Officials at Jefferson Street church accused of sexual exploitation and abuse

Sex abuse scandals in religion tend to be assumed to be a Catholic and not a Protestant problem, which some diligent observers insist is an exaggeration. We should not be surprised to hear allegations of sex abuse emerge from various congregations from time-to-time, especially in personal counseling situations, where parishioners are in vulnerable situations and ministers exercise increased influence.

The latest allegations involve Mount Zion Baptist Church, a historic and prominent church on Jefferson Street (which also has congregations in Antioch and far North Nashville):

The claims were made on behalf of four former female parishioners. According to the suit, the women were sexually exploited and abused during counseling sessions sponsored by the church. The lawsuit goes on to claim that this abuse was not an isolated incident. The plaintiffs accuse the church of recruiting woman for exploration, sexual battery and psychological and spiritual manipulation for nearly ten years.

The charges were filed against the church and specifically against Bishop Joseph Walker III who one woman claims participated and aided the abuse.

One of the four women went on TV with specific allegations:

"It's not right. It's not right. That's why I'm doing it, at whatever cost," said Valencia Batson in an exclusive interview with Channel 4 News. "It's not right and it just needs to stop."

Batson said until now, fear kept her from coming forward with explosive allegations against Walker and Mt. Zion Baptist Church.

"Church is not to get sick," said Batson. "It's to get better, to be better."

Friday, the 42-year-old real estate broker filed a civil suit claiming she was sexually abused and spiritually and psychologically manipulated at the hands of the bishop and other church leaders.

"When you're in a position of power, you're not to misuse that power," said Batson. "It is not for you to take control over another person and have them do things for your benefit or your pleasure. That is abuse because you're damaging that other person."

Batson wouldn't speak in detail about the alleged abuse, but claimed it started two years after she joined the church.

Batson and three other women listed as "Jane Does" in the suit claim they would meet with Walker and other leaders for counseling and were coerced into sex at a time when they were most vulnerable.

"There is an incident where I was forced to do something while someone else watched," said Batson.

Still, Batson stayed at the church for 11 years.

"All of me was trapped there. My spirit was in that place and I didn't know how to get out," said Batson. "I didn't know how to leave."

"It's a secret society where you don't say anything, but you know what's going on because you're either arranging it or you're participating in it," she said.

Batson said she was afraid to call police, but one time told a church leader about her concerns and was threatened.

The church is denying the charges.

Republican Would Rather Pay Hookers Than Auto Workers

Great assessment by the president of union local 2166.

Aboard the Double Standard Express

HT to the Southcomm blogger who broadcasted the salacious innuendo that a Knox County Republican blogger (among several wildly imaginative others) read into the botched peck on the cheek that Barack Obama gave Jill Biden on stage after her husband's acceptance speech. (Keep in mind that the Knox blogger is an avowed Southern Baptist, which may explain his Victorian knee-jerk. The genesis of the Southern Baptist Church was the defense of slavery, and it's explosion in the 20th Century is marred by a legacy of church support for segregation. Combine that with the Baptist obsession with abstinence, and you get the picture; but, I digress).

The space Southcomm wasted even paying attention to what is obviously an innocent miss of aim (when you give someone who has no record of hitting on women in large venues the benefit of the doubt) gives me the opportunity to underscore the double standard applied to black and white candidates.

There was a modest blogstorm on the right regarding the peck, and that virtual circle jerk was given credibility at some media sites like Southcomm. I believe that if Obama had been white, works-righteous bloggers and their media megaphones would not have posted like voyeuristic Puritans.

And yet, John McCain is not getting the same blog or media attention for eyes that seem to wander across his running mate's (or in his words, his "soulmate's") goods during her introduction speech in Ohio:

That's not ogling we can believe in. You can bet that if McCain were black, bloggers would be tearing up the prospect of a single glance at a white woman in a suggestive way.

The Evaporation of Baptisms Is About Sex

Three years after setting an unrealistic goal in Nashville in order to test their righteousness, Southern Baptists are in denial and blaming their lack of achievement on external factors: namely that people think badly of them. Three years ago I alluded to reports that cite the causes of evangelical growth and decline as having more to do "fertility and facilities," and less to do with theology or any outside antipathy that scorched-earth SBC fundamentalist leaders don't rightfully deserve.

How's that Red-State Sexual Abstinence Emphasis Working for Tennessee?

Carole Borges discloses a rather dubious distinction for a Bible Belt state.


With just a little more ignorance and distortion, we'll get that prize.

East Tennessee "Lifestyles"

The famous liberal R. Neal picks up a salacious story from a Texas paper of an East Tennessee defense contractor's employee literally sleeping with an Army Captain and Contracting Officer who allegedly told him, "Give me the money from that contract or don't touch me." Sounds like no bid with lots of bed.

Speaking of lifestyle, developers to our east are bidding to bring Orlando to the Great Smokies by building a 4,500 "lifestyle resort" (and the 1 million square feet of retail space that goes with) next to it. No word if anyone had sex with anyone else to bring this deal about, but I would bet that the developers are jockeying for "incentives" from local, state, and federal governments.