The church—like the larger culture—is facing a time of reckoning when it comes to sexual abuse in its midst, and its inadequate response to it.
While the awareness may be new, the problem is not. Our common we-don’t-want-to-talk-about-it approach has failed to prevent heinous things from happening among us. In the 20 years I have been in ministry, I’ve seen situations ranging from college-student sexual assault to missionaries “counseling” vulnerable young women and then harassing or assaulting them, to sexual predators pretending to be Christians to gain access to children or young people.
And those are just the gravely serious ones—we could mention the prevalence of unwanted sexual advances, or disturbing sexual comments intended to degrade others in ministry, for example.
The resistance to confronting reality has led us to allow the standard of protection for vulnerable people in our church communities to be far too low. And it has held us back from caring for victims and pursuing justice when bad things happen.
Recent headlines sadly have highlighted that bad happens even among our most respected leaders and institutions.
We need to know how to deal with sexual harassment and abuse in the church with integrity. How do we protect our congregants, our staff and our organizations? How do we prevent sexual violations and crimes from happening, and if that prevention fails, what do we do? How do we care for people in the midst of that nightmare?
To answer these questions, we reached out to two seasoned leaders who have a reputation for tested wisdom in this area. Read More
Also See:
A Safe Place
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