Tag: reporting abuse

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Can churches recover after abuse?

a woman in black long sleeve shirt sitting alone on wooden pew

Can churches recover after abuse? A better question is how do churches recover after abuse? It’s no secret that, under my leadership, our church experienced abuse of the worst kind at the hands of my own father. In 2011 I reported my own father after a disclosure of abuse. Our worst nightmare came true. We quickly found out that there were at least dozens of victims, all of them very young children at the time of their abuse.

Our small rural church was completely devastated. My family was devastated. Our entire community was instantly wrecked. I am living proof that churches can recover after abuse. But the church will never be the same. How can it? Abuse changes everything. It steals innocence, takes away the feeling of being safe, and destroys trust. Churches absolutely can recover after abuse but it takes hard work and dedication to do the right thing. Here are five things churches can do to recover after abuse:

  1. Report abuse – I’m always astounded at the resistance churches give to report abuse of children. It shouldn’t surprise me because currently 33 states exempt clergy from reporting abuse of minors if the information is considered privileged. When laws are not in favor of protecting children decent people should be. Sadly most are not. Isn’t it strange that churches will always report vandalism to authorities? Yet they rarely report abuse of children. When we treat material possessions better than our children it says something of the moral compass. There is a trove of evidence that shows churches are among the most dangerous places for children to be abused. I’ve consulted with dozens of churches and for the few that had a handful of leaders willing to do the right thing, they were almost always threatened by other leaders who worked triple time to cover up abuse. It should be a given that we church leaders report allegations of abuse, no questions asked. Finding loopholes to evade reporting requirements is both unethical and dangerous to our children. Always report allegations of child abuse.
  2. Keep abusers away from the church – When I reported my dad he said he’d see me at church the next Sunday. I informed him that he would not. And if he tried we would physically remove him for trespassing. Churches can and should do this. The majority of churches I worked with over the years argue with me that churches, by law, cannot ban anyone from going to church. This is not only untrue, but it flies in the face of common sense. The Bible is full of commands to protect sheep from unwanted wolves. It’s literally as simple as telling them they are not welcome to come. Churches dramatically increase their liability by welcoming known child predators into the fold. Not to mention that real children are likely to be severely harmed. Banning abusers sends a clear message to survivors that their protection is in our best interest and we won’t welcome people who intentionally harm innocent people.
  3. Provide support for victims – One of the first things we did as a church was to provide funding for any of my father’s victims to receive counseling. Victims should not have to worry about how they will pay for counseling. Too many churches provide support for abusers instead of victims. We reversed that. My dad’s victims received support. He received a prison sentence. Victims did not ask to be abused. It was forced upon them when they were very young. The least we can do is to offer support, to the best of our ability, to victims of these senseless crimes.
  4. Communicate – Leaders and church members alike should talk very openly about what happened. The elephant is already in the room, so pretending that it isn’t does not help the cause of Christ in any imaginable way. Preachers should preach against abuse and about nurturing those who were oppressed. In our case, I named my dad by name. He was the one who viciously abused children and everyone knew it. Victims’ names, however, should not be named. Again, they did not ask to be abused and naming their names without consent revictimizes them all over again. Come up with a plan for how to protect those who’ve been abused and for keeping everyone else safe. There will be resistance. Even in our church were abuse did take place, I was criticized by some for talking about it. A few left the church because I talked openly about it. I’d rather see them go than be silent and pretend that nothing happened.
  5. Make a written protection policy – This should not be optional. Unfortunately we, like so many other churches, did not have a written policy. Abuse was not on our radar and we didn’t know the importance of having one. Sadly, that did not work out well for us. After reporting the abuse we immediately drafted a policy. Each year we renew it. Verbal agreements do not work. Policies must be spelled out and rules must apply to everyone equally. There are good resources for crafting a policy. It is a must for churches to be safe.

This year marks thirteen years since I reported my dad. Churches can recover after abuse but I’m still not sure what “recovering” fully means. The cloud of sadness will always be there. There are still days where I’d rather stay in bed than do ministry. The losses that we’ve endured seem to outweigh the gains. But doing the right thing is always the best choice. The alternative is literally shattering countless lives.

