Southern Baptist leaders covered up intercourse abuse, explosive report says

Leaders within the Southern Baptist Convention on Sunday released a serious third-party investigation that found that sex abuse survivors were typically ignored, minimized and “even vilified” by prime clergy in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

The findings of nearly 300 pages include surprising new details about specific abuse cases and shine a light on how denominational leaders for decades actively resisted calls for abuse prevention and reform. Proof in the report suggests leaders additionally lied to Southern Baptists over whether or not they could preserve a database of offenders to prevent extra abuse when top leaders had been secretly conserving a personal listing for years.

The report — the primary investigation of its sort in a massive Protestant denomination just like the SBC — is predicted to send shock waves throughout a conservative Christian group that has had intense inside battles over find out how to handle sex abuse. The 13 million-member denomination, along with different religious institutions in the USA, has struggled with declining membership for the previous 15 years. Its leaders have lengthy resisted comparisons between its sexual abuse crisis and that of the Catholic Church, saying the full variety of abuse cases amongst Southern Baptists was small.

The investigation finds that for almost 20 years, survivors of abuse and other concerned Southern Baptists have been contacting the Southern Baptist Convention’s administrative arm to report alleged little one molesters and other accused abusers who have been within the pulpit or employed as church staff members. Many of the circumstances referred to in the report had been thought of outside the statute of limitations, the time survivors can report intercourse abuse, so it’s unclear how many abusers were criminally charged.

The report, compiled by a company referred to as Guidepost Solutions at the request of Southern Baptists, states that abuse survivors’ calls and emails were “only to be met, time and time again, with resistance, stonewalling, and even outright hostility” by leaders who had been concerned more with protecting the institution from liability than from protecting Southern Baptists from additional abuse.

“While tales of abuse were minimized, and survivors have been ignored and even vilified, revelations came to mild lately that some senior SBC leaders had protected or even supported alleged abusers, the report states.

While the report focuses primarily on how leaders dealt with abuse issues when survivors came forward, it additionally states that a major Southern Baptist chief was credibly accused of sexually assaulting a lady just one month after he completed his two-year tenure as president of the convention. The report finds that Johnny Hunt, a beloved Georgia-based Southern Baptist pastor who has been a senior vice chairman on the SBC’s missions arm, was credibly accused of assaulting a girl during a Panama City Seashore, Fla., trip in 2010.

The report states that Hunt, in an interview with investigators, denied any bodily contact with the lady however acknowledged that he had interactions along with her. After the report was launched, Hunt, who has not been charged over the alleged incident, posted a statement on Twitter, saying, “I vigorously deny the circumstances and characterizations set forth within the Guidepost report. I've never abused anyone.”

Hunt resigned on Could 13 from the North American Mission Board, in line with a press release by NAMB President Kevin Ezell. Ezell stated that before Might 13, he was not aware of alleged misconduct by Hunt. Usually, he referred to as the main points of the report “egregious and deeply disturbing.”

Southern Baptists have been immersed in their very own intercourse abuse scandals. Now, they’re debating their response.

Intercourse abuse survivors, lots of whom have been sharing their stories for years, anticipated Sunday’s launch would verify the info round many of the tales they have already shared, but many were still shocked to see the sample of coverups by the best ranges of management.

“I knew it was rotten, but it’s astonishing and infuriating,” mentioned Jennifer Lyell, a survivor who was as soon as the highest-paid female govt at the SBC and whose story of sexual abuse at a Southern Baptist seminary is detailed in the report. “It is a denomination that's by way of and thru about energy. It's misappropriated power. It does not in any means replicate the Jesus I see in the scriptures. I am so gutted.”

The report additionally names a number of senior SBC leaders who protected and even supported alleged abusers, including three previous presidents of the convention, a former vice chairman and the previous head of the SBC’s administrative arm.

The third-party investigation into actions between 2000 and 2021 centered on actions by the SBC’s Government Committee, which handles financial and administrative duties. Though Southern Baptist church buildings function independently from one another, the Nashville-based Govt Committee distributes more than $190 million cooperative program in its annual budget that funds its missions, seminaries and ministries.

For many years, the findings present, Southern Baptists have been informed the denomination couldn't put together a registry of sex offenders because it could go against the denomination’s polity — or how it capabilities. What the report reveals is that leaders maintained a list of offenders while protecting it a secret to keep away from the possibility of getting sued. The report additionally contains non-public emails exhibiting how longtime leaders reminiscent of August Boto have been dismissive about sexual abuse issues, calling them “a satanic scheme to completely distract us from evangelism.”

In an April 2007 email, the conference’s lawyer despatched Boto a memo explaining how a SBC database could be applied in line with SBC polity, saying “it might fit our polity and current ministries to help church buildings on this space of kid abuse and sexual misconduct.” The report states that he recommended “speedy action to sign the Conference’s want that the [executive committee] and the entities start a extra aggressive effort in this area.” That same yr, after a Southern Baptist pastor made a movement for a database, Boto rejected the concept.

