Current Events ali | 09 Jul 2008 02:38 pm
A sin with a lasting stain.
Tell someone you used to rape, pillage and murder and people will get used to it and eventually may even invite you around for tea.
Tell someone you have been convicted for pedophilia and people will refuse to let you move in next door - ever.
In our society where almost anything is okay, pedophilia is a lasting stain that no tolerance can wash away. Even in prison pedophilia is not a tolerated crime.
Recently, during a police sting, among the number of Queenslanders arrested on child pornography charges, two attempted suicide. One succeeded.
In the news right now, a previously convicted pedophile was released from prison because the court decided he couldn’t get a fair trial. Now the issue has become, where will he live? No one wants him in their community.
What is the Christian response to this? I’m all for forgiveness and grace, but I am not at all comfortable with the thought of a convicted pedophile living next door to my family. I want to protect my little girl from evil like that!
What would you do if he moved into your community?
on 10 Jul 2008 at 12:33 pm 1.One Salient Oversight said …
If he has been released from prison because of a mistrial, then surely the conviction no longer stands.
Is he a paedophile, or is he a child abuser? They are two different things - a paedophile may not be a child abuser, but a child abuser will always be a paedophile.
If the person was simply a paedophile with no history of abusing children, and if his conviction has been reversed, then he is neither a child abuser nor paedophile.
Of course, try telling that to redneckville.
on 10 Jul 2008 at 1:07 pm 2.ali said …
The links I included didn’t take, but now I have re-inserted them into the text of the post.
If you follow them, you’ll see that the man is a child abuser. He has been convicted for child sexual abuse 6 times previously. The fact that his past has been reported by the media is one of the reasons that the judge agreed he wouldn’t get a fair trial (along with lack of compelling evidence).
I hadn’t appreciated the distinction between a pedophile and a child abuser, but you’re right. In that case the distinction is moot, but in general terms about how the Church should deal with that particular area of sin, it is important.
on 11 Jul 2008 at 4:13 pm 3.One Salient Oversight said …
My opinion is that all people convicted of sex crimes (including rapists) should be in jail for life. Although this may seem harsh, it seems quite fair when it is apparent that sexual urges directed in unlawful directions are almost impossible to “cure”.
The idea would be that, after serving their time in jail, sex offenders would be moved to a different facility. It would still be a jail, but they would have a reasonable standard of living.
The problem is, of course, that because sex crimes are not murder, they are not necessarily deserving of life imprisonment. But it is important that when a person’s liberty has to be taken away for the good of the community, that there should be some form of compensation for that person.
In short - sex offenders should be jailed for life, and given a good life in jail. Everyone wins.
on 12 Jul 2008 at 8:31 am 4.ali said …
Your solution discusses solutions by the State, whereas my post was asking how Christians/the Church should deal with the situation as it is right now. However, I have a few responses to your suggestions.
First, it’s an interesting idea with a lot of merit. I wonder, though, whether you’ll find institutionalised prisoners who now commit crimes to return to prison because they can’t cope with the outside world seeing a better opportunity if they commit a sex crime.
Second, I’m not sure that I’d agree with including rape into that form of punishment. My general unresearched thought is that there are people who rape once and never again. It would be unfair to include those people in such a system that you propose. Having said that, I haven’t looked at statistics and would need to do so to back that up. I may well be wrong.
Third, coming to the issue as a Christian, there’s always a tension between the pragmatic and the Biblical. Looking at the only State Law given by God, rape is not always a capital offense, but adultery, even homosexuality, and other sex crimes are. While the Old Testament Law was given within an ANE framework, I’m not sure that we can’t draw out God’s perspective on different crimes - shouldn’t we base our thinking on his perspective? This doesn’t necessarily mean that the death penalty should be reintroduced (though I’m not completely opposed to that) but the relative punishment ie. life imprisonment, should be applied to those crimes that the OT Law applies the death penalty to, don’t you think?
Of course, this is where the tension between Bible and pragmatics comes in, because some of the things that the death penalty applied to in the OT Law are not even considered crimes today! My gut feeling is that even imprisonment for homosexuality is not right, and unless Australia was taken over by Sharia law I don’t think our society would allow it. But I’m not sure that is a problem with the OT Law.
