Southern Baptist leaders coated up sex abuse, explosive report says

Leaders in the Southern Baptist Conference on Sunday launched a major third-party investigation that found that intercourse abuse survivors had been usually ignored, minimized and “even vilified” by top clergy in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

The findings of nearly 300 pages include surprising new particulars about particular abuse circumstances and shine a light on how denominational leaders for many years actively resisted calls for abuse prevention and reform. Proof within the report suggests leaders also lied to Southern Baptists over whether or not they could maintain a database of offenders to stop extra abuse when prime leaders have been secretly preserving a personal list for years.

The report — the first investigation of its sort in an enormous Protestant denomination like the SBC — is predicted to ship shock waves all through a conservative Christian neighborhood that has had intense inner battles over learn how to handle intercourse abuse. The 13 million-member denomination, together with different spiritual establishments in the United States, 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 circumstances amongst Southern Baptists was small.

The investigation finds that for almost two decades, survivors of abuse and other involved Southern Baptists have been contacting the Southern Baptist Conference’s administrative arm to report alleged child molesters and different accused abusers who have been within the pulpit or employed as church workers members. Most of the instances referred to within the report had been thought-about outdoors the statute of limitations, the time survivors can report intercourse abuse, so it’s unclear how many abusers had been criminally charged.

The report, compiled by an organization called Guidepost Solutions at the request of Southern Baptists, states that abuse survivors’ calls and emails were “solely to be met, time and time once more, with resistance, stonewalling, and even outright hostility” by leaders who were concerned more with defending the establishment from legal responsibility than from defending Southern Baptists from further abuse.

“Whereas tales of abuse had been minimized, and survivors had been ignored and even vilified, revelations got here to gentle in recent times that some senior SBC leaders had protected or even supported alleged abusers, the report states.

Whereas the report focuses primarily on how leaders handled abuse issues when survivors came ahead, 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 conference. 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 woman during a Panama Metropolis Beach, Fla., trip in 2010.

The report states that Hunt, in an interview with investigators, denied any bodily contact with the girl however acknowledged that he had interactions with her. After the report was launched, Hunt, who has not been charged over the alleged incident, posted an announcement on Twitter, saying, “I vigorously deny the circumstances and characterizations set forth in the Guidepost report. I have by no means abused anyone.”

Hunt resigned on Could 13 from the North American Mission Board, in keeping with an announcement by NAMB President Kevin Ezell. Ezell mentioned that before Could 13, he was not aware of alleged misconduct by Hunt. Generally, he known as the small print 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.

Sex abuse survivors, lots of whom have been sharing their tales for years, anticipated Sunday’s release would verify the facts round many of the tales they've already shared, however many were still surprised to see the pattern of coverups by the best levels of leadership.

“I knew it was rotten, nevertheless it’s astonishing and infuriating,” stated Jennifer Lyell, a survivor who was once the highest-paid female govt at the SBC and whose story of sexual abuse at a Southern Baptist seminary is detailed in the report. “This can be a denomination that is by means of and through about energy. It's misappropriated energy. It doesn't in any manner reflect the Jesus I see in the scriptures. I'm so gutted.”

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

The third-party investigation into actions between 2000 and 2021 focused on actions by the SBC’s Executive 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 decades, the findings show, Southern Baptists were advised the denomination couldn't put collectively a registry of sex offenders because it might go in opposition to the denomination’s polity — or the way it capabilities. What the report reveals is that leaders maintained a listing of offenders while protecting it a secret to keep away from the potential for getting sued. The report additionally consists of private emails showing how longtime leaders corresponding to August Boto had been dismissive about sexual abuse concerns, calling them “a satanic scheme to fully distract us from evangelism.”

In an April 2007 e mail, the convention’s attorney sent Boto a memo explaining how a SBC database could possibly be applied in keeping with SBC polity, saying “it might match our polity and present ministries to assist church buildings on this space of kid abuse and sexual misconduct.” The report states that he recommended “fast action to sign the Convention’s need that the [executive committee] and the entities begin a extra aggressive effort on this area.” That very same 12 months, after a Southern Baptist pastor made a motion for a database, Boto rejected the thought.

