Abuse at the SBC
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Southern Baptists Refused to Act on Abuse, Despite Secret List of Pastors
Armed with a secret list of more than 700 abusive pastors, Southern Baptist leaders chose to protect the denomination from lawsuits rather than protect the people in their churches from further abuse.
Survivors, advocates, and some Southern Baptists themselves spent more than 15 years calling for ways to keep sexual predators from moving quietly from one flock to another. The men who controlled the Executive Committee (EC)—which runs day-to-day operations of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC)—knew the scope of the problem. But, working closely with their lawyers, they maligned the people who wanted to do something about abuse and repeatedly rejected pleas for help and reform.
“Behind the curtain, the lawyers were advising to say nothing and do nothing, even when the callers were identifying predators still in SBC pulpits,” according to a massive third-party investigative report released Sunday.
The investigation centers responsibility on members of the EC staff and their attorneys and says the hundreds of elected EC trustees were largely kept in the dark. EC general counsel Augie Boto and longtime attorney Jim Guenther advised the past three EC presidents—Ronnie Floyd, Frank Page, and Morris Chapman—that taking action on abuse would pose a risk to SBC liability and polity, leading the presidents to challenge proposed abuse reforms.
As renewed calls for action emerged with the #ChurchToo and #SBCToo movements, Boto referred to advocacy for abuse survivors as “a satanic scheme to completely distract us from evangelism.”
Survivors, in turn, described the soul-crushing effects of not only their abuse, but the stonewalling, insulting responses from leaders at the EC over 15-plus years.
Christa Brown, a longtime advocate who experienced sexual abuse by her pastor at 16, said her “countless encounters with Baptist leaders” who shunned and disbelieved her “left a legacy of hate” and communicated “you are a creature void of any value—you don’t matter.” As a result, she said, instead of her faith providing solace, her faith has become “neurologically networked with a nightmare.” She referred to it as “soul murder.”
Another victim, Debbie Vasquez, was repeatedly sexually assaulted by an SBC pastor starting at the age of 14. When one assault led to her pregnancy, she was forced to apologize in front of the church but forbidden to mention the father. The pastor went on to serve at another Southern Baptist church, and when Vasquez reached out to the EC her entreaties were ignored and evaded for years until a Houston Chronicle investigation three years ago.
Over the past 20 years, meanwhile, a string of SBC presidents failed to appropriately respond to abuse in their own churches and seminaries. In several instances, leaders sided with individuals and churches that had been credibly accused of abuse or coverup. One former president—pastor Johnny Hunt—sexually assaulted another pastor’s wife in 2010, investigators found.
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And there are some allegations of sexual misconduct at Billy Graham's old magazine, too. Notice that didn't appear in that article or maybe I glossed over it.
Furthermore, I wouldn't trust a magazine that would hire Russel Moore any further than I could throw him. Moore is in the vanguard of the liberal element of the church, which would have us going down the pathway of the Mainline, sliding down the slope of irrelevance and apostasy.
The SBC is NOT the Catholic Church. Individual churches will often tell leadership to go piss up a rope, at the Associational, State and National level. The SBC, while trying to dictate policy, is often ineffectual, simply because of church autonomy. The Executive Committee does not always have the power to do what they wish to do. Once you get a master's degree in cat herding, accept a challenge and try to herd Southern Baptists.
That's not to say some bad things did not happen. The church is made up of people and some people do bad things. Those people should be punished on an individual case-by-case basis, which is best done by their churches.
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And there are some allegations of sexual misconduct at Billy Graham's old magazine, too. Notice that didn't appear in that article or maybe I glossed over it.
Furthermore, I wouldn't trust a magazine that would hire Russel Moore any further than I could throw him. Moore is in the vanguard of the liberal element of the church, which would have us going down the pathway of the Mainline, sliding down the slope of irrelevance and apostasy.
The SBC is NOT the Catholic Church. Individual churches will often tell leadership to go piss up a rope, at the Associational, State and National level. The SBC, while trying to dictate policy, is often ineffectual, simply because of church autonomy. The Executive Committee does not always have the power to do what they wish to do. Once you get a master's degree in cat herding, accept a challenge and try to herd Southern Baptists.
That's not to say some bad things did not happen. The church is made up of people and some people do bad things. Those people should be punished on an individual case-by-case basis, which is best done by their churches.
@Jolly said in Abuse at the SBC:
The church is made up of people and some people do bad things. Those people should be punished on an individual case-by-case basis, which is best done by their churches.
Where secular crimes have been committed, why not by the criminal justice system?
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@Jolly said in Abuse at the SBC:
The church is made up of people and some people do bad things. Those people should be punished on an individual case-by-case basis, which is best done by their churches.
Where secular crimes have been committed, why not by the criminal justice system?
@Axtremus said in Abuse at the SBC:
Where secular crimes have been committed, why not by the criminal justice system?
I agree, in principle. However, afaict, these alleged crimes have not been adjudicated in a court. If they have, then of course, have at it.
THat's the murky part, just like with the Catholics. So many allegations that never make it into the criminal justice system, as they should.
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@Jolly said in Abuse at the SBC:
The church is made up of people and some people do bad things. Those people should be punished on an individual case-by-case basis, which is best done by their churches.
Where secular crimes have been committed, why not by the criminal justice system?
@Axtremus said in Abuse at the SBC:
@Jolly said in Abuse at the SBC:
The church is made up of people and some people do bad things. Those people should be punished on an individual case-by-case basis, which is best done by their churches.
Where secular crimes have been committed, why not by the criminal justice system?
And they do.
My wife's first cousin is a SBC pastor and had charges leveled against him by a girl he had taken into his home, after her addict mother tossed her out in the street. He was arrested and found innocent of her charges. Still tore his reputation to shreds for several years and caused him to lose the church he was pastoring at the time. The church just didn't want the controversy.
I sometimes prop my feet up in the local cowboy church. Many do not know, but that is a SBC church. About six months ago, they had to ask a deacon to step down over allegations of sexting with an underage girl. I think there was some chasing done on her part, but a fifty-something year-old man ought to know better and should spurn any advances made by a sixteen year-old girl, even if she is built like a brick shithouse and acts like she's twenty. That case got kicked to the sheriff about a week later, and he was arrested. It has not come to trial, yet.
But that's the way it should be handled, given the autonomy of the individual churches.
