Another Black Eye!

This has been a tough few months as the courtroom drama unfolded daily in our newspapers and on TV. It was the trial of a prominent Arlington Pastor accused of drugging and raping 3 women (he was convicted and is serving a 15 year sentence). It seems that his conduct had been challenged over 12 years ago, but no action taken. The media was in a feeding frenzy. It had another way to slam the Church of Jesus Christ.

As a staff we discussed this (I will do a series on Authority soon- when to submit and not), people were hurting over the revelation, a church lost hundreds of members, and I personally did counseling for some. So it was a trying time.

To compound the problem, one of the local writers (Bob Ray Sanders) wrote an article on ‘clergy abuse’ that pretty well indicted all clergy as corrupt, abusive, and otherwise immoral. He gave a forum for people to tell their own horror stories about the clergy.

I could stand it no longer! I wrote to him the following (to which I heard no response nor was it published):

As a member of the clergy I do feel that your article 'Hornbuckle isn't the only bad pastor out there' was an over-generalization characterizing many clergy as abusers and casting suspicion on all clergy.

There are many more pastors out there who have not succumbed to the 'gals, glory, or gold' trap that have befallen some clergy as well as prominent CEO's, Past Presidents, etc.

We have had numerous reports over the past year of reporters fabricating or plagiarizing stories but have seen no articles saying many reporters are abusers and that we should be suspicious of all those that write for the news media including yourself.

We all should be able to stand the test of scrutiny. After all integrity is not who you are in public but who you really are in private.

Thank you for your efforts,
David Kerr

Now I feel better! Let the Church rise to Her destiny!