After Fundamentalist Church Expose, One Pastor Is Unrepentant

In the course of 20/20‘s exhaustive investigation last week into abuses and coverups within the Independent Fundamental Baptist Church (IFB), there is some penitence. Well, just a little. But not with Jack Schaap, who was shown excoriating women for being fat and not having any scriptural authority.

Over the course of the five parts, young women describe heartbreaking physical and sexual abuse that they say was covered up by pastors in the church. Tina Anderson was forced to “confess” her “adultery” — in fact, her rape at 15 by an adult man — before the congregation before being banished, pregnant, to Colorado, which her brother says was a tactic to avoid local law enforcement jurisdiction. (Minus points, Elizabeth Vargas, for asking a girl describing being raped at 15, who was already molested by her stepfather, if she “fought back” against her adult rapist. Overall, the segments could do with about 25 percent less schlockiness, but that’s TV news for you.)

The pastor who allegedly told her she was lucky she didn’t live in Old Testament times because she’d be stoned (and whose wife who allegedly asked her if she enjoyed her rapes) seems almost sort-of-borderline penitent when he gets ambushed in a parking lot by an ABC News crew. Or maybe he’s just nervous.

And the young pastor who succeeded that one is earnest and says it’s not his fault and this is not what God teaches. He professes horror at the audio footage of an IFB pastor saying congregants aren’t spanking their children hard enough if there are no bruises, and that infants should be beaten too. Too bad about that child molester — Anderson’s stepfather, not the man who impregnated her — who still sings in the church choir.

Which brings us back to Schaap, an IFB pastor in Indiana whose method of preaching female inferiority is rather more robust than most. He’s featured in this segment six minutes in. You can see him in the top video basically telling ABC where it can shove it.

Part 1: What Happened To Tina Anderson? [ABC News]
Incredibly Sexist Pastor Jack Schaap Responds To 20/20 [Christian Nightmares]