Debunking 4 Sexual Abuse Claims Related to the Church | An Interview with Jennifer Roach
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 1 ก.ย. 2023
- Jennifer Roach is a licensed mental health counselor living in American Fork, Utah. She joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints four years ago after being in the Protestant church her whole life. She currently serves as a Gospel Doctrine teacher in her ward. Jennifer is the recipient of this year’s “John Taylor Defender of the Faith” award and the BH Robert’s Research Grant. Her research primarily focuses on issues that arise when sexual abuse happens in churches. Jennifer does a weekly podcast for FAIR Latter-day Saints that focuses on questions that arise about our faith from Evangelicals. She also teaches as an adjunct for Brigham Young University-Idaho.
Highlights
01:50 Kurt introduces Jennifer Roach and her background as a therapist for sexual abuse.
03:30 Jennifer will speak on four specific claims pertaining to the Church and sexual abuse and seven things that the Church does to go above and beyond what most churches do to help and protect youth.
7:00 Jennifer addresses some of the biggest questions that people have. One big question that people have is, “Is there more sexual abuse in our church or not?” Sometimes the media twists things to make it seem that way.
8:30 Boy Scout records data on abuse. Jennifer reviewed and researched all these cases from the past 80 years and was able to find how cases the Church of Jesus Christ has compared to other churches. Around 5.6% of the abuse cases were Latter-day Saint related.
19:10 Why doesn’t the Church do background checks? Jennifer explains the three issues with background checks.
1. The issue of delayed disclosure. Most people don’t disclose the abuse they received until they’re in their 50s to 70s.
2. Background checks are not thorough. It’s not a deep dive into someone’s past. It only shows convicted crimes but not accusations.
3. It only covers the past 7 years.
29:30 The danger of telling people that someone has been background checked. We believe that means this person is squeaky clean and they can be trusted. It really means that they don’t have convictions and they aren’t on the sex offenders list but it does not mean they are safe.
32:20 Jennifer talks about the case from the previous year. The man passed the federal background check every year despite doing horrific things to his own children and none of it was on his record.
34:20 The Church’s helpline. There have been a lot of claims accusing the Church’s helpline of hiding abuse but if we look deeper into the case we find most of these claims are untrue.
38:00 Why do we need a helpline?
- It helps leaders know what to report.
- Each state’s laws are different.
- The helpline helps bishops fulfill their legal responsibilities and get the correct help for the victim.
48:00 There are standard best practices when working with youth and the Church follows all of them. They are all in the handbook. Another concern is there isn’t always a window in the bishop’s office. However, a youth can take a parent, leader, or friend into the bishop’s office. It’s in the handbook.
53:10 What is the Church doing that goes above and beyond those gold standard things in child protection?
- The helpline
- Disfellowshipping
- Gender specific leaders for young women
- The member number system
- Existing associations (go to church with your neighbors who know you)
- Being sustained
- Being called
1:10:50 How can we be better at detecting abuse that is currently going on? Most of the time kids disclose abuse by accident. They normally aren’t going to disclose it to you directly.
1:22:50 Is there anything else we can do to help stop abuse?
For links related to this video, visit leadingsaints.org/debunking-4...
Jennifer, I miss you from the days when we conversed in Thoughtful Saints. You are amazing, this is good stuff.
Wow, she is so smart & has done so much research; I really appreciate the info Jennifer has given us.
I'm so glad you asked about Big Brothers Big Sisters. I know it's slightly off-topic, but it's something I'm passionate about. I was a big sister with BBBS. I was screened with a background check, interviewed, had a social worker who I reported to, and received ongoing training. We did one-to-one outings, we had group activities with other bigs and littles, and we had family outings. We had to be matched for a year before I could bring my little sister to my home. There are times when you are alone with the child transporting them in the car, but most outings are in public spaces. Something I remember from one of our trainings is that most of the volunteers were law enforcement officers and teachers 🤷♀️It is *by far* the best thing I have done in my life. They need big couples, big sisters, and are *always* needing male mentors.
I have some points to consider. First, it was mentioned that troops sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints comprise about 20% - 30% of the total troops in BSA, but only 5% of the abuse cases came from those troops. Please note that troops in the Church of Jesus Christ tend to be very small, especially outside Utah. You need to compare the number of boys in the troops, rather than the number of troops. The 5% number might be much closer to the expected value. Also, recent reports indicate that social pressure was used to suppress reports from members of the Church. The possibility that cases of abuse associated with the Church were hidden better should not be dismissed without justification.
I can't remember if it was in this interview or in the Public Square piece where the number of abusers in the SBC were compared with the number of abusers in the Church of Jesus Christ. Comparing data from the SBC internal records with Floodlit is misleading. Floodlit is based solely on public news. The SBC database includes cases that were never made public, if I understand correctly. How many cases would come to light if the internal church records were made public?
What evidence does anyone have that people are more trusting of background checks that in the discernment of local leaders? It isn't clear to me that background checks give a greater amount of misplaced trust. We don't have any language, let alone good language, around background checks at church because we don't do background checks unless legally required.
Jennifer is amazing and I follow everything she puts out. Thanks for having her on the show.
I worry that all the extra hoops cause the good men to take a step back, leaving only the bad guys. I would like to believe that I would do anything to protect kids, but it is much easier to just not get involved. My kids have a dad, grandpa and uncles, so they will be fine without support from the church, but not every kid is that lucky.
On the topic of forgiveness. If you have a friend who is a recovering alcoholic. If they have been sober for 10 years, we know how thoughtless it would be to meet with them at a bar. We wouldn't want to say 'just don't have a drink.' It isn't that we don't forgive them, it's that we are supportive of their recovery.
The same needs to happen with sexual sin. We aren't being unforgiving, we are helping their recovery by helping them avoid tempting situations
Thank you for the valuable discussion.
Regarding background checks, I can relate to the inadequacies of them through a comparison to my own profession as a car dealer for 30 years. I hesitate to compare something trivial like vehicles to children's lives which are infinitely more important.
History reports on vehicles are given much more value and credibility than they deserve. The term "clean title" is used and interpreted to mean this is a good vehicle with no problems. Unfortunately, this is often far from true. If we really want to know The condition of a vehicle, it needs to be properly inspected instead of taking the easy road and assuming the history report tells the full story.
I hope we can educate ourselves to the realities of individual background checks and the reality that they don't expose abusers like many assume they do.
I think background checks, just like vehicle history reports have their place but we need to understand the limitations and take additional steps as needed.
An idea to improve it is to convert more people to truly follow Jesus Christ. His true followers do not abuse anyone, though they are often falsely accused.