Tom and Jennifer Buck Release Video Clarifying What’s in the ‘First Draft’

We’ve written at length about Buckgate: How SBC Elites Conspired to Blackmail Tom and Jennifer Buck and how the SBC Elites and, SEBTS leadership, Global Baptist Press, Karen Swallow Prior and SBC Voices have been conspiring to take down pastor Buck by weaponizing a rough, first draft of testimony about their marriage that has been burning a hole in pockets of some bad actors.

While Tom and Jennifer would later release an ‘approved’ final draft into the public as a G3 article that was designed to be redemptive and not destructive, they do have some concern about this rough draft being leaked by miscreants with an ax to grind, and therefore have released a video explaining more about what’s inside it- offering context and sharing their story in video form.

One difference between the rough draft and the final product was more usage of ‘biblical language.’

I think in the article, I said that Tom could be labeled as a ‘narcissis’t and there’s no doubt at the time, there were some actions and ways that he was behaving and thinking and moving forward that could have become his, what he was operating in. But that is not persisted. That was a an effort to explain in the language of the day, kind of what was happening. But that is a pattern that’s been broken. It’s not something that is continued.

(In the G3 Article)…I use the term ‘angry and controlling’, which is what a narcissist does. So it’s not that I was just trying to hide it. I was just trying to use it. I was trying to use biblical language in a different way.

The original one also had a story about the impact Tom’s food choices had on her and her health.

…We didn’t have a lot of money when we were first married and Tom was always on a low-fat diet. And so we were restricted to eating low-fat. I couldn’t, I didn’t have the freedom to go out and just buy what I wanted, or what I felt would sustain me, and so I lost a lot of weight. I’m sure part of stress, but part of the fact that we just didn’t have the food sources that I needed. And so that is in the rough draft.

These, these say, are the main differences and only substantive differences between the two drafts. Jen explains the intent was to bless and show the redeeming work of Christ, to have it turned into a weapon to cudgel her husband:

I didn’t want my point to be how bad the marriage was. I wanted it articulated that yes, our early marriage was difficult. But what I wanted articulated and what I didn’t want stolen from us was what God did, and how God redeemed our marriage and how God changed him and how he used it to change me and how he has rectified those things.

And the fact that they took my article to pass it around, it does not appear that they were focusing on the miraculous work that God did. They wanted to focus on anything that could disparage and destroy him. And that has been the most painful thing in this because they waned to steal the story that God did. And that, to me is reprehensible.

They also reveal that the article has a section detailing that they both were abused in some way prior to their meeting. Though he doesn’t say what sort, the indication is that at least for one of them, it was likely sexual abuse in some manner. Therefore, the issue isn’t that the rough draft will make Tom look bad- he likely can deal with that just fine- but rather that it reveals painful details about their abuse, which is information that they’re not ready to share yet, but which has been held over them.

Jennifer and I -both of us, not just her- it’s the first time I’ve said this publicly, both of us had abuse that happened to us, before we ever met each other that we brought into the marriage…to be clear, neither of us want the broader details that are in that rough draft to come out….We just weren’t prepared. (Jennifer) wrote down her thoughts on that but then we weren’t ready to tell that. We weren’t ready for people to hear that. And we really didn’t want to talk about it now, but we don’t have a choice…because it’s our story that we will tell when and if we want to. But it hasn’t been our story to tell because it’s been passed around and the people that have had it won’t tell us who gave it to them…If they publish what they publish, then we’ll have to deal with the fallout of regarding the specifics that we put about abuse. We can’t stop that. But we’re not giving them our permission to do that.

Pray for these two, them and their church.

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