re: Houston Chronicle Article on Southern Baptist Sexual Abuse 

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21 year old volunteers as assistant youth minister, bangs 16-17 year old, qualifies for this list? I guarantee that a large percentage of these sexual abuse cases are similar to that scenario, as opposed to a 40 year old priest sodomizing 12 year old boys.

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I guarantee they are not (based on insurance company settlement numbers), but you keep hating the Catholic Church and sticking your head in the sand about Protestants. Self righteous won’t ever accept their own problems.

I don’t hate the Catholic Church. I was raised Southern Baptist, but I no longer put myself among their number. I believe in a personal relationship with Christ that doesn’t depend upon a particular religion. There are bad people in every corner of organized religion. There are good people, too. You won’t see me condemning any Christian based on his religion, unlike y’boy on the previous few pages calling ALL Protestants heretics.

I wonder how powerful Christianity would be if it were more united.

All institutional religions are nothing more than man made socially sanctioned cults. There is no “right” religion. They all point to a deeper spiritual truth. Finding that deeper truth is the key. Dogmatic beliefs are just a red herring to keep people in servitude to the religious hierarchy. But keep arguing amongst yourselves. That’s how they keep the us vs them paradigm going.

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How many times is Catholicism mentioned in the book Catholics wrote?

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It's not but that means absolutely nothing. Especially when you consider the fact that the term "Catholic" was first recorded as having been used by Ignatius of Antioch - a disciple of John the Apostle - sometime around the year AD 107. Ignatius is said to have sat on the lap of Jesus when he was a small child and was ordained a bishop of the church of Antioch by Peter himself. In his Letter to Smyrnaeans, Ignatius said this:

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See that you all follow the bishop, even as Jesus Christ does the Father, and the priest as you would the apostles; and reverence the deacons, as being the institution of God. Let no man do anything connected with the Church without the bishop. Let that be deemed a proper Eucharist, which is administered either by the bishop, or by one to whom he has entrusted it. Wherever the bishop shall appear, there let the multitude of the people also be; even as wherever Jesus Christ is, there is the Catholic Church.

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And in his letter (once again written around AD 107), he didn't launch into an explanation as to what the Catholic Church was as if he had invented the term. He rolled right on through as if his audience had an understanding of what he meant. Which tells us that Christians had been calling themselves Catholics before AD 107 and quite possibly before the turn of the century.

You have to remember, the New Testament was being written at a time when doctrine and dogmas were being developed. It wasn't until AD 49 - at the Council of Jerusalem - that Christians completely threw off the last vestiges of Judaism when they decreed that Gentiles need not be circumcised. And that was almost 20 years after the death of Christ.

It's not until AD 95 and the writings of St. Clement to the Corinthians that we begin to see the development of the papacy and the importance of the bishop of Rome over the whole Christian church. By AD 180, when you read Irenaeus's words in his tome Against Heresies, you see the papacy and the primacy of the bishop of Rome almost fully formed when he tells his audience that all Christians should obey decrees from the church in Rome as that church has primacy over all others.

Religious authority and abuse seem to be correlated.

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t is great to see criminals actually charged with the crimes they committed, regardless of religion.

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While I agree with that sentiment, it wasn't always followed by the SBC either. The article has several examples of deposed pastors being allowed back into ministry.

1) "Patterson responded forcefully, writing in 2008 that he "forced Gilyard to resign his church" and "called pastors all over the USA and since that day (Gilyard) has never preached for any Southern Baptist organization."

"In fact, Gilyard preached after his Texas ouster at various churches, including Jacksonville's First Baptist Church, which was led by former SBC President Jerry Vines. It was there that Tiffany Thigpen said she met Gilyard, who she said later "viciously" attacked her."

2) "The youth minister resigned, after which the deacon and others began looking through a Myspace account that he had while employed at the church. On it, the deacon found messages "that the police should have," he said.

"The deacon said he provided the Georgia State Baptist Convention with evidence that the youth minister should be barred from working in churches.

"The youth minister who Pittman and Harrell say abused them still works at an SBC church in Georgia. The church's lead pastor declined to say if he was ever made aware of the allegations, though Pittman provided emails that show he reached out to the pastor repeatedly."

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the Baptists put their predators in jail

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Not all of them.

The Southern Baptists have replied, and I think they have done a good job of addressing it head on:

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Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) President J.D. Greear said he is “broken over what was revealed today.” “The abuses described in this @HoustonChron article are pure evil,” Greear stated in a series of tweets after the article was released. “I join with countless others who are currently ‘weeping with those who weep,'” Greear stated on Twitter, voicing resolve to mobilize the SBC in “stopping predators in our midst.” “The voices in this article should be heard as a warning sent from God, calling the church to repent,” Greear tweeted. “As Christians, we are called to expose everything sinful to the light. The survivors in this article have done that — at a personal cost few of us can fathom.”

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and this...

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Greear also tweeted: — “There can simply be no ambiguity about the church’s responsibility to protect the abused and be a safe place for the vulnerable. The safety of the victims matters more than the reputation of Southern Baptists.” — “As a denomination, now is a time to mourn and repent. Changes are coming. They must. We cannot just promise to ‘do better’ and expect that to be enough. But today, change begins with feeling the full weight of the problem…. It’s time for pervasive change. God demands it. Survivors deserve it. We must change how we prepare before abuse (prevention), respond during disclosure (full cooperation with legal authorities), and act after instances of abuse (holistic care).” — “We — leaders in the SBC — should have listened to the warnings of those who tried to call attention to this. I am committed to doing everything possible to ensure we never make these mistakes again…. We must admit that our failures, as churches, put these survivors in a position where they were forced to stand alone and speak, when we should have been fighting for them. Their courage is exemplary and prophetic. But I grieve that their courage was necessary.” — “The Baptist doctrine of church autonomy should never be a religious cover for passivity towards abuse. Church autonomy is about freeing the church to do the right thing — to obey Christ — in every situation. It is a heinous error to apply autonomy in a way that enables abuse.” D. August Boto, interim president of the SBC Executive Committee, said in an interview with the Chronicle that the newspaper is “not the opponent of the Southern Baptist Convention.” “You’re helping us. I’m all for shining the light of day upon crime,” Boto said.

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You can read the article here: The Alabama Baptist

Whole lotta WASP crawfishing goin on upinhya