America’s children are being targeted by sex predators. Their recruiters are already in our schools and libraries. These “transgender” people need your children as converts. Consider:

• Children returning from school carrying “gender unicorn lessons,” which teach strange ideas of sex and gender.
• Public libraries are conditioning your children through “drag queen readings” to get children familiar with these recruiters.
• Schools are hiding from parents that they’re giving puberty blocking drugs to their children.

The transgender people insist that they be allowed to access and recruit children, and that you accept them as being of their assumed sex – even in private places like separate-sex bathrooms. They claim, “trans rights are civil rights.”

If you oppose them, you’re charged with genocide- of mass murdering hordes of children. But, if you don’t oppose them, you’ll end up losing your rights as parents and all of the children will be prey to sexual and financial abuse. Read on to become aware of how the transgender agenda destroys parents’ oversight, age of consent, and causes bodily harm to their young victims.

Sexually flailing against God’s creation

People practicing homosexuality want to be accepted as normal by society. That is what the “love is love” campaign is all about. Likewise, people practicing transgender behaviors want us to affirm their choices. Why, then, do Christians actively oppose homosexuality and transgenderism? It’s not out of hate for these people, but because God hates these behaviors. Even if we wanted to affirm them, we couldn’t do that and also have a God-honoring society.

In Genesis, we read how God created everything, including Adam (a man) and Eve (a woman). God told Adam “from any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die” (Gen. 2:16-17, NASB). But Adam decided he didn’t trust God’s version of good and evil, and sought his own understanding. This was the sin of Adam– that he pursued his own version of right and wrong.

Homosexuality is a manifestation of Adam’s sin. God hates it because, at its root, it is rebellion against Him and rejecting His creation. They’ll have man-to-man, or woman-to-woman, sex and curse us if we tell them that this is wrong. An article from Got Questions calls it “shaking our fists at God.”

Homosexuality is not the cause of a society’s decline, but it is a symptom of it; it is the result of people making themselves the final authorities. Romans 1 gives the natural digression of a society that has chosen idolatry and sinful pleasure instead of obedience to God. The downward spiral begins with denying that God has absolute authority over His creation (Romans 1:21-23).

The result of a society’s rejection of God’s rule in their lives is that God gives “them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator” (Romans 1:24-25). Verses 26 and 27 say, “Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.” The phrase “God gave them over” means that, when we insist on shaking our fists at God, He finally lets us have the perversion we demand. And that is a judgment in itself. Homosexual behavior is the result of ignoring God and trying to create our own truth. When we defy God’s clear instruction, we reap the “due penalty” of our disobedience (2 Thessalonians 1:8-9; Revelation 21:8).

Transgenderism is a variant of homosexuality. The important difference between them is that a man or woman claims to be of the other sex – an assertion in defiance of the facts. It’s another claim of godhood, that someone can declare their own sex and it becomes true because they say so. We’re all supposed to chime in and affirm this claim, much like throwing a pinch of incense to Caesar. Frequently, but not always, transgender behavior also includes surgical removal of a person’s sex organs.

A key thing about transgenderism is how you can’t just ignore it. People are in your face about you acknowledging the sex assertion, and about you using “preferred pronouns.” Woe to you if you disagree with them. Walter Hudson, a state legislator from Minnesota, commented about this:

We used to take our differences a lot more seriously. But we eventually settled on a social contract rooted in classical liberalism, the notion that neighbors should be able to peacefully co-exist without demanding renunciation of sacred belief. The transgender community has not received that memo. Despite individual exceptions, the general rule among the dominant trans culture is an illiberal insistence upon affirmation. It’s not enough for them to believe that “transgender women are women.” You must believe it too. You must confess it with your mouth upon every social interaction. You must call a guy cosmetically altered to appear as a woman “she,” or you will be found guilty of heresy and summarily convicted in the court of public opinion. At the very least, your sentence will be social censure and condemnation. More likely, you will lose your job or face other grave consequences that hobble your capacity to live…

The dominant trans culture has successfully employed a repressive cultural strategy of social censure and unearned indignation to enforce a code of conduct that “affirms” their beliefs. Of course, it amounts to gaslighting. No one believes that the man cosmetically altered to appear as a woman has become a woman. But you’re expected to “affirm” that lie with every use of a “preferred pronoun” as an act of fealty and submission. It’s enforced with severe social censure for violations of trans decorum, which typically involves being treated as beneath contempt.

