The only year that Shielagh Thompson Clark appears in the BJU Vintage was as a Freshman in the 2004-05 school year. She might have attended in the 2005-06 year but left before the yearbook was created. Prior to 2015, those students who were expelled before February 1 would not make it in that year's annual.
But the GRACE Report records it all (153-54). It needs to be amplified. This is part of the evidence that will presented at Jonathan Alan Weaver's court hearing Thursday, April 15 at 11:00am.
In the mid-2000s, a disclosure of a rules violation to Student Life staff resulted in a victim’s “withdrawal at the request of the administration.” In this instance, [Clark] disclosed to her Assistant Prayer Captain, the Resident Counselor, and her Resident Supervisor that she “had been abused by her pastor since she was 15 years old and was expecting a child in January.” [Clark]’s pastor, [Jonathan Alan Weaver] who was [37yo and] married with children, came to Greenville on several different occasions while she attended BJU. During these occasions, she said they went to Spartanburg and stayed in a hotel together. During one of the pastor’s visits when she was 20 years of age, she became pregnant. Upon learning that she was pregnant and believing she would be expelled, [Clark] began to pack up her belongings in the dorm. The residence life staff confronted her and asked why she was packing and leaving. At that point, she explained to them that the abuse began when she was 15. She also acknowledged to them that she had lied about her whereabouts when she obtained the overnight passes to leave campus.
Consequently, she was asked to withdraw at the request of the administration for lying about overnight passes. [Clark] wrote a letter to her prayer group explaining the reason for her departure, a copy of which was turned over to BJU officials. The letter describes their relationship, as well as the pastor’s manipulative use of biblical passages to facilitate and justify the ongoing abuse.
Due to these dynamics, [Clark] told GRACE, “I had to break rules to go off campus, but I didn’t feel like I had a choice in the matter.”
In the footnotes, the GRACE team quoted the letter Clark wrote her Prayer Group:
She wrote to her prayer group explaining her departure from BJU and many of the emotional dynamics involved. After a brief greeting to her prayer group, the letter begins, “It started when I was 15.” At one point in the middle of her letter she wrote, “He said he wouldn’t make it if I walked away and he would walk out on his family and the church if I left. So, I stayed and I kept my mouth shut. I still tried to convince him he was wrong and he’d take me back to scripture to tell me he wasn’t wrong for loving me. How could my guilt compare with his knowledge of the Bible?”
The victim explained, “[The pastor] told me that God doesn’t say it is wrong, our culture says it is wrong. He would go to places in scripture about the dude that has two wives: one with children and one without so it was really confusing to me. So he said that when I was feeling it was really wrong, it wasn’t wrong and I don’t agree. He did that a lot. I would be really upset and he would apologize and then say God put me in his life for a reason to fill a hole and he couldn’t go on.” ... Some of these reported relational dynamics included her enrolling at BJU a year later because the pastor wanted her to stay close to home. The victim further stated, “I had to call him within five minutes of the bell ringing after every class or else I would get interrogated. So I was basically on my phone all the time so I would not be able to meet someone else.” In addition, “He even made me have the phone on when I was in the shower and when I was taking a nap. He started calling the room and waking my roommates up on Saturday morning.” Dr. Berg also offered to send her some counseling materials which she accepted and reviewed, but she noted her confusion and the mixed signals that the university appeared to send. She stated to GRACE, “It is ‘consensual, but here is a course on child sexual abuse.’” ... “I can’t wrap my mind around that.”
Can you imagine getting that letter from your Prayer Groupie? This is Bob Jones University.
