UNITED STATES
Huffington Post
Martin Marty
Posted: 07/28/2014
This post originally appeared in Sightings, an online publication of the Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion, University of Chicago Divinity School.
GRACE acronates “Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment.” Its story is well told in Kathryn Joyce’s “By Grace Alone,” an article in American Prospect (May/June; see “Sources,” below). Please read it, since it offers background and details vital to the questions of “abuse.”
I get asked, “Why doesn’t Sightings do more with the Catholic priest abuse story?” (It’s often blurted out as “Catholicpriestchildsexualabuse.”) Why doesn’t it? First, we don’t overdo overly-familiar stories. This one dominates elsewhere annually. Also, we are not anti-Catholic, so we don’t need it as an anti-Catholic pitch. In any case, the most persistent critics on this Catholic issue are themselves Catholics, wounded victims of abuse who hope to effect change.
Note, however, that the link “abuse=Catholic” obscures many realities, particularly accounts of abuse by perpetrators within other communions or movements. This week, inspired by the Joyce story, we focus on the non-Catholic world of Evangelicals and Fundamentalists.
We are not dealing with evangelical or fundamentalist outliers. The head of GRACE is Boz Tchividjian, grandson of Billy Graham, There’s no marginal evangelicalism in his family line! And note that Liberty University, founded by Jerry Falwell, is the school at which tireless Tchividjian teaches law. Also central to the Joyce story is Bob Jones University, the “mother ship” to some schools of fundamentalism.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.