Sexual Abuse in the Church and Jurisdictional Authority x TS&TT #ChangeTheDirection

Welcome to the Sword and Trial podcast. Sword and Trowel is a Ministry of Founders. Ministries and Founders exist for the recovery of the Gospel and the reformation of local churches. I'm Tom Askell and I'm Graham Gunda. We're delighted to come to you today and welcome into our studio again all the way from Lusaka, Africa, Zambia in Africa. Doctor Vodi balcom Vody, Welcome to the Sword in the Trial. Man. It's good to have you back. Thank you. It's good to be back man. So how is life going for you there in Lusaka. It's going, you know, some days, some days with a windshield and some days with a bug. But yeah, well, we're grateful for what you're doing over there, heading up the African Christian University and getting things in place. I know you have got personnel, some challenges. It seems like God's helping you with that moving forward and we're excited just looking forward to hearing more good reports coming out of Lusaka. The last time you were here, we talked a little bit about some of the things going on in the SBC. Of course, you will be nominated to be the president of the SBC Pastors Conference in Anaheim coming up in just a few days. I'll be nominated for the presidency of the SBC at that same gathering, and those are events that will happen on the twelfth and thirteenth of June out in Anaheim, California. So any Southern Baptist or if you know Southern Baptists, encourage you to go out there and vote and let's try to do what we can to make the convention healthier. But in the midst of that conversation we talked about some of the things that are going on with the Sex Abuse Task Force reports. I think Guideposts maybe had just dropped the report the last time we talked, so neither one of us at a time to read over it. I've since had time to read it, and Graham, I don't know if you've read all the way through its pieces, yeah, little bits of it and vote. You probably haven't even seen it, so you know, it's still a lot to digest, especially the appendices which have proposals or recommendations. And my understanding is that guide Post was an outside entity and so they were contracted by the task Force. The task Force is comprised of Southern Baptists that were appointed by the SBC president Ed Litton, and that task force, my understanding, is going to come out with their own proposals sometime soon. I'm sure by the time this gets out, that will have already happened. And I don't know what is going to be in there, obviously I haven't seen that. But before we even look at suggestions or proposals, there's a lot of biblical foundational things that we ought to talk about. Go to you and I've talked through this, and you've written about this. I've written about this, and over many years we've had good conversations about it and tried to promote these ideas of jurisdictional authority or spheres of authority. Graham, we've hit that before and talking through this podcast, especially back during the year of COVID or was it year days centuries, I can't recall how long it's been. It's an era, the era of COVID, before COVID and whatever. I don't know what'll be afterwards. But all that came to the fore, and you saw how poorly evangelicals were thinking or maybe had never thought about these things. So man lay into that. I mean, just help us to think about all of these different jurisdictional authorities. Yeah, and I think this is this is another side of the coin in terms of the COVID issue. You know, God gave us three distinct spheres of jurisdictional authority, the family and the church and the state. And you know, the state wields the sword, and the family bears the rod, and the church holds the keys. Right, all of these different symbols of authority and these different jurisdictions. And with COVID, what we were looking at we were seeing is the state usurping the church's jurisdiction, telling the church when and if it could meet. That was a usurpation by the state. And I think one of the things that we've been dealing with here in terms of these issues of abuse, one of the problems that we've seen is that the church has been in many instances usurping the state's jurisdiction. And what what I mean by that is, you know, in this report, you see that a lot of churches had crimes reported to them, and the crimes are also sins, but they treated the crimes as sins and did not go to the proper jurisdictional authority. The proper jurisdictional authority for crime is the magistrate. Right as pastors, as elders, we do not wield the authority of the state, and so when somebody comes to us with something that is a crime, we go to the proper jurisdiction for that to be dealt with. Now, in many instances, they'll be both right. In many instances, as a crime and a sin. Not all crimes are sins, not all sins or crimes, but in the things we're talking about in this report, we're talking about sins that are also crimes. So on the one hand, the church has that duty and responsibility, the disciplinary responsibility, and that has to be held. But on the other hand, the church has to submit to the jurisdictional the proper jurisdictional authority of the state, and report crimes as crimes. Yeah, so I think you're exactly right there. I