Church Sex Abuse Scandals Both Bad and Good News

It’s been a tough couple of months for Christians lately, what with the media once again filled with news about sex scandals involving major church leaders.

For Catholics, the latest revelation involved Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, retired archbishop of Washington.

McCarrick, one of the most powerful and influential leaders in the church, has been accused of at least three cases of sexual misconduct with adults decades ago. Two of those cases resulted in settlements.

Then there was Monsignor Carlo Alberto Capella, a 50-year-old Vatican official. He was found guilty of possessing and distributing child pornography and sentenced to five years in jail.

In Australia, Cardinal George Pell is facing trial over alleged sexual abuse 40 years ago. Also in that country, Adelaide Archbishop PhilipWilson was found guilty of covering up child sex abuse by a priest in the 1970s.

Meanwhile, in Chile all the bishops in that country submitted their resignations at the request of the Pope because of their failure to deal with priests who abused children. Pope Francis has accepted three of the resignations, so far.

Protestants also had their own bad news to deal with in this time of #MeToo.

Three key leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention’s “conservative resurgence” movement—Frank Page, Paige Patterson and Paul Pressler—have have either been fired, resigned or are living under accusations of inappropriate sexual conduct.

Page resigned as president and chief executive officer of the Convention’s executive committee over what he described as “a morally inappropriate relationship in the recent past.”

Patterson was fired as president of the denomination’s Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary for inappropriate comments about women, and for counseling women who were physically abused by their husbands to stay in their marriages and “be submissive in every way that you can.”

Pressler stands accused of sexual misconduct by a number of men. The accusations include molestation and soliciting them for sex as teenagers.

The revelations prompted prominent Southern Baptist leader Albert Mohler to write in that “the avalanche of sexual misconduct that has come to light in recent weeks is almost too much to bear.

“These grievous revelations of sin have occurred in churches, in denominational ministries, and even in our seminaries.”

He put blame for the issues taking so long to come to light to a “conspiracy of silence.”

Another church dealing with the fallout of sexual misconduct is the influential Willow Creek Community Church in Illinois.

The church, which provides leadership and other resources to over 13,000 member churches in 45 countries through its Willow Creek Association, issued a public apology this month for how it mishandled allegations of misconduct against its senior pastor,  Bill Hybels.

Hybels stepped down from leading Willow Creek in April following an investigation by a Chicago newspaper that revealed allegations of misconduct with women, including a longtime affair with a married woman.

“I need to publicly apologize to the women who raised concerns about Bill,” pastor Heather Larson said of how the church had engaged in a strategy of denial and defense of Hybels, and attacking the accusers.

“To the women directly, I can’t imagine how painful these months have been for you and I am so sorry for the ways I have contributed to that,” she added.

Whew—that’s a lot of bad news. Why repeat it? Because it’s also good news.

It’s good news that the voices of women and others who have been abused—people long marginalized, silenced and disbelieved by churches—are finally now being heard in this age of #MeToo.

It’s good news that major church publications are reporting about these abuses—not covering them up.

It’s good news that more churches and denominations are recognizing that giving leaders (almost always men) unlimited power, blind allegiance, biblical justification for their actions and little accountability is an invitation to disaster.

And it’s good news for a watching world to see that more churches are finally willing to do the hard things when sexual abuse is reported—not brush it under the carpet.

(This isn’t only a Christian phenomenon, by-the-way; there are also Muslim, Buddhist, Jewish, and atheist #MeToo movements.”)

This won’t be the end of the bad news. I’m sure there will be many more revelations of abuse and inappropriate conduct. 

But seeing those headlines also means that some churches and denominations are beginning to deal seriously with the problem. 

And that is very good news.

From the July 14, 2018 Winnipeg Free Press.

Presbyterians in Canada Issue Letter of Repentance to LGBTQ* Community

“We are sorry, and we repent.”

That’s the message sent last month by the Presbyterian Church in Canada (PCC) to “all those harmed by homophobia and hypocrisy by and within the church.”

The letter was written by PCC moderator Peter Bush, who is also Minister at Westwood Presbyterian Church here in Winnipeg.

In it the denomination apologizes and repents for how its churches failed “to be safe and welcoming places” for people “who do not identify as heterosexual,” and for being judgmental and excluding others “based on restrictive gender definitions.”

It also says sorry for “our failure to protect” LGBTQ* people who have been “attacked and brutalized,” for failing “to hold people accountable for abuse and hatred” for not speaking up when such attacks occurred.

It also apologizes for putting “more emphasis on a person’s sexual identity than on their identity in Christ.”

The letter concludes by noting that the denomination is committed to “go in a new way and to be a welcoming church,” and to create a “safe place” where “experiences of LGBTQ* people will be told and heard.”

I called Bush. I asked him how the letter has been received.

“The reaction has been generally positive,” he said, noting that it went through a number of drafts over period of seven months and was read by “respected leaders” and others before being released.

“Some think it goes too far, while others think it doesn’t go far enough,” he added.

I noted that the PCC was called on to repent in this way 18 years ago, in 1994, when a report on human sexuality was delivered to the denomination.  What took so long?

Bush admitted it took “an embarrassingly long time” for the letter to be issued. But he didn’t think there was anything nefarious in the delay.

“It was part of a larger debate about human sexuality” in the denomination, he said.

The debate, he noted, is about whether clergy can perform same-sex weddings, or if LBGTQ* people can be ordained.

“I don’t think it was intentional, it just got lost for a while,” he said.

I asked: What does he hope the letter will accomplish?

“I hope it will help church reflect on the ways we have done wrong, and on the ways in which the church has been shaped by that wrong, and how it needs to be re-shaped,” he said.

And what will that new shape look like?

“I hope it will cause us to ask if we really are a hospitable church,” he says. “We want everyone to know they are welcome through our doors, to be a part of the life of our congregations.”

So far, there isn’t a lot of reaction to the letter on the denomination’s website. But what’s there is overwhelmingly positive; so far, only one person left a negative comment.

I contacted three Presbyterian Ministers. Two of them also felt good about it.

“It’s a good letter, we needed to do it,” said Matthew Brough, Minister at Prairie Presbyterian Church here in Winnipeg.

“It is the right thing to do,” he added, noting that “there are still bigger issues still to be discussed.”

Barbara Pilozow, Minister at Winnipeg’s St. John’s Presbyterian Church, also welcomed the letter.

“It says exactly what we need to say,” she saod, adding that “our treatment of LGBTQ* people has been embarrassing in the least, terrible at most.”

“It’s our responsibility to apologize, and to find God’s will for in all of this for us.”

But another pastor I contacted, who didn’t want to be named, is very disappointed.

For him, the letter shows how the denomination has been “hijacked” by a “liberal agenda that is so divorced from where the core of the church is.”

This issue, he said, “is killing” the denomination.

Bush acknowledged the issue is causing anxiety for some in the denomination—on both sides of the debate.

While he doesn’t think churches will leave because of the letter, what the church decides about the issue of same-sex marriage and ordination of LGBTQ* people could cause “some seismic shifts.”

Pilozow agreed; the church, she said, is not unified on this issue, both among clergy and in congregations.

“This is a hard conversation to have, she said. But, in the end, “it’s God’s church. It will survive no matter what happens.”

Read the full letter here.