Southern Baptist leaders covered up sex abuse, explosive report says

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

The findings of nearly 300 pages embrace stunning new details about particular abuse cases and shine a lightweight on how denominational leaders for many years actively resisted requires abuse prevention and reform. Evidence in the report suggests leaders additionally lied to Southern Baptists over whether or not they might preserve a database of offenders to forestall extra abuse when prime leaders had been secretly keeping a non-public record for years.

The report — the first investigation of its type in an enormous Protestant denomination like the SBC — is expected to send shock waves all through a conservative Christian neighborhood that has had intense inner battles over deal with sex abuse. The 13 million-member denomination, together with other religious institutions in the United States, has struggled with declining membership for the previous 15 years. Its leaders have lengthy resisted comparisons between its sexual abuse disaster and that of the Catholic Church, saying the entire variety of abuse instances amongst Southern Baptists was small.

The investigation finds that for almost twenty years, survivors of abuse and other involved Southern Baptists have been contacting the Southern Baptist Convention’s administrative arm to report alleged youngster molesters and other accused abusers who have been within the pulpit or employed as church employees members. Most of the circumstances referred to in the report have been thought of exterior the statute of limitations, the time survivors can report intercourse abuse, so it’s unclear how many abusers have been criminally charged.

The report, compiled by a company known as Guidepost Options on the request of Southern Baptists, states that abuse survivors’ calls and emails have been “only to be met, time and time once more, with resistance, stonewalling, and even outright hostility” by leaders who had been involved extra with protecting the institution from liability than from defending Southern Baptists from further abuse.

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

Whereas the report focuses primarily on how leaders handled abuse points when survivors got here ahead, it additionally states that a main Southern Baptist leader was credibly accused of sexually assaulting a lady only one month after he accomplished 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 president at the SBC’s missions arm, was credibly accused of assaulting a lady throughout a Panama Metropolis Seashore, Fla., vacation 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 released, Hunt, who has not been charged over the alleged incident, posted a press release 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, based on a press release by NAMB President Kevin Ezell. Ezell stated that earlier than May 13, he was not aware of alleged misconduct by Hunt. Typically, he called the details 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 launch would confirm the facts around many of the stories they have already shared, but many had been nonetheless shocked to see the sample of coverups by the very best ranges of management.

“I knew it was rotten, nevertheless it’s astonishing and infuriating,” stated Jennifer Lyell, a survivor who was as soon as the highest-paid female government at the SBC and whose story of sexual abuse at a Southern Baptist seminary is detailed in the report. “It is a denomination that is by means of and thru about power. It's misappropriated power. It does not in any approach replicate 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, together with three past presidents of the conference, 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 Executive Committee, which handles monetary and administrative duties. Though Southern Baptist church buildings function independently from each other, the Nashville-based Govt Committee distributes greater than $190 million cooperative program in its annual price range that funds its missions, seminaries and ministries.

For decades, the findings show, Southern Baptists have been instructed the denomination could not put together a registry of sex offenders because it would go in opposition to the denomination’s polity — or how it functions. What the report reveals is that leaders maintained an inventory of offenders while holding it a secret to avoid the opportunity of getting sued. The report additionally contains non-public emails showing how longtime leaders equivalent 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 electronic mail, the convention’s lawyer despatched Boto a memo explaining how a SBC database could possibly be applied per SBC polity, saying “it would match our polity and current ministries to help church buildings in this area of child abuse and sexual misconduct.” The report states that he really helpful “fast action to signal the Convention’s desire that the [executive committee] and the entities start a extra aggressive effort on this area.” That same yr, after a Southern Baptist pastor made a motion for a database, Boto rejected the thought.

For a denomination designed to provide more democratic energy to its lay leaders or “messengers” who voted to fee the third-party investigation, the report exhibits how lay Southern Baptists allowed a few key leaders, together with Boto and the conference’s longtime lawyer, James Guenther, to manage the national institutional response to sex abuse for many years. Guenther, the longtime lawyer for the SBC, said he had not learn the report yet. Attempts to achieve Boto on Sunday have been unsuccessful.

“The report is going to validate so much about how they really blindly chose to remain on the identical path all these years,” mentioned 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.”

During Govt Committee conferences in 2021, some members argued towards waiving attorney-client privilege, which might give investigators entry to records of conversations on authorized issues among the many committee’s members and staffers. They mentioned doing so went against the recommendation of convention lawyers and could 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 also led to the resignation of the Govt Committee’s head, Ronnie Floyd, who additionally once served as SBC president and was on President Donald Trump’s evangelical advisory council. The decision over attorney-client privilege additionally led to the resignation of the conference’s attorneys, who're named all through the report.

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

In keeping with the report, Floyd informed SBC leaders in a 2019 electronic mail that he had obtained “some calls” from “key SBC pastors and leaders” expressing “growing concern about all the emphasis on the sexual abuse disaster.” He then acknowledged: “Our precedence cannot be the most recent cultural crisis.” Floyd didn't instantly return a request for comment.

Christa Brown, who informed 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 Govt Committee betrayed not solely survivors who labored onerous to try to make one thing happen, however betrayed the whole Southern Baptist Convention,” stated Brown, who is a retired appellate attorney in Colorado. “They’ve made their very own religion right into a complicit companion for their own resolution to decide on institutional protection over the protection of youngsters and congregants.”

The report, which was requested by Southern Baptists during its last annual assembly, comes simply weeks earlier than its subsequent gathering in Anaheim, Calif., where members are expected talk about next steps. Suggestions by Guidepost embody offering dedicated survivor advocacy assist and a survivor compensation fund.

“We should be able to take significant steps to alter our culture because it relates to sexual abuse,” Ed Litton, the present SBC president, mentioned in a statement.

Since decades of sex abuse and coverups within the Catholic Church had been reported by the Boston Globe in 2002, some U.S. dioceses have printed lists of priests they are saying have been credibly accused of sexual abuse to forestall the transfer of abusers to different church buildings. Not like 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 crisis, wrote to the SBC and Government Committee presidents, in accordance with the report. He expressed his concerns that SBC leaders could possibly be falling into a number of the same patterns as Catholic leaders in not coping with clergy intercourse abuse, and he urged that Southern Baptists should learn from Catholic mistakes and take action early on to implement structural reforms in order to make children 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 really don't have any authority over local churches” but that they might try to make use of their “influence” 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 position 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 task pressure on the difficulty and mentioned that the report exhibits a necessity for establishments like the SBC to hunt exterior experience on sex abuse.

“It shows a stage of coverup and harassment and resistance to reforms on an institutional stage that has led to many years of survivors being victimized and harm,” Denhollander stated. “The question Southern Baptists must 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 coverage arm, the Ethics & Spiritual Liberty Fee. Moore said he expects Southern Baptists to receive Sunday’s report in an analogous technique 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 in this report are breathtaking,” Moore mentioned. “Folks will say, ‘This isn't all Southern Baptists, 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 think about replacing 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 previous two decades preventing for reform.