Baptist leaders must use their voices, their platforms and their pulpits to call for an end of harassment and abuse. We must clearly and specifically identify the abuses we have seen and heard about and name those abuses as sin.

I am convinced that “evangelical” no longer means what it once did. And for the Jesus-following religious people it’s supposed to describe, it’s doing more harm than good.

Pastor Ernie Richards has avoided the anti-gay rhetoric of some other religious leaders. Pastor Charles Worley, well … hasn’t. Richards preaches at Providence Baptist Church in Vale, N.C. Worley preaches at Providence Road Baptist Church, in nearby Maiden, N.C.

Its pastor, Frank Pomeroy, fought back tears as he delivered his sermon, which emphasized the power of light to triumph over darkness. One of the victims, Annabelle R. Pomeroy, 14, was his daughter.

Pews were replaced with 26 handcrafted chairs that marked where worshippers were slain.

The dichotomy between prayers and action portrayed by our leaders is a false one. It reveals a narrow view of prayer on the one hand and a shortsighted understanding of action on the other.

An East Tennessee church’s rebuff from the state’s Southern Baptist leadership for hiring a woman pastor resonates in Memphis, where Nancy Hastings Sehested’s leadership of Prescott Memorial Baptist Church in the 1980s caused similar turmoil.

“Bringing Joseph and Mary into a modern-day molestation accusation, where a 32-year-old prosecutor is accused of molesting a 14-year-old girl, is simultaneously ridiculous and blasphemous,” said Wheaton College professor Ed Stetzer.