Edgefield Church, Nashville: Start a Third-Party Investigation

We must advocate for victims of abuse first and foremost. Protecting our institutions is a distant second.

“When God’s people refuse to enter the costly suffering of the abused or expose those who abuse, they align with the perpetrators, who saw their victims as insignificant and unworthy.” - Diane Langberg

Sometime after 2007 and before 2013, a registered sex offender with three convictions for offenses against boys, started attending Edgefield Baptist Church in Nashville. Those offenses consisted of two convictions of rape in 1984, and a further conviction for aggravated rape in Tennessee in 1990, in which the victim had to be interviewed by police from hospital.

His status appears to have only been known by the pastors of the church, according to current leadership.

In 2015, this man began working for the church as the church cook on Wednesday nights. This was illegal: opposite the church is an elementary school. Tennessee law states a violent sex offender may not work or live within 1,000 yards of a school.

This man did not report this job to the Tennessee Sex Offender Registry, despite having a legal duty to do so, and a previous conviction in 2007 for failing to report a previous job (with an affidavit written by a deputy sheriff stating he also lied about a second job at the time). Any payment for this job would have most likely been paid to him by his wife, who was the church administrator.

His own YouTube page, and Edgefield Baptist Church’s Facebook group, document his behavior in the church:

• He was involved in multiple kids’ plays in the church

• He was free to walk into the room where youth ministries were conducted alongside the youth pastor

• He has electronic photographs of children from the church, including children of the gender and age of his victims

• He appears to have been involved in an event called “Backyard Bible Camp”

• He taught adult Sunday School in the church

• Presumably emboldened by his status in the church, he would wear a jersey of the local hockey team in the building - the Nashville “Predators”

In January 2021, Edgefield Baptist Church merged with Trinity Church to form Edgefield Church (the same legal entity as Edgefield Baptist Church), with new leaders taken exclusively from Trinity Church. At this time they were aware only of the 1990 conviction for aggravated rape. They failed to uncover his other convictions, despite writing a policy saying they would do state and national background checks on offenders, and request any case records - either of which would have found the 1984 convictions.

By January 2024, they had been made aware of his full criminal record and all the behavior described above, with documentation to prove everything.

The elders agreed with us that this history was concerning:

• One elder, Bill Heerman, told me, “There’s a high likelihood that he has victimized other children. That may have happened at Edgefield. We need to find that out, and we owe it to the children to do that” and “we believe he deceived us intentionally”

• Another elder, Justin Turner, emailed me to say he watched the YouTube videos: “I watched most of them last night and share your concerns”

• A third elder and associate pastor at the time, Jonathan Worsley, who has since left the church to plant Emmanuel Church in Exeter, UK, said, “Thank you for drawing the YouTube videos to our attention… I really share your concerns about them”

Despite these initial reactions, at a member’s meeting on 2nd February, less than a month later, the elders did not start an investigation into potential historical abuse in the church.

How can an elder concede there’s a “high likelihood” that other abuse might have happened, that it could have happened in their church, and then appear to do nothing to ascertain if it did?

So why won’t they start a third-party investigation? What changed from their initial reaction of shared concern?

“Not recommended without an allegation”

“Protect My Ministry and the lawyers we spoke with told us an investigation was not recommended without an allegation of abuse” - Edgefield Church

This was the first reason given for not doing an investigation. There’s a lot to break down here.

Protect the church, or advocate for victims?

First it’s worth noting that "Protect My Ministry” is not called “Protect The Victims”. Second, who are these un-named lawyers? Are they lawyers whose specialties are in risk management or victim advocacy? The one lawyer they have named certainly belongs in the first of these two buckets. He describes sex offenders in churches as a “potentially ministry-ending issue”.

Risk management of an entity like a church frequently stands in direct opposition to the interests of victims. Ironically, most victims don’t want to sue their church. They just want to see them do the right thing.

