This is one of those things that I can’t believe is true. The more I read, the more disgusted I got.
After being raped and impregnated by a fellow churchgoer more than twice her age, a 15-year-old Concord girl was forced by Trinity Baptist Church leaders to stand before the congregation to apologize before they helped whisk her out of state, according to the police
Yes, you read that right. She was forced to apologize for being raped. Her pastor put partial blame on this 15-year old girl for being raped.
The victim said Phelps told her she would be put up for “church discipline,” where parishioners go before the congregation to apologize for their sins.
She asked why. “Pastor Phelps then said that (Willis) may have been 99 percent responsible, but I needed to confess my 1 percent guilt in the situation,” the victim told the police.
“He told me that I should be happy that I didn’t live in Old Testament times because I would have been stoned.”
She also had to apologize to the congregation for getting pregnant. Church leaders then sent her to Colorado so that, even though they did report the crime, nothing could be done about it by police because there was no victim.
I really like what the Friendly Athiest had to say about this:
Obviously, I can’t think of any Christian (well, outside this church, anyway) who would condone these actions.
But don’t let Christians ever tell you that their faith makes them any more moral than you or me.
And the most important thing that should come from all of this was verbalized by Jezebel:
The idea that rape victims bear some responsibility for their rapes — and that it’s important, in the aftermath of the crime, to publicly assign them blame — is a major factor keeping women like Anderson from coming forward, and keeping rapists safe from prosecution. While no woman should be forced to emulate her, Anderson’s decision to use her real name is powerful. She’s rejecting the “1% guilt” placed on her years ago, and standing before the whole country with the opposite message: her church owes her an apology.
(via)