Christians aspire to proclaim the gospel, and to build a Christian society (Matt. 13:33, 28:18-20). America still has a strong Christian influence, and our standards of right and wrong are measured by what the Bible says. God hates homosexuality, in either form, and judges a society that approves of it (Gen. 19:15-26; Rom. 1:26-27). This means that building a Christian society includes opposing homosexuality and transgenderism.

Transgenderism brings unwelcome surprises

Are Christians being meanies, not letting an “oppressed minority” experience full acceptance into American society? No, we’re trying to protect our society from predators, who would use this acceptance to exploit and hurt children. After everything is said and done, this conflict is over recruiting children into transgenderism.

Consider the rage over a  Texas bill, which would ban sexual transition surgery on minors. And look at the concern about a Florida bill that, only modestly, regulates when transgender concepts could be taught in public schools. It certainly is about the children.

If America gives these advocates what they demand, if they convince us that it’s fair and just to yield to their claims, then look at the life-changing surprises awaiting us.

Surprise #1: Transgender education is already in American schools

Of the things a people can expect of society, perhaps protecting the vulnerable is its most important task. And children are its most vulnerable group, because they’re innocent of how the world might mistreat them. American society provides them special protection through concepts like “age of consent,” and by the understanding that their parents are their legal guardians. This has been consistently confirmed, most famously in the Wisconsin v. Yoder Supreme Court case:

The history and culture of Western civilization reflect a strong tradition of parental concern for the nurture and upbringing of their children. This primary role of the parents in the upbringing of their children is now established beyond debate as an enduring American tradition.

However, teaching children about transgender behaviors has already been forced into public schools, without seeking parents’ consent and usually without notice. It’s done because  teachers believe that the students belong to them. In practice, teachers, administrators, and school boards act like they can they can do as they please with their students.

They approve, not merely permit, teaching transgenderism, and seek to indocrinate students even in kindergarten. They teach propaganda like “assigned sex at birth”and “gender unicorns.” They even seek to reach three-year-old children with these lessons! To evade parental oversight, they counsel children in secret, and deny what they’re doing.

Don’t be fooled in thinking that your “excellent school district” doesn’t do that stuff. They probably do already, for so much of their agenda is set by state bureaucracies. Remember what Ronald Reagan said: “Trust, but verify.”

Surprise #2: Transgender agenda overrules “age of consent”

The point of the “age of consent” is that the parents protect a child from making uninformed or immature decisions. The child increasingly learns how the world works, and his or her parents give increased personal control.

Young children know nothing about how “gender-affirming” therapy changes the body’s development. Even drug therapy has permanent consequences. If you stop taking the drugs the body doesn’t play “catch-up” for the years of missed development. No youth of nine or ten has the wisdom, or skepticism, to understand the implications of tampering with puberty.

Non-parental counselors are conflicted, having self-interests to not tell the youth of any potential problems. We used to call people like this “predators” and “child exploiters.” Yet transgender advocates demand that youth be allowed to make these decisions without parental approval. For example, the Minnesota Lt. Governor said, “when our children tell us who they are, it is our job as grown-ups to listen and to believe them,” she added. “That’s what it means to be a good parent.” Not true, because a good parent looks for the best interests of a child, and much of love means saying “no.”

Surprise #3: All ages of consent could be nullified

If a child can consent, without having parental approval, to body-altering procedures, even surgery, then the “age of consent” is nullified. Perhaps some advocate will then petition a judge that the sexual age of consent should also be nullified. A similar argument exists for removing the minimum age for entering into financial contracts. This results in many exploiters, and many hurt children.

Surprise #4: Parental oversight would effectively be abolished

In a transgender-affirming world, a child can ask for, and expect to get, body-altering treatments without parental permission. And the schools can effectively ignore the parents, teaching things and transitioning youth without their parents’ knowledge. After all of that, what is left of parental oversight?

In Minnesota, the enmity towards parents is so strong that the legislature passed a law, making the state a sanctuary for children who want to run away and get transgender treatment there. And the state will fight the parents when they ask for the return of their child. By the way, isn’t it a crime for an adult to help a child make that journey across state lines?

