A number of years ago, a family with whom my wife and I had formed a close bond moved to another state. We talked periodically after they left to try to stay connected with each other’s lives. After a number of months of silence, we were able to catch up with them once again. They were in great pain and disillusionment. They had become convinced that one of their children had been the victim of sexual abuse in the preschool (yes PRESCHOOL) ministry at their church. After listening to their story, I was convinced that they were right.
They had humbly gone to the pastor with their broken hearts and anger. They believed they knew the source of the abuse. The pastor showed surface empathy, but did not want to address the issue openly. He said he would take care of it. He wanted them to lay their hurt aside “for the sake of Christ”. The pastor was concerned about the "reputation of the church" and the "impact on the name of Christ" if something like this got out. There is much more to the story, but this family ultimately decided to just quietly leave when it was evident there would be no support.
This had all happened before I knew anything about it. They had already moved to another church. They were hurting in private. I was furious. I wanted to confront the pastor and the church myself. I wanted to go to the police. I wanted the pastor’s name held up to ridicule and see him driven out of the ministry. I wanted the perpetrator prosecuted.
For a number of reasons, this family felt it best to move on and was convinced that there was nothing more to be done. They did not want to put their child through any more trauma. I struggled with what to do. I seriously considered trying to intervene anyway, yet there was no way for me to address this without their participation. I ultimately honored their wishes and left the interaction to their judgment.
I have to wonder how often this happens. If you just look at the statistics (350 or so alleged perpetrators out of 47,000 churches) from the Houston Chronicle report, you could be tempted to conclude that the issue is not that pervasive, even though the individual stories themselves are horrific. I fear the statistics don’t tell the full story. I know this kind of abuse is not isolated and is under-reported. I know that all too often, those whose livelihood is impacted by a church scandal can go to great lengths to cover it up. It’s easy to couch reluctance to deal with an issue in the language of “protecting the reputation of Christ’s church”, but this is hogwash. It only makes things worse when a church tries to protect their reputation by covering up abuse. It only hurts more people when sexual predators are not openly dealt with.
I’m encouraged by the response of the SBC through J.D. Greear’s leadership this past week. But I have to ask of the SBC in general, why did it take an expose to get us to move? Weren't the allegations horrible enough for action? I have personally known about these allegations of abuse, as well as the advocates calling for action, for over a decade, and I’m just an interested layman. I don’t buy the general ignorance argument. There is more at play here than that. At best, we have witnessed a misplaced desire to forgive and a sluggishness in dealing with a thorny problem. At worst (and I fear this hits closer to the mark), we have witnessed and possibly participated in the cowardice of dealing with an issue for fear of its negative impact ultimately on ourselves. May God forgive us this wrong.
Regardless of what the SBC does, individual churches and individual church members must do the sometimes very hard work of holding perpetrators accountable. Sometimes that means holding our churches and its leadership accountable. Sometimes it means holding our friends or even family accountable. It probably means being much more public about sexual abuse in the church than we have been. It may not be easy, but sometimes you or I may have to stand alone. People may not listen. Some of these advocates experienced indifference for decades; yet, lack of a positive response does not give us a pass to skip doing the right thing.
In the final analysis, God is our judge. We will have to explain to him how our children and youth were allowed to be serially abused by known predators. Will he accept our excuse that we were just trying to protect his reputation? He knows better – and so do we.
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