Transgenderism enables pedophiles

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/crime-and-courts/2020/01/16/felon-no-longer-deemed-threat-after-sex-reassignment-treatment/4479275002/

Brake failure

It's revealing to see how progressives and/or Democrats are led by the nose. They rubber-stamp the progressive cause du jour. When critics point out the consequences of that position, they dismiss the critics as alarmists. When the warnings of the critics come true, the progressives/Democrats don't balk. They don't reconsider their original position. They just do a reset for the latest stage of the progressive cause. They have no brakes. They just go along with whatever the culture elite mandates. They passionately defend whatever the progressive cause du jour happens to be. They are incensed if you predict the consequences. They vehemently deny the consequences. Then when that happens, they instantly adjust to the outcome they angrily denied would eventuate. Two examples:

1. Remember when "marriage equality" was sold on the grounds that it would have no impact on heterosexuals? "If you don't like gay marriage, don't get one!"

But the homosexual lobby didn't stop with "marriage equality" That was just a wedge tac tic. They want gov't to fine Christian business to shut them down.

And when that happens, how do the voters who used to spout the "marriage equality" propaganda react? Do they reverse position now that they were proven wrong? No. They practice amnesia. They act like that development is consistent with their original position. It doesn't even register that they are contradicting their original position. They erase the old line and draw a new line. 

2. When critics of "marriage equality" asked proponents where they draw the line, using pedophilia and pederasty as comparisons, proponents became incensed at the comparison. They said consent was a key difference.

But now the cultural elites are promoting boy drag queens. And the constituency for boy drag queens consists of adult sodomites. That's the leading edge of pedophilia and pederasty. Sexualize young boys to make them erotic objects for gay men. That's the spearpoint of pedophilia and pederasty. 

Are the voters who supported "marriage equality" protesting this development? Not that I'm aware of. Once again, they practice amnesia. Like sleepwalkers who erase the old line and drew a new line. They aren't even conscious of how quickly they shift positions. What they deny and denounce yesterday, they defend and celebrate today. They have absolutely no moral or intellectual independence or guiding principles. 

The pedophile project

http://thefederalist.com/2019/02/21/pedophile-project-7-year-old-next-sexual-revolutions-hit-parade/

Is there a correlation between homosexuality, pedophilia, and/or hebephilia/ephebophilia?

Somewhat dated, but scroll down to 

¶IV. The Problem of Pedophilia

http://robgagnon.net/HeterosexismResponsePart2Science.htm

Islam, Christianity, and pedophilia

Question from a commenter:

I wonder, though, if we Christians aren't revealing a weak spot when it comes to objections to pedophilia. When pressed by our opponents, I don't think that we'd be able to provide any prooftexts condemning the practice - or am I wrong? Worse, I could see opponents seizing on the notion of Boaz seeming to be an elder while Ruth appeared to be a young girl. Granted, that's a bit flimsy but I'm not sure what the proper response might be. So I guess I'm asking how you might mount a defence against the claim that the Bible has nothing to say about pedophilia.

Interesting question. Requires a many-layered response:

1. Let's assume for the sake of argument that the Bible is silent on the moral status of pedophilia. There's an essential difference between a religious text that condones pedophilia and silence. The Bible's not an encyclopedia. It doesn't purport to address every ethnical issue. Some activities may not be condemned because they are obviously wrong. It isn't necessary to explicitly condemn them. That's understood. Take the cliche example of torturing little kids for fun. 

I think there's a place for natural law considerations in Christian ethics. We don't require biblical warrant for all our ethical determinations. 

2. In Scripture, couples marry with a view to having kids. That assumes the bride and bridegroom are sexually mature. 

3. Ruth was a widow. Moreover, she'd been married for ten years before her husband died (Ruth 1:4-5; 4:11). Presumably, she was in her twenties when she married Boaz.

4. Are there passages in Scripture that have implications for age of eligibility in reference to marriage? 

i) Take the much maligned passage about war brides (Deut 20:10-14). The brides are widows. So these are not prepubescent girls. It's unlikely that they are even adolescent girls. Rather, the context suggests adult women. They are chosen for their overt womanly sex appeal. 

ii) In 1 Cor 7:36, the virgins are, at the very least, sexually mature, and the word (hyperakmos) may well mean the "bloom of youth". That suggests females in the upper teens or early twenties.  

5. It's common to speculate that Mary was an adolescent bride who was widowed by the time Jesus began his public ministry because she married a much older man. But even if we grant some of the assumptions, it was probably rare for people to die of old age in the ancient world. Mortality was high, and there are many common ways to die young, viz. illness, accident, infection. 

6. Regarding the morality of older men who marry younger women, that depends. 

i) On the one hand are coercive or exploitative relationships. Older men (and women!) in positions of power who abuse their authority by taking advantage of subordinates. 

ii) On the other hand, there are desperate or ambitious women who take the initiative. They court or seduce older men who can advance their career, provide financial security, or lavish lifestyle. That's calculated. Some women are attracted to alpha males or powerful men. I'm not making a value judgment, just a sociological observation. Between consenting adults, I don't think age disparity is coercive or exploitative. 

Crossing the line

i) I'm going to make a few brief observations about the Tom Chantry situation. One reason is because it's already popped up on a couple of Catholic survivor networks (SNAP; BishopAccountability.org). Since I castigate the Catholic abuse scandal from time to time, it's only fair that people like me address a Protestant example. It's important that we not have double standards.

