Did you hear the one about Bob Jones University?

Sounds like a setup for a joke. Actually, it is, in a sad and sick way.

What do you get when you mix a callous pastor, an abusive administration of a supposedly Christian college, and a young man who thirsts for justice and righteousness? Proof of why young people are walking away from church.

For those who have not heard this story, let me fill in a few details.

"Pastor" Chuck Phelps. Remember that name. He is a ravenous wolf pretending to be a shepherd.

Our story begins in 1997. A 14-year-old girl named Tina Anderson was hired as a baby-sitter by Ernie Willis, a deacon in the church she attended. That church was Trinity Baptist Church in Concord, New Hampshire, lead by "Pastor" Chuck Phelps. On two occasions, Willis managed to get the girl alone and raped her. One of those encounters got her pregnant. Already the story is sordid, but it gets worse.

Anderson told "20/20" that she confided her pregnancy to Willis. His reaction, she said, was to offer to pay for an abortion. When she rejected his offer, he presented another option, she said. 

"He asked me if I wanted him to punch me in the stomach as hard as he could to try to cause a miscarriage," she said. "I told him, 'No, leave me alone.'"

Tina Anderson then gets the courage to tell her mother what happened, who then consults "Pastor" Chuck Phelps. Phelps, ever the loving shepherd, demanded that the girl go before the congregation and confess her "sin."

Anderson said that after being sexually assaulted twice by Willis, she was forced to stand before her Baptist congregation and confess her "sin" -- that she had become pregnant. She said she wasn't allowed to tell the group that the pregnancy happened because she was raped by Willis, a man twice her age.

Phelps decided to emotionally abuse an already traumatized girl while protecting the church from scandal by hiding the fact that the predator was a respected member of the congregation. He then helped further hide the mess by sending the girl to live with another family in the same denomination and away from any potential investigation of the case.

The church's then-pastor, Chuck Phelps, helped arrange for Anderson to move thousands of miles away from home to live with an IFB family and give her child up for adoption. 

Concord police said they couldn't find Anderson to investigate the rape allegations in 1997, the Associated Press reported. Police reopened their investigation after a former member of Trinity Baptist Church posted a message about Anderson's case on Facebook.

Just in case you are tempted to give "Pastor" Phelps any benefit of the doubt, you need to know that Tina Anderson was sexually and physically abused by her stepfather as a young girl. Phelps was well aware this girl had been victimized as a child. According to Tina, Phelps even forced her to "forgive" her stepfather. Forgiveness is a vital part of our life in Christ, but is a difficult concept for a child to comprehend and employ, particularly one traumatized by physical and sexual abuse. Inducements to forgive can be interpreted by a child as meaning the adult has not done anything really bad.

Trinity Baptist Church is part of the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist movement.           

The organization of a New Testament church is simple. Christ is the head of the church, (Eph. 5:23) and its Chief Shepherd (1 Peter 5:4). The local pastor is the under-shepherd (bishop), overseer, or leader of the congregation. (Heb. 13:17, Acts 20:28, Eph. 4:11) The Independent Baptist church has a congregational form of government with each member equally having the right of to vote on all the affairs of the church. The pastor and members of the New Testament church directs and rules its actions following the guidelines of the New Testament.

Independent Fundamental Baptist churches have fellowship one with the other and often cooperate in such endeavors as evangelism. They will not participate, as a church, in any outside function with churches which do not also strictly base their faith and practice on the New Testament. They will not engage in joint meetings, or evangelistic endeavors, with Protestants, Catholics, or other doctrinally unsound church groups, who do not hold to the fundamental teachings of the New Testament. Fundamental Independent Baptists churches will remain separate from unsound churches, as well as other Baptists groups who join in with the unscriptural churches.

As you can see, IFB churches think highly of themselves. The Tina Anderson debacle shows they also know how to cover up a scandal. And she is not alone. Others have come forward with similar stories of sexual and psychological abuse, all carefully concealed behind a veil of secrecy.

Which brings us to Bob Jones University (BJU). Chuck Phelps was a member of the advisory board of the school until the Tina Anderson case attracted national attention. A number of BJU current and former students were outraged to learn that Phelps was on the Board.

