Attacking Abuse

In our world today, sexual purity has been replaced by sexual permissiveness, and there is a distorted view of how men are to treat women today. 1st Corinthians 6 calls for a standard of purity, saying:
18 Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.
19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?
20 For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.

Sin is at the root cause of the abuse that has been identified within churches today. Certainly a thirst for power and control is in the mix, as well as unrestrained, uncrucified desires.  The culture would say to embrace the sinful desires that we may encounter; the Church says, based on the Scripture, to pursue holiness, to crucify those desires through the power of God.  We belong to Him and we are equipped by the Holy Spirit to deal with the sin in our midst, but it's so vital that we call it out.

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1st Corinthians 16 gives a series of exhortations that can encourage us as we seek to glorify God.  We
can read:
13 Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong.
14 Let all that you do be done with love.

The English Standard Version translates verse 13 as: "Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong."

The Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting wrapped up yesterday in Birmingham, and as expected, the body of over 8,000 messengers from local churches voted to strengthen its stand against sexual abuse, including setting up a standing committee to gather information and make recommendations about churches that may not be in fellowship with the denomination due to poor handling of abuse or participation in racial discrimination.

The Convention had established a Sexual Abuse Advisory Group, which released its Caring Well report just a few days before the convention.  According to Religion News Service:

The “Caring Well” report also summarizes a range of next steps to address the issue, including educating congregations about abuse, preparing them to help survivors and fostering abuse prevention.

“We lament the fact that it took a national movement of reckoning for abuse to force us to take this issue seriously in our own convention,” reads the 52-page report, which followed an investigation published May 31 in the Houston Chronicle detailing accusations involving dozens of Southern Baptists.

The article also says:

The report lists ways churches can respond to abuse, including developing a team of caregivers to assist survivors who disclose abuse and checking references before hiring staffers and volunteers.

It also recommends a new free video series called “Becoming a Church that Cares Well,” which features experts sharing best practices concerning a range of scenarios in a church, ministry or school.

The report concludes by asking Southern Baptist churches to take an eight-step “Caring Well Challenge” over the next year to help them “be safe for survivors and safe from abuse.”

A Baptist Press article on the subject says:

Sexual abuse already was a significant issue in the SBC, but an ongoing investigative series by the Houston Chronicle, joined by the San Antonio Express-News, that began in February revealed further some of the extent of the problem in the convention and its churches. The initial articles in the series found 220 pastors and other leaders in Southern Baptist churches who had been convicted of or taken plea deals in sex crimes involving more than 700 victims. More abusers in churches, as well as some who served as missionaries with the International Mission Board, have been reported since then.

The article also points out: "The Advisory Study expresses lament in the report for every victim and cites statistics demonstrating how prevalent sexual abuse is in the church and the country -- including a Department of Justice figure that one in four women and one in six men will be sexually abused before the age of 18."

With the revelations of hundreds of victims in the denomination, which, according to Chrisitanity Today, has close to 14.8 million members in over 47,000 churches, there does seem to be a high level of confidence among Protestant church members that their churches are already handling abuse well.  A LifeWay Research survey states:

The study found 1 in 3 (32%) Protestant churchgoers believe many more Protestant pastors have sexually abused children or teens than has been currently exposed. Slightly more (37%) disagree, while 31% say they don’t know.

People trust their church to be a safe place. The survey says that 93% of "churchgoers...agree their church is a safe place where adults are actively protected from sexual assault in the church; 4% aren’t sure and 3% disagree." 81% believe "their church is at least somewhat prepared to protect children from sexual abuse in ministry programs, with more than half (58%) of churchgoers saying their church is very prepared."

And, there is this:

Churchgoers believe safety measures have improved in the last decade. Almost 7 in 10 (69%) believe their church is more prepared to protect children from sexual abuse than 10 years ago.

Scott McConnell, executive director of LifeWay Research says, "Among people who are currently attending church, few said they stopped attending because of issues related to sexual misconduct,” adding, “This does not measure, however, any who left due to these problems and have returned to any church since.”  The summary states:

The research indicates churches are suffering from negative perceptions with many churchgoers bracing for more pastor-related sexual abuse stories to emerge, according to McConnell. That hasn’t worsened churchgoers’ opinions of their own church or caused them to attend less frequently, but they still see areas on which church leaders should prioritize.

One could argue the degree to which sexual abuse is a major problem within the church - it has certainly generated headlines and it is not something that should be minimized.  And, one area that can make huge, lasting change is the power of the gospel.  In policies and procedures, it is important that we do not lose sight of the nature of sexual abuse.  In a church culture where teaching on sin seems to have increasingly diminished and attitudes towards sex and sexuality have been loosened, we should develop a zero tolerance attitude toward sinfulness - that's true in our own lives.

One does have to wonder about these survey results; most people in the survey felt their church was a safe place - is it a blind trust, naivete?  Perhaps, but we run into danger when we don't recognize our vulnerabilities or think that we have arrived in addressing certain areas.  This is an area of concern and churches can certainly evaluate their systems, and we all could stand to more sensitivity to suspicious behavior.

We also have to encourage men to, as 1st Corinthians 16 directs, "act like men."  As commentator Alan Atchison writes at the Capstone Report website: "Leaders who follow Jesus will protect the vulnerable among us. That is a solution, but one that requires everyone’s commitment."
The world has distorted what it means to be a man, and the Church has an opportunity to re-establish the Biblical standard for manhood, with men who show respect to women, who provide an example of servant-leadership, and who are intentionally attempting to reflect Christ in thought and behavior.