I noted in a prior post that sex abuse scandals and how they are handled are one reason younger generations are leaving religion altogether, further eroding the benefits of community that come with belonging to a church. If it’s all old people in the pews, what’s the point? Just go to a rest home or the local VFW. If I wanted to know what old people thought, I’d … well, nevermind. I already know what old people think. It’s not like they are shrinking violets about it.
Back to the topic, while it’s true that all churches, progressive or conservative, have dealt with issues involving sex abuse, it’s the conservative churches that seem to be blowing it big time, taking the hits in the media, while occasionally claiming they set the “gold standard” for how they prevent and handle it. Riiiight. Even the newly elected Pope Leo, who some on the right think is a squish, has been insufficiently effective at handling the sex abuse scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church according to many lay members.
Basically, sex abuse is a topic where we should have zero tolerance, and yet, there are going to be more than zero instances. Every instance is really only an opportunity to fail. Nobody is going to get kudos for handling a life-ruining problem perfectly because there are victims. Victims whose lives are forever altered. Anything other than a time machine to reverse what happened is going to feel inadequate.
But there are a number of reasons why conservative churches handle these scandals more poorly than progressive ones, at least in the eyes of the congregants who are prone to side with the victims, with whom they may more naturally identify. Siding with the institution requires a large dose of victim blaming and cruelty that can also prevail in conservative churches, but it won’t convince those who are closer to the victim or who understand the horrific facts of these cases. There is no good outcome for the victim as a result of being sexually abused. Nobody is ever glad they got abused, hoping for a big payday, thinking it was all worth it. No 12-year old girl ever “seduced” a clergyman decades older than her, despite what that clergyman might claim. No child has ever been glad that she can now be promiscuous because her father or uncle raped her, making her feel nihilistic and worthless. You can survive, but you don’t really forget abuse. The body keeps score.
There are three issues with the data on sex abuse in churches:
- Abuse cases often go unreported or are settled quietly. Victims are often told they must keep the settlements confidential, either implying that it’s a condition of their payout, or using guilt trips to protect the abuser.
- Different definitions of abuse exist (sexual, emotional, and spiritual) that can complicate data. For example, the LDS church’s current abortion policy refers to pregnancy that results from “forcible” rape. Does that mean they are saying incest or statutory rape doesn’t qualify? What about other forms of coercion? Do you have to have bruises to “prove” it was rape? It sure sounds a lot like the passage in Miracle of Forgiveness in which women who are murdered by their rapist are lauded as the only true victims because they fought back. If you try to talk your way out of it or if you are drugged, well, I guess you wanted it, right?
- People report abuse to clergy, even when the abuse was not done by someone who is a paid employee of the church. Both victims and abusers may disclose to clergy. Churches are magnets for reporting among congregants, although IMO, that’s like reporting your rape to campus police. Go to the real cops. They are also not great, but they don’t have the conflict of interest inherent in bad PR. But this is one reason that churches get the bad press for mishandling sex abuse that wasn’t perpetrated by the Church itself. This doesn’t normally happen with other institutions where reporting is prevalent such as schools or medical personnel.
Here are some comparisons between how conservative and progressive churches handle these matters:
Theological and Institutional Structure
- Conservative churches (e.g., Catholic, Southern Baptist, Orthodox, LDS) tend to have more centralized authority, male-only leadership, and stronger emphasis on obedience, purity, and institutional loyalty.
- These dynamics can sometimes suppress whistleblowing, discourage outside scrutiny, or prioritize the institution’s reputation.
- Examples: Catholic Church abuse crisis, Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) scandals, some high-profile Evangelical megachurches.
- Left-leaning churches (e.g., mainline Protestant denominations like the Episcopal Church, United Church of Christ, some progressive synagogues) tend to emphasize openness, inclusion, and accountability—and often have more women and laypeople in leadership.
- This may promote better internal checks and less culture of secrecy, though it does not eliminate abuse.
🧩 Conclusion: Authoritarian and hierarchical structures—not just ideology—can enable abuse and cover-up more easily.
Media Attention and Scale
- Larger, global institutions (like the Catholic Church or SBC) receive more scrutiny because of their size, visibility, and the sheer number of cases.
- Progressive churches are often smaller and more localized, so scandals may get less attention, even when they happen.
🔍 Example: The Catholic Church’s abuse crisis has involved tens of thousands of cases globally. No progressive denomination has had scandal on that scale, partly due to institutional size and structure.
