Since 2001, Massi has attacked the response of Fundamentalist churches in cases of child molestation committed by members of the clergy in which the leadership (and sometimes the entire congregation) enforced silence on the victims.[2]
In 2005, Massi produced a five-part audio documentary, The Lambs of Culpeper,[3] and released it onto the Internet for free download. The documentary addresses alleged abuses against children at Calvary Baptist Church of Culpeper, Virginia, a church then pastored by Charles Shifflett. In 2007, Massi founded the Conference of the Lambs, a two-day conference designed to assist adults who had been molested as children in Fundamentalist churches.[4] In 2008 Massi self-published Schizophrenic Christianity, which denounced corruption within Protestant Fundamentalism that had resulted in harm, especially to children.[5] In 2009, Massi conducted interviews of former residents of Hephzibah House in Warsaw, Indiana, a Protestant Fundamentalist Children's home for girls. She then produced The Lambs of Hephzibah House,[6] an audio documentary that alleges severe abuse of residents at Hephzibah House. In 2011, Gary Tuchman, a CNN journalist reporting for Anderson Cooper 360, interviewed many of the same former residents and produced an episode about Hephzibah House on CNN's "Ungodly Discipline" series.[7]
Works
Derwood Inc. (June 1986; Peabody Adventure Series, Book 1)
A Dangerous Game (June 1986; Peabody Adventure Series, Book 2)
Treasure in the Yukon (October 1986; Peabody Adventure Series, Book 3)
The Bridge (1986; Bracken Trilogy, Book 1)
Courage by Darkness (December 1987; Peabody Adventure Series, Book 4)
Crown and Jewel (1987; Bracken Trilogy, Book 2)
The Two Collars (April 1988; Bracken Trilogy, Book 3)
Llamas on the Loose (June 1988; Peabody Adventure Series, Book 5)
Abandoned (1 May 1989; Peabody Adventure Series, Book 6)
Valkyries: Some Through the Fire (2003)
Valkyries: All Through the Blood (2003)
Schizophrenic Christianity (2008)
Hall of Heroes: A Novel Set in Peabody, Wisconsin (14 October 2013)
↑ Opposition to abusive fundamentalist churches took form with the publication of Vic Nischik, Wizard of God: My Life with Jack Hyles (Buchanan, Mi.: Sychar Publishing, 1990) and gained impetus with the publication of Voyle Glover, Fundamental Seduction: The Jack Hyles case (Schrerville, Indiana: Brevia Publishing, 1990) who marshaled evidence against Jack Hyles and First Baptist Church of Hammond regarding abuses of church office and church doctrine. Massi was further influenced by a 1993 news documentary Preying from the Pulpit, produced by WJBK of Detroit. Audio of this documentary is available at Massi's websiteArchived 2008-04-11 at the Wayback Machine . In 2012, Flashrock Films' executive producer Adam Rockoff engaged Massi as associate producer of the independent film, The Blue Room, a documentary examining the abuses at Hephzibah House (unreleased).
↑ Jeri Massi, Schizophrenic Christianity: How Christian Fundamentalism Attracts and Protects Sociopaths, Abusive Pastors, and Child Molesters (Raleigh, NC.: Jupiter Rising Books, 2008). Massi has also critiqued fundamentalism through the serialised stories Secret Radio and A Standard Christian, which chronicle the life of a student at fictional Greater Independent Baptist College.
Evangelicalism, also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that puts primary emphasis on evangelization. The word evangelic comes from the Greek word for 'good news'. The Gospel story of the salvation from sin is considered "the good news". The process of personal conversion involves complete surrender to Jesus Christ. The conversion process is authoritatively guided by the Bible, the God in Christianity's revelation to humanity. Critics of the conceptualization of evangelicalism, argue that it is too broad, too diverse, or too ill-defined to be adequately seen as a movement or a single movement.
Christian fundamentalism, also known as fundamental Christianity or fundamentalist Christianity, is a religious movement emphasizing biblical literalism. In its modern form, it began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries among British and American Protestants as a reaction to theological liberalism and cultural modernism. Fundamentalists argued that 19th-century modernist theologians had misunderstood or rejected certain doctrines, especially biblical inerrancy, which they considered the fundamentals of the Christian faith.
Dispensationalism is a theological framework for interpreting the Bible which maintains that history is divided into multiple ages called "dispensations" in which God interacts with his chosen people in different ways. It is often distinguished from covenant theology. These are two competing frameworks of Biblical theology that attempt to explain overall continuity in the Bible. Coining of the term "dispensationalism" has been attributed to Philip Mauro, a critic of the system's teachings, in his 1928 book The Gospel of the Kingdom.
Independent Baptist churches are Christian congregations, generally holding to conservative Baptist beliefs. Although some Independent Baptist churches refuse affiliation with Baptist denominations, various Independent Baptist Church denominations have been founded.
