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Why it’s daft to marry a convicted serial pedophile | Marriage Monday

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In following the recent controversy regarding Douglas Wilson (that he still sees nothing wrong with performing the wedding of a convicted serial pedophile) it’s easy to think certain people have lost all common sense. Surely no sensible church elder would respond to a young woman in search of “Mr. Right” with, “I know just the guy! Lucky for you, he got off easy for molesting children and didn’t have to serve out his life sentence, so he’s available — which obviously makes him Mr. Right!” Surely no mature, sensible woman would agree to marry such a man after their second date. Surely no sensible pastor would perform the wedding for such a marriage, especially if the serial pedophile openly declared his intentions to father children. Surely no sensible people would rise up in defense of pedophiles marrying: but doesn’t the poor pedophile deserve to be happy? Doesn’t he deserve the right to marry? After all, he said he was sorry for molesting toddlers and young children…and for his peeping tom shenanigans right after he got out of jail…and we should forgive and forget! What about grace? Give the poor guy a second chance!

We all know that sometimes starry-eyed young women who are madly in love don’t like to think of much beyond the excitement of planning the wedding — probably all the more so if they have fallen for the charms of a young predator well-practiced in manipulation and deception.  That is why it is essential that those with level heads urge the would-be bride to consider the serious and enormous consequences of marrying a sex offender. If nothing else, she needs to realize that not everyone may share her enthusiasm for having a convicted child molester in the family or around children — and she needs to know why. Too much is at stake to get caught up in the giddy excitements of a young couple “in love”. Heaven help us if we cannot depend on the pastors, elders, and older women of the church to advise wisdom and prudence.

So, for those lacking in common sense, and for those bewildered souls at a loss because they can’t find a verse in the Bible expressly forbidding pedophiles from marriage, would you please allow me to suggest a few reasons for caution before you rush off and marry a convicted serial pedophile or encourage your daughters to marry one?

1. His criminal past will never “go away”. He will be required to register as a sex offender and his information will appear online in easily accessible databases (Easily search for Steven Sitler here.) There will no doubt be conditions of his parole. There will be lifelong restrictions on his activities and interactions with children.

2. Everyone — church members, neighbors, parents, children, his former victims, vigilantes — will be able to discover his status as a sex offender, along with all the information they need to find him, should they search for him by name or search for sex offenders in his vicinity. (Search by zip code or location here.)

You might argue that #1 and #2 do not trouble you in the slightest, and that you have no qualms being forever publicly identified as the wife of a convicted child molester — in fact, that and every thought of your beloved fills you with delight and joy because you are oh so very much in love!! If so, provided you make certain you will never be able to have children with this man, you can probably stop reading at this point. The rest of my cautions are in regards to having at least one child.

3. Your husband may never be allowed to be with your child unless he is under the direct observation of a court-appointed supervisor/chaperone. If so, this means you will never have a normal family life. You will someday have to explain to your child the odd, unrelenting, and draconian measures you have to take in order to ensure his father does not have access to him or her while you are sleeping, talking on the phone, using the bathroom, brushing your teeth, putting on make-up, doing household chores, changing clothes, or showering. You will have to explain why his father cannot take him to the bathroom at home or in public. You will have to explain why your child can never be alone with his or her own father, even for a minute…why your child will never be able to have a private one-on-one conversation with his own father…why there can never be a normal father-child relationship between the two of them. (Even more overwhelming than the many awkward explanations will be the unrelenting stress of living this out. It would be far easier to have your husband reside elsewhere and pay him visits without your child.)

Note: if you are the court-appointed chaperone or supervisor of your husband, you must give up the idea that your marriage can be either patriarchal, complementarian, or egalitarian in practice. You will be responsible to the court to make sure you and your husband implement the court’s decisions and instructions — or else another, more responsible person will have to be appointed to be present whenever your husband is around your child.  Your husband must not be allowed to get by with trying to pull the “father rule” or “wives submit” cards in these matters, or even the “but we didn’t mutually agree that I can’t spend time alone with my own child” card. You will be his supervisor. At times you will no doubt feel like his warden, jailor, or parole officer.

