I am an old, conservative, fuddy-duddy Baptist preacher. I never thought I would be posting something like I am about to post! If you are not aware, Mark Aderholt, former SBC pastor, IMB missionary, and South Carolina state convention staffer, pled guilty to lesser charges while denying the charges that Anne has consistently made through the years.
No, I will not be linking to a Baptist Press article on this. To this point, BP has maintained stony silence about Aderholt’s guilty plea. As is usual, the Houston Chronicle is providing excellent coverage, this time, from Sarah Smith. The exact terms of the plea deal are spelled out in that article. Read their story.
The SBC has gotten itself in a lot of trouble in recent years by ignoring the survivors of abuse. Anne put out some powerful tweets about her reaction to the court proceedings. While she was pleased that Aderholt entered a guilty plea, she was not happy that he continued to deny his responsibility for all she claims he has done.
Then, she said this, and it stung.
Now taking bets on when and if Baptist Press will cover this, if they don’t reach out to me for a statement and it they will downplay the situation, as they historically have done. ?
— Anne Marie Miller (@girlnamedanne) July 3, 2019
Again, last I checked, there was nothing in Baptist Press about Aderholt’s plea – as of noon, July 3.
I do not know the history between Ms. Miller and Baptist Press, but the idea that she, a woman who has demonstrated grace in the face of horrendous treatment by SBC entities, feels that our own press agency has not given her fair coverage – that annoyed me, grieved me. S0, I contacted her and asked if she would let me publish for the SBC crowd her victim impact statement. It is hard to read – nauseating, really. This statement was read in court and has been published elsewhere. I publish it here simply because we need to hear what this woman says happened to her. I am not a journalist. I have not researched her claims – she makes some explosive ones here – but the Southern Baptist Convention needs to stop hiding in silence about these kinds of things. We need to listen to what survivors such as Anne Marie Miller are saying.
Isn’t that what SBC 2019 was all about?
Here is Anne Marie Miller’s Survivor statement:
Honorable Judge Hagerman: I want to thank you for this opportunity to give this statement.
I would also like to thank Mr. William Knight and Detective Charles Cisneros who wisely and compassionately utilized the criminal justice system to hold Mr. Aderholt accountable for his character and actions.
And before I address the defendant, I want to express gratitude to my husband Tim for supporting me with enduring and sacrificial love during this turbulent time, to my family and friends, including those standing with me today in flesh and in spirit, for their encouragement, love, and prayers, and to our daughter Charlotte who gives me the strength to move beyond this trauma into a courageous and joy-filled life.
——————————–
Now, I would like to address the defendant, Mr. Mark Aderholt.
My family moved from Abilene to Arlington a couple of weeks into my junior year of high school, and I was completely alone. I knew nobody outside of my family and my parents were desperately trying to make ends meet. I was questioning my faith for the first time in my life because of the way the church treated us before we moved. I grieved the rich community I left behind, so I tried to do the one thing I knew how to do in pursuit of finding friends: be the good Christian girl.
Because we weren’t going to church, I reached out to several pastors on America Online trying to find someone who could help me start a See You at the Pole event at my school. You responded to my email and we met at a McDonalds at the Hypermart off Cooper and Bardin in Arlington. After my mom met you and went to do her shopping, we talked over french fries. When we were done, we went to find my mom and the two of you exchanged seminary and missionary stories before we went our separate ways.
My See You at the Pole event failed completely and I was having a crisis of faith and identity. You encouraged me to not give up, and you invited me over to your apartment to talk and pray.
Finally, I thought. A friend.
I went to your apartment, a bottom floor one bedroom in North Arlington. As we spent time together, we got to know each other. You told me about Pampa and your time at Wayland Baptist and your mission trips and your school. You told me about your family and your sisters—one was my age, give or take.
We had fun: We went to Kroger in your blue Grand Am and bought ice cream. You took me to have dinner at Razoo’s in Sundance Square. You kissed me and we acted silly at Greenbriar Park when a car flashed their lights at us. “Let’s give them a show,” you said. I wanted to buy a yellow truck like the one you parked next to at your apartment. You said girls who drove yellow trucks were hot.
I felt blessed to have you, this man of God, as my friend. We sat on your floor to watch a movie. As your arm brushed against mine—and then stayed there for a moment, I remember feeling nervous but excited. Did you want to be more than friends? You held my hand. You kissed me. And then you kissed me more.
