Boz Tchividjian shocks those who aren't paying attention

Billy Graham's grandson takes to the HuffPo to make the "shocking" claim that sex abuse is worse among evangelicals than among Roman Catholics.

I have a few thoughts about such a claim.

1) Would anyone care about his assertion if he didn't have the grandfather he has? Would HuffPo feature this interview?

2) How is he defining "evangelical"? Does that include Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, and groups that basically qualify as cults? What about Church of Christ, who holds the heretical view that water baptism is a pre-requisite for justification?

3) Does he mean sex abuse of children or is he including, say, married pastors committing adultery with other women in his flock?

4) The main reason for "pointing" (as Tchividjian puts it) to Roman Catholics is not that Roman Catholics commit acts of sexual abuse. Who could deny that professing Protestants , or yes, "evangelicals", have done the same?
Rather, the main problem has been that unlike Protestant churches, the Roman Catholic Church claims to be unified under the Pope and Magisterium, to have a holy hierarchy and government, to be the One True Church that Jesus founded, preserved by God all the way from then to today, and that this hierarchy and government has not only ignored but indeed actively protected and hidden men who were known to be gross sexual predators.
Unless and until some grand sex-abuse-concealment conspiracy among numerous different "evangelical" organisations or churches or denominations, what we have chez evangelicalism is an example of bad apples in a large basket, rather than a rotten root. (And no, I'm not denying that the number of apples  is probably quite high.)

The closest parallel to Rome mentioned in the article is probably the missions agencies, who allegedly systematically move and hide known sexual predators. If this is true, those predators need to be called to repent by their church and prosecuted for their crimes, and if they will not repent, they should be excommunicated by their church while under prosecution. The missions agency should fire them, obviously, instead of hiding them. That's a no-brainer.

And for the record, given my experiences with a very large missions organisation whose name rhymes with Shminternational Gission Toard, it would not surprise me in the slightest to learn that many people within that agency are guilty as Tchividjian contends. The hierarchy of that particular place has a well-earned reputation for hiding and ignoring sin, and sin has a way of getting too big for the leash you try to put on it.

Regardless of what definition he is using of "evangelical" and his misunderstandings of the actual issues at hand with the Roman priest abuse scandal, I applaud Tchividjian's efforts and his shining a light on this dark place. Far too many in the evangelical and Reformed world seem to think that calling sinners and possible false converts to repentance in the hopes of reconciling them to God and to their neighbor(s) is bad and sinful, that it's "talking smack about the Bride of Christ". They could not be more wrong and it would be hard to imagine how it could be more self-serving.

It's still in today's news

Pope Seeks Forgiveness Over Abuse

VATICAN CITY—Pope Benedict XVI on Friday asked for forgiveness from God and from victims of sex abuse, pledging to do "everything possible" to prevent future abuse.

Speaking at a Mass marking the close of an international conference of priests, the pope said the Catholic Church had to do a better job of vetting candidates for the priesthood. He also dropped his practice of referring to abuse indirectly when speaking publicly about the crisis.

"The sins of priests came to light—particularly the abuse of the little ones," the pope said. "We, too, insistently beg forgiveness from God and from the persons involved, while promising to do everything possible to ensure that such abuse will never occur again."

The remarks stopped short, however, of the personal apology that victims' groups had expected the pope to issue in response to criticism of his handling of sex-abuse cases in Germany and as head of the Vatican's disciplinary office. Nor did Pope Benedict address what many victims say allowed the scandal to fester: The church hierarchy's decades-long practice of covering up abuse.

"The Pope still ignores the crux of the crisis—the ongoing recklessness, deceit and callousness of bishops who, even now, protect predators instead of children," said Barbara Blaine, president of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.

After the crisis exploded this year, the Vatican initially described it as a campaign whipped up by the media. Over time, the Vatican has recognized that the church is to blame for not stopping the abuse sooner.

So ... "Over time, the Vatican has recognized that the church is to blame for not stopping the abuse sooner." I wonder what the reporter meant by this, and who precisely is being quoted here.

You know, in confession, you must confess everything, or it's not absolved. What, exactly, does Benedict think he is "apologizing" for? It's all so vague. It's back to "we're sorry for the sins of the sins of the children of the Church."

There's either an incredible double standard going on, or they're just not understanding this horrific crime that's being perpetrated by "bishops who, even now, protect predators instead of children."

"The pedophilia scandal has shocked us deeply, it's not easy," said Baptiste Loevenbruck, a 26-year-old candidate for the priesthood who traveled to the Vatican from France to attend the closing ceremonies with the pope. "What is most difficult is to know that priests themselves have persecuted the Church," he said.

Oh, the poor Church, the poor, poor Church.