Southern Baptist leaders coated up intercourse abuse, explosive report says

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

The findings of almost 300 pages embrace surprising new particulars about particular abuse circumstances and shine a light on how denominational leaders for decades actively resisted calls for abuse prevention and reform. Proof in the report suggests leaders also lied to Southern Baptists over whether they may preserve a database of offenders to prevent extra abuse when top leaders had been secretly preserving a personal list for years.

The report — the primary investigation of its kind in a large Protestant denomination just like the SBC — is predicted to ship shock waves throughout a conservative Christian group that has had intense inner battles over find out how to handle sex abuse. The 13 million-member denomination, together with different religious establishments in the USA, has struggled with declining membership for the previous 15 years. Its leaders have long resisted comparisons between its sexual abuse crisis and that of the Catholic Church, saying the entire number of abuse instances among Southern Baptists was small.

The investigation finds that for nearly two decades, survivors of abuse and different concerned Southern Baptists have been contacting the Southern Baptist Conference’s administrative arm to report alleged little one molesters and other accused abusers who have been in the pulpit or employed as church employees members. Lots of the cases referred to within the report were thought of exterior the statute of limitations, the time survivors can report sex abuse, so it’s unclear what number of abusers were criminally charged.

The report, compiled by a corporation referred to as Guidepost Solutions at the request of Southern Baptists, states that abuse survivors’ calls and emails have been “solely to be met, time and time once more, with resistance, stonewalling, and even outright hostility” by leaders who have been concerned more with defending the establishment from legal responsibility than from protecting Southern Baptists from additional abuse.

“While stories of abuse had been minimized, and survivors have been ignored and even vilified, revelations came to mild 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 dealt with abuse points when survivors got here forward, it also states that a major Southern Baptist chief was credibly accused of sexually assaulting a girl just 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 Seaside, Fla., vacation in 2010.

The report states that Hunt, in an interview with investigators, denied any bodily contact with the lady but acknowledged that he had interactions together 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 in the Guidepost report. I've by no means abused anyone.”

Hunt resigned on Might 13 from the North American Mission Board, in accordance with an announcement by NAMB President Kevin Ezell. Ezell stated that earlier than May 13, he was not conscious of alleged misconduct by Hunt. Usually, he known as the main points of the report “egregious and deeply disturbing.”

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

Sex abuse survivors, lots of whom have been sharing their stories for years, anticipated Sunday’s launch would confirm the facts round many of the stories they have already shared, but many had been still surprised to see the sample of coverups by the best levels of leadership.

“I knew it was rotten, but it surely’s astonishing and infuriating,” said 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 within the report. “This is a denomination that is by and thru about energy. It's misappropriated energy. It does not in any manner mirror the Jesus I see in the scriptures. I'm 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 conference, a former vice chairman and the former head of the SBC’s administrative arm.

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

For decades, the findings present, Southern Baptists have been instructed the denomination could not put collectively a registry of sex offenders as a result of it will go against the denomination’s polity — or how it capabilities. What the report reveals is that leaders maintained an inventory of offenders while protecting it a secret to keep away from the potential of getting sued. The report also includes non-public emails showing how longtime leaders comparable to August Boto had been dismissive about sexual abuse issues, calling them “a satanic scheme to fully distract us from evangelism.”

In an April 2007 email, the convention’s lawyer sent Boto a memo explaining how a SBC database could possibly be carried out per SBC polity, saying “it will fit our polity and current ministries to assist church buildings in this space of child abuse and sexual misconduct.” The report states that he really useful “speedy action to signal the Convention’s desire that the [executive committee] and the entities begin a more aggressive effort in this space.” That same yr, after a Southern Baptist pastor made a movement for a database, Boto rejected the concept.

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

“The report goes to validate so much about how they really blindly selected to stay on the same path all these years,” stated 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 alongside. Now Southern Baptists have to hold the weight.”

During Executive Committee meetings in 2021, some members argued towards waiving attorney-client privilege, which might give investigators access to data of conversations on authorized issues among the many committee’s members and staffers. They mentioned doing so went against the recommendation of convention attorneys and will bankrupt the SBC by exposing it to lawsuits.

The talk over waiving privilege upset a large swath of Southern Baptists, inflicting some to consider the Govt 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 Govt Committee’s head, Ronnie Floyd, who also as soon as 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 convention’s attorneys, who are named throughout the report.

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

In response to the report, Floyd told SBC leaders in a 2019 email that he had received “some calls” from “key SBC pastors and leaders” expressing “growing concern about all the emphasis on the sexual abuse crisis.” He then said: “Our priority cannot be the newest cultural disaster.” Floyd did not immediately return a request for comment.

Christa Brown, who advised 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 again to her throughout her speech and another chortled.”

“The Executive Committee betrayed not solely survivors who labored laborious to try to make one thing occur, but betrayed the whole Southern Baptist Conference,” stated Brown, who is a retired appellate lawyer in Colorado. “They’ve made their very own faith right into a complicit partner for their very own resolution to choose institutional protection over the safety 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 next steps. Suggestions by Guidepost include offering devoted survivor advocacy support and a survivor compensation fund.

“We should be ready to take meaningful steps to change our tradition because it relates to sexual abuse,” Ed Litton, the present SBC president, mentioned in a statement.

Since many years of intercourse abuse and coverups within the Catholic Church were reported by the Boston Globe in 2002, some U.S. dioceses have printed lists of clergymen they say have been credibly accused of sexual abuse to forestall the switch of abusers to other churches. Unlike 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 intercourse abuse crisis, wrote to the SBC and Executive Committee presidents, in accordance with the report. He expressed his issues that SBC leaders may very well be falling into some of the same patterns as Catholic leaders in not dealing with clergy intercourse abuse, and he urged that Southern Baptists ought to learn from Catholic errors and take action early on to implement structural reforms in order to make kids safer.

The report states that Frank Web page, who was leading the Government Committee at the time, responded to Doyle in a short letter that “Southern Baptist leaders really haven't any authority over native churches” however that they'd try to use their “influence” to supply protections. In an article, Page accused a survivor group of getting a hidden agenda of organising the nation’s largest Protestant body for lawsuits. Web page later resigned from his place in 2018 over having a “morally inappropriate relationship.” Web 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 process drive on the problem and stated that the report shows a necessity for institutions just like the SBC to seek outdoors expertise on intercourse abuse.

“It reveals a degree 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 should ask is, ‘How could this occur?’”

The issue of sex abuse was a outstanding theme in leaked private letters written by Russell Moore, who left his position in 2021 as head of the SBC’s coverage arm, the Ethics & Spiritual Liberty Fee. Moore mentioned 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 on this report are breathtaking,” Moore mentioned. “Individuals will say, ‘This isn't all Southern Baptists, have a look at all the good we do.’ The report demonstrates a sample of stonewalling, coverup, intimidation and retaliation.”

Moore said he hopes the SBC will consider changing a statue of evangelist Billy Graham, which was moved from Nashville to Graham’s house state in 2016, with a statue of Christa Brown, the abuse survivor who spent the previous two decades fighting for reform.