Wolf’s Notes

It has become an almost weekly occurrence: Another long-time pastor of an evangelical church has been arrested in the US on child sex abuse charges.

 

I don’t want to speculate on whether this is a peculiarly American problem; I suspect not, as we’ve had the massive R.C. clergy child abuse scandal [1] over here a few years ago. If we hear less of such scandals in the evangelical camp over here it probably is for sociological reasons such as the comparative size of the movement and its minority status in most of Europe, not because the European church is holier than the American church.

 

Nor do I want to point the finger at these men; we all have our temptations and if mine are not as abhorrent as theirs it is purely by the grace of God.

 

But I want to comment on something I cannot get my head around, not in a judgmental way but because I am mystified by it.

 

If I had even once committed, and especially if I were continuously committing, such acts I could not stand in front of the church on Sunday morning, preach the Gospel, and lead the congregation in worship. I would consider myself disqualified, constantly aware of and pulled down by the millstone hanging around my neck that Jesus talks about (Matthew 18:6)[2]. In fact, I have always considered myself disqualified from preaching and been reluctant to lead worship because of my own struggles with humanly speaking minor and more socially acceptable temptations and my failures to resist them.

 

In 1 Timothy 4:1-2 Paul talks about “hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron,” and perhaps that explains it.  And everyone of us whose conscience has not been seared, or at least not to that extent, should thank God for His gracious preservation.

 

There is a quote attributed to the English Reformer and martyr John Bradford who lived in the 16th century. While watching criminals being led to their execution Bradford is said to have exclaimed, “There but for the grace of God go I!”