Thoughts and Prayers: The Religion Thread

If the Florida Dems had any guts, they’d put up a bill to remove the tax exempt status of all Southern Baptist churches in their state.

Make the GOP vote against it, then mock them as supporting groomers.

 

If Dems had any guts trump’s name would never be mentioned without an adjective preceding it, like bankrupt Trump, loser trump, cheater trump, viagra don

 

Russell Moore, who leads the public theology project at Christianity Today:

They were right. I was wrong to call sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) a crisis. Crisis is too small a word. It is an apocalypse.

Someone asked me a few weeks ago what I expected from the third-party investigation into the handling of sexual abuse by the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee. I said I didn’t expect to be surprised at all. How could I be? I lived through years with that entity. I was the one who called for such an investigation in the first place.

And yet, as I read the report, I found that I could not swipe the screen to the next page because my hands were shaking with rage. That’s because, as dark a view as I had of the SBC Executive Committee, the investigation uncovers a reality far more evil and systemic than I imagined it could be.
…

For years, leaders in the Executive Committee said a database—to prevent sexual predators from quietly moving from one church to another, to a new set of victims—had been thoroughly investigated and found to be legally impossible, given Baptist church autonomy. My mouth fell open when I read documented proof in the report that these very people not only knew how to have a database, they already had one.

Indeed, the very ones who rebuked me and others for using the word crisis in reference to Southern Baptist sexual abuse not only knew that there was such a crisis but were quietly documenting it, even as they told those fighting for reform that such crimes rarely happened among “people like us.” When I read the back-and-forth between some of these presidents, high-ranking staff, and their lawyers, I cannot help but wonder what else this can be called but a criminal conspiracy.

The true horror of all of this is not just what has been done, but also how it happened. Two extraordinarily powerful affirmations of everyday Southern Baptists—biblical fidelity and cooperative mission—were used against them.
…

When my wife and I walked out of the last SBC Executive Committee meeting we would ever attend, she looked at me and said, “I love you, I’m with you to the end, and you can do what you want, but if you’re still a Southern Baptist by summer you’ll be in an interfaith marriage.” This is not a woman given to ultimatums, in fact that was the first one I’d ever heard from her. But she had seen and heard too much. And so had I.

I can’t imagine the rage being experienced right now by those who have survived church sexual abuse. I only know firsthand the rage of one who never expected to say anything but “we” when referring to the Southern Baptist Convention, and can never do so again. I only know firsthand the rage of one who loves the people who first told me about Jesus, but cannot believe that this is what they expected me to do, what they expected me to be. I only know firsthand the rage of one who wonders while reading what happened on the seventh floor of that Southern Baptist building, how many children were raped, how many people were assaulted, how many screams were silenced, while we boasted that no one could reach the world for Jesus like we could.

That’s more than a crisis. It’s even more than just a crime. It’s blasphemy. And anyone who cares about heaven ought to be mad as hell.​

You should read the whole thing: This Is the Southern Baptist Apocalypse

 

nate silver says the data shows it is not all christians possibly not even half

 

The ones that don’t condemn it, support it. Faithless whore mongers like Gingrich and Trump got treated as persons of faith when they are really person of violent sexual perversions. Catholics who dont demand that the priests in their public ally swear to fidelity to the church and the asshole of a 9 year old boy are also part of the problem. Swaggerts Bakkers, Falwells, Huckabees and the so-called Christians who follow them, listen to them, support them and vote for them are as liable for the rape of children as if they violated each child themselves.

Oh, and don’t forget that quasi-religious grooming organization the Boy Scouts of America. 92,000 boys filed claims for sexual assault with the bankruptcy court when the BSA declared bankruptcy.. All Christians are more than responsible for the asssaults on hundreds of thousands of children. They each bare more responsibility than Muslims who don’t denounce terrorists..

 

This all started with the Houston Chronicle’s coverage a few years ago, and in its coverage of the report it picked different aspects to highlight. One of them was a deeper dive on Augie Boto (jump straight to the Mishandling complaints subhed): Bombshell 400-page report finds Southern Baptist leaders routinely silenced sexual abuse survivors — Houston Chronicle

 

Where is Captain Apologetics since this broke yesterday?

 

Indiana pastor asks forgiveness for committing adultery. Then the woman comes forward during service and she was 16 at the time. The whole story is gross. If there is an afterlife, Hell is too good for this guy.

 

His congregants prayed for him, not the woman who was a child when he did it.

 

if it's what he did why walk it back

 

Typical, the conservative Christians and defense attorneys immediately go to the offender, at best they avoid the victim. Often they go after the victim as a liar and for putting themselves ina situation to be victimized. Even children. And again, no one in the religious community steps forward to condemn the abuse and help the victim.