This story is heartbreaking, painful to watch and disgusting.I am just watching a news program here. Some things I know about secular news is, they don't always get the facts right. They can falsely accuse people. They can twist facts about people who behaved in an unreasonable manner and make it seem unreasonable. I am getting a second hand report that a man confessed to a heinous sexual sin. How do I know that's true? I suppose I could research it. But I don't know it is true? Why? Because I saw it on the news. Also, I did not hear two or three witnesses to it that had knowledge of it. But I saw the look of pain on the man's face when he saw the movie reel of the accused.Still, this one looks pretty bad, and if the news reporting is accurate, it is a difficult situation all around. If it's accurate, it would seem, after the perpetrator was no longer committing the crime, one of the biggest failures was in not helping the man that had been abused. No counseling? Apparently the one pastor campaigning for stricter laws about abuse has come forward.Part of me does not like reporting requirements. I think of I Corinthians 6. It seems to be more about what we now classify as civil law, though, rather than evildoers committing crimes. I don't like the idea of the ungodly secular people getting involved in church business. But we live in this world. And these ungodly people have some kind of standards that, at least at this point in time, are still against the wickedness of child abuse. And the ruler is a minister of God, an aveger to execute judgment on him that doeth evil. For this particular kind of crime, the idea of having a church stoning comes to mind, but some of the more right wing Reformed folks may be more into that idea that the A/G, and the Aussie government isn't going to go for that sort of thing.I also wonder if this preacher molested this one guy, might he not have molested other people? Would his family not have known about his inclinations? Why would he just pick that one boy?I try to put myself into Brian Houston's shoes. It's his own father they were talking about. And also, if he did not know the law, it does seem reasonable that he would not have to report a second-hand account to the police when the victim is an adult. And why would he want to if it was his father? He needed to talk to a lawyer. Maybe that's another lesson the A/G in Australia could learn, to get professional help on tricky situations like law (and accounting, but that's another issue.) At the denominational level, they should be able to afford an attorney (attourney? barrister?).If he'd heard about the crime in the role of pastor, does Australian common law not exclude clergy, doctors, and lawyers from requirements like this? I do not know the details of the law. I hear there are some mandatory reporting requirements in different states in the US, but usually I hear about them in the context of child abuse like in this case. What about domestic violence, murder, plotting to commit murder, violation of immigration laws, or someone owning a bag of pot. What do you pastors have to report in a given situation? If it's in an RCC confession booth, is all this stuff protected? Who has to report, just the senior pastor or the men's breakfast ministry leader or cell group leader? It is odd to me that there would be a law requiring a denominational head not to have a 'conflict of interest.' Sure, he did, but why would the state regulate church leaders having conflicts of interest. I would not be surprised if he made his decision with a lot of input. I can understand not blasting a man's sin if he's confessed it and been removed from ministry. On the other hand, this is the type of sin that is dangerous for the kids in the congregation, and his dad might go to a church and hang around kids
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