Church Tries to Punish Girls Who Sued Over Sex Abuse by Outing Them – Singles: Don’t Take Dating Advice from Religious Groups Who Think It’s Acceptable to Harass Rape Victims – And Dump Equally Yoked Teaching
This story is horrible enough as it is, and another indicator of how unsympathetic and awful churches are towards abuse victims of all kinds.
However, I also wanted to add this observation, as outlined in the next few paragraphs.
I was taught as a kid that Christian singles are only to marry other Christians, which is sometimes called “being equally yoked.”
My parents, who were Christians, would advise me when I was younger to seek out a spouse in a local church, if I wanted to marry.
In light of stories like the one I’m posting here, I don’t think I consider churches a good place to meet potential dates or mates any longer. I am questioning that.
If church members think it’s compassionate or acceptable to be hostile to child sex abusive victims and to protect the pedophile who assaulted them, one wonders how heartless and immoral the persons at that church must be in other areas, and how terrible their judgement concerning other things is.
That is, a person attending a church every week and claiming the name of Christ can still be a terrible person. I would not want to select a date or mate from a church filled with people who feel it’s appropriate to side with a child rapist over the victims.
This is not to say that I regard all Non-Christian men as being eligible, wonderful, or as being great catches. Some Non-Christian men can be abusive, rude, or sexist.
I think if you are an unmarried woman who wants to marry, you have to judge a man by his character and, to a point, look past whatever religious or belief label he gives himself, whether it’s Christian, atheist, Jewish, whatever.
Sometimes, some Christians issue dating advice. Maybe the pastor or other people at this church mentioned in this news story below wrote blog posts or gave sermons telling singles how to select a “godly spouse.”
Do you really, really want to take dating advice from people who throw child sexual assault victims under the bus, or who tell married women they must stay married to pedophiles or abusers (see this link for more on that)?
I’m willing to bet that this church agrees with, or promotes, natalism, marriage, and “Family Values.” How hypocritical, then, that they won’t protect or defend children who were harmed by a perverted adult (and on church premises, no less).
Most of these churches believe in something called “complementarianism,” which usually includes, among other tenets, that females are helpless little waifs who males should protect. So why aren’t the male church members of this church coming to the defense of these female sexual assault victims?
(Link): Church tries to punish girls who sued over sex abuse by outing them: ’They should not be able to hide’ by Travis Gettys
- July 1, 2016
- A Kansas church is (Link): asking a court to help punish two girls who sued over sexual abuse by a former vacation Bible school volunteer.
- Kessler Lichtenegger, a former volunteer at Westside Family Church, (Link): pleaded guilty last year to attempted rape and attempted electronic solicitation involving two girls who attended the church.
- The girls, who were both younger than 14 years old, and their families filed a lawsuit June 9 that alleges church officials knew about Lichtenegger’s extensive past sexual conduct and crimes involving children.
- Officials at the Southern Baptist church denied knowledge of those previous juvenile convictions, but admittedly knew they should pay close attention to Lichtenegger, who was 17 years old when he volunteered for the summer Bible school in 2014 and assaulted one of the girls in the parking lot.
- However, the lawsuit accuses church officials of ignoring their own protocols and allowing Lichtenegger to be around children outside of his father’s supervision.
- The lawsuit, and its timing, apparently angered church officials — who have taken the unprecedented step of asking a judge to publicly identify the underage victims of sex abuse.
- The church filed a petition June 15 asking the court to require the two teenage sisters and their parents to identify themselves publicly before their lawsuit may proceed.
- Church officials accused the family of launching “a Pearl Harbor-styled barrage of negative publicity” timed to coincide with the start of this year’s vacation Bible school.
- The petition grumbles that the girls and their parents had leaked their complaint to the media before serving notice of the lawsuit to the congregation.
- ….Clohessy, who has worked for 28 years as a victims advocate, and his organization showed up at the church June 8 with protest signs to answer questions from the media, which the group often does.
- He (Link): told Baptist Global News that the church’s legal attack against the child survivors would deter other child victims from coming forward and allow more predators to harm children.
-
….Lichtenegger is serving a 17-year sentence for the Westside vacation Bible school sex crimes, but the lawsuit says he also pleaded guilty in 2012 to a sexual assault the year before of a 15-year-old girl with developmental problems and to another previous sexual felony.
Christian Pundit 