Just finished reading. Your analysis is brilliant and compassionate and encouraging. Thank you!
Especially this:
>> As a truly repentant offender, do you need to be spoken about in such exalted terms? Or would you ask for the tone of the email to be less glorifying of you? Would you make sure that all your offenses are listed, or would you consider only the most recent conviction of a sexual crime to be relevant?
>> More hauntingly: if you were an offender who was intent on using the church to access more victims — as has happened far too many times, especially within the SBC — would this disclosure make you feel like the elders were holding a wise, discerning attitude towards you, or would you feel emboldened that you had deceived them into falsely trusting you, opening the door for possibly more abuse?
So good. And what you say at the end about the offender's self-deception infecting the congregation. Whoa. Intense... and true... and scary.
Hi Abram, thank you so much for taking the time to read and comment. It's encouraging that there are people in churches who want to protect children and also help protect offenders from themselves.
Deception isn't often viewed as epidemic, but I think it's in its very nature, all the way back to the Garden of Eden. Adam never spoke to the snake, yet he ate the apple.
When leaders are looked up to in churches and then are deceived and, in turn, infect their congregations with that deceit, I fear that what we are seeing is straight-up grooming, setting the scene for abuse to be more easily perpetrated and more easily covered up.
I absolutely agree any repentant offender would be the first to point out that measures are needed. The very last thing anyone who had turned to Christ would want, is to reap deceit and potentially destruction on a church because they were brought too close to temptation. They would certainly have humility and would ask not to be lionized by church leadership.
"Cheap grace," indeed. Nowhere in this whole paragraph...
>> More than 30 years ago, Mike was convicted of a sexual crime against a minor. For this crime, he served fourteen years in prison. While in prison, God's grace did incredible work in Mike's life. He gave him hope in the power of Christ to overcome his guilt. He gave him a deep hunger for studying the Bible. And he gave him a desire to share the hope of the gospel with others. Mike has been doing exactly that from his time in prison until now. His life is a trophy of God's grace, the kind of miracle that we always long to see.
... does it say anything about actual acknowledgement of sin, let alone repentance, let alone amends for the victims! "Overcome his guilt" is not the same thing. The statement concludes with a general "God is merciful to sinners who repent," but if I were a pastor or elder at this church, I would be bending over backwards to (a) discern actual signs of repentance in the offender (Scripture says there is fruit borne in keeping with repentance--so, yes, it IS ours to see and discern), and (b) communicating this repentance (if it is indeed there) to the congregation.
Even then, that doesn't mean he has access to kids, even in a "chaperoned" public worship service where children are present. Wouldn't a truly repentant offender be the first to acknowledge this anyway, and accept it as accountability/consequences for his crime(s)?
Still reading through this post, but had to stop to say... that artwork!!! Oh my gosh. Stunning and devastating.
Also, "His life is a trophy of God's grace, the kind of miracle that we always long to see" is pretty much explicitly admitting *wishful thinking*, here commingling with cheap grace theology.
Just finished reading. Your analysis is brilliant and compassionate and encouraging. Thank you!
Especially this:
>> As a truly repentant offender, do you need to be spoken about in such exalted terms? Or would you ask for the tone of the email to be less glorifying of you? Would you make sure that all your offenses are listed, or would you consider only the most recent conviction of a sexual crime to be relevant?
>> More hauntingly: if you were an offender who was intent on using the church to access more victims — as has happened far too many times, especially within the SBC — would this disclosure make you feel like the elders were holding a wise, discerning attitude towards you, or would you feel emboldened that you had deceived them into falsely trusting you, opening the door for possibly more abuse?
So good. And what you say at the end about the offender's self-deception infecting the congregation. Whoa. Intense... and true... and scary.
Hi Abram, thank you so much for taking the time to read and comment. It's encouraging that there are people in churches who want to protect children and also help protect offenders from themselves.
Deception isn't often viewed as epidemic, but I think it's in its very nature, all the way back to the Garden of Eden. Adam never spoke to the snake, yet he ate the apple.
When leaders are looked up to in churches and then are deceived and, in turn, infect their congregations with that deceit, I fear that what we are seeing is straight-up grooming, setting the scene for abuse to be more easily perpetrated and more easily covered up.
I absolutely agree any repentant offender would be the first to point out that measures are needed. The very last thing anyone who had turned to Christ would want, is to reap deceit and potentially destruction on a church because they were brought too close to temptation. They would certainly have humility and would ask not to be lionized by church leadership.
Well said!
"Cheap grace," indeed. Nowhere in this whole paragraph...
>> More than 30 years ago, Mike was convicted of a sexual crime against a minor. For this crime, he served fourteen years in prison. While in prison, God's grace did incredible work in Mike's life. He gave him hope in the power of Christ to overcome his guilt. He gave him a deep hunger for studying the Bible. And he gave him a desire to share the hope of the gospel with others. Mike has been doing exactly that from his time in prison until now. His life is a trophy of God's grace, the kind of miracle that we always long to see.
... does it say anything about actual acknowledgement of sin, let alone repentance, let alone amends for the victims! "Overcome his guilt" is not the same thing. The statement concludes with a general "God is merciful to sinners who repent," but if I were a pastor or elder at this church, I would be bending over backwards to (a) discern actual signs of repentance in the offender (Scripture says there is fruit borne in keeping with repentance--so, yes, it IS ours to see and discern), and (b) communicating this repentance (if it is indeed there) to the congregation.
Even then, that doesn't mean he has access to kids, even in a "chaperoned" public worship service where children are present. Wouldn't a truly repentant offender be the first to acknowledge this anyway, and accept it as accountability/consequences for his crime(s)?
Still reading through this post, but had to stop to say... that artwork!!! Oh my gosh. Stunning and devastating.
Also, "His life is a trophy of God's grace, the kind of miracle that we always long to see" is pretty much explicitly admitting *wishful thinking*, here commingling with cheap grace theology.