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Altogether Avoidable Tragedies
Stopping Sexual Scandal In The Messianic Movement - Part 11 (You may want to
read Part 10 first if you haven't)
A couple years ago a young man with an extensive criminal history shot holes in his parents, their friends, and 3 strangers in small-town Maine. He killed 4 and injured 3 leaving a young lady in critical condition. I passed a couple hundred feet from one of the scenes on Interstate 295 while police were still present. The shooter was sent back to prison where he had only recently been released from, and as of last week, he died in custody of causes which have not yet been publicly disclosed. He was 36 - 4 years younger than me.
How can that come from a Christian home you might ask? Many people are outraged as they should be. In spite of the rage, he could find some attorney who "practices law" to defend him, even though this young man - this time - chose to plead guilty in taking some accountability for his own crimes.
Setting that headline aside, another two young men with two other extensive criminal histories have also called small-town Maine their home. Although their record may not have caught up to them yet, they're in a prison of their own making until it does, as it eventually will.
The young man who went on the shooting spree last year spent time planning his attack on unsuspecting victims. He told his mother the day before he killed her that he loved her. These other young men also spent time planning their attacks, building the trust and confidence their unsuspecting victims had in them, including by telling them that they loved them. In the end they all engaged in senseless violence, tearing through the bodies of daughters of the most High and shooting holes in the hearts of fathers and mothers through their cruelty.
Last year a man left an innocent young lady bleeding out in a car beside her father because according to his testimony, he was afraid the police were on his trail. Years earlier these other young man left young ladies hearts bleeding out within the very walls designed to protect them, while those endowed with their protection were nearby yet completely unaware. They then proceeded to watch them suffer in silence, because according to one of their own professions after committing their crimes, they were afraid if they spoke up they would go to jail. How can that come from a Messianic home??? But it did.
I've passed the locations where these crimes occurred many times. Actually on an almost weekly, and some even a daily basis. They bring back heartwrenching memories of trust being dastardly misplaced, sequentially betrayed, and innocence stolen. Like the young lady in ICU shot at random on the highway in a car driven by her dad, what haunts me most is that I was nearby when a majority of these crimes occurred.
Just like the dad driving the car had no idea that evil stalked the highway that day, and just like I had no idea I would run into an active emergency scene on the interstate when heading home from Missouri to Maine, so was I naively unprepared years earlier, having no idea that such evil stalked our immediate world.
In the now eight years since this hell transpired, I've encountered an even greater hell. That hell is those who voluntarily choose to make themselves accomplices through unwillingness to acknowledge what has occurred, and what contributed to it happening. I've heard the phrases "I can't go down that road" and "such evil cannot exist among us" too many times. The truth is that it absolutely can, that it does exist, and you must be willing to go down that investigative road if you are honest.
Denial that 4 were killed and 3 injured two years ago in Southern Maine would be a miscarriage of justice and any judge who would rule that way, faulting the victims and backing the victimizer would only serve to continuously crush the hearts of those who loved the ones so violently taken. So just like the I-295 shooter finds himself a lawyer, these other young men find defenders among those who profess to "practice Torah". But what is it they are actually practicing? Certainly not the Law which the Apostle Paul describes as Holy, Just, and Good.
Would you fault the dad and his children for getting shot just because they were driving down the highway? Would that not be as senseless as faulting the gun? Would you tell the dad he owed the community an apology that he didn't stop his children from getting shot? Of course not, so why would you fault the dad and his daughters who were just trying to go to church and live out their lives on a quiet country road in Atkinson? Why would you fault the female gender for the fact that sexual abuse occurs, or why would you fault a child because you tried to imagine a perverted picture, where instead of petrified in fear, 4-7 year olds even had the mental capacity to be "consenting"? Why would you call it "intercourse" instead of "rape", and why would you call out the names of victims who are your grandchildren in front of men who have never even met them, while refusing to allow those who victimized them to be seen, because you were protecting "those people" and don't want them to go to jail? What kind of twisted mind thinks those things? What kind of twisted person does things like that?
Several days after pondering over these chilling comparisons, I become aware of another relevant piece of information that made my blood run cold. Evidently the I-295 shooter posted an emotional appeal for help on social media several days before he became a killer. In that appeal and in the note he left at the scene, he admitted what he said he doesn't talk about... how he was molestested, how people who call themselves Christian's did nothing about it and yet can't forgive him. He explained how that ultimately destroys a person, and how he sought freedom from that darkness which haunted him. He tragicly found that vigilante justice does no give that type of freedom. That freedom is something only Yeshua can give.
