Thread by @hlgriffin

Mediocre men that exhibit horrific errors in judgement shouldn't get to distribute Stay-in-the-Hierarchy-for-Free passes to one another just because they recognize each other's good intentions & doctrine. They will only continue to hold each other to the same low standards.

https://twitter.com/AndrewRillera/status/1410633332451426314

Here is how I think these things happen: every sexual predator who becomes a member of the clergy is able to do so because he has learned that denominations are willing to bestow authority on nice, well-intentioned men that appear sincere and profess good doctrine.

Sincerity isn't hard to fake. Most people who become clergy are legitimately sincere & seek ordination b/c they love Jesus & want to help people.

Most of these people would be much better pastors if their denominations held higher standards of skill and wisdom and equipped their aspiring clergy to meet these standards.

As it is, we are generally content in white, middle-class evangelical denominations to declare that the Kingdom of God is at hand when sincere, white, middle-class people get together to praise Jesus & continue to support each other in being white, middle-class, & well-adjusted.

I'm not knocking being white and middle class and sincere. I am all of those things. I am knocking the complacency of being unmotivated to use our wealth & comfort to train up & grow our range to see whether Jesus is able to do anything for people that are not already comfortable

Over twenty years ago, my Anglican priest told a traumatized 19-year-old Heather that if Jesus we aren't willing to see if Jesus is serious about his promise to bind up the brokenhearted, we need to close the church doors & go do something else.

They didn't always do so perfectly, but I owe my life to God using a little Anglican parish full of people who were willing to do whatever it takes to become people that could help & weren't willing to stop at sweet sincerity & good doctrine.

One of the consequences to institutions holding leaders to low standards of maturity & authority is that people are taught to be in love with their own judgment for no particular reason & become overconfident that they can vet the characters of other sincere looking people.

To believe a survivor who says that someone who was given a Maturity Badge did horrific evil is to also be confronted with the reality that we are shitty at vetting the character of people because it's really not hard to reach the low bar of white, middle-class sincerity.

It is true that sexual predators are incredibly skilled at grooming people who will provide them cover. There are plenty of sharp people who have generally good judgement who have gotten played by a predator. Those people report when someone brings an accusation.

When we are held up as people in authority & are not equipped to meet the responsibilities of that position, we have a vested interest in suppressing the awareness of big evil that is beyond the range in which we are able to hope & trust that God can redeem.

Content to rest at a low standard of maturity, we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses that have held each other to similarly low standards. There's a good chance that no one in that cloud of witnesses has a testimony of God redeeming something as evil as clergy sex abuse.

That's not because Jesus is incapable of healing. It's because leaders pay for lawyers for clergy accused of sexual abuse & don't listen to the pleas of survivors or pay for therapy for nine-year-old girls raped by charming & predatory priests.

We lack the testimony of how Jesus helps in the places of deepest evil because we push Jesus away even as we push survivors away.

The priests who covered for their rapist brother were probably sincere & had good intentions. We LOVE being sentimental about our sincerity & good intentions & the magical power they have to give nice guys clear-eyed judgment & the ability to recognize other Straight Shooters.

When sincere & weak leaders realize that they have done some dumb shit out of good intentions & got played by a predator, they have a choice about whether to grieve & repent or cover each other's asses.

Nice pastors who provide cover for predators are telling us something not only of their own characters, but of the characters of the denominations that train, ordain, & continue to employ them.

Some of these men probably could have been better men if they had been held to better standards & equipped to meet those standards. It is a sad waste of what may have been good potential, but not as sad as the damage done by coddling predators and abandoning survivors.

When an institution has created the circumstances in which this sort of evil can happen, it's time to clean house. It doesn't mean that God is done with knuckleheaded pastors. It does mean that we should be done with allowing them to hold positions of authority in the church.

+@ArchbishopFoley , we are waiting to see what you are going to allow to happen under your watch. So far, it's not looking good. It is up to you & to the other leaders to decide what ACNA is going to be.

I can promise you that many of the younger people in your ranks are not going to give you a 2nd chance if you don't turn this around. It is not enough to mean well. You have to do well. It is not enough to not have intended for this to happen. It has happened. What will you do?

*Over twenty years ago, my Anglican priest told a traumatized 19-year-old Heather that if we aren't willing to see if Jesus is serious about his promise to bind up the brokenhearted, we need to close the church doors & go do something else.