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 | By Frank Bruni Contributing Opinion Writer, New York Times |
The only thing that shocks me about the far-reaching and long-festering sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention is so many people’s shock. We should be smarter by now. We should know better. |
Men of God behave in ungodly ways. That’s not because they’re uniquely or especially evil. It’s because they’re men. |
Religious institutions countenance — and cover up — sin and even crime. That doesn’t mean they have any monopoly on hypocrisy. It means they’re institutions. |
On Sunday, the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, published the results of a third-party investigation into wrongdoing in its ranks. The nearly 300-page report documented hundreds of cases in which parishioners, many of them children, were allegedly abused by Baptist ministers and church employees over recent decades. It took grave issue with church officials’ response. |
And it described a pattern: Baptist leaders would silence accusers, protect offenders, repel lawsuits, evade public scrutiny and prioritize the denomination’s brand over its adherents’ souls. |
How cruelly and devastatingly familiar. My first book, “A Gospel of Shame” — which was written with a fellow journalist, published in 1993 and then updated and reissued in 2002 — examined decades of child sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests, and it found the same pattern. It explored many of the same themes, including the particular sway of pastors, who are seen as arbiters of morality and conduits to the divine, over those around them and the extreme damage done when that dynamic is exploited, that trust betrayed. |
The Catholic and Baptist crises are connected. They show what many lesser revelations and plenty of historical examples also do: There’s no church-state separation when it comes to malfeasance, no bold dividing line between spiritual and secular realms. Although religious groups demand that we put them in a special category and hold them in special regard, they’re not exempt from the rot around them. The predatory dimensions of human nature and the self-preserving instincts of corporate behavior don’t stop at the chapel door. |
I don’t observe and write that as any enemy of religion, though my coverage of the Catholic crisis led some critics to call me one. Religious groups are responsible for extraordinary acts of charity that would, in some instances, be unimaginable without them. They are sources of invaluable solace for people in search and need of it. I seriously appreciate that and strongly disagree with simplistic church-bashers who see only sanctimony among church leaders and churchgoers. |
I see much virtue. |
And I see much vice. |
The report that the Southern Baptist Convention released on Sunday validated and was obviously prompted by articles published in The Houston Chronicle and The San Antonio Express-News more than three years ago. So it wasn’t a complete surprise. But it was still big news — “The Southern Baptist Horror” was the headline of an article in The Atlantic by David French — and that’s in large part because we’re drawn, over and over, to the seemingly illogical, irreconcilable reality of houses of worship becoming theaters of degradation. |
There’s no contradiction there, only a lesson: We’re on dangerous ground when we outsource too much of our judgment to religious authorities and genuflect too readily before them. They’re as flawed as the rest of us. In sermons and homilies there are words of great wisdom and messages of profound grace, but the messengers cannot be instantly trusted or unconditionally obeyed — not when they seek to guide our political decisions and not when they invite themselves into parts of our private lives where they don’t belong. |
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