Editor’s intro: Al Mohler caught in lies again – this time with covering the scandals of CJ Mahaney. Much more needs to be said, but we’re reposting this article from another who had more info.
> Source link: https://spiritualsoundingboard.com/2014/07/23/dr-albert-mohler-and-response-to-sex-abuse-in-churches/
> Repost - http://www.incpu.org/AlMohler-covering-for-CJMahaney.html
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Al
Mohler: Churches DID know
Sometimes things simmer just under my surface for a while
until they erupt and I can’t ignore them anymore. I grew up in the Baptist
church (SBC) even though I left that church about two decades ago. My parents
are still Baptist, as are many of my friends. I still care about issues
within the Baptist church, so when I hear a highly-respected leader within the
SBC make a statement that is absolutely false and hurts victims who are still
healing from past abuse within churches, my heart breaks, and then I realize
that I’m very, very angry.
Dr. Albert Mohler is president of the flagship Southern
Baptist Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Recently, Dr. Mohler
participated in a panel discussion at the 2014 Southern Baptist Convention
annual meeting. He has been criticized for supporting the
embattled former head of Sovereign Grace Ministries, C.J. Mahaney,
under whose leadership at least one pastor
admittedly failed to report sexual abuse committed by a fellow
pastor. In the panel discussion, Dr. Mohler told pastors to call 911 at the
first knowledge of any sexual abuse. Good advice, but he should have stopped
while he was ahead.
You can watch Mohler’s comments on a video at this link. The comments on sexual abuse start at 55.50. Even though I find it inconceivable that anyone needs to instruct clergy to call 911 upon learning about child abuse of any kind, I was happy to hear Dr. Mohler make the point so strongly. But then, he kept talking, and I began to wonder what his real motivation was for making that strong statement:
“This [the requirement to call 911] is
something that churches have
had to learn,” Mohler
continued. “You go back 30 years, 20 years,
churches didn’t know what to do in this kind of situation. We’re in a different
situation now. There’s no excuse right now for not knowing what you’re going to
do before you have to do it. It
is a gospel ministry stewardship imperative. Be ready to dial 911, and do so
before you leave the room.” (Bold and italics are mine.)
Let’s put that in perspective. Dr. Mohler says that as
recently as 1994, pastors didn’t know what to do if someone
reported an instance of child sexual abuse to them.
I’m sorry, Dr. Mohler… exactly why are we in a different
situation now? We knew right from wrong back in 1994 and 1984.
The Bible had been in print for, oh, 528 years. Mandated reporting of child
abuse by school teachers, health care providers, daycare workers, etc. was the
law in all 50 states, and in most states, it was the law for clergy as well.
I was a 22-year-old school teacher in 1987. Every teacher in the country
was familiar with mandated reporting. Members of the clergy don’t live in some
sort of bubble that protects them from the knowledge everyone else in their
community possesses. I mean, good grief, how many of their wives are school
teachers, nurses, and daycare providers?! No matter what a church’s or
religious school’s internal policy might have been,
those pastors knew that failure to report abuse was both illegal and immoral. I
will allow them no excuse on the basis of some mythical ignorance, nor on the basis of an arrogant belief that their counsel
would be more effective than seeing the perpetrator brought to rightful
justice. It’s ridiculous to suggest otherwise. Anyone
with a conscience knew. Put yourself in the shoes of a child who, 20
or 30 years ago, found him or herself in an abusive
situation not knowing how to handle it. To suggest that the church
leaders were in some kind of difficult situation that they didn’t
know how to handle is more than merely insensitive; it perpetuates the abuse.
Dr. Mohler has certainly made strong
statements about the reporting of sexual abuse, particularly after
the conviction of Sandusky at Penn State. “The moral and legal responsibility
of every Christian – and especially every Christian leader and minister – must
be to report any suspicion of the abuse of a child to law enforcement.” Those
are Mohler’s words. So, why did he make this caveat during the panel
discussion about the ignorance of church leaders 20 or 30 years ago? Well,
unlike his carefully-penned article about reporting abuse after the Sandusky
situation, these comments were extemporaneous and as such, a very transparent
window into his real state of mind. Fueled by a bit of applause, he seized the
opportunity to spin the moment to his advantage.
