Hi Jordan, I agree that churches are doing a lot to safeguard against things like this from happening again in the future. In fact in the documentary that I watched which inspired me to write this story it was a church safeguarding officer who was the driving force behind Peter Bell eventually being prosecuted.

My more general message in this story was that we needn’t conflate Christianity and the church. Even if a church is preventing sexual abuse from happening through safeguarding it doesn’t mean that they aren’t failing in other ways to be truly Christian, the church’s treatment of my disabled sister is testament to this.

However, I want to reiterate, there are really great churches that serve God in earnest and help so many people. Sadly not everyone can have access to such a church for a variety of reasons and so I don’t want these people to feel that they are less of a Christian because of this, or even that they can’t be a Christian because of this.

Anyway, sorry to ramble on, I really appreciate you reading the article and offering your thoughts!

Antony