Meet the Millstones

How Child Molestation is Becoming Rampant in Apostate Evangelicalism

by Dusty Peterson

“Troublemaker!”  Over the years, many readers will have been called this sort of thing by fellow believers they were simply trying to protect.  For a very long time now, Christians who have been warning churches against compromising on the Bible have been branded as troublemakers.  The opposite is the case, but this truth has now been made as plain as a pikestaff.  It is those who have ignored these warnings and have allowed the world’s ways into their fellowships who have been causing the real trouble – and their own children are paying the price, because a large number of these unscriptural trends are facilitating paedophile attacks.

One website alone lists hundreds of reported cases of paedophile activity within ‘evangelicalism’ – and many of the cases cited there have been confessed to or have resulted in criminal convictions.  (Only a fraction of child sex abuse cases get uncovered, which means that these hundreds of reports are almost certainly just the tip of the iceberg.)  No denomination is immune from the problem. Congregationalist, Methodist, Pentecostal, Lutheran, Presbyterian, Charismatic; all are affected.  An entire website is dedicated to exposing instances within the Baptist denomination alone.  (I am not getting at Baptists here.  I would describe myself as Baptist.)  Wherever it appears on the spectrum, a church is in danger if it has a tendency to follow man’s ways rather than God’s.

The founder of a ministry specializing in warning the evangelical church about societal issues that plague it has said, “One of the major problems that Christians need to address is the presence of juvenile and adult pedophiles within the church. … During one of my recent visits to a major city I heard reports about pedophiles in four prominent churches I visited. … The stories I hear like this are too numerous to remember”.

This problem is not well known yet, and there are several reasons for this.  One difficulty is that fellowships are understandably less than eager to advertise the fact that they have allowed a child-molester to operate in their midst.  We will see other reasons later.  Below is just a tiny handful of instances of abuse to show that this problem exists across the denominations:

(Important Note: Such is the dreadful topic of this article that I have felt obliged to accompany it with a disclaimer.  You are invited to read it before continuing.  Please see this footnote.)

“Ambrocio Martinez Sabala, a former pastor at a Foursquare Church in the San Joaquin Valley town of Dinuba, was sentenced in February to seven years in state prison. He had pleaded no contest to molesting several of his daughters”

“TASKER Donald Gilbert, 61. Melbourne trainee Presbyterian minister and school teacher. Receives 6 year jail sentence in Melbourne County Court after being convicted on 29 child sex charges, including 12 counts of indecent assault, … and 5 of committing unlawful sexual intercourse with aggravating circumstances, against 4 boys, aged 5 to 11”

“HAMILTON, OH. - A Pentecostal minister convicted of repeatedly raping his daughter has been sentenced to 17-50 years in prison and fined $7,500. … His daughter, Dawn Bell, asked to be publicly identified as she helped prosecute her father, including testifying against him at trial. She said her abuse began at age 10 and continued until she was 18 and moved away. She later confronted her father and went to prosecutors after he refused to get counseling.”

“Menomenee Falls, WI. An instructor at Pembine Bible camp and Grace Evangelical Lutheran church in Menomenee Falls, Fritz A. Callies, 61, has been sentenced to 8 years in prison for sexually assaulting 2 girls, ages 9 and 10. Over a dozen women have come forward saying Callies abused them as girls.”

“FORT WORTH -- Former [Baptist] church pastor Larry Nuell Neathery was convicted Monday of 25 felony charges involving sexual assault or molestation of five boys.  [He got away with it over a six year period]”

For at least 28 years, Brian Houston of the Hillsong organization failed to discern that his own father (a general superintendent of the AoG) was a paedophile.  To the everlasting shame of the Body of Christ, the biggest sex-abuse case in the whole of Missouri occurred in an evangelical church.  The horrors go on and on.  We will see more examples, covering more denominations, as we proceed.

As I noted earlier, there are many unbiblical trends within evangelicalism today which facilitate child molestation.  In this lone article, I have sought to expose all the main ones.  For readability, these trends have been gathered into small sets and are revealed alongside the category of child- molester they most encourage.  (There can be said to exist four ‘types’ of paedophile operating within evangelical churches.)

(1) INFILTRATORS

The first category of abusers operating in gullible churches today are those who join a fellowship with the deliberate intention of exploiting the children there.

“Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd, who attends First Baptist Church at the Mall, said … ‘You know the famous quote from the bank robber Willie Sutton when they asked him why he robbed banks. He said, “Because that's where the money is.” Why do you find all these predators at church? Well, that's where the children are,’ Judd said Saturday night. ‘Any place that children are, pedophiles and predators are not far behind.’”

A charity in the UK has said that up to “three-quarters of known sexual offenders monitored by the police and probation services attend a place of worship on a regular basis”.  I strongly doubt if this statistic is true of other types of ex-convict, the obvious implication being that a significant number of these sexual offenders are not attending church for spiritual purposes.

Here are just some of the reasons these unreconstructed paedophiles are able to get into apostate evangelical churches.

Opportunity Increased Through Not ‘Judging’

Just because someone says they are a Christian doesn’t mean they are.  Nor does it mean we have to accept their claim.  The Bible calls us to be vigilant and “wise as serpents” rather than naive.  By saying we cannot know whether a given person is a true brother or not, modern churches are opening the doors wide to infiltration by all sorts of dangerous people – including predatory child molesters.

The constant refrain from elders of such churches is, “judge not that ye be not judged” (Matt. 7:1).  However, when read in the context of the subsequent four verses, this passage only refers to hypocritical judgement rather than to the godly variety.  For proof that this verse cannot possibly mean Christians are incapable of discerning whether someone wanting to join their fellowship is really saved, we only have to visit 1 John – all five chapters of which are devoted to proving that we can indeed determine whether someone is a genuine believer or not.  For further evidence, see this footnote.

