We anticipate posting by tomorrow morning an assessment of the right and wrong way Southern Baptists can report, vet, publish, and track serial abusers. Here’s one line from the introduction:
“Within a two mile radius of Parkview Baptist Church in Arlington, Tex. — now known as Parkview Fellowship — are more than 100 registered sex offenders. I will never forget the day two of them started attending Sunday morning Bible study and worship, or the Wednesday afternoon they sat in my office and confessed to me the incestuous relationships they’d had with their own children, who were by that time adults. A knot twisted in my gut; I struggled to keep my face from showing the disgust I felt. Seminary hadn’t trained me for this.”
Our church just published … or had it published … a business directory. It features tradesmen who have signed up, with details I do not know. But there is the tacit … or perhaps overt … recommendation of the church.
It seems strange that, while I’ve heard of churches doing this, telling us where good guys are doing business, individually and collectively we seem unable to tell our folks where bad guys are committing crimes against children.