It takes a village to keep every child safe. Feel free to check out the videos tab to see some of the free videos. If you want to support this blog, you can offer tips via the coffee logo. Or if you want to delve even deeper, check out the trainings tab. Let’s work together to keep our children safe!

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It’s been 10 years since reporting my dad and the reality of losing so much is hitting hard

person standing near lake

Last night my eight year old son brought up my father whom he’s never met. In July of 2011, after my youngest sister Alex disclosed that she was sexually abused as a child by our dad, Mom and I reported him to the police. Not a day has passed that I don’t think about that day. Nearly a year after we reported, he received a 30-60 year prison sentence for sex crimes against multiple children. You can hear Alex tell her story here:

I don’t know what prompted my son to ask questions about my dad–his grandfather. He may only be eight, but he is a very deep thinker. “What was it like to report your own dad and send him to prison?” To be honest, the question caught me off guard. I wrote a whole memoire this year about our family’s journey but I never really thought about having to explain reporting my dad to my eight year old son. He knows that I loved and adored my dad growing up. He also knows that my dad harmed many little children.

My son is a spitting image of me when I was his age. He wears his emotions on his sleeve, just like me (yes, I cried during Bambi as a kid and I’m OK with that!). He is kind and curious, always asking deep questions about life and always (quite literally) wanting to know how he can change the world for good. I answered him honestly: “It was terrible. I hated it. I lost my dad the second I walked into the police station. He will die in prison and I think about it all the time. But I would do it again and again the minute I heard he was hurting children.”

Without hesitation, my son came over to me, hugged me, and said, “Dad, I love you with all of my heart. But if I knew you were hurting children I would report you to the police too. It would be sad to lose my dad but it would be sadder to not do anything if I knew kids were being hurt and I didn’t stop it.” Wow! His answer welled up out of his heart. He meant every word that he said. He said it with conviction and authority. I often walk away from training churches and wonder whether, if push came to shove, adults would actually make a report. Statistics show that reporting is rare. Cover ups are overwhelmingly more common than reports of abuse.

The first thing that struck me is that, if an eight year old gets it, what in the world is the excuse for all these adults who intentionally turn a blind eye to abuse. An eight year old admits he would be more willing to turn in his own father than to allow peers to be abused. It still blows my mind that adults can be so hardened that they would allow a child rapist to keep abusing child after child. This is not love. It’s certainly not grace. And it’s definitely criminal.

The second thing that struck me is that the reality of how much my family has lost is finally starting to hit hard. It’s not that I was ever in denial. But I think part of my coping with the layers of trauma was to immediately enter into other people’s trauma. As most advocates do, I immersed myself in hearing, understanding, and experiencing the pain of others as they tell their stories. Every story I hear reinforces the fact that we all have lost so much. Every victim, ever family member of an abuser–we all have lost so, so much.

The losses are too many to count–Loss of a father, loss of my brother who died unexpectedly, loss of the way our family used to be, loss of close friends, loss of my children only knowing their grandfather as a felon, loss of a church that once was full of laughter and joy, and on I could go. Abuse strips so much from so many innocent people. The ripple effects are never ending. It’s been ten years and I feel as weak as I did the day I was sitting in that police station. Perhaps this is why adults fail to report. Maybe for them the cost of losing so much isn’t worth it to them. Maybe they’d rather innocent children take on the pain rather than dealing with the inevitable losses that come with reporting.

But for me, the gains far outweigh the losses. When I realized that my son truly gets it–that he will be a warrior for the innocent–my heart was full again. To gain an ally in the dark world of advocacy is a gain that’s immeasurable. For all you protectors out there. . . keep fighting for justice. Keep exposing the deeds of darkness. Evil will not win!

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5 Things church leaders must do when allegations of abuse arise

Leaders

Last month we recorded a podcast outlining 5 things church leaders must do when allegations of abuse arise. I get many messages from church leaders asking me where to begin. I can empathize, because nine years ago I was in the same boat. Leaders shouldn’t be caught off guard. When it comes to abuse allegations, flying by the seat of your pants is the quickest way to demonstrate to the church that the leadership is unprepared. Being unprepared often leads to disastrous mistakes that leave victims even more wounded, the vulnerable more at risk, and abusers enjoying the benefit of having the protection and anonymity from church leaders. For those who missed the podcast, I repost it and offer these 5 tips in writing here.

