Its Not Just the Roman Catholic Church that has a Problem with Child Molesters

I have recently reported on a case of a 15 year old girl being raped in New Hampshire by a Baptist church leader and the alleged cover-up of that crime by the church and its Pastor.

The sex scandals in the Roman Catholic Church are well-known but what is not as well known is the problem among Baptist churches. In 2007, ABC's 20/20 did an investigative report called" Preacher Predators." They detailed the problem among Baptists and pointed out how that Baptists, as opposed to Catholics, do not even have a central database where a potential Pastor or church leader could be checked out. While in the ABC report, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Frank Page, said that they were looking into developing such a database, the decision was made in 2008 not to create one. The reason cited was that in Baptist doctrine each local church is autonomous. Time magazine listed this as one of the top 10 underreported stories of 2008.

Why do I keep discussing this subject on my blog? Because I believe that Baptists are no better than Catholics or any other religious or non-religious group with regard to this problem. BUT THEY OUGHT TO BE IF EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANITY IS TRUE. I know how Baptist evangelicals think since I used to be one. They will decry the Catholic priests who molest children and say that it proves that the Roman church is corrupt and false but when the problem is in their own church, they make excuses and say that it has nothing to do with the truth or falsity of their beliefs. While I admit that these problems do not prove evangelical Christianity to be false, I do think they show that evangelical Christian leaders are no more spiritual or godly than leaders from other religious or non-religious groups that they would claim to be false.

The "Preacher Predators" three part report is below:

20/20 Report Part One

20/20 Report Part Two

20/20 Report Part Three

HT: StopBaptistPredators.org