Posted on 03/02/2019 5:43:47 PM PST by marshmallow
It has been a wrenching season for three of America’s largest religious denominations, as sex-abuse scandals and a schism over LGBT inclusion fuel anguish and anger within the Roman Catholic, Southern Baptist and United Methodist churches. There’s rising concern that the crises will boost the ranks of young people disillusioned by organized religion.
“Every denomination is tremendously worried about retaining or attracting young people,” said Stephen Schneck, a political science professor at Catholic University. “The sex-abuse scandals will have a spillover effect on attitudes toward religion in general. I don’t think any denomination is going to not take a hit.”
For the U.S. Catholic church, the clergy sex-abuse scandal that has unfolded over two decades expanded dramatically in recent months. Many dioceses have become targets of investigations since a Pennsylvania grand jury report in August detailed hundreds of cases of alleged abuse. In mid-February, former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick was expelled from the priesthood for sexually abusing minors and seminarians.
The Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest Protestant denomination, confronted its own sex-abuse crisis three weeks ago in the form of an investigation by the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News. The newspapers reported that hundreds of Southern Baptist clergy and staff had been accused of sexual misconduct over the past 20 years, including dozens who returned to church duties, while leaving more than 700 victims with little in the way of justice or apologies.
For both denominations, allegations of cover-ups and insufficient sympathy for victims have been as damaging in the public eye as the abuse itself.
The United Methodist Church, the largest mainline Protestant denomination, ended a pivotal conference Tuesday in a seemingly irreconcilable split over same-sex marriage and the ordination of LGBT clergy. About 53 percent of the delegates voted to maintain bans on those practices and strengthen enforcement...........
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
bkmk
Yawn.
How about churches stop worrying about how to attract people back to a dying institution and just start preaching Jesus and let the chips fall where they may?
If the majority of young people were to come to believe that robbery is fine and were offended by those who oppose it, should we condone robbery in order to attract young people?
Isn’t that now the formal position of the democrat party? Just call robbery socialism ….
It's an instruction book for how to deal with sodomy, homosexuality, child molestation and all kinds of "sinful" stuff.
Yeah, I know, that word; "sin", but it's still in my Bible.
All you weak-kneed, sycophantic lily-livered false prophets must not have the same version I do.
It has been a wrenching season for three of America’s largest religious denominations, as sex-abuse scandals and a schism over LGBT inclusion fuel anguish and anger within the Roman Catholic, Southern Baptist and United Methodist churches. There’s rising concern that the crises will boost the ranks of young people disillusioned by organized religion.
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People will either seek to know Jesus-as-he-revealed-himself or create their own modern, New Age version. My money is on the Gospel version.
OKAY … when I was young, I was raised as a Catholic, in a Catholic school; the one thing I was taught was a belief in God, read the Bible, treat others as you would have them treat you, if someone needs help, help them...What would Jesus Do???
Catholics have lived with this Priest/young boys things for years, as have other religions if they would tell the truth...
Instead of worrying about what is going to happen, how about worrying about what to do to stop what is happening; we are taught that this ‘gay movement’ is a sin, abortion is a sin, adultery is a sin, envy is a sin, you get the picture...
To all those that ‘preach’ open your Bibles and start teaching out of them, like you are suppose to do and then let things fall where they fall...
Read your Bible and pray, God will take care of things, that is called: FAITH...practice it...
I love how they group the Methodist decision not to support LGBTQWTFBBQ with the Catholic and Babtist pederast scandal.
[[There’s rising concern that the crises will boost the ranks of young people disillusioned by organized religion.]]
Yup- the AP faining ‘concern’ that young people will turn away from church- the ap are so full of crap- they are lusting over the idea of people turning away from church
Snore .
If the church dies because all its members are pervs, let it rot, the real church is a relationship inside with Christ..
Or how about Christians practice what you preach for once?
Do not forget Hebrews 10:25.
I think the difference is that the Catholics have known about the homosexuality problem in the seminaries and ignored it.
I would hesitate to give full trust in anything the Houston and San Antonio papers would have to say about religion. Unfortunately for the Southern Baptists, a few have given many a bad name and many good pastors have been falsely attacked and accused. Still many SBC’s strive to be transparent and will quickly report any possibility of sexual assaults to law enforcement so real “coverups” are few and far between or they don’t stay covered up for long.
The papers conflate “hundreds” of allegations into “proven fact” because they have their own anti-Christian agendas. Most SBC’s might be accused of promoting artery clogging fellowship potluck dinners but the vast majority have no whiff of scandal at all...!
Most do....don’t get overly excited and upset about the AP antichristian agenda. They are just trying to dispirit the large majority of faithful souls in all three denominations into leaving their faith and doubting their Lord!
Not much of scandal as most SBC’s report any issues promply and remove any accused until proper investigations are done. Note the term used by the AP “alledged cover ups”
“The Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest Protestant denomination, confronted its own sex-abuse crisis three weeks ago in the form of an investigation by the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News. The newspapers reported that hundreds of Southern Baptist clergy and staff had been accused of sexual misconduct over the past 20 years, including dozens who returned to church duties, while leaving more than 700 victims with little in the way of justice or apologies.”from the article.
The SBC’s have 46 thousand churches with 15 million members and the article cites a time frame of 20 years....do some math. The article uses “hundreds” but doesn’t really specify and it doesn’t break down what the victims were, how old they were...it’s just a huge Pelosi style smear wrap around
They aren’t “in turmoil”. It’s the gay crowd that’s in turmoil over this.
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