It seems to be an increasing question these days: What should the church do when a sex offender finishes their sentence and wishes to return to church or join anew? I’ve written here on this before but want to return to the subject because it is controversial. Of the questions I get relating to this are,
- Shouldn’t the church be a place where all sinners are welcome?
- If a sex offender is disallowed in church aren’t we removing the one thing they need (Christian community?)
- Should victims of abuse have so much power as to say who can and cannot attend church?
Instead of answering this questions, I think churches need to have frank conversations about the following areas:
- Repentance. What is it? What are the fruits of it? What are signs of either inadequate or false repentance?
- Protection. There are more than 60 commands in the Old and New Testaments about protecting vulnerable members of society (widows, orphans, aliens, etc. ). True Religion, James says, is one that looks after the vulnerable. What does it mean to protect them. Is it enough to tell them that they are safe even though they do not feel so? Do we ever consider giving them power and some ability to say what they can tolerate?
- Forgiveness/Restoration/Redemption/Reconciliation. These terms are sometimes used synonymously. They should not be. What does it mean to forgive? Does it mean I should act as if it never happened? Where does this idea come from? Restoration to God? The Body?
- The Church and access to it. As Christians we are called to meet together for worship and the teaching of the Word? What are the options we might think about that meet this calling but value that same calling for everyone? Can the “church” come to the sex offender? Is he willing to not demand rights to be in church but find ways to worship with other believers while also being concerned about the welfare of others?
That’s a start. If churches would be willing to explore these issues and delay answering the questions I noted at the beginning, I think they will have a better chance of ministering to all. And if either victims or sex offenders are so impatient that they will not allow the body to study the matter, then that probably says something about the interest to care well for all the sheep. If the offender becomes impatient and demanding, whining and complaining, then we have to question his/her interest in being ministered to. There may be other reasons they want in the church. As Anna Salter discovered in her interviewing many many offenders, some offenders see the church as a place of protection from scrutiny due to naivete.
6 Comments
July 7, 2008 at 1:01 pm
I have a male friend who completed a 15 year sentence for sex-related crime against children. His crime did not involve physical contact with children, but nonetheless he will carry the label of “registered sex offender” with him the remainder of his life. He knew God before going to prison…but God met with him while he was in prison and impacted his life over the span of that sentence significantly more than he would allow Him to influence him outside of prison. Because of the problematic issue my friend was not effectively dealing with, God put him where it could be dealt with, but the privilege of encountering God under those circumstances carried a price which my friend must necessarily bear for his remaining years. The patriarch Jacob apparently had an issue in his life that God knew would be effectively dealt with only when He had assumed human form and physically wrestled for a fortnight with Jacob. The price Jacob paid for that athletically-inclined life lesson was to emerge forever crippled in his hip, a sign to all (most conspicuously to Jacob) that this corrective measure had taken place. My friend feels his consequence is just, and understands (though struggles at times to embrace) the restrictions placed upon him regarding ministry involvement and leadership in his church. He, like Jacob, bears a wound as a sign of his healing, but my friend cannot run in the ministry circles he’d like, much like Jacob could not run…period. He seems to exemplify the attitude I’d wish all Christian sex offenders could adopt when returning to fellowship post-incarceration. He’s been patient with leadership in his church (a different church than the one we’d attended years ago), and respected periods of cautious reticence by some as trust was built. He, in turn, has created an invaluable opportunity for his church to explore all the issues Phil wrote about above, and wrestle with tough questions about repentance, restoration and permanent consequence for actions. So far, it seems to have been a good thing for all involved.
July 7, 2008 at 1:42 pm
Scott, I concur that your friend and the experience he had with his church is rare, difficult, fraught with pain, but good.
July 8, 2008 at 9:49 pm
Though this is not necessarily about sex offenders, I recommend the book Amish Grace, it tells the story of how the Amish of Nickle Mines PA forgave that man who killed all those school children it is a story of true forgiveness.
