Mormon sexual abuse

[_jon]

Sadly the Mormon Church over promises and under delivers.
Always.

People get hurt as a result.
Always.

oopss...overstatement alert. People get hurt always? Come on, Jon, you can't maintain that can you?

If you meant it differently please note I often overstate things too.

Okay, fair challenge...

People get hurt as a result.
Less than always but more than seldom

[_Fence Sitter]

If the Mormon Church is God's church, why wouldn't he inspire those he has supposedly called as Priesthood leaders to know if a man called to a Priesthood office is a pedophile, or if a woman called to a Primary position is a pedophile? If you believe the New Testament, there are many examples of Peter, James, John, and Paul receiving inspiration about so-called Christians who intended to do harm to faithful members of the Church. I don't think you catch the drift of my assertion. You see, the Mormon Church holds itself out as the only church on the earth with God's full approval and authority, with the same powers and authority held by Peter, James, and John during the 1st Century. It's okay to admit that it is a false church if the fruit that it bears is not of God. A Mormon bishop has just as much power to discern the intentions of other men and women as the chairman of a local Rotary Club.

Why does God allow this to happen?

[_Suasponte]

I have been looking for the true church for the last 10 years of the 40 years I've been a member of the Mormon Church, and I haven't found it. This causes me to believe that it's not a church that will get a person to heaven, but a personal faith in, and a devotion to, Jesus Christ and his teachings. Jesus created a church in the first century to eventually bring the Bible, his holy word, to the world. Perhaps Jesus intended the Christians in the world to unite as an aggregate body of believes without physically coming together in congreagtions. Since the 3rd Century organized Christian churches have only been divisive and argumentative. More people have died throughout history as a result of organized religion and conflicts and wars between churches than as a result of any other cause, and this is very sad. Perhaps Jesus built his Church to a unity of his disciples, without requiring buildings and edifices to house them. A person can find more peace and tranquility under a tree in a garden, as he, or she, remembers the sacred sacrifice Jesus made during the atonement and on the cross for our sins, than in a ward chapel.

[_jon]

I have been looking for the true church for the last 10 years of the 40 years I've been a member of the Mormon Church, and I haven't found it. This causes me to believe that it's not a church that will get a person to heaven, but a personal faith in, and a devotion to, Jesus Christ and his teachings. Jesus created a church in the first century to eventually bring the Bible, his holy word, to the world. Perhaps Jesus intended the Christians in the world to unite as an aggregate body of believes without physically coming together in congreagtions. Since the 3rd Century organized Christian churches have only been divisive and argumentative. More people have died throughout history as a result of organized religion and conflicts and wars between churches than as a result of any other cause, and this is very sad. Perhaps Jesus built his Church to a unity of his disciples, without requiring buildings and edifices to house them. A person can find more peace and tranquility under a tree in a garden, as he, or she, remembers the sacred sacrifice Jesus made during the atonement and on the cross for our sins, than in a ward chapel.

I think it's even more simple and straightforward than that.
'Love one another as I have loved you'
Do your best at that, starting with your kids, family, extended family, friends and neighbours, and it won't matter a damn what Church you go to or even if you don't bother going to one.

[_harmony]

I believe the Church see's it that way too because generally tehy will pay lots of money to settle such cases out of court and quietly.

The church settles out of court, always, because they don't want the courts poking around in church financials. Ever. It's more important to the Brethren that church financials be protected than anything else.

[_Nightlion]

In 2004, a former high priest, David Henry Herget, who was a convicted level-1 sex offender in Mountlake Terrace, Washington, was restored to his priesthood status by the Lynnwood Stake High Council and by a General Authority from Salt Lake, who actually performed the restoration of the Priesthood blessings. Very few people in the ward knew that this man was a pedophile, and the ward and stake leaders did not tell the general membership about this person's criminal history.

In 2005, Herget, after gaining access to the ward children, committed 13 counts of child rape on young boys in the Mountlake Terrace Ward, and one of the victims told the parents. Herget was subsequently arrested, sent to the Snohomish County Jail, and committed suicide while incarcerated.

Currently, I see a significant lack of discernment by, supposedly, inspired church leaders. New sexual abuse lawsuits against the church are popping-up all the time around the nation, and it seems that no general authority, bishop, stake president, elders' quorum president, etc, holding, supposedly, the same power that the Apostle Peter held, is capable of discerning evil the way that Peter discerned the lies of Annanias and his wife Saphrie, as recorded in the Book of Acts.

If the Church continues to ordain a lay clergy, hundreds-of-thousands of men to the LDS high Priesthood without, either, discernment or criminal background checks, it is asking for more pedophiles to be placed in positions where they can harm children.

This sad sort of confusion persists BECAUSE LDS fail to take the gospel seriously. Their 'gospel light' does not hold up a standard of conversion that no sexual deviant could possibly accomplish. Neither can any hypocrite and that is why they cannot enact such a precise standard. It would effectively bring the Church to a standstill as NONE would qualify to receive the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost which is the requisite standard in all scripture. Anything more of less comes of evil. DUH?

If the LDS want to learn how they would have to come learn it from me.
No kidding. I am bold enough to declare that unless they learn it of me they will never find it. Prove me wrong. I would rejoice with them IF only they could. But I know that they cannot.

[_harmony]

This sad sort of confusion persists BECAUSE LDS fail to take the gospel seriously. Their 'gospel light' does not hold up a standard of conversion that no sexual deviant could possibly accomplish. Neither can any hypocrite and that is why they cannot enact such a precise standard.

Which probably explains why your church isn't going anywhere.

Geez, Nightlion. You're never going to have to exercise the level of discernment needed to weed out pedophiles (hypocrits can stay) because you'd never have 14 million members.

[_Buffalo]

Isn't it sad that the church treats dissent more seriously than sexual abuse?