A church should not protect itself before advocating for victims. It should be noted that it is not known if there are any victims in the setting of this church. But that’s exactly the problem: it isn’t known. There’s more than sufficient grounds outlined at the start of this post that every Christian who is part of this church should want to find that out. The Bible uses stark imagery when it comes to protection of children, such as Matthew 18:6, making it clear that this is a high priority to God.

So which victim advocates have the church spoken with and taken advice from, if any? If the answer to this question is “none,” would they do so now? If not, why should it not be concluded that their interest is in the self-protection of their ministry, not in trauma-informed victim advocacy?

Do Protect My Ministry offer legal advice?

I recently contacted Protect My Ministry. In light of Edgefield saying that Protect My Ministry had advised them - as opposed to the background checks which constitute the majority of their business - I asked them if they offer legal advice to churches. Their response was, “no, absolutely not”. Why were they cited by Edgefield Church as having given them advice?

How many victims of child sexual abuse come forward? Why don’t others?

Lastly, before citing the lack of allegations of abuse as sufficient grounds to avoid an investigation, we should understand that most children do not report abuse. The video below from GRACE summarizes three reasons why children don’t disclose:

• trust: Will a victim be trusted and believed? In this case, does how the church lionized the offender make it more or less likely that a victim will trust that they will be believed?

• identity: will a victim be blamed? What will this mean for them and their self-image, and what might others think of them? For male victims, there are complex questions about sexuality that arise. In a church that ex-communicated a member for affirming gay marriage, could this prevent disclosures?

• external cost: a victim may have been threatened to prevent them from disclosing. Or, they may think that the offender is such a critical part of their community - seemingly performing many needed roles as was the case historically in this church - that they should not deny the community that service.

“Opens the church up to legal liability for defamation”

“Another difficult issue is that opening a formal investigation without any allegations of abuse opens the church up to legal liability for defamation” - Edgefield Church

This was the second reason given.

Defamation is any false information that harms the reputation of a person, business, or organization. Who else might be defamed here other than the offender?

In which case, very simply, don’t use a name. Just ask people if they know of any abuse that occurred in this church setting.

There’s no reason to go further into this excuse. It’s nonsense, and it’s difficult to imagine even the leaders of Edgefield Church don’t see this.

Might there be other reasons?

One church who, after some time, wanted to do the right thing with regards to historical abuse in their church, had difficulties with losing their insurance coverage.

I don’t pretend to know anything about the insurance polices Edgefield Church may or may not have. In my opinion, many of the decisions of past and present church leadership are highly questionable, and it wouldn’t shock me if they went against the terms of any insurance policy.

In a follow up episode to our own on the Bodies Behind the Bus podcast, Dave Pittman of Together We Heal says:

You’re going to have to decide what is your priority: is your relationship to this church and the people in it your priority, or is it the protection of the children there? Because sometimes you’re going to have to make a choice between those two.

Do congregants realize this is the choice they face? If you are a member at this church, please pray on what your answer is.

Here’s the full episode where Dave, who is both a survivor of child sexual abuse, and victim advocate, discusses this topic with reference to Edgefield Church:

Edgefield Church: do the right thing.

Commission a third-party investigation into whether historical abuse at this church ever happened.

Nothing would glorify God more than these leaders showing everyone what they claim - that they are Godly men. Godly men who want to protect children and the vulnerable, and serve victims and the truth. I pray that day will come, soon. I pray that members of this church will join us in making this request of their leadership.

It is not Godly to show an offender cheap grace that gives them access to children - that is a danger to the children, but also the temptation of the offender.

I would say this directly to the leaders: I think you are good teachers of the word. I want to save that and allow it to prosper. By doing the right thing, your congregation will surely stand by you. If it costs you, let it, while keeping your integrity and your claim to truth under God. As you pray about this, please consider what’s more important to you - the institution of your church and your reputation, or truth and victims?

You are in a position where you could show the evangelical church what it looks like to do right on this issue. You are far from alone in the initial mistakes you made. Please don’t join the Catholic church in refusing to address them correctly.

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To my knowledge, no third-party investigation has been started. If one has, I would rejoice in that and will happily retract this article, having been given the contact details of the third-party.