Let’s take this farther. If parental oversight isn’t respected, then what purpose is served by a family? Why should society, or the law, honor it? In 1920 the socialists in Soviet Russia asked this question, and decided that abolishing the family was a good idea. That turned out horribly, and families were again honored – but only after many lives were ruined.

Affirming transgender behavior opens a big box of trouble

As you see, we can’t simply say “let them have their way” and we all live happily together. A decision to normalize, to affirm, transgender behavior, in the scope they want it for, will soon lead to widespread child exploitation and neutering of the protective family environment. This would be a major change in American society. Decisions like this shouldn’t be made by manipulating some judges, or through bureaucracy. It is a major deal, and demands public debate.

Opposing transgender agenda is not genocide

We’ve seen how submitting to transgender demands would cause much harm to American children. A Christian culture ought to prevent this harm by rejecting their assertions, and not changing society to suit these demands. At minimum this means:

• A man might claim to be a woman, or a woman a man. But that doesn’t grant any rights or privileges other than those of the person’s biological sex.
• A person doesn’t have any legal right to require others to recognize him or her as their claimed, non-biological, sex.
• Civil rights laws don’t favor someone’s pretending to his or her non-biological sex.

However, transgender activists claim that opposing them amounts to genocide. Here’s the advocacy site, OutFront Magazine, claiming that denying transitioning drugs or surgery amounts to a crime against humanity:

While, of course, this convention, passed by the Third United Nations General Assembly in 1948, does not specifically mention sexual orientation, gender identity, romantic orientation, etcetera, the objects of the oppression of the queer community, including the trans community, such communities should obviously be included under such a definition.

The sentiment of the opening clause is that, in short, genocide is the purposeful destruction of an oppressed societal out-group on the basis that they are that group, and such unequivocally includes the entirety of the queer community.

Regarding the transgender community specifically, many enacted policies, or policies attempting to be enacted, in the modern-day meet such a definition. The aforementioned policies of banning transgender healthcare for trans youths are potentially the most egregious instances of violation of this definition of genocide.

Puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy, the topics of these policies, have been shown to drastically reduce the horrifically high suicide rate of transgender youths, saving lives. To block trans youth from such a treatment manufactures a higher suicide rate and thus manufacture more suicides, more deaths within the transgender community, specifically amongst youth.

That is, it’s genocide because they wish it were so. But they are preying on our youth, and blaming us when their targets despair. It seems far more likely that the children are hanging out with the wrong adults, “groomers” if you will. And according to the articles I provided earlier, our public school teachers and employees seem to be at the forefront of transgender recruitment.

On the Dr. Phil show, a transgender man (biological female) named Reece explains her decision process. Note that she thinks that using transitioning drugs at age eight is a really fine and normal thing. And if you should deny these drugs, she thinks that this would be genocide.

One of Dr. Phil’s guests not only defended trans medical procedures for minors but claimed that it is absolutely vital for their mental health.

“Being able to start my transition at 11 was just so overwhelming and scary, but exciting, and I feel grateful. Say that a trans person came out at 8, and they had to wait till they were 18 to start hormone replacement therapy and not even able to get puberty blockers so their body has to fully now go through puberty,” Reece, a trans man, said. “That now makes transitioning 10 times more hard and traumatizing.”

Reece went on to say that legal regulations to prevent these procedures being done to minors is akin to mass-murder.

“It’s extremely important for trans youth to be able to transition at puberty, I think, without that, all of these kids who know who they are deep down inside would never get the opportunity to live their childhood as their truth. And I think that’s just horrendous. And I think it’s just transgender genocide. If I was not able to transition at the age I was, I would not have made it to 18. I do not think the government should be denying trans health care. It’s life-saving healthcare,” Reece said.

The guest went on to contradict themselves when describing hesitation to actually go through with a double mastectomy at a young age and deciding to “wait till I’m older.”

Reece then said, “I didn’t want to wait. I was eligible at 15. I went to get it at 15 and I just was too young to go through with it at that age for myself personally, but someone who has a bigger chest who is also that age would definitely need it if they felt like they did and I think they should be able to get it.”

