Category: PCA News

On the use of Police Reports in PCA Church Courts

In the debate over whether non-theists should be allowed to testify in PCA courts, one of the most common objections is that the change is unnecessary because police reports can be admitted into evidence.

This response reveals both an unfamiliarity with the DASA Report and a lack of experience in real life situations of investigating and adjudicating abuse in the courts of the church.

In this essay I will give six reasons why we cannot solely depend on police reports to provide the church with evidence in our judicial proceedings and thus why we should be willing to admit the testimony of any relevant and competent person.

I will be citing statistics detailed in the DASA report. As a person with a scientific background and a PhD in the humanities that demanded rigorous documentation of all my claims and sources, I personally tracked down the source of every statistic and searched for many others that further demonstrated the claims we were making in that report. The DASA report provides documentation and links, most of which cite peer reviewed academic journals or the studies of government agencies. If there was a claim that I could not find a solid source for, it was not included in the DASA report.

1. The vast majority of assaults go unreported to police.

The DASA report points out that only 310 out of every 1,000 (that’s 31%) of sexual assaults are ever reported to police.[1] According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, only 37% of rapes are ever reported to police.[2] The same fact sheet states that only 12% of child sexual assaults are reported to police.[3]

This means that somewhere between 63% and 69% of sexual assaults do not have police reports. 88% of child sexual assaults do not have police reports. For the vast majority of sexual assaults, police reports simply do not exist. We cannot depend solely on the existence of police reports in the investigation and adjudication of abuse claims in the church courts.

Somewhere between 63% and 69% of sexual assaults do not have police reports. 88% of child sexual assaults do not have police reports. For the vast majority of sexual assaults, police reports simply do not exist.

2. Police reports are difficult to obtain.

In my practical experience the police are not enthusiastic to support a church investigation or judicial proceeding. Even when a police report exists, it may be difficult or impossible to obtain. In order to obtain a police report a Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, request will likely have to be made, even for the reporting victim to obtain the report. I am highly skeptical of the willingness of police officers or district attorneys to hand over evidence or serve as witnesses in a church judicial proceeding. This is especially so in areas of our country that have a higher non-Christian population who are becoming more and more suspicious of the church.

3. Assaults reported to police rarely end in conviction or go to trial.

As detailed in the DASA Report, assaults reported to the police rarely result in any meaningful justice for the victim, “Statistically, 50 out of 310 sexual assaults reported to law enforcement result in criminal charges. Approximately 25 will result in conviction and jail time. One study concluded that only ‘1.6% of all complaints ended in a trial.’ Of the many studies, it is clear that statistically a sexual assault case is not likely to make it to trial.”[4]

To state this more plainly: only 5% of sexual assaults will ever result in criminal charges. Only 2.5% will ever result in a criminal conviction. Because many of these are plea deals, only 1.6% of sexual assaults ever make it to trial.

Combine this with the fact that false reports of sexual assault fall in the range of 2%-8% and you have an enormous miscarriage of justice in our country.[5] If the offender is a church member, or especially a church leader, it is incumbent on the courts of the church to be able to hold the offender accountable and to protect victims even when the secular authorities do not.

Only 5% of sexual assaults will ever result in criminal charges. Only 2.5% will ever result in a criminal conviction. Because many of these are plea deals, only 1.6% of sexual assaults ever make it to trial.

4. Police reports have not been adjudicated by judge or jury.

The information in a police report is the opinion of one or several arresting officers. While the witness claims made within it are usually made with under the penalty of perjury, the veracity of the police report has not been adjudicated by a judge or jury. As pointed out above, only 1.6% of sexual assaults ever make it to trial. Only 8% of police reports result in criminal convictions, meaning that a judge or jury has substantiated the report or that the defendant has pleaded guilty.[6] That means that 92% of police reports lack any external verification beyond the opinion of the arresting officer and the threat of perjury.

The point is this, police reports do not give any official determination of the veracity of the claim. If I were the defense representative in a church court proceeding I would vigorously point out the weakness of such evidence. 

5. Police reports cannot be cross examined.

Building on point six, even if a police report exists, how will the defense be able cross examine such a report? BCO chapter 35 on evidence does not envision a piece of paper alone serving as evidence to an offense. That chapter is entirely predicated on witnesses, meaning people. BCO 35-7 gives the right of the defense to cross examine a witness. How will the defense cross examine a police report? If the report is entered into evidence via another witness- a member of the church investigative committee, for example- how will that cross examination proceed? It could only proceed along the lines of how he obtained the report and so on. Again, if I were the defense representative in such a proceeding, I would vigorously protest that I do not get to cross examine the police officer who made the report!

