If those un-contacted tribes wanted contact, they would initiate it. This is just one more example of Christian zealots willing to destroy a culture in order to save it from the wrath of an invisible man in the sky they never heard of. As for religious organizations working with kids, how many times do these horrors need to happen before the practice is outlawed?
And, once again, we see all-mighty, all-knowing, all-seeing Jeebus stands by and allows these vile christianists to violate kids. Christianity is nothing but a giant grift funded by comfortable christians sitting in the pews - upon vulnerable people around the world. And no proof that their claims are true or that they improve the lives of their victims. A pox on all of them!
God/jeezyboy/holy pigeon (if it existed) seems to enjoy watching humans suffer, it probably reaches sexual orgasm the more the human suffers. If it exists, and does nothing even it supposedly is the most powerful being in the multiverse. Then it is the most vile, disgusting creature to exist. If it is powerless to act then why should we (humans) obey it at all.
Either case, I would do everything in my power to save the child from this torture (I see child abuse as torture); this is the difference between us (humans) and a god/jeezyboy/holy pigeon who seems either to enjoy human suffering or is powerless to act.
It's more than time for unwanted contact with isolated tribes to be criminalised in every country. Like Hemant wrote, at minima it's willful endangering.
That's a bit too star-trekky for me. I would want to be contacted. I would want the benefits of contact. I'm sure there are tribe members like that too. Informed consent, right? Show them, and let them choose no. Or mostly no. Or sometimes no. Or tribal Alice says no but tribal Bob says yes, in which case here's your ipad and innoculation, Bob.
Besides which, it seems hypocritical or at least double-standardish to criminalize a parent who denies insulin treatment for their diabetic kid, while we all stand around patting ourselves on the back on how wonderfully liberal we are for denying modern medicine to an entire population. Shouldn't it be the same? Either it's bad or good, but it can't be bad when a Iowan conservative does it but good when we do it to some Amazonian tribe member with diabetes.
One of the problems is missionaries often aren't mentally capable of taking "thanks, no" for an answer. Magical inspiration overrides critical thinking for some folks.
SERIOUSLY? They actually want to draw a distinction between homosexual abuse and heterosexual abuse? How about, regardless of the polarities or victims involved, the perpetrator gets thrown out, are NEVER considered for participation again, and local authorities are notified of the offenses committed and referred for criminal charges!
This behavior is despicable and deserves to be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
Given that men appear to make up the majority of CSA perpetrators, this policy is almost blatantly misogynistic too. In general these people seem to believe that it's more okay to abuse girls, which isn't that surprising when the underlying ideology is that girls and women are fundamentally objects for the desires of men.
Well men between the ages of 16-36 are responsible for something like 90% of violent crimes, so it's no surprise that it would be men of that age group committing most of the sexual abuse (which is, after all, a subset of that 'violent crimes.')
So Matt Walsh recently made a social media post (maybe it’s older, but I only just saw it yesterday) about the Catholic sexual abuse scandal making the same fallacious arguments catholic league, the majority of the victims were post pubescent and boys, so it’s not a scandal and it’s really a problem with homosexuality.
If it’s not consensual, it’s rape. If they are in the middle of or post puberty but still a teen/child it’s still abuse, and it’s still rape as they are not capable of giving g consent. If we’re talking about an adult in a position of authority over them, it cannot be consensual and is still rape. And to spend all kinds of time energy and cash (as they have) to cover it up, they know goddamned well that it’s wrong. It doesn’t matter the victims age or gender, it’s rape and therefore it’s about control and power not about a person’s sexual orientation.
Making excuses for them only makes Matt Walsh look like a creep. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear allegations coming for him. He’s always seemed creepy and pretty apologetic towards abusers.
"If it’s not consensual, it’s rape. If they are in the middle of or post puberty but still a teen/child it’s still abuse, and it’s still rape as they are not capable of giving g consent."
I share you outrage, but this doesn't surprise me. Christians like these tend to divorce morality from the concept of harm and victimization. To them, homosexuality and sexual assault are (probably) both wrong because God say so. So it stands to reason that homosexual sexual assault is doubly wrong. If anything, the homosexual part is probably the more wrong one. It's fucked up, but it seems to be the mentality.
Sure, evangelicals will usually tell you that all sin is equal, but I think it's pretty obvious from their actions that they rarely believe that.
Not surprised, either, not really. This is the brand of behavior that has gone on, one way or another by one denomination or another, for CENTURIES. Put a person in a position of undeserved authority, not answerable to any supervising mechanism, and this kind of crap happens over and Over and OVER again.
And still people think that faith and religion are unmodified positives. SPARE ME.
There are some thoughts going around in my head, I am not sure how to put it, so please bear with me, if I am not as clear as I would like to be.
The differentiation between homo/hetero abuse is distracting from what surely should be the focus of all of these considerations and that is - the harm to the victim. If our first focus is the victim, then certain actions flow from that, such as what are the actions which could/should be taken to help the victim, what can/should be done to support them to help them live their lives.
