Cleansing the Faith

SEEMINGLY, to be fair, "seemingly" the Holy Roman Catholic church is not alone in Christendom is harboring a sordid subterranean culture of sexual predation, consisting of pedophilia and sundry other forms of sexual misconduct, all, apparently, widespread. sustained investigative journalistic research conducted over time by a reputable Houston newspaper conclusively reveals a similar sad set of circumstances throughout southern Baptistry, Caucasian branch. And, like the Catholic variety, it appears likely that the deeper down we dig, the greater the quantity of misbehavior, the more pervasive and hidden, which will be unearthed. When Nathanial Hawthorne wrote about Hester Prynne and the reverend Dimmesdale in his classic American novel "The Scarlett Letter", he evidently knew whereof he wrote. Hawthorne, with characteristic nineteenth century literary indirectness and subtlety, makes the point that the bold red letter "A" was either pinned on the bosom of the wrong person, or on one person too few. a similar seems likely to emerge from our current protestant scandal, as the Baptists, having long lain dormant, are only now beginning, with no apparent recourse, to look themselves in the long neglected mirror. The early emerging pattern is that southern Baptist sexual predation, like the Catholic version, is a top down phenomenon. Power corrupts, and we know what absolute power does. Behavior which when discovered sends the little guy to prison, is never uncovered, or covered up when it is, when committed by the important and the powerful. Priestly celibacy wasn't even instigated until the twelfth century, during one of the Holy churches frequent purification orgies. It might have been a mistake to instigate it, a mistake worthy or reversal. Sex was seen as a priestly distraction from God; turning sex into forbidden fruit, it turns out, creates an even greater distraction from far holier obligations. The Catholic and protestant hierarchies are still in the stage of wallowing in their respective expressions of shock and dismay, having only recently overcome decades of denial and righteous outrage at the very suggestion of impropriety within the flock, or the ranks of the flock's shepherds. How long until the dreadful specter will be raised of comparable hidden ignominy among all the other hundreds of thus far presumed pure denominations? Inevitably, we will go through the painful, predictable stages of denial and acceptance again and again, to our vicarious delight, relishing every salacious second in the spoon feeding media. What is it, precisely, about churches which incubates sexual misconduct? The fact that they all condemn it? The close proximity of mixed genders congregations, reading in groups from an abundance of sexually charged scriptural passages found in every nook and cranny of the bible? flowing choir robes? The inherently irresistible taste of forbidden fruit? Or is it that church, a presumed sanctuary of purity, provides the perfect cover for concealing sin? We must leave it to the sociologists, psychologists, and historians to sort it all out, in the fullness of time. The clergy itself is much less likely to shine light; it, after all, is the crux of the problem, and when within the forest, surrounded by trees, one cannot, we all know, see the forest for the trees. The Christian faith, more than any institution on the planet, effectively creates illusions and deceptions by convincing itself that things are other than what they demonstrably are; such is the nature of religion; to resist change, and to perpetuate faction in a world of emerging fact.