4. You will have to explain to your child why his father cannot volunteer for any activities that involve children or that might put him in contact with children.

5. You will have to explain to your child why his father cannot accompany him on father-child outings at church or school unless you or another chaperone is along and never lets him out of their sight. Even then, the church or school may not allow it.

6. You will have to explain the precautionary measures taken by you, your child’s school, your church, and others in order to supervise your child’s father and make sure he never has the opportunity to be alone with a child or vulnerable person.

7. You may have to explain the ongoing involvement of Child Protective Services in your child’s life.

8. You will have to explain why other parents will not allow their children in your home, or your husband in their homes. You may have to explain why your husband is not welcome at family gatherings (holidays, reunions, weddings, funerals) when children are present. 

9. You will probably have to explain, much earlier than you had hoped, what people mean by “child molester”, “pedophile”, “baby rapist”, “degenerate”, and “pervert” — and why they use these words to describe your child’s father. Your child’s sex education may include hearing from others — or reading on the Internet — the exact acts his father forced upon other children.

10. You will have to explain to your child why you thought a convicted serial pedophile would make a good husband and father. 

11. Worst case scenario #1: you may have to explain, if your child discloses sexual abuse by your husband and you believe your child, that you thought you were being vigilant every second…or that you thought you only let your guard down for a moment…or that you made a terrible mistake in trusting your husband. You will have to explain why you chose, knowingly, to put your own child at such dangerous risk by marrying this man in the first place — why your happiness was so much more important to you than any child’s safety and well-being. You will have to admit that there is nothing you can possibly do to undo the pain, damage and harm your foolishness and selfishness has caused to your innocent child. If you have any shred of decency left, you will have to repent, and beg your child’s forgiveness — and give him the freedom to withhold it from you. You will have to explain what you will do from then on to seek justice, healing, and safety for your child. You will have to face the very real possibility that you may lose him or her. You will have to live with the knowledge that your decision to father a child with a convicted serial pedophile  has caused your child irreparable harm…but your the pain of your regret is a drop in the bucket to the devastating pain and struggle your child has to live with.

12. Worst case scenario #2: Your husband sexually abuses your child but intimidates, manipulates or threatens him or her into silence. You cannot understand that your child is reacting to trauma, so you cannot understand what might be his troubled behavior, his sullen attitude, his personality changes, his fears and anxieties, his anger or depression. You may never figure out why he “rebels” or “acts weird”. Perhaps he or she engages in self-harm, withdraws from other people, and spends much of his time escaping into over-activity or mindless entertainment. Perhaps he or she has unexplained injuries and illnesses, seems accident-prone, wets the bed, has recurrent nightmares, is jittery and jumpy, has meltdowns, does poorly at school, is clingy, stutters, acts out, runs away, shoplifts, engages in promiscuous sex and risky behavior, ends up on drugs or in jail. Perhaps he or she even attempts suicide. You will either not be able to figure out what is wrong or will be reluctamt to face the truth. You will prefer to think your son or daughter is the problem, not that he or she is falling apart because of the sexual trauma your husband — the man you chose to father your child — inflicted. Should he or she in desperation try to tell you the truth — or you begin to suspect it on your own — the convicted serial pedophile you married will be quick to point out how foolish it would be to take the word of such a troubled, immature, and sinful child over that of your godly, upright, repentant husband. He will probably be convincing because serial pedophiles are master manipulaters and deceivers of adults. That’s how they gain access to the children they prey upon — they groom adults to trust and believe them. That’s how your husband married you.

One more reason to avoid marrying a convicted serial pedophile? To prove that you are not the foolish Bible-thumping ignoramus some accuse us of being — to prove you are not the sort of person who protects children in the womb only to hand them over, once they are born, to be raised by known child molesters.

