Churches want to re-victimized the sexually abused? No heart, no morals, no feelings. (faith, Christianity)
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The Southern Baptist Church is a well respected denomination. I believe every elder, and leader in every other Southern Baptist Church should denounce the actions of this church.
I wonder if there a method of throwing a church out of the Southern Baptist organization? Is there public repudiation?
There is a procedure called "disfellowshipping" although it was designed to expel churches who don't adhere to SBC doctrine and dogma, and as such, is a clumsy tool for outing a congregation in otherwise good standing and doctrinal agreement, over an ill-advised legal maneuver. In fact it has been used to eject a church (Weatherly Heights Baptist Church, in Alabama) for officiating a gay marriage and preaching that the Bible does not teach against homosexuality. That is the kind of thing they have used the process for, so I wouldn't have much hope for it being a threat to the church doing something wrong. As usual when it comes to fundamentalists (and the fundies took over the SBC back in the late 1960s), it's not about DOING right morally, it's about BEING right doctrinally.
As usual when it comes to fundamentalists (and the fundies took over the SBC back in the late 1960s), it's not about DOING right morally, it's about BEING right doctrinally.
Actually, sexually abusing children happened in past generations. It has happened for thousands of years. In the U.S. it was covered up and ignored because children were considered property. Children had no voice. Molestation wasn't prosecuted. Victims hid in shame. No one wanted to acknowledge that there were people, some of whom wouldn't think of missing church on Sunday, raping and molesting kids.
Not on the scale like our modern day society. You didn't have sexual images being pumped into people's brains every day along with immediate enormous access to hardcore porn.
In the interest of accuracy, jeffbase40 didn't say HIS church did that. He said it was a church in his area.
Thanks. That's a pity. I should read more carefully. I got over enthusiastic and missed the detail. I would really have like to see that Jeff's church was doing something positive.
You know, after thinking about it, I'll agree somewhat with cupper's post. More attention should be brought to this issue and churches should be implementing safe guards rules.
I'm sure in most churches, a member who volunteers for a position is not given a background check. This isn't a real job. It's just a role in the church.
Unfortunately, we now live in a sick society of sexual immorality and you just can't be trusting of people like you could in past generations when people honored God and didn't embrace sin.
I rept you for italicized part. Not so much for that last bit.
As others have pointed out, nothing has changed. If anything, things have improved now that we have a voice that can be heard and prosecutions that do actually take place. These people are being exposed although not often enough. In biblical times it was even worse, going by the biblical laws whereby a raped girl could be stoned to death, otherwise the rapist had to pay for her, then she was his to abuse for the rest of her life.
You know, after thinking about it, I'll agree somewhat with cupper's post. More attention should be brought to this issue and churches should be implementing safe guards rules.
I'm sure in most churches, a member who volunteers for a position is not given a background check. This isn't a real job. It's just a role in the church. Unfortunately, we now live in a sick society of sexual immorality and you just can't be trusting of people like you could in past generations when people honored God and didn't embrace sin.
Kudos, sorta..it would actually benefit the image of individual churches and religion in general if they owned up to mistakes and abuses and tried to rectify them, rather than covering up or going on the attack when exposed.
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Originally Posted by jeffbase40
Not on the scale like our modern day society. You didn't have sexual images being pumped into people's brains every day along with immediate enormous access to hardcore porn.
The answer is not to go into denial, but to take a rational approach. I know this isn't easy because of a taboo instinct about sex and a lot of traditional taboos about it, but trying to bury it has never helped or been the answer. Education, reason and understanding might.
Hey guess what a church does in my area? They provide housing, support and job assistance for women who are in abusive relationships or unexpected pregnancies. They have a home and a family. A fine example of scummy Christian immorality, right?
Why do you have this continuing problem with people calling it like they see it? Christian churches can do good things -- we've been saying this for a long time.
Christians that chase an LGBTQ member out because they don't meet God's standards of 'perfection'; that protest abortion by bombing abortion providers (killing young mothers and their unborn children in the process, might I add); that want to re-victimize the victims of a horrible crime that should not have gone undetected for so long -- that is what we see, Jeff, and that is what we're angry about.
You tout your superior morality, and I'll freely admit that there are occasionally some very heartwarming examples of moral, upstanding Christians doing good things.
That doesn't change the fact that Christianity has been damaged, almost beyond repair, by scandal after scandal, 'bad apple' after 'bad apple', and the Church has only recently seen fit to do anything besides excuse, conceal or dismiss anything that casts a shadow on its reputation.