The King James Only movement asserts the belief that the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible is superior to all other translations of the Bible. Adherents of the King James Only movement, mostly members of certain Conservative Anabaptist, traditionalist Anglo-Catholic, Conservative Holiness Methodist and some Baptist churches, believe that the KJV needs no further improvements because it is the greatest English translation of the Bible which was ever published, and they also believe that all other English translations of the Bible which were published after the KJV was published are corrupt.
John R. Rice was a Baptist evangelist and pastor and the founding editor of The Sword of the Lord, an influential fundamentalist newspaper.
Mormon fundamentalism is a belief in the validity of selected fundamental aspects of Mormonism as taught and practiced in the nineteenth century, particularly during the administrations of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and John Taylor, the first three presidents of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Mormon fundamentalists seek to uphold tenets and practices no longer held by mainstream Mormons. The principle most often associated with Mormon fundamentalism is plural marriage, a form of polygyny first taught in the Latter Day Saint movement by the movement's founder, Smith. A second and closely associated principle is that of the United Order, a form of egalitarian communalism. Mormon fundamentalists believe that these and other principles were wrongly abandoned or changed by the LDS Church in its efforts to become reconciled with mainstream American society. Today, the LDS Church excommunicates any of its members who practice plural marriage or who otherwise closely associate themselves with Mormon fundamentalist practices.
Jack Frasure Hyles was a leading figure in the Independent Baptist movement, having pastored the First Baptist Church of Hammond in Hammond, Indiana, from August 1959 until his death. He was well known for being an innovator of the church bus ministry that brought thousands of people each week from surrounding towns to Hammond for services. Hyles built First Baptist up from fewer than a thousand members to a membership of 100,000. In 1993 and again in 1994, it was reported that 20,000 people attended First Baptist every Sunday, making it the most attended Baptist church in the United States. In 2001, at the time of Hyles's death, 20,000 people were attending church services and Sunday school each week.
John Franklyn Norris, more commonly known as J. Frank Norris was a Baptist preacher and controversial Christian fundamentalist.
The First Baptist Church of Hammond is an Independent Fundamental Baptist megachurch in Hammond, Indiana, a suburb of Chicago. It is the largest church in the state of Indiana, and in 2007 was the 20th largest in the United States. Though founded in 1887 by Allen Hill, it was under Jack Hyles' leadership from 1959–2001 when it became one of the megachurches in the United States and during the 1970s, had the highest Sunday school attendance of any church in the world. In 1990, the church had a weekly attendance of 20,000. It also operates Hyles-Anderson College, a non-accredited institution established for the training of pastors and missionaries, and two K-12 schools, called 'City Baptist Schools' and 'Hammond Baptist Schools'. John Wilkerson is the senior pastor at First Baptist Church.
Hyles–Anderson College (HAC) is a private Independent Fundamental Baptist college in unincorporated Crown Point, Lake County, Indiana. As a ministry of the First Baptist Church of Hammond, it focuses on training pastors, missionaries and Christian teachers to work in Independent Baptist schools.
Charles Edward Fuller was an American Baptist minister and a radio evangelist.
Charles Curtis McIntire Jr., known as Carl McIntire, was a founder and minister in the Bible Presbyterian Church, founder and long-time president of the International Council of Christian Churches and the American Council of Christian Churches, and a popular religious radio broadcaster, who proudly identified himself as a fundamentalist.
Beginning in 1979, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) experienced an intense struggle for control of the organization. Its initiators called it the conservative resurgence while its detractors labeled it the fundamentalist takeover. It was launched with the charge that the seminaries and denominational agencies were dominated by liberals. The movement was primarily aimed at reorienting the denomination away from a liberal trajectory.
Ernest Dinwoodie Pickering was a fundamentalist Christian pastor, author, college administrator, and mission board representative.
Robert Thomas Ketcham was a Baptist pastor, a leader of separationist fundamentalism, and a founder of the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches.
Religious abuse is abuse administered through religion, including harassment or humiliation that may result in psychological trauma. Religious abuse may also include the misuse of religion for selfish, secular, or ideological ends, such as the abuse of a clerical position.
Protestantism is the largest grouping of Christians in the United States, with its combined denominations collectively comprising about 43% of the country's population in 2019. Other estimates suggest that 48.5% of the U.S. population is Protestant. Simultaneously, this corresponds to around 20% of the world's total Protestant population. The U.S. contains the largest Protestant population of any country in the world. Baptists comprise about one-third of American Protestants. The Southern Baptist Convention is the largest single Protestant denomination in the U.S., comprising one-tenth of American Protestants. Twelve of the original Thirteen Colonies were Protestant, with only Maryland having a sizable Catholic population due to Lord Baltimore's religious tolerance.
Faithful Word Baptist Church is a New Independent Fundamentalist Baptist church in Tempe, Arizona, that was founded by Steven Anderson. The church describes itself as "an old-fashioned, independent, fundamental, King James Bible-only, soul-winning Baptist church." Members of the church meet in an office space that is located inside a strip mall. Anderson established the church in December 2005 and remains its pastor.
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