Posted on 08/23/2018 12:56:19 PM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
“Sexual abuse is the most underreported thing — both in and outside the church — that exists,” says Boz Tchividjian, a grandson of Billy Graham and a former Florida assistant state attorney.
As a prosecutor, Tchividjian saw dozens of sexual abuse victims harmed by a church’s response to them. (In one case, a pastor did not report a sexual offender in his church because the man had repented. The offender was arrested only after he had abused five more children.) In 2004, Tchividjian founded the nonprofit organization Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment (GRACE), which trains Christian institutions in how to prevent sexual abuse and performs independent investigations when churches face an abuse crisis. Tchividjian says sexual abuse in evangelicalism rivals the Catholic Church scandal of the early 2000s.
As the #MeToo movement has swept into communities of faith, several high-profile leaders have fallen: Paige Patterson, the president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary was forced into early retirement... Illinois megachurch pastor Bill Hybels similarly retired early after several women said he’d dispensed unwanted kisses and invitations to hotel rooms.
Sovereign Grace Churches (SGC), an influential chain of congregations, allegedly failed to report sexual abuse claims during the ’80s and ’90s to the authorities and caused secondary trauma to victims through pastoral counseling. In one instance, an SGC pastor allegedly told a wife whose husband sexually abused their daughter that her husband “was not attracted to his 11-year-old daughter but rather to the ‘woman’ she ‘was becoming.’
Without a centralized theological body, evangelical policies and cultures vary radically. While some church leaders have worked to prevent abuse and harassment, many have not. The causes are manifold: authoritarian leadership, twisted theology, institutional protection, obliviousness about the problem and, perhaps most shocking, a diminishment of the trauma sexual abuse creates.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Scriptures require sinning church leaders be PUBLICLY rebuked.
"Do not receive an accusation against an elder except from two or three witnesses. Those who are sinning rebuke in the presence of all, that the rest also may fear." 1 Tim 5
I have loosely followed Willow Creek. As far as I’m aware, it’s consensual and Hybels has been held to account to some extent.
I’m aware of a couple criminal molestation cases where the church leaders didn’t even wait five minutes to call the authorities.
There was no approval vs disapproval.
Rather the problem was resolved appropriately is it could have been resolved under the circumstances. The problem was one person rather than a systemic problem as the catholics have.
Some of the churches in the denomination ignored the resolution and found the incident and its aftermath to be unforgivable. Some did not. Those churches in the denomination who found the incident and its aftermath to be unforgivable left the denomination. Those that found the churches response to the incident to be finally appropriate stayed in the congregation. They forgave the church leadership once the correct and appropriate action had been taken. This included repenting of their errors. Repenting means not just being sorrowful for what happened—but also a change of heart and ways. So the congregations that stayed in the denomination believed that the leadership had had a change of heart and ways. Those congregations that left did not believe or didn’t care that the leadership had a change of heart and ways.
So the correct words to characterize the congregations that stay in vs those who left are NOT approval vs disapproval of the sin but rather forgivable VS unforgivable of the leadership handling of the sin.
The Catholic church is 1000’s of miles away from even the concept of repentance. Heck they have whole sections of the church that want normalize sin.
Among evangelicals the more typical type of sexual sins are about pastors having sexual relations with one of their congregants. They are always kicked out in disgrace.
The difference between the sins in the catholic church and the ones evangelical churches are that the catholic church gay lobby is systemic. They are advocates of sin. They want that sin to be a part of the body.
The very toughest guys in evangelical churches these days are Catholic men who are afraid of exposing their children to the priests. They have changed over to evangelical churches.
Now don’t conflate the liberal protestant churches with the evangelical churches. The liberal protestant churches have the same systemic sin problems that the catholics do and like the catholics it starts in their seminaries.
I won't debate whether the Catholic church is *worse* than any other churches. We'd have to get all mathematical and theological and I don't do that.
Rush had a seminar caller on today. CondoleezzaProtege is the same thing.
You’ll have to change your handle CondoleezzaProtege. But not to worry. You probably don’t have to straighten up.
???
minister with an under aged girl.
priest with a 10 year old boy.
You tell me which is worse. You tell me which happens more often.
I don't think God makes a distinction and that the latter dynamic is likely more common than you realize in non-Catholic contexts.
But regardless:
The most telling indicators of twisted desires rampant among the general and Christian populations are the stats on *porn* viewing and addiction. Porn is what is killing the Body of Christ according to some major voices in Evangelicalism. It is especially killing men.
** It is especially killing men. **
And killing marriages.
Read Scott Hahn’s latest book “The First Society.”
LOVE Scott Hahn. I have not heard of “First Society” - will have to check it out!
Your last paragraph: so truthful.
A seminar caller to Rush is basically a fake call from a lib pretending to be a conservative. In the context of this thread, I have no idea what the poster is referring to.
the famous adage about the democrats is that if it were not for double standards—the democrats would have none. so your post from the washington post looked suspicious. since harvey weinstein was busted for sex abuse the democrats have become highly sensitive about all matters of sexual abuse especially against white democrat middle class heterosexual women. (However, things remain murky with the other 13 odd sexes.)
To most conservatives this is a beautiful thing. A start. But most think its just positioning to take out Trump. Once the objective is achieved—then its back to the swamp for the democrats.
I say this because in the world we live in the story is never about the story. Rather the story is there to support the narrative.
this story supports the democrat narrative.
not everyone of course follows the bouncing ball carefully.
I looked at your bio. If the bio is true —and I see no reason to doubt it —then you are who you are.
appears, I misinterpreted your words.
apologies.
‘“In the Catholic Church? It’s a priest with a 10 year old boy.”
The vast majority of the cases in the PA report were priests abusing
older teenage boys.
Some were pedophilia but most were not,
https://abcnews.go.com/US/bishop-eddie-long-accused-sex-abuse-fourth-alleged/story?id=11721548
Does the name Eddie Long ring a bell? He was sexually abusing boys for years. Ended up paying them off out of court and kept right on preaching in his mega church.
Not going to argue with you on these things. The difference between the evangelical churches and the catholic church plus some of the liberal protestant churches is that the homosexuality begins in the seminaries with the latter. It is then institutionalized. Not so with evangelicals. they have their sinners. when caught they are kicked out.
Eddie Long?.
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