Southern Baptist leaders covered up intercourse abuse, explosive report says

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

The findings of nearly 300 pages embrace shocking new particulars about specific abuse instances and shine a light-weight on how denominational leaders for many years actively resisted calls for abuse prevention and reform. Evidence within the report suggests leaders additionally lied to Southern Baptists over whether they could preserve a database of offenders to forestall extra abuse when high leaders were secretly protecting a personal record for years.

The report — the primary investigation of its type in a large Protestant denomination just like the SBC — is anticipated to ship shock waves throughout a conservative Christian group that has had intense internal battles over how you can deal with sex abuse. The 13 million-member denomination, together with other religious 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 disaster and that of the Catholic Church, saying the total number of abuse circumstances among Southern Baptists was small.

The investigation finds that for almost two decades, survivors of abuse and other concerned Southern Baptists have been contacting the Southern Baptist Conference’s administrative arm to report alleged youngster molesters and other accused abusers who were within the pulpit or employed as church staff members. Many of the circumstances referred to within the report had been 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 Options on the request of Southern Baptists, states that abuse survivors’ calls and emails have been “solely to be met, time and time again, with resistance, stonewalling, and even outright hostility” by leaders who have been concerned more with defending the institution from liability than from protecting Southern Baptists from further abuse.

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

Whereas the report focuses totally on how leaders handled abuse points when survivors got here ahead, it also states that a main Southern Baptist chief was credibly accused of sexually assaulting a woman 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 vp on the SBC’s missions arm, was credibly accused of assaulting a woman throughout a Panama Metropolis Seashore, Fla., trip in 2010.

The report states that Hunt, in an interview with investigators, denied any physical contact with the woman however 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 within the Guidepost report. I have by no means abused anyone.”

Hunt resigned on Could 13 from the North American Mission Board, in accordance with a press release by NAMB President Kevin Ezell. Ezell mentioned that earlier than Might 13, he was not aware of alleged misconduct by Hunt. Usually, he called the small print of the report “egregious and deeply disturbing.”

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

Intercourse abuse survivors, a lot of whom have been sharing their tales for years, anticipated Sunday’s launch would verify the facts around many of the stories they've already shared, however many were nonetheless surprised to see the pattern of coverups by the highest ranges of leadership.

“I knew it was rotten, nevertheless it’s astonishing and infuriating,” said Jennifer Lyell, a survivor who was as soon as the highest-paid female govt on 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 power. It is misappropriated energy. It does not in any way mirror 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, together with three past 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 centered on actions by the SBC’s Government Committee, which handles monetary and administrative duties. Although Southern Baptist churches function independently from one another, the Nashville-based Government Committee distributes more than $190 million cooperative program in its annual funds that funds its missions, seminaries and ministries.

For many years, the findings present, Southern Baptists have been informed the denomination could not put together a registry of intercourse offenders as a result of it would go in opposition to the denomination’s polity — or how it functions. What the report reveals is that leaders maintained a list of offenders whereas retaining it a secret to keep away from the potential for getting sued. The report additionally contains private emails displaying how longtime leaders equivalent to August Boto were dismissive about sexual abuse considerations, calling them “a satanic scheme to fully distract us from evangelism.”

In an April 2007 e-mail, the conference’s attorney despatched Boto a memo explaining how a SBC database could be applied in step with SBC polity, saying “it would fit our polity and current ministries to help churches in this area of child abuse and sexual misconduct.” The report states that he really helpful “immediate motion to sign the Convention’s desire that the [executive committee] and the entities start a more aggressive effort on this space.” That same year, after a Southern Baptist pastor made a movement for a database, Boto rejected the concept.

For a denomination designed to provide 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 a few key leaders, including Boto and the convention’s longtime lawyer, James Guenther, to control the nationwide institutional response to sex abuse for decades. Guenther, the longtime lawyer for the SBC, said he had not read the report but. Attempts to achieve Boto on Sunday have been unsuccessful.

“The report goes to validate so much about how they actually blindly selected to remain on the identical 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 along. Now Southern Baptists have to carry the weight.”

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

The debate over waiving privilege upset a big 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 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 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 sex abuse claims

According to the report, Floyd advised 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 crisis.” He then acknowledged: “Our priority can't be the latest 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 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 Executive Committee “turned his again to her throughout her speech and another chortled.”

“The Govt Committee betrayed not only survivors who labored onerous to try to make one thing happen, but betrayed the entire Southern Baptist Convention,” stated Brown, who's a retired appellate legal professional in Colorado. “They’ve made their very own faith into a complicit accomplice for their very own choice to choose institutional safety over the safety of children and congregants.”

The report, which was requested by Southern Baptists throughout its final annual meeting, comes simply weeks earlier than its next gathering in Anaheim, Calif., the place members are anticipated talk about next steps. Suggestions by Guidepost embrace providing dedicated survivor advocacy support and a survivor compensation fund.

“We must be ready to take meaningful steps to alter our culture because it pertains to sexual abuse,” Ed Litton, the current SBC president, mentioned in an announcement.

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 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 sex abuse disaster, wrote to the SBC and Government Committee presidents, in line with the report. He expressed his concerns that SBC leaders could be falling into a few of the same patterns as Catholic leaders in not dealing with clergy sex abuse, and he urged that Southern Baptists should 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 main the Govt Committee on the time, responded to Doyle in a short letter that “Southern Baptist leaders actually haven't any authority over native churches” however that they'd try to use their “influence” to offer protections. In an article, Web 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 position in 2018 over having a “morally inappropriate relationship.” Web page didn't instantly return a request for remark.

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 stated that the report reveals a necessity for institutions just like the SBC to hunt exterior expertise on sex abuse.

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

The problem 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 policy arm, the Ethics & Non secular Liberty Commission. Moore said he expects Southern Baptists to obtain Sunday’s report in an identical 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 said. “Individuals will say, ‘This is not all Southern Baptists, take a look at all the nice we do.’ The report demonstrates a pattern of stonewalling, coverup, intimidation and retaliation.”

Moore mentioned he hopes the SBC will contemplate 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 twenty years combating for reform.