Although they deny it, for all I know the other young men have a similar story and just can't bring themselves to speak about it. Regardless of their reasons, they all either victimized or exacted revenge on parties, however, who bore no blame. They did not exact justice. They became abusers and murderers. All of their crimes in the end, were as senseless and unjustified as any crimes which may have originally been perpetrated against them. The weight of what they carried in silence only served to destroy them. They contributed to the ruination of their own lives through a combination of a failure to reach out and speak out. And this is the irony, because those who live through sexual abuse, or those support them, are unilaterally expected by those who abused them to do two things, even though it makes no sense to anyone who is sane. First, they are expected to never reach out for help, for that would create consequences for their abuser through the abuse becoming known, and secondly, they are expected to never speak out, in order to protect the reputation of the one who violated them.
For any human being to carry such a weight in unbroken silence will destroy them. It doesn't matter if you are male or female. Yet to this day, there are people in the church as well as the Torah movement who expect victims of sexual crimes to carry the weight of the shame projected upon them silently in order to protect the congregation's public image and that of the one who abused them. This is no different than Islam where they kill the woman or child whom they rape to somehow make the shame go away. Yet here we have Torah-professing Messianic believers with their own equivalant of honor killings, killing victims by forcing them to keep it all inside because they say "Don't let those dirty feathers out of the white pillowcase or how will you ever catch them? Maybe they were never meant to be hidden under a pillowcase in the first place. Why would you hang onto that type of sh!t, guarding it under lock and key to supposedly "protect people" who shouldn't be protected in the first place? Why would you keep drinking the contaminated water that's flowing over where the virgins blood was spilt upstream, and then used to wash some pervert's dirty hands?
To expect any victim of abuse to carry such disgusting weights on a rope twisted around around their neck in silence denies them healing, denies them justice, deprives them of their humanity, and deprives them of the victory and life which Yahweh desires for them. It is sick. It is disgusting. It is abominable. It is demonic! Yeshua says that whoever cause an innocent child to stumble, they would be better if a millstone were hung around their neck and they were cast into the sea. Yet in an ironic twist of fate, it is those who shed those childrens' blood which they drank in their lust who expect the children to keep the millstone hanging around their own neck like some kind of locket of loyalty to the cult of the family religion. Anyone who expects that of them is complicit to the horrific crimes, and accomplices in them.
Isaiah 58:1-10 says to cut the chain the holds the millstone around the necks of the children, and to open that locket dripping with all those filthy secrets, to take the feather pillow full of sh!t and cast it out of your home, not take it into the bedroom with you to fuel your dreams. “Shout it aloud, do not hold back...Declare to my people their rebellion and to the descendants of Jacob their sins. For day after day they seek me out; feigning eagerness to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its Elohim. They ask me for just decisions and pretend they desire intimacy with Elohim...Yet..do as (they) please and exploit all those under (them) ...harming each other with wicked hands. You cannot [do] as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high. Is that what you call...acceptable to Yahweh? Loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, free the oppressed and loosen every burden? Share your food with the hungry, provide the poor wanderer with shelter—And when you see the naked you cover them, and you do not to turn away from your own flesh and blood. Exterminate the yoke of oppression, the pointing finger and malicious talk...and satisfy the needs of the oppressed.
To enact these necessary reforms requires sacrifice and full disclosure. Yahweh will not forbear forever. He hates when evil is enabled. He hates those who enable it by defending it. Don't deceive yourself. Turning a blind eye enables it. Leveticus 5:1 warns: "If anyone sins because they do not speak up when they hear a public charge to testify regarding something they have seen or learned about, they will be held responsible."
Proverbs 25:26 also warns: "The righteous man who gives way before the wicked is like a polluted well and a poisoned spring." And finally, Proverbs 19:5, "A false witness will not go unpunished". It is your duty and my duty to speak up. Someone else's life and someone else's sexual purity depends on it.
If you attended Mid-Maine Messianic Fellowship and were sexually harrassed, molested, or assaulted in any way... or if you know of anyone who was... or if you attended any other fellowship and had similar experiences, or know of anyone who covers for activity like this, PLEASE do not be afraid to speak out. PLEASE speak out and contact the appropriate law enforcement. Even if they do nothing, that is not an excuse for you to do nothing. PLEASE get you or your children the support you need to stand against such evils. And please contact us even if you just need to talk.