It shouldn't be up to us to clean up your house. We should not have to hold the church accountable for its many failings. It's not our church, it's yours, and if you don't like that we're calling out the parasites hiding inside, you need to do something to shake them out.
Why do you have this continuing problem with people calling it like they see it? Christian churches can do good things -- we've been saying this for a long time.
Christians that chase an LGBTQ member out because they don't meet God's standards of 'perfection'; that protest abortion by bombing abortion providers (killing young mothers and their unborn children in the process, might I add); that want to re-victimize the victims of a horrible crime that should not have gone undetected for so long -- that is what we see, Jeff, and that is what we're angry about.
I have a problem when someone highlights an isolated negative event and then broad strokes all Christian churches with statements like "see that's how these scummy immoral Christians are these days!"
The vast majority of churches are helping people and doing good things for our society. But you won't highlight those churches.
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Originally Posted by FredNotBob
You tout your superior morality, and I'll freely admit that there are occasionally some very heartwarming examples of moral, upstanding Christians doing good things.
That doesn't change the fact that Christianity has been damaged, almost beyond repair, by scandal after scandal, 'bad apple' after 'bad apple', and the Church has only recently seen fit to do anything besides excuse, conceal or dismiss anything that casts a shadow on its reputation.
It shouldn't be up to us to clean up your house. We should not have to hold the church accountable for its many failings. It's not our church, it's yours, and if you don't like that we're calling out the parasites hiding inside, you need to do something to shake them out.
It's not our job, Jeff. It's yours.
Should I start posting all the scummy immoral things that non-Christians are doing out there? It wasn't Christians who created a porn industry which objectifies women as sexual objects in the minds of countless men out there. How about some accountability huh?
It wasn't Christians who created a porn industry which objectifies women as sexual objects in the minds of countless men out there.
It was Christians primarily who inadvertently made porn worse than it inherently is by inventing the concept of obscenity.
Porn has been with us since ancient times; it was English Victorians who first tried to control it by criminalizing it. Counterintuitively, as with the war on drugs, criminalizing porn creates more problems than it solves, in my view.
It is just another aspect of how Christianity tries to control sex by repressing it.
Ironically, as any sociologist will tell you, lax sexual mores have little to do with religion or irreligion; they wax and wane pretty much in proportion to how balanced or imbalanced the number of eligible / available men vs women is. For example there are currently significantly more women than men in conservative religious groups like Mormons and orthodox Jews, in part because men tend to leave those restrictive groups in larger numbers than women. This is forcing women in those groups to marry outside the group, or to do things they wouldn't normally do. It's an actual thing, for example, according to the cosmetic surgery industry, that the highest demand for breast augmentation surgery comes from Salt Lake City. If your boyfriend is a scarce commodity, and wishes you had bigger breasts, you are more likely to accommodate him for fear of not tying the knot with him.
I have a problem when someone highlights an isolated negative event and then broad strokes all Christian churches with statements like "see that's how these scummy immoral Christians are these days!"
The vast majority of churches are helping people and doing good things for our society. But you won't highlight those churches.
'Isolated negative event'? What, aside from child-molesting priests, book-burning Islamaphobe pastors,and people like Peter Popoff who actively lie to their flock to solicit just one more donation?
We don't highlight the 'good' churches for two very good reasons: first, good works don't need to be shouted from the hills. We acknowledge freely that many churches and church-going folk are good people. The second reason is that we're trying to help you. We're trying to say, 'hey, look, this isn't right, something should be done'. Nothing ever changes, though, and nothing ever will until the church gets its head out of the sand and stops trying to hide and excuse the skeletons in its closet.
'Good people' do not excuse the abuses of authority, breaches of trust and chronic dishonesty that have tainted the church as an organization. By virtue of being the most visible, most prominent and loudest voices, the dishonest ones are what the world sees.
The result is yet usually another hushed-up scandal, fueled by people like you claiming that we're broad-brushing the church and us trying to make you realize that there is a problem and it needs to be addressed.
You haven't realized it yet, Jeff, but the church is broken. Too many prominent figures have been sticking their fingers in their ears and going 'nyah-nyah-nayh' in the face of corruption and villainy, for far too long, and now there's little realistic hope that anything will repair the cracks that have formed.
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Should I start posting all the scummy immoral things that non-Christians are doing out there? It wasn't Christians who created a porn industry which objectifies women as sexual objects in the minds of countless men out there. How about some accountability huh?
No, it was Christians that caused almost a hundred years of pain and regret by opening residential schools in Canada. Sorry, Jeff, but Christianity doesn't get a free pass just because someone else isn't perfect.
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