think what sometimes may happen and probably did happen based on the anecdotes that are embedded in the report other things that have been made public over the last few years, is that some leaders, let me just kind of draw up a generic scenario. I think this probably typifies what happens in some cases is somebody comes to a church leader or a Christian leader in some organization or institution and says, I was sexually assaulted, and that Christian leader with compassion wanting to help, so tell me about this. Let's get this straight, and looking to the scripture, thinking how do we deal with this biblically and believing that the Bible is sufficient, the Bible is an errant, doesn't think clearly enough about what you just said about jurisdictional authority, and begins to try to sort out, Okay, how can we handle this. We need to get these people together, we need to sort it out, without immediately thinking, wait a minute, we're not talking about just a sind here. We're talking about a crime here. And I wonder if maybe that our commitment, some people's commitment to the inerrancy and sufficiency of Scripture didn't maybe bleed over into their thinking about the inerrancy of themselves or the interpreter to be able to handle all of this, we don't need any outside council or help. And just wait a minute, No, this is not our lane. We have a lane, but it's not that Does that make sense yeah, yeah, probably it really does. And sometimes that that's the same thing. It's the same thing when your child comes to church, you know, and and and and gets out of hand, jurisdictionally, I need to come to you, right, because you're the jurisdictional authority there. I don't just take your kid into my office and spank them, you know. And people have gotten in people have had gotten into trouble with that in jail, you know, and and in jail for things like that, right, that is another issue of jurisdictional authority. Right, So I don't bear the rod at church. So when when when your kid, when your kid needs the rod, I take your kid to you, right, And that's that's that's that's another instance as well. And so I think what happens is, you know, some people do overestimate uh their jurisdictional authority uh and and end up usurping both in terms of the family and in terms of the state. But it all comes back to having a robust theological understanding of jurisdictional authority. The whole question. And by the way, by the way, let me say this also because a lot of people't realize this right when it when it relates to issues like this. Number one. Before I went into the ministry, all I ever wanted to be was a lawyer. Right, So as an undergraduate, my major was you know, pre long international business. Right, I just wanted to practice law. But then in terms of my work, before I went into the ministry, I worked in social work. I had a number of jobs working in the social work field, you know, working with you know, kids who were in various institutions or group homes and things like that. Right. The other thing is my mother retired a few years ago. She was a victim's advocate in the Bear County court system in the San Antonio area, and so my mother worked basically shepherding children specifically through the court system with issues of abuse and things like this. And then lastly, you know, we a number of children that we have, you know, came to our family through adoption. One of them was a product of a rape and the other we found out was a product of incests. And we found out because we got a call from the adoption agency that said, hey, you know, the police are going to need you to come in so that they can do a DNA swab. And anyway, long story short, we ended up, you know, smack dab in the middle of that whole you know, legal situation, you know, because of because of what had happened to our child's birth mother. And then of course I've had situations where, you know, I've been part of church leadership that has had to deal with things like this, either directly or indirectly. So when I talk about this, I'm not just talking theoretically. Yeah, yeah, and again, And if you don't understand authority, if you don't have at least have a biblical baseline that authority, all authority belongs to Jesus Christ. He said that in the Great Commission, and so every other authority is delegated from Christ. You're going to get this completely wrong. Graham. I know, you know we've had to deal with these kind of cases in our church, and uh, just walk through before what do you want to fall up to about specifics, but walk through? I mean, what what would you do? What would the leadership of our church do, the pastors here if somebody called, somebody came in and say, hey, you know I have been abused, I've been sexually abused by this church member or this family member. What would be the what would kick into motion. Yeah. Well, I mean, first off, there's the whole consideration is this accusation credible accusation? But before we even get into determining whether that's the case or not, I mean, if there's a if there's a case of abuse, that the authorities do have to be notified, they have to be called, and if there's any chance that a person is in a context in which abuse can continue, they need to be removed from that context. And