One of those students was Chris Peterman. Peterman got into serious trouble with the BJU administration for publicizing the Chuck Phelps - Tina Anderson story on social media.

When Peterman heard news of the initial allegations against Chuck Phelps, he was outraged that Phelps was allowed to continue to hold his chair as a Board member, Peterman said. He posted links about the story on his personal Facebook account, and was called into a meeting with BJU's Dean of Men, Jon Daulton. The Deans of Men and Women are gender-specific assistants to the school's Dean of Students. 

"I was told that I'd have to stop posting that stuff, or I would be expelled," Peterman said in an interview with CNN. The Dean of Men "said that the administration was upset with what I was saying. He said that the public relations department was following everything because it was giving Bob Jones a bad name."

It is a testament to the perversion of the administration that they think it is acceptable to have Chuck Phelps on the advisory board, but it is unacceptable for anyone to call attention to his history.

Peterman has strong feelings about sexual abuse, in no small part because he witnessed an attempt to cover up abuse in his church while growing up. He created the Do Right BJU Facebook site and organized a protest to pressure the school to remove Phelps from the board. Peterman continued his efforts despite pressure from the administration. Phelps eventually resigned from the board in December 2011 after Ernie Willis was convicted of rape.

When Peterman returned from Christmas break in January, BJU amped up the pressure.

When Peterman returned to BJU in January 2012 for his final semester, he claims he was called in for special weekly counseling with the Dean of Men. "I had questioned the authority of the university, so by association, I had questioned the authority of God himself," he said. "Therefore, I had a deep spiritual problem he needed to fix."

"I would go into these meetings, two to three times a week, for an hour or more at a time, sometimes even at midnight. He would have a printout of my Facebook, and have things highlighted and starred. If anyone appeared in the picture with me, he would have their names highlighted and their faces circled," he said. 

"I felt like I was being harassed and followed. ... He would also call my friends in and question them about me, all in an effort to isolate me and shut me up."

The so-called Christian university demonstrated its fidelity to the teachings of the Lord by finding excuses to suspend and finally expel Peterman a week before he was supposed to graduate from BJU. Among his demerit-worthy offenses included watching Glee at a local Starbucks, posting the lyrics of a contemporary Christian song on his Facebook page, and tweeting a comment about the length of a required BJU prayer assembly before it began. After he appealed the demerits, the review board sided with him, and he was told he would be able to graduate.

The BJU administration was not finished with Peterman. Because he told his story to CNN before the review board hearing, they expelled him for attempting to "intimidate BJU."

"I wanted to cry," he said. "I thought that God had answered my prayers, everything's gonna be alright. So, everybody starts to leave the room, and it's just me, the Dean of Students, and the Dean of Men. Then the Dean of Men says that they're kicking me out because I tried to intimidate BJU."

Apparently intimidate means embarrass by telling the truth. What a stellar witness for Christ and God's love.

You can find more detail on the abusive treatment of Chris Peterman here.

You can read about Chuck Phelps being 'victimized' by Tina Anderson and Chris Peterman here.

And here is the reprimand from BJU of everyone that publicized this case:

“A biblical approach would be an attitude of forbearance toward a Christian brother – not recklessly making accusations of crime or cover up against a man of good reputation before gathering the facts. The biblical principle is to go to the person directly and get facts before reaching a judgment. Dr. Phelps has offered to talk to several of his critics and even shared his phone number, but not one has called to talk with him directly.”

The real "sin" is that people have dared question the authority of organizations like BJU and pastors like Chuck Phelps. They are supposedly our betters and anointed by God. If we do not submit to their dominion, we are violating biblical principles of discipline. Funny thing. Jesus did not model blind obedience to religious authorities. BJU unjustly denied a degree to Chris Peterman that he earned through four years of hard work. Chuck Phelps unjustly treated Tina Anderson, a girl that was twice sexually molested by members of his congregation. Respect needs to be earned and unjust authorities need to be mocked as hypocrites, vipers, and whitewashed tombs.