In response to the avalanche of Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) and adult Sexual Abuse (SA) disclosures since early 2023, various groups have been drafting and issuing policies and guidelines. The Australian and New Zealand overseers have even created a website with their documents including Worker Code of Conduct and Child Safe Policy. However other areas have not developed or issued any guidelines/policies, or are failing to adopt draft documents.
In December 2023, there was a Zoom call with the Arkansas Missouri Oklahoma Task Force and Craig Winquist, overseer of the region, to discuss draft guidelines for safe church practices. Jennifer Horton, worker in Oklahoma, was also present. The call was recorded with the consent of all who were present. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHkiXL0EjSw
Starting at 32:20, Craig advised that he did not feel that there should be any formal policy.
The summarised questions/comments and Craig’s responses, are noted below:
Re Developing North Carolina Guidelines for Tri-state area
Craig Winquist Well I’m you know familiar at least in some ways with what we’re looking at here. I guess you know I raised up in some of our first conversations and that is you know it’s a matter whether we do anything or not really, and then if we do what do we do.
I know last year when this all started in the spring, I was under the impression that we probably could come up with something that would be helpful policy if you want to. I was really positive on that and I’ve talked to a lot of other people. I talked to Matt and he worked with Kurt; he was months into that with him but the more he got into it, you could say the less he felt good about it and I’m coming actually to kind of the very same conclusions. I just am not at peace with trying to institute a policy like this, and so it’s going to be a problem I know, but I obviously have to live with my own conscience and be at peace with what I feel I can do for all of us and so I don’t know where to go from here for everyone.
I know that a lot of people feel if we don’t have policy that somehow we’re abandoning the whole thing on CSA and SA and I don’t feel it has to be that way at all, but I don’t see any way to be able to push this forward and impose it on people that I know are unwilling for that and don’t think it’s necessary. I don’t see it as creating unity. I think there has to be some other way, and I don’t know. It’s just I’m just speaking from my heart. I noticed that in the task force that those most of the people involved were all pro policy and there was no one, as far as I can tell, that really attempted to find some other route or suggest any other thing. So I don’t feel that we’ve had really a lot of balance along that line either.
We’re pretty far into the process and the reason we are is because I wanted to be fair and I want to listen to the different points of view, but at the same time I have to do what I feel is right and I’ve prayed about it, thought about it, and it’s no simple process at all.
Re: If there isn’t a policy, how would actions be communicated?
Craig Winquist Well I don’t know just what the wording would look like exactly. The only thing I know is that when these cases arise that we obviously want to, I mean we’re just going to do what has been said. We’re going to listen to the victims, the accusations, the process be a lot the same in terms of people have to step aside from their meeting. We’ll have to look at that in that way. So what we practice I don’t think could be in a lot of ways different from policy, but I don’t see any way of being able to create some kind of enforcement mechanism. I feel it really is something that we need to have the direction and guidance of God and of the spirit in a lot of these situations. I don’t see any kind of human algorithm or process that really does that. But, that doesn’t mean that we’re going to drop that, ignore that, or go around it in some way.
Re: How would ‘Spirit led decisions’ be different to what has happened in the past?
Craig Winquist Well I think there’s a number of things that can do that because obviously when people are going to come forward it’s going to occur in a certain area. It’s going to be a certain family, it’s going to be a certain Church, so our level of awareness of what’s taking place is a whole different world of understanding at this point in time. So the church isn’t going to drop it and we’re not going to drop it in that sense either.
What we’ve already done in the state is, when these cases have come up and they’re all old cases, that we’ve asked those people not to be in the meetings presently and that is kind of revolutionary at least in some areas anyway.
I’m just saying things here but I mean it’s going to involve the church. I think the church obviously has an interest in what takes place and so you know we’re not going to do something that the church isn’t happy with either. so I think there’s a number of people involved that would make sure the outcomes are not going to look in the future like they maybe have in the past, but until you actually have that happen, I don’t know how to how to test that really.
Re: (1) There are many people (perhaps 50% in the Tri-state area) who are unaware of the Dean Bruer case, and not aware that there are already 670 known abusers and thousands of cases, so it isn’t being honest if everyone doesn’t know how bad it is.
(2) Failing to have a policy is not bring unity.
(3) There are many guidelines in the Epistles that have been followed, and many sanctions for breach of other unwritten moral policies, so why is there a struggle to deal with the criminal matters of CSA and SA.
Craig Winquist What I’m saying is that dealing with it doesn’t necessarily mean writing North Carolina policy. Obviously there’s a lot of things that have happened that have caused people to lose confidence in the workers or their judgment or however you want to put it, so you want to turn to some other means to find something you think is fair or right. I understand that. I just am not convinced that’s what God wants us to do. I don’t see any reason why we can’t just handle that because we just want to do the right thing.
Re: Predators taken out of the meeting presently. What happens after presently?
Craig Winquist Well I think that would have to work with the local churches involved in that decision about what they would do, what they feel about the person and yeah I don’t know, that would have to be on the ground at the time.
Re: As a leader, you need to lead, yet you don’t want to upset people.
Craig Winquist I can’t just stand here and ad lib that kind of answer. I mean it’s obviously a serious consideration about what that means and I can only do what I feel comfortable with. My decisions that I’m making, I find difficult from two points of view. I know I’m going to be making some people unhappy and it doesn’t matter what I choose, that’s simply not a possibility, especially the situation we’re in now. There isn’t any easy way forward; if it was we’d all be headed there.
