A solvable problem, lacking only will

Christa Brown, the insightful proprietor of Stop Baptist Predators, explains how the American Baptist Churches can teach the Southern Baptist Convention how to take effective control of its profoundly destructive problem with sexually predatory clergy.

Or to be more precise, she relates how a group of Baptist pastors illuminated the issue in their online discussion.

As you would expect, it's a straightforward matter of setting standards, keeping records that make it difficult for credibly accused clergy to move with impunity from church to church, leaving a trail of victims as they grow. Yet the denomination discussed which does that is the American Baptist Churches, which somewhat like the SBC prizes local church autonomy. As they say on their Web page:

As early Baptists overcame oppression by establishing a congregational church system emphasizing local church autonomy and separation from state influence, so contemporary American Baptists continue to emphasize both the importance and the responsibility of every church and the individual believer before God.

Read it all here at Stop Baptist Predators.