It’s so much fun to have enemies

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…especially if you are on a crusade. In fact, then you need enemies. It doesn’t have to be a real crusade; it can be one of your own making, or one confined to your overwrought imagination. Or it can be a cause, a church, a group, a system of theology.

Imagine a crusade without enemies. What if you embarked on Your Great Cause, and no one opposed you? After awhile, in order to go on feeling brave and important, you would have to create enemies, because crusades require battles, and battles require foes. See that guy over there? He isn’t as enthusiastic about my cause — he may have even yawned once during one of my speeches — obviously he’s not for me wholeheartedly so he’s my enemy! And those people have their own cause instead of mine, so they must be enemies! And that woman complained when I spilled coffee on her child, so she has proven herself an enemy of The Cause! And he asked me a question that I didn’t like, so he’s an enemy as well!

Once you have enemies, you can vilify them, lampoon them, and mistreat them at will because this isn’t a crusade anymore, it’s WAR! And once war has been declared, the actual Cause no longer really matters — it’s all about amassing followers, attacking and defending, forming alliances, maintaining your position of power, and defeating the enemy.

The only problem is that, to outsiders who aren’t playing along with your war games, you start looking a little like a crackpot. Your dramatic cries about being under siege begin to sound delusional and paranoid. Eventually helpful observers try to talk you down: Maybe people are put off by your bizarre behavior. Perhaps you should stop running around waving your sword everywhere. People have a point; you do say some wacky and offensive things. You really need to be more careful with hot coffee around children, and you need to apologize to the people you’ve burnt. But you are unwilling to admit that they are right, or that not everyone who points out your error is a mortal enemy. If you did so, you might have to admit that the entire war that has consumed your life is a false one of your creation.

Even worse, you might have to admit the deep, dark secret you don’t even want to admit to yourself. Behind all your bluster and posturing on the pretend battlefield is this terrible, gripping fear, the question you dare not ask: without your war, who would you be? perhaps just a nobody, like everyone else?

Ephesians 6:12 tells us:

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

These people you think are your enemies? They are not your enemies. You are fighting the wrong battle, against the wrong enemies, in the wrong way.

But, you protest, the Bible says that there are “enemies of the Cross”! Face it — you are not the Cross; you are not the gospel. Quit pretending to be anything other than the fallen, sinful, saved by grace — just like the rest of us — sinner that you are. And, even if the enemies of the Cross sometimes happen to be your enemies as well, remember Jesus’ words in Luke 6:

“But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.”

That doesn’t mean get all snarky and verbally abusive with them, falsely accuse them, malign their motives, demean them, mock them, or dismiss their legitimate questions and concerns. It means love…do good…bless…pray. Love them as much as you love yourself.

Of course that’s impossible for most of us. That’s why we need Jesus…and why we need the Holy Spirit to empower us to do the impossible.

If the people we think are our enemies are people professing to be Christian, if we love Jesus, we will want what He prayed in His high priestly prayer: “that they may be one even as we are one”. How dare we wage civil wars within the Body of Christ? And if our supposed enemies do not believe in Jesus, we should be doing our best to love them into the Kingdom.

May I never forget that.

Let the wars and crusades cease. Let the love of Jesus reign instead.

Why it’s hard to believe us

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Spend any time around those of us who are sexual trauma survivors, and you will hear account after account of how people — even our own families and loved ones — disbelieved us and sometimes went so far as to take up the side of the predators, rapists, pedophiles, and abusers who perpetrated against us. It is such a common occurrence that, when I encounter the opposite, I am deeply moved. Once when I met parents who stood by their daughter even when others insisted she was just “crying rape”, I was so touched by their family’s story that I hugged them, thanked them profusely, and started crying!

Today I read something that was linked to in the comments on one of my previous posts. It is an open letter from a pastor, a humble admission of his serious error, that says, among other things: “Though I never doubted that Jamin was guilty, I trusted his account of the circumstances more readily and longer than I should have, and conversely I disbelieved the victim’s parents.” He describes the sex offender as, “deceptive and highly manipulative”.