In addition, the story has been reported by outlets like The Aquila Report. So I don't think it's inappropriate for me to discuss in public. 

ii) Apropos (i), it's my impression that survivor networks are a mixed bag. On the one hand, some of them perform a necessary service by drawing attention to genuine abuse. On the other hand, some of them seem to be fronts for their own ax-grinding agendas. 

Mark Driscoll illustrates both sides of the coin. On the one hand, his antics made him a deserving target. On the other hand, some of the criticism was a pretext to attack complementarianism, heteronormative values, &c. 

iii) I should say a word about the presumption of innocence. That's a legal standard regarding the burden of proof. The onus is on the prosecution to prove the defendant's guilt, rather than the defendant to prove his innocence. 

Our system is predicated on the principle that it's better to acquit the guilty than convict the innocent. And I support that legal principle. That's a necessary restriction on the punitive power of the state. 

However, I don't consider that to be a universal moral norm. Outside the confines of the courtroom, we have to make prudential judgments about whether or not we think someone is trustworthy. 

iv) I'm not in a position to have an informed opinion about Chantry's guilt or innocence. And I haven't studied the coverage in detail. In a sense, it's none of my business. I'm not in a position of ecclesiastical oversight. 

So I'm discussing the case at a hypothetical level, because it furnishes an occasion to consider some policy issues. Likewise, it's a cautionary tale. Whether or not the charges turn out to be true, the case serves to illustrate some important principles. 

v) Assuming the allegations are true, culpability isn't limited to Chantry. To elude justice that long, I think it's safe to say he must have had enablers. People to cover for him, make excuses for him, and pull strings. It stands to reason that a number of people are complicit. 

Assuming there were other people in the know, surely there's something they could have done to put a stop to it when it first came to their notice. Suppose they told him, either quit ministry and get a job that doesn't give you access to minors, or we will go public. Evidently, that didn't happen. If the charges are true, he had a phalanx. 

vi) Christian organizations should require criminal background checks for all job applications. I'm not saying that if something turns up in the background check, that should automatically disqualify the applicant. Like the infamous no-fly list, official records can be inaccurate or unfair. It does, however, supply necessary prima facie information to evaluate the suitability of an applicant. 

vii) Some organizations have a "two-deep" rule where there's no one-on-one contact between a man and an underage boy or boys. But I have misgivings about that rule. It treats all men as presumptive pedophiles. That's sexist, unjust, and prejudicial. 

Moreover, it's arbitrary. Take a male child psychiatrist or psychologist. Won't he sometimes have one-on-one counseling sessions with boys? It's not intrinsically suspicious for a man to talk to a boy he's not related to. Teachers and coaches do that all the time. So do detectives. Some men are predators, but many men and natural mentors and protectors. Let's not overreact. 

viii) This case illustrates the limitations of formal oversight structures. There's nothing necessarily wrong with having those in place. Sometimes they do good. But they're not a failsafe. They're only as good as the people on the church board. Sometimes it's a buddy system that protects perps from victims rather than victims from perps. . 

ix) It illustrates the potential danger posed by sons of famous fathers who have automatic entree in a way that ordinary folk do not. They exploit preexisting bonds of trust that their fathers developed. The danger posed by celebrity culture in the church. Riding someone's coattails. Other examples include Jonathan Merritt, Richard Roberts, Jonathan Falwell, and Tullian Tchividjian. (Admittedly, Richard Roberts is a flake of a flake.)

In fairness, there are good examples as well as bad examples. Some sons follow honorably in the footsteps of a famous father. 

x) Finally, what I find unnerving about stories like these is crossing a line of no return. There are kinds of wrongdoing where you can put it behind you and move on with your life. But there are other kinds of wrongdoing where, if you do it–even once–you can never come back from that. You ruined your life for the rest of your life. It's frighteningly easy to cross that line. 

When we read stories like this, we should think to ourselves how changing even one crucial variable in our formative years might cause us to turn out very differently–for the worse. When I was a young boy–I don't remember my age, maybe 6-7–my mother was hospitalized for internal bleeding. This was back in the mid-60s when medical science was more primitive. I wasn't afraid because my parents didn't tell me she might have a life-threatening condition. And thankfully the condition resolved itself. If she had died when I was that age, I can't imagine the catastrophic effect that would have on my development.

Although pedophiles are mercifully rare, statistically speaking, there are many ways a normal person's life can go disastrously offtrack. That's something we should all be mindful off, wary off, and grateful if we were spared. 

"Child marriage"

On Christmas Eve, Randal Rauser did a post on whether Mary was too young to get married:

http://randalrauser.com/2015/12/how-young-was-the-virgin-mary-and-was-that-too-young/

The post, as well as feedback in the combox, raises ethical issues regarding "child marriage," pedophilia, statutory rape, age of consent, &c. I'd add that these issues also come into play with respect to Islam generally, and Muhammad in particular.

i) It wouldn't surprise me if Rauser denies the virgin birth. But I wouldn't expect him to tip his hand on that if it jeopardized his job security.

ii) I think "child marriage" is ambiguous. A child marriage could refer to a marriage that's arranged by their respective parents when the couple are prepubescent, but that doesn't entail that they live as husband and wife at that time. It just means the boy and girl are betrothed to each other. The actual marriage ceremony, and consummation, may be years later, when both are teenagers. "Child marriage" in that sense needs to be distinguished from child marriage in the sense of prepubescent conjugal relations. 