While it is unarguably true that we cannot know a person’s heart in detail, nevertheless the Bible also makes it quite plain that, as long as we are not hasty or superficial in our reckoning, we can know the general state of a person’s heart – and certainly whether that heart belongs to the Lord or not (Acts 8:21-23; 2 Tim. 4:10a; Matt. 12:34b etc).  God would hardly want us to be incapable of recognizing false brothers in our midst.

Opportunity Increased Through Merely Requiring Modest Changes

A paedophile deliberately joining a fellowship in order to attack its children may happily admit to being unsaved, but there is a nefarious reason for this.  Such a confession will naturally result in evangelistic effort towards that person on the part of the church, and the paedophile will pretend to be converted by those efforts.  Apostate churches are poorly placed to spot false conversions.

For a start, evangelistic efforts in such churches today are invariably formulaic rather than Spirit-led, which does nothing to help those fellowships discern the genuineness of conversions.  But congregants are also being told the lie that salvation is a process – and consequently that we must not look for any sort of “scales-falling-from-the-eyes” transformation from those to whom we are witnessing.  Instead we are encouraged to think any positive change exhibited by the person must mean God has accepted them and that we must therefore accept them too.  But anyone can mimic some positive change in their life.  This is especially easy if they have deliberately behaved in a substandard way at the beginning of the evangelistic activity.  For the true, biblical hallmarks of real conversion, see this footnote.  “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Cor. 5:17).

Opportunity Increased Through Not Criticizing

These days, evangelical Christians are regularly being told not to criticize others.  This too opens the door to paedophiles, for if those paedophiles ‘slip up’ in their efforts to pass themselves off as saved, we are not allowed to confront them, or confront anyone else, with the fact.  Even if we have reason to suspect actual child abuse may be taking place, this ban on all criticism inevitably hinders us from raising those suspicions with anyone.

END OF SECTION ON INFILTRATORS

So, we are told not to judge.  But even if we do judge, we are encouraged to lower our standards hugely.  And even if we do judge with proper standards, we are still not allowed to confront the person, or indeed anyone else, with our judgment!

Many modern churches also have a tendency to run evangelistic ‘courses’ (even though there is no mention of such things in the New Testament).  Regrettably, these courses frequently represent an effective route by which a predatory paedophile can infiltrate a fellowship.  For example:

Course material is invariably worded so as to ensure every participant feels “accepted rather than judged” (even though only Christ Jesus is acceptable to God, which is why we must be hidden in Him).  Such wording is employed to keep people coming to the rest of the course.  But the “let’s all accept each other blindly” attitude inevitably seeps into the church itself.
Courses give a paedophile instant credibility when joining a fellowship, because they provide a ready-made group of friends within the existing congregation – with the kudos (and hence apparent trustworthiness) this affords the individual when attending church events.
Courses also enable paedophiles to acquire intelligence upfront on the degree of vulnerability of the fellowship (e.g. the extent to which its doctrines and practices aid paedophile activity), and on specific weaknesses they may be able to exploit.

A number of the points in the remainder of this document also aid predatory paedophiles in their efforts to infiltrate churches and molest the children there.  Not only do several of these points spur such a person on to be even more determined, they also lead churches to be more lenient and forgiving towards any suspicious activity uncovered.  Some of these additional trends also prompt churches to believe false claims of salvation.

(2) SEEKERS

A second category of people who are molesting children in ‘evangelical’ churches are those ex-offenders who join a fellowship with a sincere desire to put their past behind them – but who are failing to do so because the churches they join are so spiritually weak.

Here are just some of the ways apostate churches are encouraging sincere seekers to backslide.

Likelihood of Re-offending Increased Through Watering Down of Gospel

The biggest obstacle to putting the old self to death is obviously that the Gospel being presented today is so emasculated that folks simply aren’t being saved.  Things like man’s inherently sinful nature, the true ghastliness of Hell, and how to be hidden in Christ, are all played down.  Christ’s own words like wrath, damnation, torment, or even just punishment are almost never to be seen.  (Again, this is particularly the case with evangelistic courses because the people running them are very reluctant to give the full, shocking truth in case it offends the participants so much that they don’t come to the rest of the course.)  Judging by the published testimonies, conversions today are consistently shallow at best.  For more details of all these things, see this footnote.

As well as being watered down, the Gospel message coming from apostate churches is frequently confused.  This confusion allows souls to pick and choose what to believe, and encourages them to make up their own gospel.  When temptation arises, such confusion gives folks enough wiggle room to imagine they can get away with certain sins (or at least that they can make up for those sins with good works).

When a sincere seeker thinks he is saved when he isn’t, several of the trends mentioned earlier as helping deliberate infiltrators gain access to children also help sincere seekers do likewise.

Likelihood of Re-offending Increased Through Legitimization of Paedophiles

Because apostates are incapable of Spirit-led preaching, they have to resort to tricks to make their evangelism gripping – one of which is to pepper their talks with quotes from famous people from history.  Unfortunately a number of these individuals were paedophiles, and sufficient care isn’t being taken to avoid citing them.  When such a name is quoted approvingly, this can obviously lend credence to paedophilia, which in turn can tempt ex-offenders to backslide.  (For this reason I hesitate to give specific names here, but readers would be surprised by some of them.  Even very unlikely people can have a ‘skeleton in their closet’ so to speak.)

Less directly, but just as riskily, apostate churches are also legitimizing paedophilia by endorsing those individuals or organizations that protect paedophiles.  For example, both John Paul II and Benedict XVI (at least as Cardinal Ratzinger) have protected child molesters, yet they are both praised to the skies by many apostates today.  Similarly, when the media expose a ‘Christian’ church or organization for attempting to cover-up a paedophile scandal, there often seems little in the way of censure from other apostate churches.

Some readers may view this section of my article as weak, but the problems discussed here will certainly not help an ex-molester mend his ways.  (What’s more, if such a person goes ahead and attempts to abuse a child, the problems covered here could help the molester convince the child of the acceptability of their abuse!  Since the molester can now show that the elders of the child’s church legitimize others who commit such acts, the child may end up being persuaded that child molestation is not a sin, or at least won’t be challenged by the eldership if the child complains.)

