Why hiding abusers in the church is dishonest

When I lived in Arkansas, I worked at an oil changing shop. There was one customer in particular who made us cringe every time he pulled up to the shop. He owned a used car lot and reminded me of Harry Wormwood from the 1996 movie Matilda. “Push ‘er in there, boys!,” he would tell us. “The transmission is slipping too bad to start from a dead stop. We gotta push it in!” The car salesman was getting a transmission flush at our shop to temporarily get the bad transmission working long enough to make a sale. It’s a very dishonest move that probably happens more often than people realize. When customers test drive the car, it runs smoothly after a transmission flush. But the clutch plates inside the transmission are already worn out so the flush doesn’t actually fix anything. Within a matter of months, the transmission inevitably breaks apart. Transmissions cost thousands of dollars to replace, and unsuspecting customers are left with a broken down car and a repair bill that will cost $3,000 or more to get it fixed.

Had the salesman at our shop been honest, he would have either told customers that the transmission was bad and sold the car as is for a reduced price or would have had his mechanics rebuild the transmission and charge more for the car. But he didn’t do either of those things. With snake oil dripping off his suit, he chose to lie and deceive, giving unsuspecting customers the illusion that the car posed no risk to the new owner. I often thought about who the victims were of the dishonest salesman. Were they single moms who scraped all they had together in order to purchase a car so they could have transportation to their job? Were they teenagers, excited to own their very first car? Regardless of who the victims were, the fact is that this man’s dishonesty was putting people out of thousands of dollars while he was getting richer.

If this bothers us, it should. When I see churches intentionally hide sex offenders in the church, I can’t help but to see similarities between them and the dishonest car salesman. Many survivors of abuse and concerned church members contact me quite often to say that their leaders allow sex offenders to join the church but refuse to inform the church of their sex offender status. In fact, churches often will go out of their way to keep sex offenders anonymous, protecting them while placing every child at risk. Another common scenario is when someone is credibly accused of molesting children but the leaders refuse to report it to police, even though they are mandated reporters.

In essence, what leaders are doing is no different than what the dishonest car salesman did. When leaders behave this way, they’re giving the false impression that the abuser has a clean past with no criminal history. The reality is that the abusers are ticking time bombs. The reality is that they do have a history of abusing children. Can’t we at least agree that it is dishonest to pretend that the person is in tip-top shape? And remember, we’re not talking about cars here. We’re talking about real people! Real children are being raped and molested, having their lives altered forever by their abusers. And this, all because churches are giving the false impression that these people are safe.

If we take the above scene from Matilda and apply it to church leaders who tidy up abusers to the church, it’s eerily prophetic. Harry Wormwood tells his kids, “We really should weld these bumpers on. But that takes time, equipment, money. So, we use Super Super Glue instead.” Matilda asks, “Isn’t that dangerous?” Harry barks back, “Not to me, OK?” When she tells him that what he’s doing is dishonest and illegal, he gives his staple reply that’s reminiscent of leaders who run roughshod over concerned members: “I’m smart, you’re dumb. I’m big, you’re little. I’m right, you’re wrong. And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

I think it’s wrong for churches to package these practices as “grace” when it’s quite the opposite. It’s dishonest. Failing to inform the church of an abuser’s history of abuse is putting others at risk. Last year I wrote a post about J.D. Greear’s Summit Church’s policy on registered sex offenders. Their policy is linked to as a resource in the SBC’s Caring Well curriculum, touting it as a model policy. You can read my post, which has a copy of Summit Church’s policy embedded. In short, Summit Church makes it clear that only certain leaders will be notified of the sex offender status while church members are asked to “sacrifice peace of mind” that comes with keeping sex offenders away from church where their children attend. Harry Wormwood could have written the policy, and Caring Well is supposed to be the SBC’s gold standard for teaching other churches how to prevent and handle abuse.

It should not surprise anyone, then, that once again Summit Church is making waves. On June 1st, Summit Church hired Bryan Loritts, who allegedly destroyed cell phone evidence when his brother-in-law took voyeuristic videos of approximately one hundred victims when he was at Fellowship Memphis ten years ago. Julie Roys spoke with Jennifer Baker, a victim of Loritts’ brother-in-law, Rick Trotter. Jennifer and another witness from Fellowship Memphis called Summit Church to express concerns about Loritts. Jennifer Baker told Julie Roys, “Shame on Summit for taking a full hour to meet with Greg and (me) ‘to gain more insight and information,’ and then put out this blatantly false statement in complete contradiction to what we testified and what we spelled out for them.”

Church leaders need to do better. We’ve got to be more honest. Churches who invite abusers in should at least offer disclaimers when having anything to do with sex offenders and those who protect and defend them. Otherwise, the message that’s sent to church members may as well be the same as Harry Wormwood: “I’m smart, you’re dumb. I’m big, you’re little. I’m right, you’re wrong. And there’s nothing you can do about it.”

I am not attacking church leaders here. I’m a church leader myself, and I’m begging them to repent and reconsider these policies. We’ve got to understand how these policies look to church members. More importantly, we need to see what message this communicates to abuse survivors. When people’s lives have been wrecked by dangerous predators, it makes no sense when those same predators are painted as safe or righteous when they have a history of abusing minor children.

If churches want to accept sexual predators into their worship service, that’s entirely up to them. It’s not what I would do, but I cannot tell other churches what to do. If the policy is to allow sexual predators to attend, though, the very least they can do is have enough decency to tell the church who the predator is and what his or her history of abuse is. If they are on the sex offender registry, print it off and hand it to church members. A repentant sex offender will thank leaders who inform the church. More importantly, a repentant abuser will have absolutely nothing to hide. A non-repentant one, however, will shame you. Be honest about someone’s bad behaviors and criminal activity. Parents of children will thank you.

Photo by Bram van Baal on Unsplash