In addition, we need to distinguish between cases where both parties are "children" or marriage between a "child" and an adult. 

iii) In the 1C, mortality rates were much higher. It that regard, it was pragmatic to marry younger since you might not get the chance if you waited. You couldn't count on having a normal lifespan. That wasn't even probable. 

iv) To say adolescents are psychologically immature for marriage is anachronistic in the context of 1C Judaism. This isn't like a modern nuclear marriage. Rather, child-rearing generally took place in the context of an extended family, in which there were lots of helping hands and seasoned advice.

Likewise, in cultures with a rigid social structure, your roles and duties are preassigned. You don't have to make as many personal decisions as the couple in a nuclear family, because the social blueprint makes many of those decisions for you. I'm not saying that's necessarily a good think. It depends, in part, on the social blueprint. 

v) Rauser's treatment is oddly one-sided, with its sustained emphasis on girls rather than boys. There's a common bias in cases like that. If the adult is male and the teenager is female, that's rape–but if the adult is female and the teenager is male, "the boy got lucky."

vi) I think a bigger problem with early adolescent motherhood is less about psychology than physiology. Because her body is smaller and underdeveloped at that age, I believe that raises the risk of medical complications in gestation and childbirth.

In the case of Mary, she'd enjoy special providential protection. And in any event, we don't know how old she was. 

vii) Statutory rape laws and age of consent laws can be technicalities. The threshold is somewhat arbitrary. That generates borderline cases. If an 18-year-old girl has premarital sex with a 17-year-old boy, that's technically statutory rape, yet the transaction is clearly consensual.

Any legal age will be somewhat arbitrary, but you can't have these laws without a stipulated age, so that's a necessary and justifiable consequence of having such laws in the first place.  We ought to have such laws. But enforcement of the law should make allowance for the arbitrary cutoff, and focus on clear-cut examples rather than marginal cases.

vii) A natural threshold is puberty. That's when the libido kicks in. That's when both parties may find sexual activity appealing. That's very different than forcing sexual relations onto a prepubescent boy or girl.

Indeed, adolescent sexuality is a common problem precisely because many adolescents initiate sexual encounters. The sex drive makes that consensual. 

That doesn't make it an optimal age for marriage. And you can have medical conditions like precocious puberty where sexual activity would be premature. But pathological conditions don't set the bar. 

ix) Because Joseph is out of the picture during the public ministry of Christ, it's common to speculate that he had died by them, which leads to the further speculation that he was much older than Mary. That, however, is a very dubious postulate. In the 1C, in the absence of modern medical science, it was far more common for people to die young from accidents or disease. 

Likewise, it may simply be the case that Mary was more involved her son's life than Joseph. He was just the step-dad. 

x) As a rule, I'd say marriage in early adolescence is inadvisable. 

Keep in mind that nowadays, in the West, we don't have arranged marriage, and couples often marry in their twenties or later, yet the divorce rate is very high. 

Conversely, I have an older cousin who married at 15. She's now about 80, and still married to her first husband. 

Hard truths

1. Recently, the Society of Evangelical Arminians erupted with several indignant, faux incredulous posts regarding the following statement:

God . . . brings about all things in accordance with his will. In other words, it isn’t just that God manages to turn the evil aspects of our world to good for those who love him; it is rather that he himself brings about these evil aspects for his glory (see Ex. 9:13-16; John 9:3) and his people’s good (see Heb. 12:3-11; James 1:2-4). This includes—as incredible and as unacceptable as it may currently seem—God’s having even brought about the Nazis’ brutality at Birkenau and Auschwitz as well as the terrible killings of Dennis Rader and even the sexual abuse of a young child . . . 

— Mark R. Talbot, “’All the Good That Is Ours in Christ': Seeing God’s Gracious Hand in the Hurts Others Do to Us,” in John Piper and Justin Taylor (eds.), Suffering and the Sovereignty of God (Wheaton: Crossway, 2006), 31-77 (quote from p. 42).

SEA also linked to this statement by Piper:

He works all things according to the counsel of his will. This extends to the details of all existence. Matthew 10:29, “Not one sparrow falls to the ground apart from our Father in heaven.” Proverbs 16:33, “The lot, the dice, are cast in the lap and every decision is from the Lord.” In Reno, Las Vegas, Atlantic City, every dice rolled God decides what turns up. 

And SEA linked to a post by Leighton Flowers with the incendiary title "Does God Bring About the Abuse of Children for His Own Glory?"

There's a lot to sort out. 

2. SEA acts as if it discovered the smoking gun of Calvinism. I understand how this would be shocking or scandalous to uniformed Christians. But there's nothing new or surprising here. Calvinism doesn't conceal the fact that God has predestined everything that happens. 

In addition, I understand how this would be shocking to Christians who never read the Bible cover to cover. Yet Scripture frequently attributes the deeds of wicked men to God operating behind-the-scenes.

That's a hard truth. But, then, there are many things in Scripture that make me swallow hard. There are many things in the world that make me swallow hard. 