  1. Leaders should distance themselves from abusive behavior that is being alleged. It is tempting to defend friends and family when allegations arise, or to reduce abuse allegations to mere “things” that have happened. Don’t. It takes an incredible amount of courage for a victim to disclose abuse. Instead of minimizing abuse, validate what happened to the victims by distancing yourselves from the abuse. A simple, precise statement will go a long way. Say something like, “We don’t know much about the allegations at this point, BUT if they are founded, we leaders never condone abusive language or behavior and will not tolerate it. We are taking immediate action to protect the abused and cooperate with investigators.”
  2. Name the person AND the allegation/accusation. This is the most controversial step. It shouldn’t be. I’ve witnessed leaders bend over backwards to keep the alleged abuser’s name anonymous and often the victim is named instead. Leaders do this to shame and discredit the person alleging abuse, and will tarnish them by labeling them as “gossips.” Unless victims wish to go public, they should never be named. Disclosing abuse is not gossip. When I fist heard an allegation of sexual abuse against my father, I immediately announced to the church that someone disclosed to me that she was sexually abused by my father when she was a minor, and I asked all parents and guardians to keep their children very far away from my dad while the investigation was going on. I made it crystal clear that, under no circumstance, was he permitted to step inside the church building as the investigation was taking place.
  3. Do not hinder church members from asking questions and expressing concern. When allegations arise, there are almost always more victims who are suffering in silence. Don’t silence them more. Be transparent, encourage people to ask questions and share any helpful information, and encourage any other victims to report the abuse. I informed my congregation that there were no questions that they couldn’t ask, and I promised that if I didn’t have an answer, I would find out. I asked them not to speculate or guess who my dad’s victims were. All of us parents were concerned that our kids could have been his victims. At first, I had no idea who his victims were except the one who disclosed to me. So I encouraged church members to contact the detective directly if they had specific questions or concerns about their children. Communication was frequent, and it was always transparent and inviting.
  4. Provide an avenue for potential victims to safely report abusive behavior and never ask them to confront their abuser. Leaders should be clear that ALL leaders are available to hear any allegations of abusive behavior, and that people can go to any one of them. Any leaders who hinder disclosures of abuse should be removed from office immediately. Appealing to Matthew 18 is an absurd misuse of a passage where Jesus told Christians to first “go tell your brother his fault.” Never would Jesus suggest that a person who is oppressed or abused go talk to their abuser as a first step. If a crime has been committed, nobody but law enforcement should talk to the abuser. Always report to the appropriate authorities if criminal activity is suspected.
  5. Protect the value of human souls, not the reputation of the church. Always place human souls above the reputation of the church. Damage control is dishonest because it focuses on whitewashing the public image of the church while covering for someone who has abused innocents and created victims. Instead, focus on helping the wounded to heal. Vow to learn from blind spots and get educated so that more innocent people in the church won’t fall prey to an abuser again.

What would you add to this list?

Photo by Danielle MacInnes on Unsplash

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5 reasons why people don’t warn others of abusive behavior

Warning

A massive pile up in Wyoming on Sunday, March 1st, involved over 100 vehicles and claimed the lives of three people while thirty more went to the hospital with injuries. As an avid driver, who spent over ten years as a professional truck driver, I’ve always studied accidents like this. It may seem like a strange method, but the acute observer and analytical thinker in me prods me to learn from others’ mistakes. Mistakes happen all the time. We’ve got to observe and learn from them. And I think when it comes to abuse, we can learn from all kinds of scenarios that have little to nothing to do with abuse because there often are overlapping principles at work.

The following video was posted by a truck driver who came upon Sunday’s accident scene. Just a warning that there is strong language and the carnage of the crash can be disturbing to watch.

As an “old school” truck driver, watching these videos makes my blood boil. Being a professional driver comes with incredible responsibility. There was no reason for this pile up to occur. There was light snow, little wind, decent visibility, and the temperature was in the lower twenties. An empty tractor trailer weighs 35,000 lbs and a fully loaded one is 80,000 lbs. It takes a long time to stop on ice, so reduced speed and constant communication between drivers is essential. I’ve personally witnessed hundreds of accidents. I’ve never witnessed a pile up in over a million miles. The main reason, I believe, is that communication between drivers was always decent when I was on the road.