Further, what if the police officer that made the report is a non-theist? How will I know if I cannot cross-examine him? Doesn’t that get us back in the same situation we started in? It would be better just to be able to call any competent witness and allow the court to judge his or her credibility as BCO 35-5 states.

6. Church courts prosecute offenses that the secular authorities do not prosecute.

The last reason I will present for not solely depending on police reports is this: secular authorities do not prosecute all the matters that the church court is called to prosecute. Because of our moral teachings, laid out in the exposition of the Ten Commandments in the Larger Catechism, there are a whole host of offenses that are not considered criminal in the legal codes of most civil jurisdictions. For example, the secular authorities would not currently prosecute someone for adultery or possession of pornography because these offenses are not currently crimes. As a result, no police report would exist for these offenses.

Now imagine that an unbelieving neighbor witnesses a husband repeatedly berating his wife and children. The neighbor could serve as a corroborating witness to the testimony of the wife as stipulated by BCO 35-4. But during the preparation for trial, the neighbor says that she cannot take the oath in good conscience because she does not believe in God or the existence of Hell. Since the secular authorities are highly unlikely to criminally prosecute verbal and psychological abuse, no police report will exist. How is the church court to proceed? What if the wife wants a divorce, how will the church court decide the matter in absence of a theist to testify? Surely you can see the conundrum here.

Conclusion: Non-theists with relevant information should be allowed to testify in PCA courts

BCO 35-5 states that the court must judge the credibility of any witness. Why not allow any competent witness with relevant information testify and allow each court to judge his or her credibility? I struggle to see the problem here.

Some have characterized this issue as “Admitting Atheists to Church Courts.” This is a highly prejudicial summary, which makes it sound like atheists will be granted standing in church courts to make complaints or file charges. This is not what is being proposed. Instead, we are asking that non-theists be allowed to offer eyewitness testimony when they are called by an officer of the court, their credibility to be judged by that court. If such a person were to be caught in a lie in that proceeding, the non-theist could be sued in civil court for defamation. Furthermore, God will hold that person accountable for their lies at the Final Judgment whether that person believes in God or not.

What about the following scenario? A young woman is raped by a church member, and in the course of her treatment in the hospital consents to a rape kit being performed by the ER nurse. Later, for some reason, the young woman decides not to file criminal charges against her rapist.[7] However, because she is encouraged to do so by a fellow church member that she opened up to about the rape, she discloses the offense to her pastor. There are no other witnesses and the accused church member claims the encounter was consensual. The only other evidence is the rape kit and the ER nurse who performed it. The same problems stated above for police reports now exist: how can the report be entered into evidence, even if it can be obtained? How can the report be cross-examined? Let’s say that the ER nurse is willing to testify, however when being prepared by the prosecution she discloses that she cannot in good conscience take the oath because she does not believe in God or the existence of hell. Where do we go from there?

In absence of any judicial action by the church, the rapist cannot be expelled from membership or the church building. Where does that leave the victim? She must either continue to attend worship with her rapist, causing her to be repeatedly retraumatized by her rapist, or she must leave for another church. The Christ-honoring result should be that the rapist is excommunicated, he is expelled from the church building, and the victim is surrounded with love and support by her pastor, elders, and fellow church members.

Here is another scenario, which sadly occurs all too often today. Let’s say that a young woman is repeatedly assaulted by a church leader; and the trauma of her abuse- and the church’s lack of response to it- results in her losing her trust in God such that she declares herself to be an atheist. Let’s say another victim of that same leader surfaces, who still has standing in the church courts and wants to take the case to trial. The testimony of the first victim could offer corroborating evidence of the second victim. Yet, because she is an avowed atheist- as a result of her horrific abuse mind you- she cannot testify in a PCA judicial proceeding.

Anyone who is willing to be imaginative can continue to come up with a host of likely scenarios where it would be legitimate and necessary for a church court to admit the testimony of a non-theist.

Let us not wait for a horrible instance like these to occur before making the needed changes. Let us be proactive in protecting the sheep of the church and holding the wolves accountable.

[1] M49GA, p. 1120. Clicking on the link in footnote 190 will take you to the fact page: https://www.rainn.org/statistics/criminal-justice-system.

[2] The NSVRC was cited in the DASA report, but not this particular fact sheet. The fact sheet is well documented with reputable studies supporting their figures. “Statistics about sexual violence,” National Sexual Violence Resource Center, 2015, accessed here: https://www.nsvrc.org/sites/default/files/publications_nsvrc_factsheet_media-packet_statistics-about-sexual-violence_0.pdf.

