What they wore

[Ken]

I recently heard some of the local Catholic hierarchy interviewed concerning sex abuse in the local archdiocese. In 2002 it was reported that 2% of their priest had been involved in sex abuse of some type. The archdiocese came up with a plan that involved church and law enforcement. Basically the church would handle the spiritual side of abuse investigations and law enforcement would handle the criminal side after immediate reporting. Those suspected of abuse would be immediately removed from their role in the church and restored only after law enforcement cleared them. Background checks were required for every church volunteer. The church made a public list of those who were accused of abuse. New church leaders were required to go through 2 days of mandatory reporting law training. The result of all of this? In the past 20 years there have been only 2 credible allegations of sex abuse by a priest in the local Catholic archdiocese. If the Catholics can do this, why can't the CA community?

From the interview though, a big part of the success was the church working with law enforcement. The church understood Romans 13 and realized they didn't have the skills needed to properly investigate and deal with criminal behavior. The local archdiocese trained 118,000 adults in 20 years and 65,000 children yearly on how to identify and report abuse. Again, can the CA community match the success of the Catholic church?

It’s interesting how law enforcement is worshipped as the solution to what is obviously a very serious sin and wickedness problem.

Lots of CAs are in Mexico and South America (and from what I hear is where abuse problems are the worst, although I don’t have hard evidence for that). Sometimes law enforcement there is very corrupt in those places. So what exactly would “working with law enforcement mean”?

CAs are not the RCC with a central hierarchy of authority. My own denomination fosters a strong relationship with law enforcement along with policies about abuse particularly for leadership, but other CA groups aren’t going to care at all what we are doing or adopt our policies. One might as well start saying “Why aren’t Turkmenistanis doing what the Catholic Church did about abuse?”

Ultimately, there is an assumption that CAs have an “abuse problem” when no facts point to this in evidence. The evidence is that they are the same, or better off, than the general population. As far as CA leadership, I know of no evidence they ever got as high as 2% of ordained men - and certainly MC USA never did either. This is tilting at windmills at its finest.

What level of abuse would you be "comfortable" with and what level of abuse do you think would represent an "abuse problem?"

[Josh]

If abuse levels are higher than the general surrounding population.

In case you aren’t aware, every population has sociopaths in it.

[Ken]

If abuse levels are higher than the general surrounding population.

In case you aren’t aware, every population has sociopaths in it.

So you don't hold Christians to any higher standard than "the general surrounding population?"

As long as they meet that bar there is nothing to see here?

Is that your standard for every crime and every sin? Or just child sexual abuse? You go on a lot here on Mennonet about "fornication." If fornication rates within the CA community are no higher than the "general surrounding population" are you fine with that too?

[Soloist]

So you don't hold Christians to any higher standard than "the general surrounding population?"

As long as they meet that bar there is nothing to see here?

Is that your standard for every crime and every sin? Or just child sexual abuse? You go on a lot here on Mennonet about "fornication." If fornication rates within the CA community are no higher than the "general surrounding population" are you fine with that too?

At the end of the day, I can only fix me, but if the problems with sin are no better in the Mennonites then the secular world I would have never joined them. I'm very skeptical that the rates are equivalent, I do see though a difficulty in gathering accurate data for sex abuse among the Mennonites.

If we were to evaluate another sin such as divorce, those rates are easy to observe and divorce rates are much lower in the conservative Mennonites then the general populous, I don't have a study to back that up though. If I walk into any conservative Mennonite church I would be very surprised if there was more then 1 or 2 divorced there while if I waked into a general Christian church I would expect almost half of the church to have been divorced at one point. I know there was a study evaluating this in the broader Christian society and I think they concluded rates were about the same if not worse in the church.
Conservative Mennonites were most likely not included in the study or made too small of an impact to change those statistics.

[Sudsy]

So you don't hold Christians to any higher standard than "the general surrounding population?"

As long as they meet that bar there is nothing to see here?

Is that your standard for every crime and every sin? Or just child sexual abuse? You go on a lot here on Mennonet about "fornication." If fornication rates within the CA community are no higher than the "general surrounding population" are you fine with that too?

At the end of the day, I can only fix me, but if the problems with sin are no better in the Mennonites then the secular world I would have never joined them. I'm very skeptical that the rates are equivalent, I do see though a difficulty in gathering accurate data for sex abuse among the Mennonites.

If we were to evaluate another sin such as divorce, those rates are easy to observe and divorce rates are much lower in the conservative Mennonites then the general populous, I don't have a study to back that up though. If I walk into any conservative Mennonite church I would be very surprised if there was more then 1 or 2 divorced there while if I waked into a general Christian church I would expect almost half of the church to have been divorced at one point. I know there was a study evaluating this in the broader Christian society and I think they concluded rates were about the same if not worse in the church.
Conservative Mennonites were most likely not included in the study or made too small of an impact to change those statistics.

One factor might be that in a CA church the penalty and shame relating to divorce is much more severe than in other churches.

[Soloist]

One factor might be that in a CA church the penalty and shame relating to divorce is much more severe than in other churches.

Good!

It is shameful for man to deal treacherously with the wife of his youth. Besides, if you can't live with your "sister" or "brother" here on earth...

[Sudsy]

One factor might be that in a CA church the penalty and shame relating to divorce is much more severe than in other churches.

Good!

It is shameful for man to deal treacherously with the wife of his youth. Besides, if you can't live with your "sister" or "brother" here on earth...

And then there is compassion and forgiveness. Well, there is for some Christians anyway.

[Ken]

One factor might be that in a CA church the penalty and shame relating to divorce is much more severe than in other churches.

Good!

It is shameful for man to deal treacherously with the wife of his youth. Besides, if you can't live with your "sister" or "brother" here on earth...

I think it is more a matter of which sins you choose to prioritize for penalty and shame.

Hypothetically speaking, would it be better to prioritize attacking a public sin between consenting adults (divorce) or a private sin with innocent victims (child sexual abuse within families).

[Soloist]

And then there is compassion and forgiveness. Well, there is for some Christians anyway.

When someone repents they should be forgiven and welcome.

[Soloist]

I think it is more a matter of which sins you choose to prioritize for penalty and shame.

Hypothetically speaking, would it be better to prioritize attacking a public sin between consenting adults (divorce) or a private sin with innocent victims (child sexual abuse within families).

Divorce is not even the same as sexual abuse... someone who sexually abuses someone else should be publicly excommunicated from the church. The same is not necessarily true for divorce as sometimes its not preventable. In the church I don't believe something like child sexual abuse should be kept hidden but rather exposed to the light for the darkness it is.