Phil Donahue Ridicules Christian Salvation Doctrine

Concerned Women for America ^ | 1/9/2003 | Al Dobras

[wideawake]

No farflung organization is the same everywhere in practice.

And plenty of Methodist, Episcopalian, Baptist, Lutheran, etc. ministers and reverends have been in trouble for child molestation as well.

One example: the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, a very conservative Biblical denomination, had a scandal in the mid-90s where 14 pastors and ministers were credibly accused of sexually abusing young boys under their spiritual care. The church covered up many of these cases - in one case, that of Daniel Reeb who had actively molested boys for 30 years - the perpetrator admitted to his conduct and was still permitted to preach. Several of these men had their legal defense paid for by the church.

There are 2.5M baptized LCMS Lutherans. There are 62M Catholics. There are 8,000 LCMS clergy and 47,000 Catholic clergy in the US or six times as many.

75 priests in the US are credibly accused of molestation, or about 5 times as many.

Statistically, you are slightly less likely to be hurt by a Catholic priest than an LCMS minister.

However, the media and conservative Protestants like to play up the problems in the Catholic Church as if they were unique to the Church and more widespread than in any other denomination. That's demonstrably false.

It's particularly silly to see conservative Protestants pile on in this way - I only know about the LCMS problems because they were somewhat publicized by liberal Midwestern newspapers. I'm sure much more liberal denominations have worse problems which are never reported.

Protestants who harp on the Church's difficulties are undercutting the largest pro-life organization in America and putting weapons into the hands of Christianity's enemies.

I want to see these filth punished even more than you do - but not at the price of seeing the good name of 99.95% of the Catholic clergy dragged through the mud.

[fish hawk]

And while we are praying it wouldn't hurt to throw in one for Ted Turner. T.V.s two biggest losers.

[Eva]

I can tell you a couple of stories about Lutheran ministers as well. The Lutheran ministers in two separate churches that I attended, lost their congregation for having affairs with female church members (more than one), members of the choir in both cases. Ironicly, these two men were both excellent preachers. They were not reassigned. I don't think that any congregation would want them.

I think the key to the problem is the dependence on men, rather than God. Men are afterall, fallible.

[Michael2001]

Well Donahue's an idiot. What else is new?

[ampat]

In his show's death throes, Phil is resorting to extra sensationalism, and muddying the waters.