Jeri Massi
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Jeri M. Massi is a contract technical writer and a minor Evangelical Christian author whose novel Valkyries: Some Through the Fire (2003) was nominated for a Christy Award.
Since 2001, Massi has become an opponent of abusive Fundamentalist churches, focusing on churches in which the leadership, and sometimes the entire congregation, has enforced silence on victims of abuse.[1] Massi argues that rigid adherence to the teachings of Jack Hyles and the King-James-Only Movement are typical characteristics of such churches.[citation needed]
After compiling a list of abusive clergy who have never been subject to church censure or discipline, Massi accused Baptist Fundamentalists of abusing children,[citation needed] arguing that fundamentalists have refused to expel abusive pastors, including those convicted of felonious sexual crimes.[citation needed] In 2005, Massi produced a five-part audio documentary, The Lambs of Culpeper, and released it onto the Internet for free download. The documentary addresses alleged abuses against children at Calvary Baptist Church of Culpeper, Virginia, a church then pastored by Charles Shifflett. In 2007, Massi founded the Conference of the Lambs, a two-day conference designed to assist adults who had been molested as children in Fundamentalist churches.[2] In 2008 Massi published Schizophrenic Christianity, which denounced corruption within Christian Fundamentalism that had resulted in harm, especially to children.[3]
[edit] Notes
- ^ Opposition to abusive fundamentalist churches took form with the publication of Vic Nischik, Wizard of God: My Life with Jack Hyles (Buchanan, Mi.: Sychar Publishing, 1990) and gained impetus with the publication of Voyle Glover, Fundamental Seduction: The Jack Hyles case (Schrerville, Indiana: Brevia Publishing, 1990) who marshaled evidence against Jack Hyles and First Baptist Church of Hammond regarding abuses of church office and church doctrine. Massi was further influenced by a 1993 news documentary Preying from the Pulpit, produced by WJBK of Detroit. Audio of this documentary is available at Massi's website.
- ^ The first conference was held in Charlotte, North Carolina, the second in Jacksonville, Florida.
- ^ Jeri Massi, Schizophrenic Christianity: How Christian Fundamentalism Attracts and Protects Sociopaths, Abusive Pastors, and Child Molesters (Raleigh, NC.: Jupiter Rising Books, 2008).