The secondary focus then is the perpetrator, what could/should be done to prevent them from carrying out actions which harm other victims? Punishment is also a consideration in this context.
And only then should the organisation consider itself, and then the hierarchy of consideration is assistance to the victim(s) and the prevention of other abuse over and above the organisation's reputation. NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND!
You are correct when you say that the differentiation between same-sex and opposite sex abuse is simply a distraction. But I believe it also reflects exactly how these people “think”. Children are not naturally homosexual, they must be molested into it, at least according to the thinking of these idiots. Therefore, it’s a double sin. First the child is molested, and second now he will be a homosexual. For the people who think this way, there is nothing worse.
But it gets worse, because they are so horrified by the thought that anybody might not actually be heterosexual that they must remove that “taint” from any association with them. For many of them, it’s still the worst sin, and nothing is ever going to convince them that it is simply a natural expression of a certain proportion of humanity, and that badly translated passages in an ancient book that might have in a vague general sort of way something to do with the subject, at least as it was understood by people 2 to 3000 years ago, has relevance.
I just don't like discussing this in the context of 'sin', I think it'd be better if we were looking at this in terms of 'harm', harm to the victims. Eg the lady (assistant/secretary) mentioned in the article the other day was harmed by the minister's actions and here the children are being harmed.
If I use the concept of 'harm', then I come to the conclusion that no-one is being harmed by adult, consensual, homosexual activities. And if I use the same concept to consider heterosexual activities with a non-consenting person, then it is clear that they are harmed. Even more so with children.
And this gives me a very clear moral framework as regards love, life and sex.
The Ethnos guys want to think of it in terms of sin, because they figure it can be forgiven and they can move on as they please. *I* prefer to think of it as a felony, starting at Gross Sexual Imposition and going all the way up to Rape One.
I am thinking of your term of 'Gross Sexual Imposition' - would that be in the same category as sexual harassment?
Leaving aside the definition, there's another reason why I don't like thinking of 'sin'; it would equate the minister having an affair (consensual sexual activity) with his secretary with the behaviour described the other day of unwanted slapping, kissing and so on. In the context of 'sin' the affair might actually be worse - in my view this is just the wrong (!) way of looking at it.
I know you are trying to say that the first priority is to care for the victim and the third priority is to the institution. But if the institution needs to focus on their reputation, it’s always, ALWAYS, best to be transparent about what is happening, upfront that something happened and what steps you are taking to keep it from happening again. Yet they always choose to cover up the crimes, make excuses, hide the perpetrators, accuse the victims of fault and just behave all-around criminal. They are making it worse and worse the more they try to hide their crimes, and their answer to it is always DARVO. Or blaming someone else from a vulnerable population. (Like the Catholic Church blames the priests for being gay rather than accepting their culture of abuse and coverups.)
Thanks TroubleshOOter for emphasizing this, it speaks to the culpability of this mindset-- everything feminine in the world (despite the age) is seen as property--Mormon patriarchs sending the boys off to proselytize so they can have their pick of child brides.
"Tchividjian, who helped file this lawsuit as well as the last one, says Ethnos360 needs to figure out why they keep dealing with the same problems year after year. “It’s not in a vacuum. This is over, and over, and over again,” he said." Uh I think this keeps happening year after year because predators are being drawn to the combination of access to children and the doctrine of forgiveness for abusers. This is a staple of evangelicalism and it's why countless children are abused in these communities over and over again. It's a feature, not a bug.
"I think this keeps happening year after year because predators are being drawn to the combination of access to children and the doctrine of forgiveness for abusers. "
BINGO!!! The kkkatlik "church" even offers free lawyers and "GET OUT OF JAIL FREE" cards
I love Boz and the work he does but if people are still in the Christian world they act like this is all so weird that Christian orgs can be like this. When I see it as the inevitable outcome of their patriarchal beliefs and obsession with controlling children.
Any Drag Queens? Trans folk? No? Jesus H Motherfucking Christ on a Cracker. These authoritarian child rapers need to be stopped, and their followers need a few dozen whacks with a clue-by-four.
It's not even sexuality. It's ABUSE and a power play, and considering that Ethos360 doesn't give any appearance of taking these incidents seriously, they should be barred from any further mission work of this nature.
Oh, hell, who am I kidding. Dear Donnie Dumb-ass will insist that they continue! 🤦♂️
Former evangelical Jo Luehmann has done social media posts about how evangelicalism specifically tends to attract and enable abusers. I have no doubt that her arguments apply equally well to other authoritarian expressions of religion.
Apparently, to get into heaven you are required to have a high body count of sexually abused minors. Seems to be the only way to get to heaven, going by the actions of the most pious clergy.
There are so many things wrong with all of this, quite apart from the obvious.
