Fighting sexual abuse in the church
By Scott Tibbs, February 20, 2019
Sexual abuse is a real problem in the church - all denominations - because the church is made up of hopeless sinners who deserve eternal damnation in Hell Fire. That is why the church exists in the first place - for people freed from the bondage of sin and death to worship the God who sacrificed Himself for our sins. Any place that has a lot of sinners (meaning any place on planet Earth) will have serious sin. The church needs to recognize this danger and stop being fools. Our children are depending on us to protect them.
Matt Walsh took a tremendous amount of heat on Twitter for pointing out the enormity of the sexual abuse scandal in Southern Baptist churches. Most incredibly, Walsh was falsely accused of trying to distract from the sex abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church, despite his incredibly strong damnation of the sexual predators in the church and those who covered for them.
As a Protestant myself, it is sad to see so many Christians dismiss things like this by pointing to the Roman Catholic Church. As someone with Baptist roots, it is alarming to see people get so up in arms at Walsh for pointing out how pervasive and terrible this sex abuse scandal really is.
Three years ago, my church had a conference on sexual abuse in the church: How to prevent it, how to recognize it, how to minister to victims and how to minister to abusers. It was stressed throughout the conference that crimes against children cannot be handled internally and must be handled by the criminal justice system. God gave the sword to the civil magistrate for a reason and we must have faith to let those put in power by Him be His agents in avenging evil.
Too many churches are too quick to forgive, bestowing "cheap grace" that does not bring true repentance to the predator and certainly does not comfort, heal and protect their victims. Far too many Christians are naïve, when God calls use to be as wise as serpents. Far too many Christians have abandoned and actively hate discernment, when we should be willing to see what we see. All of this contributes to a toxic soup that has destroyed souls and shattered the faith of many. The church must do better. Those who do not, though willful neglect or foolishness, will answer to Almighty God.
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