All I can do is what I feel in my own heart is really the right thing to do before God. That’s I guess the best I know how to answer your particular question. I can’t really go into the details about how people are going to take that. Everyone’s going to have their own impression about whether that’s good, bad or indifferent, but I don’t know what will happen until you actually have the case. I haven’t had any particular recent case of CSA, I don’t know of anything that’s real current along that line.
Re: What if our local church chooses to follow the North Carolina Policy?
Craig Winquist I haven’t really thought a lot about that. I think in general, the churches are going to be having to make some of these decisions on their own about what they’re what they’re comfortable with.
Re: Concern that workers aren’t following I Corinthians 5. Being spirit led, yet countless overseers across the country are reacting differently.
Well at least I’ve told you a little bit about how I feel and my concerns. I realize that leaves a lot of question marks and I’m not surprised. We will keep in touch with people. I’ll be talking with our staff and obviously we’ve got some things that we need to discuss and talk about. We hope we can put something out that you’ll be able to understand a little bit better maybe what where we’re coming from, but it’s not something I can do just impromptu really like this. I do feel it’s just fair that at least I let you know kind of where I’m coming from and I’ve been listening to everyone else for a long time. I think I know where everyone else is coming from and so we do love you, we care for you, we care for our children, and we want to do what is right and good for them and for us and for the future and of course we obviously want God involved as well and I think everyone does as well. This isn’t the end of our conversation but we’ll just keep in touch.
Re: How can trust be restore when it has been violated / destroyed? It won’t come back unless we see something visible. We can’t keep doing the same things we have done for 75 years.
Jennifer Horton I just wanted to say that in the field where I was earlier this year the last field where I was in we had a situation of CSA and it was handled and the person is not in meetings anymore and the people who went to that meeting are feeling trust, trustworthy about those decisions and things are calm in Oklahoma. I think that he was the only perpetrator that we have in Oklahoma actually but I’m just saying that this is a case that was handled and it’s been since the Dean Brewer case and people are aware of what’s happened and it was taken care of. That was without a policy.
Re: How would convention ground owners in another state know that the person should not attend?
Jennifer Horton Well he’s been instructed and he understands that he’s not to be at any convention not to be at any gospel meeting and not to be at any special meeting he’s very well aware of his parameters.
Re: That person visited out-of state as his situation wasn’t communicated/known. Would this have been known at all, but for the disclosures since Dean Bruer?
Jennifer Horton It’s correct that we have known about it and we did what we could and it’s been in the court system and the courts have been handling it since it happened. It was not the Dean Bruer that brought it to light, it was we were aware of it and it’s been in the court system.
Re: How can we trust predators to follow recommendations from the workers when we know they don’t care about safety standards?
Jennifer Horton I felt like it’s worked well in Oklahoma. He doesn’t come to Convention anymore and he doesn’t come to Sunday morning meeting anymore and he doesn’t come to special meeting or gospel meeting anymore.
Re: Is there blind faith that he will do the right thing or does everyone know about him?
Jennifer Horton He’s well known in Oklahoma. He would he would understand that everybody knows who he is.
Re: He knows that people in other states don’t know about him, so what is there to stop him turning up there?
Jennifer Horton Yeah might be a situation of where there should be more communication but if the law doesn’t lock him up then we can’t really control him as far as where he goes and what he does so it would come down to a communication really more than a policy.
Re: Why can’t we have a simple protocol to protect people?
Jennifer Horton All those things were done like everything that was in the protocol or in the policy or whatever were done, and people did their reporting and it was reported to the workers it was reported to the elders they were all involved. Everyone knew about it, then a letter was sent out to the whole state saying this person is no longer going to be, this has been a problem and he’s no longer going to be at convention, special meeting, whatever, so it follows even the policy of those who need to know and then that would maybe be a question as to how many need to know. So maybe that’s where a little bit of the problem comes in, is in knowing how many people need to know, but as far as how the thing was handled, it just it was handled according basically to the policy guidelines that we’ve been studying but we didn’t have a policy about it we just understood that that was the right thing to do and so that’s what we did.
In March 2024, some of the team had a meeting to discuss the creation, operation and ending of the Taskforce on that call with Craig and workers. The video starts at 1:38:40
https://youtu.be/hHkiXL0EjSw?si=gl3yMAFl2_B89z7A&t=5920
They recalled early optimism that Craig supported the creation of a policy, and his comments: “…he said I think everyone will have a policy, it’ll either be one that the workers and people have worked out together or if that doesn’t happen people will form their own policy. He said he was convinced that everyone would have a policy”.
One day he said he had read all of the proposed policies that he knew about and he thought he liked the North Carolina policy the best, and Texas seemed to have more pages about how to get predators back in the meeting than it does on helping victims and he didn’t like that.
Members noted that at a meeting that happened in December, where Craig was going to provide his thoughts, there was only one thing that happened between Thanksgiving and that and that was the Tennessee special meetings that Craig attended and there were several overseers there. Whatever happened in Tennessee stopped the progress. Within a week our policy, Minnesota-Iowa was stopped and Southwest was stopped and you might say it was very coordinated on how the policy stopped. What did stay intact was Texas and North Carolina.
It was noted that overseers have access to the list of ~750 alleged perpetrators, but that information has not been provided to elders or to sister workers. There are apparently 10-12 names in the Tri-state area, yet Jennifer Horton claimed that there were only 2 cases in the area: one supposedly unfounded, and the other being dealt with by another state. That lack of disclosure, and lack of removal of those people from meetings, does not show proper honesty.
WINGS commends the task force for their work and keen moral clarity.
WINGS for Truth 