I’ve been the first to come upon bad accidents in the road. The most memorable was when I was rounding a blind curve, fully loaded at 80,000 lbs, only to find a rolled over pick up truck in my lane. Passengers were crawling out of the window. A coworker was behind me, also fully loaded. I instantly reached for the CB microphone and told Kim to switch lanes. Neither of us could stop in time, but we both avoided killing people that day. In the above video, communication is absent. This driver (as well as the other ones involved) should have been hollering back to everyone behind them to back it down! Those three words have saved me multiple times, and I’ve used those same three words to save other people from getting tangled up in accidents.

Instead of warning others over the CB radio, the driver is focused on filming. He even narrates and calls attention to the sound of more trucks smashing into other parked vehicles. My jaw was on the floor in disbelief. Lives would have been saved. Millions of dollars of equipment and freight could have been spared. Some of these drivers’ livelihoods are now gone because other drivers didn’t tell them to back it down.

Me driving a loaded tractor trailer @80,000 lbs in 2004.

The lack of communication in the church when warning signs are present also astounds me. The reality is that many innocent people are unnecessarily getting injured by abusers because people fail to communicate quickly and with precise language when we witness risky behavior. We need to learn from these mistakes. We need to improve communication. Below are five reasons why I believe people don’t report suspicious behavior:

#1 The shock of what we are witnessing can be paralyzing

People used to argue that there are two reactions when we sense risk–fight or flight. Now it’s widely recognized that freeze is a very common response. When we become shocked at what we are witnessing, it’s easy to freeze and not know what to do. Good training helps us overcome this. My trainers reminded us that there is never an excuse for not communicating danger to other drivers. I do the same when I train churches. Even if an incident isn’t reportable to the police, there are high risk behaviors that we must communicate to others. Remaining silent is not an option.

If someone in our church is violating physical boundaries, we warn others. It is not cruel or unfair to do so. It’s quite the opposite. It’s completely fair and warnings are warranted when someone is clearly making other people uncomfortable by crossing appropriate boundaries.

#2 The bystander effect is powerful

Surely someone else will speak up! If you find yourself thinking this thought. . . it’s time to speak up. The bystander effect is very powerful. Lots of studies have been done on this. In emergency situations, we are likely to follow the behavior of people around us. If everyone around us fails to take action, we similarly will fail to take action. The best way to break that pattern is to be aware that we are all vulnerable to the bystander effect. We must condition ourselves to be the first to speak up.

#3 Poor training

We often either have a lack of training, or our training is lacking. In other words, even when people are trained to speak up, they may question proper procedures for doing so and end up not reporting at all. A survey of 197 school teachers in the early 2000s revealed that 73% of those surveyed never made a report. Only 11% said there were instances they felt were reportable, but failed to report. Those surveyed said that both pre- and post-service training was inadequate for instructing them how to report, and they cited the following reasons for not reporting: fear of making an inaccurate report, feeling as though child protective services don’t help families, and no apparent signs of abuse.

#4 Reliance on technology

We are becoming more and more reliant on technology. Map apps now have the ability for drivers to report accidents, road blockages, construction zones, and even speed traps. This is becoming a crutch and it will never be able to take the place of old fashioned CB radio communication. Yet drivers depend on their apps to warn them if there is trouble, which is ending in disaster. The same is true of our sex offender registries, back ground checks, etc. I still am blown away at the number of people I speak with who believe that conducting background checks is an adequate way to reveal and communicate who dangerous people are. They are not.

#5 There is no clear chain of command

In the church, especially, our leadership structures often prevent lay people from taking initiative to communicate who risky people are to the church without going through a maze of red tape. When risky behavior is identified, many people (even among leaders) scratch their heads because they don’t know who to report the behavior to. As a friend of mine says, “When seconds count, help is only minutes away.” Or in most cases, it could be months away.

We need better systems in place with clear checklists, protocols, and precise reporting procedures if we are going to stop these massive casualties from occurring within our organizations.

