Program to Tackle Child Sex Abuse

By Ruth Ingram
The Clarion-Ledger
March 7, 2014

http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20140308/NEWS01/303080017/Program-tackle-child-sex-abuse

Mississippi church leaders, employees and volunteers need tools to equip them in preventing sexual abuse of children — and to ensure children’s safety by keeping would-be perpetrators from coming through the church doors in the first place.

Organizers of an April 29 conference open to all religious denominations hope that information will change mindsets, raise awareness and empower pastors to operate ministries free from child molestation.

The host site: Morrison Heights Baptist Church in Clinton, which for years employed as music minister now-convicted child sex offender John Langworthy, who admitted during a service at the church in August 2011 that he molested young boys in Texas and the Jackson area more than 20 years ago.

Langworthy last year pleaded guilty to five felony gratification of lust charges involving five boys ages 10-13 between April 1980 and December 1984. He received no jail time.

But his is not the only recent case of alleged or proven sexual abuse of Mississippi children by church employees, volunteers or ministers in a position of trust.

In February, a Raymond Road Baptist Church employee from Clinton was arrested on one count of gratification of lust. Adam Epperson, 34, who also was formerly employed at Central Hinds Academy, was arrested following accusations by a male youth associated with Epperson through church and school.

In November 2013, former WLBT-TV meteorologist Eric Law pleaded guilty to sexual battery of a 15-year-old girl and was sentenced to eight years in prison after admitting he repeatedly had sex with the teen at his home. Although Law wasn’t employed by a church, he said on his Google+ blog that he and his wife “serve as uncle and aunt to many kids from church.”

And in December 2012, the 71-year-old pastor of Bay Springs Baptist Church in Tate County was indicted on child sex charges and held on $1 million bond. Larry Singleton is accused of abusing from age 11 a boy who’s now 18.

“Reacting to abuse is not enough,” said Chrystelle Thames, director of public relations at the Baptist Children’s Village, which is sponsoring the program with the Christian Action Commission of the Mississippi Baptist Convention.

“The Baptist Children’s Village wants to be proactive in the prevention of all abuse which we know and understand can cause lifelong pain. We are offering this event to educate and provide pastors and church leaders with the facts and the tools necessary to prevent abuse.”

They’ve put together a lineup of speakers for the 10 a.m to 3 p.m. event at Morrison Heights, off I-20 at Springridge Road in Clinton. They include Fort Worth attorney Gregory Love, co-founder and director of MinistrySafe and Abuse Prevention Systems. He will identify commonly held misconceptions about sexual abuse and abusers and provide facts about abuser characteristics.

Also speaking will be the Rev. Brad Eubank, pastor of First Baptist Church in Petal and a survivor of clergy sex abuse.

“My prayer is that by sharing about God’s grace in my experience, I will be able to help other victims and their families find help, healing and hope and that I will be able to save and protect children by empowering those around them,” Eubank said.

Angie McLeod Williams of the state Department of Human Services’ Division of Family and Children’s Services will explain what happens when someone reports known or suspected abuse, from what information needs to be conveyed to law enforcement to what happens after the person reporting hangs up the phone.

Amy Smith of Dallas, the Dallas-area leader of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, was instrumental in Langworthy’s arrest and conviction. “We applaud the Baptist Children’s Village and Morrison Heights for hosting this important conference,” Smith said.

“It is critical that people in our churches and communities become more educated and aware of the systemic child sexual abuse happening in our midst, in places that kids should be the safest. When churches and other trusted institutions protect the perpetrators and silence the victims, kids are not safe.”