Likelihood of Re-offending Increased by Reliance on Youth Ministry Recruitment Procedures

Such has been the growth of paedophile attacks over the last decade or two that many fellowships have felt obliged to introduce background checks on individuals being considered for youth work.  These checks are often not as thorough as they might be, but even if they were very rigorous this doesn’t solve the problem – for two very crucial reasons:

Offences undetected

Huge numbers of people have abused children undetected.  No matter how solid the background check, such people can easily fall through the net.  (Similarly, many children have been abused without their reports being followed up properly.  (Only about 4% of abuse cases reach court, let alone result in convictions.  Background checks are very fallible when it comes to paedophile attacks.)

(Please Note: If background checks are limited in scope – e.g. restricted to abuse of children – they again won’t detect some people who are a threat to children.  One researcher has said, “many child sex offenders are not ‘pedophiles’. They are often ‘situational offenders’, or someone who engages in sexual activity with children not as their primary sexual preference but only due to a particular situation they are faced with, and would not otherwise engage in such activity except for that situation.”  An example of this would appear to be Jeffrey Hannah who had intercourse with minors while he was a youth minister.  He says, “I honestly believe that had I been a college pastor, I’d [have] slept with college girls … But I was a youth pastor. It was less about age and more about who I spent all my time with”.)

Alternate access

The other central problem with reliance on background checks for those going into youth work is that access to children can be gained by manifold routes other than youth work.  Contact with children can all-too-easily be achieved during church social events such as church holidays, or by ex-offenders cultivating relationships with families unaware of their past.  (A key route appears to be via babysitting.  With the lack of extended families these days, most parents need babysitters, and a person from your own church – and whose services are free – must be a great temptation to some.  Since child molesters can be mind-bendingly charming, resourceful and patient, this is a grave danger.)

To summarize, adults in churches can gain intimate access to children outside of formal childcare scenarios, thus it is very foolish to believe that screening of people being considered for childcare work is going to solve the problem.

Conclusion

Of course, people with paedophilic tendencies who have not yet actually committed abuse would also pass such checks, but could still be tempted to fall into abuse – especially if they gain a role in youth work or indeed any sort of trusted position in a church.  (We return to this category of person in section 3.) 

If a person is to get spotted by a background check, they’ve got to start their abuse somewhere.  What if that ‘somewhere’ is a church?  And what if there are multiple victims before the abuse is uncovered?  Police checks are only reactive.  They rely on the offender actually having committed abuse at some stage in the past – in which case one or more children have already had to suffer.  God would never require us to have to wait for a child to be abused before we could identify a risk.  If a fellowship is not spiritual enough to be able to discern whether or not a given individual is a danger to children without having to resort to police checks, then that fellowship has got a big problem.  Similarly, if its elders don’t have the spiritual maturity to know who God is, or isn’t, wanting to place in a given church role, then those elders ought to be ashamed.

END OF SECTION ON SEEKERS

Taken individually, the points in this section may not seem too compelling.  However, I would argue that they represent a serious threat when combined.  Most of the comments in this entire article apply to sincere ex-offenders.  I just happen to consider the above three issues to be the most relevant ones to this category of person.  What I am saying is that this type of individual is a very real risk when attached to an apostate church.

(3) MEMBERS

Putting the issue of active paedophiles to one side, there are many people around today who have tendencies towards paedophilia but who have never gone on to commit abuse.  If the reader needs evidence that a large number of people today, especially males, have an interest to one degree or another, in under-age sex, just consider the recent explosion in pornographic magazine titles focusing exclusively on teenage girls – i.e. on 18 year-olds who look younger than their already youthful age.  (For any readers who continue to have difficulty believing that a substantial percentage of adults can find youngsters attractive, I was astonished to learn as part of my research for this article that, for hundreds of years until 1875, the age of consent in the UK was just twelve years old.  Clearly, for this situation to have been allowed for so long, a significant proportion of the adults in the UK must have known such attraction, else the starting age would surely have been raised much earlier.)  It is daft to assume this tendency within the populace is not reflected, at least to some extent, among the members of our churches.

Due to the huge numbers involved, and the latent nature of their tendencies, there could easily be one or more such individuals in an evangelical fellowship, and there are various trends within evangelicalism which could tempt such people to fall into active paedophilia.  Here are just three of them.

Temptation Increased Through Compromised Teachings On Right Behaviour

I hardly need to say anything at all under this heading.  Apostate churches are guilty of moving away from biblical teaching on many fronts associated with godly living.  For example, instead of the unambiguous biblical words “adultery” and “fornication”, preachers instead refer to “sleeping around” or “being larger than life”.  Instead of preaching self-control, we are informed that the Christian life is supposed to be a “party”.  And salvation itself is being redefined as “freedom” – understandably tempting some people to imagine this means freedom to do what they want.

Compromise has also entered in when it comes to homosexual practice.  And the full truth about abortion is being played down too.  (A potential child abuser may well reason that, if abortion – i.e. the murder of a child – is not desperately serious, why shouldn’t the occasional sex act with a child be permissible?)

Temptation Increased Through Tolerance of Unholy Living

Again, given the lurid headlines we’ve all seen about alcoholism, violence, cursing, sexual abuse and so on among high profile ‘evangelicals’ who are restored to their ministries within weeks, it would be redundant for me to spend much time on this section.  Many churches are simply being far too tolerant of sexual sin within their congregations, and especially among so-called ‘leaders’. What these churches fail to recognize is that low standards when it comes to one person’s sexual sins are bound to encourage low standards when it comes to the (potentially different) arena of sexual temptation that other people experience.