September 20, 2008 at 11:43 pm
i wonder how many of you are supposedly christians that are judging and desiring suffering on people who had a past of a sex offence. you know jesus died for every sinner. but as long as you hang on to your hate you will be not in gods house. as a matter of fact sex offenders will be in heaven and you will be in hell forever. at least sex offenders only have to live in this hell temporarily is forgiven. not all sex offenders need to be treated this way. what will you do when one of your family members get caught? most sex offences happen by reletives.
these laws are wrong and you that hate people of any kind will burn in hell.sex offenders cannot even go to church where church is for sinners not the perfect in society. judge not lest ye be judged.unfortunately the scarlet letter placed on these individuals endangers you and your kids more instead of rehabilitation and support. registries have the opposite effect of helping. all this put on the sex offenders causes problems in thier life that can cause reoffence or even a act of mass murder. see how rediculous this is? its pretty bad when someone is treated like a pariah that molests a kid but someone who murders a kid and does not molest them is not treated as bad. god bless you and good luck, you’ll need it sooner or later.
December 4, 2008 at 2:46 am
One thing that has not been mentioned is that all those who meet the legal deginition of a sex offender are not quilty. Because they do not have the money for a good defense attorney many innocent people will take a plea bargain. Based on my own research and professional experience in the field of child sex abuse investigation, I believe it is fair to say that one in three on the sex offender list are truly innocent. You may feel my numbers are too high but there is no doubt there is a significant number.
Now let me go in another direction. Could it be that the church needs the sex offender. Typically we consider their crimes to be the most terrible of things. But I wonder if sometimes a faith in the power of forgiveness for most terrible of sins –in human eyes– is not just what we need to be assure of the forgiveness of what we might consider the worst of our sins. I wonder if sometimes we do not need to believe in the love of God for those we consider the most terrible of sinners to be certain of the love of God in our worst of moments. I wonder at times if we do not need to see a change in the life of those we consider the most unchangable to know the victory that God can bring in our own lives. I wonder at times if the friend or relative we are trying to reach for Christ does not need to see our embrace of the sex offender to know we really do believe in forgiveness, the uncondition love of God, and the power of change that comes in being born again. Maybe our embrace of the sex offender will be just the key that God will use to reach that one we have been trying reach but could not.
And what about those that discredit the positions of Christians. They discount our message about the right to life cause they say we are just judgementual. They discout our concern for marriage as a union between a man and women because they say we are judgementual. How effective will this group be in discrediting our message by calling us judgementaul when the community knows we are the only one’s who would love the sex offender and say with them we are all sinners.
Yes we have to protect the children and others. But our methods of protection should never forget they are not save because we have kept the uncaught and labeled sex offender away. And in terms of protecting the weak such as the widow, orphange, and traveler in a foriegn land, are not the sex offenders like them? They are week and easily hurt. How like God to call use to protect the child who is weak and the preditor who might harm them but who has been made weak by their label.
Often the labels we place on sex offenders creates the very stress that we know is likely to make them reoffend. If the Body of Christ can walk with them as Christ would have and reduce this stress and let them feel the love of Christ, then we are not, not protect our children. We are instead the only one’s who are reaching out to those that might hurt our children with a ministry to reduce that stress that increases the likelyhood of reoffending. A sex offender under stress is more likely to reoffend. A sex offender truly trusting in Christ is sex offender with Christ and without stress.
God placed the leopard in the path of Jesus that others might see His power and believe. Could it be that God has placed sex offenders in our path that we might show through them the love of Christ and the power of forgiveness?
June 10, 2009 at 11:53 am
John, why such an obvious emotional post? I don’t think the article or discussion was to persecute the sex offender but rather to see how the church can help.
Remember, by law many sex offenders are restricted from ANY contact with children & Mark 9:42 says: “And whosoever shall offend one of these little ones that believe in me, it is better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.”
God is the ultimate judge, but there is a huge difference between judging and accountability.