Gender, Power, and Leadership Culture
- Conservative religious environments often:
- Limit leadership roles to men
- Teach strict gender roles and sexual purity
- Discourage challenging male authority
- Normalize secrecy under the guise of forgiveness or discretion
These conditions can create environments where abuse can fester and be hidden.
- Progressive churches tend to:
- Promote egalitarian leadership
- Emphasize consent culture
- Encourage transparency and external reporting
⚠️ But they are not immune. Abuse still happens in liberal communities—it’s just more often framed around boundary violations, emotional/spiritual manipulation, or mishandling pastoral relationships.
Summary:
| Factor | Conservative Churches | Progressive Churches |
|---|---|---|
| Leadership | Often male-only, hierarchical | More egalitarian, collaborative |
| Size & Structure | Large institutions, global | Small to mid-size, local |
| Accountability Culture | Tends toward secrecy | Tends toward openness |
| Known Scandals | More widely reported and institutionalized | Less publicized, but not absent |
| Abuse Prevention | Often reactive after scandal | More likely to have proactive policies (but varies) |
🧠 Bottom Line: Abuse is not about ideology — it’s about power, secrecy, and structure. But conservative churches are often more vulnerable due to patriarchal authority, cultural taboos, and institutional self-protection.
Here are the actual best practices for making churches safer places where abuse does not flourish:
- Clear, enforced abuse prevention policies. These policies need to clearly identify what abuse is–all types of abuse (physical, sexual, emotional, and spiritual)–mandate steps for reporting, and explain how the church handles disclosure and discipline. These policies should be reviewed annually and shared widely with all, not just leaders.
- Mandatory Background Checks. This needs to be for anyone working with minors and must be repeated periodically, not just once.
- Two-adult rule. No adult (not even the bishop) should be alone with a child during church programs. This applies across the board to Sunday School/Primary, youth activities, counseling, and transportation.
- Mandatory reporter training. All “staff” and volunteers (in the LDS Church, this is pretty much everyone due to callings), must be trained to recognize signs of abuse, know legal reporting obligations, and understand how to respond appropriately to a disclosure. In cases of child abuse, all suspicions should be reported to child protection agencies or police. There is no acceptable “confidentiality” in such cases.
- Provide a hotline, website or ombudsperson not affiliated with church hierarchy where victims can report misconduct. This reduces conflicts of interest.
- Churches with diverse leadership (including women) often have better accountability, less tolerance for secrecy, and more awareness of boundary issues.
- No unsupervised counseling without safeguards. All pastoral care or confession (worthiness interviews) should occur in visible settings, be documented or supervised, and follow clear ethical guidelines.
- Survivor-centered response should be the norm. When abuse is reported, believe the victim first, investigate thoroughly. Focus on the well being of the victim. Avoid defensive reflex of either the accused or the institution. Provide victim counseling, legal assistance (to victims), and a safe space for healing.
- Cultural transparency. Practice and teach about healthy relationships, boundaries, and consent. It is the church’s responsibility to protect the vulnerable. Conversations about trauma and accountability should be the norm.
- Independent investigations when needed. External experts (legal, psychological, or theological) should be engaged to investigate and recommend reforms. In-house coverups should be avoided.
- Cultural norms. End purity culture that shames victims. Teach healthy sexual and power dynamics. Cultivate a culture where authority is earned and accountable, not assumed or unquestionable.
The Church has made some significant steps to improve, often at the behest of critics who were then excommunicated, but it remains far from the gold standard. If you read through the above list and are familiar with the church’s approach, it’s probably pretty clear where the Church falls short. Here’s a quick overview of the status quo as it is today and where the gaps are:
| Safety Standard | LDS Status |
|---|
| Abuse prevention policy | ✅ Public and evolving |
| Mandatory training for leaders | ✅ Exists, but not always enforced |
| Two-deep adult rule | 🟨 Partial (not in interviews) |
| Mandatory reporting of abuse | ❌ Not required; legal privilege used |
| Independent reporting mechanism | ❌ None |
| Clergy training and professionalization | ❌ Lay leaders, no trauma expertise |
| Female leadership | ❌ Not allowed in ecclesiastical roles |
| Survivor-first response | 🟨 Often subordinated to legal risk |
- Do you think the church intends to make the needed reforms to protect victims of abuse?
- Does the church consider this an important area for improvements, or is it enough to declare they are the gold standard?
- Do you know people in leadership who feel that the church’s safety standards are lacking?
