Definitely a challenging situation! The church is to be a place where God works to redeem broken people within the context of community. However, the article doesn’t lend enough information to make a biblical, sound judgment. Has there been a genuine work of the Holy Spirit demonstrating “fruit in keeping with repentance” (Matthew 3:8) in Mr. Pliska’s life? This type of past bondage requires a prolonged intense, difficult, and painful process of healing and deliverance. Are the believers at that church willing to walk with him through this? Do they have what it takes to help someone find freedom in Christ?

I think the church has to welcome any repentant sinner. It's understandable that some people may not have the strength to forgive. That is a very high spiritual bar to ask people to vault. But the church can't reject people based on comfort levels.

That said, they should establish certain restrictions (like not letting the guy participate in children's ministry), to make it easier for everyone else to feel safe. And the guy should probably not expect to be embraced enthusiastically by everybody. It may take years of good behavior to win some people over.

Why is this even an issue? Jesus came to die for the sinner and the oppressed. We are the Bride of Jesus and if we go around excluding people we are failing in our God given task.

Would I allow him in the church nursery...NO...would I allow him around the youth group...NO. But is he allowed in my church..you bet.

This poor man. He has done his time for his crime and now is trying to normalize into society and can not. He might as well have a scarlet letter painted on his back.

I agree with Brian who posted that we dont have enough info in the artice. Knowing if he is repentant is a key factor. Letting people know that he was a molester is a good idea. Its not like he could molest a child easily after telling people where he came from. That being said - we should remember that sexual offenders/molesters ARE in the church. We just dont know who they are.

Just went and actually read the article. Read this quote from it:

"In Santa Cruz" (in his former church) "Mr. Pliska agreed to avoid children and to always be escorted by another adult. The church has two services, which made it easier for those uncomfortable with him to still worship... He said he thought that if Pilgrim established the same limits as Santa Cruz had, Mr. Pliska’s presence would be as uneventful."

I think that shows he is trying to stay on the right track.

A funny thing about the world in it's siren's call to self-preservation...it is so reasonable in it's arguments: He's dangerous, he's a proven failure, he's done it once, he'll do it again, so protect you and yours!
Run!
Hide!
Flee for your lives!
And G-d, oh boy, G-d wants us to work with the likes of him...help him through, keep him accountable, help him know that he cannot deny his past, nor change it; but he has a choice about his future.
Man that's too much stress to waste upon a molestor who may revert to his old self when I'm not looking.

Yep, there are times when G-d can be absolutely unreasonable at times.

All sinners are welcome, but keep your eye on some.

http://drjimwest.wordpress.com/2007/04/13/all-sinners-welcome-but-keep-your-eye-on-some/

Brian

I agree with you. And actually the article said that he did agree to restrictions. He can't be around children and he also has a full time male escort.
We do have to be careful to the people worried about him though. It is easy to say that they are unwilling to forgive not being in their position. I imagine if I was a parent it would be much more difficult for me. But I do agree that he should be accepted as long as he shows true signs of being comlpetely repentant.

to live is Christ
nathan

The first post makes a great point on the issue of repentance in the man as a key issue, but I can not help but feel we as the church have a bigger issue to deal with.

Why is that so many in the Church pound away on the issue of "Earnestly contending for the faith", and when it comes to the challenge of forgiveness we seem to fall so short? It strikes me as a very arrogant mindset to demand that we keep our orthodoxy, while at the same time demanding that we do not live this orthodoxy out as a community.

If the atonement is so important (as many today demand it is) then so should the forgiveness that flows from the doctrine of the atonement. How can we demand people to hold the right set of beliefs, while in the other hand insist that they do not practice them.

It appears that we have swallowed the idea that right doctrine creates right action, when what Jesus showed us is that right practice creates right doctrines. Maybe if we practiced forgiveness others would see the atonement in action and understand it.

Yes forgiveness is a high bar to reach, but is that not as much a part of our faith as the doctrine of atonement? Is not our faith centered on God forgiving us through the action of Christ, so we can be reconciled? If this is the case then how can we limit our selves to believing God has done this for us, while not practicing it our selves?

"Earnestly contend for the faith" may mean for us to earnestly live our faith as much as it means to believe the right things.

We also must remember that this is not a one size fits all crime. Not everyone labeled a "sex offender" is a child molester. Some are offenders because of crimes they committed with a consenting person (18 year old with a 17 year old). I do believe that the church should be watchful, but they should not forsake one who is genuinely converted. If the world does not want them, and the church does not want them, to whom do they go?

Do we need to look any farther than Acts 9?

Saul was a murderer of Christians! The Jerusalem church was rightfully scared of him and doubtful of his conversion, but with Barnabas vouching for him they took him in and supported his ministry.

The Church should call all people to become new creations in Christ. This means calling child molesters to account and make amends for their sins.

It also means calling victims of abuse out of cycles of bitterness and fear through the redemptive healing that only Christ can bring.

Each is hard work, and it's exponentially harder to do both--but I believe God's love is vast enough.

Funny that Rev. Tummino (of the UUS) actually inverts the apostle Paul's example, who DID become all things to all people. But then, my experience is that scripture isn't much of an authority for UUS.

This story exemplifies why the gospel must be a message of transformation--we cannot be in community if we remain in our own brokenness.

Having been abused by an uncle as a small boy. I can tell you I loved and forgave him when he asked me to.

He is still part of my family and I will not turn him away because he is family.

But I will never let him be physically close to my sons who are ages 4 and 7. I will have a relationship with him, but will not tempt him and expose my children to potential abuse.

Why not in the body of Christ? He is family if he is born again and in obedience to God. He should be embraced as loved and forgiven as any sinner saved by grace.

But I would not let him be a Sunday School teacher or be in a position of access to small children. That exposure might tempt him to revert to past perversions.

I can imagine the termoil going on in any given church that is tested to this point. I think, though, that anyone who's willing to be under restrictions and be escorted everywhere is already showing signs of repentence.

But I think there is a greater issue here that needs to be addressed. We in the church have capitulated to the culture's ideas of what is sin and what is not sin. While the pundits of modern society hold up acts against children as a high standard with regards to depravity, they at the same moment wink in the general direction of other forms of depravity. The standard, rather, isn't in the culture, which is itself depraved, but rather God's word, which tells us that an idle tongue and gossip is as equally sinful before God as murder.

The more profound one's view of one's own sin is, the more apt one is to be inclusive of others. The reason Jesus told the pharisees that the johnny come lately's and the tax collectors and the prostitutes were getting into heaven ahead of everyone else is because these people knew the depths of their own sin, while the pharisees did not.

This is how we are today. Where because of our blindness to sin, a white lie that moves towards depriving a child of home or food is seen as ok while the direct sin against a child isn't... It's so easy to see how someone harming a child is doing something wrong, but sin that leads to sin that leads to a child being harmed goes unrecognized. Who among us will be able to explain our inability to judge by true standards rather than human standards before a God who demands we judge rightly?

I am struck by the number of posts here that reference the question of whether the man is truly repentant or has shown signs of the fruit of repentance. Granted if the man were a raging out of control maniac, but his open confession of what he was suggests that isn't the case here. Isn't the church a place where people who aren't repentant can come to learn what the Gospel is about. We need to pray someone comes along side of him to shepherd him and if he isn't repentant, make the effort that we were called to do, and lead him to the light. Grace isn't given to us to be kept for ourselves, but to pass along.