For a denomination designed to present more democratic energy to its lay leaders or “messengers” who voted to fee the third-party investigation, the report reveals how lay Southern Baptists allowed a few key leaders, including Boto and the convention’s longtime lawyer, James Guenther, to control the nationwide institutional response to intercourse abuse for decades. Guenther, the longtime lawyer for the SBC, said he had not read the report but. Attempts to reach Boto on Sunday were unsuccessful.

“The report is going to validate a lot about how they actually blindly chose to stay on the identical path all these years,” said Tiffany Thigpen, whose story of sexual abuse in a Southern Baptist church is detailed in the report. “It buoys what we’ve been saying all along. Now Southern Baptists have to hold the load.”

Throughout Govt Committee conferences in 2021, some members argued towards waiving attorney-client privilege, which would give investigators access to records of conversations on legal issues among the committee’s members and staffers. They mentioned doing so went towards the recommendation of conference lawyers and will bankrupt the SBC by exposing it to lawsuits.

The debate over waiving privilege upset a big swath of Southern Baptists, inflicting some to imagine the Executive Committee was not doing the “will of the messengers,” or following the lead of lay leaders who had already voted in favor of doing so. It additionally led to the resignation of the Executive Committee’s head, Ronnie Floyd, who additionally as soon as served as SBC president and was on President Donald Trump’s evangelical advisory council. The choice over attorney-client privilege also led to the resignation of the convention’s attorneys, who're named all through the report.

Newly leaked letter particulars allegations that Southern Baptist leaders mishandled sex abuse claims

In accordance with the report, Floyd instructed SBC leaders in a 2019 e-mail that he had obtained “some calls” from “key SBC pastors and leaders” expressing “rising concern about all of the emphasis on the sexual abuse disaster.” He then acknowledged: “Our priority can't be the most recent cultural disaster.” Floyd didn't instantly return a request for comment.

Christa Brown, who told SBC leaders that she was abused by a youth pastor who went on to serve in different Southern Baptist churches in multiple states, has lengthy advocated a churchwide database and was met with hostility. The report states that when she met with SBC leaders in 2007, a member of the Government Committee “turned his back to her throughout her speech and one other chortled.”

“The Executive Committee betrayed not solely survivors who labored arduous to attempt to make something occur, however betrayed the whole Southern Baptist Conference,” mentioned Brown, who's a retired appellate lawyer in Colorado. “They’ve made their own religion into a complicit companion for their very own resolution to choose institutional safety over the safety of children and congregants.”

The report, which was requested by Southern Baptists during its last annual meeting, comes simply weeks before its next gathering in Anaheim, Calif., the place members are anticipated discuss next steps. Suggestions by Guidepost embrace offering dedicated survivor advocacy support and a survivor compensation fund.

“We should be ready to take significant steps to change our culture because it relates to sexual abuse,” Ed Litton, the present SBC president, mentioned in a press release.

Since a long time of sex abuse and coverups within the Catholic Church were reported by the Boston Globe in 2002, some U.S. dioceses have published lists of priests they say have been credibly accused of sexual abuse to prevent the transfer of abusers to different church buildings. Unlike the Catholic Church, the SBC has a non-hierarchical structure.

In March 2007, the Rev. Thomas Doyle, a priest and canon lawyer who first warned of the looming Catholic sex abuse disaster, wrote to the SBC and Government Committee presidents, based on the report. He expressed his concerns that SBC leaders could possibly be falling into among the identical patterns as Catholic leaders in not dealing with clergy intercourse abuse, and he urged that Southern Baptists ought to be taught from Catholic errors and take action early on to implement structural reforms so as to make kids safer.

The report states that Frank Page, who was leading the Govt Committee at the time, responded to Doyle in a short letter that “Southern Baptist leaders truly haven't any authority over local church buildings” but that they might attempt to use their “affect” to supply protections. In an article, Web page accused a survivor group of having a hidden agenda of setting up the nation’s largest Protestant physique for lawsuits. Web page later resigned from his place in 2018 over having a “morally inappropriate relationship.” Page didn't instantly return a request for comment.

Rachael Denhollander, a former USA gymnast who outed Larry Nassar’s serial sexual assaults, is an adviser on a Southern Baptist activity drive on the difficulty and stated that the report shows a need for institutions like the SBC to hunt exterior expertise on intercourse abuse.

“It reveals a degree of coverup and harassment and resistance to reforms on an institutional level that has led to a long time of survivors being victimized and damage,” Denhollander mentioned. “The query Southern Baptists must ask is, ‘How could this happen?’”

The issue of sex abuse was a distinguished theme in leaked personal letters written by Russell Moore, who left his place in 2021 as head of the SBC’s coverage arm, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Fee. Moore mentioned he expects Southern Baptists to obtain Sunday’s report in a similar strategy to how Nikita Khrushchev shocked the Soviet Union when he detailed Joseph Stalin’s crimes in a speech in 1956.

“The depths of wickedness and inhumanity on this report are breathtaking,” Moore said. “Folks will say, ‘This is not all Southern Baptists, take a look at all the great we do.’ The report demonstrates a pattern of stonewalling, coverup, intimidation and retaliation.”

Moore said he hopes the SBC will contemplate changing a statue of evangelist Billy Graham, which was moved from Nashville to Graham’s residence state in 2016, with a statue of Christa Brown, the abuse survivor who spent the past twenty years preventing for reform.