These two articles underline that the transgender community wants your children. After all, it’s hard to assume the appearance of the other sex after you already have adult genitals. So they evangelize the children early, before puberty, especially before they’ve got the wisdom to resist.

In a more general sense, stopping this agenda will indeed shut down the transgender community. Without getting easy converts, it won’t be much fun for them to do their role playing. But it’s not genocide. By that logic, you may as well claim that enforcing traffic laws is “genocide against speeders.” So saying “genocide” is just using a scary word. Why not also call us “fascists” and “racists,” to get full value out of using scary sounding, but no longer meaningful, words.

Don’t be afraid to eliminate child abuse, and child maiming, by opposing the transgender agenda. But this agenda would be implemented not through legislation, but by top politicians changing bureaucratic rules, such as the words in the Civil Rights Act. We must be loud and persistent in getting our politicians to behave, because we really do care.

The safest place for children to be is at home with loving parents. As it stands, well over 90 percent of all parents send their children away from them for over 10,800 seat hours K-12 to be instructed by people they barely know. Fifty-eight percent of all working parents send their preschoolers to daycare where they are watched all day by people they barely know. As has been reported, sexual abuse of children in daycares and government schools is rampant!

However, we realize we live in a fallen world and not every family feels they have the luxury of living on one income and homeschooling their own children. For those who desire to do so, I have provided a practical roadmap in my book, Answers for Homeschooling: Top 25 Questions Critics Ask, to show parents that it can be done. In fact, my own mother (who dropped out of high school in 9^th grade) successfully homeschooled my five sisters and myself in the 1970s and ‘80s before it was even legal. So I know that “where there is a will, there is a way.”

But rather than merely calling people to an ideal, sometimes we need to help provide a pathway for them. Let me share a couple inspirational stories that may provide some food-for-thought that others can implement to help those who aren’t as far along on the journey towards taking full responsibility for the upbringing of their own children.

A Detroit Pastor with a Vision

For many years a friend of mine, a Baptist pastor in Detroit, successfully ran a daycare as an outreach of his church. They excluded members of their church from using it, teaching them it was their job to raise their own children. But this pastor and his staff were concerned about the rampant sexual abuse of children that frequently takes place in such institutions, and they wanted an alternative where children would be truly safe.

They pretty much exclusively reached non-Christians who were low-income parents and many immigrants who barely spoke English. The parents had to sign a contract stating they knew the children would be taught the Bible and taught about Jesus (even the Muslim children).

Dr. Gary Elfner (the pastor) also had a Christian day school for K-12 and an umbrella program for homeschoolers. He would tell the parents every day when they would drop their children off at daycare, “It’s not our job to raise your children; it’s your job. We just want them to have a safe place to be until you figure out a plan to raise them yourself.”

When the children became school age, they found corporations and members of the church willing to pay for scholarships for children who were going to government schools to have a safer option in the Christian school. But everyday Dr. Elfner would tell the parents as they dropped off their children, “it isn’t our job to educate your child. It’s your job. We just want them to be safe until you find a way to do that. And when you are ready, we will teach you how to homeschool and we’ll help you through our homeschool program.”

This pastor discipled his own congregation to homeschool their own kids and take responsibility for them, but he also wanted to provide a safe haven for inner city children who were being abandoned to the State. He shared the gospel with the parents they served and even had parenting seminars to teach them what good parenting looks like. He was a great man of God who truly understood that we as Christians can’t be part of the solution if we are a part of the problem. He always said his goal was to eventually work himself out of a job because he hoped the parents he worked with would eventually become Christians and disciple their own children.

A Nashville Mom with Compassion

Another great story is of a homeschooling mom I know in Nashville, TN. She raised one son who grew up and moved away from home leaving his mom, now an empty-nester, with an open future for her own life. Her husband was still working, and they didn’t need a second income, so she prayed about what God would have her do with her time.

At that time, a young lady in their small church became pregnant even though she wasn’t married. She was probably still in her late teens, but she decided to give the baby life instead of choosing an abortion as so many others have. As a teen mom, she desired to provide for her son and give him the best future she could. She found a standard job making a standard income working from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm each day. My friend felt God tugging on her heart. She knew how traumatized children could often be in institutional day cares where they are often harmed by other children, ignored by overwhelmed staff, and sometimes sexually abused by those entrusted with their care.