“But if the watchman sees the enemy coming and doesn’t sound the alarm to warn the people, he is responsible for their captivity. They will die in their sins, but I will hold the watchman responsible for their deaths.” –Ezekiel 33:6 NL

Photo by Goh Rhy Yan on Unsplash

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Thoughts about Hillsong and Brian Houston from a minister who did report his own father

Hillsong

Hillsong Church, known across the globe for its worship music, has been in the spotlight recently. To be honest, I never knew much about Hillsong until 60 Minutes Australia did a special on Frank Houston’s victim, Brett Sengstock, on November 18th. What really caught my interest was that, like me, Brian Houston learned of allegations of abuse against his own father, a pastor who was preaching at the time Brian Houston heard the allegations. I reported my father, a former preacher, to the police. Brian Houston did not report his. I wanted to learn more about this story that keeps making waves across the world because the world is watching those of us in church leadership. How we respond to allegations of abuse matters. It especially matters to victims and their families. 

I watched the 60 Minutes story on Brian Houston’s response and also read “Hillsong’s legal response to misleading statements by 60 Minutes.” I found it interesting that Hillsong wasted no time in releasing a statement defending the institution and its founder by correcting statements made in the 60 Minutes episode that aired three days prior. To Brian Houston’s credit, he has spoken in public interviews in the past regarding his father and his story has not changed much. Brian did not, for whatever reason, interview with 60 Minutes and I think he missed an important opportunity to express his sorrow for his father’s victims and to take ownership of his mishandling of his father’s abuse allegations. 

It is troubling to me that the church attorneys are so defensive of Brian’s response to the allegations when the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse paints a less flattering picture of how those events unfolded.

I’ve read the entire Royal Commission’s report for the 2014 Case Study No. 18 and there are several things worth pointing out. 

  • Brian Houston did not report the matter to police in 1999 when he was informed that his father had produced a victim in the late 60s/early 70s
  • Neither did Pastor Taylor, who first was made aware of the abuse in 1998 by the victim’s mother. Though, to Barbara Taylor’s credit, she worked incredibly hard to get other leaders to respond to the allegations. Nor did evangelist Mudford report, or Pastor McMartin, who was at the time a member of the New South Whales State Executive, or Pastor Alcorn, a member of the National Executive who was called by Pastor McMartin for advice on the matter, or George Aghajanian, the Business Manager of Hills Christian Life Centre who personally told Brian about the allegations against his father.
  • In fact, on December 22nd of 1999, Brian Houston called a Special Executive Meeting of the Assemblies of God in Australia where 8 were present, including the National Secretary of the Assemblies of God in Australia. None of those present made a report to police. Furthermore, the minutes from that meeting state: “the Assemblies of God in Australia movement would not be notified of the disciplinary action” (against Frank Houston)
  • In 2000, Frank Houston met with his victim “AHA” (identified now as Brett Sengstock) at a McDonald’s and wrote a figure of $10,000 on a napkin for Brett to sign. Brian Houston mailed the check to Brett in an envelope only containing the signed check and no correspondence. This was because Brett had contacted Brian to say that his father never sent the money he had promised. Brian did not report the payment to anyone within the Assemblies of God and claimed in a public statement in 2014 to Hillsong Church, “There have been reports of money being paid to the victim. Again for clarification, this was between my father and the victim. It had nothing to do with me or Hillsong church.”
  • Brian, who was the national president of the Assemblies of God in Australia,  revoked his dad’s credentials for preaching but never removed him from the church, as far as I can tell. In fact, according to the report Brian and his dad continued to have weekly meetings where they discussed ministry together
  • Hillsong released a statement in 2015 in response to the Royal Commission report. They said, “The perpetrator, Frank Houston, was immediately removed from ministry by Pastor Brian and church leadership and never ministered in the church again, ensuring no child was placed in danger. He is now deceased.”  The reality is that, by not reporting him to police, by not removing him from the church altogether, and by having conversations about restoring Frank back to ministry, they placed every child in danger. The Royal Commission states, “The minutes also record that Mr. Frank Houston would be invited the ‘Assemblies of God [in Australia] restoration program.” This program was a rehabilitation program designed to restore pastors who had been removed back into the ministry. Fortunately, Pastor Ainge said at that meeting that Frank would not be approved because the “Administration Manual prohibited rehabilitation of paedophiles.”
  • Though Frank Houston repeatedly raped AHA and multiple other victims, he only “confessed” to one instance of fondling AHA to his son Brian. Pastor Taylor wrote in minutes from their November 28th, 1999 meeting concerning this “confession,” “Frank Houston had confessed to a lesser incident than the truthful one but it was further than I had been able to get.” Though they all knew Frank minimized the abuse to one petty incident of fondling to which Pastor Taylor said, “I did not and do not believe,” nobody ever questioned Frank any further, reported him to police, or made him stand before the church to be publicly held accountable for his crimes
  • Even though Brian testified that he was aware in 2000 of 6 additional victims in New Zealand, Frank was still permitted to “retire” from his church in Australia with “a simple statement concerning Frank’s retirement” that was made while he and his wife were on vacation in New Zealand in January 2001. He was paid a retirement package, “which included financial support for him and his wife.” The Royal Commission concluded: “Despite having knowledge that Mr. Frank Houston admitted to sexually abusing AHA, the National Executive allowed Mr. Frank Houston to publicly resign, without damage to his reputation or the reputation of Hillsong Church.”

