It’s not that bad

If your leaders tell you physical touch before marriage is inappropriate, including, but not limited to kissing, holding hands, etc., but also hold a belief that there is a spectrum of sexual abuse against children (i.e. "It wasn't that bad") then something is amiss.

If your pastors are the sole arbiters of what is good, what is bad, and what is really bad, something is rotten.

If your leaders get to determine what bad things are worthy of church discipline and what are just minor offenses and deserving of support, or what becomes public knowledge and what gets hidden, something is seriously wrong. 

Some would say that stealing a bowl of rice from a starving child is not as bad as maiming and murdering a grown adult, but why? Why is a slow death somehow better than a fast one? Why is harming a child less punishable than harming an adult? Why is a sly act of selfishness somehow better than an explosive one?

CFC members, your pastors are saying that there is a line that can be crossed without too many ramifications - and your leaders decide where that line is - and there is also a line that cannot be crossed without devastating ramifications - and your leaders also decide where that line is.

Asking "How far is too far?" when it comes to sex before marriage is the same thought process as asking about sexual abuse of a child, "How bad is too bad?" The point is that your pastors are deciding this for all of you. 

CFC members, ask your leaders why they publicly excommunicate people for living together before marriage but encourage you to send casseroles to a child abuser and his family. 

Ask your pastors why they emailed the congregation and called child sexual abuse “moral failure” and did not mention the abuse victims at all and ignore what this “moral failure” has done to those families who need far more assistance than casseroles

Ask your leaders who knew about the full extent of the abuse and when they knew it. 

Ask who has seen the police report and has chosen to not act on that information. 

Ask your pastors why they decided to sacrifice tiny abuse victims on the altar of the church’s image. 

Ask your leaders why they thought it was ok to withhold all of this information from you and put your family at risk. 

When there are child abusers in your midst and the leaders fail to report them, they have basically decided where this sin lands on the spectrum of sinfulness is “not that bad” and have decided to keep their actions and identity secret. 

By implementing ineffective safety policies, they have chosen to protect abusers and risk your children.

They took away your ability to decide what is safe for you and what is safe for your family. 

Your pastors do not have the authority to decide that “it’s not that bad.”

Only God does.