- What do the church’s priorities in handling abuse cases say to you? Are you concerned about it?
- Is this concern going to become a bigger or smaller issue in the coming years? If you were in charge, what would you do about it?
Discuss.
Wheat & Tares 
We don’t talk about the abuse (including the sexual and physical abuse) that can happen when a minor is abusing another minor in the family. What seems to happen is a fair amount of discrete parent-blaming / holding the parent accountable for a situation where the parents may be the last to know (if they know at all). In either case, the parents, the abusing minor(s), and the abused minor(s) are trying to live a normal life while dealing with the trauma in the situation. I have known individuals who were sexually abused by their siblings, and it impacted how those individuals took in chastity lessons at church, their exposure to pornography, and eventually drove them out of the church community who had no place for them because it had no place for their experiences.
We need to include in our conversations that boys and men are abuse survivors as well.
According to Jennifer Roach the church has some strengths on a structural level that help to prevent abuse–such as:
–Being formally called to serve and then sustained by local members.
–Having strict ward boundaries that help members to know who’s who.
–Calling women to lead young women and preside over young children.
–Having a membership number system that can be flagged so that former abusers cannot serve in callings with young people.
–Having a court system in place that can formally restrict the participation of abusers in the church while, at the same time, encouraging them to repent.
Her article can be found here:
https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/conference/august-2023-old/shedding-light-on-the-complexities-understanding-abuse-within-the-lds-church
What an excellent article! I appreciate the way you highlighted leadership make up (male / female) in different organizations.
Without in depth training of our first line leaders, this will continue to plague us. Three years ago there was a situation in a neighboring ward where signs of abuse of young people were evident. After being reported several times to the local leader, nothing happened. Child/youth protection training clearly wasn’t being followed. We had to escalate to law enforcement to get the message across that the behavior wasn’t acceptable. The church knows this is a challenge but is also such a large organization with such a penchant for perfection that it hasn’t been solved yet. Inaction seems to be more damaging than an imperfectly crafted solution.
The church knows it is a problem though. Deseret Book (ugh) is releasing a book in a week about helping victims recover from sexual abuse that could be helpful for this general topic overall if people read it.
https://www.deseretbook.com/product/P6078641.html
It’s also on Amazon but I couldn’t find the pre order page.
Thanks again for a great post!
Don’t hold your breath looking for any substantive LDS institutional progress in the areas of clergy training, female leadership and survivor-first responses. Sadly, the focus will remain on CYA as it relates to potentially negative media exposure.
The church does an abysmal job of providing genuine victim support. There is more focus on protecting the supposed ‘good name’ of the church and perpetrators than providing real world victim services. I have seen over and over how accused abusers play the “but it was consensual” card to avoid discipline. In these cases, the victims are shamed even further – often with lifelong consequences.
How the church and BYU handle the civil sexual assault case against the BYU QB will be an interesting litmus test. The apparent coverup by the Provo PD and subsequent lack of follow-up by the BYU HC office support the assumption that this case will be swept under the rug. This, despite the victim’s strong credibility in terms of medical evidence and her recounting of the events.
Perhaps anyone but the starting BYU QB would be treated differently. After all, sports reign supreme at BYU and are certainly more important than an anonymous sexual assault victim. We shall see.
I. will
Messed up my comment 😉 I will never forget sitting at the back of the tabernacle and listening to President Kimball speak at a fireside for youth. He had quite a bit to say about chastity. As an abuse survivor, it was devastating to hear. He made me feel pretty worthless. I wanted to just disappear in my seat. Honestly, I don’t think the church has progressed all that much on this issue since that time. There’s still a tremendous amount of shame around sex, sexual thoughts, feelings, etc. And forget it if you are LGBTQ. The institutionalized shame around sex is just the starting point – and doesn’t even get into whether the church handles reported abuse well. Though imo, it clearly seems to depend on who has done the abuse – and whether that abuse could tarnish the reputation of the church. That the church has lay ecclesiastical leaders call lawyers who represent the Church’s interests for advice on this is truly troubling. From the get go it is clear who they are out to protect first.
I will ignore the opening remark about knowing what old people think, since I am one….
I have recently done a deep dive into child sexual abuse (CSA).
The most egregious harm done by the LDS Church- is to children and youth who are sexually abused by their leaders, parents or whoever- but the worst harm is in the coverup, and the lack of training of ignorant Bishops who are trying to do their best. In fact, the only difference between CSA in the Catholic Church is that a Catholic Diocese does not destroy their records. LDS Bishop’s are instructed to call the hotline that goes to Kirton-McConkie, never to law enforcement, and does in No way support victims. All records are destroyed every day. The Church states that it does not tolerate abuse, yet it absolutely facilitates it! Priesthood holding predators are most often forgiven, and continue to abuse.