For a denomination designed to provide more democratic power to its lay leaders or “messengers” who voted to fee the third-party investigation, the report shows how lay Southern Baptists allowed a few key leaders, together with Boto and the conference’s longtime lawyer, James Guenther, to control the nationwide institutional response to sex abuse for decades. Guenther, the longtime lawyer for the SBC, stated he had not learn the report yet. Makes an attempt to reach Boto on Sunday had been unsuccessful.

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

Throughout Executive Committee conferences in 2021, some members argued against waiving attorney-client privilege, which might give investigators entry to data of conversations on legal issues among the committee’s members and staffers. They said doing so went in opposition to the recommendation of conference lawyers and will bankrupt the SBC by exposing it to lawsuits.

The debate over waiving privilege upset a large swath of Southern Baptists, inflicting some to believe 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 Government 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 throughout the report.

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

According to the report, Floyd told SBC leaders in a 2019 electronic mail that he had obtained “some calls” from “key SBC pastors and leaders” expressing “growing concern about all of the emphasis on the sexual abuse disaster.” He then stated: “Our precedence can't be the newest cultural crisis.” Floyd did not instantly return a request for remark.

Christa Brown, who instructed SBC leaders that she was abused by a youth pastor who went on to serve in different Southern Baptist churches in a number of 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 Govt Committee “turned his again to her during her speech and one other chortled.”

“The Government Committee betrayed not only survivors who worked onerous to attempt to make something occur, however betrayed the entire Southern Baptist Conference,” mentioned Brown, who is a retired appellate legal professional in Colorado. “They’ve made their very own religion right into a complicit companion for their very own determination to choose institutional protection over the protection of youngsters and congregants.”

The report, which was requested by Southern Baptists during its final annual meeting, comes simply weeks before its subsequent gathering in Anaheim, Calif., the place members are anticipated talk about subsequent steps. Recommendations by Guidepost include offering dedicated survivor advocacy assist and a survivor compensation fund.

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

Since decades of sex abuse and coverups in the Catholic Church were reported by the Boston Globe in 2002, some U.S. dioceses have revealed lists of clergymen they are saying have been credibly accused of sexual abuse to stop the transfer of abusers to different churches. In contrast to the Catholic Church, the SBC has a non-hierarchical construction.

In March 2007, the Rev. Thomas Doyle, a priest and canon lawyer who first warned of the looming Catholic sex abuse crisis, wrote to the SBC and Executive Committee presidents, according to the report. He expressed his issues that SBC leaders could possibly be falling into a few of the similar patterns as Catholic leaders in not dealing with clergy sex abuse, and he urged that Southern Baptists ought to study from Catholic mistakes and take motion early on to implement structural reforms so as to make kids safer.

The report states that Frank Page, who was main the Govt Committee on the time, responded to Doyle in a short letter that “Southern Baptist leaders actually don't have any authority over native church buildings” but that they'd attempt to use their “affect” to offer protections. In an article, Web page accused a survivor group of having a hidden agenda of organising the nation’s largest Protestant body for lawsuits. Page later resigned from his place in 2018 over having a “morally inappropriate relationship.” Page didn't immediately 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 process pressure on the problem and stated that the report reveals a necessity for institutions like the SBC to seek outside experience on sex abuse.

“It shows a level of coverup and harassment and resistance to reforms on an institutional degree that has led to many years of survivors being victimized and harm,” Denhollander stated. “The question Southern Baptists have to ask is, ‘How might this occur?’”

The problem of sex abuse was a prominent theme in leaked private letters written by Russell Moore, who left his place in 2021 as head of the SBC’s policy arm, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Fee. Moore mentioned he expects Southern Baptists to receive Sunday’s report in a similar option 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 mentioned. “People will say, ‘This isn't all Southern Baptists, look at all the nice we do.’ The report demonstrates a pattern of stonewalling, coverup, intimidation and retaliation.”

Moore stated he hopes the SBC will think about changing a statue of evangelist Billy Graham, which was moved from Nashville to Graham’s home state in 2016, with a statue of Christa Brown, the abuse survivor who spent the past two decades combating for reform.