On the floor next to your TV, you were on top of me kissing. You rolled off of me for a moment and propped your head up on your arm. You asked if I was a virgin and I awkwardly said yes. You told me you weren’t, that you lost your virginity when you were 13, but it was a mistake you wouldn’t make again.
You continued kissing me and your hands wandered all over my body. No boy had ever touched me the way you touched me, or in the places you touched me. And you were no boy. You were a man, almost a decade older than my sixteen years. I was afraid to say no, afraid that I would lose one of my only friends.
We met many times over my junior year in high school. And out of nowhere, you ended it.
You told me you were engaged and getting married later that year to a girl you met overseas. She was coming back to the states in the summer and could never find out about us.
That was the moment everything changed. Beyond violating my body, when you told me to never talk to you again, you broke my spirit.
The world was no longer safe and even the Godliest of men could not be trusted. I was just a body with breasts and hips and thighs and other things too intimate to name. I felt ashamed of what we did, humiliated in my naïveté. You didn’t care that I was already lost and alone and hurting when I met you. In fact, you took advantage of my vulnerability. I was the least likely person to tell anyone what you did. And although it took some time, you were mistaken.
When I turned 25 and was mentoring a 16 year old girl, I had a revelation just how inappropriate it was for you to pursue a romantic relationship with a girl who had only recently earned her drivers license. I realized you intentionally and dishonorably harmed me and violated me in the most intimate way. This wasn’t a bad break up: You manipulated me.
You sexually abused me.
I told leaders at the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention what you did, and after they investigated it, they determined I was telling the truth. But they let you resign and over the next decade, you were promoted in your career in the SBC. I could never reconcile why they’d let you do that. It didn’t make sense. Now we know that you continued advancing because you were dishonest with everyone about your past.
When the #MeToo movement was going viral on social media, I was mostly offline, busy as a new mom, changing diapers and starting nursing school. As I looked down at my daughter and reflected on an article a friend sent, I thought to myself, “What am I going to tell her when she’s older? How am I going to make the world safer for her?” Surely there was something more I could do.
I decided to report you to the authorities and go public with my story, knowing it would be a step to reclaim the truth in this false narrative you directed for so long. Knowing it was a step to put an end to the power of your dishonesty.
On July 3, a year ago tomorrow, you were arrested.
I am grieved your family has experienced such pain because of your actions. However, you also need to know the dramatic and traumatizing way your disregard for me as a woman and as a sister in Christ has affected me.
Nine years ago, I checked myself in to an inpatient counseling facility. I was diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder because of what you did to me.
I wanted to heal: I wanted to be able to not have a panic attack or feel a searing pain between my legs when I had sex. I didn’t want to shake with fear every time I saw a mid-nineties blue Grand Am. I wanted to drive down Highway 360 to visit my parents without getting nauseous when I passed your old apartment. I didn’t want to feel dread driving by Greenbriar Park every time I went to spend time with my grandparents. Even this year as I would visit my dying grandmother, I would see that park. Something as sacred as her final days were cloaked in the shadows of evil from when you sexually abused me.
During the investigation last year, there were days I couldn’t get out of bed because of my anxiety. Our daughter, who had just taken her first steps, toddled to the bedroom door saying, “mama, mama” and my husband would redirect her saying, “mama’s sleeping,” even though I wasn’t. I was so exhausted, but yet I couldn’t stop crying. I thought my husband and daughter would be better off without me: a broken, hopeless person.
Mark: you need to know that what you did to me made me want to kill myself many times. I even tried once a few years ago, but I couldn’t figure out how to work the gun.
On Mother’s Day last year, about a month after the investigation started, I headed to Nashville and went to inpatient therapy again because of my suicidality. While I was there, you were coming home from a mission trip, telling people about a fabricated lawsuit you were supposedly settling with me: a woman from your past who was suing you—something, by the way, that has never happened. When you were on your plane home, I was in an ambulance heading to Trauma Bay #2 of Skyline Hospital in Nashville, out of my therapy treatment two weeks early, because of a freak accident. During a game of baseball, someone lost their grip on the bat and it missiled into my jaw, breaking it in four places. I’ve had four surgeries, two bone grafts, plates and screws and braces and implants. My face will never be the same.
The cost of this accident and all of the mental health expenses over the last two decades has a price tag of hundreds of thousands of dollars. This is just one more way I’ve suffered because of the abuse, and it will forever affect my family’s financial future.