Victims are instructed to forgive and to invoke the Atonement, as if that would heal them with no validation of harm received and no therapy. This has been a cultural norm everywhere and forever I acknowledge and some are learning to do better, but not so much in the LDS Church or JWs, or other conservative churches.
If a wife has to divorce her pedophile husband to protect her daughters, she is shunned by ward members, who have no understanding of the situation, yet feel entitled to judge because that’s the cultural norm. Yes, I know this woman. But Whoa to anyone who criticizes a leader or a church policy, or embezzles church funds: these people are Never forgiven, no matter how sincere the repentance! (Take the example of Lavina Fielding Anderson- and weep!)
Infants on Thrones | Ep 258 – Child Abuse in the Church
LoudlySublime: Excellent points, all around.
DeNovo: Yes, the BYU Rape scandal was one of the most egregious examples of poor handling of abuse, criminalizing and punishing victims through the honor code office, and breaking confidentiality for victims as well. Horrible, horrible treatment.
Jack: I think Jennifer Roach’s perspective is valuable in its comparison to Evangelical churches specifically (her background). But the church has never really had the same types of risks Evangelical churches have, nor have Evangelical churches had the same types of risks the LDS church has. For example, with the LDS church being centralized in HQ in Utah and being insanely wealthy (factors that don’t apply to Evangelical churches), it’s got an over-lawyerly approach (Kirton McConkie) focused on avoiding liability (deep pockets) and often assuming that Utah’s institutionally-favorable policies apply everywhere until they lose a case and have to fork over some cash. It’s easy to compare the church’s best points with Evangelical churches’ worst ones, but that doesn’t mean they don’t both have huge gaps to work on.
Anon: This is a great point. I’m not sure how often it comes up to clergy, but I imagine it surfaces. Incest in general seems to be brushed under the rug, but as you rightly point out, it’s usually framed in terms of adults exploiting minors.
Adult members need to do what they can to lead the church into the 21st century. First, be a mandatory reporter. You see abuse, you call the appropriate law enforcement agency or child protective agency in your state or country. Do NOT mess around with local or area church leadership.
Second, never allow your children to attend an interview unaccompanied. In many areas, intrusive interviews are still the norm. Parents just need to shut them down. The Church will not listen until the tradition is killed by brave parents.
Third, advocate for victims.
Old Man:
Excellent suggestions! If members did those 3 things, there would be change for the better! I wish I had high hopes that this would happen!
So we understand 2/3 of members voted for Trump, we also understand much more men than women voted for Trump. perhaps 75% of Mormon men voted for him. He tells us that he can asexually assault women with impunity. I would be surprised if his example does not cause an increase in sexual assaults by his followers.
lready one in 5 women have been raped or attempted rape during their lifetime, and 83% of women have been sexually abused during their lifetime.
Most sexual abuse occurs in the domestic situation, so not good news for Mormon women, as it is not addressed by the church.
Conservative churches (and perhaps other conservative institutions) have these problems because they tend to promote egotistical, narcissistic people into positions of power, and continue feeding that narcissism with pedestalizing and cults of personality around those leaders. Needless to say, the vast majority of such leaders are men. These organizational structures reward leaders who prioritize protecting themselves and their institutions instead of doing right by the victims, while fueling the boldness to continue committing these offenses.
I don’t see the LDS church being on the right side of this issue. An increasing number of U.S. states are passing clergy mandatory reporter laws, and the Church is either silent or in opposition. The Church continues to resist mandatory background checks. This is what happens when the most important organizational decisions are being made by lawyers.
What to do? Mandate at least two leaders present for all interviews. This is where the abuse is happening isn’t it?
If our culture could ease the cognitive dissonance that for at least 1/3 of the women and girls entering the chapel doors, “Heavenly Father” is not a trustworthy concept because their earthly male authority figures abused them that would help.
In fact, expanding our common use language to gender-neutral “Heavenly Parents” would ease the performance shame that our menfolk experience representing God AND allow these women and girls to relate the Divine more because someone (likely a mother or female care giver) cared enough to provide a stable enough environment where they can participate in church services.
The abuse happening in interviews is the most visible step in the process.