“ We recognize that mistakes have been made”. This “mistakes have been made” are the worst kinds of weasel words. They might as well just say “it wasn’t me. It was someone else. Besides, I was somewhere else at the time.”
“over the course of our history with respect to our handling of child abuse allegations” even more weasel words. It’s an admission that there is a history of this in their organization, but weasel weasel weasel weasel. They didn’t do anything about it.
There were few laws or processes in place to protect children who suffered abuse overseas.” There were plenty of laws and processes in place. They just chose to place the welfare of the organization over the welfare of the children. They give all of that away when they say that if an offense was same-sex in nature, that would result in immediate termination and offender was never to return. But if it was opposite sex in nature, oh well, shit happens. Weasel weasel weasel weasel.
‘Today’s leaders have a different and better understanding and training to address abuse issues than was available to the leaders during those early years.” Yet another admission. “We got caught but weasel weasel weasel weasel.”
Just a couple of other random thoughts: Boz Tchividjian is a grandson of Billy Graham. I remember there were a bunch of stories about him 8 to 10 years ago. I don’t really remember what they were. But I do know he no longer identifies as an evangelical. Perhaps because it involved his associations with sexual abuse in the church, and the kind of hypocrisy that permeates evangelical Christianity when it comes to any issues around sex.
Maybe I didn’t understand it, but I did not agree about children being naked together constituting sexual abuse. Lots of children play “doctor.’ I did it myself when I was a child, I knew of other children who did. I don’t think I would call it or equate it with child sexual abuse. It’s something that kids do. They are curious about their bodies and the bodies of other people. It’s entirely different from kids “having sex” with each other, whatever that might mean, or adults sexually assaulting kids.
I knew that I was gay when I was three or four years old. I didn’t know what gay was, or what it might mean, and I certainly didn’t know about sex. But I knew that I was different from other boys, and that it involved other boys, especially other boys being naked. I also knew I shouldn’t talk about it with anyone. Playing “Doctor” was a way for me to understand something about myself, something that no adult could explain to me. But again, there’s a world of difference between that, actually having sex, or adults sexually assaulting kids. And it is certainly different from adults knowing about other adults sexually assaulting kids, and pretending that some organization is far more important than that.
Kids have always played. When we played house I wanted to be the Mommy. That got me laughed at. We swam naked at the community indoor pool. Boys with boys, girls with girls. High school gym showers were really difficult. Highly arousing to me. I could look but dared not touch.
WHEN AN ADULT starts "playing" with kids, it has crossed the line into criminality.
One of the things that is beyond weird to me is how so many men are afraid of being naked around other men.
NOW.
They can't all be closet homoSexuals. But this seems to be a peculiarly (emphasis on peculiar) American issue. I was just at a huge thermal resort in Germany. Men of all ages hanging around naked with each other. Nobody had the slightest issue with it. If they did they would not have been there.
But back in the pre-pandemic days, I noticed how few men would get naked in the locker room or take showers. There was even one guy who claimed that it was a "against the rules" and started harassing me. They kicked him out, he rejoined under another name, and harassed me again. They kicked him out again
DM had pictures of one of my cousin's daughters (about 4 and 6 years old, naked). It was hot and they wanted to play in the swimming pool (their father knew we had one but didn't care to bring bathing suits, they didn't even have hats).
She knew the difference, she once caught a teen starting to have a doubtful behavior toward my nephew. She called him back, and explained why it wasn't acceptable.
In kindergarten 1950s we had a switch day where to boys dressed as girls and girls as boys. I remember thinking my dress was really cool. Much nicer than pants. I wanted to wearr dresses all the time. I got divorced partly becuse my lingerie was nicer than the wife's. There were a few guys at the bth house who wore drag. It took me a whiloe to realize many were straight.
My concern is what happens when an extremist group should come to power in Egypt, we seen what religious extremist do to cultural heritage at museums and other sites of importance.
It would be a horrible thing should extremist destroy all the artifacts and objects in this multi-million dollar museum. How can the people of Egypt protect their (and the worlds) cultural heritage from religious wackjobs?
Given the amount of tourist money that these things bring in, I would hope that extremist religious groups would be just a little cautious about destroying it. It might annoy a great number of people who make money off it. I don't think Afghanistan had much of the tourist industry when they destroyed the giant buddhas.
Yet, ISIS was more than willing to destroy ancient archaeological sites and destroyed many artifacts in the Iraqi museum, if they didn’t sell it on the black market first. That is what I meant by extremist groups getting into power in places like Egypt, Lebanon, etc.
As for the buddhas statues, I wonder if the Christians who were upset about the destruction of the statues were really upset that ancient artifacts were destroyed; or were the Christians upset that they weren’t the ones pressing the detonation button (destroying evil idols in the name of Christ).
Well you can’t go around blaming God. He doesn’t exist. And it’s very difficult to make a mistake when you don’t exist. You try it and see if you’re successful.