Continue to Part 12 >>
A couple years ago a young man with an extensive criminal history shot holes in his parents, their friends, and 3 strangers in small-town Maine. He killed 4 and injured 3 leaving a young lady in critical condition. I passed a couple hundred feet from one of the scenes on Interstate 295 while police were still present. The shooter was sent back to prison where he had only recently been released from, and as of last week, he died in custody of causes which have not yet been publicly disclosed. He was 36 - 4 years younger than me.
How can that come from a Christian home you might ask? Many people are outraged as they should be. In spite of the rage, he could find some attorney who "practices law" to defend him, even though this young man - this time - chose to plead guilty in taking some accountability for his own crimes.
Setting that headline aside, another two young men with two other extensive criminal histories have also called small-town Maine their home. Although their record may not have caught up to them yet, they're in a prison of their own making until it does, as it eventually will.
The young man who went on the shooting spree last year spent time planning his attack on unsuspecting victims. He told his mother the day before he killed her that he loved her. These other young men also spent time planning their attacks, building the trust and confidence their unsuspecting victims had in them, including by telling them that they loved them. In the end they all engaged in senseless violence, tearing through the bodies of daughters of the most High and shooting holes in the hearts of fathers and mothers through their cruelty.
Last year a man left an innocent young lady bleeding out in a car beside her father because according to his testimony, he was afraid the police were on his trail. Years earlier these other young man left young ladies hearts bleeding out within the very walls designed to protect them, while those endowed with their protection were nearby yet completely unaware. They then proceeded to watch them suffer in silence, because according to one of their own professions after committing their crimes, they were afraid if they spoke up they would go to jail. How can that come from a Messianic home??? But it did.
I've passed the locations where these crimes occurred many times. Actually on an almost weekly, and some even a daily basis. They bring back heartwrenching memories of trust being dastardly misplaced, sequentially betrayed, and innocence stolen. Like the young lady in ICU shot at random on the highway in a car driven by her dad, what haunts me most is that I was nearby when a majority of these crimes occurred.
Just like the dad driving the car had no idea that evil stalked the highway that day, and just like I had no idea I would run into an active emergency scene on the interstate when heading home from Missouri to Maine, so was I naively unprepared years earlier, having no idea that such evil stalked our immediate world.
In the now eight years since this hell transpired, I've encountered an even greater hell. That hell is those who voluntarily choose to make themselves accomplices through unwillingness to acknowledge what has occurred, and what contributed to it happening. I've heard the phrases "I can't go down that road" and "such evil cannot exist among us" too many times. The truth is that it absolutely can, that it does exist, and you must be willing to go down that investigative road if you are honest.
Denial that 4 were killed and 3 injured two years ago in Southern Maine would be a miscarriage of justice and any judge who would rule that way, faulting the victims and backing the victimizer would only serve to continuously crush the hearts of those who loved the ones so violently taken. So just like the I-295 shooter finds himself a lawyer, these other young men find defenders among those who profess to "practice Torah". But what is it they are actually practicing? Certainly not the Law which the Apostle Paul describes as Holy, Just, and Good.
Would you fault the dad and his children for getting shot just because they were driving down the highway? Would that not be as senseless as faulting the gun? Would you tell the dad he owed the community an apology that he didn't stop his children from getting shot? Of course not, so why would you fault the dad and his daughters who were just trying to go to church and live out their lives on a quiet country road in Atkinson? Why would you fault the female gender for the fact that sexual abuse occurs, or why would you fault a child because you tried to imagine a perverted picture, where instead of petrified in fear, 4-7 year olds even had the mental capacity to be "consenting"? Why would you call it "intercourse" instead of "rape", and why would you call out the names of victims who are your grandchildren in front of men who have never even met them, while refusing to allow those who victimized them to be seen, because you were protecting "those people" and don't want them to go to jail? What kind of twisted mind thinks those things? What kind of twisted person does things like that?
Several days after pondering over these chilling comparisons, I become aware of another relevant piece of information that made my blood run cold. Evidently the I-295 shooter posted an emotional appeal for help on social media several days before he became a killer. In that appeal and in the note he left at the scene, he admitted what he said he doesn't talk about... how he was molestested, how people who call themselves Christian's did nothing about it and yet can't forgive him. He explained how that ultimately destroys a person, and how he sought freedom from that darkness which haunted him. He tragicly found that vigilante justice does no give that type of freedom. That freedom is something only Yeshua can give.
