“After years of resisting reform, the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, promised that it would address the problem this week at its annual gathering of thousands of pastors. The denomination’s new president, J.D. Greear, has called for repentance for “a culture that has made abuse, cover-ups and evading accountability far too easy.””
Yeah, “repentance,” that’s the ticket. No jail time, just “repentance”! Is that a legal term? Can you just go to court and tell them that “you’ve repented,” and have the court excuse your having raped a little girl? Just a bunch of “Sick Ba$tards!” The Catholics have a lot of “company” it would seem.
The SBC is not a Protestant denomination or denomination of any kind. It is an association that independent churches can join or leave at any time.
One does not exclude the other. The ‘repentance’ called for is the entire denomination repenting of ignoring the problem for so long.
“Yeah, “repentance,” that’s the ticket. No jail time, just “repentance”!”
Here is the big difference between what has gone on (mostly in the past, BTW - decades in the past) in the Catholic church and evangelical ones:
“Since then, Matthew Tonne, who was the church’s associate children’s minister, had been investigated by the police, indicted and arrested on charges of sexually molesting Ms. Bragg’s daughter.”
Sexual abuse is wrong. It is a crime. And should be handled as such. The NY Times can attack baptists and evangelicals, but a common theme in evangelical abuse cases is “arrest”. Baptists simply don’t have a hierarchy that CAN shift predators around.
BTW: For a long time now, the SBC has recommended background checks of everyone working with kids. Our church adopted it as a standard rule some 10 years ago on the advice of the SBC.