What Is the UPCI Doing to Prevent Sexual Abuse?

Summary

Summary prepared by Acts 2:38 Life from the transcript below — the preacher’s words follow in full.

A society-wide problem — the church is not immune

• The question posed (in the host's frame): today's topic that we want to talk about is very heavy. The host's opening figures (in the frame) put the scale of sexual violence, in the US, as sobering and sad. And the real travesty is that some of these incidents take place, in a church setting, or they're perpetrated by church leaders, or by church members. And even worse is when the victim is a child. Unfortunately, these types of crimes have happened at UPCI churches, or they've been committed by ministers, and church leaders. So, first of all: how widespread is this problem, specifically in the church? And what is the UPCI doing, to prevent sexual abuse from happening, in our churches? The answer: well, first of all, this is a very important, and serious, and, as you say, sobering topic. And it's a culture-wide problem. It's a society-wide problem. And the church is not immune. I sometimes use the example, that: churches, like your home — the temperature outside is going to affect the temperature inside. So we can have temperature control, inside. But if it's freezing outside, or if it's 100 degrees outside, you will tell the difference, inside your house. And you'll have to make adjustments, accordingly. So, unfortunately, the church comes from society. And the attitudes, the values, the practices, the knowledge — or lack of knowledge — in the whole society, is going to affect the members of the church. And then the ministers are drawn from the members. It's going to affect the ministers. So, as we've seen, the last few years: every segment of society's had appalling disclosures — from the entertainment industry, to the news industry, to big business, to politics, to various denominations. There have been horrendous examples of physical abuse. And, of course, the statistics you give probably cover a wide range: from sexual harassment, to maybe one inappropriate action, to ongoing abuse, or grooming. So the problem is huge, across society. And whether Democrats, Republicans, conservative, liberal, Catholic, Protestant — you know, no — atheist, or Muslims: nobody is immune, from this. Now, that's not a justification, for any wrongdoing. We have had to deal with some examples, within the church. I will say — I don't mean to say this in any way to trivialize, or minimize — but compared to, right now, 11,600 credentialed ministers ('11,600 credential ministers', as heard) in the UPCI, the number of failures there — you would expect, just the law of statistics, there would be some failures. But the number of failures, specifically in the area of abuse, is very small. But it is significant. I mean, one is too many. Plus, with the attention in society, and with the availability of social media, to communicate: cases of 20, 30, 40, even 50 years ago, are now coming to the surface. So we're having to deal with several. Not as if there's an extraordinary surge, right this minute. But you do have an accumulation, of things that, for one reason, or another, were never addressed — either because the victims never felt like they could, or they weren't handled properly. Even though it's not an extraordinary number, but each case is traumatic.

Old cases, the church's limits — and where most cases arise

• The host's follow-up (in the frame, standing verbatim-only in the record): haven't many states eliminated statutes of limitations, on these crimes? The answer: yes. And also, that is also kind of, in the secular society, as well as the church: it's kind of a pent-up thing ('pinup thing', as heard), of cases that you couldn't deal with — now suddenly you can. And that is relevant, to the church. Because our ability, as a church, to go back 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago, and investigate: we can't subpoena witnesses. We don't have detectives. And so, in many cases, it becomes one person's word, against another, in a church setting. Whereas the secular society does have subpoena power, and investigative power, and so forth. And so, if the secular society removes the statute of limitations, they can go back, do a much more thorough job, than we can. And so — I say, by the way — so, let me give you some resources. But I also make another point. Among the ministers, it's statistically extremely small. However, there are also cases of lay leaders, or just church members. And actually, the majority of cases: it's in the family, or step-family. So they happen to be going to church. But church is not where the abuser met the abused, or it's not where the abuse was perpetrated. But because they are members of the church, it comes to the attention of the church. And maybe the abuser is somehow involved, in some — you know, maybe they're seen in the choir, or they're a parking lot attendant ('parking lot attended', as heard), or whatever. So they have some visibility, in the church. But the root of most of these actually really is not the church setting, but a family setting. That doesn't mean it's any less horrible. And that doesn't mean the church doesn't need to deal with it. But what I'm saying is: it's not a problem created by the church. It is a problem that the church could handle well, or not handle well.

