 | |
| Abbreviation | GRACE |
|---|---|
| Formation | 2004, recognized as nonprofit in 2006 |
| Founder | Basyle "Boz" Tchividjian |
| Type | Non-profit Organization |
| Purpose | Abuse prevention |
| Location |
|
Key people | Pete Singer (Executive Director) |
| Website | netgrace |
GRACE (Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment ) is a Virginia 501(c)(3) non-profit organization to help Christian groups confront sexual abuses, psychological abuses and physical abuses. Its headquarters are at Lynchburg, Virginia, United States.
GRACE was founded in 2003 after a reporter called Boz Tchividjian about a case of sexual abuse mishandled by a pastor. [1] He became convinced that Evangelical institutions were not properly addressing incidents of sexual abuse, incidents that he believed would eventually lead to scandals similar to those that had damaged the Catholic Church. In Tchividjian's view, the authoritarian culture of some Protestant organizations was particularly susceptible to what he called "spiritual abuse"—the attempt of religious leaders to silence victims or convince them that they deserved their abuse. [1] Tchividjian has stated that "When it comes to child sexual abuse, too many churches and Christian organizations prefer to sacrifice individuals in order to protect themselves. We end up living out the very antithesis of the Gospel that we preach. The consequences are devastating." [2]
Tchividjian first contacted Victor Vieth, who previously headed the Gundersen National Child Protection Training Center, and Diane Langberg, a psychologist from Pennsylvania who specialized in trauma; these three invited a number of legal, therapeutic and clerical professionals to form a board that created GRACE, [1] an organization dedicated to educating churches and parachurch organizations about preventing, detecting, and dealing with sexual abuse. [1]
The organization was officially founded in 2004 by Tchividjian in order to help churches to fight against sexual abuse in Christian organizations. [3]
GRACE offers sexual, psychological, and physical abuse prevention programs; independent investigation of allegations of abuse; and organizational culture assessments of abuse prevention. [4] [5] [6] [7]
Evangelicalism, also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being "born again", in which an individual experiences personal conversion; the authority of the Bible as God's revelation to humanity ; and spreading the Christian message. The word evangelical comes from the Greek (euangelion) word for "good news".
The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) is an American nonprofit anti-sexual assault organization, the largest in the United States. RAINN operates the National Sexual Assault Hotline, as well as the Department of Defense Safe Helpline, and carries out programs to prevent sexual assault, help survivors, and ensure that perpetrators are brought to justice through victim services, public education, public policy, and consulting services.
In Christianity, evangelism or witnessing is the act of preaching the gospel with the intention of sharing the message and teachings of Jesus Christ.
There have been many cases of sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests, nuns, and other members of religious life. In the 20th and 21st centuries, the cases have involved many allegations, investigations, trials, convictions, acknowledgement and apologies by Church authorities, and revelations about decades of instances of abuse and attempts by Church officials to cover them up. The abused include mostly boys but also girls, some as young as three years old, with the majority between the ages of 11 and 14. Criminal cases for the most part do not cover sexual harassment of adults. The accusations of abuse and cover-ups began to receive public attention during the late 1980s. Many of these cases allege decades of abuse, frequently made by adults or older youths years after the abuse occurred. Cases have also been brought against members of the Catholic hierarchy who covered up sex abuse allegations and moved abusive priests to other parishes, where abuse continued.
The National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) is an association of evangelical denominations, organizations, schools, churches and individuals, member of the World Evangelical Alliance. The association represents more than 45,000 local churches from about 40 different denominations and serves a constituency of millions. The mission of the NAE is to honor God by connecting and representing evangelicals in the United States.
Parachurch organizations are Christian faith-based organizations that work outside and across denominations to engage in social welfare and evangelism. Parachurch organizations seek to come alongside the church and specialize in things that individual churches may not be able to specialize in by themselves. They often cross denominational and national boundaries providing specialized services and training.
