http://www.sometimesalight.com/1/post/2013/07/how-mothers-react-to-accounts-of-sexual-abuse-and-why-pastors-need-to-listen-to-them.html

Your final point was absolutely spot on when you said that many people are holding back because of fear (I know I was, at least), but that we must love enough to believe better and be willing to speak. Thanks again.

I have read a lot of responses to this issue and I am so grateful for how you have modeled boldness with compassion and humility. You and I are not better than these men but we have to love truth above man pleasing. Thank you so much for this! I hope these men who I love will read this and apologize for what they wrote. Let’s hope we respond this way if one of our friends is accused of something tragic.

Anthony

Sadly their words were not hasty, but premeditated and incredibly calculated and politically timed. That suggests a deeper heart issue.

I am so surprised and saddened by the way TGC and T4G are handling this. It just seems so unwise and unloving and doesn’t seem like the way of people who hunger for justice. Notice I say “seem” – I admit there is much I don’t know.

Pray for those kids who were (allegedly?) abused. The allegations are just horrific. God have mercy. This is a very, very serious situation.

I know that the enemy is a roaring lion seeking to devour, and he is seems to have a palate that favors men of the cloth, both to see them falsely accused, and to see them rightly accused because they have fallen.

I believe for those who have been abused, be it by church members or outsiders, how the elders handle such matters can be healing or add insult to injury. The mishandling of such, I believe, can honestly be worse and more damaging than the abuse itself, as hard as that is to believe. We expect ill care from abusers, but we expect the love and compassion and protection of Christ, from our shepherds, not a crook over the head, or to be shamed into a corner with blame and accusation. Obviously sessions must take care, false accusations can and do occur. My concern is, that so few denominations have in place guidelines and standards for managing such cases. I believe when they are not in place before hand, it is very easy for sessions to get off track when making decisions on the fly. The issue is just too sensitive and potentially damaging to leave to “chance” as it were.

Another issue that has me concerned is, that there still seem to be pastors and elders and husbands and men out there, who blindly believe that it is “safe” to be alone with members of the opposite sex. If one is the favorite snack of the roaring lion why would one leave oneself open to either false allegation or potential temptation? It is both a protection to men and to women, to have policies in place regarding one’s moral safety.

When my daughter was growing up, I took the “bizarre” position of telling mother’s who’d call and ask for her to babysit of saying that such would be allowed on one proviso, and that was that we had a rule, across the board, that she not be driven to or from sitting by the father, but rather by the mother. I even made an allowance for if they got home and the baby was sick or needed nursed and the mother couldn’t make it out, that I would pick her up. At first a mother or two thought this odd. Over time, the women said “you know what, this is an excellent plan, I shall do the same when my daughter is of sitting age.)

Rather than churches waiting for the issue to have occurred and doing damage control, can people not see that it is not modest for men and women to be left alone together, without witnesses for their protection? If my husband needs to counsel a women, he gives her several options, she may bring her father, husband, friend etc, but he will not meet alone. The quickest way to be protected of false allegations/and or temptation/ is to avoid the occasion. Obviously this is not the CJ case or issue, but sadly we are often dealing with elders/ministers in abuse/scandal cases.

One more thing, for those who have been abused, to see the persons they feel covered up, didn’t believe them, didn’t aid them or support them (and one can be supportive even without knowing if the abuse did or did not occur) lauded as such great men, who we “all stand beside in support of” is very painful. Nobody wants Cj or other’s thrown under a bus, but isn’t giving blanket promise of support needlessly painful for those trying to heal?

Sorry to ramble…I’ve just seen too much in my day, in even the “very best” of churches. No church is immune.