So, she approached the young mother and asked if she would be open to letting her son stay with her each day when she went to work. The young lady had grown to know and trust this godly, older Christian woman and agreed. So, five days a week, my friend ended up sharing Christ’s love with this young child who literally grew up more in her house than his own mother’s. It wasn’t perfect, but it was so much better than a standard daycare facility. He always had one-on-one care.

When the boy reached compulsory attendance age, the mother enrolled him in a local Christian school that would allow distance learning, and my friend took on the responsibility of “homeschooling” him as well.

The bond between these two women is so strong and the love displayed among the three is so precious. My friend is careful to not replace the mother. She always respects the mother’s wishes and points the boy back to his mom. “You’ll need to ask your mother if she is okay with you doing that.” It’s such an amazing thing to watch what happens when real people get involved in real lives and decide to “love one more” (as my former pastor is fond of saying). Rather than expecting the government to take care of “people like that,” maybe we should pray and ask God what He would have us do. Societal problems are not solved by government programs. If anything, they usually make the problem worse. Real change comes about when people care. And no amount of tax money will ever substitute for people who care.

Sexual Abuse of Children in Public Schools

In an excellent essay by journalist, Alex Newman published on January 5, 2022, entitled, Illinois Public Schools Battle Plague of Violence, Sexual Abuse, the author points out the deplorable scandal of children being physically and sexually abused in Illinois’ public schools. Another similar article ran on January 14, 2022.

The sexual abuse of children has been happening in Chicago’s public schools for years. Consider the Chicago Public School scandal that was exposed by the Chicago Tribune and others in August 2018. There were thousands of reports of sexual harassment (including many sexual assaults against children by school staff), in just one school year, in one city! Not only were there thousands of reports made to the Department of Child & Family Services (DCFS) of students suffering sexual harassment and abuse from other students and school faculty, during school hours, on public school property, but it was revealed DCFS didn’t even follow up on most of the reports (claiming they were understaffed and underfunded).

That certainly does not fit the narrative the media wants parents to believe: That public schools are safe havens against all child abuse. In fact, liberals often suggest that homeschooled students are at serious risk for abuse because they have no public school officials to watch over them and keep them safe.

They use this argument despite conclusive research that demonstrates that (1) there is absolutely no connection between the degree of state regulation of homeschooling and abuse of children, AND (2) the fact that students who are homeschooled are actually 257% LESS likely to be sexually abused than students who are in public schools! It truly baffles the mind that people want more regulation of homeschooling when it neither improves academic performance nor provides any additional protection for students.

According to the Chicago Tribune:

“The report describes how understaffed and underfunded CPS investigators struggled to process reports of potential sexual harassment, notifications sent to the Department of Children and Family Services, employee misconduct allegations and altercations between students and staff – thousands of reports during the 2016-17 school year alone.”

If we are to suppose this is the true state of DCFS, it would be the height of lunacy to suggest, as some liberal lawmakers have, that there should be mandatory home visits for all children who are not in a brick-and-mortar school to ensure they are not being abused. And suppose the state happened to find a situation here or there where some sort of abuse was occurring; what remedy would they seek? Sending them to a brick and mortar public school where abuse rates are the highest of all! These witch hunts against parents simply seek to deflect attention away from the greatest source of child sexual abuse, the public schools themselves, and divert resources from investigating the public schools where the majority of the physical and sexual abuse of these children is taking place.

When lawmakers and members of the media make these arguments, they reveal their bias: That parents cannot be trusted and government employees can. There are absolutely zero studies that support such a statist notion. To be clear, we are against all forms of child abuse and condemn it whenever and wherever it occurs. Sadly, abuse of children happens in every single sector of society, without exception. If anyone, including a parent, is truly abusing a child they should be prosecuted by the perfectly adequate child abuse laws that already exist in every state in America. No one should ever cover for abuse or seek to conceal it but should instead expose it. The problem is the exploitation of children is taking place every day (at a higher rate than almost any other sector in society) on government school campuses and it is being hidden by these very institutions who claim to care about and protect children the most. A November 19, 2019 article in Chalkbeat Chicago announced:

“Twelve employees and a volunteer at a school in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood had inappropriate relationships with students — including sexual abuse — or helped cover up that misconduct in a years-long ‘stunning’ and ‘colossal failure,’ Chicago Public Schools’ CEO announced Friday.”

