A number of children’s authors have recently launched ferocious attacks on the requirement to obtain a Criminal Records Bureau check before going into schools. This came as a surprise to me. I can easily remember, ten years ago, facing such comments in our churches – but that was ten years ago and I had assumed that we had all got used to the painful necessity of such simple procedures. The authors were clearly affronted that aspersions were being cast on their character, and resented the intrusion into their private life. They were going into schools out of the goodness of their hearts and it was unacceptable for their goodness to be called into question.

But the authors need to get real and recognize that we live in a world in which sin is a living and terrifying reality. As a consequence child abuse is an appalling and inevitable fact of life, and any responsible society is bound to find ways of obstructing abusers. Surely, everyone needs to be willing to undergo reasonable checks in the knowledge that the very existence of such checks will dissuade abusers from getting involved in children’s activities and will, on occasion, be the means of stopping unsuitable helpers. I need no instruction in the fact that CRB procedures gobble up a lot of time, but it seems to me that the this time is wisely invested if it increases the protection that we can offer to even a single child.

Jesus teaching on children strikes us as straightforward and obvious. He gave them a place of honour and importance. But at the time his words would have left people dumbfounded and confused. For everyone knew that children were nothings so far as the law was concerned. They had no legal status and only had significance as potential adults. When the disciples suggested that Jesus wouldn’t be interested in the children, and rebuked those who brought them to Jesus, they were merely reflecting the thinking of their day. Disciples would be used routinely to clear the path for their rabbi so that he wasn’t disturbed by beggars, hecklers, children and other riff raff. Jesus not only welcomed the children but declared that the kingdom of heaven belonged to them.

It is wonderful to see that despite all the competing activities in our society we still have tens of thousands of children attending our churches. I love Sunday mornings and the pleasure of seeing children in church. But we cannot play games with ourselves and pretend that we live in a world in which everyone has everyone else’s best interests at heart. We dare not close our minds to the tragic fact that we have people in our society who, with a warm smile and a charming manner, wish to do damage to our children, to the children whom Jesus loves and welcomes to himself.

I can draw only one conclusion and that is that all of us should be willing to do whatever is necessary to enable our churches to be warm, welcoming and safe places for all children. Criminal Records Bureau checks are one way of contributing to that and so, as a Baptist Union, we fully support them. No excuses, no exceptions. Children are too important.