This, once again, proves that children are in far more danger with christian organizations anywhere than with transgender people in bathrooms or at drag queen story hours. People will never learn, or is it will never admit it? The sickest part is the whole forgiveness thing. They ruin children's lives and traumatise them deeply, then mumble to the sky and they're all good, while the children are scarred for life. And harassing secluded tribes, that are protected by law in some cases? Put them under the jail!
Kayla McClain's parents recognized a problem, but were so ill-equipped to properly deal with it they allowed their leadership to gaslight them into doing nothing. I sincerely hope that Kayla and her parents are now getting help from a competent therapist.
Wow, Ethnos found a whole new low. Instead of some priests abusing the kids and the institution covering for them (cough RCC cough), with this group it's the parents. The congregation. There's no mandatory reporting policy or better firing policy that's going to save your group if it's the congregation itself abusing each others' kids.
It's still the same protect the reputation over the children mentality. Probably the main reason the abuse stepped down a rung from the pastors to the parents is because of the isolation. Send small groups of one to three families to remote locations with language barriers? Add purity culture nonsense and the abuse isn't just likely, it's inevitable.
I dunno I'm still baffled. What the frak is wrong with these dads that they would ever think this. Like, ever. It's not like a normal person goes on a 3-family camping trip and suddenly turns pedophile. That doesn't happen. Military families get stuck in odd places with strangers all the time (and oftentimes, with less institutional support than they'd ideally like), and they don't seem to have an institutional problem. Gotta be something in the religious conservative authoritarian punch, I guess.
This is SOP for situations like this. Change the name, lay low for a little while, get back in the game when you think everyone's forgotten. It's obvious and cynical. I mean how many of them say in their title "formerly the..........."?
If your omnipotent, omniscient god is both real and good yet simply remains unresponsive while children are raped, beaten, molested and murdered, how on earth do you justify this?
If those un-contacted tribes wanted contact, they would initiate it. This is just one more example of Christian zealots willing to destroy a culture in order to save it from the wrath of an invisible man in the sky they never heard of. As for religious organizations working with kids, how many times do these horrors need to happen before the practice is outlawed?
And, once again, we see all-mighty, all-knowing, all-seeing Jeebus stands by and allows these vile christianists to violate kids. Christianity is nothing but a giant grift funded by comfortable christians sitting in the pews - upon vulnerable people around the world. And no proof that their claims are true or that they improve the lives of their victims. A pox on all of them!
I couldn't agree more.
God/jeezyboy/holy pigeon (if it existed) seems to enjoy watching humans suffer, it probably reaches sexual orgasm the more the human suffers. If it exists, and does nothing even it supposedly is the most powerful being in the multiverse. Then it is the most vile, disgusting creature to exist. If it is powerless to act then why should we (humans) obey it at all.
Either case, I would do everything in my power to save the child from this torture (I see child abuse as torture); this is the difference between us (humans) and a god/jeezyboy/holy pigeon who seems either to enjoy human suffering or is powerless to act.
gawd whacks off watching kids get raped. Each time it cums the splooge becomes another galaxy.
It's more than time for unwanted contact with isolated tribes to be criminalised in every country. Like Hemant wrote, at minima it's willful endangering.
That's a bit too star-trekky for me. I would want to be contacted. I would want the benefits of contact. I'm sure there are tribe members like that too. Informed consent, right? Show them, and let them choose no. Or mostly no. Or sometimes no. Or tribal Alice says no but tribal Bob says yes, in which case here's your ipad and innoculation, Bob.
Besides which, it seems hypocritical or at least double-standardish to criminalize a parent who denies insulin treatment for their diabetic kid, while we all stand around patting ourselves on the back on how wonderfully liberal we are for denying modern medicine to an entire population. Shouldn't it be the same? Either it's bad or good, but it can't be bad when a Iowan conservative does it but good when we do it to some Amazonian tribe member with diabetes.
One of the problems is missionaries often aren't mentally capable of taking "thanks, no" for an answer. Magical inspiration overrides critical thinking for some folks.
Math problem:
Given: Religion + Good Works = Good Works
Solve for Religion.
𝐼𝑓 𝑖𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑎 𝒉𝒐𝒎𝒐𝒔𝒆𝒙𝒖𝒂𝒍 𝑎𝑐𝑡 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑎 𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑑, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑜𝑛 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑏𝑒 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑚𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑖𝑚𝑚𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑙𝑦 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑚𝑎𝑦 𝑛𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑏𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑚𝑒𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑠ℎ𝑖𝑝 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛. 𝐼𝑓 𝑖𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑎 𝒉𝒆𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒐𝒔𝒆𝒙𝒖𝒂𝒍 𝑎𝑐𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑜𝑛 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙 𝑏𝑒 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑚𝑖𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑑 𝑖𝑚𝑚𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑙𝑦 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑏𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑦 𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑢𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑑𝑒𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑜𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑎𝑠𝑒.
SERIOUSLY? They actually want to draw a distinction between homosexual abuse and heterosexual abuse? How about, regardless of the polarities or victims involved, the perpetrator gets thrown out, are NEVER considered for participation again, and local authorities are notified of the offenses committed and referred for criminal charges!