When I first wrote this victim statement, I wrote about how I prayed that you were a statistical anomaly. I wrote about how I hoped I was the only person you sexually violated.
I have since learned you are not an anomaly.
I am not the only woman you took advantage of.
Others have come forward in the past few days and shared that you used their vulnerability for your sexual gratification, at times even doing so after you were told to stop. There are hearts everywhere damaged by your refusal to own up to what you’ve done. The truth is exploding out from all the places you have hidden it. You can no longer hide in the duality you live in.
Mark, here we are, face to face, 22 years after seeing each other for the last time. My heart is no longer broken. It has been rebuilt by love and faith and those who have helped carry it and patch it over the years. I never thought I’d see you again, ever, but now I can and I want to look you in the eyes and tell you I forgive you.
I forgive you, Mark. For all of the pain, the time I had to spend away from loved ones, the fear of intimacy, and the financial losses. I forgive you for stealing the good I believed about the world and for damaging the image of a perfect and loving God who I still often doubt cares for me or protects me.
I forgive you. And my heart aches for the person-the man-you could be if you would just tell the truth and accept the responsibility that comes with it.
I used to believe that in order for this ordeal to be over, you needed to tell the truth and ask me to forgive you. I know now that’s not the case. This is over because I have spoken the truth. It’s over because I have forgiven you. Your lies have no more power.
This is over, Mark. This is the end.
I do pray, however, that it is a new beginning for you.
I pray you begin to feel the pulse of conviction pursuing your heart.
I pray you begin to immerse yourself in the repentance and forgiveness you have spent your life proclaiming but never fully experiencing.
I pray that you begin to choose to live honorably and honestly for yourself and for your family.
And I pray you will know the holy and saving power of God’s perfect and unconditional love. God loves you so much, Mark. Please ask for the strength and the help you need to be made whole. He does not forsake those he loves. He hasn’t forsaken me. He won’t forsake you either.
Here’s the BP article on the guilty plea. http://www.bpnews.net/53231/mark-aderholt-pleads-guilty-in-sex-assault-case
Thanks, Adam
Dave:
Thanks for posting this.
Very sad, but also very inspiring because of her faith.
I pray that she will find complete healing.
Thank you Dave for posting this. I am praying for Anne Marie to find healing and hope following such a traumatic ordeal. I am grateful for her strength and courage. May God richly bless her and her family.
Thank you, Dave.
This is beyond heartbreaking and beyond infuriating. Gut wrenching, indeed.
This “victim statement” was more like a grace and freedom statement: she essentially said to him you’re a vile sinner…but i forgive you – You’re a thief – but you didn’t steal my faith.
I pray for her continued healing.
I also am thankful that Dr. Platt took Mrs. Millers statements seriously and, now, as Chitwood is at the helm of IMB – I think its a new and better day as relating to these kinds of issues.
Here’s a great BP example where they reported only statements (defensive and dishonest ones at that) by the IMB. http://www.bpnews.net/51277/update–former-baptist-leader-charged-with-sexual-assault. They did include a tiny paraphrase from my public statement on my website. I replied to them correcting this misinformation, which they left up, and told me “As new developments may unfold relative to Mr. Aderholt’s arrest, we will hold your comments for awareness and possible use at the appropriate time. If your comments become part of a new BP story, we will send word. Art Toalston, Senior Editor.” I left a comment on their FB page on the article… Read more »
In other words, they didn’t listen to you Anne. This is wrong. It’s also wrong that they are holding information, not making it available to the Convention. This should have been done when the investigation was complete and certainly before the trial began. Come on IMB, do the right thing now.
I did not like their use of the word “allegedly” in the article. His guilty plea, even to the lesser charges, removes any and all allegations and becomes truth and should have been reported that way.
Legally and journalistically, I think alleged is proper until a conviction takes place. Any charges for which he was not convicted (by virtue of his plea) remain allegations for which he’s legally presumed not guilty.
Of course we know that legalities and realty are not always the same…
I think the dates on all the BP articles are prior to the plea, so they are going to have used “alleged” language throughout.
Although in the Internet Era, it would be a reasonable shift for digital articles to update with a footnote: “As of July 2019, Aderholt pled guilty to a related charge.” Leave the article intact as it was written, but tag that at the end to be clear.
