Southern Baptists keep kicking the can down the road in their child sex abuse scandal
SBC set up for more failures
Bart Barber will fail in his new leadership position at the Southern Baptist Convention because he is mired in the same old dogma. (June 16, 2A, “Farmersville pastor Barber elected Southern Baptist president”)
The sex scandal won’t go away because nothing will change. Churches will pay enormous sums to silence the victims, and the cycle will continue.
Almost all of the sexual predators in Southern Baptist churches were male, as were the leaders who failed to report them. So, does it sound like a good idea to keep women out of leadership?
Any time an organization benches half of its intelligence, talent and skills, it can never be more than half-smart. It’s the Taliban way of doing things, and it doesn’t work for them either.
- Larry Mason, Azle
Many Uvalde questions remain
Ryan Rusak makes a valid point that before we can solve school security issues, we have to know exactly what went wrong in Uvalde. (June 14, 9A, “Before we try to hire more police for schools, look at how poorly Uvalde chief did his job”) Experts on TV said cops should have shot off the lock and battered down the door. Now we know the reinforced door only opened outward.
Basic information like this took three weeks to find out, and it’s frustrating. Now there is a loophole in releasing public information because the shooter is dead? Why was a resource officer not on campus? How often did this happen? Why weren’t surveillance cameras monitored?
Texas Rangers need to get this sorted out.
- Randy Weeks, Roanoke
We can’t just shoot our enemies
The pastor calling for LGBT people to be shot is right that the Bible condemns homosexuality multiple times. (June 15, 1A, “Mayor: Nothing Watauga can do about anti-gay church”) And free exercise of religion entitles him to say that.
But shot? Jesus says to love our enemies. Christians should pray for those who violate scriptural constraints, not turn them over to a firing squad.
- Thomas F. Harkins Jr., Fort Worth
Be the John Dean of today
A plea to Republicans who have firsthand knowledge of the plot to illegally overturn the 2020 presidential election: Please be the John Dean of today and tell the Jan. 6 committee under oath what you know. You will save and secure American democracy, and reassure our allies around the world that the United States can still be trusted to safeguard freedom, human rights and the rule of law. Be the hero America and the world needs.
- Blake K. Wallace, Arlington
Don’t touch the oil industry
Leave it to politicians to take a bad situation — record-high gas prices — and make it worse. The anti-gouging legislation recently passed by the House without a single Republican vote certainly qualifies.
Given the high price for oil, producers might be tempted to open the valves more, even though that would shorten the production life of wells. The development costs of older wells were written off years ago, thanks to tax legislation designed to encourage drilling. The profit margins look great.
But oil producers know that the replacement costs for a new well will be many times that of the old well. Punish them for making a profit, and they will reduce production from older wells. Crippling the corrective mechanisms of the free market is never a good idea.
- James R. Anderson, North Richland Hills