Tammy Feilke

Texas

Before my family and I became members of this Southern Baptist minister's newly started church, he had allegedly been asked to leave a prominent church in Dallas for being too charismatic for the Baptist faith. It turns out that was a rich way to cover up his behavior with three women, including a youth. One of these women went to the senior pastor, but they simply let him leave under the pretense of being too charismatic.

Three and a half years ago, I reported this minister because I had become his next victim. The leaders of this new church heard audio tapes of him and read emails proving his behavior. He was asked to resign. They gave him severance pay and offered to help him with counseling.

No one in the church or denomination offered to help me, and my own insurance capped on coverage for counseling. I maxed out 3 credit cards and then I had to stop. I just could not afford it anymore. I recently had to file debt consolidation for those cards through a Christian credit counseling agency.

More and more, I see that the Baptist General Convention of Texas should have been a voice to the Southern Baptist Convention and others. I talked with the designated person at the BGCT, and he knew about the evidence of this minister’s abuse. I still have the tapes and emails. But I was so beaten down from all that had happened that I just wanted it to all go away.

I was too afraid to call the police, even though my family begged. I could not bear for people at my new job/new life to know what had happened.

I do know 5 of his victims. Four are still here in the Dallas area. Many of their friends and family members tried to get them to come forward, but none would. One woman went to the pastor, but he didn’t do anything.

A young girl from the church where he went next  --  her friends say she has never been the same. He was their youth pastor, and she was only about 17 when he first started abusing her. He even abused her while he did premarital counseling for her. Her marriage ended. My heart breaks for her because he would brag about the things that he did to and with her. I know what he did to me. He was deeply perverted. Simply evil.

Another teen victim of his lives in North Carolina.

The last I heard, he was trying to get a job at an Alabama church. He has been allowed to fall through the cracks as many Southern Baptist leaders have let him leave their churches only to move on to another and do the same. My life and the lives of others could have been spared from such darkness if he had not been protected.

I have always wanted to ask those Baptist leaders who did nothing to stop him, “When does a shepherd devour his own flock?”