Although they deny it, for all I know the other young men have a similar story and just can't bring themselves to speak about it. Regardless of their reasons, they all either victimized or exacted revenge on parties, however, who bore no blame. They did not exact justice. They became abusers and murderers. All of their crimes in the end, were as senseless and unjustified as any crimes which may have originally been perpetrated against them. The weight of what they carried in silence only served to destroy them. They contributed to the ruination of their own lives through a combination of a failure to reach out and speak out. And this is the irony, because those who live through sexual abuse, or those support them, are unilaterally expected by those who abused them to do two things, even though it makes no sense to anyone who is sane. First, they are expected to never reach out for help, for that would create consequences for their abuser through the abuse becoming known, and secondly, they are expected to never speak out, in order to protect the reputation of the one who violated them.
For any human being to carry such a weight in unbroken silence will destroy them. It doesn't matter if you are male or female. Yet to this day, there are people in the church as well as the Torah movement who expect victims of sexual crimes to carry the weight of the shame projected upon them silently in order to protect the congregation's public image and that of the one who abused them. This is no different than Islam where they kill the woman or child whom they rape to somehow make the shame go away. Yet here we have Torah-professing Messianic believers with their own equivalant of honor killings, killing victims by forcing them to keep it all inside because they say "Don't let those dirty feathers out of the white pillowcase or how will you ever catch them? Maybe they were never meant to be hidden under a pillowcase in the first place. Why would you hang onto that type of sh!t, guarding it under lock and key to supposedly "protect people" who shouldn't be protected in the first place? Why would you keep drinking the contaminated water that's flowing over where the virgins blood was spilt upstream, and then used to wash some pervert's dirty hands?
To expect any victim of abuse to carry such disgusting weights on a rope twisted around around their neck in silence denies them healing, denies them justice, deprives them of their humanity, and deprives them of the victory and life which Yahweh desires for them. It is sick. It is disgusting. It is abominable. It is demonic! Yeshua says that whoever cause an innocent child to stumble, they would be better if a millstone were hung around their neck and they were cast into the sea. Yet in an ironic twist of fate, it is those who shed those childrens' blood which they drank in their lust who expect the children to keep the millstone hanging around their own neck like some kind of locket of loyalty to the cult of the family religion. Anyone who expects that of them is complicit to the horrific crimes, and accomplices in them.
Isaiah 58:1-10 says to cut the chain the holds the millstone around the necks of the children, and to open that locket dripping with all those filthy secrets, to take the feather pillow full of sh!t and cast it out of your home, not take it into the bedroom with you to fuel your dreams. “Shout it aloud, do not hold back...Declare to my people their rebellion and to the descendants of Jacob their sins. For day after day they seek me out; feigning eagerness to know my ways, as if they were a nation that does what is right and has not forsaken the commands of its Elohim. They ask me for just decisions and pretend they desire intimacy with Elohim...Yet..do as (they) please and exploit all those under (them) ...harming each other with wicked hands. You cannot [do] as you do today and expect your voice to be heard on high. Is that what you call...acceptable to Yahweh? Loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, free the oppressed and loosen every burden? Share your food with the hungry, provide the poor wanderer with shelter—And when you see the naked you cover them, and you do not to turn away from your own flesh and blood. Exterminate the yoke of oppression, the pointing finger and malicious talk...and satisfy the needs of the oppressed.
To enact these necessary reforms requires sacrifice and full disclosure. Yahweh will not forbear forever. He hates when evil is enabled. He hates those who enable it by defending it. Don't deceive yourself. Turning a blind eye enables it. Leveticus 5:1 warns: "If anyone sins because they do not speak up when they hear a public charge to testify regarding something they have seen or learned about, they will be held responsible."
Proverbs 25:26 also warns: "The righteous man who gives way before the wicked is like a polluted well and a poisoned spring." And finally, Proverbs 19:5, "A false witness will not go unpunished". It is your duty and my duty to speak up. Someone else's life and someone else's sexual purity depends on it.
If you attended Mid-Maine Messianic Fellowship and were sexually harrassed, molested, or assaulted in any way... or if you know of anyone who was... or if you attended any other fellowship and had similar experiences, or know of anyone who covers for activity like this, PLEASE do not be afraid to speak out. PLEASE speak out and contact the appropriate law enforcement. Even if they do nothing, that is not an excuse for you to do nothing. PLEASE get you or your children the support you need to stand against such evils. And please contact us even if you just need to talk.
Continue to Part 12 >>