A lot of thought needs to go into a State solution.
on 16 Jul 2008 at 3:48 pm 5.Jennifer in OR said …
Thank you for this thought provoking post. This is included in the Christian Carnival, up tomorrow at Diary of 1.
My opinion - pedophilia SHOULD be a lasting stain, and No, I would never tolerate one moving in next door.
on 17 Jul 2008 at 1:01 am 6. Christian Carnival CCXXXIII: The Hilarious Edition said …
[...] presents A sin with a lasting stain. posted at Kiwi and an Emu.. A Sunday school teacher was discussing the Ten Commandments with her [...]
on 17 Jul 2008 at 2:55 pm 7.Weekend Fisher said …
I’m not suggesting that modern America reinstate the death penalty for rape, but you mention the OT law — you’re probably aware but under certain circumstances the death penalty was the penalty for rape.
Once on a plane ride I sat next to a fellow who turned out to be a practicing psychologist. His specialty was treating sex criminals. He didn’t draw any distinction between pedophiles and adult rapists when he said that as a class his clients were very difficult to treat. I remember him mentioning that the main difficulty was to get the person to accept responsibility for his own actions. (It sounded as if his clients had talked themselves into believing their own line about blaming their victims.)
I have mixed feelings about the “give them an especially nice prison life” part. That’s sending a mixed message, to say the least.
To me, there is a difference between how you treat someone who is repentant and someone who is unrepentant as far as whether you consider them a brother — and then an entirely separate question about whether they have enough self-control so that it is safe for other people if they are released under their own control. We can’t afford to confuse forgiveness or repentance with self-control and safety. We have to keep our head straight there.
Take care & God bless
Anne / WF
on 17 Jul 2008 at 6:46 pm 8.ali said …
Hi Jennifer,
I understand the sentiment, and I agree that pedophilia should not be ignored. I wouldn’t want someone who has been convicted of pedophilia living next door to me because of my little girl, nor would I want them living near any other children!
However, I also believe we have to be open to the fact that our sin is just as awful in other ways, and that if Jesus has forgiven us, he can also forgive pedophiles.
How do we love Christians who were pedophiles?
I’ve been in a small Church were there was a convicted pedophile. Loving them while protecting others against their weakness and possibly recurring sin was actually well done, until a woman with children foolishly got romantically involved with him and tragically he reoffended.
on 17 Jul 2008 at 6:53 pm 9.ali said …
Hi Anne,
To me, there is a difference between how you treat someone who is repentant and someone who is unrepentant as far as whether you consider them a brother — and then an entirely separate question about whether they have enough self-control so that it is safe for other people if they are released under their own control.
Absolutely. However, convicted pedophiles are being released. It is true that they are assessed and if they are likely to reoffend, they are not released, but a good number still are.
How do we deal with them?
Your point about treating repentant and non-repentant people differently is well made too.
on 25 Jul 2008 at 5:35 am 10.Claudia said …
This is a good question, very relevant. I wouldn’t want a convicted pedophile or rapist living in my neighborhood because of the high rate of recidivism. Even a repentant Christian may be tempted in whatever area his or her weakness is. At a church we previously attended we had a saved lesbian, bless her heart, who was put in charge of choir (teen girls mostly) and ended up attempting to seduce one of them. Telling her she was also born that way and not to fight it.
So, no we don’t put someone with a history of money scams in charge of church finances, etc. etc. As Christians we are called to share the gospel, disciple, love our brothers and sisters. None of that includes putting them in the way of temptation, or inviting them to live with us or even in close proximity. God saves us and often heals and prospers us, but many times the consequences of sins remain. Broken families, health problems, etc. Finding a safe (for everyone else) living arrangement might be one they need to deal with.
on 31 Jul 2008 at 2:05 am 11.barefootmeg said …
friends of ours in a house church in san francisco faced this very problem. i don’t remember what their final response was, but one thing they took under consideration was that the man that wanted to move into the church was willing to be castrated. he knew that otherwise he would just succumb to temptation again.