#ChurchToo and why leaders respond so poorly

Over the last few weeks, I found myself struggling to keep up with the ever growing inbox of messages asking for help. They weren’t from church leaders but from church members. In each of the messages, a few members found out that a registered sex offender was attending the congregation. Some of the offenders had been there well over a decade. Some were loitering near children’s areas and others were actually volunteering with minor children. In every case the church leaders were not only aware, but they chose not to inform the congregation. I looked up records for each of the offenders. Some were bad enough, but some were really bad. I’ve personally seen this scenario hundreds of times now. Churches almost never respond to abuse well.  When they do respond well, we should celebrate and let them know that they’ve done a good job. In about 98% of the cases I’ve seen, however, the churches failed to inform their congregations when a sex offender is attending.

I was lamenting this to a good friend of mine and I told him that the leaders are consistently making decisions that are the complete opposite of how they should actually be responding. They care for, protect, and nurture the wolf while the sheep are left out to fend for themselves unaware that a wolf is in the sheep pen eyeing the ewe lambs. I shared with my friend that I was driving down our one way main street in town the other day and a car was coming towards me in the wrong direction. We all slowed down but she kept barreling down the street even though a line of cars was facing her. She finally stopped just feet from my car but her face showed that she was visibly agitated with me. For a second I was pretty sure she was going to start ramming my car! She finally pulled off to the side to let us past but she made it known that we were the jerks for not letting her continue through in the wrong direction.

I was describing my analogy to him. “It’s like the leaders consistently drive the wrong way down Decision Avenue and get agitated when anyone confronts them. And all we’re trying to do is turn them around and minimize casualties,” I said. My friend reminded me of the scene in the 1987 John Candy and Steve Martin movie Planes, Trains, and Automobiles. The clip is a silly way to demonstrate a very real problem–many leaders are making uninformed decisions and doing it with complete confidence. They routinely shut down people who try to warn them that they are making dangerous decisions.

My purpose is not to poke fun at these leaders, but to plead with them to have the humility to listen to people who are warning them that their decisions are dangerous to the flock.   When I reported my father I surrounded myself with wise counsel.  My wife and I selected church members whom we felt had common sense, wisdom, and could help us make informed decisions.  When we shut out the voices of our congregations we no longer have leadership–we have dictatorship.

Here is a sampling of the most common statements concerned members hear from the leaders regarding registered sex offenders in their churches:

• He (or she) did his time
• We don’t want to bring shame on this brother
• It’s not fair to publicize his past sins
• He poses no threat to children
• We’re keeping an eye on him
• He’s not allowed near the children’s wing
• We met with him and he’s very remorseful and repentant
• We need to encourage him and his family and shining a light on his past sins will greatly discourage him
• You’re not to tell anyone about this because you’ll be undermining the leadership

Perhaps I should use another analogy to describe why it’s unwise to fail to inform the congregation.  Suppose a person comes into a congregation who was recently released from prison.  She tells them that she spent some time in prison but it mostly was a “misunderstanding.”  She says they are free to look up her record if they want to know more (knowing full well that they won’t take the time to do so) and she assures them that she has learned from her dumb mistakes.  Two years later, and with their blessing, she volunteers to drive the church van on an overnight annual camping trip.  The parents load their kids up in the church van, snap some pictures, and wish their kids farewell.

The reality is that this volunteer had 5 D.U.I. charges and the final one that landed her in prison was a vehicular homicide charge for killing a teenage girl when she crossed into oncoming traffic.  My questions–Whose responsibility was it to actually look up her records before allowing her to drive a van full of kids?  Why did the elders take her word that she was in prison for a “misunderstanding” and that she has learned her lesson?  Did the parents have the right to know of this woman’s past criminal charges before packing their kids into a van with her behind the wheel?   And would it have been unfair to the woman for the elders to inform the parents of her charges or is it more unfair to the parents of the kids for their failure to inform?

Nobody in their right mind would allow someone convicted of 5 D.U.I.s and vehicular homicide to volunteer to drive a van full of kids, no matter how long ago the crimes happened.  Yet, surprisingly, with child rapists they consistently and intentionally hide their charges from the congregation.  Why?

I offer my opinion for why this is so:

• Their theology is very bad.  There are loads of passages that speak to warning people of dangerous/violent people.  Consider Ezekiel 33:6: “But if the watchman sees the sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, so that the people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes any one of them, that person is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at the watchman’s hand.”  They also believe that the oppressors, not the oppressed, are the ones who need time and attention.  This is the polar opposite of what the Bible teaches.
• They lack humility.  Church members are routinely warned not to “usurp authority,” are not believed, are told that they are being overreactive, and told that it is at the leaders’ discretion as to whether the church is informed or not about an abuser’s record(in other words, church members are “not allowed” to inform other church members).  In many cases, members are dismissed from their churches and told not to come back.  This is exactly the abusive kind of leadership God warns about in Ezekiel 34.
• They are not aware of their blind spots.  All of us have blind spots.  We have to be aware that abusers are incredibly skilled at finding them, exploiting them, and residing within those blind spots.  Abusers prey on the naivety and busyness of church leaders.  Never take an abuser’s word that there were “misunderstandings.”  Records are public for a reason.  Always look them up.  Know who you are dealing with, what their crimes were, and what their restrictions are as part of their probation or parole.
• Facades are more powerful than reality itself.  When I hear leaders say that an abuser no longer poses a threat, I ask them whose professional assessment that is and if they are willing to put it into writing.  Abusers know that putting up a clean, pure facade is powerfully effective in winning the hearts of whomever is standing in front of them.   Humans have a bad habit of resisting or ignoring facts when someone is likable.
• They believe warning a church is unfair.  They not only believe it is unfair to the abuser, but they wrongly believe that warning a church will upset the church or create unnecessary drama.  The reality is that parents will appreciate being warned that a serial pedophile, rapist, or violent person is in their midst.  They will appreciate it more if the leaders are proactive in developing a plan to protect the vulnerable and innocent from that person.  My advice–enlist the help of survivors to come up with a plan that both protects the flock and ministers to other survivors within the church.

One thing I would caution–sometimes it is the church who protects abusers. I highly recommend reading the following article: Us Too: Why the Problem of Church Abuse is Much Deeper than Church Leadership.

What would you add to the above list?