I received the following email on Wednesday morning, August 17, 2022. Someone connected to Weimar’s NEWSTART program expressed that Dr. George Araya is “gone” from Weimar. Some of the information has been redacted to protect people’s privacy. The email stated:
Sometimes it takes a life-changing event to shake us awake. Sometimes it takes adversity, trials, hardships, and suffering for God to attract our attention. And sometimes we have to hit rock bottom before we can get back on the road to redemption. Often, that is the only way for the gospel to transform hardened hearts.
“Perilous times are before us. Everyone who has a knowledge of the truth should awake, and place himself, body, soul, and spirit, under the discipline of God. The enemy is on our track. We must be wide awake, on our guard against him. We must put on the whole armor of God. We must follow the directions given through the Spirit of prophecy. We must love and obey the truth for this time” (Gospel Workers, p. 309).
When this experience becomes a reality, we will also have the following promise fulfilled to us:
“The same power that raised Christ from the dead will raise His church, and glorify it with Him, above all principalities, above all powers, above every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in the world to come” (Desire of Ages, p. 787).
Weimar should issue a statement on this matter. They can simply say: “We deny the allegations and will mount a vigorous defense,” or “Dr. George Araya has been terminated for conduct that Weimar will not tolerate.” If Weimar does not make a statement and this case is settled out of court, along with non-disclosure agreements and confidentiality clauses, then everything gets swept under the rug. When there is pending litigation and when serious allegations have been made, and we choose not to make a comment in the hopes that everything will be resolved through a settlement, several months if not years away, we might as well just say “Guilty.”
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Please explain what is going on with Weimar.
I was very disappointed to hear of the sex abuse at Weimar. The offender should have been terminated the very minute he admitted to his evil deed. Some years ago at the request of Ministry Magazine, I did research on sex abuse in the SDA Church. After speaking to someone about the fact that I was going to do this project, I had phone calls from all over the country sharing with me their stories. Fortunately, I found no Pastors involved, but that does not mean there have not been any. What I did find were women who had been molested by teachers, people in their churches, and family members. Employees who had been accused were simply moved to other locations. Too often the victims were not believed and got no help. I made numerous calls to Conferences, Unions, the Division, and even the GC. One good thing that came out of it is that a policy has been developed and a process in place to vet those who will be working with our children. The results of my research were never published and returned to me. I never kept or actual names and used only fake names in the stories. We still have some work to be done. The Church must not attempt to be the law enforcement in these matters. Sexual abuse must be reported to the authorities. That is the best way to prove who is guilty and who is innocent. Very few pedophiles and other sex offenders are actually rehabilitated. Some are by the power of the Holy Spirit and we can be thankful for small victories. Confidentiality does not cover the sexual abuse of children. Failure to report can bring serious consequences. I have been a minister for 50 years and a Law Enforcement Chaplain for 31 years and I have seen lives ruined by failures on the part of the Church. I am very happy that progress has been made in the proper handling of those who have been appointed to work with our children.
My sexual abuse was not reported by the people who knew about it, who happen to be some of the very same people now involved in running Weimar. They absolutely decided to handle the situation within the church rather than go to the authorities. Unfortunately this led to a pedophile attending a congregation that I believe was totally kept in the dark about it. There is a massive ways to go.
Sorry elder Jim Cox, but the Bible says this sort of thing should be handled by the church and not be taken to a worldly court.
1Co 6:1 Dare any of you, having a matter against another, go to law before the unjust, and not before the saints?
1Co 6:2 Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?
1Co 6:3 Know ye not that we shall judge angels? how much more things that pertain to this life?
1Co 6:4 If then ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church.
1Co 6:5 I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you? no, not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren?
Sorry, DG, but your comment makes assumptions about the Scriptures that are not true. Paul was assuming that the church WOULD handle the issues and COULD do so without the need for civil authority. His statements you quote revolved around religious matters, not civil ones. Adultery among members (remember why he wrote this first letter to the Corinthians?), the question of circumcision, eating food offered to idols, worship, grace, forgiveness, and so on… those types of things. Paul’s primary concern here was that the church not give the world another occasion to blaspheme God. Do you REALLY believe that Paul would start and stop with the passages you quote, even if the sin issues were of such character that the church could not legally deal with them?
“This sort of thing”, as you call it, CANNOT be handled merely by the church. Sexual exploitation, abuse, rape, sexual harassment, child porn, pedophilia, and so on, most squarely fall within the venue of the state. Do you believe the church is able, capable, and willing to handle such crimes? It should go without saying (but obviously needs to be said) that the church cannot handle murder, tax cheats, child porn, rape, bank robbery, assault, etc., among its members apart from the society at large.
While we live in this world, we are subject to the laws of this world, so long as those laws do not interfere with our worship of God. Remember Romans 13? There is a time and place for civil authorities to step in when church members do despicable things. The church can actually save face and honor God by admitting what a member does, then dealing with that person so far as membership or other disciplinary action the church sees fit to pursue on a religious note.
What you are doing here, whether you realize it or not, is erecting an unnecessary double wall in the separation between church and state. In matters such as this article talks about, the state has every right and obligation to get involved. It MUST get involved.
The unfortunate reality is that, far too often, the church as a group or entity fails to defend the innocent, the children, and the helpless. God pronounces judgment on those who pass by the wayside. When that happens, are we just supposed to allow the guilty to skate? And if there was sexual sin, such as a child or teen being raped or otherwise taken sexual advantage of by a pastor, elder, or other in the church, then what, exactly, do you think the “church” can do about that? If a child, say, was raped by a deacon, do you advocate the “church” handle that sin? How would that work? The perp, if found guilty beyond any reasonable doubt, should be strung out and executed in my humble opinion. Does the “church” have any civil authority to exact a prison sentence or death penalty upon such vile pieces of humanity?
You need to expand your vision on what those verses are really saying. It’s your type of thinking that has kept gross sins in the church and prevented victims from getting help and advocacy when they most needed it. If the church follows your advice, victims will be ignored, more victims will be created, and the devils who perpetrate such crimes will not receive the justice they so richly deserve. The Catholic church has followed your advice for centuries. How has that worked out for them?
There are sins against brethren that are not criminal in nature, like sleeping with someone’s wife or stealing, where the saints could and should judge. This is criminal in nature and authorities should be contacted immediately. I am very surprised with Dr. Nedley’s decision not to call the police, or at least to terminate Araya as soon as he got the confirmation of alleged misconduct. This is going to put a blemish on Nedley, and not a small one if this gets to be proven true.
Sigh…
Until Weimar makes an official statement about the status of Araya’s employment, (FIRED/TERMINATED) one has to believe HE IS STILL THERE!!! By the way, status quo will have him working somewhere else where only one or two people at the top will know of the accusations, but certainly not other staff members or church members if he is allowed to transfer his membership.
If he does attend a church , his membership should be deemed “not in good standing” and the church clerk refuse, at the direction of the church business meeting, to allow any transfer of his membership. Disfellowship if the report is true, (which it seems to be given his ‘confession ‘) is the only option and barred from being a member ever again at any church since members can be church officers holding ANY POSITION including PATHFINDER LEADER. If you think this is being too hard you need to read SOP on those who need to be saved outside church fellowship.
Do you want your child or grandchild or relative around someone who has admitted, as reported, to “overstepping his boundaries with her”… Wow! His boundaries??? What about HER BOUNDARIES?