Jimmy Hinton - The Devil Inside: How My Minister Father Molested Kids In Our Home And Church For Decades And How I Finally Stopped Him

Endorsements

The Devil Inside is, hands down, the absolute must-read for every seminarian, seminary instructor, and church leader and volunteer out there. Without mincing words or sanitizing descriptions, Jimmy Hinton contextualizes the predatory sexual abuser in the very place he/she belongs: right next to you and me. Using real-world comparisons and analogies, Hinton addresses head-on theological problems of redemption and forgiveness and care for others exactly as Jesus would have him do. He cares deeply for the abused and wounded, makes space for the truly repentant, and offers a chilling description of the wolf in sheeps clothing.

Christine Fox Paker, MA, MACM President/Executive Director, PorchSwing Ministries, Inc.

In his book, The Devil Inside, Jimmy pulls no punches. He lays bare his soul and puts in black & white precisely why we should and how we can better defend children from sexual predators.

His unapologetic approach and practice, when it comes to the protection of children and exposing sexual predators, should be an example for us all. If we all truly followed Jimmys lead, we could virtually eradicate child sexual abuse.

As he says, Resisting (evil) means we must take a stand for the innocent and vulnerable. It means we must choose righteousness and justice over comfort, no matter what.

Dave Pittman Executive Director, Together We Heal Child Safeguarding Trainer, GRACE

I recommend this compelling story of a ministers family forced to make a painful choice - protect their father or protect children from their father? From within their Christian belief system, they struggle with issues of faith, family, and forgiveness--includes educational discussions of psychology and patterns of behavior among sexual predators.

Abbie Fitzgerald Schaub, storyteller in The Keepers documentary

As a child protection advocate, The Devil Inside is a sobering reminder of why we advocate on behalf of victims. Pastor Hintons personal experience reminds us that we cannot monsterize child sexual offenders because they blend into the community as ordinary members of society, making them easy to miss. The Devil Inside also serves as a wake-up call for the church and seminaries understanding abuse, how it happens, and prevention must be an integral thread in the churchs fabric. Finally, Pastor Hinton introduces the reader to a deeper understanding of Jesus and how He intentionally taught His disciples. This book is a must for every pastor, ministry leader, and seminary student.

Joe Harvey-Hall, KeepSAfe Director, The Salvation Army

Jimmy writes about what he knows. And what he writes, you need to know for it may save those you love. Had I had this information years ago, my own family might have been spared the horror that destroyed us. This is a book that needs to be read by church leaders and church members alike!

Les Ferguson Jr., Minister and author of Still Wrestling: Faith Renewed Through Brokenness

Copyright 2021 by Jimmy Hinton

First Paperback Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at the address below.

Published by Freiling Publishing, a division of Freiling Agency, LLC.

P.O. Box 1264,

Warrenton, VA 20188

www.FreilingPublishing.com

ISBN 978-1-950948-61-1

Printed in the United States of America

Foreword

Plenty of religious leaders talk the talk of preventing sexual abuse in churches. Too often, their fine-sounding talk leaves a trail of destruction because it is nothing but talk. Pious preaching and empty platitudes dont protect kids.

When abuse hits close to home, in a pastors own church or on his own turf, that hollow, unholy reality comes to roost. Its why clergy sex abuse runs rampant in Christendom. Many experts name churches as among the most dangerous places for children.

But Jimmys story is an exception. His is not a story of talking the talk but of walking the walk. After sitting in his church office listening to a person tell of having been sexually abused in childhood, Jimmy walked into a Pennsylvania police station and turned in his own father, a beloved longtime pastor who had been a role model for Jimmy himself becoming a pastor.

This kind of courage is rare. By and large, pastors and churches deal dreadfully with reports of clergy sex abuse, too often choosing to turn a blind eye, to engage in minimizing self-deceptions, or to advance tactics for institutional protection. I know this because Ive spent 17 years engaged with advocacy and justice issues for survivors of Baptist clergy sex abuse. Almost every survivor Ive ever listened to and there have been hundreds has said that the trauma from how religious leaders responded far exceeded the trauma from the original sexual abuse. This was my personal experience as well.

Imagine if you can. As horrific as childhood sexual abuse is, those who experience it say that even greater damage is done by the institutional betrayal of the faith community, as so many respond with complicity instead of care, and silence instead of justice.

But Jimmy chose to respond with action. In the weeks that followed, as the list of victims grew, Jimmy learned more and more about the horrors of his dads crimes. Jimmys action surely spared countless other kids from life-altering harm, and it manifested true caring for those already wounded. In the words of Rachael Denhollander, the former gymnast who helped bring serial sex offender Larry Nassar to justice: The extent to which one is willing to speak out against their own community is the bright line test for how much they care.

Jimmy passed that bright line test with flying colors. But lest you imagine that, once the abuse was reported to police, this story wrapped up easily or had a tidy happy ending, Jimmy also recounts in significant detail, and without self-pity, the costs that came with what he did. The truth may set you free, as many will say, but the truth can also exact a toll. Its a toll that most are unwilling to pay, preferring the status quo over the seismically altered terrain wrought by the truth of clergy sex abuse.

Having navigated this terrain himself, Jimmy now offers some important lessons. They are lessons not only for the Church but for all who care about the safety and well-being of children.

As Jimmy explains, pastors who prey on kids employ specific tactics of deception, and they are quite cunning in what they do. When we minimize their abusive conduct as though it were some hapless mistake or as merely falling into sin, we deny the predators intentionality and we do so at the peril of children.

With insights gleaned from conversations with his dad in prison, Jimmy digs deep into the how questions. How do sexual predators get away with abusing kids for years while no one suspects? How do they so wholly deceive us? How do they lead a double life? How do they target their victims? And more hopefully, how can we proactively intervene to disrupt the patterns of deception before they result in abuse?