we then allow the authorities to do their job and investigate the matter. But then there's also some investigation that we have to do as well as authorities within the church. Goud it's a sin as well as a crime. Exactly exactly, and so it depends on you know, is the person coming to us, are they a member of our church? Is the person that is accused of abuse? Are they a member of the church. And there has to really be due diligence on both sides to ensure is this is this accusation credible? Is this true? Because you know there can be dangers for both people. Yeah, that you know, and even saying that though a lot of people get upset about that today because we were told a few years ago if you really are going to care well for sex abuse victims, you must believe all women. I mean, that was a mantra that was given to us. And what you're doing, you're not helping women. I mean it's virtuosi. No no, no, no no no, no, no, no no, no, believe all women unless they're accusing Biden. Oh yeah, you know. You guys that don't live here, you see those things so much clearer than we do, because it's just part of the culture here we breathe these days. Well, it is true though, that we have had even a case in our church in which there was another member accused of abuse and it wasn't true. That's right. It wasn't true, and we and so we had to protect the one who was being accused. That's right. And so here's the deal. Anytime an accusation like that comes, you've got to make it a safe a context for that person to speak freely and openly. So you don't just say, oh, well, you got to prove it, come back when you have proof. You don't do that. You very humbly, warmly try to make sure is there danger here, If there's any hint of danger, remove the vulnerable purpose person from the danger, which again we've done. We've put them in home, other members homes and things like that. But you know, when that kind of serious accusation is made, you know you have a victim. There is a victim involved in this scenario. Now it's either the one who's been accused, or it's the one doing the accusing, or or there could be other elements involved. You just don't know. But he who answers the matter before he hears it fully, it's a fool. Proverbs eighteen says, And the one who comes forth first and presents this case seems right till another comes and questions him. So if we're gonna be biblical, we've got to care for the person coming, you know, with maybe traumatized and all kind of things going on. Give every benefit of the doubt, do what you can make sure they're safe. And then if it's a crime being reported, call the police. That's who God's ordained to begin the process of wielding the sword that He's put in their hands. And you deal with the possible sin or the sin that will be manifested in some pace, some capacity in the context of the church. And there's a difference, and we really we need to continue to keep this in mind. There is a difference between someone who's been incredibly accused and someone. Who's been convicted. That's right, because if you've been credibly accused, that means that there's some plausibility to the story that you are an abuser, but it's not been proven right beyond any reasonable doubt. Yeah, and now I don't like that language of incredibly accused, as that's part of the language that we see floating around now. And it's almost like somebody has come up with a standard that says if you don't have any ability to deny beyond a shadow of a doubt, or if it's just something that's you know, not falsifiable, Uh, then your boom. You know, you're guilty until proven innocent. Well, that's contrary to the word of God. But one of the things that alarms me too is I think there's a utopian spirit that is motivating some people who really do want to care well for sex abuse victims. And you know, we ought to give them that because granted, there's so many stories where especially women and children just have not been shepherded well, cared well protected well and even when it's evident what's happened. They just haven't been loved and cared for the way the Bible says. But I think that spirit causes some to say, well, if the Bible was enough, if the church was enough, these things would not happen. How many cases is too many? You know all of that. There's no avoiding sin in the world, sin in the church, right, So, no, there's not, you know, and you've lived through that. I mean, you know you've seen that. And the question isn't whether sin is going to happen in the church. The question is what do we do about it? Tell us about something that you've lived through with that. Well, I mean there's a couple of things. One most recently, you know, our Sending Church recently went through a very high profile incident. It was an incident that didn't happen at the church. It happened in the family. It happened in the family of one of the leaders in the church, one of the elders in the church, and it was it was a devastating situation. And I remember getting that call from the elders of the church when they were on their way back from I think the Sheriff's office. You know, they they got the information and immediately went and reported. And let me just say at the outset these guys, this whole thing was handled in just a stellar