Dealing with Abuse/Molestation properly

[Susan R] Criminal acts are not a ‘Matthew 18’ or an ‘if a brother be overtaken in a fault’ situation. Victimizing children physically or psychologically is against the law. Period. Church leadership should never advocate that a church member handle such a matter simply between themselves. It does require professional help. Never assume you know the law because Aunt Jane or Dr. Snodgrass think they know the law. Check it out for yourself.

Susan,

Yes it is a Matthew 18 issue and it is against the law, it is not either or.

Child abuse, as well as the abuse of other people is a sin - categorize it under adultery, fornication, lust, malice, anger, wrath … take your pick. Saying that sexual abuse of a child is not a sin just because it is not specifically mentioned in the bible is a can of worms I don’t think you want to open (there are a significant number of evil behaviors not specifically mentioned in the Bible).

Sin is a Matthew 18 issue and if the sin breaks the law then the law needs to be brought in. Discipline the guilty as Matthew 18 prescribes and get the law involved (Romans 13) if necessary - we are to submit to the law.

Church discipline, in exceptional cases because of the laws that have violated, may require bringing in the law. I am certainly not advocating anything else.

[JThomas]

[Susan R] Criminal acts are not a ‘Matthew 18’ or an ‘if a brother be overtaken in a fault’ situation. Victimizing children physically or psychologically is against the law. Period. Church leadership should never advocate that a church member handle such a matter simply between themselves. It does require professional help. Never assume you know the law because Aunt Jane or Dr. Snodgrass think they know the law. Check it out for yourself.

Susan,

Yes it is a Matthew 18 issue and it is against the law, it is not either or.

Child abuse, as well as the abuse of other people is a sin - categorize it under adultery, fornication, lust, malice, anger, wrath … take your pick. Saying that sexual abuse of a child is not a sin just because it is not specifically mentioned in the bible is a can of worms I don’t think you want to open (there are a significant number of evil behaviors not specifically mentioned in the Bible).

Sin is a Matthew 18 issue and if the sin breaks the law then the law needs to be brought in. Discipline the guilty as Matthew 18 prescribes and get the law involved (Romans 13) if necessary - we are to submit to the law.

Church discipline, in exceptional cases because of the laws that have violated, may require bringing in the law. I am certainly not advocating anything else.

I wasn’t clear enough- my apologies. I should have said that it isn’t JUST a Matthew 18 or Gal. 6:1- My 4th sentence (Church leadership should never advocate that a church member handle such a matter simply between themselves.) alludes to this, but obviously not enough. I certainly wasn’t characterizing child abuse as not being sinful. Yikes.

I read this column this morning, ( http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/04/19/granderson.children.dress/index.h… Parents, don’t dress your girls like tramps ) and was thinking that a contributing factor could be our own girls’ confusion about sexuality.

In 2007, the American Psychological Association’s http://www.apa.org/pi/women/programs/girls/report.aspx] Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls issued a report linking early sexualization with three of the most common mental-health problems of girls and women: eating disorders, low self-esteem and depression. There’s nothing inherently wrong with parents wanting to appease their daughters by buying them the latest fashions. But is getting cool points today worth the harm dressing little girls like prostitutes could cause tomorrow?

If our girls are thinking of themselves as already being sexual at a young age, to the point that they are experiencing problems such as eating disorders and depression, what might this do to their ability to recognize an inappropriate advance? Adult-adolescent relationships and blatant teen sexuality are depicted as romantic and normal in such tv shows as http://www.commonsensemedia.org/tv-reviews/pretty-little-liars] Pretty Little Liars , http://www.commonsensemedia.org/tv-reviews/one-tree-hill] One Tree Hill , http://www.commonsensemedia.org/tv-reviews/life-we-know-it] Life As We Know It , http://www.commonsensemedia.org/tv-reviews/90210] Beverly Hills 90210 … And what is even scarier is that adults watch this stuff, and one does not even want to imagine why they’d enjoy these kinds of shows…

Advising against television viewing has resulted in IFBs being stamped with ‘legalism’ tags, but when outright perversion is promoted, especially involving characters that are underage- why on earth would any Christian tolerate this stuff in their home, and why couldn’t a pastor address something as important as entertainment choices and parents knowing what content/messages their child is taking in? And why would we be confused that kids are confused about Biblical morality, and is it any wonder that sexual deviants are having a field day in our society?

We should not restrict our approach to simply how to craft safety policies or report an incident, but how to deal with a societal mindset that becomes more deeply ingrained as time goes on, and societal norms always eventually leak into the church.

To further support the idea that this is not just a church issue but a societal one, here’s some info to ponder on sexual violence in public schools.

