Our selective curiosity on sex scandals

[Joanne98]

In today’s Denver Post, columnist Vincent Carroll ponders the question of why Baptist sex abuse scandals don’t get the same type of scrutiny over their wider patterns as do Catholic sex abuse scandals. It’s a good question. And while I disagree with some of what Mr. Carroll says, he nailed it on this point: There is no data to suggest that Baptists have any less of a problem with clergy sex abuse than Catholics.

Vincent Carroll also got it right in noting that the recent case of Eddie Long is a case involving a “Baptist megachurch leader.” It seems that many others in the media have dodged and minimized the story's “Baptist” connection.

But the most important question should be the question of what various faith groups are now doing to systematically address clergy sex abuse and to lessen the likelihood of church-hopping predators. On that question, Baptists are way behind as compared to Catholics and other major Protestant groups. They are behind not only for prevention purposes but also for compassionate care of the wounded. It’s because even denominationally-affiliated Baptists have leaders who use congregationalist polity as an excuse for do-nothingness and unaccountability.

And while the Catholic Church keeps administrative records on priests, the largest Protestant denomination in the land -- the Southern Baptist Convention -- doesn’t bother with any record-keeping on its clergy. For Baptists, it’s “no records, no trace, no trouble.” That makes cover-ups and concealment a lot harder to track.

http://stopbaptistpredators.blogspot.com/2010/10/our-selective-curiosity-on-sex-scandals.html

[hedgehog]

1. How are Baptist congregations governed? The big problem in the

Catholic Church was a policy of deny and move - deny there was anything going on and move the predator on to new pastures. In other words, it was the cover-up that caused the scandal more than the fact of the original crime. Men who presumably would never themselves directly harm a child enabled predators.

[daleanime]

2. Hole-in-one.

That and the fact that it seems to have been a world wide scandal.