Last night, I watched the 20/20 special on Protestant “preaching predators” with my wife and her family, all of us with great alarm. Several have posted on this already, so instead of adding personal commentary, I would rather point you to their articles and the conversation ongoing. I do have a question that I will pose here for your reflection and response:
How should a Convention of autonomous churches hold one another accountable and provide full disclosure of all prospective ministers so as to prevent sexual abuse from happening and promote justice when it has?
ABC’s Video on Demand Preaching Predators
ABC’s Abbreviated Report Preachers Accused of Sins, and Crimes
WHAS 11 report on Sex Offenders Enrolled in Seminary
The website Stop Baptist Predators and their blog
Sam Hodges of Dallas News 20/20 to Air ‘Preaching Predators’ Segment
Marty Duren’s post Preaching Predators?
Ben Cole’s resolution on Clergy Sex Abuse
Kevin Bussey’s post Do Southern Baptists Need a Sexual Abuse Database?
Nathan White’s post SBC, Sex Offenders, and Pastoral Leadership
Stephen Newell’s post Predators: What Can We Do?
SBC’s database for minister search
** Responses from Baptist Press **
Page Says ’20/20′ Segment One-Sided
STATEMENT: Response to ABC Segment on Sexual Predators in Ministry
If we can weed out “moderates” we can certainly do something about pedophiles. No easy answers but I think the boys in Nashville better say something – and soon.
Tony makes an excellent point. I don’t know all of the answers but we can’t just ignore this.
The SBC is able to say “We will not accept financial contributions from churches that actively support the practice of homosexuality, AND we will bar their messengers from participation.” The SBC is able to say, “We will not consider missionaries for service or members from serving the SBC unless they affirm the BF&M 2000.” Seems to me there is a very short “jump” from there to saying, “We will not accept contributions from churches unless their subject all pastors and any staff to a uniform criminal record check with an emphasis on predatory sexual practices, and we will bar their messengers from participation.”
Thanks for the input guys. My friend Nathan mentioned this over at SBF:
“One example in the 20/20 report was an SBC pastor who had a church building named after him, an assortment of other accolades, and had even received a $50,000 ‘love offering’ gift from his church for his retirement. When men are lifted up in these ways, what do we expect to happen?”
If I recall correctly, this minister publicly confessed to sexual child abuse he had done years back.
Also, should not someone who committed sexual child abuse be disqualified from ministry? If that is the case, I am wondering what they are pursuing in seminary.
That WHAS piece was clearly a “me-too” piece, intended to make the seminary look bad. Only two convicted sex offenders out of a campus population of 4000? Take your typical Vermont town of 4000 people, you’d probably see close to a dozen folks with criminal records for sex offenses. Even two on this campus is deplorable, and one problem is, there isn’t a reliable mechanism for alerting the administration of criminal convictions once someone is admitted. It is up to the student to voluntarily disclose this information.
A national Southern Baptist sex offender’s registry would not guarantee that sexual abuse would stop for two reasons, 1. You can’t force individual churches to make use of it on the hiring end. 2. Databases do nothing to catch the wolf in sheep’s clothing, the ticking time bomb who has not yet acted on his impulses for the first time.
A sex offender registry would be a good idea, at least for good public relations to be able to be seen to be “doing something” but it won’t address the core of the problem, and that is unregenerate church members. We are so hesitant to question someone’s salvation that even when he has committed an egregious and notorious sin such as sexual abuse of children that demands he be excommunicated until he repents and shows works consistent with repentance, a local Baptist church is far more likely to quietly send the man on his merry way than to publicly confront and discipline the man.
Recapturing regnerate church membership and church discipline are the keys to overcoming this egregious problem, not a database, although I do think we should have a database as a bare-minimum measure.
This stuff makes me sick! I am not going to be an apologist for sex offenders but I will defend my brothers in Christ until there is more than a news story. I personally know one of the guys from Southern and I am as shocked as anyone but I am not ready to throw him to the wolves just yet. “The wolf in sheep’s clothing”. . . are you serious?! “The ticking time bomb”, “not acting on his impulses” give me a break. What about “if any man thinks he stands, take heed, unless he falls.”? As far as regenerate church membership goes, I thought what Paul said pretty well covered that, “Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” Our justification in Christ cleans us from the guilt of our sin but it doesn’t expunge the State of Kentucky or Tennessee or Ohio or any other criminal record so how does a regenerate church membership help this “egregious” problem? I guess you guys better get your rocks ready to go, or do you already have them?
There is no doubt in my mind that the secular media loves any and every opportunity to rip into Christians, especially here in Louisville. If there is the slightest chance to do an expose, they get giddy, and this is an assuption that we must realize anytime something like this happens.
Jeff,
Have realized that you copied and pasted your comment from SBF’s post, I will not reply here as well. You can find my comments and response on the SBF post.
I’m sure that you can see above that I’ve tried my hand at your question as to what we can do. Hope my suggestions make sense.
Thanks Stephen. I will add your post to the list.
Jeff, I realize my comment did sound haughty. Yes, Christ came to forgive sinners, of which I am chief. There is no sin, except blaspheming the Holy Spirit, that will not be forgiven in Christ.
My remarks about the ticking time bomb have to do with someone who is about to become a first-time offender. A registry can do nothing to stop them. Good discipleship and church discipline, which has restoration as its ultimate aim, can prevent these things.
I have heard of a case in a christian high school where a pregnant girl was expelled, and the expulsion was carried out with an attitude of, “How dare you defile our bastion of purity?” That is a reprehensible way to carry out a necessary action, and it’s the idea most folks get when they think of church discipline. I recommend you read Dr. Wills’ Democratic Religion for a different view of church discipline.
Your text, while reminding us all of what we once were before we were cleansed, makes an important point in my favor, and that is that if someone is committing sexual immorality or practicing homosexuality, he has not been cleansed, is not an heir to the Kingdom of heaven, and is not a believer. Anyone who practices such things and claims to be a Christian is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. The two men named in the WHAS report are under “supervised release”. They are still serving the sentence for their convictions. That to me is a pretty clear sign that this is not something in the distant past for these men, and they have bigger fish to fry than to be preparing for the ministry. I pray with you that I will finish the race well.
Jeff,
I’m mostly with G.F. on this. I think you’re anger needs to be checked at the door. My opinion is that it’s pretty sad that in these “scandals”, it takes the worldly media for the church to be aware of what’s going on in its own walls.