The sin which got Sye Ten Bruggencate ostracized has been revealed by his church:
Following admissions by Sye ten Bruggencate of fornication with a vulnerable woman, and following a formal complaint (with evidence) by the woman concerning the particular admissions given by Sye, the Session has begun a full and thorough investigation.
Sye has been suspended from all privileges without limit of time while the church judicial process is followed.
I will admit that the church has been more swift and efficient in its response than some secular organizations.
“…fornication with a vulnerable woman…”
WHAHUH? What does that mean? What is a vulnerable woman? Was she incapacitated? Cause we have a different word for that…
much quicker than the response of the RCC to their clergy.
Jado, it most likely means he was counseling her. Or it could also mean she was going through circumstances that made her emotionally vulnerable. Regardless, he took advantage of someone.
Thing is though, they’re more pissed off about the “fornication” than the exploitation. If he had convinced her to sign over her house and all her belongings, like the con artist he is, he’d be totally fine.
We really ought to pay more attention to historians
Well, given that most scientists screw up magnificently when talking about the history of science, I think it is a good idea. Here is a rather interesting diatribe on the subject. https://thonyc.wordpress.com/2020/12/09/illuminating-medieval-science/
Ray, true story. A church elder stole about 3k from his elderly mother (who also happened to be my mother, which is how I know about it). I contacted his pastor, thinking that would be grounds for church discipline. Pastor emailed me back; they considered it an internal family matter and would not get involved. He continues to serve as a church elder.
Yet the Red Hot Chili Peppers couldn’t get excommunicated from music for “Californication”…
I don’t know what surprises me more, that he was caught with a woman instead of a man, or that someone would willingly have sex with this creep.
Has anyone taken up my previous suggestion about contacting him to let him know that since he failed to Persist (the P in TULIP), the logical conclusion is that he’s actually Reprobate and that his God made him specifically so he would spend aaaaaallllll of eternity shrieking and howling and writhing in endless, inescapable hellfire and torment? :)
Marissa van Eck: I don’t know why you jump to the conclusion that this was consensual.
Highlighting that it was a vulnerable woman and that there’s a complaint suggests rather that it was probably not.
I am not shocked that it’s sexual. I am a bit surprised that the church has revealed the sin and taken steps to remove this rat from any sort of official ministry.
Another ugly possibility is that the woman was in an abusive relationship, and came to SyeTenB for help.
Or perhaps the abusive relationship was with SyeTenB.
There’s no scenario where he comes out looking innocuous, but in some scenarios, he comes out looking worse than others.
Owlmirror, agreed. The speculation in the previous posting was that, for this degree of discipline to be exercised, things must have been bad, not just bad. I concur.
Oh. Those look an awful lot like euphemisms painted over something that quite frankly should be prosecuted in a court of law and not in a churches back room.
But for now, at least, the woman is entrusting the church with the evidence and investigation. I can only hope they do right by her.
Translation: He took advantage of someone who, for whatever reason, was not in a position to freely consent to intimacy. Which, honestly, could mean just about anything from “consensual but improper due to power imbalances” to “groomed and raped a disabled woman.”
Help, I’m being canceled! My church is canceling me!!
For some reason the headline makes me think of a Dalek bashing its appendage on a wall and shouting “FOR-NI-CATE! FOR-NI-CATE! FOR-NI-CAAAAATE!
Just wanted to share that mental image.
How long before Sye’s “permanent” departure from public ministry is over?
My bet is he’ll be back by this time next year. I think his sabbatical will be longer than most Christian leaders in his situation, but there’s too much money at stake for him to walk away forever.
Sigh.
https://julieroys.com/apologist-resigned-sin-woman/
I’m going to make a wild speculation: Could it be that what the pastor was hinting at was that the woman told them that she is pregnant? So, following from that, the additional concerns from the woman could therefore be a demand for child support. The “authorities” that the pastor might have suggested might not be the police, but the court system to formally open a lawsuit for said child support.
Unless — oh, the hypocrisy! — she also has evidence that Sye asked (or demanded) that she abort the pregnancy.
Like I said, wild and otherwise unsupported speculation. I could be very wrong.
While I am speculating, I looked up the age of consent in Canada. Um. It’s 16. Sorta. Mostly.
Now I am also wondering if “vulnerable woman” could be obscuring a girl technically not illegal for someone Sye’s age (there are close-in-age exemptions to the consent laws) to have sex with in Canada, but still nevertheless young enough to be scandalous. Or maybe it is potentially illegal?:
From the WikiP:
So if the woman is actually under 18, and Sye is “in a position of trust” with her, well, maybe she could go to the police after all, and a judge could rule that the sex had been illegal. Which could also explain the last two lines quoted in my previous post.
Still speculative, of course.
Note: per an earlier post of The Roys Report, “Sye Ten Bruggencate was the only member of the church involved in the troubling circumstance.”
So the woman wasn’t a congregant, it would seem.