It’s hard to believe us when our perpetrators and predators are accomplished manipulators. After all, unless our abuser was a complete stranger who jumped out at us from the bushes, he first somehow gained entry into our lives, and usually managed to deceive enough people to gain a position of trust. Those who prey on children need to be somewhat accomplished con artists in order to deceive not only the child, but everyone around the child.

We, on the other hand, usually are not skilled liars and manipulators. Furthermore, we are traumatized, and traumatized people don’t always behave in a way that others might find credible, reasonable, understandable, or even likable. We are trying to piece together horrible events, trying to make sense of them, trying to sort them out in our minds, trying to deal with the horror of it all, or perhaps trying to escape thinking about our nightmarish ordeal at all. That’s bad enough, but then there are everyone else’s reactions to what happened to us, and not all of those reactions are helpful or healing. In fact, all too often, the reactions of others only adds to our trauma.

Our abusers, on the other hand, are not traumatized. They seem calm and rational, with a well thought out and plausible-sounding answer to every question. If they are serial predators, they have honed their “act”, and know just what to say or do in order to manipulate, and play on the sympathies of others.

In the immediate aftermath of trauma, we don’t always “make sense” to other people. Our stories don’t always sound believable. Usually we can’t bring ourselves to say much, and what comes out may be a chaotic jumble. We may get things out of order, remember things differently a few days or weeks later, only let a few details out in dribs and drabs, and be afraid to talk about major aspects of what happened to us. We may try to protect our abuser, if he is a family member or loved one. We may feel intimidated into silence. We may be too upset to admit the most shameful aspects of our abuse.

Years after my rape, when I finally told as complete an account of it as I could to my therapist, I halfway expected him to say that it sounded too unbelievable, too weird, too unlikely. I expected questions like, “How bad could it have been if you went to work the next day?” or “What do you mean, you have no idea of the extent of your injuries?” or “How convenient that there are those gaps in your memory!” or “What on earth is that nonsense that you supposedly ‘went away’?” I expected him to poke holes in my story, to cross-examine me as if I were on the witness stand, and to tell me that mine was the fishiest-sounding rape story he had ever heard. I was shocked that he believed me, shocked that he never cast one suspicious look in my direction, shocked that he didn’t try to blame me in the slightest for anything that happened that night.

Then again, he was a therapist. My anguished telling of what had happened to me wasn’t the first, or tenth, or even hundredth sexual trauma account he’d ever heard, and he knew all too well what trauma does to us, even years later.

Pastors don’t know these things, nor do they have the experience and training of my therapist. Ordinary people don’t either. But, unfortunately, many are arrogant and assume they know things that they don’t. They sit judge and jury over survivors and their families and judge us less than credible, because we cannot make them understand. Sometimes they are even joined by other survivors — who have not walked far enough in their healing to have enough empathy and wisdom to do otherwise — who help rub the salt of skepticism and disbelief into our wounds.

We understand that our predators seem believable and trustworthy. After all, they had to dupe us and set us up before they could betray us. But you will probably never understand how deeply you wound us when you believe them over us.

Please believe us. Please.

And, if you’re reading this, and you have any reason to think that you may have added to a survivor’s trauma by your lack of support, please — in the name of all that is good and holy — humble yourself and apologize. Let your words be a healing balm. You may never know how desperately that survivor has longed to hear you ask forgiveness.

Repentance 

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How do we know if someone is truly repentant? How do we know if we are? In light of some of my recent posts, I’ve been asking myself those questions, and doing some careful thinking and self-examination.

These are a few of my thoughts.