The Bible says “without … [holiness] no man shall see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14).  Holiness means being separate from the world’s ways, yet whole swathes of modern churches can’t get enough of allowing the world’s ways in.  Permitting the world’s values to seep into the church is inevitably going to promote sexual sin.  This is particularly true today, for the world is flooded with sexual images, and Christians are being bombarded with them almost everywhere we look.  TV, cinema, newspapers, magazines, and even advertising posters on hoardings and in shop windows are all brazenly displaying images we would never have seen there even just ten years ago – including images of young girls in less-than-modest attire.  Given that we cannot avoid our own streets, and that our carnal side is being fed by these images, we need to be improving the standards of righteousness and holiness in our churches (so as to help us fight the flesh) rather than lowering our standards for the sake of not offending unsaved visitors.

But, instead of this, preachers are populating their talks with coarse joking, with smooth words which play down God’s standards, with quotes from disgraceful unbelievers like D.H. Lawrence or Lord Byron or Madonna, and with endorsements of modern ‘apostles’ who proudly commit all manner of grievous sins.  Put bluntly, if a struggling Christian is part of a fellowship which is no longer holy, this can obviously be a cause of significant temptation.

Temptation Increased Through Faulty Portrayal of God

Churches are frequently undermining whatever areas they have got right by giving a misleading impression of what God is like – thus obscuring how crucial it is to live according to the Bible.  Scripture tells us God is a “consuming fire”, a “devouring fire”, severe, and “terrible” yet we are taught that He is actually a fun-loving, partying God.  Elsewhere, God’s Word says “they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts”, but instead we are taught that God accepts us “just as we are” (which is sure to lead some people with paedophile tendencies to imagine they are accepted without the need to crucify those tendencies).

The Bible also says that we mortals are just dust, and that even John the Baptist was not worthy so much as to loosen Christ’s shoes, yet we are being informed today that God’s attitude towards us is, “I don’t care how you [do] … I think you are fantastic! I think you are wonderful!”.

Finally, Holy Writ says God is “greatly to be feared” (Psa. 89:7) and that “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of [i.e. is fundamental to] wisdom” (Psa. 111:10; Prov. 9:10) and that “The LORD taketh pleasure in them that fear Him...” (Psa. 147:11), but many churches seem to have lost all fear of God.  How does this ever help those souls with paedophilic tendencies to withstand temptation?

“Though a sinner do evil an hundred times, and his days be prolonged, yet surely I know that it shall be well with them that fear God, which fear before Him: But it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he prolong his days, which are as a shadow; because he feareth not before God.” (Eccl. 8:12)

END OF SECTION ON MEMBERS

Incidentally, many of us may imagine that children would speak out as soon as they had been assaulted (although by then abuse has already occurred).  But it has been shown that paedophiles can readily terrify youngsters with dire threats such that the children are simply too frightened to alert anyone, even of the most horrendous activities.  Multiple instances of this are described in the brilliant book Laughter Calls Me by Catherine Brown.  More proof, if it is needed, that abused children rarely speak up comes courtesy of the thirty years of undetected abuse committed by Geoffrey Robert Dobbs, who was dubbed “Australia’s worst paedophile” who, despite being a “missionary”, and “Sunday school teacher, church youth leader and ‘highly regarded’ church member” was sent to prison for life for abusing 62 young girls.  The full extent of his crimes is far too vast to relate here, yet he was only caught by accident rather than by any of his victims reporting him.

Of course, some children are tragically left in no position to speak out even if they are prepared to:

“LOWE Robert Arthur Selby, 57, Melbourne Sunday school teacher and Presbyterian church elder. Receives life jail sentence in Melbourne Supreme Court after being convicted of kidnapping and choking to death girl, aged 6, …. Court hears Lowe, who attended Rowville Presbyterian Church, killed ‘for sexual purposes’. …. In 1997, report lists Lowe as one of [the Australian state of Victoria’s] top 4 sex fiends.”

For a set of indicators that a child is being abused, please see this footnote.

(4) ‘LEADERS’

With the chilling amounts of paedophile activity in the world today, it would be wrong to suppose that no-one in a ‘leadership’ role in a church, whether in youth ministry or elsewhere, could ever slide into molesting a child.  After all, people in positions of authority and trust have a lot more opportunities to abuse than most.  And since it is the ‘leaders’ who have allowed the problems described in this article to enter the Christian church, they can hardly be relied upon to have self-control and good judgement.

Here are three of the ways in which apostate churches end up encouraging those in ‘leadership’ roles to commit paedophile acts.

Incidence Increased Through Complacency

‘God would never let it happen here’
A charity specializing in the field of averting paedophile attacks within the professing Christian church has remarked, “We have long said that churches can be some of the most dangerous places that a child can go to, if those in charge do not take protection issues seriously …. This is because, unlike any other organisation, churches open their doors to all. They would be foolish, therefore, to ignore the possibility that they could have sex offenders in their congregations.”  Sadly, many elders today are indeed foolish.  If God allowed King David’s own daughter to be raped (2 Sam. 13:14), and if even the apostle Paul was placed in peril by false brothers (2 Cor. 11:26), it is arrogant in the extreme to think one’s church is ever immune from Satan’s attacks.  This sort of complacency is one of the very things that enables abusers to operate.

Some elders insist, ‘God will protect our children!’  God will certainly protect our young children spiritually, but if He always protects them physically, why did He fail to look after little Victoria Climbie or any of the other children who have suffered unspeakable abuse within ‘evangelical’ settings?

Delays in acting

The fact that churches can obtain financial insurance against being sued as a result of paedophile activities means that some elders are tempted to become complacent, soothed by the knowledge that their fellowship is fiscally insulated from the problem.  They can lose sight of the fact that their primary responsibility is child protection rather than monetary cover.  (Some apostate elders seem to implement only the minimum safeguards they are legally required to, presumably out of fear that introducing man-made safeguards will expose their own lack of discernment – i.e. their gross inability to spot potential abusers.)  Most churches are not being proactive, and elderships often do not take this issue seriously until some catastrophe actually strikes.  As one expert in this field has noted, “it is very worrying if it takes a major tragedy to jolt some out of complacency”.