3. The statement that God brings about something "for his own glory" is misleading without further explanation. In Calvinism, God doesn't act for his own sake, but for the sake of the elect. God cannot benefit from what he brings about, for God is sufficient in himself, apart from his creation. 

4. Calvinism didn't create the problem of evil; rather, the problem of evil is created by the fact of evil. The problem of evil is generated by the conjunction of two propositions:

i) God exists

ii) Divinely preventable evil exists

To the extent that that's a theological problem, the challenge is hardly unique to Calvinism. It's a challenge for Molinism, Aminianism, universalism, Lutheranism, Thomism, Mormonism, Deism, open theism, &c. If Calvinism didn't exist, the problem of evil would still exist. 

Indeed, it's challenging for atheism. Atheism solves the problem by denying one of the two propositions, but that's a costly solution. It solves the problem of evil by making human life worthless. A tad self-defeating. Like an exterminator who eliminates a roach infestation by burning down the house with the homeowner inside. Effective, but a wee bit counterproductive. 

5. In addition, the Reformed position sounds shocking or scandalous to Christian ears that haven't bothered to think through the alternatives. You can't just assess the Reformed position in a vacuum. You need to consider that in relation to proposed alternatives. 

In freewill theism, God allows a pedophile to abuse children because there's something more important to God than preventing child abuse. Well, stop and think about that for a while. Let it sink it. After all the outrage directed at Calvinism, what could be more important than preventing child abuse? Yet a freewill theist is forced to admit that preventing child abuse is not a divine priority. After all, God could put a stop to that. 

In God's rating system, the prevention of child abuse is not God's paramount concern. A freewill theist must say that in God's estimation, there's something more valuable than preventing child molestation. Some other good that's better than the prevention of child abuse. 

So why isn't that shocking to freewill theists? Why isn't that outrageous? Yet the freewill theist is committed to that proposition. 

Suppose a teacher at a Christian school was accused of child molestation. Suppose, when interviewed, the principal said he knew the teacher was a convicted pedophile. He knew that hiring him was a risk. But he hired him anyway because some things are more important than preventing child abuse. 

You can just imagine the incensed reaction. But isn't the freewill theists forced to say the same thing about God?

6. To say everything event is predestined is to say that everything happens for a reason. Good things happen for a good reason, but even bad things happen for a good reason. Indeed, especially in the case of evil, we usually think an agent had better have a good reason for allowing (or causing) that to happen. If there's a prima facie obligation to prevent evil, then allowing (or causing) evil requires a special justification. 

Conversely, to say that God allows horrendous evils to occur for no purpose whatsoever is hardly exculpatory. "I just let it happen. Don't ask me why. There is no why."

7. Not surprisingly, freewill theists usually turn to some version of the freewill defense. For instance, they claim libertarian freedom is a prerequisite of moral responsibility. But is that an adequate response?

i) To begin with, one development in freewill theism is restrictivism. On Facebook, Alan Rhoda recently said that he and many libertarians espouse restrictivism. Take some examples:

Restrictivism is the claim that we have "precious little free will" insofar as there are "few occasions in life on which–at least after a little reflection and perhaps some investigation into facts–it isn't absolutely clear what to do." Kevin Timpe, Free Will in Philosophical Theology (Bloomsbury 2014), 24. 

Restrictivism is the view that we are rarely (directly)free, only sometimes, in somewhat unusual circumstances, so our choices and subsequent actions meet the conditions for direct metaphysical freedom. A libertarian restrictionism holds that it is a feature of directly free choices and actions that they were underdetermined by prior events or states of affairs. Daniel Cohen & Nick Trakakis, eds. Essays on Free Will and Moral Responsibility (Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2008), 129. 

[Van Inwagen] appeals to similar resources in an argument for restrictionism, the view that…rarely, if ever, is anyone able to do otherwise than in fact he does." Joseph Keim Campbell, Free Will (John Wiley & Sons 2013), 52.

But in that event, even many freewill theists no longer think libertarian freedom is a necessary condition of moral responsibility. So that's not a given.

ii) But suppose, for the sake of argument, that we grant this contention. How would God stepping in to prevent a pedophile from molesting a child nullify moral responsibility? After all, divine intervention didn't override the pedophile's intention to molest a child. It didn't override his plan to molest a child. It didn't override his initial efforts to act on that plan. Rather, it's a last minute intervention that prevents him from executing his plan.  

So the pedophile is still culpable for his malicious intentions and designs and abortive actions. The fact that he was thwarted at the last minute hardly absolves him of guilt.

iii) But suppose, for the sake of argument, we grant that divine intervention nullifies his moral responsibility. So what? The problem here is that the freewill theist is attempting to justify God's inaction by making divine respect for moral responsibility a universal principle that supersedes any conflicting duty. But why should we grant the universality of that principle? 

Suppose we concede, for discussion purposes, that all things being equal, God should not infringe on our moral responsibility. Suppose, in many situations, that outranks other considerations. But if it's a choice between protecting a child and respecting moral responsibility, what makes moral responsibility a higher priority in that situation? In other words, unabridged moral responsibility might be good in general, but does that make it a greater good in every situation, to which any conflicting obligation must defer? 