This behavior is despicable and deserves to be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
When the victim is a CHILD, it is neither heterosexual nor homosexual. It is fucking CRIMINAL.
Beat me to it. It was the first thing I thought.
Given that men appear to make up the majority of CSA perpetrators, this policy is almost blatantly misogynistic too. In general these people seem to believe that it's more okay to abuse girls, which isn't that surprising when the underlying ideology is that girls and women are fundamentally objects for the desires of men.
And we are sluts since birth, so the men are the actual victims.
Well men between the ages of 16-36 are responsible for something like 90% of violent crimes, so it's no surprise that it would be men of that age group committing most of the sexual abuse (which is, after all, a subset of that 'violent crimes.')
So Matt Walsh recently made a social media post (maybe it’s older, but I only just saw it yesterday) about the Catholic sexual abuse scandal making the same fallacious arguments catholic league, the majority of the victims were post pubescent and boys, so it’s not a scandal and it’s really a problem with homosexuality.
If it’s not consensual, it’s rape. If they are in the middle of or post puberty but still a teen/child it’s still abuse, and it’s still rape as they are not capable of giving g consent. If we’re talking about an adult in a position of authority over them, it cannot be consensual and is still rape. And to spend all kinds of time energy and cash (as they have) to cover it up, they know goddamned well that it’s wrong. It doesn’t matter the victims age or gender, it’s rape and therefore it’s about control and power not about a person’s sexual orientation.
Making excuses for them only makes Matt Walsh look like a creep. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear allegations coming for him. He’s always seemed creepy and pretty apologetic towards abusers.
"If it’s not consensual, it’s rape. If they are in the middle of or post puberty but still a teen/child it’s still abuse, and it’s still rape as they are not capable of giving g consent."
↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑
THIS!!!!!
I share you outrage, but this doesn't surprise me. Christians like these tend to divorce morality from the concept of harm and victimization. To them, homosexuality and sexual assault are (probably) both wrong because God say so. So it stands to reason that homosexual sexual assault is doubly wrong. If anything, the homosexual part is probably the more wrong one. It's fucked up, but it seems to be the mentality.
Sure, evangelicals will usually tell you that all sin is equal, but I think it's pretty obvious from their actions that they rarely believe that.
Not surprised, either, not really. This is the brand of behavior that has gone on, one way or another by one denomination or another, for CENTURIES. Put a person in a position of undeserved authority, not answerable to any supervising mechanism, and this kind of crap happens over and Over and OVER again.
And still people think that faith and religion are unmodified positives. SPARE ME.
And how about "If it's a sexual act of any sort, the person will be dismissed immediately AND REPORTED TO LAW ENFORCEMENT"?
I noticed the same thing but was far too late to post the thought.
That line about homosexual versus heterosexual all but screamed at me. I HAD to comment on that.
There are some thoughts going around in my head, I am not sure how to put it, so please bear with me, if I am not as clear as I would like to be.
The differentiation between homo/hetero abuse is distracting from what surely should be the focus of all of these considerations and that is - the harm to the victim. If our first focus is the victim, then certain actions flow from that, such as what are the actions which could/should be taken to help the victim, what can/should be done to support them to help them live their lives.
The secondary focus then is the perpetrator, what could/should be done to prevent them from carrying out actions which harm other victims? Punishment is also a consideration in this context.
And only then should the organisation consider itself, and then the hierarchy of consideration is assistance to the victim(s) and the prevention of other abuse over and above the organisation's reputation. NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND!
You are correct when you say that the differentiation between same-sex and opposite sex abuse is simply a distraction. But I believe it also reflects exactly how these people “think”. Children are not naturally homosexual, they must be molested into it, at least according to the thinking of these idiots. Therefore, it’s a double sin. First the child is molested, and second now he will be a homosexual. For the people who think this way, there is nothing worse.
But it gets worse, because they are so horrified by the thought that anybody might not actually be heterosexual that they must remove that “taint” from any association with them. For many of them, it’s still the worst sin, and nothing is ever going to convince them that it is simply a natural expression of a certain proportion of humanity, and that badly translated passages in an ancient book that might have in a vague general sort of way something to do with the subject, at least as it was understood by people 2 to 3000 years ago, has relevance.
I get where you are coming from.
I just don't like discussing this in the context of 'sin', I think it'd be better if we were looking at this in terms of 'harm', harm to the victims. Eg the lady (assistant/secretary) mentioned in the article the other day was harmed by the minister's actions and here the children are being harmed.
If I use the concept of 'harm', then I come to the conclusion that no-one is being harmed by adult, consensual, homosexual activities. And if I use the same concept to consider heterosexual activities with a non-consenting person, then it is clear that they are harmed. Even more so with children.
And this gives me a very clear moral framework as regards love, life and sex.