Anne, you have tremendous courage to come forward, may God richly bless you and your family.
Dave thanks for posting this:
Sadly with Baptist press seemingly running out the clock while this story is front and center
I do begin to wonder if Birmingham was more visual optics, than corporate repentance .
The SBC has lost its way in the sexual abuse issue
I remember reading about the RCC sexual abuse issues, and thought how could the people in the pew live with leaders just looking the other way.
I think I get it now, sadly
After reading this and the comments… First, My prayers for you Anne for the awful treatment both then and later you didnt deserve. May God continue to bless you and give you strength and peace and greater faith. Second, Thank you Dave for printing this. Thank you for being part of light shining on darkness and exposing it. Third, I cany help wondering about all the coverups that have happened, may be even now happening, and possibly might happen, by our entities and churches to cover sins and sinfulness. It reminds me of the Catholic Church who would cover up… Read more »
Michael, I wonder the same thing. How can any regenerate man cover such things up? It concerns me that a large percentage of out leaders, both local church and state/national leaders, MAY NOT BE regenerated… wow.
One thing that stuck out to me in the statement Ms. Miller released on her website is that “He will not be on any registries and as long as he keeps the terms of his probation, there will actually be no record of his crimes on a background check.”
No record on a background check. No offender registry. Let the implications for our churches’ child protection screenings sink in.
http://annemariemiller.com/2019/07/02/anne-marie-millers-victim-impact-statement-after-guilty-plea-from-mark-aderholt-and-other-women-come-forward/
Ben,
gotta say, I wonder about that….misdemeanors show up on background checks and certainly one with “sexual assault” in the name of the law he was convicted of breaking would raise red flags, no?
Was it part of the plea deal that keeps him off the registry for a sexual assault conviction?
The “deferred adjudication” concept that is in play here allows that his plea will be expunged by the State of Texas after his probation. It’s not an uncommon choice for “first-time” offenders. He plea will be erased and his charges/file dropped off the system.
Plus, someone familiar with Texas law may have to weigh in on whether or not the pled-to charge of “assault causing bodily injury” would fit under “sexual assault” in the system.
Ahhhhh…..gotcha now.
Dave – thanks for posting.
Anne – may our Lord Jesus, all-sufficient, all-wonderful, all-perfect, renew your mind, restore your soul, heal your brokenness, and bless you so that you can scarcely remember the sorrows of your youth. You’re a courageous person.
Debbie Kaufman – this is long overdue, but you have been a steadfast voice for the abused. May God strengthen your hands.
Thank you for this Randy.
What Randy said.
Part of the tragedy is the common but misguided practice of “letting him resign”. If an employee, particularly of a church entity or a church has sexually abused a child, fire him for it. That will make reference checks straightforward and factual. “We fired him for sexually abusing a child” is defensible. “We let him resign but there were “other problems”” is not.
LIve in the light.
Why any church or denomination would seek to keep slient on such charges and accusations is beyond me,it appears be it the case or not that the church is attempting to protect the abuser or it’s reputation or both,when allegations of sexual abuse or physical abuse are made,there is no protected conversation or confession, immediately call law enforcement and if the pastor (and he should) confront the accused with law enforcement and stress to the accuser they are not to blame but they have been wronged.I know false allegations are made every day,but that is not for us to decide,that… Read more »
Thanks for posting……majority of abuse cases reported have been male abuse such as one last week in Alabama at Baptist church….do these cases receive same outcry, publicity, and condemnation?
They don’t. That story was tragic. I am sick and angry about it. I shared it, but it did not pick up the press other cases get. As such an anomaly, you think it would have received more, especially since the assault was at the hands of an SBC female leader.
Dave, thank you so much. How can we read this and not weep? My family and I are part of a church that is overseas and calls itself SBC. I have recommended that we “watch and/or send someone” to the upcoming ERLC conference in Dallas in October. This issue is so important for every person in the church. Thank you for not staying in “your comfort zone” but stepping out.
The recriminations from all places in this sad episode are not misplaced nor is this specific situation reparable. By confession, Anne was abused by Mark Aderholt. It appears that the prosecution did not have enough evidence outside of the accusation to make the greater charges stick and the plea deal was the best that could be done to get the admission of guilt. No, it is not the sorrowful biblical repentance that we would desire and no, it will not remain on his record after successful completion of the sentence. Still, the public admission is fixed in public memory. What… Read more »
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