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On Faith Radio with Carmen LeBerge, Bill English discusses the recent revelations about child sexual abuse which has been occuring in the Southern Baptist Church for the foreseeable past.
Here are the show notes Carmen and I used to do these two segments:
- If it isn’t for the grace of God, I could have been an abuser. You might have too. A reaction that include arrogance is unchristian.
- Autonomous churches must take extra precautions about vetting those who work with children and youth – whether or not they are formally employed by the church – the status of employed vs. volunteer is irrelevant.
- Run background checks annually
- The availability of private sin (aka pornography, chat, private video, sexting, hook-ups with local/out-of-town swingers) *requires* our vetting processes be much more invasive
- When a pastor has been found to have abused another person, the *only* appropriate response is “We’re sorry” and “We should have done better”. The organization should endeavor to “make it right” with the abused victim and family – though this will be very hard work.
- Our desire to protect the church/organization legally should take a back seat to caring for the abused victim, the abuser’s family and honestly, the abuser too (though the latter will be tough).
- The SBC had 10 years to get this right – God is cleaning them out. If they were pro-active, God would not have had to have done this.