Welcome to the first Child-Friendly Faith Project Conference.

What lays before us today marks a unique opportunity. I myself don’t know of a conference that has focused on the issues that we’ll be talking about today. There are conferences about children’s welfare. About religion. And about the law. But I’ve never been to a meeting that puts all of those things together with the ultimate purpose of improving children’s lives.

Some of the questions we’ll look at are, what are we doing to enrich the lives of children in faith communities and cultural groups? Are those children getting all the benefits and services that other children get? Are the programs that they’re involved in beneficial to them? Are they being harmed in some way that those on the outside may not know about? And when that happens, how should community leaders and members react? But before we get into any of that, I’d like to tell you the story of one faith community member named Etta Wheeler.

Wheeler was a Methodist mission worker of New York City in 1874 and she was responsible for saving a child from abuse so terrible that had she not intervened, it’s unlikely the girl would have survived. When Wheeler found the girl whose name was Mary Ellen in a rundown tenement house, she vowed to help her. But she was unable to find an organization or governmental agency that would step in. Finally, Wheeler persuaded the president of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, who, acting as a private citizen, arranged for Mary Ellen to be removed from the home. Finally, through a series of legal maneuvers, Wheeler was able to get custody of Mary Ellen. It became the first high-profile child abuse case in the United States and led to the creation of the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the first organization of its kind.

We see other heroes today who follow in Etta Wheeler’s footsteps. For example, I recently learned about a pastor in Ft. Worth who has begun a network of churches – dozens of them – that work closely with Child Protective Services in having their congregants trained to become foster parents. The Vatican has vowed to help victims of trafficking. I’ve been meeting with numerous faith leaders and some have expressed a desire to examine their religious teachings and curricula to make sure the messages are aligned with healthy child development practices. So there’s a lot of good going on.

At the same time, however, I could rattle off to you case after case where faith communities are letting children down. Some are permitting abuse – often due to a failure to understand what abuse is – and even promoting it. Later, you’ll hear from survivors who will speak to problems they suffered. For example, a refusal to report sexual abuse to protect the image of a faith leader or religious community; physical abuse enabled by beliefs about so-called biblical chastisement; medical neglect due to beliefs about faith healing being superior to medical care; and psychological abuses that involve terrorizing, spurning, and exploiting.

I know these discussions can be difficult. It’s not often easy to determine whether we’re doing the right thing for kids. It’s natural to feel angry if we feel our traditions are under attack. But I believe that every child advocate here understands that we can accomplish a great deal if we stay focused on our common goal: to end child maltreatment enabled by ideology and ignorance.

So where do we start? Well, just us all being together is a pretty powerful thing. But going beyond that, I think much of it begins with how we perceive children. I’ll give you an example that illustrates what I mean.

One person I’ve gotten to know and greatly admire is Boz Tchividjian. He’s the grandson of Billy Graham and he oversees Godly Response to Abuse in a Christian Environment or GRACE. It’s an organization that investigates cases of child sexual abuse in churches. I recently got an email from Boz in which he told me this story of the late American evangelist, D.L. Moody who arrived home late one evening from preaching at a revival service. As the tired Moody climbed into bed, his wife asked, “So how did it go tonight?” Moody replied, “Pretty well, two and a half converts.” His wife smiled and said, “That’s sweet. How old was the child?” “No,” Moody answered, “It was two children and one adult. The adult’s life is already half-gone but the children have their whole lives in front of them. Too often, Boz wrote, society views children in the same manner as Moody’s wife. He wrote, Instead of treasuring little ones as God does, we too often consider their value as secondary to that of adults.

But you know, I’m going to turn the story about D.L. Moody on its ear. Because while it’s well-intentioned, there’s something that bothers me about it. I’m talking about the idea of converting children. It’s something we all do to some degree or another, often without realizing it – we feel the need to change children in some way – as if they’re not good enough the way they are. Sure, children need our guidance but do they need to be converted? Whereas adults might get lost and need to find strength in scripture or a belief system, do children need that? Or rather is it our duty to, as the staunch Catholic Maria Montessori said -- free the child’s potential and [if you do that] you will transform him into the world.

Perhaps it’s we who can learn from our observations of and our engaging with children. Jesus said that we should strive to be like little ones. Isaiah 11 talks about what a peaceful society would look like and puts children front and center as being the leaders of that society. According to Nelson Mandela, “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.” When I was talking to my good friend Rev. Keith Wright about this idea, he suggested that perhaps it’s adults who are in need of conversion – to view children in a way they have not before.

I want to thank you for being a part of this conversation. A conversation that, in some ways, is beginning today.