Tiffany Croft Has Started New Blog - B&H Publishing Agrees to Remove the False Portions from Vines' Autobiography Dealing with Gilyard

Over the weekend, Tiffany Croft has started a new blog entitled "What Hurts the Most", and has put up her first post with the same title. Also, as I describe below, Jerry Vines' publisher, B&H Publishing, has agreed to remove the false sentences from Vines' autobiography dealing with Darrell Gilyard.

As most WD readers know, Tiffany was attacked by the sexual predator/pastor Darrell Gilyard back in 1991 when Tiffany was a high school senior. She did report this to her pastor, Jerry Vines who for some strange reason, 23 years later, misrepresented this tragic event in Tiffany's life in his book "My Life and Ministry", as I blogged about here.  In 2007 and 2008 when new sexual abuse allegations against Gilyard surfaced, Tiffany started her previous blog "Let's Stop Darrell Gilyard Together", and she worked with the JSO and State Attorney's office, using her blog to encourage more Gilyard victims at the Shiloh Metropolitan Baptist Church to come forward and speak to the authorities.

Tiffany's first post in her new blog appears to be a change in direction from her previous blog, perhaps prompted by Vines' brazen attempt to mischaracterize Gilyard's attack on Tiffany as a "flirtation", and then to lie and say that "they were both single at the time" - both statements serving to shift blame onto Tiffany and to downplay the seriousness of the attack. I don't know Vines' motive for these lies - I did attempt to speak to him but have received no response. But when one considers that this attack on Tiffany occurred AFTER Vines and Patterson already had multiple reports of Gilyard's sexual improprieties at other churches in Texas, a self-serving motive appears obvious - that Gilyard's attack was something much less, like a "flirtation", reducing Vines' culpability in one of the teens of his church being harmed by a known sexual deviant.

Here are just a few excerpts from Tiffany's first post:

"The next thing you know, the perpetrator that has broken your trust, your hope, your spirit has mysteriously (and quietly) been "asked to leave". But wait, shouldn't this be dealt with? Shouldn't they face consequences? Shouldn't they have to receive charges, counseling, accountability for their actions? To which you are told, "Well, we must think of how this type of scandal may affect the overall impact of the church."....How does someone get to the place where they feel they are entitled to make the decision to ignore such terrible secrets under the guise of 'protecting the church?' "

Also, I am happy to report that Tiffany recently received a commitment from Jennifer Lyell, a trade publisher for B&H Publishing, that the two erroneous statements in Jerry Vines' autobiography will be removed in the next print, and will be removed this week from the e-book version. I am sure that Tiffany will have more to say about this in the coming days on her blog about how this transpired, and her discussions with the publisher and Jerry Vines - but at this point I'm glad to know that the publisher saw things as Tiffany did, even though Vines may have not. Kudos to Jennifer Lyell and B&H Publishing. They did the right thing.

I hope that both B&H and Jerry Vines will issue a press release apologizing for the misstatements in Vines' book. Perhaps Vines will give his explanation as to why he wrote what he wrote, and I hope that Vines at some point will rewrite this section of his book to be more transparent on the Gilyard matter so as to help other pastors not make his same mistakes. I know that is asking quite a bit, and I won't hold my breath waiting.

And I predict Vines will be a bit more expressive in his next printing on just how much he REALLY dislikes blogs, rather than just saying "I don't care for blogs too much."

In the meantime, stay tuned for more information at Tiffany's blog.