What are churches doing to stop predators in the church?

[JohnH]

The big question is...why is/was it minimized when other "less weighty" things are/were not? What parts of the thinking/world view/approach to Christianity resulted in such an outcome?

There are a lot of valid reasons to have a position that Christians ought not to call the police to report crimes, considering the use of force and violence involved.

I find that those reasons ring rather hollow, though, when we talk about a group of believers unable to self-police their own brotherhood, such as the Charity, Beachy, Eastern, and Hope Fellowship churches, who let people like Jeriah Mash, William McGrath, and Harold Herr re-offend over and over.

Wife: You know, it has happened amongst the Church of God in Christ Mennonite as well, such as over in Idaho back in 2016, and cases in Texas and Wisconsin. it’s horrible whenever it happens, especially when it’s covered up, but I don’t think we can throw entire denominations/church groups under the bus for it when there are individuals and churches that would never allow it. I think it’s a huge improvement that groups are attempting to standardize responses to prevent it from happening again.

The case in Idaho is different than this.

That involved an expelled person. I’m not sure exactly what a church is supposed to do about expelled people. The guy’s son has been fighting a jihad against the church ever since.

My complaint with Eastern and Charity is their failure to follow up. Charity just showed up at the court sentencing for Mast begging for leniency.

[Soloist]

There are a lot of valid reasons to have a position that Christians ought not to call the police to report crimes, considering the use of force and violence involved.

I find that those reasons ring rather hollow, though, when we talk about a group of believers unable to self-police their own brotherhood, such as the Charity, Beachy, Eastern, and Hope Fellowship churches, who let people like Jeriah Mash, William McGrath, and Harold Herr re-offend over and over.

Wife: You know, it has happened amongst the Church of God in Christ Mennonite as well, such as over in Idaho back in 2016, and cases in Texas and Wisconsin. it’s horrible whenever it happens, especially when it’s covered up, but I don’t think we can throw entire denominations/church groups under the bus for it when there are individuals and churches that would never allow it. I think it’s a huge improvement that groups are attempting to standardize responses to prevent it from happening again.

The case in Idaho is different than this.

That involved an expelled person. I’m not sure exactly what a church is supposed to do about expelled people. The guy’s son has been fighting a jihad against the church ever since.

My complaint with Eastern and Charity is their failure to follow up. Charity just showed up at the court sentencing for Mast begging for leniency.

So then when they accepted him back in (per the article) then they had a duty to follow up and report him?

[Soloist]

Wife: I was seeing it with church leaders who were arrested for covering abuse up in Texas and Wisconsin as well. The article also said that he was excommunicated and then brought back in a few times without ever being reported. like the first time was 10 days excommunication and then he’s brought back and continues to abuse. I’m not saying that we should judge the greater Holdeman church off of it, and it wasn’t a church leader, so I don’t know if they’ve ever had any situations like that. I just looked at the first few search results, so I’m sure there might be more but I don’t really see the need to dig it up, since I don’t think it’s representative of the Holdeman church at largehttps://anabaptistworld.org/suit-accuse ... ual-abuse/

Is Masts church Charity, ephrata, or agape? i’m not sure it’s always wrong to plead for leniency, but without repenting of the fact that they knew about his sin and still left him in a ministry position, it seems to send the wrong image.

[JohnH]

So then when they accepted him back in (per the article) then they had a duty to follow up and report him?

The Idaho situation didn't involve anyone in a position of authority or leadership.

I draw a distinction there, since there isn't an expectation on any other denomination to somehow police its members and try to somehow do something, from a legal perspective, anytime any of its regular attenders, casual attenders, etc. commits some kind of heinous crime. But for some reason, this expectation is often imposed on plain communities. It seems particularly unreasonable when it involves someone who may have grown up in a plain church but hasn't even attended regularly for years.

Now, from my own perspective as a Christian, I think that of course we should discipline members who fall into sin and try to encourage them to repentance (which would include making full restitutions and confessions at law). But I would say that, generally, I only have an expectation where I would place blame on a church for when it is covering up problems of people in leadership as an actual legal problem or something culpable to the outside world.

I would add that, in reference to the Idaho situation, the church as a whole decided to pay out a "settlement" to the young man with the chip on his shoulder, despite the legal counsel being that the church wasn't in any way responsible and would have no trouble "winning" in court. The church decided not to do that and decided to pay anyway, but also retained a general liability policy and in the future will simply leave settlements and lawsuits up to the insurance company.

[JohnH]

Wife: I was seeing it with church leaders who were arrested for covering abuse up in Texas and Wisconsin as well.