fashion. And one of the things that I hope we do in the SBC as we highlight this issue is I hope we highlight places where it's been done well. And this was one of those instances. And so there was an immediate report that was that was made, an immediate removal of the person from the from the home, you know, immediate move in this case the offender, you know, immediately, you know, removed from the home before the police, you know, even you got involved to do anything like that. You know, the discipline process was was started as well. In the caring process, the caring process for the for the person was also started as well. And and the other thing that a lot of people don't know is that the church in so many ways went to bat for and shepherd shepherded the family and the victim. For example, the news came out and the news reported number one, they reported the matter inaccurately. They reported the matter as though the church wasn't the one to father report with somebody and had to force that. But secondly, they did it in such a way that they all but named the victim. And so the elders are on the on the horn, immediately rebuking the reporter for the way that they were reported. In all of this, you know, by the time the police got involved, you know, they talked about, you know, how exemplary the response had already been. And then in this instance, the church you know, supported not only emotionally and spiritually, but also financially, you know, this family because you know, they ended up losing their their their bread winner. But and then beyond that, you know, in Houston, there's you know, one of these liberal you know, George Sorows back DA's and this thing almost got swept under the rug. And it was the church who actually held the DA's feet to the fire so that true justice was carried out on behalf of the victim. And again you you don't hear, you don't hear all of that, you know, and you know, I have not highlighted this for a number of reasons. You know, it's interesting some people even came after me, you know, for not you know, you know, coming out and making statements and highlighting this or whatever. But number one, my first priority was protecting the victim and this and this family that had been victimized, and me highlighting this number one would not have helped them. It would have harmed them. Number two, it could have been problematic for the legal side of things. And number three, it would have just been you know, virtue signaling on on my part. So you know, I'm far less concerned about whether people think, you know, I've responded enough that I am about you know, this victim, this family being cared for properly, and the church responding in inappropriate ways, which in this instance it absolutely did. Yeah. I remember getting a call too from those two elders, and you know, they were heartbroken. They were determined to do what was right, thinking with them, praying with them and just listening to them, trying to, you know, be a sounding board for them, and it was. It's a model. It's a model. If we want to care well for these horrific types of situations, then then we ought to go to school on that church and what they did and the firestorm that was created on social media when it became public. I mean, we had Southern Baptists, we we had a professor at one of our seminaries that just uh she acted like, oh look at this, this is what happens when you're this kind of church. I mean it was horrific. It was horrific. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and uh yeah, well it happened away from the church. I mean, you know it's it's still it's terrific. You know, these these were members of the church. But like you said, you seeing people victimized again in settings like that, it was infuriating. Yeah, you know, it was infuriating. It really was. One of the things I'm concerned about is in a lot of what's going on today in this report, and things have been uncovered and things have been public for a while, as attentions being focused upon the horrific reality of this type of sin and crime in the church, in Christian circles, and then the cover up or not dealing properly with it, is that we're listening to the wrong people, that we're following the council of the wrong people. And let me just give you an example of here's a statement from a Christian leader in which he was saying trying to make a case of hey, we got to do something, We've got to do something he writes this, What I'm trying to say, I'm trying to say this as clearly as I can to you, brothers and sisters. There are tactics that have been used to create a culture where countless children have been torn to shreds, where women have been raped and then broken down. Now, if you're that Christian leader and you really believe this, what should what should you do? What would you do if you truly see this happening? Do you ring the bells? Oh? You reveal what's going what you're seeing, what's going on? You call the police. You don't talk about it anonymously. Children wow, being ripped to shreds, torn to shreds, women being raped. This is Russell Moore, when he was head of the Ethician Religious Liberty Council, wrote this letter to his chairman of the Board of Trustees, David Prince, and they didn't do anything with it for