One of Christianity’s most pernicious and harmful ideas is that a deathbed conversion is sufficient to erase all of your sins (“sin” being one of the worst ideas of all) and get you into heaven, a paradise of joy where you are rejoined with your grandparents and your childhood puppy and you get to eat soft-serve ice cream all day and instantly learn how to play a harp. Well, the details of an eternal life in paradise are left vague, but for sure you will be tormented and in despair for eternity for the sin of being an atheist or failing to obey your parents if you don’t express your love for Jesus. Great crimes can be forgiven if all you do is accept Jesus before you kick the bucket. Adolf Hitler might be burning in hellfire right now, but he could have been saved if, after ordering the murder of six million Jews, he had just let Jesus into his heart before allowing a Russian soldier to blow his brains out.

It’s so easy. They call us atheists hedonists who want to indulge in anti-social behaviors without consequences, but Christians have this bizarre imaginary get-out-of-jail-free card that allows them to commit any horror they want, as long as they have good timing and deploy their repentance excuse before they croak.

Let’s make it even easier. There are sects where not only must good Christians practice forgiveness of sins, but they are required to forget that a sin was committed at all, and most importantly they must not penalize anyone for a sin that they have repented. They create a culture of incessant cycles of forgiveness and forgetting, where you can commit horrible acts and not only get into heaven, but remain members in good standing of your church and community.

The abusers and victims all belonged to the Old Apostolic Lutheran Church, or the OALC, a Scandinavian-rooted revivalist church that teaches its followers that heaven is reserved just for them. To get there, according to current and former members, they must follow a strict doctrine, which emphasizes asking for forgiveness for their sins and says that being forgiven by a fellow church member washes away those sins.

What’s more, the church teaches that once a perpetrator is forgiven, anyone who speaks about the wrongdoing — including the victim — can be accused of harboring an unforgiving heart. Those who have left the church, as well as some who are still with it, say this means the burden of sin shifts from the person who committed the act to the person who refuses to let the matter rest.

The OALC has congregations in the US and Canada, particularly in Minnesota, Wyoming, and Washington state — the headquarters of the church are in Sweden, explaining the geographic distribution of the cult. And the OALC has a problem.

The OALC is full of pedophiles and rapists that can’t be purged from the church, because all a bad actor has to do is ask for forgiveness and not only will he be granted a Christ-like absolution, but everyone in the church is obligated to adopt a kind of communal amnesia and pretend the act never happened. It’s a kind of social experiment: what if people really took the doctrine of forgiveness of sins seriously? Now we know. It creates a haven for vile, rapacious behavior, and the bad actors will thrive. It’s an interesting conundrum that this doctrine, called Laestadianism, leads to an extremely moralistic, close-minded religion that at the same time creates conditions that allow extreme immorality to flourish.

The church’s emphasis on large families has created booms in places like Minnesota, Wyoming and southern Washington. Families rely heavily on one another socially, financially and spiritually while keeping their distance from what members often call “the world” — outsiders and secular influences viewed as dangerous or corrupting. Even ordinary activities like watching TV and dancing are treated as transgressions that must be confessed. One abuse victim said she felt anxious every time she turned on her car radio, fearing that if she listened to a pop song and died in a crash before asking forgiveness, she could go to hell.

While most of its practitioners live in fear of turning on a radio, some see the church as a playground for pedophilia.

Over 10 years, authorities alleged, Charles Massie had sexually abused at least seven girls. Some of the abuse occurred at his house and some at his businesses, where young girls worked part time. But the vast majority of the abuse occurred at church, according to court documents. Investigators tallied 832 incidents where Massie sat near the girls’ parents, allegedly fondling the girls’ genitals and breasts. One victim, who told the police she was 5 or 6 years old when she was abused by Massie, said that he “raped me with his fingers.”

Wyoming has charged Charles Massie with nine counts of sexual abuse and sexual battery. He is being held in jail in Nebraska, where prosecutors also have charged him in connection with sexual assaults. He has pleaded not guilty in both states. He could not be reached for comment.

When investigators in Moorcroft contacted families of the victims, they learned that the families already knew about the abuse. One had learned of it three years earlier, according to charges. But according to court records, none of them had told the police. Instead, the charges say, the father of some of the victims had told their preacher, David Lindberg, about the abuse in 2024. Charles Massie would later turn himself in, but not for another year.

The fox is in the henhouse, and the culture of the church is to adopt a willful blindness…very convenient for predators.

The Wyoming church isn’t the only one to face accusations that it failed to report abusers. In southwestern Washington in 2017, a jury convicted church member Carsie Tikka of raping a 9-year-old boy. But one woman, who was a member of the church at the time, said that years before he was charged, Tikka had assaulted her stepchildren and the leaders had done nothing to stop him. Instead, Tikka asked her family for forgiveness.

When secular society catches up to these criminals, it does what the church is incapable of doing. Tikka was convicted and sent to prison, but I don’t think he will learn.

Then Tikka illustrated the central problem facing prosecutors and victims alike — a powerful religious culture that prioritizes spiritual absolution over secular justice — with his final, defiant words:

“My sins have been forgiven,” Tikka told the judge. “Have yours?”

The all-powerful lord of the universe, source of all morality, has told him that raping boys was OK. Who are you to disagree with him?