I could fill many more bullet points. I walked a similar path as Brian Houston when an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor was brought to my attention by one of my father’s victims. As a minister who has walked this path, I struggle to make sense of how the allegations of Frank Houston were handled. Brian testified in 2014 that Brett was 35 or 36 years old when the abuse was discovered, that he was in a brittle state, and that he did not want Brian to report for fear of his story going public. Hillsong Church brought themselves to a new low in their 2015 statement by saying, “The victim was a 36 year old adult when this abuse became known and could have taken the matter to police himself at any time.” 

What Brian and Hillsong attorneys omit in their public statements is that the very next month after Brian found out about his father, Pastor Barbara Taylor wrote Brian a letter stating that Brett (AHA) was “so very, very soft” and that “there was a complete change in attitude. . . He wanted to know if I had told you he was thinking of legal proceedings.” 

Why, given this new information, did Brian not report? Why make the argument that the victim was in a brittle state and why pay him a sum of $10,000 the following year when you knew he was thinking of legal proceedings? Brett specifically wanted Pastor Taylor to let Brian know that he was ready for legal proceedings, which meant Brett was willing to talk to whomever he needed to seek justice and bring about closure. 

It’s important to note that the victim of my father who disclosed to me was not a child. She was an adult in a brittle state and I never expected her to report her own abuser. Furthermore, I too had victims who came forward just days after the first victim disclosed to me and begged me not to report my father, their abuser. It was too late. I wasted no time in reporting it to the police. But that wouldn’t have changed my decision to report anyway. When my father was arrested, those same victims thanked me for standing firm and reporting. When it comes to the sexual abuse and exploitation of minor children, we ministers can’t play judge and jury. Sexual abuse of a minor was a criminal offense in 1999 in Australia and it is still a criminal offense today. We ministers can’t pick and choose which crimes we wish to report, no matter who the offender is. 

Brian Houston frequently talks about the day he found out as “being the worst day of my life.” I can’t be critical on that point. I don’t think Brian is exaggerating and I believe him to be sincere on this point. The day I found out I was floored. Devastated doesn’t even come close to how I felt. Brian rightly talks about how difficult it was to navigate as a pastor, a father, as the leader of a church, and having to confront his own father. But what I felt on July 29, 2011 and what Brian felt in October of 1999 pales in comparison to what our fathers’ victims experienced time after time after time when they were raped and humiliated. Nor does it compare to what they still experience each and every day of their lives today. When Brian and I found out our fathers were abusers on the worst day of our lives we both still had an obligation and a mandate to report to the police. 

I really don’t doubt that Brian struggled, and is still struggling today with what his father did. Our lives are never the same after finding out our heroes are guilty of such heinous crimes. But I just can’t understand why Brian failed to report to the police. A thousand pages couldn’t contain all the thoughts that went through my head when I was sitting in the police station with my mother making a report about my father. Even still, failing to report never entered my mind. Obviously for Brian it did. In the December 1999 meeting, the minutes state that Brian “said he had spoken to a barrister who had told him that if it goes to court his father would surely be incarcerated for the crime.” I didn’t have to speak to an attorney to know the implications of my reporting my father. In fact, I didn’t have time to consult with an attorney before I reported. My father was incarcerated a few short weeks after I reported him. He will spend the rest of his days on earth behind bars. That doesn’t bring me joy, but neither was the reality of his incarceration a reason for me to keep the information I had from police. 

