What must the PRCA learn about sexual abuse?
Rev. Joshua Engelsma addresses the pressing issue of sexual abuse within the Protestant Reformed Churches, prompted by concrete cases including the recent deposition of a senior minister who abused his pastoral authority. The article calls the PRCA to recognize that sexual abuse is a real problem within Reformed churches and proposes four critical lessons the denomination must learn in response. This resource provides pastoral leadership guidance on institutional accountability, victim care, and denominational reform in the face of abuse.
This special issue on the subject of sexual abuse was not planned in the realm of the abstract and theoretical. It was occasioned by a number of concrete cases of sexual abuse reported in the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRCA). Victims have stepped forward to reveal the vile sins committed against them. Real perpetrators have been exposed.1 Consistories have devoted, and continue to devote, a great deal of time to administering discipline to abusers and comfort to the abused. What has...
Full article available on sb.rfpa.org