Southern Baptist leaders coated up intercourse abuse, explosive report says

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

The findings of nearly 300 pages embrace surprising new particulars about specific abuse instances and shine a light on how denominational leaders for decades actively resisted calls for abuse prevention and reform. Evidence in the report suggests leaders also lied to Southern Baptists over whether they could preserve a database of offenders to prevent extra abuse when top leaders were secretly keeping a non-public record for years.

The report — the first investigation of its form in a massive Protestant denomination just like the SBC — is predicted to ship shock waves throughout a conservative Christian community that has had intense inside battles over methods to handle intercourse abuse. The 13 million-member denomination, together with different religious establishments in the United States, has struggled with declining membership for the past 15 years. Its leaders have long resisted comparisons between its sexual abuse disaster and that of the Catholic Church, saying the total number of abuse instances among 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 Conference’s administrative arm to report alleged little one molesters and different accused abusers who have been within the pulpit or employed as church employees members. Many of the circumstances referred to in the report were considered outside 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 an organization called Guidepost Solutions at the request of Southern Baptists, states that abuse survivors’ calls and emails were “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 establishment from legal responsibility than from defending Southern Baptists from additional abuse.

“Whereas stories of abuse had been minimized, and survivors were ignored or even vilified, revelations came to light in recent times 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 came ahead, it additionally states that a main 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 woman during a Panama City Beach, Fla., vacation in 2010.

The report states that Hunt, in an interview with investigators, denied any physical contact with the girl however acknowledged that he had interactions along with her. After the report was released, Hunt, who has not been charged over the alleged incident, posted a statement 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 May 13 from the North American Mission Board, in keeping with a statement by NAMB President Kevin Ezell. Ezell stated that earlier than Could 13, he was not conscious of alleged misconduct by Hunt. Typically, he called the main points 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, a lot of whom have been sharing their stories for years, anticipated Sunday’s release would verify the details round most of the stories they have already shared, but many have been nonetheless shocked to see the pattern of coverups by the highest 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 govt at the SBC and whose story of sexual abuse at a Southern Baptist seminary is detailed within the report. “This can be a denomination that is by way of and through about energy. It is misappropriated power. It doesn't in any way replicate the Jesus I see within the scriptures. I am so gutted.”

The report additionally names several senior SBC leaders who protected and even supported alleged abusers, including three past 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 focused on actions by the SBC’s Government Committee, which handles monetary and administrative duties. Though Southern Baptist churches function independently from each other, the Nashville-based Govt Committee distributes more than $190 million cooperative program in its annual finances that funds its missions, seminaries and ministries.

For many years, the findings present, Southern Baptists had been instructed the denomination couldn't put together a registry of sex offenders because it could go towards the denomination’s polity — or how it capabilities. What the report reveals is that leaders maintained a list of offenders whereas conserving it a secret to keep away from the potential of getting sued. The report additionally includes non-public emails exhibiting how longtime leaders corresponding to August Boto were dismissive about sexual abuse concerns, calling them “a satanic scheme to fully distract us from evangelism.”

In an April 2007 e-mail, the conference’s lawyer sent Boto a memo explaining how a SBC database could be implemented 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 advisable “immediate motion to signal the Conference’s want that the [executive committee] and the entities start a more aggressive effort in this space.” That very same year, after a Southern Baptist pastor made a movement for a database, Boto rejected the thought.

For a denomination designed to present more 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 couple of key leaders, together with Boto and the conference’s longtime lawyer, James Guenther, to control the nationwide institutional response to intercourse abuse for many years. Guenther, the longtime lawyer for the SBC, said he had not learn the report but. Makes an attempt to achieve Boto on Sunday had been unsuccessful.

“The report goes to validate a lot about how they really blindly selected to remain on the identical path all these years,” mentioned 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 hold the weight.”

During Executive Committee conferences in 2021, some members argued towards waiving attorney-client privilege, which would give investigators access to data of conversations on legal issues among the many committee’s members and staffers. They said doing so went in opposition to the advice of convention lawyers and will bankrupt the SBC by exposing it to lawsuits.

The controversy over waiving privilege upset a big swath of Southern Baptists, inflicting some to consider 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 additionally led to the resignation of the Government Committee’s head, Ronnie Floyd, who additionally as soon as 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 details allegations that Southern Baptist leaders mishandled intercourse abuse claims

In response to the report, Floyd told SBC leaders in a 2019 electronic mail that he had acquired “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 can't be the newest cultural disaster.” 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 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 Executive Committee “turned his back to her throughout her speech and another chortled.”

“The Govt Committee betrayed not only survivors who worked hard to try to make one thing occur, however betrayed the entire Southern Baptist Convention,” mentioned Brown, who is a retired appellate legal professional in Colorado. “They’ve made their own faith into a complicit accomplice for their own determination to decide on institutional safety over the protection of youngsters and congregants.”

The report, which was requested by Southern Baptists during its final annual meeting, comes just weeks earlier than its next gathering in Anaheim, Calif., where members are expected discuss subsequent steps. Suggestions by Guidepost embrace providing devoted survivor advocacy help and a survivor compensation fund.

“We have to be able to take significant steps to change our culture because it pertains to sexual abuse,” Ed Litton, the present 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 revealed lists of clergymen they are saying have been credibly accused of sexual abuse to forestall the transfer of abusers to other 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 intercourse abuse disaster, wrote to the SBC and Government Committee presidents, in line with the report. He expressed his considerations that SBC leaders could possibly be falling into among the similar patterns as Catholic leaders in not coping with clergy sex abuse, and he urged that Southern Baptists should 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 main the Government Committee on the time, responded to Doyle in a short letter that “Southern Baptist leaders actually don't have any authority over native churches” however that they might attempt to use their “affect” to provide protections. In an article, Web page accused a survivor group of having 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 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 task power on the difficulty and stated that the report exhibits a necessity for establishments like the SBC to hunt outdoors experience on sex abuse.

“It shows a level of coverup and harassment and resistance to reforms on an institutional degree that has led to decades of survivors being victimized and harm,” Denhollander mentioned. “The question Southern Baptists should ask is, ‘How may this occur?’”

The problem 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 & Religious Liberty Fee. Moore stated he expects Southern Baptists to obtain Sunday’s report in an analogous 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. “People will say, ‘This is not all Southern Baptists, take 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 contemplate 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 past 20 years combating for reform.