No cover-up — criminal conduct goes to the law; complaints follow the judicial procedure

• Now, let me give you some resources. We do have — if you go to upci.org — we do have a page, for Safe Church ('fors saafe church', as the letters stand), that gives all kinds of resources. And it basically says: if there is criminal conduct, you should go to the legal authorities. So we do not believe in cover-up. And we don't really believe the church is the best place, to handle cases of criminal abuse. So we want to cooperate with authority — legal authorities — because they're the ones that are going to have the ability to investigate. And what penalties can we impose? If it's a credential minister, we can take away their credentials. But they could still minister, on their own, somewhere. And once they're no longer a member of us, we have to be careful of invasion of privacy — even stating a true thing about them, in such a way that could harm their reputation, or their livelihood. So we're very limited, in what we can do. They can go on to another church, or another setting. And, you know, we can't prevent that. But if the law gets involved, the law can prevent that. So we do recommend: if there's a case of criminal conduct, you should get the law involved. We don't want cover-up. We don't think we can handle it, comprehensively. Now, if there's a complaint against a member of a local church, that may, or may not, be criminal: but the pastor is the logical person — or there may be a church board member, that is the appropriate person, to report to. If it involves a credential minister, it should be reported to the district superintendent. And we have a procedure. It's called a judicial procedure. You can file a complaint. And so the district superintendent can explain the proper way, to do that. And some people will say: well, we have to go through a process — that's not fair; you should just deal with it. Well, in the ideal world, maybe so. But even in the secular system, you have to go through a process. Because you have to presume that a person is innocent — prior to proven guilty ('Pro to proven guilty', as the letters stand). And there are cases, every so often — I've had to deal with cases of false accusations, as verified by the secular system. So I can't just presume a person's guilty. I have to presume innocence, or prove guilty ('presume Innocents are prove guilty', as the phrase stands). You have to protect their rights. And also, you have to protect against false accusations. But you have to have due process. So we're a voluntary organization. We can't investigate a person's private life. But if they're a credential minister, they have given us consent, to follow our own judicial procedure. So, if we follow our procedure, we can deal with that person's credentials. But if we don't follow our procedure, then we could be guilty of violating their rights, and be liable for civil penalties ('Crim civil penalties', as the letters stand). Or whatever we impose could be overturned. So, even though, you know, people say: well, why do we have to go through this — writing a formal complaint, and signing it, and sending it to the district superintendent ('district super', as truncated)? Well, we have to have that process, or we can't — we're not allowed, by law, to deal with the situation, the way it needs to be dealt with.
• Okay, so: if you go to the Safe Church page ('upc.org org for/ saafe Church', as the letters stand), you will see that explanation, that I've just described. You will see an official position paper of the UPCI — which is also in our manual, available to all ministries — and it's called: abuse and sexual misconduct (the title, as heard). So that is our official position, for all forms of abuse, and sexual misconduct. We also have an article, by me. It's called: when abuse comes to church (the title, as heard). And it talks, in detail: what's the proper way to deal with abuse. First of all: how do we prevent a culture of abuse. But then if abuse happens — whether it's outside the church, and the abused person is now coming to the church, for help — or whether it happens, in a church context, or with a church member — what's the, what should the church do? So I have a whole article, about that.

