Southern Baptist leaders coated up sex abuse, explosive report says

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

The findings of nearly 300 pages embody shocking new particulars about particular abuse cases and shine a light-weight on how denominational leaders for many years actively resisted requires abuse prevention and reform. Evidence in the report suggests leaders additionally lied to Southern Baptists over whether or not they could maintain a database of offenders to forestall extra abuse when top leaders have been secretly preserving a personal checklist for years.

The report — the primary investigation of its form in a massive Protestant denomination just like the SBC — is predicted to ship shock waves throughout a conservative Christian group that has had intense inner battles over methods to deal with intercourse abuse. The 13 million-member denomination, along with other spiritual institutions in the United States, has struggled with declining membership for the past 15 years. Its leaders have long resisted comparisons between its sexual abuse crisis and that of the Catholic Church, saying the entire variety of abuse instances amongst Southern Baptists was small.

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

The report, compiled by an organization called Guidepost Options at the request of Southern Baptists, states that abuse survivors’ calls and emails were “solely to be met, time and time once more, with resistance, stonewalling, and even outright hostility” by leaders who had been involved extra with protecting the institution from liability than from protecting Southern Baptists from further abuse.

“While stories of abuse were minimized, and survivors were ignored and even vilified, revelations got here to mild in recent times that some senior SBC leaders had protected or even supported alleged abusers, the report states.

While the report focuses primarily on how leaders dealt with abuse points when survivors came forward, it additionally states that a main Southern Baptist chief was credibly accused of sexually assaulting a woman only 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 chairman on the SBC’s missions arm, was credibly accused of assaulting a lady throughout a Panama Metropolis Seashore, 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 launched, 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 never abused anyone.”

Hunt resigned on Might 13 from the North American Mission Board, according to a press release by NAMB President Kevin Ezell. Ezell said that earlier than Might 13, he was not conscious of alleged misconduct by Hunt. Generally, he referred to as the small print 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, lots of whom have been sharing their tales for years, anticipated Sunday’s launch would verify the information round many of the tales they've already shared, but many were still stunned to see the pattern of coverups by the best levels of management.

“I knew it was rotten, but it surely’s astonishing and infuriating,” said Jennifer Lyell, a survivor who was once 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 can be a denomination that is through and thru about power. It is misappropriated power. It doesn't in any method 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, together with three past presidents of the conference, a former vice president 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 Executive Committee, which handles monetary and administrative duties. Though Southern Baptist church buildings operate independently from each other, the Nashville-based Government Committee distributes greater 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 advised the denomination couldn't put together a registry of sex offenders because it could go in opposition to the denomination’s polity — or the way it features. What the report reveals is that leaders maintained a list of offenders whereas holding it a secret to keep away from the possibility of getting sued. The report also consists of non-public emails displaying how longtime leaders similar to August Boto have been 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 legal professional despatched Boto a memo explaining how a SBC database might be implemented according to SBC polity, saying “it would fit our polity and current ministries to help churches in this space of child abuse and sexual misconduct.” The report states that he really useful “rapid motion to sign the Convention’s desire that the [executive committee] and the entities begin a extra aggressive effort in this area.” That very same year, after a Southern Baptist pastor made a motion for a database, Boto rejected the thought.

For a denomination designed to provide 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, including Boto and the convention’s longtime lawyer, James Guenther, to control the nationwide institutional response to sex abuse for many years. Guenther, the longtime lawyer for the SBC, said he had not read the report yet. Makes an attempt to reach Boto on Sunday have been unsuccessful.

“The report goes to validate a lot about how they actually blindly chose to stay on the same path all these years,” mentioned 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 carry the weight.”

During Govt Committee meetings in 2021, some members argued against waiving attorney-client privilege, which might give investigators entry to data of conversations on authorized matters among the many committee’s members and staffers. They mentioned doing so went against the recommendation 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, 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 also led to the resignation of the Executive 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 choice over attorney-client privilege also led to the resignation of the convention’s attorneys, who are named all through the report.

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

In response to the report, Floyd advised SBC leaders in a 2019 e mail that he had received “some calls” from “key SBC pastors and leaders” expressing “growing concern about all of the emphasis on the sexual abuse crisis.” He then stated: “Our precedence can't be the latest cultural disaster.” Floyd didn't immediately 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 different Southern Baptist churches in a number of 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 back to her during her speech and one other chortled.”

“The Govt Committee betrayed not only survivors who worked arduous to try to make something occur, however betrayed the entire Southern Baptist Conference,” mentioned Brown, who's a retired appellate legal professional in Colorado. “They’ve made their very own religion into a complicit associate for their very own resolution to decide on institutional protection over the protection of children and congregants.”

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

“We must be able to take meaningful steps to change our tradition because it pertains to sexual abuse,” Ed Litton, the present SBC president, said in a statement.

Since a long time of intercourse abuse and coverups within the Catholic Church had been 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 stop the transfer of abusers to other church buildings. In contrast to 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 disaster, wrote to the SBC and Govt Committee presidents, based on the report. He expressed his considerations that SBC leaders might be falling into some of the identical patterns as Catholic leaders in not dealing with clergy sex abuse, and he urged that Southern Baptists ought to learn 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 leading the Govt Committee on the time, responded to Doyle in a brief letter that “Southern Baptist leaders actually have no authority over local churches” but that they'd try to use their “affect” to supply protections. In an article, Web page accused a survivor group of having 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.” Page did not 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 job pressure on the difficulty and mentioned that the report shows a necessity for establishments like the SBC to hunt exterior expertise on sex abuse.

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

The problem of sex abuse was a distinguished 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 Fee. Moore stated he expects Southern Baptists to obtain Sunday’s report in a similar option 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, look at all the nice we do.’ The report demonstrates a pattern of stonewalling, coverup, intimidation and retaliation.”

Moore said he hopes the SBC will think about 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 previous two decades preventing for reform.