Austin woman strives to prevent sexual abuse in church

Pope Benedict XVI's recent visit with victims of church sex abuse cast light on how reports of sexual abuse are handled in other churches.

CBS 42's Annalisa Petralia sat down with an Austin woman who says she was sexually abused at her Baptist Church.

She's a mother, a lawyer, and a victim of sexual abuse in her church. Christa Brown launched a web site and crusade against sexual predators in the Baptist Church.

She shared her story Thursday and talked about how the experience prompted her to help others.

"I want kids in Baptist churches today to be a very great deal safer than I was growing up," Brown said.

After enduring years of sexual abuse in her own church, Brown's pain has turned into her mission.

She is the founder of StopBaptistPredators.org, a Baptist Church sex abuse awareness web site.

In 1969 the devout Southern Baptist teen was sexually assaulted by her minister.

"It was very much a twisting of scripture and Bible versus God's will," Brown says. "And ultimately I believed and went along and was compliant."

Decades later she tried to report the abuse again. The statute of limitations was up to file criminal charges, so she filed a civil suit.

"It was a very, very difficult process," she said. "And when I thought about that, I just couldn't live with it. I wondered how many more there were."

Suzii Paynter works with the Baptist General Convention of Texas. She says they take clergy sex abuse claims very seriously.

"Periodically we send out letters to all 5,700 churches about clergy sexual misconduct," Paynter says.

The Baptist General Convention's site also reports convictions of clergy sex abuse.

"Mostly I don't think about forgiveness," she answered. "I certainly don't dwell on it in the sense of harboring anger for them. I believe they were human beings who made a terrible, dreadful mistake."

i’ll discuss this in terms of fleshly nature and not regenerate nature.

“At the time, her cries for help were ignored by members of the church.”

i’ll soon be being called and my family is in transition to serve at a new church community.
as well as theologic and doctrinal teaching,[which i am blessed by],i also serve in administation[because no-one else likes it].
the base line for this is using a buisness term,”loss-management”.

church mutual,which is one of the nation's largest liability insurance carriers for churches offers extensive training material on sexual abuse prevention to the churches.

the reality is the liability coverage to churches often only covers actual and never punitive damages in abuse judgements,therefore the carrier is very instructive to,”loss claims” for it's clients to remove itself from the chain of liability.

ok then,very descriptive and instructive sexual abuse prevention is available to churches,practical technical info,like windows in all sunday school doors or gender specific bathrooms,profile of potential predators,management of church personnel in respect to contact with children and “policeing” up it's own ranks.

three years ago,church mutual sent all this information too my previous church community and it sat on a shelf,collecting dust,until 1 year ago i sounded the alarm for potential danger,then it was thrown in my lap.

after review i recommended,training and application of the “loss prevention” information.

i am moving,as i have said,nothing has been done!

why?—”At the time, her cries for help were ignored by members of the church.”

this just cannot happen at our church mentality,too delicate of a issue to discuss mentality and on and on.

pornographic addiction stats in the pastorate alone is about 30-40%,not to mention laity or as some protties term them “pew guys”.

one case in point,at a prominent north east church a very respected pastor's son, abused young children.

the predator fit the profile,since he was the son of the pastor,he was “safe” by association.

“What can be done to stop sexual abuse by ecclesiastical leaders, which seems to be a rampant problem in all denominations?”

get involved,demand training in loss prevention,yes you will be un-liked for a take charge,change the way things always been,taught,done attitude.

then you may be being called to service in a different community,though you acted as a christian should.

5 SOLAS!

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