Letting teenagers have positions of authority over children

Some churches are asking for trouble by encouraging very young adults, and even teenagers, to take positions of trust and responsibility.  In an apostate church, this is an absolute recipe for disaster.

“Terry Eads, a church youth pastor of Evergreen Alliance Church, was sentenced to prison for raping a 4-year-old boy … Eads, 18, hung his head through the sentencing … Said the boy’s father, Eads ‘raped my son with me in the house. He raped my son in our church’ probably 40 times, the tearful father said. … The abuse lasted for two years, from 2000-02 when Eads was 15-17 years old and the boy was 4-6.”

Incidence Increased Through Elders Covering Up Abuse

Even when elders learn of abuse, they frequently cover it up – because its existence reflects badly on them.  Many elders lack humility and want to be seen as infallible.  They will therefore not be terribly keen for congregants to discover that their eldership was so far from infallible as to allow a paedophile to sexually abuse the fellowship’s children.

Elders are covering up all sorts of serious sins within their churches, especially sexual sins.  One researcher recently said, “You would be shocked to know the number of sexual incidents in the [evangelical] church that have been ignored or covered-up in the last ten years.”

All such cover-ups tend to promote abuse.  One reason is that, if a church covers up a serious sin, and if the cover-up gets known (or even just suspected) within parts of the congregation, then those members who are tempted towards paedophilia will feel emboldened to try abusing kids.  They will imagine that, even if they get caught, there is an excellent chance their crimes will be covered up too.  Holy Scripture warns, “Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil” (Eccl. 8:11).

Cover-ups promote further abuse for a second reason, viz, it lets the perpetrator continue what he or she is doing, either at the same church or at a different one.  Since the average perpetrator is said to molest between 12 and 77 children, readers will see the true awfulness of covering up their deeds.  (Beyond all of this, if a young child is abused and manages to tell someone, then if the child’s report has no effect, why will the child bother notifying anyone of subsequent abuse suffered?)

By the way, if any readers don’t understand how elders can successfully cover up child abuse, it is relatively straightforward.  The parents are told a combination of the following:

If you take this to court, you’ll ruin the reputation of this fellowship – and many souls we might have saved will be lost.  You don’t want that on your conscience do you?, [But the fellowship almost certainly isn’t truly saving people anyway if it allowed this abuse to occur.  The fellowship is probably so leavened that it is beyond repair.  Besides, God only sends a person to Hell for their own sins, not for the failures of other people.  If we fail to bring the gospel to someone who would have accepted it, God will send someone else],
The perpetrator has repented and has agreed to undergo counselling, so it is your Christian duty to bear this burden and forgive him [But if we are not allowed to judge each other, how can the elder’s judge whether the perpetrator’s repentance is genuine or not?  And if the person’s name is not going to be added to the sex offenders register, how will other apostate churches know of the potential future risk?],
The Bible commands you not to take a brother to court [But again, if we are not allowed to judge each other, how can we know if the abuser is our brother??  Note too how elders will appeal to the Bible when it suits them and ignore it the rest of the time!]
Your child(ren) will find it very distressing to have to rehearse all the details of the abuse to the police and then to a court, only to have to repeat the court appearance if the case goes to appeal, so you will effectively be putting your child(ren) through the abuse all over again if you start criminal proceedings, [But this is a much better option than enabling the perpetrator to abuse again!]
If you agree not to take this matter further, we’ll give you a large amount of money (so you can treat your child(ren) to some lovely presents and some wonderful holidays to help make up for everything), [But the elders should be doing all they can to help the children recover, regardless of whether or not the parents take the matter further]
If you do attempt to take this matter further, we will be obliged to view it as an attack on the Body of Christ – in which case we will do everything in our power to make life as miserable for you as possible, such as telling the entire congregation all the compromising information we know about you, and encouraging them to shun you and your children, so it will be a lot better for you and your children just to let the matter rest.
Your agreeing to let the matter rest doesn’t mean the abuse is being ignored.  We promise to tighten our procedures to ensure such abuse is much less likely in the future [But this won’t stop the man moving to another church and carrying on his evil deeds there.  And it will mean the elders won’t have to answer for permitting the original abuse to occur.]

At the start of this whole article I pointed out that only a fraction of cases of abuse get uncovered. But thanks to apostate elders, only a fraction of the cases uncovered get reported to the police.  In other words, the hundreds of cases that can be found on the Internet don’t comprise the tip of the iceberg after all.  They only comprise the top of the tip of the iceberg.  And this fact itself facilitates abuse, for it hides the true extent of the problem and thus encourages complacency.

Incidence Increased Through Elders Being Abusers

If an elder is an abuser, he (or she, in today’s androgynous churches) may prompt others to abuse.  After all, such an elder is very likely to introduce teachings and practices that help keep their own sexual activities from being uncovered.  This obviously makes it easier for other elders to abuse.

Beyond this, an elder who is an abuser may knowingly permit others in ‘leadership’ roles to abuse – especially if those others find out about the elder’s activities (e.g. as a result of the privileged access to the ‘leadership’ that those in positions of authority in a church habitually enjoy).  This becomes especially serious when we consider that multiple abusers can act as ‘look outs’ for each other – and can defend the reputations of each other if one of them falls under suspicion – which would make discovery of what is happening far trickier.

I cannot yet prove it, but I would not be enormously surprised to learn that Terry Eads, the young man who repeatedly sodomized that boy, got away with it for years because his ‘pastor’ was also abusing children:

“Garry Toavs, 58, pleaded guilty to molesting a girl, in separate court hearings Thursday. Toavs, pastor of Evergreen Alliance Church [the same church as Eads], was originally charged with sexual offenses with two girls, ages 12 and 5. In exchange for his guilty plea, one of the charges was dropped.”

