Testing Core Belief's

Yes I am a pathetic blogger. Joe says I should commit or give it up. Well I am committing. How's this for a jumping in topic...

Sex Offenders In Church:

The NY-Times has an article (article here) about a church in California who is dealing with this issue right now. The Pilgrim United Church of Christ has received so much attention that NPR's All Things Considered did a piece on the situation (audio here).

The gist of the story is that Mark Pliska has been to prison for molesting children, and when he recently got out he was looking for a place to worship. He went to the Pilgrim UCC because of their denominations reputation as being an open and affirming place (see commercial here).

The church has been faced with a difficult decision. How do they create a place for a child molester, who is still loved by God, within their community, and meet the needs of the children and adult victims of sexual abuse that are already in their community as well? Can a church set up adequate safety systems that would ensure the safety of both the children and Mr. Pliska? Is it worth the risk of ministering to Mr. Pliska if the innocence of a child is at stake? If this happened at your church how would you feel about a "Mr. Pliska" being in your community?

I have to hand it to Mark. It would have been a whole lot easier for him to just show up in church and not say anything to anyone. No one would have known. But the fact that he has this level of disclosure somewhat indicates a sincere desire to keep others safe at the expense of himself. That's commendable, because the scary truth is there are people scattered throughout all our churches who don't disclose this kind of sin, and even worse use the church as cover for indulging in their sin, including Pastors, Ministers, and Priests!

I truly believe that this problem is going to become bigger not smaller over the next several years. With the easy accessibility of hard core pornography by anyone able to use a computer, younger and younger minds are having their sexuality formed and twisted by the vilest of images. And these twisted, abusive, and criminal pornographers are often based internationally so it's hard for them to be brought under any sort of regulation or justice.

On a related note, there is a new movie coming out about international sex trafficking called Trade. Not sure if I could actually see it, the trailer was hard enough to sit through. But then again hiding from the truth doesn't make it go away, I just wish a movie like this wasn't rooted in reality.