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/04/04/28violence.h30.html?tkn=ML…]

Schools Get Federal Guidelines on Sexual Violence

After the gang rape last fall of a 14-year-old girl in the stairwell of a District of Columbia high school during the school day, a teacher wrote to a newspaper, horrified at how the situation was handled.

“It wasn’t handled at all”, she said. “At a staff meeting the Monday after the attack”, she said, “the school administration didn’t even bring it up”…

…the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights on Monday sent school districts, colleges, and universities a 19-page “Dear Colleague” letter with details about how they should work to prevent and respond to on-campus sexual violence, or acts that occur off campus but affect school, under Title IX’s provisions about sexual harassment.

…”the scope of the problem in elementary and secondary schools and postsecondary institutions may be underestimated because of spotty data”, said Lynn Rosenthal, the White House adviser on violence against women. Information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that by the time girls graduate from high school, more than one in 10 will have been physically forced to have sexual intercourse in or out of school…

During the http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2011/2011002.pdf] 2007-08 school year , there were 800 rapes on elementary, middle, and high school campuses and 3,800 cases of sexual battery aside from rape, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

The fact that this kind of violence is so pervasive in environments where one would assume that children would be the safest, and that so many in leadership are determined to ignore the problem and sweep it under the rug to preserve their power base and funding is another wake up call in a long line of wake up calls. Hopefully we can be more determined than ever to educate our congregations on the problem and craft effective policies and preventions for our churches, and just maybe effect some important changes in society as well.

[RPittman] However, there is another factor that affects all of us who have good policies and guidelines. It is the application and the carrying out of these policies. Most people, including Christian children’s workers, have a reluctance to get involved. They are naturally timid about going to the police. Although written policies are good, they are not enough to achieve action. There needs to be organizational support in helping your workers make the report. (I know, some are going to begin yelling cover-up, status quo, and circle the wagons but this is not true.) Furthermore, there is the vagueness of what constitutes “reasonable grounds.” It varies from individual to individual and personality to personality. Your workers need help and advice in this area. And finally, this must be kept at a high level of awareness.

There is too much disbelief and discomfort about how to deal with child safety in churches. I keep running into folks who don’t like the idea of a background check- it sounds scary to them. I remember one little ol’ lady who was a helper that was seriously freaked out, because the pastor would find out she’d gotten a speeding ticket… in like, 1954. http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys.php] http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/smiley-rolleyes007.gif Getting people to do something as simple as wearing gloves to change diapers is a real hair-puller- they’ve changed diapers for 30 years without gloves, and they aren’t going to start now. The church nursery is not an impersonal doctor’s office, doncha’ know. But new health and child safety guidelines recommend that there be NO skin-on-skin contact involving a child’s private parts.

Then there are those little churches where everyone ‘knows’ everyone else, and can’t believe that such policies are necessary. It’s almost insulting to them, as if these guidelines are themselves an indictment.

Saints preserve us. http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys.php] http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/smiley-shocked017.gif

[RPittman]

[Jay C.] Here’s the policy that we use in the church I’m attending. I can’t answer a ton of questions about it, but it might be a helpful start. I have removed the name of city the church is located in from the policy and made a couple of formatting tweaks, but the substance is the same.

When I followed the link, the document seemed to be a worker’s statement and application rather than a complete policy with guidelines and procedures. Do you have the complete document?

The policy is the first page, with the application afterwards. I can understand why you’d think that the first page is incomplete, but that’s what I have. I’ll ask if there’s a missing page when I get to church on Sunday.

[RPittman]

[Jay C.] Here’s the policy that we use in the church I’m attending. I can’t answer a ton of questions about it, but it might be a helpful start. I have removed the name of city the church is located in from the policy and made a couple of formatting tweaks, but the substance is the same.

When I followed the link, the document seemed to be a worker’s statement and application rather than a complete policy with guidelines and procedures. Do you have the complete document?

Hey Roland-

You were right - there were three other policies that should have been included in my original post. I’ve put them all together in one Word file and attached it below; I’ll remove the previous file above. Also, a quick search of Amazon for “child abuse prevention” or “preventing child abuse” yielded a bunch of good results; here are the top three or four books that look most intriguing.

* http://www.amazon.com/Preventing-Child-Abuse-Creating-Place/dp/15925541…] Preventing Child Abuse: Creating a Safe Place

* http://www.amazon.com/Preventing-Child-Sexual-Abuse-Evidence/dp/1843922…] Preventing Child Sexual Abuse: Evidence, Policy and Practice

* http://www.amazon.com/Planning-Funding-Implementing-Prevention-Project/…] Planning, Funding, and Implementing a Child Abuse Prevention Project

* http://www.amazon.com/Identifying-Child-Molesters-Preventing-Recognizin…] Identifying Child Molesters: Preventing Child Sexual Abuse by Recognizing the Patterns of the Offenders