Given today’s increased awareness on abuse, more and more faith communities of all denominations are wrestling with these heavy questions and the resulting debates in local congregations can be intense. People often ask:

• Wouldn't Jesus extend grace and forgiveness? 

• Can't you tell when someone is truly repentant and safe to be around kids again? 

• Aren’t we called to love like Jesus did? 

• What does that look like in action? 

• Isn’t it cruel to tell someone they aren’t welcome to worship with the main group? 

• What about forgiveness? 

• Shouldn’t we show kindness instead of being harsh to those who have offended and said sorry?

All of these are valid questions that deserve being grappled with. Haphazard responses, or choosing to ignore the topic altogether, results in more children being molested by people they trusted.

If we are the ones ignoring the conversation, that's their blood on our hands. 
If we are the ones offering sloppy, half-hearted responses... we're just as guilty.

But refusing to face disturbing data and uncomfortable concepts breeds blind naïveté and irresponsible safety risks. 

So let’s process through some of the most common things people say, when they’re talking about whether or not sex offenders belong in church. 

>>

ASSUMPTION: We do background checks on all our children’s volunteers!
All our volunteers are vetted! We’re safe.

FACT: False.

Here are some reasons why: 

1. Background checks only catch offenders who are careless, stupid, or bold enough to have gotten caught and convicted. Background checks often miss offenders who were convicted in other states, counties, or provinces, depending on the type of check. 

2. Background checks may not reveal offenders who were originally charged with a high degree of child abuse or assault but who later pled guilty to lower charges in exchange for a lighter consequence, which often includes not being required to register as offenders. These legitimately convicted offenders may not show up on a routine background check. 

3. Even if background checks are done on those in the children's department of your organization, it doesn’t automatically mean other staff are equally vetted. Are your treasurer, receptionists, deacons, janitors, and everyone else given the same rigorous screening? Or can they use their position to access trusting children or families? 

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ASSUMPTION: "We allow sex offenders to attend our church, but we keep a close eye on them, and we don’t let them wander down the children’s wing."

FACT: It sounds nice, but it is not effective.

This approach appears to offer grace and understanding while still trying to make sure church is a safe place. Jimmy Hintonsays, "The statistics are alarming, no matter which study you look at. People who molest only have about a 3% chance of ever getting caught (Dr. Gene Abel)." 

Churches often ask a known offender to sign a memorandum of understanding or other private document promising behavioral compliance such as: 

• I will not go to the children's wing.

• I will not be alone with children.

• I will have a chaperone assigned to supervise me.

This does not work, on so many levels.

Grab my book Myths We Believe, Predators We Trust, co-authored with Daron Pratt,
and share it with a church leader you care about.

Think for a moment, about any of the thousand ways that allowing known sex offenders to attend your church while "keeping a close eye" on them, could go wrong.

Here are two:

1. Very often, volunteer chaperones are well-intentioned but undereducated. Sexual offenders are by nature extremely charming, extremely charismatic, extremely good with people in general. Even if a chaperone is thoroughly educated on how offenders groom and deceive, they are likely to be groomed themselves. 

2. A sex offender attending church is likely acting in violation of parole or other terms of release. Registries often include parole conditions such as: never be within so x feet of children, never speak to or make contact with minors, etc. If an offender tries to attend church, leaders may think, “great, this person wants to be in a faith-oriented environment, so we’re going to facilitate that for them.” And they don’t even realize they are aiding the offender's violation of parole terms or the conditions of release. 

It is crucial to check with an offender's parole officer immediately if you find out they are coming to church or any activities--in homes, off-campus activities--any of it. 

Imagine this scenario with me...

A church is doing everything they know to do, and they're doing it right. They’ve got a chaperone in place, they’ve drafted a memorandum of understanding where the offender signs that they won't be around children, the offender isn't volunteering or hanging out in the children’s wing, and church leadership is aware of the offender's presence. 

Believing they need to protect the offender's right to privacy--the leaders make no announcements at church--but they put safety precautions into place. 

Families in this congregation don’t know about the registered sex offender, they tend to assume that the chaperone is just a close pal and those two go everywhere together. They are blissfully unaware of the official chaperone relationship. Or maybe a few chaperones rotate, which makes it even harder to notice.

