And these men know which churches to target. They flock to the ones that teach there are no “true victims,” that people invite abuse by sinning in some way. They look for the ones engaged in “sin leveling,” telling parishioners that all sins are equal in both God’s eyes and the church, and will be treated the same way. They feel at home in churches that distrust civil authorities and strive to handle offenses “in-house.” If they’re really lucky, they’ll find a church that will make victims apologize to them!
Recently, my post “Ministering to Pedophiles” was picked up by The Aquila Report, a conservative Christian news blog. Since then, the post has been circulated widely, and several people (some of them Reformed ministers) came to the blog to comment.
I was also approached on Twitter by a group of pedophile apologists.
I’m writing this follow-up piece to talk about what I learned from that conversation. Because the biggest complaint that I received, both from the pedophiles and the Reformed ministers, was about my statement that true repentance is rare for a pedophile. My position on that statement has not changed. If anything, since these conversations, it’s become stronger.
First, a caveat.
I do believe there are repentant and celibate pedophiles in the world. These are individuals who have an erotic attraction to children but understand that any sexual contact with them would be amoral and damaging. Many of them have never touched a child or viewed child porn. These individuals feel just as sickened and upset at reports of child molestation as the rest of us.
I also understand that some make a distinction between “pedophile” and “child molester.” A child molester is someone who has actually abused a child sexually, whether or not he or she has an erotic attraction to children. While many people (including myself) use “pedophile” and “child molester” interchangeably, not all people who label themselves pedophiles are child molesters, and not all child molesters are pedophiles.
To be clear, my earlier post was referring specifically to pedophiles who have molested children.
However, pedophiles who molest children or desire to molest children are, at their core, abusers. Abusers feel entitlement rather than empathy. They want people to feel sorry for them, but they feel sorrow for no one else. They will do anything they can to hold onto their position of power in their community or church so they can continue to feed off of their victims, unopposed.
One of the main ways abusers do this is by co-opting language. They take common words and phrases used by empathetic people and assign their own meanings so that it sounds like they are agreeing with the community. A closer examination is required to uncover the deception.
For example, the first pedophile apologist who contacted me on Twitter said that the low recidivism rate for convicted pedophiles proved that true repentance was possible and common. Repentance = no repeat offense. But there is more to repentance than simply not repeating the behavior. Has the offender owned his crimes? Has he acknowledged his victims’ pain? Is he contrite? Has he offered restitution? Is he being accountable and avoiding temptation? Is he getting treatment that will help prevent his acting out again? All of these things are involved with repentance.