A solvable problem

Christa Brown, the insightful proprietor of Stop Baptist Predators, explains how the American Baptist Churches can teach the Southern Baptist Convention how to take effective control of its profoundly destructive problem with sexually predatory clergy.

Or to be more precise, she relates how a group of Baptist pastors illuminated the issue in their online discussion.

As you would expect, it’s a straightforward matter of setting standards, keeping records that make it difficult for credibly accused clergy to move with impunity from church to church, leaving a trail of victims as they grow. Yet the denomination discussed which does that is the American Baptist Churches, which somewhat like the SBC prizes local church autonomy. As they say on their Web page:

As early Baptists overcame oppression by establishing a congregational church system emphasizing local church autonomy and separation from state influence, so contemporary American Baptists continue to emphasize both the importance and the responsibility of every church and the individual believer before God.

Read it all here at Stop Baptist Predators.

Were we all created in God’s (spitting) image?

As Pope Benedict XVI prepares to visit the Tempio Maggiore synagogue in Rome on Jan. 17 as part of efforts to improve relations between Catholics and Jews, dealings between them are strained on at least two fronts.

First, the Vatican has had to defend moving Pope Pius XII toward sainthood in the face of Jewish criticism that he should have done more to resist the Holocaust.

Second and less publicized are incidents of priests, monks and nuns being spat at by Orthodox Jews in Jerusalem.

The latter was reported by the Jerusalem Post in November. A Franciscan monk told the publication that he’s been spat at about 15 times in the past six months.

An article in the National Catholic Reporter cites the Post story (without linking to it), mentioning a comment by Rabbi David Rosen. He says that the spitting incidents have become “a part of life” for priests, nuns and other Christian clergy in Jerusalem.

The NCR story says Orthodox Jewish leaders have denounced harassment of Christian clergy.

USA Today religion reporter Cathy Lynn Grossman mentions the NCR story (also without linking to it) in a column about the spitting incidents, which she calls an example of people of one faith saying to another, “My God’s better than yours.”

But why would anyone think their God would be pleased with a universal sign of contempt?