The average parent or child doesn’t put two and two together. 

During this phase the offenders, stays involved strictly with the adult side of church activities. After a few months, church leaders begin to relax. "We’ve got this under control, we have provided sufficient safety measures. He's never been seen to seek out opportunities to reoffend."

In the process, the offender becomes a familiar face in the congregation. Someone that parents, children, and teenagers are accustomed to seeing around. 

Now, what is to stop the offender from observing the children, teens, or vulnerable women in this congregation, singling out one or more who appear vulnerable--because predators choose targets--and then showing up at a community farmer's market, ball field, band practice, gardening club, YMCA, or swim meet?

Nothing. 

And all they have to do is name drop some of the fine, upstanding church folk who are happy to vouch for them, because uninformed familiarity breeds trust.

The offender can then easily insinuate themselves into an access role where people don’t know who they are, and then comfortably approach children from church, who will promptly trust them because at church this person is a familiar face. 

Presence at church, in many people’s minds, equals endorsement of trust in an individual’s character.

Those children, or their parents, are likely to think, “he’s from my church, he must be safe. I’ve seen him with someone I know.” So the offender is able to gain trusted access to future victims, because the church prioritized protecting their anonymity. 

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ASSUMPTION: Our leaders know the identity of the sex offenders in our community, but offenders have a right to privacy, so we don’t tell anyone in our congregation.

FACT: Perpetrators love to curry social capital with people in positions of power, in order to later provide cover and help silence victims who try to speak out. 

Perpetrators tend to be faithful. 
They tend to be likeable. 
They will become indispensable. 

They will do whatever it takes to ensure the enthusiastic support and loyal defense of their character, if any allegation arises. 

Merely having church leaders know a sex offender's identity is not enough to keep the congregation safe, because the offender will work diligently to cultivate a sense of loyalty and connection with those leaders. 

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ASSUMPTION: We have an offender in our congregation but he only had one victim and he was super sorry, and he wasn’t even convicted... so he was safe now, because he repented and there was only one victim.

FACT: There is almost never just one victim.

The average sex offender has between 50 and 150 victims before their first arrest, and many more afterward.

Why?

Because that first arrest rarely provides enough evidence to end in prosecution or conviction. (See Predators, by Anna C. Salter)

Fewer than 6 out of every 1000 rapists will even spend one day in jail. (RAINN) 

Predators often have several victims at the same time in different stages of grooming for abuse. 

There are a hundred different reasons why an abuser may not get prosecuted, may not get charged, and may not have to register as a sex offender. 

These reasons may include situations such as:

• hey, the prosecutor's caseload was stretched. 

• it’s an election year so the district attorney decided not to pursue that case. 

• the victim was too fragile to handle being cross-examined on the stand, so they didn’t press charges. 

• there was a technical issue with some of the evidence. 

• the witnesses decided, “I'm not up for the toll it will take physically, emotionally, socially, so I’m not willing to testify.” 

• attorneys agreed on a plea deal that reduced 3rd degree sexual assault down to a misdemeanor based on any number of factors: information held,  court system overload, etc. Result? Someone guilty of say, repeatedly raping a very young child, might  not get charged equal to the crime committed. 

• there are multiple jurisdictions involved, so every jurisdiction assumed another location was following through and ultimately nobody does. 

It is entirely possible for a perpetrator to be guilty, but still avoid being charged, convicted, prosecuted, or registered as an offender. 

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ASSUMPTION: If someone was abused in our church and we found out, we would definitely believe them and take action!

FACT: Perpetrators often appear more believable than the victim. 

Their story may feel more convincing and well-delivered, and churches tend to equate forgiveness with an immediate obligation for reconciliation and reinstatement, especially when the abuser is charming or holds an influential position.

As a result, abusers often return to positions of power where they can abuse again and again. 

When perpetrators are registered offenders or convicted criminals--churches still tend to embrace and allow unfettered interaction under the guise of forgiveness. Leaders often roll out a red carpet of belief and forgiveness and support and restoration and sometimes even promotion... instead of safety agreements, accountability, and prioritizing safety for the vulnerable.