WHAT’S MORE

Almost unbelievably, it gets worse.

Danger Increased Through Expecting Many Converts

The Bible clearly declares, “strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and FEW there be that find it” (Matt. 7:14).  Scripture also states that, if God doesn’t shorten the last days before the return of Christ, the situation for believers will be so dire that “NO flesh should be saved” (Mark 13:20).  Despite these passages, and numerous others in Daniel; Revelation; Jude; 2 Thessalonians; and elsewhere, many churches today are taught that the world is going to get ever more Christian before the Second Coming.  For at least five different reasons, this error substantially increases the likelihood of paedophilic activity in those churches which preach it:

Cultic atmosphere

The idea that the true Church will get very large (and very powerful in a temporal – e.g. political – sense), tempts churches to do anything necessary to grow numerically so that they can feel they are part of the true Church of God.  The overriding desire for numbers and influence rather than holiness and godliness leads to appalling compromises.  In particular it encourages congregants to follow their ‘leaders’ blindly, which engenders a cultic atmosphere.  This tempts apostate elders into abusing their excessive power – and therefore potentially abusing children in the fellowship.

(A cultic atmosphere also enables elders to make congregants believe that people can be saved by obedience to the eldership.  This can tempt paedophiles within the church to fool themselves into thinking they will still be spiritually okay if they abuse kiddies – so long as they ‘make up for it’ by being an otherwise devoted member of the organization.)

Cover up

As we saw in section 3 above, elders tend to cover up any scandals on the basis that it would damage the reputation of their church.  A false end-time outlook exacerbates this problem and leads some people to believe that damaging the reputation of the Christian Church could actually delay the return of Christ.  An unquestioning atmosphere not only helps elders to abuse children but it also assists them in covering up abuse by others.

Salvation assumed

If believers imagine that the Christian Church is taking the nations for Christ, such believers will understandably assume that the vast majority of the people who want to join their fellowship are indeed saved.  What few tests might otherwise have been performed to check on the genuineness of any professed conversion will thus be even fewer, opening the door even wider to predatory paedophiles.  (If the fellowship’s evangelism produces little fruit, the fellowship will grasp hold of the small number of ‘converts’ it does manage to get and be less interested still in checking up on their sincerity.)

Damages discernment

A false end-time view attacks a person’s discernment and therefore weakens his ability to identify abuse or recognize trends in a fellowship that could foster abuse.  It attacks discernment in two ways.  Firstly it distances the person from truth – and therefore distances them from God and His protection.  Secondly, it means everything in the fellowship will get viewed through rose-tinted spectacles (i.e. any suspicious activity will be interpreted in the best possible light and therefore not be followed-up appropriately).

Lowers standards

The belief that the world is getting ever more Christian is sure to undermine godly standards of behaviour, for if the world is getting more sexually depraved, and yet is simultaneously becoming more Christian, it can only mean that God is relaxing His position on sexual sin!

Conclusion

For any reader who doesn’t agree that the above things follow from such an end-time outlook, I would encourage them to investigate the goings on among the ‘leadership’ at Earl Paulk’s so-called “Cathedral of the Holy Spirit”.

The end-time view that says the Church of Christ is going to dominate the world before Christ’s return is actually a key driver behind many of the problems discussed in this article.  This is one reason why gaining a sound understanding of biblical prophecy, far from being unwise, is very important.  Many of us are today being told that we should avoid studying what the Bible says about the future because it causes division (an argument which again harks back to the unbiblical notion that unity and influence are more important than truth and holiness).  But hopefully this article has demonstrated the damage which occurs through not studying what God’s Word has to say on this matter.

Danger Increased Through Unclean Spirits

A large number of apostate churches today imagine they are in God’s will because they enjoy ecstatic physiological experiences that they interpret as being a blessing from God.  For many reasons it can be shown that these experiences are not caused by the Holy Spirit, but by unclean spirits.  In all manner of ways, these ‘sensual’ experiences pose yet another threat to the safety of children.

For a start, they cause reduced self-control – which is hardly going to help those people who are struggling with paedophilic thoughts.  They also cause drug-like effects, making children more vulnerable.  They can cause feelings of arousal and/or a desire to disrobe, either of which could encourage problems to occur.  (Also they can lead to sexually provocative behaviour which, when occurring in children, could sexualize them.)  I have lost count of the number of churches which accepted the ‘Toronto Blessing’ only to find that standards of behaviour among recipients not only failed to improve but actually fell.  Latent paedophilia is more, not less, likely to become active as a result of this spirit being dispensed.

These unclean spirits help promote child sex abuse in further ways.  Firstly, they lead churches to suppose that, as long as someone displays a few of these physical manifestations (e.g. laughing raucously; falling on their backs for no reason; or jerking violently) then they are being touched by the Holy Spirit (if not actually baptized in Him) and thus that such people are probably saved.  On this basis, all a predatory paedophile has to do is mimic one or two of these things and they will be accepted into the fold with open arms.  Secondly, if genuine seekers receive an unclean spirit and manifest it then they may well gain the impression they are saved when they aren’t – which means they will be at far greater risk of re-offending.  Finally, unclean spirits reduce the discernment of all who receive them.  After all, an evil spirit will generally want to protect active paedophiles – so that they can hurt God’s People as much as possible.

Danger Increased Through Managing the Symptoms

A worrying trend, even among people who have recognized the risks of paedophile attacks within their churches (or whose fellowships have themselves suffered such attacks), is that elders are merely trying to reduce the opportunities for abuse rather than seek to tackle the underlying problem.

Even where child protection policies are in place, they depend on churches trusting paedophiles to abide by the commitments they make, such as ‘refusing hospitality from families unaware of their past’.  (Of course, such agreements also depend on elders being aware that a given person is a paedophile.)  But this still leaves the paedophile unhealed and a constant risk to the church and to the local community.  This patently doesn’t represent the best solution, especially if we believe in a God who can do all things.

