All bible quotes not otherwise marked are from The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016)
I am a member of a Southern Baptist Church so the news that came out recently about the cover up of abuse by leadership was especially disheartening. Some of those abused were accused of trying to harm the mission of Christ. The missionaries overseas would lose funding if the Southern Baptist leadership took this problem by the horns and exposed it.
I don’t mean to pick exclusively on my own people. The Kanakuk camp has had it’s problems and the Catholic church has many well documented instances of abuse. I believe their followers often gave some of the same excuses. I have definitely read that Kanakuk used such excuses.
I realize we all sin and a spirit of forgiveness should be given when people are truly repentant. Unfortunately, the evidence came out and only then has their been any signs of change so I am hesitant to call it repentance unless you mean they regret getting caught. I would also expect a full repentance were forgiveness is sought from the people that have been sinned against. So far there is mostly silence from that quarter though I won’t say it’s universal.
Let’s examine the excuse again: the mission of God is vitally important and as a result a cover up is necessary. God’s plan will not succeed without sin. Sounds kind of ridiculous doesn’t it? God doesn’t need us to sin to protect His plan.
Psalm 33:11
But the plans of the LORD stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations.The Holy Bible: New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1984), Ps 33:11.
God knows the future. God’s plans are never endangered. We are to remain faithful to God’s will and the plan will proceed as God plans.
Proverbs 3:5-6
Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.
We are to trust in the Lord. We are not to decide God can’t handle it and we must sin to see His plan through.
What happened with some of these leaders is they forgot who was in control. They started to lean on their own understanding. They failed to acknowledge who was God and who was in control. Instead they decided to sin to help God. God does not sin nor does He need sin to carry out His plan.
What does the bible say about concealing sin?
Proverbs 28:13
Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.
When we encounter sin in our own community we must expose it and restore those people if possible. God says what to do. First, no position of authority is owned. If someone sins in such a position, it is best that at least for some time they step down. It also does not mean the consequences of the law do not apply. In fact, we are to cooperate with the law.
Romans 13:1-7 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 4 for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7 Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.
Take special note of the fact that he does not bear the sword in vain. We are to submit to the authorities in all things unless it goes against what God tells us to do.
Isaiah 1:17 Learn to do right; seek justice. Defend the oppressed. Take up the cause of the fatherless; plead the case of the widow.
The New International Version (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011), Is 1:17.
We are also to seek justice. These poor abused women and in some cases young men were the vulnerable. They came to leadership seeking justice. They were the oppressed. They had no strong advocates.
So what happened? Those who should have been following the verse in Isaiah failed to follow it. They protected the powerful, the institution, instead of protecting the vulnerable. One principle we should always consider in any situation is who is most vulnerable. We need to be especially careful in protecting those people’s interests. I’m not saying the vulnerable are always right but we need to be protective in discerning the truth. In the cases mentioned above the vulnerable were those who had been wronged. They needed the powerful to defend them but no one answered the call.
As Christians we are not supposed to have any allegiance higher than to God which in most cases is represented by His teachings in the bible. We can have some allegiance to our denomination and some to our church but we are very much called to do the right thing even when those institutions fail. So many people had an opportunity here to step forward. The victims very much were fighting for justice but were was everyone else during this time?
At some point Jesus wants sinners to repent. That is true for those in the faith as well as those outside the faith. We need to recognize we have done wrong. We all face sin every day but when we allow sin to persist that still small voice becomes harder and harder to hear. In the SBC, the sin was allowed to persist for far too long. These leaders had become deaf to God. They should truly repent.
Thank you for reading. There will be more God willing. I love you all. I pray God blesses your mission.