Thread by @bartbarber

Successfully to address the problem of sexual abuse in churches, we're going to have to conduct a frank discussion about the fears that sometimes paralyze church leadership and pose obstacles to meaningful reform.

Fear One: The fear perpetrators have. There are bad actors among us who are presently abusing people. They don't want to be found out. They don't want to be shut down. We cannot know for sure which people they are. They are afraid right now, and they will obstruct.

To this fear: Zero sympathy. Be sure your sins will find you out.

Fear Two: The fear of the previously uneducated. Among us are people who responded to past instances of abuse in ways that they now know were insufficient or even wrong. They had received no training about what to do. They winged it. Now they're afraid that they'll be "exposed."

To this fear: We've got to establish now and promote vigorously from this point forward best practices in terms of response to abuse. If you've responded inadequately or wrongly in the past, I'd encourage you to go to victims, apologize, and ask how you can help them today.

Fear Three: The fear of false accusation. It is THIS one, I think, that needs the most to be addressed, for almost every pastor has that fear somewhere in his head. I have several things to say about this, so buckle in for the thread.

First, the way I do the math, it looks to me like the instances of false accusation in church life are vastly outweighed numerically by the instances of accurate accusation.

In 30 years of ministry, I've had one false-accusation situation, and that one later turned out to be a false-recantation situation (the victim was intimidated by family). Your mileage may vary, but of the cases that have made the nightly news, false accusations are rare.

Second, I think there are factors in the church environment that offer very little motivation for making false accusations, comparatively. I don't know about you, but when people at church get really angry at me, they just leave and go to another church.

Choosing to stay at my church and then file a false accusation of sexual abuse as a malicious act? There are a thousand other ways to hurt a pastor, none of which involve taking on the level of shame and ostracism that victims encounter.

I cannot, off the top of my head, name a single documented instance in which this has happened. "What about the Kavanaugh hearings!?" you ask? To avoid descending into that quagmire, I'll just say this, "You ain't a Supreme Court nominee, bub." We're just not worth it.

Church-related abuse cases tend to involve pastors or volunteers who have abused church members, not staff members who have harassed staff members. So, making a false accusation is generally not a strategy for career advance.

And as far as being out to get money goes, churches are relatively poor and non-profit liabilities may be capped by law. You're far better off, as money goes, to file a false accusation against your schoolteacher, pediatrician, boss, or co-worker if you're in it for the money.

So, these factors suggest that there is comparatively little cause to file false accusations at church, and that lines up with my anecdotal observation that there actually are few false accusations at church.

Third, I think there are simple things that we can do to mitigate against the risk of false accusation. Keep a careful calendar of your activities. I know it's controversial in some circles, but I observe something really close to the Billy Graham rule. Put up cameras.

Then, if you're falsely accused, you can say, "I was in Baltimore that day," or, "My wife was in the room with us at all times," or, "I still have a recording of our meeting." That ought to help a good bit.

Finally, if you're still nervous about false accusations, permit me to acknowledge this: None of these things takes the risk of false accusation to zero. I understand that. But, then again, neither have we figured out a way to bring the risk of abuse to zero.

I'm 100% in favor of our taking both of these risk levels as close to zero as we can get them. But I also believe that it is neither wise nor fair for us to try to take our risk of false accusation to 0% by elevating the risk that a victim of sexual abuse will be ignored.

Maybe the wise and fair thing for us to do is to balance those risks reasonably. Vulnerable populations face some residual risk of being abused. Leadership faces some residual risk of false accusation. Welcome to the club, church leaders—the world is a dangerous place.

So, let's take up our share of the risk and move forward. Then rather than working adversarially, let's join hands and work together—churches and victims—to try to drive both risks as low as is possible.

After all, a delightfully large number of the things that we can do to reduce the risk of abuse are ALSO things that reduce the risk of false accusation.

Fears do not depend upon rational bases in order to survive. Reasoning with the fearful is not always successful. I know I can't extinguish completely the fear of false accusation by any series of tweets.

But I would call upon pastors and other church leaders of good will to consider this: Alongside our other fears, let's be afraid that sheep allotted to our charge have been abused under our noses and we permitted our other fears to keep us from protecting them.

I don't want to explain that to the Chief Shepherd.