The Alliance World Fellowship is the international governing body of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. The Alliance is an evangelical Protestant denomination within the Higher Life movement of Christianity, teaching a modified form of Keswickian theology. The headquarters is in São Paulo, Brazil.
James Melville "Mel" White is an American clergyman and author. White was a behind-the-scenes member of the Evangelical Protestant movement through the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, writing film and television specials and ghostwriting autobiographies for televangelists such as Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Billy Graham. After years of writing for the Christian right, he came out as gay in 1994 and devoted himself full-time to minister to lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgender people, also writing extensively on the subject of gay Christians.
Wanda Elizabeth "Beth" Moore is an American Anglican evangelist, author, and Bible teacher. She is president of Living Proof Ministries, a Christian organization she founded in 1994 to teach women to know and love Jesus through the study of Scripture. Living Proof Ministries is based in Houston, Texas. Moore is "arguably the most prominent white evangelical woman in America," speaks at arena events and has sold millions of books.
The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP, established in 1989, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization support group of survivors of clergy sexual abuse and their supporters in the United States. Barbara Blaine, a survivor of sex abuse by a priest, was the founding president. SNAP, which initially focused on the Roman Catholic Church, had 12,000 members in 56 countries as of 2012. It has branches for religious groups, such as SNAP Baptist, SNAP Orthodox, and SNAP Presbyterian, for non-religious groups, and for geographic regions, e.g., SNAP Australia and SNAP Germany.
Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church is a Christian megachurch within the Presbyterian Church in America located in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It was founded in 1960 by D. James Kennedy (1930–2007), who served as the church's senior pastor until shortly before his death.
The Evangelical Protestant Church (GCEPC) or The Lutheran Evangelical Protestant Church (LEPC) is a mainline Protestant denomination under the General Conference of Evangelical Protestant Churches headquartered in Cayce-West Columbia, South Carolina, USA.
Christianity and domestic violence deals with the debate in Christian communities about the recognition and response to domestic violence, which is complicated by a culture of silence and acceptance among abuse victims. There are some Bible verses that abusers use to justify discipline of their wives.
William Graham Tullian Tchividjian is a pastor and author of more than a half dozen books about Christianity and current issues, including One Way Love and It is Finished. He is a grandson of Christian evangelist Billy Graham.
Integral mission or holistic mission describes an understanding of Christian mission that embraces both evangelism and social responsibility. With origins in Latin American, integral mission has influenced a significant number of Protestants around the world through the Lausanne Movement.
The media coverage of Catholic sex abuse cases is a major aspect of the academic literature surrounding the pederastic priest scandal.
In the United States, evangelicalism is a movement among Protestant Christians who believe in the necessity of being born again, emphasize the importance of evangelism, and affirm traditional Protestant teachings on the authority as well as the historicity of the Bible. Comprising nearly a quarter of the U.S. population, evangelicals are a diverse group drawn from a variety of denominational backgrounds, including Baptist, Mennonite, Methodist, Pentecostal, Plymouth Brethren, Quaker, Reformed and nondenominational churches.
Criticism of Protestantism covers critiques and questions raised about Protestantism, the Christian denominations which arose out of the Protestant Reformation. While critics may praise some aspects of Protestantism which are not unique to the various forms of Protestantism, Protestantism is faced with criticism mainly from the Catholic Church and mainstream Eastern Orthodox churches, although Protestant denominations have also engaged in self-critique and criticized one another. According to both the Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodoxy, many major, foundational Protestant doctrines have been officially declared heretical.
Anabaptist/Mennonite Church sexual misconduct cases are cases of acts by theologians, educators, pastors, chaplains, and staff or people in positions of power in Anabaptist/Mennonite churches, institutions, or affiliated organizations deemed as sexual misconduct by church organizations. Some of these cases may also be deemed as sexual abuse by law. There have been a number of cases of sexual misconduct involving notable and influential Anabaptist Christian theologians of the late 20th and early 21st century in North America, and scholarship, media reports, and church magazines have revealed that there have been numerous cases of sexual abuse throughout the history of the Anabaptist/Mennonite Church.