The most straightforward way to prevent physical sexual abuse in interviews is to convert all temple recommend interviews into video calls and record them. If the church got really fancy, they could pull random temple interview tapes and QA them to confirm what was being said, etc.
However, you lose the “human connection” converting the meeting out of humans physically meeting (and are breaking tradition in a rather drastic form) – so this will never happen.
Brad D: Some abuse is happening in worthiness interviews, yes, but the post covers issues surrounding abuse that is disclosed to or suspected by leaders, not just where leaders commit the abuse, and also that the abuse disclosed may be completely outside the borders of the church, and yet now we know about it. The problem in those cases isn’t preventing the abuse but handling it appropriately, and it’s not strictly being disclosed in worthiness interviews.
I recently was required for my calling to take an online abuse prevention training course. It was better than I expected, and clearly informed by best practices. One of the great errors the church has made historically on this and other matters is insularity and arrogance, the assumption that you’re led by God so whatever you’re doing is by definition the best thing, and asking hard questions or looking outside the organization for solutions is somehow challenging the authority of those in charge. I think they are doing better at that, and this training shows it.
We’re not going to have formally trained bishops any time soon. The infamous hotline seems like a well-meaning acknowledment that bishops are going to be in situations where they are in over their heads and need advice. So let’s provide it, real advice. If they are so worried about legal implications, they can have their lawyers reviewing things in the background, but that phone call should be answered by a professional who is trained in victim advocacy and dealing with complex and difficult family situations. This doesn’t seem like a difficult change to make. Bishops in our era are heavily deferring to professional therapists on a lot of matters, which I also think is a step forward from where we were in the past.
The church’s position on the role of confession in the church sounds like a poorly considered hybrid of Catholic and Protestant theology. Maybe it’s time to rethink the whole thing. Likewise the practice of endless interviews for everything. Let’s ask ourselves what these things are accomplishing.
What is an Evangelical church Hawkgrrrl? A catchall for any non-Mormon Protestant church?
Be specific. Do you mean the United Methodist Church? The PCUSA? The Church of Christ? The Amish? The Quakers? The Community of Christ? The Assemblies of God? The Southern Baptists? The Mennonite Brethren? The RCA? The PRC? The PCA? The CMA? The Anglicans? Eglise Reformee? Congregationalists? SDA? Christian Science?
What is your understanding of the practices of ANY of those churches? From those of us outside of Mormonism, the salient features of Mormonism are The Book of Mormon, polygamy and temples. Maybe we are oversimplifying things too.
In a very general sense, the institutional structure of Mormonism is far more rigid than current Protestantism. There is little internal moral policing of, and by, members. We don’t live under the tyranny of a Calvin – or a Wesley – or a Luther. We don’t have a collection of 19th century writings which are considered sacred. We baptize but we don’t construct basement baptismal fonts supported by statues of oxen representing the 12 tribes of Israel. We don’t have a Prophet. We live under civil governments not in a theocracy. In a sense, we live under the current version of Caesar. Criminal abuse is punished by civil goverments, not by church vigilantism.
Is Mormonism really the Restored first century church? Spend five minutes reading the Book of Acts. Where are the Book of Mormon, polygamy and temples? Protestants, Orthodox and Catholics never claimed to be a Restoration of the first century church, just a continuation of what Christ and the church fathers taught.
Martin Chuzzlewit: What an absolutely bizarre list of churches you’ve got there. Some of them have literally nothing to do with Evangelical Christianity, and a few do in fact belong to what are considered Evangelical. I have no idea why you think I don’t know the difference. I grew up surrounded by various sects (and almost no Mormons), both of my parents are converts so their families are Lutheran and Baptist (northern, not SBC). Most of my childhood friends grew up as Church of the Brethren, and my first job was at a college run by that denomination. My best friend is UU. I actually have quite a lot of exposure to other churches which I think is made pretty clear in my 15+ years of blog posts.
Since you asked, the sects usually referred to as “Evangelical Christianity” include: SBC (Southern Baptists), Assemblies of God, Church of God in Christ, Church of the Nazarene, Evangelical Free Church of America, Christian Reformed Church. Some of these are also pentecostal in their worship style. However, where I live now, I am most likely to be thinking of non-denominational megachurches which have become so prevalent in this area. These sects typically include local leadership (possibly a coalition above that, but not always), youth Bible camps, emphasis on being “saved,” and sola scriptura. However, there are non-Evangelical non-denominational churches as well; they aren’t as popular where I live, but they exist.
