The Christians Who Defend Predators

How do Christians align with rapists?

The Good Men Project

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By John Pavlovitz

Surveying my social media feed last week, the questions swirled like a storm inside my head as a former pastor:

How does someone end up here?

What happens in the journey of a soul that brings it to such a barren place?

How does a human being reach this kind of moral wasteland?

How do millions of professed followers of Jesus reach a point where they collectively harbor predators, willfully abandon survivors, and so easily redact the truth in order to shield the monsters from the raking light of accountability?

How do Christians align with rapists?

I imagine it begins, as most roads to hell do, one seemingly infinitesimal moral compromise at a time: a justification of a damning video, the scrolling away from an uncomfortable news story, a single justification that seems acceptable in the moment, one solitary vote, a sole willful delusion.

And as with all reprehensible acts that at first sound every alarm within a decent person’s psyche, they get easier over time.

Every tiny concession paves the way for the next, and each capitulation preps the ground.