For the life of me I can’t comprehend why Brian and the other leadership misled the church about Frank’s “retirement,” or why he was given a financial retirement reward for his crimes when he earned prison time instead. Nor can I understand why all the other people who were in the know besides for Brian failed to report to police. I don’t get why they had a conversation about restoring Frank to the church just days after Brian was made aware of the allegations. Or why Hillsong keeps putting up these horrific statements defending the church instead of expressing their brokenness on behalf of the victims. A better statement would express their sorrow over all that has been lost for the victims and would apologize for the mistakes that were made in the way leadership in 1999 handled the allegations. They should share in the pain, anger, and frustration of Franks victims, including Brett. But instead their attorneys released a statement with bullet points of all the “misleading statements” of the 60 Minutes episode. 

In the end, I think it’s important for churches to know that how you respond to abuse allegations matters. It matters to survivors. It matters to police. It matters to the church as a whole. Brian Houston is learning that past failures are today’s problems. We’re never going to get everything completely right. There are too many variables and our judgment is clouded by the shock of knowing the abuser is someone we love and respect. But this is a case where not much went right at all. Brian Houston and Hillsong Church have to be willing to admit that. They have a very bright spotlight on them right now. They can either choose to humbly admit their failures and fully side with the victims or they can keep releasing their defensive media statements that make it sound as if there weren’t any bad decisions that were made. 

I honestly want to see them take the right steps. For the sake of victims everywhere. And for the sake of Christ and his church. 

*Feature image courtesy of CC BY-SA 3.0, via Creative Commons license, some rights reserved. 

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A Peek Behind the Catholic Veil in the Pennsylvania Sex Abuse Cover-Up

Last week Pennsylvania was in the national spotlight for another big sex abuse scandal. This time it involves over 50 Catholic priests and other leaders who sexually abused hundreds of children in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown. The investigation began 2 years ago in Johnstown, less than 20 miles from my home. I am currently working my way through the Grand Jury’s 147 page report, which I will post below. I highly recommend reading this report in its entirety after reading my thoughts on how cover-ups of this magnitude still happen regularly. But first, we need to remember that these are real victims with real names, real families, and lasting struggles. Many of the hundreds of victims in this report thought about or attempted suicide, and these hundreds of victims only account for an 8-county radius around my home. This kind of abuse is going on every single day all over the country. There is an estimated 42 million living people just in the US who have suffered sexual assault by an adult when they were a child. This 147 page report is significant.

The late Father Joseph Bender became angry with young boys who refused his advances. “Bender would lash out in anger when the children rebuffed his advances. In a particular incident Bender grabbed a boy by the neck and asked ‘don’t you love me anymore” when the child insisted on wearing underwear to bed. . . The challenge after being Bender’s victims wasn’t to attempt to live well, but to attempt to simply live.” One of Bender’s victims from the 70s wrote an anonymous letter to Bishop Joseph Adamec in 1991 giving details of forced foreplay, masturbation, and oral sex. The victim wrote, “Because I respected his position, and feared the consequences of disobeying him, I would remain silent. I would estimate that I was abused approximately one hundred times.” That letter was stored along with scores of others in the secret archive of the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown.

As I read through this report about priests abusing in the name of God, forcing 8 year old children to perform oral sex on them hundreds of times, forcing them to get drunk, anally raping them, and inflicting unfathomable mental abuse on top of the sexual abuse, I get angry. But my anger is not only reserved for the pedophiles who were relentless in their abuse of helpless children. It’s also aimed at the deadbeat bishops and law enforcement officials who knew about the abuse and chose to shuffle these pedophiles from church to church while remaining silent. But my righteous anger doesn’t stop there. While the Catholics get their share of justified finger pointing, they are not alone–not by a long shot. We at Church Protect regularly hear stories about churches of every stripe who chose to invite pedophiles into their ranks and grant them access to children. In our experience, church leaders routinely allow even convicted pedophiles to waltz back into their churches, “redeemed” by the blood of the lamb and with very few restrictions. One desperate message to me chronicled a group of elders who gave their blessing to a convicted pedophile who had recently been released from prison. The registered sex offender offered to house a struggling youth in his basement under the guise of offering moral support and being a positive role model. Not surprisingly, he attempted to rape the young church girl. Surely an attempted rape of a young troubled youth from their church by a convicted child predator would cause the elders to ban him from that congregation, right? Nope. The girl was told to sit elsewhere if this man made her feel uncomfortable.