Of those you listed, the Methodists are mainline protestant, so not Evangelical. The Amish and Mennonites are anabaptists and from a totally different branch. They are not evangelical and literally do not evangelize. There was also a Christian Scientist bookstore in the town I grew up in. They are also not considered evangelical. Most of the sects that were popular in the 1970s and 1980s were mainline Protestants which are not Evangelical and lean left politically. But that is no longer the case. A fourth of Americans now identify with Evangelical Christianity.
It’s possible that some readers are less aware of different denominations, but I suppose they can google it if they want to know more. I don’t expect them to sit a test to be able to have a discussion, and I assume people know the basics of what constitutes an Evangelical Christian, but maybe not.
Those churches are all rooted in Evangelical Christianity hawkgrrrl. Do you have any concept of what that is? To some extent Mormonism WAS rooted in Evangelical Christianity. But that was mostly replaced by home-spun theology by the 1840’s.
Evangelical Christianity does not mean a megachurch in Texas. It’s a Baptist church in Alabama. It’s a Reformed church in Michigan.
Now you’re calling them sects. What a bizarre notion of the world outside Utah.
Two of the main Evangelical denominations were founded in the wake of the Restoration after the English Civil War, the Baptists and Methodists. The older Calvinist confessions (Anglican, Puritan (who became Congregationists in the US) and Presbyterian) were also part of the English/Scottish Nonconformists that make up much of American Protestantism. The Reformed mostly came from Netherlands, Mennonites and Lutherans from German-speaking regions, creating a national Protestant mosaic. Not sects but Evangelical churches which coexist. Lutherans are not motivated by a need to convert Presbyterians or Catholics, but they are all motivated to evangelize non-Christians.
Hawkgrrl
I hate to say it, because Martin Chuzzlewit is making a mountain out of a mole hill, and clearly has no context for who you are and what you are saying, but I do think it is true that Mainline Protestant churches are evangelical. I learned this to my surprise as I have been reading the history of the United Methodist Church. From what I can tell, Evangelical originated as the term for a broad movement that encompasses many things but a central characteristic was the importance of evangelizing the good news. That is certainly an important part of the Methodist Church and the Wesleyan tradition. Not necessarily in the aggressive proselyting way that we are familiar with, but more in the don’t hide your light under a bushel way that feel much less forced and genuine.
Of course the meaning of words change with time. Unfortunately, it seems like what was once called conservative evangelicalism is often now shortened to just evangelicals and then is taken to represent the whole movement, but that doesn’t seem to be how the term really should be used, at least historically. At least that is what I get from my reading. Even if this is the case, I don’t see how that changes the validity of your OP or why Martin felt it was important to pitch a fit over the way you used the term in your response.
Just because a religion started a certain way doesn’t mean that’s what it is today. I don’t know what your point is. I’m not from Utah and don’t live in Utah. It’s common knowledge that Mormonism was part of the second great awakening (along with SDA and JW), but so what? The religious landscape today is what it has become. The current environment is more informative than historical roots, and none of the above are truly relevant to the topic at hand.
How do you tie your rabbit hole to the way churches deal with sex abuse? If you can’t stay on topic, you are in violation of the commenting policy. You are more than welcome to submit a guest post about whatever point you are trying to make but this post is not about that.
Evangelicals of all types, and Catholics, rely on civil governments to prosecute abuse. Perhaps LDS has a structure better suited to policing itself. Perhaps a picture of a bishop in handcuffs would be a better introduction to your topic.
Martin,
What type of Bishop? Roman Catholic? Episcopalian? Anglican? Eastern Orthodox? Oriental Orthodox? Lutheran? Latter-day Saint? Chess?
Isn’t this semantics game edifying? Nope.
The bishop responsible for the Daybells Old Man. Thanks for clarifying.
When going over training for interviews the church stresses making sure that someone else is in the building. Every time I’ve been in a training meeting for it every Stake President, Mission President, and Bishop will share an experience where they had to open the door to let the person being interviewed know that there was someone right there who could be a witness to what might have happened next.
Jader3rd,
Wouldn’t it be easier and safer to interview online via teams, Zoom or whatever? I mean if these apps can be secure and private enough for private business meetings, job interviews, tithing settlement during Covid, they would have to be private enough for interviews. Mission zone conferences are often held online. I KNOW that stake leadership meetings, bishopric meetings and ward council meetings have occured over these apps for years. And given the new digital recommends, there is no reason for so much face to face interviewing to occur unless requested by the interviewees.