8. Consider another principle: For love to be genuine, the agent must either be the ultimate source of his love and/or be free to withhold his love. But is that an adequate response?

i) For starters, isn't that empirically implausible? As a matter of human experience, is that a condition of genuine love? For instance, isn't parental love basically instinctive and irrepressible? Sure, there are terrible exceptions, but I'm countering a universal claim. 

Or take friendship. In my observation, when two or more people have to spend lots of time together, they either end up liking one another or disliking one another. Each person has a predisposition to either click with someone else or find them aggravating to be around. We may choose our friends, but we didn't choose what made them likable to us in the first place. 

ii) But suppose, for the sake of argument, that we grant the contention. If God steps in to prevent a pedophile from molesting a child, how does that infringe on the pedophile's freedom to love God? If a pedophile is allowed to molest children, doesn't that behavior make him morally hardened? Habitual evil reduces his ability to freely love God. Divine intervention would help to preserve the agent's ability to love God. 

iii) But suppose, for discussion purposes, we concede the contention. So what? Suppose repeated divine intervention somehow infringes on the pedophile's ability to freely love God. Why should that take precedence over the safety of an innocent child? 

Even if, as a general principle, it is good for agents to be at liberty to freely love God, how does that override all other goods, including the good of the child? Why should the wellbeing of the child take a backseat to the wellbeing of the molester? 

Suppose, all things being equal, God should not abridge the spontaneity of love. But as a universal principle, that loses plausibility precisely in cases like child abuse. 

9. Freewill theist William Alston said:

A perfectly good God would not wholly sacrifice the welfare of one of His intelligent creatures simply in order to achieve a good for others, or for Himself. This would be incompatible with His concern for the welfare of each of His creatures. "The inductive argument from evil and the human cognitive condition," D. Howard-Snyder, ed., The Evidential Argument from Evil (Indiana U. Press, 1996), 111. 

Seems to me that captures a fundamental principle and a priori intuition of freewill theists. Problem is, their a priori proscription collides with a posteriori reality. So freewill theists are forced to qualify their principles and intuitions in the harsh, unyielding glare of varcious kinds of evils that actually transpire.  

It becomes, in part, a question of theological method. Do we begin with the kinds of evils that actually take place, and reason back from that to inform our theological parameters? Or do we begin with a set of stimulative theological expectations, then adapt that as best we can to the kind of world in which we find ourselves? 

Homosexuals in church

I'd like to compare and contrast the question of homosexuals in church with pedophiles in church. I'm no expert on psychopathology, but since I doubt most seminaries discuss these issues, it's something that needs to be hashed out in formulating church policy and pastoral ministry:

i) As a rule, I think outright unbelievers should be welcome in attend church. In that regard, active homosexual are no exception. I'm referring to homosexuals who make no pretense to be Christian. Indeed, they are well aware of the fact that their lifestyle is contrary to Christian ethics. 

It's good for unbelievers to attend church. To be exposed to the Gospel and Christian fellowship.

ii) In addition, it's possible for someone who struggles with homosexual impulses to make a credible profession of faith. They can be church members. And that's distinct from active homosexuals (see above). In Christian ethics, single men and women are supposed to be celibate. 

iii) There's the increasingly popular category of "gay Christians." I don't think that's helpful. If I'm a Christian who's a recovering drug addict, should I call myself a "junkie Christian"?

iv) From what I've read, homosexuals and pedophiles are distinct, but sometimes overlapping categories:

a) Some pedophiles prey on kids of either sex. It's about kids, not about gender.

But there's a subset of pedophiles who prey on kids of the same sex. So some pedophiles are homosexual.

b) In the technical sense, pedophiles prey on preadolescents whereas homosexuals are drawn to adolescents or young adults.

c) Although some pedophiles seem to be sexually attracted to kids, pedophilia appears to be a subdivision of sociopathology/psychopathology. 

From what I can tell, the primary motivation for some or many pedophiles is to harm children. It is not, in the first instance, about sexual gratification. Rather, molestation is just one way of harming children. The general impulse, the deeper impulse, is to do harm. They hate children. 

So it's more like serial killers. The difference is the age range of the target group. Although serial killers may rape or sodomize the victim, it seems to be less about sex than violence, humiliation. Harming the victim psychically and psychologically. Same thing with pedophilia. 

By contrast, homosexuals are motivated by sex, albeit deviant sex. 

d) In general, I don't think the presence of homosexuals in church is hazardous in the way that pedophiles would be. 

For one thing, I'm not sure that homosexuality is as compulsive as pedophilia. Pedophiles, like psycho/sociopaths in general, take extreme risks. It's not clear to me that homosexuals are usually prepared to take the same risks. When necessary, they can exercise more restraint. But I could easily be mistaken about that. 

e) Another factor is that, by definition, pedophilia is coercive. There's no such thing as consensual pedophilia. By contrast, there is such a thing as consensual homosexuality. And because consenting partners are readily available, a homosexual isn't tempted to resort to the expedients of the pedophile. In that respect, homosexuals are safer to be around. 

f) In addition, it is easy to quietly subdue a young child. And it's easy to intimidate the young victim into silent through dire threats.

By contrast, it is not easy to subdue a teenage boy, or compel his silence. To attempt that when many people are around puts the perpetrator at tremendous risk of detection. 

