The Parable of Banging the Babysitter

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It was perhaps inevitable that the Christian homeschooling movement would have a sex scandal sooner or later, but . . . Doug Phillips?

Former Vision Forum Ministries president Doug Phillips reiterated [Thursday] that his decision to resign from his leadership position was the proper outcome following his acknowledgement that he had “inappropriate relationship” with a woman who was not his wife. . . .
On Nov. 11, the Vision Forum Ministries board shutdown the non-profit, two weeks after Phillips publicly announced his resignation.

Maybe someone else saw that coming, but when I found out about this last night on Twitter, I was stunned. Apparently, this has been buzzing around since Phillips announced his resignation in late October, but I missed that news. The details of the scandal have been rather hush-hush. In his Thursday statement, Phillips vaguely acknowledged that “there was an inappropriate physical component with an unmarried woman” which “was intermittent over a period of years.”

Why the awkwardness in that confession? Well . . .

If we can believe blog commenters:

The affair was with a younger woman (girl) in her teenage years who was very involved with the ministries of both [Vision Forum] and the church. She also helped greatly with the family’s children as a nanny for many years.
This affair has gone on at least 10 years — although she is of age now, she was not when the affair began. . . .
This woman went unmarried all through her 20?s to be there for [Doug Phillips]’s every need and whim. When she finally realized she could no longer continue the affair, due to God’s conviction and disgust with the hypocrisy, she made it clear she would expose him if he didn’t confess.
I believe this will slowly be revealed in public.

Face it, as far as this woman herself is concerned, her identity must already be known by everyone who knows the Phillips family. How many people could fit that description? So she will no doubt eventually step out of the shadows and tell the whole sordid tale.

Or maybe collect a large payment to keep her mouth shut.

What I can’t understand — the mind boggles at the thought — is how any Christian girl could let herself be talked into this. Stipulate that Doug Phillips was a hypocritical horndog who deserves to burn in Hell. Still, what kind of arguments did he make to persuade this girl that it would be OK for her to have sex with him? “Oh, yeah, ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery, except for humping the nanny.’ That was in the original Hebrew text, but it’s left out of these ‘modern’ translations.”

This is a horrible thing, and I joke about it for the same reason I joke about a lot of horrible things. Sarcastic humor is a defense mechanism, because if I couldn’t make wisecracks about wretched stuff like this, it might drive me to utter despair.

Obama is president, which is enough despair for anyone.

 


188 comments

  1. I think I misused the term ‘Evangelical.’ I apologize. Julie Anne said that the girl cant question authority. But surely the authority is Scripture, as you point out. So she might have said to Phillips, “Pastor, adultery is condemned by God’s Word, which trumps anything you might say.”

  2. When you make comments like that, you have zero credibility. Having adulterous sex with the underage nanny for ten years, believe it or not, is definitely worse than criticizing the president. If you don’t know that, seek therapy.

  4. Throw in some feminist claptrap, why don’t you. We were involved in home schooling for many years. I found it mostly guided by women with most of the dads too involved with work to be involved much. Patriarchal it wasn’t. Nor was it strictly a Christian phenomena. There were secularists, latter day hippies, parents of failed public school kids, etc.
    I don’t have any idea who Doug Phillips is but he has some days of shame in his future. I feel for the girl and Phillips’ spouse and children who must be absolutely devastated. Phillips did the crime, now he’ll do the time or as the Bible says, “he sowed the wind, he’ll reap the whirlwind.

  7. Speaking as one fluent in both German and Dutch, “Ehebrecher” and its Dutch cognate “echtbreker” literally mean “marriage breaker”, idiomatically are closer to “marriage oath/vow breaker”. The emphasis is not on breaking any law but on breaking a personal vow made voluntarily. Of course, from some perspectives that is even worse, and in many societies one who breaks a vow is regarded with much greater contempt than one who ‘merely’ broke a law.

  8. My WAG is that either the girl decided she wanted him to divorce his wife and marry her rather than continue to be his concubine, or that she fell in love with some other man and wanted to end the affair.

  9. “Christian” isn’t the only morality game around, nor are Christians the only ones bound by promises and vows.

    It’s not that a Christian man should know better, it’s that a man should know better.

    Ethics are not exclusive to Christians. And “Christian sin” isn’t more of a tragedy than the failings of other men.

    It’s not holy writ, it’s human. Both the triumphs and disasters.

  10. “Christian” simply makes the sin worse.