And why would Dr. Mohler want to spin this issue? There
are two reasons.
The first is Mohler’s unfortunate letter of support for
C.J. Mahaney. From Wikipedia: “In late 2012, a
lawsuit was brought against Sovereign Grace Ministries for allegedly not
reporting sex abuse that allegedly occurred 20 to 30 years ago.”
I see what you did there, Dr. Mohler. We can all see.
The second reason is during the first 18 years of
Mohler’s tenure as president of Southern Seminary, the
school’s policy was that sexual abuse be handled in-house – reported to a
supervisor, not the police. Mohler made a big
deal of changing it right after the Sandusky trial, saying, “Since
we update our policies regularly in light of best practices, I had been fairly
certain that our Seminary policy, published in our handbook and documents was
adequate.” (Really?) “Upon review, we found that
it was not.” (Huh! Who’d have thought?) “The very day we discovered this,
we changed the policy.” So, we’re supposed to believe that he
himself was ignorant of his legal and moral responsibility to report
abuse prior to November of 2011, much less 20-30 years ago. Who knows when
someone may come up and make a sexual abuse claim and Mohler finds himself involved in a cover-up scandal? I’ll bet he’s really
sweating that possibility. No, best to claim that we were all just ignorant
about such things until we recently saw the light, conveniently after Sandusky
was convicted.
Here’s another extemporaneous quote
from that panel session that I believe shines a light on Mohler’s biggest
concern: “If you’re not doing that (calling 911), you’re not only putting
those children at risk, you’re putting your entire ministry at risk.”
Well, then. If the MINISTRY is at risk, we MUST call 911. I’m sorry, Dr.
Mohler, but the right advice is that pastors call 911 completely for the sake
of rescuing the child, no matter the cost to their ministry.
Where are the heroes?
Some people will say that I’m not being fair to Dr.
Mohler, but I’m not willing to cut him any slack for these extemporaneous
words. He is in the business of communicating – communicating God’s truth,
ministering with God’s love, and training students to do the same. He is
responsible for every off-the-cuff word and the effect it has. If his words
made me furious, and I wasn’t even a direct victim, imagine the effect on a
child abused 30 years ago in a Baptist church.
In the late ’80s, the married pastor of my Baptist church
was discovered making inappropriate propositions to young male adults in our
community, young men in their early 20s. While this was not the same as child
molestation, it was still inappropriate sexual conduct and an abuse of his
position as a pastor, and at the very least, he was victimizing these young men
by expecting them to guard his secret. Twenty-one may be the age of consent,
but it’s still just a number. An insecure young man could easily have been
unfairly influenced by an older, pastoral figure that he trusted. At least
one of those young men blew his cover, but we will likely never know how many
others he may have approached who didn’t then and never will speak up. I still
consider this abuse, and the pain it can cause is huge. The pastor was already
contracted to a new church and would have been moving soon. In our church,
there was no cover-up. Our deacons did the right thing – they made the
situation known to our congregation once it was discovered. We reported his
actions to the church he was moving to. Had our church covered it up, and had
he gone on to victimize someone at the next church, our failure to disclose
that information would have been inexcusable, no matter the year.
God can raise
up ministers from the very rocks. He doesn’t need Southern
seminary, or SGM, or any individual church, but those victims need a hero. A
ministry has no worth when it values its existence more than rescuing the
“least of these.”
Dr. Mohler, when you say that 20 or 30 years ago,
churches didn’t know what to do, you insult the intelligence of your fellow SBC
members and indeed, your fellow Christians. You insult
the victims of abuse within any church if their abuse happened during the “dark
ages” 20 or more years ago when you deem people to have been too ignorant to
know how to respond. How can you suggest that there was ever a learning
curve about this? For clergy?!
Please, Dr. Mohler, use your considerable influence to tell the world that covering up abuse is not just inexcusable now; it was inexcusable 30 years ago or 100 years ago. No caveats. Please restore the faith so many are losing in organized religion. Be one of the heroes.
***
Al
Mohler: Churches DID know
> Source link: https://spiritualsoundingboard.com/2014/07/23/dr-albert-mohler-and-response-to-sex-abuse-in-churches/
> Repost - http://www.incpu.org/AlMohler-covering-for-CJMahaney.html