I would not experience daily anger if I didn’t daily hear these same stories time and time again. My guess is that people reading this post are getting angry that this kind of thing goes on in churches regularly. I also imagine that anyone who actually takes the time to read the Grand Jury’s report will get angry reading it. But here’s my question–why do people get angry at stories about child predators but turn completely passive when actually interacting with them in real life? All of a sudden we move from the facts of raping young children to shoddy theologies of sin, grace, and assimilation. “Well, they seem genuinely remorseful,” the argument goes, “so I’m sure they’ll never harm a child again.” But they do. Again and again and again. Read the report. It’s full of records of rehab, confessions, promises to change, victim blaming, and minimizing the abuse. The sad thing is that it works and pedophiles know it.

In his book Child Sexual Abuse and the Churches, Patrick Parkinson has a short but excellent section on repentance. Here’s what he says:
Forgiveness can have little meaning if the offender has no intention of stopping the abuse. . . In the area of child sexual abuse, repentance has often been confused with remorse. Remorse is what happens in the back of a police car. Repentance means taking full responsibility for the offending and walking the painful road of lasting change. . . The offender may well feel devastated by the prospect of losing these things. Such deep remorse may well be taken for repentance, but the signs of true repentance are in deeds, not in tears. . . The repentant offender ought to be willing to acknowledge to the police and the courts that he has done wrong, that he has committed criminal offences of the utmost gravity and deserves to be punished.

Parkinson also argues that a repentant abuser will take every step to make reparation. Just as we learned as children that an apology for a broken window must be accompanied with an offer to pay for the window, so there must be reparation as adults. The abuser will at very least voluntarily pay for counseling bills of all of his or her victims. In more significant cases, Parkinson rightly argues that the offender may have “to sell his house, or his car. It is costly, but it is also just.” I have argued, and continue to argue, that a repentant child molester will insist on being removed from the presence of children precisely because they have proved time and time again that they cannot be near children without fondling, massaging, raping, and performing oral sex on them. This response does not mean that the church “has it out” for pedophiles. Rather, they have the safety of children as their top priority. A repentant offender will be more than happy to be part of a church with strong accountability–where he or she is still free to worship with other adults and not be near children.

But sadly, this biblical stance of repentance and accountability is viewed as inhumane, cruel, and unjust. And so, like the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, churches of all denominations in 2016 continue to mistake remorse for repentance and they routinely let pedophiles join their worship, preach, lead children’s programs, all while keeping their congregants in the dark about the abuser’s past. So why do churches enable (and thereby bless) abuse to take place in practice while condemning it in theory?

If we peel back the veil in the Pennsylvania Catholic abuse case, I believe we would find two bishops who covered up the abuse not because they hate children and like to know that they’re being abused, but because they mistook remorse for repentance. In the report, they did confront accused clergy time and time again. But every single time they allowed them to continue in ministry. Why? Unfortunately, the power of persuasion by an offender is a louder voice than the cries of abused children. The best leverage an abuser can get (and they may even request it!) is face time with church authorities. Abusers know how easy it is to use emotion to minimize abuse, explain details away, rewrite children’s memories, and plead for mercy. And it works. This is one reason we recommend churches never investigate allegations of abuse themselves. Church leaders need to remove themselves from the abuser emotionally and look at the facts. They need to listen to the cries of children and vow to lay down their lives to protect them. They need to always report allegations of abuse to authorities and not speak to the accused about it. Trust us that you will always leave those meetings second guessing yourself, having sympathy for the abuser, and wondering how such a good child could be so mistaken as to what happened to them.

Church leaders have a very long way to go. Churches continue to be ripe for abusers. The harvest is plentiful and the workers are naive. My prayer is that, for the sake of our children, we wise up and learn from cases like the PA Catholic scandal.