I’m not saying that we should judge the greater Holdeman church off of it, and it wasn’t a church leader, so I don’t know if they’ve ever had any situations like that. I just looked at the first few search results, so I’m sure there might be more but I don’t really see the need to dig it up, since I don’t think it’s representative of the Holdeman church at largehttps://anabaptistworld.org/suit-accuse ... ual-abuse/

Well, that's someone's lawsuit who eventually dropped the lawsuit (the settlement I referred to earlier). The prevailing opinion is he would not have won.

It cites the 2009 arrest of Staven Schmidt, a minister for El Campo (Texas) Mennonite Church, who was convicted of failing to report sexual abuse of a 14-year-old girl in his church by her father. Police reports indicate the Holdeman minister’s “reason for refusing to provide information about the sexual abuse of the girl was that he was ‘Mennonite.’ ”

In another 2009 case, Kenneth Duncalfe was convicted of sexually abusing his daughter, both members of Abbotsford (B.C.) Mennonite Church of God in Christ. The trial revealed congregational leaders knew of the abuse for 18 years but did not contact law enforcement.

Neither of these involved abuse committed by someone in leadership. Whilst I am personally opposed to leaders not reporting these things to law enforcement, these cases are nearly two decades ago when the prevailing zeitgeist is quite different than it is now, and I consider a leader not reporting something to law enforcement very, very different than a leader engaging in actual sexual abuse.

Is Masts church Charity, ephrata, or agape? i’m not sure it’s always wrong to plead for leniency, but without repenting of the fact that they knew about his sin and still left him in a ministry position, it seems to send the wrong image.

Since both Charity and the new Agape fellowship refuse to release directories or even be forthcoming about what their membership is, it is unclear, but all signs point to it being in a Charity church; the leaders there show up at other Charity events and so forth. It appears there are zero consequences in the Charity circles for the Jeriah Mast debacle.

To give you an idea in the difference in proportionality, I think the Jeriah Mast situation where someone who had abused boys in Ohio and was known to do so, is installed into a missionary position anyway, and rushed into a marriage and then sent with CAM is quite different from a situation where

[JoyE]

Visiting Orthodox Idaho friends, I was with them in a business near a church, waited on by a member, so I asked him if it was a Holdeman church, and to my surprise, he admitted that it was, with obvious embarrassment. It made me curious, so I googled it, and found out the shocking story.

Yeah, I guess the young man would kind of have a chip on his shoulder, that the church didn't protect him as a child, nor the next victim that he knew of. I suppose he wants to keep that sort of thing from happening again, maybe?

[Soloist]

Visiting Orthodox Idaho friends, I was with them in a business near a church, waited on by a member, so I asked him if it was a Holdeman church, and to my surprise, he admitted that it was, with obvious embarrassment. It made me curious, so I googled it, and found out the shocking story.

Yeah, I guess the young man would kind of have a chip on his shoulder, that the church didn't protect him as a child, nor the next victim that he knew of. I suppose he wants to keep that sort of thing from happening again, maybe?

Wife:they formalized the mandatory reporter standards after that. I would not want to discount somebody’s experience based off of the chip they had on their shoulder, because that is too often done, and the worst part of these experiences is that because a lot of spiritual/emotional damage to the victims. it’s like when people say, “Oh, you can’t trust these people because they’re not Christians or members of the church or they are liberal now,” completely ignoring the fact that an experience like that is probably what led them to that.

I know Agape leadership would be expected to report if they knew about abuse. I don’t know any Charity church that is still affiliated with Charity Christian fellowship, so I don’t know their stance.

[JohnH]

Yeah, I guess the young man would kind of have a chip on his shoulder, that the church didn't protect him as a child, nor the next victim that he knew of. I suppose he wants to keep that sort of thing from happening again, maybe?

Generally speaking I don't think it's possible for churches to "protect" children from their parents. It's not the church's job, even, and is not really possible to do. Exactly how is a church supposed to do that?

[PeterG]

Yeah, I guess the young man would kind of have a chip on his shoulder, that the church didn't protect him as a child, nor the next victim that he knew of. I suppose he wants to keep that sort of thing from happening again, maybe?

Generally speaking I don't think it's possible for churches to "protect" children from their parents. It's not the church's job, even, and is not really possible to do. Exactly how is a church supposed to do that?

By reporting abusive parents to the authorities, for starters.

[Judas Maccabeus]

Yeah, I guess the young man would kind of have a chip on his shoulder, that the church didn't protect him as a child, nor the next victim that he knew of. I suppose he wants to keep that sort of thing from happening again, maybe?

Generally speaking I don't think it's possible for churches to "protect" children from their parents. It's not the church's job, even, and is not really possible to do. Exactly how is a church supposed to do that?

By reporting abusive parents to the authorities, for starters.

Many of us are “mandated reporters “ which means, essentially we have no choice, if there ever was one to begin with.