[3] Ibid.

[4] M49GA, p. 1120. There are a multitude of reasons why factual accusations of sexual assault do not make it to trial due to prosecutor discretion. As stated below in note 5, only 2%-8% of sexual assault claims are false.

[5] M49GA, p. 1220, footnote 272.

[6] Doing the math from the above statistic, 25 out of 310 police reports resulting in conviction comes out to 8% of police reports.

[7] A Department of Justice study found the following reasons why victims did not report sexual assault: 20% feared retaliation, 13% believed the police would not do anything to help, 13% believed it was a personal matter, 8% reported to a different official, 8% believed it was not important enough to report, 7% did not want to get the perpetrator in trouble, 2% believed the police could not do anything to help, 30% gave another reason, or did not cite one reason. See “The Criminal Justice System: Statistics,” RAINN, accessed at https://www.rainn.org/statistics/criminal-justice-system, footnote 5.

What Church Leaders Should Know About Responding to Abuse

I was recently interviewed by the Hagerstown, MD Harald-Mail as a part of a series of articles covering an abuse coverup at a prominent Christian school there. I spent quite a bit of time with the reporter on the phone, and she did an excellent job putting this together. The newspaper article is largely just reporting her interview with me.

In the interview, I say some things that I think all church leaders should know about responding to abuse. If you are a church leader, I encourage you to read the article and leave a comment if you would like more resources.

Thanks so much to Tamela Baker for her excellent work on this story, and to her colleague Alexis Fitzpatrick who teamed up with her on this project to break the story of abuse and coverup at the school there. In the process, they show the important role that journalists play in shining light on the truth when institutions fail to do that. The greatest recent example of this was the Boston Globe’s reporting in the Spotlight project, which blew the lid off of the clergy abuse scandal in this country. A fantastic movie was made about this that every Christian should watch. While this set of reporting will not likely end up on the silver screen, it demonstrates the vital role that local journalists play. Remember, it was the journalists at the Indianapolis Star, who were willing to run with the story that Rachael Denhollander was pitching them, that exposed and eventually took down Larry Nassar and USA Gymnastics.

Here is the article. I hope it both informs and challenges you.

What is the Catholic Church?

There has been much discussion on the interblags lately concerning Protestant conversions to the Roman Catholic church. This discussion has shown up on my Facebook feed and has raised some questions, so I thought I would write a post in order to address some of those questions. I also thought that I might offer my own perspective on the issue.

There have been several blog posts which have done a good job getting at some of the relevant issues. These can be seen here, here, and here. While these posts are good enough to stand on their own, I want to add a bit to the discussion from my perspective as one holding a PhD in Historical Theology and one who was specifically trained and wrote my dissertation in early medieval ecclesiology.

To my Roman Catholic Friends
First of all I must pay heed to the great elephantoid presence among us and say something to address my friends who are Roman Catholic, many of whom converted to the Roman Church from Protestantism. I realize that seeing a series of articles linked to my Facebook wall and seeing a post like this on my blog may be unsettling or even offensive to some of you. To this I would like to say two things. First of all, this post is not directed to Roman Catholics. My purpose in writing this is not to try to convert anyone, even if I could. This post, as well as the others I have posted are written to Protestants. I realize that some of the arguments we are using may strike a nerve with some of you because they may be addressing some of the issues you faced when you converted, yet this is not my intention. I hope that you will grant an indulgence to us as we have an “in house” discussion. Secondly, I am a Presbyterian for a reason. I have not converted to Roman Catholicism, though I have heard all the arguments for it (over many pints with some of you at mid-town St. Louis pubs). I would hope that you would grant me that latitude to express my Presbyterian distinctives, as I would you if you would express yours.

To the Protestants in the Room
It seems to me that the essence of this discussion boils down to a matter of ecclesiology. What is the nature of the church? Until we have understood and come to terms with a common definition of what the church is, we will not be able to address the issue of conversion to the Roman church. So what is the church? Our Roman Catholic brethren will claim that the church is defined by apostolic succession. What do we Protestants have against the apostles? Well, nothing at all. We all profess that the church is apostolic. The rubber meets the road, however, with how we define apostolic succession. They define it as an uninterrupted succession of bishops who are a part of a physical succession of laying on of hands that goes all the way back to the apostles. Sounds neat doesn’t it? Sounds pretty persuasive.

