Why I Don't Believe Them: A Postscript To My Open Letter To The Community Of Christ

Okay, for those of you who read this on leftofleft, this gets imported automatically to my Facebook page and one of my friends asked a simple question regarding my last post, calling into question the integrity of the Community of Christ, specifically the validity to their claims that they had never been approached with any concerns regarding the behavior of the Mohler family, three of whom were lay-ministers at their church.

Let me repeat that what I am talking about here is not a matter of proof or fact, but my own personal distrust of the leaders of this church.

Why don't I believe the Community of Christ when they say they had never been approached about the behavior of three of their lay-ministers?

I understand that it would be very easy to assume that my skepticism is a knee-jerk reaction to a church's credibility when it comes to covering up sexual abuse and rape. I have to admit that does prejudice one from the outset.

Sadly, western Christendom has a very poor track record of protecting the predators among their ranks than protecting sexual abuse and rape victims.

And no, it's not only the Catholics. Other sects have blood on their hands as well.

(And, in case you were wondering, yes, the picture of Cardinal Mahoney is a reference to a man who ought to be in prison, learning firsthand just what it feels like to have nobody care that you're being raped.)

But that's not all there is to it. The red flag, in my mind, was the ludicrous notion that the church would keep records of every time a member came to them with a problem.

The statement that the Community of Christ released said, "We found no reports of sexual abuse of children (were) given to any Community of Christ leaders about the three lay ministers, suspended November 11."

It just doesn't make sense to me. What "reports" are they talking about?

I find it impossible to believe that any kind of report or record would have been made had they been informed of the abuse and decided to do nothing.

The wording of the statement itself released by the church is beyond suspect. It's ludicrous.

But again, this is no smoking gun and there will never be any kind of proof. What we are talking about here is my own personal disbelief.

I can only hope that the wife, who chose to take this to the church instead of the police ends up doing some actual prison time for her complicity. I don't know what she was expecting from the church, but the fact that she didn't go to the authorities made years of ongoing abuse possible.

And, I'm still listening to:


It seems to have grabbed me like none of their earlier records have. If that makes me a woman, then so be it.