The Ethnos guys want to think of it in terms of sin, because they figure it can be forgiven and they can move on as they please. *I* prefer to think of it as a felony, starting at Gross Sexual Imposition and going all the way up to Rape One.
They don't get to blow that off so easily.
I am thinking of your term of 'Gross Sexual Imposition' - would that be in the same category as sexual harassment?
Leaving aside the definition, there's another reason why I don't like thinking of 'sin'; it would equate the minister having an affair (consensual sexual activity) with his secretary with the behaviour described the other day of unwanted slapping, kissing and so on. In the context of 'sin' the affair might actually be worse - in my view this is just the wrong (!) way of looking at it.
I absolutely agree with that. I was discussing it in terms of their context. Harm is the real issue. And they’re clearly not concerned about harm.
I know you are trying to say that the first priority is to care for the victim and the third priority is to the institution. But if the institution needs to focus on their reputation, it’s always, ALWAYS, best to be transparent about what is happening, upfront that something happened and what steps you are taking to keep it from happening again. Yet they always choose to cover up the crimes, make excuses, hide the perpetrators, accuse the victims of fault and just behave all-around criminal. They are making it worse and worse the more they try to hide their crimes, and their answer to it is always DARVO. Or blaming someone else from a vulnerable population. (Like the Catholic Church blames the priests for being gay rather than accepting their culture of abuse and coverups.)
Around here, we've got a saying going back to Profumo times, that the cover up is always worse than the original act/crime.
There are plenty other examples which prove this point.
Thanks TroubleshOOter for emphasizing this, it speaks to the culpability of this mindset-- everything feminine in the world (despite the age) is seen as property--Mormon patriarchs sending the boys off to proselytize so they can have their pick of child brides.
"Tchividjian, who helped file this lawsuit as well as the last one, says Ethnos360 needs to figure out why they keep dealing with the same problems year after year. “It’s not in a vacuum. This is over, and over, and over again,” he said." Uh I think this keeps happening year after year because predators are being drawn to the combination of access to children and the doctrine of forgiveness for abusers. This is a staple of evangelicalism and it's why countless children are abused in these communities over and over again. It's a feature, not a bug.
I keep saying it: The concept of religion, given its histories and practices, is inherently broken.
"I think this keeps happening year after year because predators are being drawn to the combination of access to children and the doctrine of forgiveness for abusers. "
BINGO!!! The kkkatlik "church" even offers free lawyers and "GET OUT OF JAIL FREE" cards
I love Boz and the work he does but if people are still in the Christian world they act like this is all so weird that Christian orgs can be like this. When I see it as the inevitable outcome of their patriarchal beliefs and obsession with controlling children.
Controlling women and girls as the Bible teaches.
Any Drag Queens? Trans folk? No? Jesus H Motherfucking Christ on a Cracker. These authoritarian child rapers need to be stopped, and their followers need a few dozen whacks with a clue-by-four.
"If it is a homosexual act with a child..."
Stop right there. That is NOT homosexuality.
It's not even sexuality. It's ABUSE and a power play, and considering that Ethos360 doesn't give any appearance of taking these incidents seriously, they should be barred from any further mission work of this nature.
Oh, hell, who am I kidding. Dear Donnie Dumb-ass will insist that they continue! 🤦♂️
This is why in my comments I referred to same sex assault. It’s not homosexuality.
Fundamentalism thrives with insular groups and authoritarianism. So does abuse.
I do not think you can have fundamentalism without abuse in some way: sexual, physical, psychological, emotional, verbal, or "Spiritual".
Former evangelical Jo Luehmann has done social media posts about how evangelicalism specifically tends to attract and enable abusers. I have no doubt that her arguments apply equally well to other authoritarian expressions of religion.
Apparently, to get into heaven you are required to have a high body count of sexually abused minors. Seems to be the only way to get to heaven, going by the actions of the most pious clergy.
Repeatedly scamming the gullible out of their money also seems to be a way.
Covering up sexual abuse by others is enough to get you to heaven. It's also a requirement for Pope.
Missionary
def
"Someone who barges into your home uninvited and proceeds to tell you your whole way of life is wrong."
And WTF is it with xtian missionaries who try to turn areas of the world into child brothels to satisfy their perverted lusts?
In most western country, you will end in jail or have to marry them. At least, for the girls.
"Ethnos," in a biblical context, is referring to someone as a heathen. How nice of them. :S
Seems old habits never die. Like Christians molesting children.
There are so many things wrong with all of this, quite apart from the obvious.
“ We recognize that mistakes have been made”. This “mistakes have been made” are the worst kinds of weasel words. They might as well just say “it wasn’t me. It was someone else. Besides, I was somewhere else at the time.”
“over the course of our history with respect to our handling of child abuse allegations” even more weasel words. It’s an admission that there is a history of this in their organization, but weasel weasel weasel weasel. They didn’t do anything about it.
