No "Christian ethics" for me, please

Question: What do Southern Baptist leaders do with a top official who publicly castigates clergy rape victims as “nothing more than opportunistic persons”?

Answer: They reward him!

Former Southern Baptist president Frank Page was just named as vice-president of evangelization for the North American Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention.

This is the man who publicly denounced clergy molestation victims as “nothing more than opportunistic persons.”

And let’s be clear about something. Frank Page didn’t make that statement merely as an individual. He made it in his official capacity as president of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Furthermore, Frank Page didn’t make that statement in a random, off-the-cuff remark. He made it in writing in a column he wrote for publication in the Florida Baptist Witness.

Ordinary people might imagine that other leaders in the organization would be appalled by such a hateful pronouncement coming from their highest leader and that they would make haste to make an institutional apology and rectify it.

Nope. That’s not what happens in Baptistland.

Ordinary people might imagine that, at least, a man who made such an appalling public statement wouldn’t be promoted within the organization.

Nope. In Baptistland, they praise and reward a man like this -- a man who publicly castigated clergy rape victims as “opportunistic persons.”

And who never breathed a word of remorse for it.

Frank Page has a Ph.D. in “Christian ethics” from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. (Yeah, that’s right, it’s the Baptist-pastor-training-school that now has Paige Patterson at the helm -- the man who called clergy molestation victims “evil-doers.” See a pattern?)

If Frank Page exemplifies “Christian ethics,” then I’ll take plain, old, ordinary ethics every time.