That doesn’t even include the sexual perversion they are teaching children in the classroom through sex ed programs and even pipe virtually into homes through distance learning programs.

Many Public-School Teachers Send their Own Children to Private Schools

Here’s the dirty little secret liberals don’t want you to know. Those who shout the loudest for public schools often secretly avoid them. Consider that Barak Obama, when he lived in Chicago, sent his daughters to the elite University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. Likewise, Rahm Emmanuel also enrolled his son and two daughters in the U of C Lab Schools. Jesse Jackson (a supposed advocate of Chicago Public Schools) sent his sons, Jesse and Jonathan, out of the city of Chicago (out of the state actually!) to a prestigious boarding school called LeMans Academy in LaPorte, IN during their middle school years. And another boys’ boarding school in Washington, DC for high school.

Chicago’s first lesbian mayor, Lori Lightfoot, while pushing for Chicago residents to send their children to physical schools in the city, personally sends her adopted daughter, Vivian to Frances Xavier Warde Catholic Cathedral School.

This is true for many politicians. According to a survey by the Heritage Foundation:

“40 percent of those in the U.S. House of Representatives who have school-aged children, and 49 percent of those in the Senate who have school-aged children, send or have sent at least one of their children to private school.”

Only 11% of American students have traditionally attended private schools (and only 5% of black students). But one study revealed whopping 46% of all public school teachers in Chicago have sent their own children to private schools, and refused to send them to the very schools where they themselves teach! Why is this? They know better. They work there every day and unlike the naïve parents who close their eyes and choose to ignore the facts, hoping it will all work out okay, these teachers know what actually happens each day in the school. There is no way they want their own children exposed to that kind risk.

Now don’t get me wrong, I applaud them for making a better choice for their own children. However, I can’t applaud the hypocrisy of those who keep telling the average citizens to keep their children in the government schools. Honestly, would you eat at a restaurant where the employees refuse to eat? It’s time for anyone who cares about their children to perform a mass exodus and get their children out of these cesspools.

In the wake of the shocking Pennsylvania Grand Jury report which revealed that 301 priests sexually abused more than a thousand children, Attorney General Lisa Madigan announced that her office would investigate Catholic dioceses in Illinois in pursuit of “a complete and accurate accounting of all sexually inappropriate behavior involving priests in Illinois.”

We applaud this decision and her desire for truth, transparency, and accountability. Justice must be pursued and children must be protected.

But we want to encourage the attorney general not to stop there. Prior to the Pennsylvania revelation, the Chicago Tribune published a deeply disturbing report exposing similar abuses of our children in Chicago Public Schools. This report revealed that more than 520 cases of juvenile sexual assault took place in Chicago’s public schools over the past ten years. That is an average of one per week.

How many cases were prosecuted? Which cases were covered up and by whom? How many predators are still working in our schools and have access to our students? How many cases were not reported?

If the Pennsylvania scandal is the catalyst for an investigation in Illinois—and we agree that it should be—shouldn’t the Chicago Tribune exposé be the impetus for an investigation of all school districts in Illinois going back further than a decade?

A hotline has been set up to report incidents of child sexual abuse in Illinois: 888-414-7678.

Years of concealing crimes, ignoring victims and protecting abusers isn’t unique to one institution. All crimes against children demand a full accounting. Predators must be exposed, prosecuted and removed from positions of power that provide them access to minors.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to contact the Attorney General’s office to encourage them to investigate the sexual crimes against our children in public school systems across the state of Illinois.

If you have information that would help stop a predator from preying on children and put him behind bars, please call the hotline: 888-414-7678. The hotline is answered by trained staff during business hours, and messages will be returned if contact information is provided.

A bold voice for pro-family values in Illinois! 

Click HERE to learn about supporting IFI on a monthly basis.

In August 2018, the results of a grand jury investigation were published regarding sex-abuse allegations within the Roman Catholic dioceses of Pennsylvania.

