The Denomination of Last Resort

Let's look at Robert Bowman's biography and his activities since 2009. From the 1980s, he had made a career as a Reformed Episcopal Church priest and a headmaster at independent middle schools. He jumped around from state to state: central Florida; Alexandria, VA; Savannah, GA; someplace in Mississippi; Little Rock, AR; then Southern California. Whether he was moving on following some problem in each area we simply don't know. However, there's a credible strain of opinion that people who have disorders like pedophilia persist in behavior that will give them the satisfaction they're after.

"Pedophilia", of course, is preference, not a particular activity. A discussion thread that had posts from people claiming to be students at Trinity Christian School (one of those where Bowman was headmaster) offered the following observations:

Im late to this party but i went to trinity from kindergarden to 6th grade when he was at trinity and he always had something about him, some look in his eye that said the there was something more. Every morning he'd role up in his mid-1990's Jag wearing his cheap suit and red tie smiling but there was just something different.

or

I went to trinity too. when he was there, idk, we all knew something was different about him, don't get me wrong, he was nice guy, but we didn't expect this. so on one level it suprises me and on another level it doesn't.

or

We pulled our kids for CrossRoad two years agoe because my wife and I believed that Bowman was the wrong principal for the school. The prior principal wass equally un-qualified.

It sounds as though throughout his career, parents, students, and possibly colleagues thought something wasn't quite right about the guy. He doesn't appear to have been caught actually touching or molesting children, but pedophilia is a preference, not a particular activity -- and the fact that nothing was discovered doesn't mean nothing happened. Still, every few years, he'd pick up, move, and try the priest-and-middle-school-headmaster routine someplace else.

What do you suppose he did after he was arrested for child pornography in 2009? Look for a different profession? Bartending, computer programming, short order cook, fast food manager, cab driver, freelance writer/editor? Even with an arrest record, there are options, just nothing that involves children. Nope -- in 2013, he finds All Saints Fountain Valley and the ACA. How many places do you think he looked in the four-year period before he found that one?

I've found a number of discussions on the web about how to protect children in church. Many of them stress that the mere knowledge that references and arrest records will be checked is enough to deter the wrong people from applying for such jobs. Something about All Saints Fountain Valley must have told Bowman this place would be different -- and it was.

What's he going to do once he's eased out there? By his account, he's going to go after new church jobs in the ACNA.

Before I heard about Bowman at all, I asked a similar question about James Hiles:

In other words, Hiles had left a sinking ship and hopped jurisdictions -- no doubt, I would guess, shopping around among more than one; the ACA finally offered him the best deal.

Or maybe the only deal? If I were the ACA, I'd be wanting every cleric to re-qualify with a new set of background and reference checks.