10 Comments
User's avatar
Lori Adams-Brown's avatar

Thank you, Scot, for continuing to center victims/survivors. It is key in such vast power differentials.

Scott Courey's avatar

Thank you for the courage and clarity, Scot, with Jeremiah: "They treat the wounds of my people (victims) as though it were not serious...Are they ashamed of their loathsome conduct? No, they have no shame at all". Institutional shame is a thing, but it is rarely provoked unless something like this happens, and precisely when a shame-averting sacrificial lamb is provided. Quick action with the offender is good, but institutional introspection (meaning lots of individual humility) is tons harder. A lack of sustained empathy and care for abuse victims will always point to persistent institutional (leadership) pride, as you and Laura point out so well in Tov. Praying for institutional humility at ACNA...

Scot McKnight's avatar

Very insightful

Kimberly Moses's avatar

Thank you for once again standing up for right and common sense. How churches can sideline the abused is beyond me. It goes against what we are called to do.

A Spiritual Formation Journey's avatar

"The replay review, to be transparent and honest and disinterested, must be independent."

To take that a bit further, they should at least do what is now being shown in some college football games (ACC games in particular), more transparency: the call on the field review is being done back at the headquarters, where the audience can now see and hear how it is being evaluated, and then communicated back to the refs on the field.

Kris's avatar

MLB does the same - farms out the reviews to somewhere in NYC (I think) and the umps at the actual game get the results within minutes.

Bruce Stryd's avatar

Accurate and timely, thank you. We should have learned all this in the late 80s. (I was on too many of these hearings then)

David Erickson's avatar

Lord, may those best practices happen in this case and all cases in the future.

mike mcaleese's avatar

Thank you Scott

Tom Boyle's avatar

Good words, Scot, very good words. May the ACNA take notice. We were part of an ACNA church plant 2007-2010 and left very dis-satisfied with the decision process surrounding the ordination of women. My encounter with the bishop-level hierarchy was not encouraging at the time.