While researching the topic of repentance, I found this helpful quote from Church Discipline by Jonathan Leeman:

“A few verses before Jesus’ instruction in Matthew 18 about church discipline, he provides us with help for determining whether an individual is characteristically repentant: Would the person be willing to cut off a hand or tear out an eye rather than repeat the sin (Matt. 18:8-9)? That is to say, is he or she willing to do whatever it takes to fight against the sin? Repenting people, typically, are zealous about casting off their sin. That’s what God’s Spirit does inside of them. When this happens, one can expect to see a willingness to accept outside counsel. A willingness to inconvenience their schedules. A willingness to confess embarrassing things. A willingness to make financial sacrifices or lose friends or end relationships.” (p. 72)

I like the phrase describing repentant people as “zealous about casting off their sin”. Many of us already know this, whether through study, personal experience, or instinct. For example, something just doesn’t sit right with us about a supposedly repentant adulterer who still wants to keep his mistress on as his secretary and travel with her on business. We wonder how repentant someone is if they refuse to adjust their lives in any meaningful sort of way,  refuse to avoid further opportunity for sin, but expect us to take them at their word. (“I couldn’t resist my secretary before, but now I can. Trust me.”)

Some time back, I read the testimony of a marriage that healed after the wife’s affair. Her repentance came in stages; it was fully a year before she was willing to break off all contact with her affair partner. Needless to say, that year was agony for her husband, and painful evidence that she had not yet fully repented of her selfishness and lack of love. Her husband said he finally knew she was committed to faithfulness when she not only refused any further contact with the affair partner, but decided — unasked — to give up her professional career. She said she had destroyed her husband’s ability to trust her and didn’t want him to worry whenever she spent extended time with clients. That was her equivalent of cutting off her hand or gouging out her eye.

When we repent over sin, it’s rarely just the glaringly obvious sin that requires our repentance. If I lose my temper and yell harshly at my husband, the yelling may be just the tip of the iceberg. When it comes to complex sins like adultery, there are a myriad of sinful actions, thoughts, and attitudes that lead up to the final deeds — and that’s why we should not be so quick to restore someone who is only repentant over acts of intercourse, rather than over the whole stinking rotten web of selfishness, deceit, and unholiness that brought him or her to that point. A wise Biblical counselor will work with the Holy Spirit, rather than abort the process. Covering up sin is never grace.

I’ve noticed, in myself, that I’m not truly repentant until I see the ugliness of my sin and am willing to take full responsibility for it. As long as I am attempting to minimize (“Well, at least I didn’t…”) or excuse (“Yeah, but…”) or explain (“You see, the reason…”) or garner sympathy (“I was in a bad place, and now I feel terrible!”) or demand anything (“You need to trust/forgive me!”) I am not truly repentant. As long as I am lacking in empathy for those I have offended and hurt (“What’s the big deal? Why can’t they get over it already?”) I am only repentant up to a point.

Again, a wise Biblical counselor will know these things, and — when necessary — will call the sinner out, restoring him gently in love or with a firm rebuke, whichever is most appropriate. That will, of course, require the counselor to possess compassion and tenderness along with wisdom and discernment. Unfortunately, at the risk of sounding sexist, I have to point out that male leaders often have a difficult time identifying with women in general, as well as with anyone they consider “weak”. I think that is the reason for the phenomena that distresses and confounds so many of us — that pastors far more readily sympathize with predators, pedophiles, and sex offenders than with those who have been wounded and violated.

Behind a lot of sin, but sexual sin in particular, is a sense of entitlement. The sinner thinks: I am entitled to sexual gratification…I am entitled to more than I am getting from my spouse…I am entitled to happiness…I am entitled to do whatever I want with that child…I am entitled to control others…she owes me…he has no right to refuse me…I am entitled to use others…I am entitled to take what I want…That sense of entitlement outweighs everything else until selfishness runs rampant. We don’t want to admit that when we sin. We don’t want to tell the horrible truth: “I did it because I wanted to and, at that moment, I cared more about myself than anyone else. I am without excuse.”

Even as I write those words, I am searching for loopholes in my mind: Come on, that doesn’t apply to every sin...when I was being a prodigal in my 20’s, I was reacting to trauma and pain…which is an explanation, but not an excuse. I chose how to react, sometimes in healthy ways and sometimes in unhealthy ways. No one dragged me kicking and screaming out of the church and forced me to be a prodigal. No one kept me from Jesus but myself.