There were few laws or processes in place to protect children who suffered abuse overseas.” There were plenty of laws and processes in place. They just chose to place the welfare of the organization over the welfare of the children. They give all of that away when they say that if an offense was same-sex in nature, that would result in immediate termination and offender was never to return. But if it was opposite sex in nature, oh well, shit happens. Weasel weasel weasel weasel.
‘Today’s leaders have a different and better understanding and training to address abuse issues than was available to the leaders during those early years.” Yet another admission. “We got caught but weasel weasel weasel weasel.”
Just a couple of other random thoughts: Boz Tchividjian is a grandson of Billy Graham. I remember there were a bunch of stories about him 8 to 10 years ago. I don’t really remember what they were. But I do know he no longer identifies as an evangelical. Perhaps because it involved his associations with sexual abuse in the church, and the kind of hypocrisy that permeates evangelical Christianity when it comes to any issues around sex.
Maybe I didn’t understand it, but I did not agree about children being naked together constituting sexual abuse. Lots of children play “doctor.’ I did it myself when I was a child, I knew of other children who did. I don’t think I would call it or equate it with child sexual abuse. It’s something that kids do. They are curious about their bodies and the bodies of other people. It’s entirely different from kids “having sex” with each other, whatever that might mean, or adults sexually assaulting kids.
I knew that I was gay when I was three or four years old. I didn’t know what gay was, or what it might mean, and I certainly didn’t know about sex. But I knew that I was different from other boys, and that it involved other boys, especially other boys being naked. I also knew I shouldn’t talk about it with anyone. Playing “Doctor” was a way for me to understand something about myself, something that no adult could explain to me. But again, there’s a world of difference between that, actually having sex, or adults sexually assaulting kids. And it is certainly different from adults knowing about other adults sexually assaulting kids, and pretending that some organization is far more important than that.
Kids have always played. When we played house I wanted to be the Mommy. That got me laughed at. We swam naked at the community indoor pool. Boys with boys, girls with girls. High school gym showers were really difficult. Highly arousing to me. I could look but dared not touch.
WHEN AN ADULT starts "playing" with kids, it has crossed the line into criminality.
One of the things that is beyond weird to me is how so many men are afraid of being naked around other men.
NOW.
They can't all be closet homoSexuals. But this seems to be a peculiarly (emphasis on peculiar) American issue. I was just at a huge thermal resort in Germany. Men of all ages hanging around naked with each other. Nobody had the slightest issue with it. If they did they would not have been there.
But back in the pre-pandemic days, I noticed how few men would get naked in the locker room or take showers. There was even one guy who claimed that it was a "against the rules" and started harassing me. They kicked him out, he rejoined under another name, and harassed me again. They kicked him out again
DM had pictures of one of my cousin's daughters (about 4 and 6 years old, naked). It was hot and they wanted to play in the swimming pool (their father knew we had one but didn't care to bring bathing suits, they didn't even have hats).
She knew the difference, she once caught a teen starting to have a doubtful behavior toward my nephew. She called him back, and explained why it wasn't acceptable.
In kindergarten 1950s we had a switch day where to boys dressed as girls and girls as boys. I remember thinking my dress was really cool. Much nicer than pants. I wanted to wearr dresses all the time. I got divorced partly becuse my lingerie was nicer than the wife's. There were a few guys at the bth house who wore drag. It took me a whiloe to realize many were straight.
The "France thanx donuhld" had several others from Switzerland, Germany and others.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2025/may/12/grand-egyptian-museum-pictures
Seen this?
My concern is what happens when an extremist group should come to power in Egypt, we seen what religious extremist do to cultural heritage at museums and other sites of importance.
It would be a horrible thing should extremist destroy all the artifacts and objects in this multi-million dollar museum. How can the people of Egypt protect their (and the worlds) cultural heritage from religious wackjobs?
Given the amount of tourist money that these things bring in, I would hope that extremist religious groups would be just a little cautious about destroying it. It might annoy a great number of people who make money off it. I don't think Afghanistan had much of the tourist industry when they destroyed the giant buddhas.
Yet, ISIS was more than willing to destroy ancient archaeological sites and destroyed many artifacts in the Iraqi museum, if they didn’t sell it on the black market first. That is what I meant by extremist groups getting into power in places like Egypt, Lebanon, etc.
As for the buddhas statues, I wonder if the Christians who were upset about the destruction of the statues were really upset that ancient artifacts were destroyed; or were the Christians upset that they weren’t the ones pressing the detonation button (destroying evil idols in the name of Christ).
I knew about the museum. There is a documentary about all the work behind the transfer of pieces, included armed escorts for some of them.
It's almost as if mistakes make themselves right?
Well you can’t go around blaming God. He doesn’t exist. And it’s very difficult to make a mistake when you don’t exist. You try it and see if you’re successful.