For God’s solution, churches need to get back to the Bible.  They need to stop claiming Holy Writ to be impractical.  (After all, it was written by our very Creator.)  I humbly suggest they also need to put right the issues I have highlighted in this article.

There is one additional piece of advice I would like to offer.  Now, please be aware that I am not a doctor.  Nor am I an accredited sociologist.  Readers must understand that I am just giving my personal perspective.  But it is clear that this explosion of paedophilia in our society must have an explanation.  I accept there are several contributory factors, but I make the following comment as one possible way of helping fellowships reduce the paedophilic tendency in their congregants…

Immediately preceding the huge growth we have recently seen in paedophilia, both society and apostate evangelicalism encouraged women to be more strident, less feminine, less submissive, and generally less like the great women of God in the Bible.  How many Christian women today act with as much sweetness, grace and patience as Hannah did in 1 Sam. 1:8-19?  (Other relevant passages include Titus 2:3-5; 1 Pet. 3:1-9; and Eph. 5:22-24.)  This lack of biblical femininity is a turn-off for many men and I fear it encourages those males with a tendency toward paedophilia to target their sexual drive at younger girls who have not become so hardened.  (Of course, we men must carry our share of the blame for this, because we have moved a long away from God’s ideal of a true man of God, and our womenfolk have understandably thus attempted to compensate for the lack of masterful, Christlike headship from us.)

CONCLUSIONS

Many of the points in this article also apply to other types of abuse, whether sexual or otherwise and whether committed against children or vulnerable adults.  And all varieties of abuse seem to be growing in apostate evangelical circles.

Although the dramatic rise in child abuse within fellowships who have strayed from God’s Word vindicates those of us who have been trying to alert our brethren to the dangers of doing so, I take no pleasure in this fact.  It is a tragedy for countless innocent children.  Apart from the physical and psychological damage such attacks cause, it can easily also lead to drug abuse; homosexual tendencies; and serious suicidal thoughts; among other problems.  Churches are even at risk of producing children who turn into child molesters themselves in later life, as abuse breeds abuse.

The next time someone tells you, “Don’t criticize my church – at least we’re bringing people in”, readers may like to reply, “Sure, but what are those people doing to your children?”  Next time someone tries to side-step your concerns about their doctrine by saying, “How many people have you converted in the last month?” you may want to consider a response like, “How many children have you exposed to paedophiles in that time?”  And when someone ignores your correction because they deem it ‘divisive’, why not point out that churches are regularly being blown apart as a direct result of elders committing, or trying to cover up, child sex abuse.

Lastly

I have not pulled any punches in this article.  I have laid things on the line quite bluntly.  This article is aimed at folks who already know and love their Bible, so I have not provided many of the Scripture references I might otherwise have inserted.  (Besides, a book I have co-authored already supplies them.)  For space, I’ve also had to leave out details of many of the instances of abuse I’ve come across.  The problem is that believers who have a wrong view of the end-times, and who have imbibed the false spirits being dispensed today, are going to find it very hard to cope with a document of this style.  I therefore urge readers to be extremely prayerful and careful when considering passing this material on to someone in apostasy.  For more guidance, please see this footnote.

In closing, I shall quote our glorious Saviour.  On the topic discussed in this article, He declared:  “whoso shall receive one such little child in My name receiveth Me. But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in Me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea” (Matt. 18:5-6).  (Note: If this is what God thinks regarding the activities of paedophiles, is it not likely that He is also more than a little angry about those souls who facilitate the evil acts of such people?)

Thank you so much for pushing right through to the end of this long and distressing read.  May God bless you.

In this article I use the word ‘paedophilia’ (this is the UK spelling) in a wide sense – i.e. to mean sexual activity by an adult involving anyone under the age of consent.

The site is http://www.reformation.com.  It limits itself to Protestant ministers.  Most of these ministers would consider themselves evangelical.  At the time of going to press, the site had 838 entries in its database of reported instances of child molestation.

“An FBI bulletin estimates that only between 1 to 10 percent of child molestation incidents are disclosed, much less prosecuted or convicted.  An Emory University study indicates that only 3 percent of child molestation incidents are detected” [Christa Brown, citing  http://www.childluresprevention.com/research/molester.asp and … http://www.childluresprevention.com/research/statistics.asp .

The website is called http://www.StopBaptistPredators.org and it supplies many instances of criminal charges, court convictions and confessions.  It also supplies much useful material on this whole topic of child abuse.

Clay Jones, Interviewed by Bill Cooper of christianet.com, July 26th 2007.
My disclaimer, largely derived from the work of Christa Brown:  This article is for informational purposes only.  It does not offer any form of advice or recommendation.  It should not be construed as providing either legal advice or mental health advice.  You are responsible for any actions you may take based on information you obtain from this article.  In using information provided in this article, you agree to hold Dusty Peterson and Moriel Ministries harmless and blameless in all circumstances.  Use of this article constitutes your understanding and acceptance of these terms.  (Some information in this article may be upsetting for some survivors.  If you are an abuse survivor who is prone to suicidal thoughts you are asked to read no further.)

Jean Guccione and Richard Winton, ‘24 Child Molesters Released’, Los Angeles Times, July 24th 2003.  Despite having pleaded no contest, Sabala had to be released due to a shocking high court ruling on delayed prosecutions.

Tasker had pleaded guilty to some of the charges.  He appealed against the others and was found not guilty on some of them.  Details can be found at  http://www.clergyabuseaustralia.org/perpsqz.htm
Associated Press, June 12th 1999.
Kenosha News, July 17th 1994.