While it is shocking and disturbing to read, we need to be impacted by the full force of how heinous the crimes against these children were. The report reveals:

We subpoenaed, and reviewed, half a million pages of internal diocesan documents. They contained credible allegations against over three hundred predator priests. Over one thousand child victims were identifiable, from the church’s own records. We believe that the real number – of children whose records were lost, or who were afraid ever to come forward – is in the thousands. Most of the victims were boys; but there were girls too. Some were teens; many were pre-pubescent. Some were manipulated with alcohol or pornography. Some were made to masturbate their assailants, or were groped by them. Some were raped orally, some vaginally, some anally. But all of them were brushed aside, in every part of the state, by church leaders who preferred to protect the abusers and their institution above all.

When Church Leaders Abuse

It is unconscionable that men put in positions of leadership–especially those who claim to represent God–could so  cruelly abuse those placed in their care. But it is not only clergy who have abused children and covered up the abuse. According to a new report, Chicago public schools and Child Protective Services failed to adequately protect school children from sexual abuse. Abuse happens in every sector and corner of society. Predators often seek occupations where they will have unsupervised access to children. Upon being discovered molesting children, one Catholic priest reportedly sought new employment with Walt Disney World where he was reportedly hired and worked for the next eighteen years.

There is a deeper level of violation when the abuser is someone in a position of authority, especially when that person is trusted to care and protect children, such as a police officers, doctors, teachers, coaches, scout leaders, school staff, therapists, and clergy. Children are taught to trust and respect these kinds of authority figures and so are more vulnerable to grooming.

When someone who claims to be working for God abuses children or teens, the damage can be irreparable and often includes anger at God, Christians and the church.

A Christian Response to Church Abuse

As a Protestant, I grieve for all those who have been victimized by abuse. We should hold all perpetrators accountable for their crimes. Those who abuse others should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and institutions that helped cover up crimes should also face prosecution.

It is understandable that those who have been abused by church leaders want nothing more to do with the Church, or Christianity. Just as we don’t impute blame to all doctors, coaches, or teachers for the evil actions of some, we ought not judge all priests guilty for the grievous sins of the abusive priests. We should judge the any ideology, philosophy or religion against the life and teaching of its founder.

Those who know anything about the teachings of Jesus know that He condemned the actions of those who abuse children in the strongest possible terms.

And (Jesus) said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me. If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea. Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to stumble! Such things must come, but woe to the person through whom they come!” (Matthew 18:3-7, NIV)

Those who abuse children are not following the teaching or example of Jesus. Those who truly follow the teachings of Jesus stand with the abused in seeking both  justice and healing. Even though we fight for justice, in this life it isn’t always served. One day, however, there will be a Day of Judgment when all the wrongs are ultimately punished.

Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed quickly, therefore the hearts of the sons of men among them are given fully to do evil. Although a sinner does evil a hundred times and may lengthen his life, still I know that it will be well for those who fear God, who fear Him openly. But it will not be well for the evil man and he will not lengthen his days like a shadow, because he does not fear God. (Ecclesiastes 8:11-13, NIV)

Lessons Learned

One of the things we are learning from these investigations, as well as the #MeToo and #MeChurch movements, is just how pervasive sexual abuse is in society. Unfortunately, there are no safe spaces. Here are some things we should learn that might help to reduce this kind of abuse moving forward:

• Listen to the victims. Several of these victims told their parents and were not believed because the parents couldn’t conceive that a “man of God” would do such a thing.

• Make sure your church screens any members who work with children. Our local church runs an extensive background check on any members who work with children. They also make sure the adult volunteers work in pairs or teams, so they are never alone with minor children. If your church doesn’t practice this kind of precaution, insist they must, and if need be find another church.

• Be very cautious when leaving small children to be supervised by non-family members.

• Teach your children to exercise their voice and defend themselves. Educate your children on the dangers of sexual abuse and teach them how to speak up, say no, fight back and report any unwanted physical abuse.

• The institution is never more important than the individual. Many of these large organizations covered up these crimes for fear that it would either tarnish their reputation, or that they would face legal and/or financial repercussions. Prideful face-saving is a sin. If you know something, say something.

As Christians, we stand with all victims of abuse in seeking complete justice on their behalf and praying for healing.

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