Survivors of sexual abuse shared their stories this month as part of the SBC and the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission’s “Caring Well” conference.
J.D. Greear, president of the SBC, told attendees at the Oct. 3-5 conference that those stories could encourage churches to help victims of sexual abuse, the Christian Post reports.
“This is a Gospel issue. The credibility of our witness, and even more importantly, the souls of our people are at stake,” Greear said. “Caring for those vulnerable whom God has entrusted to us is a way that we can and we must put the trustworthiness of the Gospel on display.”
“Abuse is unspeakably tragic,” he added, “but this is the moment that the church can put on display the matchless power of the Gospel. Churches are equipped to do something unique, something our society cannot do because we can offer not just reckoning, we can offer resurrection.”
Susan Codone, senior associate dean of academic affairs at Mercer University School of Medicine, told attendees that she was 14 when a youth pastor in Alabama began abusing her.
About a year and a half later, she reported the abuse to the senior pastor, who fired the man, but then the senior pastor “picked up with me where my youth minister left off with me.” She said the pastor sexually abused her for the next few…
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