{"id":249,"date":"2010-07-21T05:00:26","date_gmt":"2010-07-21T11:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=249"},"modified":"2010-07-21T05:00:26","modified_gmt":"2010-07-21T11:00:26","slug":"churches-offer-predators-easy-targets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=249","title":{"rendered":"Churches Offer Predators Easy Targets"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\"\"<\/a>Predators love to come to church.\u00a0 Not necessarily for the messages of unconditional love, grace, and\u00a0redemption that churches offer.\u00a0 Rather,\u00a0predators come to church for another reason —\u00a0because they know that\u00a0many churches offer easy access to the most vulnerable and weak.\u00a0 Predators enter the church through numerous doors.\u00a0 Some come into the congregation as participants in worship who later become members and then begin to serve in ministry, often with children or youth.\u00a0 Other predators are called as paid staff (senior pastors, music, youth, or children’s pastors).\u00a0 Still others are invited into the church through church-sponsored activities, like AA, Weight Watchers, or the Boy Scouts (see lawsuit involving Boy Scouts and LDS<\/a>).\u00a0 Churches throughout America\u00a0have become\u00a0one of the\u00a0easiest of\u00a0targets\u00a0for sexual predators.<\/p>\n

While the Catholic Church’s world-wide clergy sex abuse scandal has received the most attention from the secular media and the public, no church, denomination, or convention has been immune from their own sex abuse scandals.\u00a0 As a pastor of a Southern Baptist church, my own convention has too many documented cases to recount of credible allegations and\/or convictions\u00a0of sexual abuse perpetrated by ministerial staff.\u00a0\u00a0Because\u00a0each of the 45,000 churches of the Southern Baptist Convention are autonomous (we are not a denomination),\u00a0each church is responsible for calling or hiring their own ministerial staff.\u00a0\u00a0There is no\u00a0convention office or entity which assigns pastors or ministers to churches.\u00a0\u00a0While\u00a0there would be\u00a0time and financial costs associated with creating a SBC database of sex offenders (at least those convicted and\/or formally charged with a sex crime), neither time nor money should prevent our\u00a0Convention from doing the right thing.\u00a0 After all, if we can create an accessible database\u00a0for\u00a0tracking resumes and church\u00a0staff vacancies\u00a0on the Convention’s official website,\u00a0www.sbc.net<\/a>, then we can surely come up with a fair and accurate way of tracking sex offenders trying to operate within our churches.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This sexual abuse, both against children and adults (primarily women), has been well chronicled by former appellate attorney and Southern Baptist laywoman, Christa Brown, herself a survivor of clergy sexual abuse suffered at the hands of a Baptist pastor.\u00a0 Outspoken and not afraid to take on the “good ‘ole boys” network, you can read the latest information on church sex abuse cases at StopBaptistPredators.org\u00a0<\/a>or on her personal blog.\u00a0 Her latest entry, Allegations Should Be Assessed<\/a>, tackles the complicated subject of what moral obligations a faith community should show a victim of clergy sexual abuse, especially when the alleged predator — in this case a former Southern Baptist missionary — commits suicide before standing trial.\u00a0 Because of her legal background, Christa is able to present logical and compelling arguments which many within leadership simply cannot comprehend or do not wish to understand.<\/p>\n

Spiritual leaders too often ignore the credible evidence of sexual abuse taking place in their churches and denominations.\u00a0 With clear warning signs right in front of them, many pastors and church leaders cannot believe that sexual abuse occurs within the church.\u00a0 How then can churches and pastors protect their flocks from sexual predators\u00a0who try to infiltrate the church?<\/p>\n

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    \n
  1. Acknowledge sexual predators are in churches and that clergy can sometimes\u00a0be the predators.<\/li>\n
  2. Require\u00a0all paid staff and all volunteers who want to work with minors (anyone under 18)\u00a0to complete a questionnaire stating whether or not they have ever had any allegations, arrests, or convictions relating to abuse of minors.<\/li>\n
  3. If the applicant answers “no” relating to abuse of minors, then conduct an interview with the potential volunteer, asking about their spiritual background and experience working with children or youth.\u00a0 Contact at least three references to inquire as to the applicant’s character.<\/li>\n
  4. If no problems are detected with the questionnaire, personal interview, or reference check, then\u00a0conduct a criminal background check.\u00a0 There are many services available at a reasonable cost.\u00a0 The applicant’s criminal record should show sexual or other moral offenses (i.e., not traffic tickets) in order to proceed.<\/li>\n
  5. Have new volunteers work as a helper for at least six months.\u00a0 Receive feedback from the lead teacher regarding the new volunteer’s work ethic and character.\u00a0 If no problems are reported, then\u00a0the new volunteer may be used as a leader\u00a0in the children’s\u00a0 or student ministries.<\/li>\n
  6. If your church sponsors an activity or allows the activity to take place on your property that involves minors (i.e., the Boy Scouts), make sure that the adult leaders have been properly screened.\u00a0 If any of the leaders of these groups is also a member of your church, insist that they go through the screening process as outlined in #2-5.\u00a0 We can perhaps avoid a lawsuit like the Mormons are being subjected to.<\/a><\/li>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/ol>\n

    What about pastors or other ministers\u00a0who are themselves sexual predators?\u00a0 How can churches prevent these men from serving on staff in the first place?\u00a0 By following\u00a0the same\u00a0screening procedure\u00a0as outlined above.\u00a0 In every church where I have served, I have undergone a criminal background check.\u00a0\u00a0I’m sure that none of these checks were as\u00a0rigorous as\u00a0the background check\u00a0the Florida Bar put me through before licensing me to be an attorney in that state.\u00a0 I am therefore not offended when asked to consent to a criminal\u00a0records check.\u00a0<\/p>\n

    If a\u00a0ministerial candidate balks at\u00a0having a criminal background check performed, that should be a\u00a0major warning sign and red flag that something is not right.\u00a0 Before proceeding, call not only the references provided by the candidate, but inquire at the previous churches where this man has served and ask specific questions about why the minister left.\u00a0 Many churches will be hesitant to give a bad recommendation, but if you ask specifically about allegations or charges of sexual misconduct and receive either no answer or a vague answer, then I would advise a search committee to stop the process.\u00a0 If there is any question whatsoever relating to possible sexual misconduct, I believe churches would not only be foolish from a legal standpoint to move forward, but would be foolish from a moral standpoint to move forward.\u00a0 The stakes are too high, and the potential damage too severe, for churches to move forward in the hiring process when you know, or have reason to know, that the person you hire may be a sexual predator.<\/p>\n

    The church cannot afford to be an easy target for sexual predators.\u00a0 Churches, large and small, must take immediate steps to prevent sexual predators from infiltrating the church.\u00a0 If we fail to act decisively, not only will our witness be damaged, but individuals will be physically, emotionally, and spiritually damaged.\u00a0 Our churches should offer love, grace, and\u00a0redemption to all.\u00a0 But, let us never offer an easy target to those sexual predators in our midst!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Predators love to come to church.\u00a0 Not necessarily for the messages of unconditional love, grace, and\u00a0redemption that churches offer.\u00a0 Rather,\u00a0predators come to church for another reason —\u00a0because they know that\u00a0many churches offer easy access to the most vulnerable and weak.\u00a0 Predators enter the church through numerous doors.\u00a0 Some come into the congregation as participants in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[37],"tags":[235,3392,897,3393,942],"class_list":["post-249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-southern-baptist-convention","tag-clergy-sex-abuse-scandal","tag-religion","tag-sexual-predators","tag-southern-baptist-convention","tag-stop-baptist-predators"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LP7G-41","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}