eighteen months until right before the Southern Baptist Convention last year, when Mike Stone was running, it was released and somehow twisted and distorted into suggesting, well, Mike Stone's the problem. He's the one that fault here. And I think in Tennessee is a mandate mandatory report state. I'm thinking, if somebody knows of women being raped and children being torn to shreds, that person needs to report it. And if they didn't report it, why has nobody questioned him on the eighteen months? Why listen to a guy like that? There's something wrong? And like you said, in many states, that's a crime. Yeah. If you know about things like that that have happened and you didn't report them, that's a crime. So yeah, I hear you. And that one continues to baffle me. Well, and you know what it does for me, Vodie is it makes me wonder what is really going on here? Are we genuinely Is everybody genuinely concerned to care well for those who have been sexually abused? I think most are, But I have to wonder this is a pretty simple, cut and dried situation. Why isn't a question asked of Russ Moore. I don't think he showed up in the guidepost investigation, and maybe he didn't. I just missed it. But this is a Quesi and Southern Baptists ought to want to have that answered. Why was the head of our Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Privy to information where a culture is created where women are being raped and children are being torn to shreds, and he does nothing about it. I mean that says something about our culture right there. Yeah. Either he's a coward and he didn't say anything about it, or it's just a lie. Yeah, yeah, some kind of virtue siglingers. I don't know what it is, but I don't think we can let this stand if we're going to be people of truth and people who genuinely want to show the love and mercy of Jesus Christ to those who have been horrifically treated. So it comes back to the word of God. I mean, all of this comes back to how do we know there are these spheres of authority? How do we know we have different jurisdictions? Because this is God's world. God created the world, and he created families, He created churches, He created the state, and he gives to each one authority that is to be carried out exercised under his provisions and authority and dictates. Part of the one of the problems I see brewing is that when you start talking principally like this about what the principles that the scriptures give us to deal with these issues. It's almost as if, well, you're letting your principles get get in the way of caring well for victims, because really the Bible is not quite enough. You need to set up all these other different parameters and all these different offenses and and care for victims in the way in which the experts have determined they need to be cared for, or the professionals have determined, and there's not much credence given to Okay, what does the Bible say about how to care for the oppressed? Yeah, that's right, And I. Don't think it's I don't think it's necessarily an either or, And I don't think any of us would say that you don't, you know, educate yourself, that you don't surround yourself with people who know about these, you know, kinds of situations. I think when we talk about the principles here, what we're doing is we're saying that it has to happen within a framework, and there has to be guiding principles. And the guiding principles cannot just be pragmatic, utilitarian, emotional, knee jerk reactions. Right, We've got to think through these things, otherwise we end up creating more problems in our efforts to solve these problems exactly. And the other reason that we the other reason that we have to think through this in this principle sort of way is because again I think in the not too distant future, there's going to be another issue as it relates to crimes versus sins. Because in the not too distant future, you know, this whole issue of minor attracted persons. What happens when the age of consent is lowered significantly? What happened then? You know, when you know you've got the you know, radical l g B t QA two S plus movement, you know who usually lead the way, right, the gender marketists usually lead the way and trying to lower the age of consent. And so now you've got the fifty year old man and the fourteen year old boy. But the law has said that that's okay, right, And if you think that that's a bridge too far, all I'll say is fifty years ago people would have said the same thing about same sex marriage. Right, And so we also need to to think about this in those terms as well. Right, what are we going to do when that jurisdiction starts to say that, you know, things that are now crimes are no longer crimes. And unfortunately, I think what we've done far too often in the church is, you know, we've sat on our hands, not thought through these things and just assumed that they wouldn't get that bad, when at the end of the day they they have. So again that's a that's a whole other, that's a whole other, you know, ball of ax right there. But these are the types of things that we need to be thinking through biblically and and theologically, and these are the kinds of things that we need to be preparing ourselves for. So on the one hand, we need to look at, you