I promised to keep this person anonymous and also asked permission to share this. It’s a good message about common sense, child welfare, and how religion can be used to cloud people’s better judgement:
…My very religious Evangelical Christian mother-in-law called last night. Her husband, my father-in-law, is a pastor and their church hosts some refugees from [insert Third-World Nation here]. They are really involved in “ministering” to these refugees and dealing with them is the joy of my mother-in-law’s life at the moment…It really makes her feel that God is using her.
One of these refugees, a middle-aged man, allegedly molested a child. The child called child protection services, and the man was arrested. He is currently in jail until his court date.
As my mother-in-law was explaining, she kept defending the man. She explained how nice a man he is, how faithful he is and how, if true, it was simply a mistake due to cultural differences. She tried to tell me his life story, about how he had a hard life and was, himself, abused as a child, etc. She was making excuses for him, empathizing with him, and then giving him the benefit if the doubt. She proceeded to explain how she suspected the child was setting him up or lied, etc.
I was so angry inside as she was explaining that I had to ask her to hold as pass the phone to my wife to help regain control, so I didn’t bite her ear off.
I recently found out that when I was a kid, my parents used to have Bible studies at our house…they’d invite all the church misfits. People with psychological problems, etc. My Dad felt he was being like Jesus by bringing all the undesirables into our house. Many of them really creeped my brother and I out, but there was one we feared. He would come to chat with us in the basement and ask us personal questions about our bodies, etc. He never touched us. Well, my dad recently admitted this man was a pedophile, and he knew it at the time. But through the power of the blood of Jesus, felt he was taking a healthy risk in faith by bringing him into our home.
This madness infuriates me to no end. I no longer feel comfortable letting my children be in their care, because of this!
If you made it this far, thanks for reading. Guess that was venting. There aren’t many people I can talk to around here about this stuff.
