Southern Baptist leaders lined up sex abuse, explosive report says

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

The findings of almost 300 pages include surprising new particulars about specific abuse cases and shine a light on how denominational leaders for many years actively resisted calls for abuse prevention and reform. Evidence in the report suggests leaders also lied to Southern Baptists over whether or not they could keep a database of offenders to stop extra abuse when top leaders had been secretly maintaining a non-public listing for years.

The report — the primary investigation of its type in an enormous Protestant denomination just like the SBC — is anticipated to ship shock waves all through a conservative Christian community that has had intense inner battles over how one can deal with intercourse abuse. The 13 million-member denomination, along with different religious establishments in america, has struggled with declining membership for the past 15 years. Its leaders have lengthy resisted comparisons between its sexual abuse disaster and that of the Catholic Church, saying the total variety of abuse circumstances among Southern Baptists was small.

The investigation finds that for almost twenty years, survivors of abuse and different involved Southern Baptists have been contacting the Southern Baptist Convention’s administrative arm to report alleged child molesters and other accused abusers who were in the pulpit or employed as church workers members. Many of the instances referred to in the report had been thought of outside the statute of limitations, the time survivors can report sex abuse, so it’s unclear how many abusers had been criminally charged.

The report, compiled by a company known 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 were involved more with protecting the institution from liability than from defending Southern Baptists from further abuse.

“While tales of abuse were minimized, and survivors were ignored and even vilified, revelations came to light in recent times that some senior SBC leaders had protected and even supported alleged abusers, the report states.

While the report focuses totally on how leaders dealt with abuse points when survivors came forward, it also states that a main Southern Baptist chief was credibly accused of sexually assaulting a woman just one month after he accomplished 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 president on the SBC’s missions arm, was credibly accused of assaulting a girl during a Panama Metropolis Seaside, Fla., vacation in 2010.

The report states that Hunt, in an interview with investigators, denied any physical contact with the lady but acknowledged that he had interactions 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've never abused anyone.”

Hunt resigned on May 13 from the North American Mission Board, in line with a statement by NAMB President Kevin Ezell. Ezell stated that earlier than Could 13, he was not aware 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 very own sex abuse scandals. Now, they’re debating their response.

Intercourse abuse survivors, many of whom have been sharing their stories for years, anticipated Sunday’s launch would confirm the information round most of the tales they've already shared, however many had been nonetheless shocked to see the pattern of coverups by the best levels of management.

“I knew it was rotten, but it surely’s astonishing and infuriating,” mentioned Jennifer Lyell, a survivor who was as soon as the highest-paid female executive on the SBC and whose story of sexual abuse at a Southern Baptist seminary is detailed within the report. “This is a denomination that's by way of and through about power. It is misappropriated power. It does not in any manner mirror 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 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 monetary and administrative duties. Although Southern Baptist churches function independently from each other, the Nashville-based Govt Committee distributes more than $190 million cooperative program in its annual funds that funds its missions, seminaries and ministries.

For many years, the findings show, Southern Baptists were told the denomination could not put together a registry of sex offenders because it might go against the denomination’s polity — or the way it capabilities. What the report reveals is that leaders maintained an inventory of offenders whereas protecting it a secret to keep away from the potential of getting sued. The report additionally contains non-public emails exhibiting how longtime leaders reminiscent of August Boto had been dismissive about sexual abuse considerations, calling them “a satanic scheme to fully distract us from evangelism.”

In an April 2007 e mail, the convention’s legal professional sent Boto a memo explaining how a SBC database could possibly be carried out in step with SBC polity, saying “it would match our polity and current ministries to assist churches in this space of kid abuse and sexual misconduct.” The report states that he really useful “immediate action to signal the Conference’s need that the [executive committee] and the entities start a more aggressive effort in this area.” That same 12 months, after a Southern Baptist pastor made a movement for a database, Boto rejected the idea.

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, including 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, mentioned he had not learn the report yet. Attempts to succeed in Boto on Sunday had been unsuccessful.

“The report goes to validate so much about how they really blindly selected to remain on the same path all these years,” said 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 carry the burden.”

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

The talk over waiving privilege upset a large swath of Southern Baptists, causing 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 Executive Committee’s head, Ronnie Floyd, who additionally 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 throughout the report.

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

According to the report, Floyd instructed 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 did not 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 other Southern Baptist church buildings 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 Executive Committee “turned his back to her throughout her speech and another chortled.”

“The Executive Committee betrayed not only survivors who labored laborious to attempt to make something occur, however betrayed the entire Southern Baptist Conference,” mentioned Brown, who is a retired appellate attorney in Colorado. “They’ve made their very own religion into a complicit associate 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 last annual meeting, comes just weeks before its subsequent gathering in Anaheim, Calif., where members are anticipated discuss subsequent steps. Suggestions by Guidepost include providing dedicated survivor advocacy assist and a survivor compensation fund.

“We should be ready to take meaningful steps to vary our culture because it pertains to sexual abuse,” Ed Litton, the current SBC president, said 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 monks they say have been credibly accused of sexual abuse to forestall the transfer 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 disaster, wrote to the SBC and Govt Committee presidents, in response to the report. He expressed his concerns that SBC leaders may very well be falling into some of the identical patterns as Catholic leaders in not coping with clergy intercourse abuse, and he urged that Southern Baptists ought to study from Catholic mistakes and take action early on to implement structural reforms in order to make kids safer.

The report states that Frank Page, who was leading the Govt Committee at the time, responded to Doyle in a brief letter that “Southern Baptist leaders really haven't any authority over local churches” however that they would attempt to make use of their “influence” to offer protections. In an article, Page accused a survivor group of getting a hidden agenda of setting up the nation’s largest Protestant physique for lawsuits. Page later resigned from his place in 2018 over having a “morally inappropriate relationship.” Web page did not 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 power on the problem and mentioned that the report reveals a need for institutions like the SBC to seek outside experience on sex abuse.

“It reveals a stage of coverup and harassment and resistance to reforms on an institutional degree that has led to many years of survivors being victimized and hurt,” Denhollander stated. “The query Southern Baptists must ask is, ‘How may this occur?’”

The problem of intercourse abuse was a distinguished theme in leaked personal letters written by Russell Moore, who left his position 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 solution 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 stated. “Individuals will say, ‘This isn't all Southern Baptists, have a 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 take into account 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 20 years preventing for reform.