Tim Ballard is famous for trying to rescue sex slaves with his Operation Underground Railroad. But now he has allegations of sexual impropriety himself. We’ll talk about the controversy and how he got funding. Check out our conversation…
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Tim Ballard Scandal
GT 04:21 They are big Tim Ballard fans, I’ll say that, too.
Scott 04:24 They are. And in fact, that was funny when I was going through all the finances here, another tangent in these Gospel Tangents.
GT 04:29 That’s what we are.
Scott 04:30 Some of the major funders to these Church-affiliated groups were also major funders to Tim Ballard, and OUR. But that’s another paper for another time. So back to the topic. What does the Church do with these people who…
GT 04:46 Are true believers.
Scott 04:48 Absolutely true believers. I think that the Church needs to do more pruning on the right. I’m not necessarily talking about any of these individuals. But people like Ammon Bundy, they’re bad news for the Church. They’re going to hurt the image of the Church as much as anything. And if the Church doesn’t distance themselves from these people, then it’s going to hurt the Church. People on the left, when they were looking at John Dehlin or whatever, Church members already knew that he was wacko, and that he wasn’t helping out the Church. But on the right, these people are very sincere. And so, if the Church doesn’t distance themselves from these individuals and their theories, then it’s going to taint the Church in some way, in my opinion.
GT 05:29 It is interesting. September was excommunication month here at Gospel Tangents. There are the Avraham Gileadis to go along with the other five, which I will say, more liberal scholars. And you do have a Julie Rowe, here or a Norman…
Scott 05:51 Denver Snuffer.
GT 05:52 Well and Denver Snuffer, there’s a few on the right. I don’t know. Avraham Gileadi, for example; He wants to pretend that excommunication never happened. He keeps it quiet. He doesn’t grant interviews. I don’t even think Julie Rowe, Tim Ballard. I mean, maybe we should say who Tim Ballard is. People might not know. Tell who Tim Ballard is.
Scott 06:22 I’m the wrong person to talk about Tim Ballard, but Tim Ballard founded O. U. R., which is Operation Rescue Underground.
GT 06:29 Operation Underground Railroad. Yeah.
Scott 06:31 Thank you, I apologize. The purpose of this organization is, ostensibly, to go into areas where children are being held, essentially sex slaves and to rescue these children, which sounds wonderful, and something that everybody should get behind. But his methods and methodologies are questioned by people who work professionally in this area. He’s donated a ton of donations from both rich and poor, throughout the Church. He seemed to have tacit backing of the Church. He had a number of publications that were available for sale at Deseret Book for almost a decade. But it turned out that he had a major scandal as well, that involved, (I don’t even know what I should call it) sexual allegations of sexual grooming or sexual harassment of women who would go on missions with him, where he would essentially push them to have some sexual relations essentially, in order to help these children. So, one can say that he was very manipulative, and this was not necessary in order to help the children.
GT 07:45 And that also he was overselling his rescuing the sex slaves operation as well.
Scott 07:51 Sure, and in addition to that, he was using a psychic who was channeling Nephi and just things that would be way outside of mainstream Mormonism.
GT 07:58 Like a seer stone? I’m just kidding. {both laughing} But it appears, I mean, there’s been no official confirmation. It sounds like he’s been excommunicated. He’s running for Mitt Romney’s seat in the Senate. I guess maybe that’s not official. But it sounds like he’s going to.
Scott 08:17 There were rumors that he was going to run. I have not seen any confirmation of that.
GT 08:22 Well, and I haven’t seen any confirmation of his excommunication either by him or by the Church.
Scott 08:27 Correct. But there are inside sources that hint that that might be the case.
GT 08:30 Yeah. I just wonder, these people on the right, that sound–by the way, his last name is the same name as President Ballard. Apparently, he was name dropping, ‘Hey, President Ballard is on my team.’ And President Ballard is like ‘no, I am not.’
Scott 08:49 Yeah. Lynn Packard has done a lot of investigative reporting. He said that there was a dinner where Tim Ballard showed up and did a presentation for, essentially, all the members of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles and things. It appears like there was some sort of connection, but the Church has denied that there was any connection. And we would only be speculating, with respect to how big of a connection there was. But if you want to research about Tim Packard.
GT 09:19 Lynn Packer.
Scott 09:19 Sorry, Lynn Packer.
GT 09:20 I need to get Lynn on. But, at any rate, that’s the story behind Tim. But it does seem like, and I’m just trying to get your opinion on this. A lot of people on the left [say,] ‘hey, I got excommunicated. I’ve going to make a big noise.’ A lot of people on the right are more hush hush about it, and they still want to be in good graces with the Church and they don’t publicize as much. Do you think that maybe the Church does go after some of these people on the right wing more than the left, but they’re just quieter about it.
Scott 10:00 They do tend to be quieter about it. If you look at conservative and liberal values, if we’re talking about the political spectrum, trust and loyalty is much stronger on the conservative side. So, we would expect that the trust and loyalty, even for these members, even the ones who were excommunicated, would be much higher. So, some of them may be excommunicated, but still loyal to the movement. When they leave the movement, if they choose to leave the movement and take a hard exit, they’re much more likely to form splinter groups and those splinter groups are much more likely to be successful, because they’re going to have loyal followings, as well. So you run a big risk as any institution when you cut off people on the right.
GT 10:38 And that makes a bigger risk than on the left.
Scott 10:40 Yeah, because on the left, what do they do? They go on Mormon Stories, and they yell for five hours and then that’s it. Right? But if you cut them off on the right, maybe they’re Mormonism, version three, or whatever.
GT 10:53 Or they end up being polygamists.
Scott 10:55 Sure, which is, whatever, for sure. {Rick chuckling}
GT 11:00 I think it’s an interesting dynamic to look at, because I do think, on the left, there can be a bigger persecution complex than on the right. And I’m curious if that’s warranted. What do you think?
Scott 11:17 So I believe, statistically, they’re more likely to go after people on the left than on the right. But I could be wrong on that. In terms of feeling persecuted, that’s anybody who goes online, goes on there to feel persecuted, because that’s what people do online. That seems like that’s a relatively recent phenomenon of the last 10 years that everybody wants to feel persecuted. And I have issues with that.
GT 11:45 Are the people on the left persecuted, would you say? You would probably be on the left. Right?
Scott 11:50 I am on the left. And I think that the actual level of persecution versus what people like to say, is at a completely different level. I don’t think there’s a lot of persecution of people on the left. Now, having said that, I will say that past rhetoric of Church leaders with respect to LGBTQ individuals is harmful, and they should be held accountable for that rhetoric.
GT 12:17 The Church should be held accountable, you’re saying?
Scott 12:19 Yes. And the people who said that, or people from the Church should make official apologies for some of that rhetoric, because some of that was really toxic. I haven’t seen a lot of that rhetoric in the last five to 10 years, but some of the stuff going back to the 70s, 80s and even 90s is, in my opinion, is harmful and warrants an apology.
GT 12:41 Okay. Well, have we covered everything?
Scott 12:45 Yeah, I think we’ve covered a lot. Thank you. {Rick Chuckling}
GT 12:49 All right. Well, Scott Vance, thank you so much for being here on Gospel Tangents. I really appreciate it.
Scott 12:54 Thanks for having me, Rick.
{End of Part 5}
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