The only problem is that the bible doesn’t define the true church this way, and neither did the catholic church before the late middle ages. I don’t have a copy of Denzinger on me, but I would guess that, as with most things, the doctrine of apostolic succession as we know it today was not articulated until the Council of Trent. Nevertheless, even the article from the New Catholic Encyclopedia on “apostolic succession” admits that all the churches did not even have bishops until the 2nd or 3rd century, and that in many churches before that time rule was by a college of presbyters, what we today call a presbytery.

Now, this article is not a defense of Presbyterianism, so let’s not get off track. What I’m trying to do is talk about what is apostolic. It seems that before the time of Tertullian and Irenaeus (by the turn of the 3rd century) apostolic succession was held by all ordained pastors, not just the bishops. Clement of Rome in his letter to the church at Corinth espouses such an idea. Later on, it seemed expedient that the bishop become the sole authority and the-buck-stops-here’er with regard to defense of orthodoxy. Now, that is known, as I have argued to my Roman Catholic friends, as changing the rules in the middle of the game. Because if apostolic succession is defined by an unbroken chain of ministers laying hands on ministers going all the way back to the apostles, then we certainly have claim to it.

Yet I’m not even trying to make the claim that Protestants have apostolic succession. At least not yet. My purpose in writing this article is to argue that apostolic succession is not, nor never was intended to be, the marker of unity with the true church. In its inception, apostolic succession was a concept used to defend the true faith against heresy. Yet if you were to ask Tertullian or Irenaeus what the marks of the true church were, they would likely tell you that it was adherence to the orthodox faith and that unity was centered around the sacraments. This may seem like splitting hairs, but it becomes important at the Reformation. The claim of the Reformation is that the Church of Rome had departed from the apostolic faith. So what matters more, adherence to the apostolic faith, or adherence to an artifice that was once helpful in preserving the apostolic faith? No, the definition of the church cannot be changed in the middle of the game. The definition of the church and the symbol of its unity has always been centered around faith in Jesus Christ and the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist, and not on its form of government.

This was how the early medievals viewed the matter. In Western Europe from the 5th-10th centuries, or so, there was an influx of new peoples into the church who were formerly pagan, or Arian, Germanic tribes. Rome was in decline, so Rome could not be depended on for help. The local bishops were largely laymen of aristocratic class who were educated in the palace courts. Who then would lead the charge for evangelism, revival, and church building in this strange new world?

The answer is that it came largely down to monks. Monks who were trained to be local parish pastors, evangelists, missionaries, and apostolic bishops. Yet how did these churchmen, who were seeking to unite the large swath of newly converted Europe into the church of Christ, how did they define the church? Was it the bishops?

No. The early medievals did what they did with almost any theological issue (or any issue at all, for that matter), they went to the bible. And what they found was that the bible defines the church as those who believe in Christ and who are unified by means of the sacraments of baptism and Eucharist. What then was to be the continual driving force of unity in this nascent European civilization? The Eucharist. The Lord’s Table was the place where all men and women came to be united into one body of Christ and one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church. This, if you are interested, was also the view of St. Augustine.

[Addendum: It is interesting to note that before the separation from the East and the West and before the separation of the Reformation, the church was defined around the Lord’s Table. It was only after these splits that other definitions were sought]

So what does this mean for me if I am considering the Roman Church? It means that if you are looking for the Catholic Church you may find it right where you are. The Catholic Church exists wherever the apostolic faith is professed, and the table of the Lord is held open to all baptized disciples of Jesus. If you are looking for something ancient, you will find it there: the table of the Lord was instituted by Christ himself. If you are looking for tradition, you will find it there:St. Paul says that he handed down the tradition of the Eucharist as he received directly from Jesus. If you are looking for unity with the Catholic Church, you will find it there: Sts. Paul and Augustine say that anyone who partakes of the body of Christ becomes and is in union with the body of Christ. If you are looking for salvation, you will find it there: Jesus says in the gospel of John that those who eat his flesh and blood will have eternal life. I love how Peter Leithart recently put it in this blog post: the Eucharist makes the church. That hits the nail on the head. It’s no coincidence that Peter found this insight by reading a book by Cardinal Henri de Lubac where he wrote about the early medievals and their concept of the body of Christ.

So what are you looking for? Are you looking for something ancient, some old traditions, something catholic, something salvific? You can find it at the Eucharist at your own local church.

Are you looking for certainty? Are you looking for an authority that will never be shaken? Well, you will not find it there, but sadly, you may find that you won’t find it in Rome either. The only source of truth we have is the Holy Spirit speaking through the scriptures to his people.  The only certain authority we have is the Lord Jesus Christ who rules over his church. Everything else can and will fail and err.

So put your faith in Christ. And be Catholic just where you are.