BaptistLife.Com Forums.

Obviously we disagree about our views on pedophiles. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on go on from here. Have a good day brother...

Well, I'm not sure if I do disagree with you, since you haven't given anything clear to go on to compare my views to. But I agree that it appears to be pointless to keep asking you for something you aren't willing to provide. May the Lord go with you to show you whatever it is you cannot yet see.

This issue of immoral behaviour should have been cared for under the simple requirement that followers of Christ live a moral life. The trouble with too many churches and pastors is that they want no trouble and value it over the cries of a child molested. They have turned their heads in the favor of appearance of perfection no one has.

Jack Graham is the Pastor and his Staff and church should have acted if he would not. There is no need to blame it on law enforcement. Blame it on hubris and a diverted mind to numbers attending over care for those participating in ANY church.

Jack Graham was totally responsible for not reporting the incident to the police whether he had just gotten there or not. The sad thing is that the current Executive Pastor, Mike Buster, is left with trying to explain why Jack did what he did. Typical of behavior at Prestonwood.

I do find it interesting that everyone is so quick to pronounce pedophiles "healed" and "delivered" and "changed." How many of these changed pedophiles do you actually know and how many of them have you hired at your church?

Yeah, I haven't seen anybody here being "quick" to pronounce any particular set of child molesters "healed", "delivered" or "changed". Neither lepers nor leopards can change their spots; God can, and chooses to do so more often with lepers than with leopards. "Child molesters never change" is a subset of "Sinners never change", but we all know that God does change sinners. (And sometimes does so in this life, right before our eyes, or maybe even in our very persons.) God relieved me, at a critical juncture, of my desire (and even my willingness) to drink alcoholic beverages. Many of my fellow alcoholics do not receive that relief, and I do not know why. And although I hope that the relief will last forever and I will die sober, I know plenty of people who seemed to have "got it" yet subsequently, sometimes after more than a decade of sobriety, relapsed. And I assume, for lack of anything better to do, that pedophilia is in some ways analogous to alcoholism.

Ed, can you expand upon the reasons that would lead you to hire a convicted (former) child molester to work in your church? What about that case differs from the run of the mill?

A reference or two would be welcome, still, JamesK, for me and perhaps others even if Alan remains a fan of research by Google.

It's real simple: "If anyone should harm one of these children of mine, he should have a millstone tied around his neck and cast into the middle of the sea."

And who said this??????

Allow me to pick a nit. It's not that he "should" have a millstone around his neck etc., but that "it would be better for him if" he had one etc. etc. Thanks~

Good observation----appropriate totally accurate rendition---I agree!!!

So does Jesus believe in Capital Punishment for those who hurt both physical and spiritual children????

Or, perhaps, they punish themselves with sin far more than a millstone around their neck!

Either way, sin and ministry have no place in the same room of an ordained person's life. Any minister on any staff, whether Senior or Junior, is headed for Hell if he knows it and ignores it. They certainly create hell for the abused and used person having an affair with them.

Hell lasts for eternity while the struggle to breath while sinking to the bottom of the sea is about 4 minutes.