Southern Baptist leaders coated up sex abuse, explosive report says

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

The findings of practically 300 pages include surprising new details about specific abuse cases and shine a light-weight on how denominational leaders for many years actively resisted requires 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 have been secretly conserving a personal listing for years.

The report — the first investigation of its sort in a large Protestant denomination like the SBC — is expected to ship shock waves throughout a conservative Christian neighborhood that has had intense inside battles over deal with sex abuse. The 13 million-member denomination, along with different non secular institutions in america, 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 whole variety of abuse circumstances amongst Southern Baptists was small.

The investigation finds that for almost 20 years, survivors of abuse and other involved Southern Baptists have been contacting the Southern Baptist Conference’s administrative arm to report alleged baby molesters and different accused abusers who have been in the pulpit or employed as church employees members. Most of the circumstances referred to within the report were considered 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 an organization known as Guidepost Options on the request of Southern Baptists, states that abuse survivors’ calls and emails had been “solely to be met, time and time once more, with resistance, stonewalling, and even outright hostility” by leaders who were involved extra with defending the institution from legal responsibility than from defending Southern Baptists from additional abuse.

“Whereas tales of abuse were minimized, and survivors were ignored and even vilified, revelations got here to light lately 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 issues when survivors came forward, it also states that a major Southern Baptist leader was credibly accused of sexually assaulting a woman 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 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 physical contact with the woman but acknowledged that he had interactions together with her. After the report was launched, 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 have by no means abused anyone.”

Hunt resigned on Might 13 from the North American Mission Board, in line with an announcement by NAMB President Kevin Ezell. Ezell stated that before Could 13, he was not conscious of alleged misconduct by Hunt. Typically, he referred to as the details of the report “egregious and deeply disturbing.”

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

Sex abuse survivors, a lot of whom have been sharing their tales for years, anticipated Sunday’s release would affirm the info round lots of the tales they have already shared, but many have been still surprised to see the sample of coverups by the very best ranges of management.

“I knew it was rotten, nevertheless it’s astonishing and infuriating,” said Jennifer Lyell, a survivor who was once the highest-paid feminine government at the SBC and whose story of sexual abuse at a Southern Baptist seminary is detailed in the report. “This is a denomination that's via and thru about energy. It's misappropriated energy. It doesn't in any manner reflect 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 past presidents of the conference, a former vp and the previous head of the SBC’s administrative arm.

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

For many years, the findings show, Southern Baptists had been told the denomination couldn't put collectively a registry of sex offenders as a result of it might go towards the denomination’s polity — or how it functions. What the report reveals is that leaders maintained a listing of offenders whereas retaining it a secret to avoid the potential for getting sued. The report additionally contains personal emails showing how longtime leaders corresponding to August Boto had 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 attorney despatched Boto a memo explaining how a SBC database could be implemented in keeping with SBC polity, saying “it could match our polity and current ministries to help church buildings in this space of child abuse and sexual misconduct.” The report states that he really helpful “fast motion to sign the Conference’s need that the [executive committee] and the entities start a more aggressive effort on this space.” That very same 12 months, after a Southern Baptist pastor made a movement for a database, Boto rejected the thought.

For a denomination designed to present more democratic energy to its lay leaders or “messengers” who voted to commission the third-party investigation, the report shows how lay Southern Baptists allowed just a few key leaders, together with Boto and the convention’s longtime lawyer, James Guenther, to control the national institutional response to intercourse abuse for decades. Guenther, the longtime lawyer for the SBC, said he had not learn the report but. Makes an attempt to succeed in Boto on Sunday had been unsuccessful.

“The report is going to validate a lot about how they actually blindly chose to remain 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 alongside. Now Southern Baptists have to hold the burden.”

Throughout Govt Committee meetings in 2021, some members argued towards waiving attorney-client privilege, which would give investigators entry to information of conversations on authorized matters among the committee’s members and staffers. They mentioned doing so went against the advice of convention attorneys and will bankrupt the SBC by exposing it to lawsuits.

The controversy over waiving privilege upset a big swath of Southern Baptists, causing some to consider the Government 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 Executive Committee’s head, Ronnie Floyd, who also once served as SBC president and was on President Donald Trump’s evangelical advisory council. The choice 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 response to the report, Floyd instructed SBC leaders in a 2019 e mail that he had acquired “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 disaster.” Floyd did not instantly 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 church buildings in multiple states, has long 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 only survivors who worked arduous to try to make one thing happen, however betrayed the whole Southern Baptist Conference,” mentioned Brown, who's a retired appellate attorney in Colorado. “They’ve made their very own faith into a complicit accomplice for their own resolution to decide on institutional protection over the safety of kids and congregants.”

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

“We must be ready to take significant steps to alter our culture as it relates to sexual abuse,” Ed Litton, the present SBC president, stated in a press release.

Since decades of intercourse abuse and coverups in the Catholic Church have been reported by the Boston Globe in 2002, some U.S. dioceses have published lists of clergymen they say have been credibly accused of sexual abuse to prevent the switch of abusers to different church buildings. In contrast to 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 intercourse abuse crisis, wrote to the SBC and Government Committee presidents, in accordance with the report. He expressed his issues that SBC leaders might be falling into a number of the identical patterns as Catholic leaders in not dealing with clergy intercourse abuse, and he urged that Southern Baptists should study from Catholic mistakes and take motion early on to implement structural reforms in order to make youngsters safer.

The report states that Frank Web page, who was main the Executive Committee on the time, responded to Doyle in a short letter that “Southern Baptist leaders really haven't any authority over local church buildings” but that they would attempt to use their “influence” to provide protections. In an article, Web page accused a survivor group of getting a hidden agenda of establishing 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 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 job force on the difficulty and mentioned that the report reveals a necessity for institutions just like the SBC to hunt outside expertise on sex abuse.

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

The issue of intercourse abuse was a prominent theme in leaked non-public letters written by Russell Moore, who left his place in 2021 as head of the SBC’s policy arm, the Ethics & Non secular Liberty Commission. Moore stated he expects Southern Baptists to obtain Sunday’s report in an identical approach 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 is not 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 consider 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 previous 20 years combating for reform.