Baptist

Southern Baptist Leaders Hid, Downplayed Vile Sexual Abuse By Ministers For Years

Leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention covered up instances of sexual assault, ardently withstood demands for reform made by survivors, and lied about their ability to monitor alleged abusers for almost twenty years, a bombshell report from independent detectives showed.

The scathing 300-page report by third-party group Guidepost Solutions provided details of the dreadful actions of Christian leaders in the country’s biggest Protestant denomination, who for more than 15 years reacted to abuse survivors reporting child molesters and other abusers with “resistance, stonewalling, and even straight-out hostility,” the report stated.

Proof gathered by private investigators suggests that denomination leaders likewise lied to Southern Baptists about their ability to develop and preserve a database of sexual predators to prevent abuse while keeping a private list in secret. SBC leaders are implicated in acting to protect the Church from lawsuits instead of reacting decisively to reports of sexual assault and stopping abusers.

“Our investigation revealed that, for many years, a few senior EC leaders, along with outside counsel, largely controlled the EC’s response to these reports of abuse. They closely guarded information about abuse allegations and lawsuits, which were not shared with EC Trustees, and were singularly focused on avoiding liability for the SBC to the exclusion of other considerations,” the report said.

“In service of this goal, survivors and others who reported abuse were disbelieved, or met with the constant refrain that the SBC could take no action due to its polity regarding church autonomy — even if it meant that convicted child molesters continued in ministry with no notice or warning to their current church or congregation.”

Some church leaders supposedly acted to cover up abuse claims and allowed clergy members implicated in abuse to stay pastors or hold other positions of authority. Records reveal that leaders likewise disparaged survivors behind their backs, calling them “opportunistic” or asserting they were serving as a “professional victim,” and minimizing the breadth and duration of the sexual assault crisis occurring within the denomination.

In one e-mail, senior church leader August Boto wrote that sexual assault survivors and supporters were taking part in “a satanic scheme to completely distract us from evangelism.”

Other stories of abuse were  “minimized” and survivors were “ignored or even vilified,” the report stated. Demands for reform “were met with resistance, typically due to concerns over incurring legal liability.”

The SBC Executive Committee commissioned this third-party evaluation in action to an explosive investigative report by the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News in 2019 that discovered there were more than 700 victims of sexual assault within the SBC in the past 20 years. At the 2021 SBC Convention in Nashville, survivors and reform supporters effectively campaigned for the development of a task force to examine the Executive Committee’s handling of sexual assault accusations. Guidepost Solutions was picked to carry out the independent examination.

To name just a few, the investigation uncovered a formerly unidentified allegation of abuse against previous SBC President Johnny Hunt, a well-respected minister. An SBC pastor and his wife had credibly implicated Hunt of sexually attacking the wife in 2010, a month after Hunt’s term as president had actually ended, and reported the event to the EC.

This report of abuse and numerous others were understood to the EC however were not shown EC Trustees, the report stated. A minimum of one EC employee kept a list of implicated ministers in Baptist churches, consisting of the ministers’ names, year reported, appropriate news articles, state, and denomination. Absolutely nothing was ever done with that info.

According to the detectives, a minimum of 9 implicated abusers are still in active ministry or linked to ministry and a minimum of 2 of these individuals seem connected with an SBC church.

Guidepost Solutions makes a number of suggestions for the Southern Baptist Conference to enhance its action to sexual assault and misconduct accusations. Amongst its recommendations is the creation of an independent commission to supervise and carry out reforms and a “permanent Administrative Entity” with staffing and financing to prevent and react to sexual assault in SBC churches. The report likewise advises offering devoted survivor advocacy assistance and a survivor settlement fund.

“There are not adequate words to express my sorrow at the things revealed in this report. I am grieved to my core for those who have suffered sexual abuse in Southern Baptist contexts, both for those named in this report and the many who are not,” said Ed Litton, the current SBC president in a statement.

“Southern Baptists must resolve to change our culture and implement desperately needed reforms. The time is now. We have so much to lament, but genuine grief requires a godly response. I pray Southern Baptists will begin preparing today to take deliberate action to address these failures and chart a new course when we meet together in Anaheim,” he said.

 

H/T The Blaze

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