A few years ago I was home with a bad stomach bug. I was in the middle of a violent vomiting episode when I heard my dogs barking and going nuts. For ten minutes they were barking obsessively. I finally got enough energy to go inspect the issue and there stood a man, hands cupped against his face, peering into my living room window as he called out my name. I knew the guy. And didn’t like him either. He was an abuser who lived across from my church office and regularly stopped cancer patients as they were pulling into the neighboring oncology center to harass and cuss them out. He had the police called on him repeatedly. I called the police on him multiple times. I watched out my church office window one day as a police officer drew his gun on him because he was threatening to kill his girlfriend with a knife. One time he pulled a knife out at a local church and was invoking my name to get off the hook, saying that we were good friends. I had sent multiple email warnings to all the local churches about him and told them about his violence. Yet several churches told me it was their “Christian duty” to invite him in. I disagree.
This man is currently in prison for beating up his girlfriend and leaving her for dead. He routinely harassed and threatened me, sometimes calling me fifteen times a day. There is a difference between someone who has anger issues and someone who is an abuser. This man did not have anger issues. He is an abuser. He will never be invited into my home or church when he is released from prison. My elders at church will not offer a chaperone to “keep an eye on him” when he is released. They won’t do it because he is an abuser. He is violent. He has a long history of harassing, intimidating, and threatening people.
Quite often I’m told of churches who have “covenant agreements” with known serial child predators. They, too, are abusers. Churches have shared covenant agreements with me to show me how wonderful it is that the leadership extends grace while “keeping an eye” on convicted serial abusers. I’m unimpressed. If we don’t trust predators to be in our homes around our own children, why would we invite them into our churches to have access to other people’s children? To make it worse, leaders normally keep the abuse a secret from the church members.
The following is a covenant agreement that was given to me by a church that has a child rapist in the church who doubled as a minister and youth minister when he was raping multiple young girls in his youth group. He is a tier 3 offender and, against the strong recommendation of the Sex Offender Assessment Board, a judge chose not to assign a sexually violent predator status. Only a hand full of church leaders even know he is a sex offender, and the congregation was never informed. This is a large church and parents of kids have no idea that there is a serial child rapist sitting in their pews. Parents, if they knew of the terms of the covenant agreement, should be alarmed. The serial predator has a sponsor who he “may be” asked to check in with. I redacted the church name and highlighted some things that just made me shake my head in disbelief. This covenant agreement is very similar to all the others that I’ve collected over the years.
There are a host of reasons why I think chaperoning known abusers is a bad idea, but I’ll share just a few here. For one, abusers are far more sophisticated than the chaperones who “may” be watching them. They are masters of deception and the average person does not know how sophisticated their techniques are. I know, in the above mentioned case, that the abuser is not confined to areas of the building designated for adults only. I know because he attends worship, where hundreds of children surround him. The notion that there are areas of a church building “designated for adults” is absurd.
Second, churches most often are not informed that such agreements even exist and leaders intentionally keep hidden the fact that sexual predators are in the church. This agreement says, “Information about your background will only be shared with people of the congregation who need to be aware.” In this case, at a church of over 1,000, seven people were counted among those who “need to be aware.” I would like to know who makes the decision for who remains informed and who doesn’t.
Third, abusers are wolves. This particular man was masquerading as a minister of the Gospel while he was raping multiple children. He is not a “lost, injured, or weak” Christian who needs to be prayed over. He is an abuser, an impostor, and a deceiver who needs to be kept at bay.
Fourth, if an abuser can’t be trusted and has all kinds of restrictions, including having a chaperone, he is not repentant. I challenge you to find this twisted theology in the Bible that I hear so often–“He can be forgiven but that doesn’t mean we should trust him.” This statement comes from our desperation to be inclusive of everyone. Can you imagine the church saying this about the apostle Paul? Which leads me to the final point.
Abusers have a pathology. They abuse people, not because they “struggle” with sin, but because they want to abuse people. This is why they can’t ever be trusted. The Bible correctly labels abusive people as deceivers, impostors, white washed tombs, snakes, thorns, thistles, chaff, waterless mists, evil people, wolves, and so on. It’s important to note that this language is not used for sinners like you, me, or even the apostle Paul.
In fact, all of us have a pathology. While we’re talking about Paul, let’s talk about why he went from insolent opponent and persecutor of Christians to an apostle and missionary. Paul’s pathology was always to please God no matter what. Period. Wrong as he was when he persecuted Christians, Paul wasn’t deceptive and dishonest when he did it. Nor was he doing it for personal gain or pleasure. Paul was persecuting Christians for one reason and one reason only: because he thought that’s what God wanted. When Paul had a vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus, his pathology never changed. Paul repented, was baptized, and continued to do what would please God. His pathology never changed. His actions did.
In fact, Paul told Timothy, “I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief. . . ” (1 Timothy 1:12, 13). It was because of Paul’s ignorance and unbelief that he was able to receive mercy. Paul was not intentionally deceptive. In fact, Paul talks very negatively about such wolves: “. . . while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived” (2 Timothy 3:13). Paul’s advice for people who are abusive, treacherous, ungrateful, having the appearance of godliness but denying its power? . . . “Avoid such people” (2 Timothy 3:5). Why? because they have a pathology. And that pathology isn’t to please God. It’s to pretend to be godly so they can abuse, steal, deceive, and get what they came for.
Just imagine if the church in Antioch said, “Paul we’re going to have you sign a covenant saying you won’t go near Christians who are vulnerable. We’ll assign you a chaperone. There are certain areas that you’ll be restricted from going to. If you violate this covenant, you “may be” removed.” The very thought of it is absurd. Paul was trusted because Paul previously sinned in ignorance. Though he once persecuted Christians he was not pretending to be someone he wasn’t. He didn’t deceive, lie, threaten, intimidate, stalk, molest, grope, or rape people while pretending to be a godly man. But Paul sure mentions such people. In fact, he has a lot to say about deception: “Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not become partners with them. . . and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them” (Ephesians 5:6-11).
Paul never extended an invitation to deceivers and people who work in secrecy for selfish gain. He consistently said to avoid them, expose them, and keep them out of the church. Why? Because abusers’ pathology is to deceive, steal, and masquerade as someone they are not in order to get what they want.
Ask your leaders if they have a secret covenant agreement to keep wolves secretly hidden within the confines of your church. If they do, ask for a copy. Ask if there are currently any people who have signed such an agreement and who they are. My guess is that they will tell you that you will not be qualified as someone “who needs to be aware,” but ask yourself, is this something Jesus would be OK with? Would Paul be OK with wolves having a secret agreement between just them and the leaders and having a chaperone because they can’t be trusted? If the answer is no, perhaps there needs to be a serious conversation about the validity of these secret covenants.
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