So this leads to a second set of questions:

Are you saying God can’t change a sex offender? 
Isn’t that denying the power of the gospel?
Are you saying that just because someone has abused in the past, or raped someone, that they can never be saved?

Of course not! No one is beyond the power of God’s redemption. 

But God does not violate anyone’s freewill and force change, either. God will not force someone to choose to be a decent human being, if they are determined to hurt other people. 

By the time a perpetrator has rejected their conscience to the point that they can harm a child or rape a vulnerable person, the odds of them choosing to change are slim. 

These actions are not beyond the chance of salvation, but in order to be capable of perpetrating rape, assault, molestation, or incest on one of God’s children, the conscience is already dead. An outsider appealing to that dead conscience is highly unlikely to result in genuine transformation. 

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Even if an offender says they’re changed, there is absolutely no way to be certain you're not being manipulated in order to gain trust and get access to victims again. This is something you'll only know after the fact -- after more vulnerable lives have been devastated. 

The Bible supports that sexual assault is a one-and-done type of offense. 

Yes, you forgive. 
Yes, you rejoice over their repentance. 

No, you do not invite the wolf home to bunk in the sheepfold with the lambs. 

Not even if he swears on his mother’s life that he has lost all taste for lamb chops. 
You do not bring them home to bunk with the lambs, period.
To do so, makes you a negligent shepherd.

If shut-ins, and the ill, and the chronically fatigued, and the elderly, can worship at home--if they can participate in online services and online activities--why not those who have proven that they will exploit the trust placed in them to cause life-shattering harm? Sex offenders can worship with online access, they can worship with adult-only services that are led by therapists and trained professionals in the areas of sexual assault and addiction, with security present. 

But they do not belong in the family-friendly church organization around potential victims.

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ASSUMPTION: But OUR church doesn’t have any sex offenders!

FACT: Yes you do. 

They just haven’t been caught yet. 

If you believe your church has no sexual abusers, your head is in the sand. If you believe your church has no domestic violence, you are ignoring up to a third of your congregation's women and girls.

Predators flock to the trusting, forgiving inner circle of church communities for a reason. And the more closed or isolated the community is, the more predators they are likely to attract.

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ASSUMPTION: If you’re too harsh on sex offenders, aren’t you telling them God isn’t loving?

FACT: If you’re too easy on them, aren’t you telling them God isn’t just? 

Also, if you do nothing to inform and shield your family-filled congregation, aren’t you telling the vulnerable that God doesn’t care about protecting them?

Aren’t you telling the children they’re not worth the uncomfortable steps required to make sure they’re safe? 

We often find it easier to wish reconciliation into existence than we do to stay involved in the process of prioritizing safety and risking the wrath of an unrepentant predator who insists on their rights to maintain access to power and influence. 

When we fail to:

• require appropriate ongoing accountability structures, 

• insist on long term therapy from trained professionals, 

• place the safety and wellbeing of our vulnerable first, and 

• implement appropriate, healthy safety structures, 

• we are actually refusing to prioritize the protection of present and future victims. 

In doing so, we misrepresent God’s character of love and justice on behalf of the vulnerable. We blaspheme the name of God by turning our backs on his little ones.

And what is the Gospel, if not saving the vulnerable? Jesus spent his whole life protecting those who could not protect themselves. 

Next time you hear someone say, 
"We just need to show some love... 
"We just need to make sure they don’t go down the children's wing... 
"We just need to keep an eye on them... 

So what is the solution?

Speak up. Seek training. Show protection of the vulnerable in action.

Teach by action that showing love means doing the best possible thing to bring that person to salvation. Say that it cannot be loving to allow a person to damage their character and lose their salvation by allowing them to cause harm to someone else. 

The best way to bring an offender to salvation is to keep them far away from every prospective victim, so that they have the opportunity to find genuine repentance.

It's loving to pursue justice because you want them to stop hurting people. 

If you have been in a situation like this, drop me a comment. How did your church handle it? Did they do a good job? How did they handle the perpetrator? Was safety prioritized well? 

Does your church need to become safer?

Share this with your pastor, your church leaders, post on your profile, whatever it takes, you know the drill... ;) 

*****

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