know, what has happened, be honest about what has happened, and and and and there needs to be accountability. Right. On the other hand, we need to make sure that whatever responses come next, that they come out of a theological framework and not just a knee jerk reaction. And in third, we need to also be looking ahead at things that will be coming our way and they're not too just at future and deciding how it is that we're going to respond. Yeah, that's well put. And what it does is it casts us right back onto first principles, what does the Bible say? And I think what I've begun to recognize is, Okay, you've got people who believe the Bible and arentis hal and they've miserably failed in dealing with this issue of sex abuse. They just haven't done well in many cases, not all because you'll never convince me that most pastors, most churches in the SBC are safe havens for sex abusers. I just don't. There's no evidence of that. And yet that's kind of the narrative that's been spun out of this. But on the one hand, you've got these conservative Bible believing folks who have not done well. Why well, because they hadn't been thinking jurisdictionally. They haven't been thinking in these fears of authority we've just outlined, and they've tried to usurp authority from the state that belongs only to the state, and they've made a disaster, they've made a mess of things. But now you've got people over here and they're looking at that saying this is horrible. What you've done is horrible, and you're an erratis and you're appealing to the Bible. You're saying you use in the Bible. What we need is we have the Bible, and we're going to care well for people. And what we need is our own kind of bureaucracy that tells us that we can handle this disregarding jurisdictional authority in the exact same way that the other side is doing as well. And my response, I was talking to a guy yesterday about this. My response is, it's not that the Bible's been tried and followed and then demonstrated to be unreliable. The Bible hasn't really been followed by an erritis who say we believe it. And what we've got to do is admit it. We've got to humble ourselves and repent and say, Lord, we made a mess of this. Your word's true. Everything in the words true, it's sufficient. We have just blown it. And God have mercy on us and help us to think better, to learn better, to be more humble. And seeing what the scripture teaches about how we deal with sin in the church, crimes in the state, and if we could get that straight, our churches would do what God's intended the church to do, and our magistrates would do what God intends the magistrates to do, and those who have been victimized by this horrible sinning crime of sex abuse would be cared well, far better, far better than what we've seen thus far. Amen, Well, very good, well, brother, thank you so much for joining us today talking about this. This isn't pleasant to talk about. And it's like walking through a minefield. You know, you could misspeak in one little way and that word can be used against you to hang you as proposing something that you've never in your mind, or you can avoid saying things that may be in a different context of course you would elaborate on and they said, well, you didn't say this, and because you didn't, you don't really love or care about people. And that's not true. As Christians, we've got to do better than that. The world has its agenda. The world wants to drive the church. The world wants to infiltrate the church. But we have a savior, the Lord Jesus is the head of his church. He's given us his word, and in that word we have everything we need to show us how to live not in isolation from the world, but in the world with all the good gifts he's given us in the world, including civil magistrates, well. And I will say this as well, that the way our Sending Church handled this was not just a testimony that we need to be thinking about in terms of you know, following you know, what they've done, but it was also a testimony within the broader community, for example, within the legal community. It was a testimony because of the way that you know, things were responded to, and because of the way that this victim and this family were cared for, and because of the way that they were advocated for. I mean, it was a testimony in the broader community as well. So you know, God took what was a very very ugly, very difficult, very painful situation and turned it into something that demonstrated how the Body of Christ can respond. And now the Gospel cand healing in the midst of devastating circumstances. Amen, and that provides a platform for the Gospel going out demonstrating its power and its truth. Well, Vodie, thank you for joining us today. Brother. I look forward to seeing you a few days out in California, and that'll be right in the corner. I know, man, I know it'll be interesting to see what God does. But grateful for you and your work, your ministry over there at ACU in Zambia, and we'll put links up with the notes of this program so people that want to get in contact with you and find out more about that ministry and work can. Do so well. Thank you for joining us on the sword in the trial today. We look forward to having another conversation in the near future.