We all sin out of our brokenness. What that means is that we need healing as well as forgiveness.

And now for a hypothetical situation…

Let’s say that there is a young man who sexually abused multiple children in two different churches (at least that we know of). He has repented, been convicted, and served time. He has also sought professional help, because he realizes that pedophilia, contrary to what some would claim, is not merely a sexual quirk or preference that can be replaced with another. (“Hey, I like blondes but I supposed I could learn to like brunettes.” “I prefer dudes but maybe I can try real hard to like girls.” “Well, I’m into two-year-olds but that’s probably only because I’ve never met an adult woman I liked!”) However, let’s assume that our hypothetical sex offender has gone through deep inner healing, and that the very thought of sexually abusing a child is now abhorrent to him.

A nice elder from his church decides to set him up with a young woman. “That’s very nice of you,” says the repentant young ex-pedophile, “but there is no way that I could ever marry. You see, because of the very serious nature of the crimes I committed, I am not allowed to be around children except under the supervision of a court-appointed, trained chaperone. I could never be alone with my own children. There is a very real possibility I wouldn’t be allowed to live in my own home with my own family. At best, my wife would have to become my trained chaperone, and would have to supervise me around the children, keeping us in her sight at all times. She could never leave them alone with me. She could never even go to the bathroom or take a shower by herself when I’m in the home. We could never have a normal family life. How could I possibly be so selfish as to inflict that on any wife or child?”

That would be true repentance.

A wise, compassionate pastor, noticing its absence, would say, “I cannot in good conscience stand by and allow you to sentence anyone to grow up in such dysfunction, or to place any woman in the awkward, stressful position of having to chaperone her own husband. What sort of husband or father could you possibly be, even if you could guarantee that you no longer pose a danger to children? No one is entitled to a wife and family, especially if they cannot properly fulfill the roles of husband and father. You lost the privilege of marriage when you committed your heinous crimes against innocent children. I’m disappointed that you would, once again, be willing to place others at risk because of your own selfishness and sense of entitlement.”

That would be common sense…and compassion.

When non-Christians are far more concerned about sin than we are

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There is definitely something wrong.

A Christian pastor admits to an adulterous affair, files for divorce, is stripped of his ordination credentials, and should be undergoing church discipline — but, hey, no problem! — another church hires him almost immediately as their director of ministry development.

A Christian celebrity’s past comes back to haunt him when the fact that he molested five children is revealed publicly — but, hey, no problem! — it was just a youthful indiscretion; he repented; and it was really no big deal. Then the same celebrity’s involvement with the Ashley Madison adultery website is exposed, along with several instances of adultery — but, hey, no problem! — we all sin and, besides, sexual perverts can “let Christ turn your ‘deepest, darkest sins’ into something beautiful”.

A serial pedophile serves 20 months out of a life sentence, is almost immediately upon his release re-arrested for voyeurism — but, hey, no problem! — his church leaders set him up on a date with a naive (or disturbed) young woman and their pastor performs the wedding ceremony, knowing full well that the serial pedophile intends to have children. (Now that this is in the news again because the court has information that “shows [Sitler] has had contact with his child that resulted in actual sexual stimulation“, one would think the pastor would be repenting in sackcloth and ashes over his advocacy and support for a serial child molester…but, no.)

What are we assume from all this? That Christians think adultery and pedophilia are not big deals? That we don’t care about marriage vows and innocent children?  That we are in cahoots with predators? That we are idiots, easily duped by predators, but too prideful to admit it? That we are worse than hypocrites?

This is, unfortunately, not a new problem for the church. Paul had to address it in 1 Corinthians 5:1: “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans…” Just like us, some of the early Christians were behaving in ways even worse than the surrounding unbelievers, and engaging in sexual acts considered unacceptable by their society’s standards…yet the church was not doing anything about it.

