I have a family member whose family is part of a small Baptist (informational purposes only) congregation in south eastern Ohio. The husband and wife were going through some issues, and sought counseling (at least the wife did) from the clergyman, who was new and had recently left another congregation in another part of the state. It turned out, though, that he (the pastor) began courting the wife and eventually raped her. All the while he told her that it was ok, because the Bible said that he was supposed to take care of the women whose husbands didn’t treat them like they should be (in this case the couple were having money problems, so the clergyman said the husband was not providing).
Anyway, it came out that he had seduce or raped several women in the church (some in his church office, no less!), and they did some investigating, and found out that it was the reason why he had left his old church, but that there was no background verification to pass on the information. Needless to say, the church decided to always call the old congregation in the future when getting a new pastor.
Anyway, the moral of the story is, that this happens. It’s vile and despicable, and personally, I’m not sure how anyone could not see that it is wrong (personally I think they know it’s wrong and ignore their conscience until it stops urging them to stop). Yet, it happens.
Sounds to me, that when someone does bad things in the name of their chrurch or religion, it’s not really the church or religion’s fault, but actually the individuals!