Addressing Abuse with David McIlroy
David McIlroy
62.07
1 May 2025
15 September 2025
The responses of evangelical churches and organisations to allegations of abuse have been vitiated by five factors: wrong expectations, wrong priorities, a wrong reading of biblical stories, a wrong approach to sin and crime, and a wrong view of love and justice. First, evangelical institutions have fallen prey to the cult of the charismatic leader. Second, when abuse has been exposed, it has been dealt with privately and/or with a focus on rehabilitating the offender rather than vindicating the victims and preventing others from being victimised. Third, the ugly truths of sexual and other forms of abuse with which the Bible deals have been replaced by narratives which protect the powerful. Fourth, the reality that we are all sinners has been used to obscure the truth that some sins are deeply destructive and amount to crimes meriting public action. Fifth, love has been wrongly separated from justice. https://www.cambridgepapers.org/abuse-within-evangelical-churches-and-organisations-addressing-the-vulnerabilities/
