UNITED STATES
Associated Baptist Press
“Something’s terribly wrong when ESPN is calling for the truth, but the church remains silent.”
By Bob Allen
A lifelong Baptist who advocates on behalf of clergy sex-abuse victims says the media is doing more to promote healing and children’s safety than pastors who try to keep it out of the headlines.
Amy Smith, Houston representative of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, reacted to recent remarks by a Southern Baptist seminary president that church members should “just accept” wrong and injustice rather than taking church matters to civil authorities or the press.
“We don’t take matters before unbelievers,” Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary President Paige Patterson said in a chapel sermon Oct. 15. “What goes on in the church of God doesn’t go to the press.”
Patterson didn’t specify what kind of internal matters he meant, but critics termed his blanket statement ill-advised and potentially dangerous given evangelicals’ poor track record of mishandling reports of known or suspected criminal abuse in churches.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.