This, once again, proves that children are in far more danger with christian organizations anywhere than with transgender people in bathrooms or at drag queen story hours. People will never learn, or is it will never admit it? The sickest part is the whole forgiveness thing. They ruin children's lives and traumatise them deeply, then mumble to the sky and they're all good, while the children are scarred for life. And harassing secluded tribes, that are protected by law in some cases? Put them under the jail!
𝐴 𝑓𝑒𝑤 𝑦𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑠 𝑙𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑟, 𝐾𝑎𝑦𝑙𝑎 𝑡𝑜𝑙𝑑 ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑠ℎ𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑒𝑛𝑔𝑎𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑛 “𝑠𝑒𝑥𝑢𝑎𝑙 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑑𝑢𝑐𝑡” 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑘𝑖𝑑𝑠, 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑐ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑎𝑤𝑠𝑢𝑖𝑡 𝑠𝑎𝑦𝑠 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑝𝑜𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑏𝑒 𝑎 𝑠𝑖𝑔𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑎 𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑑 𝑖𝑠 𝑏𝑒𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑏𝑢𝑠𝑒𝑑 ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑓. 𝑆𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑎𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑟𝑒𝑝𝑜𝑟𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑏𝑒ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑖𝑜𝑟 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑦’𝑠 𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑑 𝑠𝑎𝑓𝑒𝑡𝑦 𝑡𝑒𝑎𝑚 𝑖𝑛 𝐼𝑛𝑑𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑎 𝑖𝑛 2012. 𝐵𝑢𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑝𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑚𝑢𝑡𝑒𝑑. 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑎𝑠 “𝑡𝑦𝑝𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑠𝑒𝑥𝑢𝑎𝑙 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑙𝑜𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛” 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑡ℎ𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝑓𝑢𝑟𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑒𝑥𝑎𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛. 𝑇ℎ𝑒𝑦 𝑛𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝑏𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑎𝑠𝑘 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝐾𝑎𝑦𝑙𝑎 𝑚𝑎𝑦 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑛𝑒𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑠𝑒 𝑏𝑒ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑖𝑜𝑟𝑠 𝑎𝑡 𝑠𝑢𝑐ℎ 𝑎 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑔𝑒.
Kayla McClain's parents recognized a problem, but were so ill-equipped to properly deal with it they allowed their leadership to gaslight them into doing nothing. I sincerely hope that Kayla and her parents are now getting help from a competent therapist.
Wow, Ethnos found a whole new low. Instead of some priests abusing the kids and the institution covering for them (cough RCC cough), with this group it's the parents. The congregation. There's no mandatory reporting policy or better firing policy that's going to save your group if it's the congregation itself abusing each others' kids.
It's still the same protect the reputation over the children mentality. Probably the main reason the abuse stepped down a rung from the pastors to the parents is because of the isolation. Send small groups of one to three families to remote locations with language barriers? Add purity culture nonsense and the abuse isn't just likely, it's inevitable.
I dunno I'm still baffled. What the frak is wrong with these dads that they would ever think this. Like, ever. It's not like a normal person goes on a 3-family camping trip and suddenly turns pedophile. That doesn't happen. Military families get stuck in odd places with strangers all the time (and oftentimes, with less institutional support than they'd ideally like), and they don't seem to have an institutional problem. Gotta be something in the religious conservative authoritarian punch, I guess.
"New Tribes changed its name to Ethnos360."
This is SOP for situations like this. Change the name, lay low for a little while, get back in the game when you think everyone's forgotten. It's obvious and cynical. I mean how many of them say in their title "formerly the..........."?
To Christians:
If your omnipotent, omniscient god is both real and good yet simply remains unresponsive while children are raped, beaten, molested and murdered, how on earth do you justify this?
Speak up. The sound of crickets is deafening.
Do I need to post the Tracie Harris quote AGAIN??? 😁
Christians hate that one as much as they hate atheists for showing what an amoral bunch believers are. 🙂
Well, ya know, sometimes, life is TOUGH! 😁
𝑌𝑜𝑢 𝑒𝑖𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑎 𝐺𝑜𝑑 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑠 𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑑 𝑟𝑎𝑝𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑟𝑎𝑝𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑑𝑟𝑒𝑛 𝑜𝑟 𝑦𝑜𝑢 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑎 𝐺𝑜𝑑 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑠𝑖𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑦 𝑤𝑎𝑡𝑐ℎ𝑒𝑠 𝑖𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑠𝑎𝑦𝑠, “𝑊ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝑦𝑜𝑢’𝑟𝑒 𝑑𝑜𝑛𝑒, 𝐼’𝑚 𝑔𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑜 𝑝𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑠ℎ 𝑦𝑜𝑢.” 𝐼𝑓 𝐼 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑 𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑝 𝑎 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑜𝑛 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑟𝑎𝑝𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎 𝑐ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑑, 𝐼 𝑤𝑜𝑢𝑙𝑑. 𝑇ℎ𝑎𝑡’𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑑𝑖𝑓𝑓𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑡𝑤𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑚𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝐺𝑜𝑑.
-- Tracie Harris
God has a wonderful plan!
I win!
So now they did it twice. Do the perps expect a better outcome this time?