    No, it doesn’t. You don’t share in the goodness of another because you share the same label, and you do not share the vice either.

  11. So Obama’s presidency is despair enough for you, eh? You would have preferred the other candidate who came from polygamous beginnings in which lots and lots of old codgers used to “bang the babysitter”? Man, you people must be missing the chromosome that allows a person to detect irony.

  13. Well, I think it has to do with the ways people think about what it means to be a Christian. BTW, I do understand what you are saying about defining Christian through the creed.

    But if the belief in the creed is all that “being a Christian” encompasses, then any Christian is practicing their religion by acting like Doug Philips or worse. Wouldn’t people mind if all their pastors and missionaries and congregation were sexual exploiters, rapists, and child abusers? In this hypothetical, these people could all turn around and say, but I’m a Christian, I don’t need to be anything else in order to be a Christian. That doesn’t fly with me. They would all be grotesque and garbage of Christians in my book. In other words, I have no respect for people who use any creed to justify, rationalize, minimize, or excuse their doing evil in the world.

    And – very important – in no way am I saying you are like anyone in my hypothetical.

  18. C’mon. You’re not really going to do the Holier Than Thou bit, are you?

    The sins and transgressions of most Christians just aren’t that special.

    And I don’t hold you responsible for the “sins of Christianity.”

    You don’t have to be the most moral person in the room. Just be the most moral person you can.

  19. Having a babysitter-banging pederast polygamist codger CSF as Senate Majority Leader is enough irony for me…

  21. I think you and I agree in substance. I was trying to show that if we use the word ‘christian’ synonymously with ‘saint,’ we lose the ability to discriminate between two very different concepts. I dont cease to be Christian every time I sin, I cease to be justified. The penitents in line for the confessional aren’t waiting to be re-converted, they’re waiting to be formally forgiven. If ‘Christian’ means ‘saint,’ then it would be the sin of presumption to call myself a Christian. How then would I answer if someone should ask what religion I confess? Again, when David sinned, he didnt change his faith, he stained his soul.

  22. OK, let me explain. You and I are human, we share similar experiences. We both eat, sleep, work, read, and other things. Within the context of eating, I’m pretty sure you’ve never tasted my grandmother’s fantastic rot-your-teeth-at-ten-paces yellow cake (the frosting is mostly cream cheese and powdered sugar). But you’ve had cake, and probably delicious cake.

    Your faith has nothing to do with the foods I eat, even though we both need to eat and may choose to have desert with our dinner.

  23. knowledge increases responsibility. Instructed Christians are forewarned, and furthermore have access to special graces from God which are unavailable to unbelievers. To whom much is given, from him much will be required.

  24. Ah, the exclusivity thing.

    I’m really trying not to stomp toes here, but I’m afraid I disagree.

    Christians are a lot nicer to be around when everyone else doesn’t have to defer to them.

    “One path among many” means Christians usually pay attention to what others say. It means Christians have to defend what they say and do without hiding behind scripture.

    The exclusivity is not the core of your faith. How you live your life is. That shows in how you touch the lives of others.

  27. What’s even more disgusting is your gall in asking “why she did it?” and the horrific comment from someone who I can only conclude must be a perpetrator saying “because all sexual abuse victims are horny” Yes Dana, you said “teen” but she was underage which makes her an abuse victim by an older man. It’s against the law. It sucks to se the Left be so stupid and bash victims. Read up on sexual abuse and why it continues and how powerless victims feel before you comment next time.

  29. Get the hottest, easiest-to-live-with gal you can find and bang the ever-loving dogsnot out of her.

    Lather, rinse, repeat.

    That’s the plan.

  30. I’m sure that comforts you. Even though the only evidence is that I will not submit to your belief.

    But consider this. If I were a Christian “facing down” an irritating non-Christian, you wouldn’t care what tactics I used or if I cited the appropriate scripture.

    You would be cheering because the other guy was a non-believer.

    I did warn you not to play the Holier Than Thou card.

  31. I. Don’t. Care.

    It’s not a matter of “holier than thou.” It’s a matter of being a theological thing that is utterly out of your understanding.

  34. *sighs*

    Why do you think you need to “win” here?

    It has nothing to do with your faith and nothing to do with my understanding. Even less to do with your “understanding” of my understanding.

    And less still to do with any version of Christianity worth the name.

  35. I feel no need to win. What I am pointing out is you have no understanding of what I said and it shows in what you have said. The reason is you are not a Christian and so have no means to understand what I said. After this, I’ll let you rave in peace.

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