The church is perfect, the people aren't.
How many times have I heard that? How I grew to hate that each time a leader gave terrible advice, told me to submit to their will over my own intuition, or the leaders just made very bad choices.
Then there are the leaders or church members who are worse; who abuse others. How do the members justify that? How do they justify a church who claims to make decisions based on the will of god that allows men who are abusive to have access to children?
These are three articles that have been in the new recently:
I wish these three examples were just that, but this is common, as this facebook page shows:
There is article after article of church members who abuse children and the leaders do nothing about it. Why? In most states, it is state law for church leaders to report suspected cases of abuse. So why isn't it happening in the case of the Mormon church?
Possibly for a number of reasons:
*The Mormons do not educate their bishops, the first line of defence and who the members seek out in seeking counsel. Bishops are not educated in social work practices. Bishops are farmers, accountants and other businessmen. They are not educated in therapy; yet, members of the Mormon church are taught they receive guidance from god and put more emphasis in that than they would in a professional therapist.
*The lay church leaders do not call the local authorities first when a victim of abuse comes to them, instead, they are instructed to call a hotline in Salt Lake City. Why? I'm a mandated reporter of abuse and I am not to call a hot line first. I find this instruction confusing.
in 1995 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints established a 24-hour help line and instructed its ecclesiastical leaders to call it immediately when they learn of abuse. Mormon churches policy on abuse reporting
*Could it also be that those committing the abuse are tithe payers and the abused are not; therefore by reporting the abuse to authorities, the church loses income and gains nothing?
For a church that claims to be ran by inspiration, it seems to receive very little.
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