For these reasons, I don't think the presence of homosexuals in church presents the same risk factors. 

v) Homosexuals are dangerous to minors in situations where homosexuals are put in positions of trust and authority over minors. Where minors are temporarily separated from parents, or heterosexual supervisors. If you give homosexuals power over minors, then that's an invitation to sexual abuse. Examples include the orphanages, involuntary commitment, youth detention, all male boarding schools, queer Boy Scout leaders on retreat, and the clerical abuse scandal in the church of Rome. I'm not saying abuse always occurs in these settings–just that the opportunity is greater.   

I'd add that this isn't confined to teenagers. In the military, homosexual superior officers have an opportunity to force themselves on adult subordinates.

Feeding time at the herpetarium

A carryover from this post:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2015/10/wolves-sheep-and-sheepdogs.html

Andrew W:

"So do unrecognised pedophiles. At what point do you want to shoot on sight?"

You're moving the goalpost. The question at issue is how the church should deal with known pedophiles.

One of your sophistries is to shift the discussion from the actual issue at hand to borderline cases. But you can't extrapolate from borderline cases to clearcut cases, precisely because the latter lack the same conditions as the former. We could spend time finessing hypothetical borderline cases, but that's a diversionary tactic. 

I don't need to answer every hypothetical case before I'm allowed to address a specific concrete example. That's a recipe for moral paralysis. Chasing an infinite regress of hypothetical examples and counterexamples, while ignoring the actual case at hand. 

"Yes, that's a reduction-ad-absurdum."

No, that's trivializing a grave moral issue. 

"It's also a completely logical consequence of saying 'prevention at all costs.'"

Which is not what I said.

"And if you're not saying 'prevention at all costs', then you need a metric to decide how to balance a risk of recidivism versus genuine protection."

I need no metric inasmuch as there are no competing rights to be balanced. The pedophile has no right to be in church in the first place. 

"Note that an unrecognised pedophile actually poses a far greater risk to your child than a recognised one; you just have much less information to evaluate the risk."

A red herring. The issue is how to deal with someone with a rap sheet. In particular, a serial pedophile. Naturally we can't act on purely unknowns. That's a distraction. 

"Would I let a once-pedophile near my child? Sure."

Then you're a fool who's derelict in your paternal duties.

"Would I leave them alone? Most likely not."

"Most likely?" 

"Would I let them father a child of their own given a willing wife? Well, that's the tricky question, isn't it?"

That's not the question. The question is whether a pastor should marry them. Likewise, whether a pastor should recommend to a single women in his church that she marry a pedophile. 

"Except at this point I'm not discussing what *I* think."

In which case both of us reject your premise. 

"The argument that known pedophiles pose a greater risk to children than unknown pedophiles falls prey to the same poor reasoning…"

That wasn't the argument. 

"The offence in rape is against the woman, not the child. Where the child becomes an issue is when it is subsequently killed because it was conceived in the wrong way."

I answered you on your own terms. Now you change the subject. Your original objection was about preempting their existence. After that argument failed, you rewrite your objection.

"Let me make one final remark on the case involving Wilson before I turn to the general case. A majority - but not all - of the supervisory board agreed that marriage was a positive move towards the man's rehabilitation. Assuming the subsequent crime, was that decision wrong, or was there a failure of supervision? If so, is this based on the benefit of hindsight, or was the evidence there already?"

It's wrong to enable a known serial pedophile, then wait and see what happens. 

"(1) Imagine that some number of pedophiles are rehabilitated post-incarceration and go on to be good fathers, and some do not."

"Imagine"? So let's just make up some fake statistics to becloud the issue?

"What statistical likelihood of reoffense would one be willing to tolerate if the situation was generally good? If your answer is zero, how do you reconcile that with the knowledge that some proportion of (non-criminal) parents will end up abusing their offspring?"

This isn't about comparative stats. And my argument was always much broader than the particular case you've fixated on.

From what I've read, pedophiles range along a continuum. They fantasize about harming children. The stimulus may involve watching kiddy porn or watching kids at a playground. That sort of thing. Not all pedophiles act out their fantasies.

However, a percentage of pedophiles take it to the next level. This can involve abduction, molestation, mutilation, torture, and/or murder. 

We don't know in advance what the propensity of any particular pedophile is. And that, of itself, is a huge risk factor. It is wrong to test the propensity of a known pedophile by giving him access to kids, then waiting to find out how dangerous he is. It is inexcusable to put children in that situation.

A church has no obligation to give a known pedophile a chance to reoffend or not. Indeed, it has an obligation not to give him that chance. He should be nowhere near their kids. He should not be allowed to come to church. He should not be in physical proximity with kids.

A church can't control what he does on his own. That's up to the authorities. But a church is responsible for events that fall within its purview. 

It's like asking how you know when it's time to feed a reticulated python. Well, one way to find out is to put a child in the snakepit and see if the python eats the child. If he doesn't, then you know he wasn't hungry. But that would be amorally impermissible way to answer the question.

In the situation under consideration, on the one hand you have a known pedophile. On the other hand you don't know in advance the extent of his propensities. You know what he did in the past (or at least what's a matter of public record), but you don't know what he will do in the future. Is it proper to discover his full propensities by exposing him to children, then observing what happens next? That would be inexcusably reckless and evil. 

This shouldn't be a difficult issue. There's no reason for professing Christians to tie themselves into knots regarding the right policy. It isn't complicated–at all. It is evil to treat children as bait to sort out the "safe" pedophiles from the dangerous pedophiles. Who in their right mind thought the church should give him that opportunity? 

