A pedophile among us

[Melanie]

Originally Posted by Moriah
Sounds to me like you have not been spurring anyone on to do right, or else they are just not listening to you. Maybe they should be removed from the church until they repent.


Removal from church .....is excommunication, the denial of the solace of the church is what I understood what you said in the above statement.

Implying that I have not been spurring anyone to do right is a gross presumption sir. I do not spur anyone which to my mind is with harshness. Would you have me point an accusing finger at my neighbour ?

There are a number of Americans in the congregation and it has occured to me that there may be a misunderstanding of English and its use and comprehension in your culture and mine. If that is the case, I am sad to have misinterpreted you, on the other hand your comments certainly sound harsh and unforgiving.

 

[Earth Wind and Fire]

So what did the antagonists do with Jesus? Did they always treat him well? Did they always follow Him? My Bible says they will mistreat you too. One indicator that you are a follower is that you will have a following by those who Satan is trying to use. Churches are dealing with the spiritual domain of this world. I have seen people do things that would seem out of character in a church that they would never think of doing in the work place because their employer would terminate them.

And so what does have to do with anything? Did you review the attachment I posted earlier.... its evidence that some of the most heinous abusers of people & especially kids come from church people & pastors. Id advise you to go back to those "Religious Perverts" & address/ berate them before you convict me. Im sick of the "Holier than You" that people like you impose on people. Perhaps as a "Professional Religious," you are attempting to bolster your profession & your own career but I will tell you that you are doing a pathetic job of targeting the evil doer. All I see here from you is that the evil is just going to happen so deal with it. We as the laiety have a right to criticize you for your own laxity & negligence..... in fact I am livid.

Had the pastors in that church in Pennsylvania done the proper due diligence than no child would have been abused....are we forgetting about the children.....shall I tell you the full scope of the damage wrought because these pastors were too stupid to protect their own flock from the wolves. I personally believe what shocks these kids is that the ones they trusted most failed to protect them & seemingly condoned this behavior. I am not expecting children to ever do the work of Christ.... Jesus was put here purposefully to be persecuted & killed & resurrected for our salvation.....but anyone that persecutes a child should have a rock tied around his neck & thrown into the sea.

 

[Heavenly Pilgrim]

EW&F, I hear what you are saying and largely agree with you. That is exactly what they deserve. Although I do believe one can be completely forgiven and healed of such heinous sin, such a one should in a sense bear the scares of such sin in this world and especially in the Church, even as God made David bear the scars of his sin. David had a desire to build a temple, but God allowed him only to gather the materials.

One that is guilty of child abuse, should never be allowed to be placed in a position that such could happen again, within the Church that is. There are plenty that do not have such scars that would be more appropriate for such jobs.

On a similar topic, if I were a benevolent dictator I would not allow one divorced and remarried to lead a church or even act in the capacity of youth pastors or leaders, for much the same reasons, unless of course there was simply no others to fill a position, and then only temporary until a more suitable examples of one man one women for life individuals were available. If we have any hope of teaching our children that have not been involved in divorce and remarriage that God hates divorce, we are going to have to place a stigma as the Church once again on such behavior if we do not desire our children to follow in the same path. I know full well some may in fact be innocent victims, but even then, nothing condones directly remarriage even in those cases. Pandora's box of divorce remarriage has been open to the point that even in the Church divorce is running at least as high of a percentage as in the world. Whatever the Church is teaching and doing is entirely inadequate to send the proper message to our children of one man one women for life and that God hates divorce. We are so enthralled about trying to heal those caught up in divorce we have lost the real message to our teens, i.e., do NOT violate God's Word and do the things God says clearly He hates.

We have so polluted the Church with notions that not only coddle sin, but condone and propagate it by way of false notions as to what sin entails, to granting sin a license by altering the Scriptural penalty for sin via the false notions of loss of rewards etc., that we have all but lost our moral and Scriptural compass. Notions such as OSAS are at the very heart of the problem. We have seen illustrated even on this thread the total inability of some not only unable or unwilling to judge correctly when Scripture informs us to judge, and to understand that sin has and should have direct consequences, even in this present world and in the Church.

 

[Earth Wind and Fire]

[SIZE=3learly He hates. [/SIZE]

We have so polluted the Church with notions that not only coddle sin, but condone and propagate it by way of false notions as to what sin entails, to granting sin a license by altering the Scriptural penalty for sin via the false notions of loss of rewards etc., that we have all but lost our moral and Scriptural compass. Notions such as OSAS are at the very heart of the problem. We have seen illustrated even on this thread the total inability of some not only unable or unwilling to judge correctly when Scripture informs us to judge, and to understand that sin has and should have direct consequences, even in this present world and in the Church.

Brother....I will have to disagree with you on your evaluation of "Once Saved, always Saved" ....for example the church with the pedophile problem is principally an Arminian church who also doesn't hold to OSAS.

But I do believe what your saying about not coddling sin. Had the church simply identified this pervert & disallowed him free access to children this tragedy would have never happened. Further, as a sinner myself, I hold that sin is a solid reality in this world today & we are to take extra precaution against it as practicing Christians. Too often we think we can let our guards down, that we then neglect the Evil One & thats asking for trouble.