‘Abominations’, posted March 8th 2006 at  http://www.aboms.com/archives/003712.html

Mark Mullins, ‘Honouring the Late Frank Houston’, Contending Earnestly for the Faith, June 2007, pp. 3-4, at  http://www.christian-witness.org/pdf/CETF40P3-4.pdf

‘Baptist Scandals: Missouri case shows Southern Baptist patterns in failing to protect kids’, at  http://www.stopbaptistpredators.org/scandals/greenwood.html

Dana Willhoit, ‘Youth Minister Arrested on Sex Charges’, The Ledger, Nov. 4th 2007, at  http://www.stopbaptistpredators.org/article07/marshal_seymour.html

For more about this, see Part 4 of a book I have co-authored called Alpha – the Unofficial Guide: Church.  It is available through Moriel.For details, see the article The Powers Behind the Alpha Course: The Powerful Spirit, freely available from the ‘Rubies’ section of bayith.org.

For a detailed discussion of this point, see Part 3 of a book I’ve co-authored called Alpha - the Unofficial Guide: World.  This volume is stocked by Moriel.  (Other outlets are listed on the bayith.org website.)

Evangelistic courses are especially problematic here, for they are often made as therapeutic and enjoyable as possible, which can lead to a feeling of euphoria and general well-being that is being interpreted as conversion by attendees when it is isn’t.

See for example John Cornwell, The Pope in Winter (Viking, 2004), pp. 151, 177, 218-33, 253-4.

This UK statistic from CCPAS was reached by finding the “number of adults admitting to unreported sexual offences against them as children and the number of cases reported to the police actually reaching the court”.
http://www.glennbeck.com/news/08222007b.shtml

 IMPORTANT NOTE:  I am not advocating any reduction in the age of consent.  Far from it!  Whatever the physiological situation may be, modern society ensures that teenagers are not emotionally ready to deal with sex or its potential results.

Use of relative words like “immoral” do not help either, for some paedophiles genuinely believe what they do to be moral.  (For this reason, redefining the word “righteousness” to mean “right relationships” is also unwise.)

Biblically, females should “adorn themselves in modest apparel” (1 Titus 2:9) rather than in the tight and/or stripey and/or see-through and/or skimpy clothing so prevalent today and so problematic to red-blooded males.  When churches fail to teach their children to dress modestly, those members with paedophile tendencies aren’t helped to withstand temptation.
The New Age movement teaches there are no propositional truths, i.e. that there are no absolutes.  This would mean that what is true for one congregant isn’t necessarily true for another.  A latent paedophile could reason that it may well be ‘wrong’ for some people to abuse children, but it doesn’t follow that it is wrong for everyone.  Sadly, numerous evangelical churches today are directly linked to New Agers.  (Note too that the New Age teaches there is no such thing as sin.  For proof, see Berit Kjos, ‘Deceived by a counterfeit “Jesus”: The twisted “truths” of The Shack & A Course in Miracles’, Feb. 14th 2008, available at  http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/08/shack.htm

This is also a problem because many paedophiles would characterize what they do as “fun”.

These quotes are being drawn from a well-known evangelistic course.
Details are given at:  http://www.ccfaa.com/content.php?fcn=mediadetails&id=5

Reformation.com.
See page 5 of the online CCPAS booklet Safe and Secure, as at  http://www.ccpas.co.uk/Documents/Help!%20sex%20offender.pdf

Although a popular phrase in apostate circles, the word ‘leader’ is put in quotation marks in this article because it is not actually used in sound translations of the New Testament.  Although elders should be treated in a very respectful manner – because they have a crucial role to play in watching over a Fellowship – it is the Lord who should lead us.  As Psalm 23 famously begins, “The LORD is my Shepherd ... He leadeth me...”.  The very way in which some elders try to gain excessive influence over the flock of God is a major route by which paedophilic attacks can occur.

http://www.ccpas.co.uk/Documents/PR%2013th%20April%202006.doc

Daily Interlake, Nov. 22 2002 http://www.reformation.com/CSA/eads1.htm.  It is appropriate to observe at this juncture that children (especially teenagers) are prone to sexually abusing younger children.  Their very age means they are extremely well placed to access other children, both in formal youth work situations and outside of them.

It is worth noting that every assembly in the New Testament had multiple, co-equal elders rather than one person at the top of the pile.  For obvious reasons, the latter is a much more dangerous arrangement when it comes to child safety.
Clay Jones, op. cit.
http://www.stopbaptistpredators.org/alarmingnumbers.html

Even if the police do become involved, and even if the perpetrator is charged, this still doesn’t necessarily stop elders attempting to limit the damage.  The eldership will often do all they can to get the perpetrator acquitted.  (Where there is no hope of this, a suspicious number of perpetrators are dying before their case ever gets to court.  If child rape is not beyond some apostate church elders today, why should adult murder be?  After all, ‘leaders’ among God’s People murdered Old Testament prophets, as well as Stephen (Acts 6-7) and indeed Christ Himself.)

Daily Interlake, Nov. 22 2002, http://www.reformation.com/CSA/eads1.htm .

For a much more complete proof that this teaching is mistaken, see Part 4 of the book Alpha – the Unofficial Guide: Church.

See the one-page chart entitled Twelve Telling Tests of the TE for a dozen of these reasons.  It is freely available from the ‘Rubies’ portion of the bayith.org website.  A much more extensive treatment of the subject is available in Part 5 of the book Alpha – the Unofficial Guide: Church.

They can also lead to feelings of heat, which could likewise prompt some disrobing.

It would be a gross error to believe that child sex abuse in our churches is the exclusive preserve of men.  This sort of assumption is yet another reason why paedophiles are going undetected.

See the report What Causes Homosexual Desire and Can it be Changed?, available from the website of the Family Research Institute.

The two-volume book is called Alpha - the Unofficial Guide.  It is available from Moriel.

I have co-authored a book designed to prepare apostates for the sort of material in this article.  It is called Alpha the Unofficial Guide: World.  See  http://www.bayith.org for outlets worldwide.  More advice about bringing correction to a brother can be found in the talk Full of Grace and Truth, an electronic transcript of which is freely available from the ‘Rubies’ section of the same site.