Sexual immorality is not just like every other sin: “Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.” (1 Corinthians 6:18) It definitely shouldn’t be happening within the church: “But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.” (Ephesians 5:3)

Those of us who have spent any time reading our Bibles know this. We know it full well. Even those who have never opened a Bible recognize that the three examples I gave at the beginning of this blog are seriously wrong. But if we believe the most basic tenets of the Christian faith, the very essence of the gospel, we of all people should recognize the hideous seriousness of sin. Sin is deadly. Rather than minimizing serious sins and trying to pretend that God views serial child molesting the same that He views swiping a half-used cheap ballpoint pen from work, we need to take sin as seriously as God does.

I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people — not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world.  But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one.  For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge?  God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.” (1 Corinthians 5:9-13)

Most of the time, we get this exactly backwards. If Ed Iversen, a church elder, had taken the above passage seriously, he would not have been inviting Steven Sitler over for dinner, and he certainly wouldn’t have done so in order to introduce him to a young woman.

Yes, we shouldn’t write the sinners in our midst off completely and irrevocably. There is what we call “church discipline” and — following evidence of genuine repentance — a process of restoration and reconciliation. But this does not mean hiring adulterous pastors immediately after their affairs, covering up child molestation, making excuses for gross immorality, writing supportive letters on behalf of perverts, or acting as matchmakers for serial pedophiles. God can and does transform lives. But we must stop being naive suckers, and we must cease from being so out of touch with reality that we are easily conned into enabling — even encouraging — predators to continue in their pattern of destruction and abuse. Men like Douglas Wilson (a pastor with no training in treating sex offenders) are incorrigibly arrogant and foolish if they insist that, over the course of “about half a dozen” sessions, they can determine if a serial predator “has been completely honest“. It is bad enough for an ill-equipped pastor to be duped because his poor judgment and over-inflated sense of importance allowed him to get in over his head; it is far worse for him to refuse to acknowledge the devastation caused by his pride and ignorance. At the very least, such a pastor should admit to his error, and apologize for it, rather than attempting to defend himself.

As someone who is admittedly prone to wander, I have my share of “deepest, darkest sins”. I believe in a God of redemption and reconciliation — in fact, I am staking my life and all of eternity on that belief. However, God does not turn our “deepest, darkest sins” into “something beautiful”. He takes sins away. The beautiful thing He does with sin is to remove it as far from us as the east is from the west. There is no silver lining to sin, and no bright side. There is nothing to redeem. What He redeems is us — our lives after our sins have been repented of and forgiven.

Getting rid of the consequences of sin is not as easy a process as getting rid of the guilt of sin. God forgives, but He doesn’t necessarily undo the damage our sins cause, to others and to ourselves. The process of sanctification is what brings healing and wholeness to us, as we leave our patterns of sin behind, and as we overcome the attitudes and thought patterns that led to those sins. It’s an ongoing process.

I’d be a naive idiot if I assumed that, since God forgave my sins of x,y,z that these will never pose a temptation to me again, or that I am instantly “cured” of whatever it was that caused those sins to be a problem for me in the first place. No matter how far some of those sins might fade into my distant past, wisdom would dictate that I should never let down my guard. Trusting God is an entirely different matter than trusting myself not to fail in the very areas that I have failed in the past.

Freedom from certain sins might necessitate curtailing freedom in certain areas. A repentant embezzler would never want to place himself in the position of being church treasurer and bookkeeper, nor would he want to place anyone in the awkward and uncomfortable position of having to supervise him. One would think that a repentant pedophile would be even more circumspect and willing to restrict himself. After all, we are talking about innocent human lives that are at stake. If he is not yet that repentant — or if he is still too arrogant and selfish for his or anyone’s good — one would hope that the leaders of his church would have the wisdom, Biblical understanding, compassion, humility, grace, and plain old common sense to set him straight.

If we don’t clean our own house, eventually someone else will be forced to do so. We need to start with ourselves, and we need to start taking God…and sin…seriously. May we learn to hate what God hates, and love what and whom He loves, and may we become more like His Son, instead of less.