Nashville Adult Entertainment: SBC leader says churches not immune from ‘anti-child culture’
21 11 2011… The law requires you, if you have any reason to believe a child is being abused or a child is being molested, you have a legal obligation to report it to the police,” he said. “It’s their job to investigate to see if it’s true or not, and I believe that you have a moral obligation — a moral obligation as a Christian — to protect innocent children, to report any idea that there might be sexual abuse going on.”
Land said if the allegations involve a church, that cannot be allowed to make any difference. “If you do, then these places become havens for abusers,” he said. “There should be safe places for children, and a safe place for children should be any church.”
Land said the Penn State scandal, where officials apparently put protecting the reputation of an institution ahead of safety for children, shows that internal reporting is not enough.
“The church is not immune to this,” Land said. “People have mistaken loyalties.” He recalled one interview with a woman who had come out of a life of prostitution and drug abuse who was a Baptist preacher’s daughter molested by the youth minister when she was 13.