To expand on that, basically all large Christian organizations in the US are rife with sexual abuse scandals. It's tacitly understood on some level by many if not most of the faithful that leadership protects and enables those predators "for the greater good," because mortal suffering vs eternal damnation, equivalence of sin, and so on. The reputation of the church, and even the evangelical success of a particular predator, can and do outweigh the suffering of children for these people.
I'd also argue that purity culture is a form of sexual abuse, and Christians have been under fire for that for decades. Pledging your virginity for your dad to decide when you get to lose it, arranged child marriages (often to an adult), and resolving sexual abuse allegations "in-house" (i.e. a group of old predators who tells the victim to forgive the perpetrator and never speak of this again) are largely Christian problems in the US, and one part of their cognitive dissonance knows it.
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To expand on that, basically all large Christian organizations in the US are rife with sexual abuse scandals. It's tacitly understood on some level by many if not most of the faithful that leadership protects and enables those predators "for the greater good," because mortal suffering vs eternal damnation, equivalence of sin, and so on. The reputation of the church, and even the evangelical success of a particular predator, can and do outweigh the suffering of children for these people.
I'd also argue that purity culture is a form of sexual abuse, and Christians have been under fire for that for decades. Pledging your virginity for your dad to decide when you get to lose it, arranged child marriages (often to an adult), and resolving sexual abuse allegations "in-house" (i.e. a group of old predators who tells the victim to forgive the perpetrator and never speak of this again) are largely Christian problems in the US, and one part of their cognitive dissonance knows it.