Child Molesting Deacon Charged, SNAP Responds

SNAP
February 13, 2014

http://www.snapnetwork.org/il_child_molesting_deacon_charged_snap_responds

We are grateful a serial child molesting deacon at Fairview Heights' First Baptist Church has been caught and charged. But it's disingenuous for the minister to distance himself from the offender and call the offender a member instead of a deacon.

[St. Louis Post-Dispatch]

We have tremendous respect for law enforcement. But we're also troubled by a Shiloh police officer's assertion that he is “confident that none of these acts were committed at the First Baptist Church and that no other personnel at the church knew that the offenses were being committed.”

At best, it seems premature to say this. At worst, it seems unwise to make such a claim, instead of simply begging every person who saw, suspected or suffered child sex crimes by this minister to come forward.

Who knows what other victims, witnesses, whistleblowers or evidence may surface? We think it's best if police and prosecutors keep open minds and not rush to judgment and risk the chance that they'll later have to retract their statements exonerating current or former church staff.

And we hope that anyone who may have information or suspicions about these crimes will promptly report to secular officials, not church officials.