@gimel:
> All ten of his directives boil down to "never, ever admit to anyone else we're anything less then perfect and never ever admit to yourself we're capable of doing anything wrong, much less suggest that we should get rid of pedophiles in our ranks".
Well, I'm not so sure about that.
@OP:
> 1) Don’t make excuses or minimize it to make it go away. The Scripture expects Christians to live and love differently because of the Spirit inside them.
That's not only unobjectionable, it is the opposite of "never admit it happened."
> 2) Don’t use the person’s error as leverage to draw attention to how not like that you are.
This could be interpreted as an admonishment against using incidents as soapboxes, but could be used to justify not informing people about resources they can use to prevent it in the future.
> 3) Don’t apologize to the mass, outraged public for the person (if someone is personally and individually affected, that’s a different matter). Doing so is tempting but is almost always done for the wrong reasons (see #2).
This is where the weird stuff starts; nobody apologizes for other individuals, they apologize for the whole organization for letting it happen, and to assure people that they will try to prevent it from happening again.
> 4) Don’t have the same kind of response as those who scoff at Christ and the church. You might agree with Christianity’s critics that ______ was a horrible thing to say, but you most certainly don’t agree with them about why (an offfense against the truth and/or those made in God’s image) or how to make things right (repent and seek Gospel reconciliation).
That's almost entirely meaningless, since nonbelievers are so varied you're almost guaranteed to sound like one of us.
> 5) Don’t talk in collective terms about “why the Church always” or “why can’t Christians ever.” It’s not true, firstly, and secondly, it can make you stumble on the next point.
Yeah, Christians are almost as varied as non-Christians (they share a religion, but not necessarily anything else). I'll give you that.
> 6) Don’t ever, ever, ever, EVER even passively, suggestively, or indirectly legitimize or rationalize bitterness and suspicion towards the church. If someone says to you, “This is why I don’t go to church,” they might think they’re telling the truth, but they’re not. They don’t love the church because they don’t love Jesus. Saying, “Yes, you have a point, church can be so frustrating” feels like empathy, but it’s not. It’s self-preserveration at the cost of slandering Christ’s body.
There's a reason it's the quote; this jerk is addressing the church collectively as Christ's body, but does not allow responsibility to be shared among with credit. It's massively hypocritical; if failure to figure off infection is not a reason to doubt the strength of the body, your expectations are too low.
And then there's the mind reading. BURN THE WITCH!
> 7) Don’t start a “watchdog blog.” Seriously, don’t ever.
... Yeah ... That's not suspicious or anything.
> 8) Don’t read the comments.
Or that.
> 9) Don’t leave a comment.
Or that.
> 10) Don’t ever forget: No human being is truly incapable of anything. Remember Augustine: “Despair not: One of the thieves was saved. Presume not: One of them was not.”
And it ends with an unobjectionable cliche that almost contradicts the admonishment not to start a watchdog blog. After all, the Internet never forgets.