"Or does this have nothing to do with rehabilitation and is purely a matter of justice?"

It's a matter of prudence. 

Finally, you're someone who likes to argue for the sake of arguing. You take a morally grave, clearcut concerning the protection of defenseless children, then try to fuzz it up. That's an evil tactic. Don't come back. 

Maybe God can forgive you, but I can't!

i) Doug Wilson is in a pickle over the way he handled the case of two pedophiles at church. Peter Leithart is also implicated in the mess. I'm not going to discuss all twists and turns of that controversy.  

I'll just use it to illustrate a general point: I think some Christians are confused or conflicted about how to deal with cases like this. After all, there's a sense in which Christianity is a religion of second chances. We believe in redemption. Forgiveness. So what about that?

ii) There's a sense in which God is in a position to forgive people we can't. For one thing, God knows who is truly contrite, and who is faking it. We don't. 

iii) Which brings me to a related point: even if I'm prepared to forgive you, that doesn't mean I'm prepared to trust you. Forgiveness is about the past–trust is about the future. Those aren't interchangeable concepts. 

Take a comparison: suppose I'm a pastor. We need to hire a new church treasurer. We advertise the job and get several applicants. One has an impressive resume. MBA from a top college. Experience as a CPA and investment banker. If anything, he's overqualified. Yet there's an odd gap in his resume.

I, in agreement with the church board, have criminal background checks performed on all job applicants. Turns out, this applicant was convicted of embezzlement. 

As a result, we don't hire him. Instead, we hire another applicant without the Park Avenue resume, but who has a squeaky clean reputation.

The applicant who was turned down phones me a few days later wondering why he didn't get the job. I explain. He complains that that's unchristian. He tells me that he committed embezzlement before he was saved. He converted in prison. Now he's turned over a new leaf.

Well, I wish him all the best. I hope that's true. But, honestly, it's a self-serving claim. I have no independent evidence to confirm his claim. I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt, but it would be foolhardy to do so. I have no reason to believe he's trustworthy, while I do have reason to believe he may not be trustworthy.

Moreover, it's not even a case of trusting him with my own money. As a pastor, I have a fiduciary responsibility for the money which parishioners contribute. 

In addition, the fact that he wants to go right back to the same kind of work that got him into trouble in the first place is suspicious. At best, that exposes him to temptation, at his weakest. At worst, that indicates a lack of sincerity. If I said I was a recovering gambler, would I apply for a job at a casino? 

iv) From what I've read, pedophilia has high rates of recidivism, although that's complicated by the fact that there's now a movement to mainstream pedophilia, so the evidence will be suppressed. It's just asking for trouble to give someone like that a second bite at the apple. 

I'll make two other points:

v) From what I've read, Wilson defends his conduct in part by appealing to the fact that the judge approved of the marriage. But given Wilson's disdain for the moral wisdom of public officials, he can hardly take cover in the opinion of the judge. At best, that just means there's blame to go around. It doesn't get him off the hook. It merely means additional people are at fault. 

vi) He also speaks as if pedophilia is a psychological condition to be treated by counseling. That's sadly similar to the Church of Rome, which has viewed predatory priests as a psychotherapeutic issue.

Wilson is a man who's done a lot of good. It's a pity to see him show such poor pastoral judgment. And that's aggravated by his refusal to accept legitimate criticism. 

Have you hugged your monster today?

This article has been getting some buzz:

http://www.salon.com/2015/09/21/im_a_pedophile_but_not_a_monster/

I've skimmed it. A few observations:

i) He says he doesn't view kiddy porn, but why take his word for it? Would he admit to viewing kiddy porn? 

ii) He makes all the same rhetorical moves as homosexual activists. 

iii) It's a tearjerker designed to elicit the sympathy of readers. Manipulate the reader's emotions by telling a good sob story.

iv) It reads like the all-too familiar opening gambit: "we need to open a dialogue," "we need to have a national conversation"–which is the first move towards mainstreaming a traditional taboo. 

v) Seems to me that he's making a faux admission of a problem. It's like political candidates who volunteer revelations about their "youthful indiscretions."

That's not a confession of guilt. To the contrary, that's designed to preempt criticism. Now that they've gotten that out of the way, they can move ahead with their campaign. It's really a way of neutralizing the issue, under the expectation that an "understanding" audience will and allow them to put that that chapter of their life behind them.

vi) Many opponents of homosexual marriage have pointed out that once you buy into the arguments for homosexuality, why stop there? Why not pedophilia? Proponents of homosexual marriage usually feign outrage at that comparison, but it's not just hypothetical. The Salon article is one of those softening-up exercises designed to incrementally reduce resistance to pedophilia. And the process will be accelerated in this case because many people have already accommodated the same arguments for homosexuality. 

vii) Moreover, this doesn't just involve social outcasts. Take the "Spies, Lords and Predators" investigative report. 

Cruising Down the Slippery Slope Toward Sexual Hell

We should see the pattern that is evident in these evolving claims, and be prepared to call them what they really are:

Argument #1:

I have homosexual desires
Therefore I am a homosexual person (with “homosexual” being a newly-created category of “person” in 1973)
You must respect me as a person
Therefore you must respect my homosexual desires.

