Ongoing indiscretion, actually.

Rick Ousley, founding pastor of The Church at Brook Hills and chaplain for the Samford University football team, has been suspended from his evangelistic ministry after he admitted to “moral and spiritual indiscretion.”

Yeah, an affair that has been going on since 1981?  Pastor Rick only admits to one ”indiscretion”, and he subtly blames his girlfriend for going public.

“In the fall of 2005, I committed a moral and spiritual indiscretion with a woman not my wife. That woman has decided to make this public. I have acknowledged my sin to God, my wife, my family and to my ministry team. We are all now attempting to deal with this as God leads. I ask for your prayers during this difficult time.”

His girlfriend gives a different account:

Donna Jones of Katy, Texas, said that the reference to an indiscretion in fall 2005 refers to a weeklong trip she and Ousley took together to a cabin at Lake Fork near Dallas.

Wes Hendrix, who rented them the cabin, said Ousley and Jones spent the week together and he assumed they were old friends. “They were so upfront about it, they showed up together,” Hendrix said. “I thought it was risky for him in the position he was in.”

Jones, 43, said that she began a sexual relationship with Ousley in 1981 and met him twice in recent years for trysts on his trips with Samford’s football team, to Waco, Texas, and Martin, Tenn. Ousley has been team chaplain for 15 years at Samford, where he graduated in 1975.

…Jones said her last trysts with Ousley were Dec. 10-17, 2006, when he preached two consecutive Sundays at Champion Forest Baptist Church in Houston.

Jones said she began baby-sitting Ousley’s children when she was 15, and began a sexual relationship with Ousley in Houston when she was 18 and he was 29, after he and his first wife divorced. Jones said Ousley continued the relationship with her after he married his current wife, Joyce.

Nice.  Sleeping with the babysitter.  At least he waited till she was eighteen.

[Ousley spokesman and attorney Gordon] Pate said this has been a difficult month for Ousley.

“He’s devastated, emotionally and spiritually devastated,” Pate said. “God has used Rick in a great way. I don’t think he’s through with him.”

Yeah, it’s always tough when you get caught.  Does anyone want to place bets on how soon he’ll go into rehab?

I closed comments on my Rick Ousley post tonight.  It was time.

When I first posted the story the morning it broke in the Birmingham News, I expected a few of my regular readers would leave comments, joining me in my speculation about when Mr. Ousley would go into rehab.  I never expected the explosion of interest from people who’d never heard of Birmingham Blues before.

Now, seven hundred and something comments later, it’s time to shut this down.  At first, there were lots of people coming here to share their pain and anger at Mr. Ousley’s betrayal.  Some of them likely weren’t familiar with the blogging world, but they needed a place to vent, and they hadn’t found it anywhere else.  I was glad to provide that for them.

Now, I think almost everyone with a dog in the fight has moved on.  I pray that they’re continuing the conversation, and the healing, with trusted confidantes.  We’ve moved on to people whose primary purpose seems to be attacking those who are hurting and trying to prove the “superiority” of their particular theology.  That’s not healthy for those who are still suffering.

I don’t know that any of the commenters on that post (other than my regulars) will come here again.  My politics may be too progressive.  But despite that, they have been, almost without exception, gracious and appreciative of this space.  I pray God’s blessing on all of them as they move through and beyond this painful time.

I’ve posted this, almost verbatim, as the final comment in the thread.

Readers, I hesitate even to lift the lid off this can of worms again, but the Samford Crimson has a long follow-up article on Rick Ousley’s affair and his resignation as the school’s football chaplain.  Reporter Christopher Smith quotes Donna Jones extensively, and he also says that a number of other women have come forward since the story first broke in the Birmingham News on March 23.

Since the news broke, several women have expressed similar stories. Jones said two women called her house and told her about their own sexual relationships with Ousley. They told Jones that she was brave for speaking up and that they had been called liars. She hopes their stories will be validated now that she has spoken up.

“Rick’s comment in his statement was ‘that woman.’ He didn’t name me, a reporter did. That kind of left it open when he said ‘that woman,’ because it was ‘which woman.’ There were so many. He stuck his Reebok tennis shoes that everybody teases that he preached in right in his mouth when he said that.”

It looks like some of the commenters on my previous post did contact Birmingham News reporter Greg Garrison to tell him their stories.

Jones said “Birmingham News” reporter Greg Garrison told her several women called and accused Ousley of inappropriately touching their daughters while he pastored The Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Ala. Two women have posted detailed descriptions of encounters they had with Ousley on the Internet. None of the stories could be confirmed.

“None of the stories could be confirmed.”  Does that mean they aren’t true, or does it mean that it’s very hard to prove “he said, she said” stories about private encounters?

Please go read the whole thing — and be aware that you can leave comments at the newspaper’s site.  Also, if you want to contact Greg Garrison at the Birmingham News, click here.

Hat tip, Blues reader Mark.

I’m going to start a new comment thread as the most recent one has become a bit unwieldy.  ALmod was planning to set up a forum, but she has a couple of family members in the hospital, and she needs to focus on them.

Comment at will.

If you want to catch up, see here, here, and here.  Yes, I know I said in that middle post that we were going to stop this, but the current discussion has returned to the original focus, and that can be a healthy outlet.

If you need to catch up, click here for links to the previous threads.

Also, here’s the link to ALmod’s discussion forum.

Catch up here if you like.

A few pointers:  First, keep it civil.  Second, be careful.  This is a public forum, and posting personal information is potentially dangerous.  At the least, if you include your email address in a comment, spammers can grab it, and you can get some of the incredibly disgusting junk that shows up in my spam folder.  Finally, my spam blocker sometimes grabs legitimate comments for no apparent reason.  If your comment seems to disappear or you get a message that it’s gone to moderation, don’t worry.  I check for “lost” comments several times a day and approve them ASAP.

I’m running out of titles for these things. 

Here are the previous posts.

Catch up here.  In other news, I’ll be out of town this week, but the blog will be well taken care of in my absence.  Be kind to each other.

We’re up over 200 comments in the most recent Ousley thread, so I’m going to open a new one (previous threads here if you need to catch up).  I don’t mean to be flip with the post title — I’m just running out of ideas.  Clearly, this story and its implications have touched many people.  Some are sad, some are angry, many are both, and it appears that for several people here this is the first opportunity in years to address their situations openly.  I’ll keep a forum going as long as you need it.  If it’s time to move on, go with God.  Healing comes in many forms, and I pray that everyone here finds the one that works.

If you want to stick around, please remember to be kind to one another.  Almost everyone who has stuck with this discussion has done so because they were hurt by Rick Ousley’s actions over the years.  Please don’t come here pretending to be someone you’re not (we had a little problem with a sock puppet recently, but that appears to be resolved).  Do your best to keep your language under control; too much profanity takes away from your message.  And, although recommendations and resources for addressing pastor misconduct and abuse are welcome, please don’t assume that one size fits all.

Thanks, everyone.