Policies, training, and counseling — helping hurting people before any verdict

• So what has the — and then we have other resources. We have sample policies, for churches to implement, to help prevent abuse, and deal properly, with any accusations of abuse. We have some training videos. And we're adding more videos. Some are toward the church — where you can train your volunteer workers, and paid workers, of the church: the district camps, Sunday school, children's ministry, youth ministry — we're producing those. We also have some videos for people who have been abused. So we're trying to do both. And we're trying to add. We do have a Safe Church committee, which — if someone wants assistance, they can contact the Safe Church committee. And we can talk with them, about how to respond. For ministers, and their families, we do have an endorsed counseling service. That is — it's on its own, but we recommend it — points of refuge (the name, as heard). And then, for everyone, we have an endorsed counseling network — the center for Apostolic counseling (the name, as heard). These are separate, from the UPCI, but endorsed by the UPCI. We also have Helping Hands, where — it is a separate foundation, but we have a relationship with it. If someone has been abused, in the context of the church, and they need counseling, we can refer them. And we can sign that this is a legitimate claim. And then that separate foundation can provide counseling. So this is a way that, even though the church may not have any responsibility, in the legal sense — but because we want to minister, to people who have been abused — we have ways of giving them counseling, even before there is a legal determination, of who's guilty, or who's responsible. You know, our interest is not just what is the legal outcome. Our interest is helping hurting people, no matter who they are. So we do have several avenues, to do that, which we feel are very important.
• But, to say: what has the UPCI done? So, in 2019, we adopted that position paper, which is quite comprehensive. In 2020, we were not able to have a full General Conference, because of coid (as heard). But in 2021, we — at our General Conference, we have a minister session. So perhaps you'd have a thousand ministers there. And so we devoted that whole session to Safe Church, and to this presentation, of how to prevent abuse, and how to deal with abuse. And then, in 2021, that article, that I mentioned earlier — which was a summary, or a transcript, of my part of the presentation — that was put in forward (the magazine, as named), which is our magazine, distributed free, to all the ministers, in the US and Canada. And so then, from there, we have trained our general board. And various districts: we're providing training, to each district, at their request. And so each district is doing its own thing, of course. Also, we have training, for all ministers. So I have recorded a video, that every person who's seeking credentials — or, if they already have credentials, and they're seeking to go to the next level: from local license, to general; or general, to ordination — this is a video that accompanies the manual. So they're supposed to read the relevant section, of the manual. But they're supposed to watch the video, where I do — like I'm doing now, but in a little more detail — and go through the steps. So we're trying to — in other words, we're trying to provide training, for every minister, in multiple formats. And we've also amended our judicial procedure. And we have more proposals, that will be more specific, as: we get experience; we learn what are the stumbling blocks, or what are the difficulties. What — you know — because our judicial procedure was written to cover all hypothetical cases of ministerial misconduct: from ethics, to finances, to doctrine, to morals. But when you deal with child abuse, there are some specific issues. And so we're trying to streamline that track, to deal specifically, efficiently ('effici ly', as the letters stand), and effectively. And then we're providing training, for those who are involved, in administering the judicial procedure. So they will have — because they may not have had a background, of any experience — so we're providing training, and professional support. And that's another thing the Safe Church committee is trying to do, is making sure that: if we — when we deal with these cases — we have trained people, who are advising the authorities, who are responsible for the administration, of the judicial procedure. And I can tell you, we've spent many, many hours, working through this process.

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• We did have a case, like this. And it went through our judicial procedure, to a trial. It's the first time, in 25 years, we've actually had a church trial. But it did result in a conviction, and a removal of that minister, from the UPCI. Because of a history — of many years ago, actually before he became a minister — of misconduct with minors ('miners', as the word stands). But we felt like: whether it's after getting credentials, or before — this kind of character flaw, and this kind of track record, disqualifies a person ('just qualifies a person', as the words stand) for a position of leadership, over other people. So we take it that seriously. But 90% of the time, when there is a credible allegation, of this nature, we go to the minister, and we ask for their immediate resignation, and receive it. And we say: look, if you go through a process, in the legal system, and you document this is false, then you come back, and we'll reconsider your minister application (the words stand as 'will reconsider'). But because of the nature of the allegations, and because of the credibility — you know, because there is a strong statement — we're recommending that you withdraw, from active ministry, at this time, until the matter is resolved. And we recommend you turning in your credentials, with UPCI, until the matter is resolved. So 90% of the time, that's what happens. But if the person says: no, I'm innocent; this is absolutely false; I want to fight it — well, obviously, we want to give them every right. And we go through the full judicial process. And, as I've said, there have been a few cases where the person was exonerated. They said: no, I want to remain on the role, because I will be able to prove my case. And it turns out that was correct. And we understand that. So it's a very important issue. It's an ongoing process. But I can tell you that we are dealing with it, very seriously. And I think we're becoming more and more effective, as time goes on. I'm hoping we're helping to mold, and shape, a culture of awareness, and understanding: that we're going to prevent a lot of potential cases. And then, if there are some cases, we're going to be able to deal with it appropriately, up front, to minimize the damage, so that there are no subsequent victims. And that — that's my goal. And then to provide help, to those who have been victimized. And so those are some big, difficult, ambitious goals. But we are making significant — and there the captured text ends, mid-sentence: the goals sentence's completion, and the episode's outro, are not in the captured text (see the truncation flag on this record); nothing has been supplied to fill the tail.