That does not follow. You are not “a homosexual person”. You are a person, yes, but your homosexual desires are harmful to you. I acknowledge that not many in our culture see it that way.

But we see it again in this Salon article, entitled “I’m a pedophile, but not a monster”:

Argument #2

I have pedophile desires
Therefore I am a pedophile person (with “pedophile” being the newly-created category of person)
You must respect me as a person
Therefore you must respect my pedophile desires.

Pretty soon, as in Argument #1, where the next line item became “laws must be created to protect my homosexuality”, we will start seeing a new line item in Argument #2: “laws must be created to protect my pedophilia”. All of this in the name of equality.

I want to point to a particularly egregious section in this Salon article:

When I was seven years old, I was fondled in the front yard of my grandparents’ home by a man I barely knew. It was a one-time event in my life and not a particularly traumatic one. A man I’ll call Hans, a German who was acquainted with my uncle and aunt from when they lived in Nuremberg, had come to visit America. He spent a day and a night at their place, and they lived next door to my family along with my grandparents, who shared their two-story brick house. That day, the man lingered in the house with my grandma, who was stuck with him while everyone else had gone to work, and as neither could speak the other’s language, it quickly became uncomfortable for both.

Grammy’s solution was to send Hans outside with one of the grandkids. As I happened to be in the room at the time, I was assigned the task. “Take him out and show him Papa’s garden,” she told me. “Tell him the names of the vegetables. He’d probably enjoy that.” I agreed. Besides, even though I knew not a whit of German, I was very much at ease in Hans’s presence. He was painfully thin, with a messy mop of hair and large glasses. I should point out that the men in my life, including my father, were gruff blue-collar types who could intimidate me. Hans was different: gentle, soft-spoken and appealingly awkward—a lot like me!

I took the man’s right hand with my left (my good hand) and led him out into the garden, which took up most of the front lawn at my grandparents’ place. I escorted my new friend down the rows of veggies, calling out each one as we passed it, and Hans would gleefully parrot the names. This went on until we made our way through the entire garden. I was proud to find myself educating an adult rather than the other way around. When the English lesson was over, Hans plopped himself down on a patch of earth near the garden and patted the spot next to him, indicating he wanted me to sit there. I did. I couldn’t believe this peculiar man I barely knew was so eager to connect with me, the weird little kid nobody liked. It felt good.

For long minutes we simply enjoyed each other’s company. Then, out of the blue, Hans slipped a hand into my shorts, even though we were only about 30 feet from the poorly paved country road that meandered through this stretch of country. This went on for several minutes. I was confused but not frightened or troubled. The only thing I could think to say while this was happening was “Peepee,” continuing the English lesson with my pet name for my genitalia even in the midst of my own abuse. Hans chortled and repeated the word: “Peepee.” Eventually this came to an end, and Hans, having gotten what he wanted, shooed me away. I can’t imagine why it didn’t occur to him that I would immediately rat him out; maybe he knew and just didn’t care. Anyway, he could hardly ask me not to, could he? I raced back to Grammy and promptly informed her of what had happened. She deliberated over what to do, in the end asking me to keep it a secret from everyone, including my parents, and ordering me to stay away from Hans. No authorities were called, and life went on as usual. Hans stayed that evening with my uncle and aunt and left the next day. I never saw him again.

We see this fact over and over again: homosexuality is not inherent in one’s personhood. It is caused by early exposure to misplaced (sinful) sexual stimulation. And it causes the recipient of the abuse to have confused thoughts about sexuality. To think that the abuse is a good thing.

We see it happening in this article as well. Instead of the author saying “this was wrong and it affected me in a sinful and harmful way”, this author is saying, “well, this experience wasn’t so bad, and it made me a pedophile, which I suffer with, so feel sorry for my condition”.

We need to challenge this line of thinking in its tracks. The alternative: our culture will adopt more and more of this type of confused and muddled thinking, and worse, more children are certain to be abused and therefore harmed, and who will grow up to be harmful and predatory adults themselves.

Pedophilia equality

A logical extension of "marriage equality":

http://www.rethinksociety.com/government/pedophilia-is-a-sexual-orientation-under-ca-bill/

The decline and fall of Francis Beckwith

Back in his better days, as an Evangelical ethicist, Francis Beckwith distinguished himself as leading advocate for the rights of the unborn. Unfortunately, by converting to Rome, Beckwith has now betrayed the very constituency he used to serve. For he has become a shameless enabler of a pedophilic institution. You only have to compare his apparatchik defense of Rome on clerical abuse with organizations like BishopAccountability.org to see what is sadly amiss.

Mind you, he continues to defend the life of the unborn while simultaneously defending a pedophilic institution–rather like a guy who punches the clock 9-5 as a fireman while moonlighting as an arsonist on his off-hours.

It’s a pity to see the moral compromises which Beckwith prepared to make to justify his conversion, or the moral freefall which that has precipitated.

Unless he defends the sanctity of the womb as a prenatal harem or brothel to supply future butt-boys for the Roman priesthood and episcopate, it’s hard to see how his divided loyalties are morally or logically coherent.

Fr. Confessor or Fr. Molester?

"Catholic Church shamed by Irish abuse report"

HT: Eric Vestrup.

Obamanation: mainstreaming kiddy porn

"DAG Nominee David Ogden and Knox v. United States"