Sexual Abuse Isn’t Just a Hollywood Problem, It’s a Church Problem
Over the last few days the America has been both fixated and appalled at the history of sexual harassment and abuse surrounding Harvey Weinstein. For the last several decades, Mr. Weinstein has used his position of power in the movie industry to make sexual advances and requests of a number of actresses hoping to make it big, and it wasn’t until the recent testimony of a few women that the public became aware of his evil actions. Unfortunately, this is the norm with sexual sin.
Last year, Bill Cosby was the subject of several women’s testimony of sexual abuse. As you read this, a man by the name of Andy Signore, co-creator of Screen Junkies “Honest Trailers” series on YouTube, has also been accused by multiple women of sexual harassment. Those are just the ones we know about. There are certainly many more people in positions of power using that power to coerce others into sexual acts and, whether we want to admit it or not, this kind of thing is happening in churches across the country.
A couple months ago, I was sent a couple articles (links below) on the church’s pedophilia problem. Throughout the course of these articles, the author, whose father had molested 23 children in churches across America, talks about lessons he learned from his father, conversations he’s had with victims of child abuse in the church, and quotes those that have preyed specifically on churches looking for children to molest. As much as we want to believe that this kind of darkness can’t infiltrate our churches and affect our children, it does, and we shouldn’t wait until it becomes a large-scale public scandal to start talking about.
Sin, sexual or otherwise, doesn’t avoid buildings marked “church” and it doesn’t ignore people who call themselves “Christians.” Sin is a problem for all, and that includes the type of sexual abuse we’re seeing on the headlines from Hollywood this week. It’s not just a Hollywood problem, it’s a church problem.
What can we do? The articles linked below give great advice for churches and individuals looking to safeguard their children from the advances of would-be sexual predators. Read the links below and share this article with others to help get the word out about the dark underground of sexual abuse in our churches.
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