change the language to suit their particular circumstances.
 
Is this CLA affiliated in any way with the Liberty Counsel? I happen to know LC has done a tremendous amount of good with defense litigation involving Christian teachers in public school not wanting to toe the LGBTQ woke line.
 
Christian Law Association is located in Mason, Ohio. Liberty Counsel is located in Orlando, Florida. I am not aware of any connection or affiliation between these two organizations. Wikipedia lists 9 organizations with which Liberty Counsel has had "interlocking boards." Christian Law Association is not one of them.
 
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