How sad, how very, very sad. The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) Executive Committee does not want a full investigation into sex abuse allegations, that it tried to intimidate abuse survivors causing Russell Moore to resign his position as head of the ethics unit. And to say, as did one pastor, that it was a satanic plot to take us away from evangelism because of the fear of what people would learn. How sad, how very, very sad.
As a teenager I had my problems with the Southern Baptist church I attended, but thankfully, those problems only involved reading Scripture in twisted ways that denigrated science and critical thinking. In the end, however, it was the justification of racism, a betrayal of the Gospel, that drove me from that church.
It’s incredibly difficult to find faith again after you’ve been betrayed. It’s worse than forty years in the wilderness for you not only lose your faith in the people you once trusted, but sometimes even faith in God. And it can take a long time to find it again.
Prayer for the Day
Wanderers in the wilderness of our own making, we search for direction,
Bound to a past of our imagination, we seek a future we cannot see;
Aimless in a world that is always changing, we want a fixed point of certainty,
But You, O Destroyer of our preconceptions, push us into new worlds,
Where the quest finds more truth than the answers of other times,
Where our actions are more important than our words,
As shown by the One who lived for others,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen
Thoughts for the Day
If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.
Mark Twain, American writer (1835-1910)
Stab a body and it heals, but injure the heart and the wound lasts a lifetime.
Mineko Iwasaki, Japanese former geisha
Give ear to my prayer, O God; do not hide yourself from my supplication.
Attend to me and answer me; I am troubled in my complaint.
I am distraught by the noise of the enemy, because of the clamor of the wicked.
For they bring trouble upon me, and in anger they cherish enmity upon me.
Psalm 55: 1-2