Southern Baptists face push for public listing of intercourse abusers

A blistering report on the Southern Baptist Conference’s mishandling of sex abuse allegations is raising the prospect that the denomination, for the primary time, will create a publicly accessible database of pastors and other church personnel recognized to be abusers.

The creation of an “Offender Info System” was one of the key suggestions in a report launched Sunday by Guidepost Options, an impartial agency contracted by the SBC’s Government Committee after delegates to final 12 months’s national meeting pressed for an investigation by outsiders.

The proposed database is expected to be certainly one of a number of suggestions introduced to hundreds of delegates attending this yr’s nationwide meeting, scheduled for June 14-15 in Anaheim, California.

“Those recommendations will probably be open to questions, debate and comments on the meeting floor,” stated SBC President Ed Litton.

He expressed hope that the stunning findings in the Guidepost report will bring “lasting change” to the SBC, America’s largest Protestant denomination. It has been shedding membership steadily in recent years, whereas being wracked by inner divisions over race and gender roles.

The Guidepost report mentioned survivors of abuse by SBC clergy repeatedly shared allegations with the Govt Committee, “only to be met, time and time once more, with resistance, stonewalling, and even outright hostility from some inside the EC.”

“Our investigation revealed that, for a few years, a number of senior EC leaders, together with outside counsel, largely controlled the EC’s response to those studies of abuse ... and have been singularly targeted on avoiding legal responsibility,” the report said.

The movement for an impartial investigation was put forward finally 12 months’s nationwide meeting by the Rev. Grant Gaines, senior pastor of Belle Aire Baptist Church in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

Reading the Guidepost report, Gaines mentioned he was struck by repeated examples of a callous disregard for survivors, as well as leaders prioritizing protection of the SBC from legal responsibility over abuse prevention.

“We’re at a fork in the highway,” Gaines stated. “I think this report supplied the information that we needed for there to be a groundswell of assist to take the proper actions.”

Particularly, Gaines mentioned he helps the proposal to create a system that alerts communities to recognized offenders.

“I feel that’s one of the first issues we should always do,” he said.

Lawyer and writer Christa Brown, who says she was sexually abused as a teen by the youth minister at her SBC church, has been pressing the SBC since 2006 to create a publicly accessible database of recognized abusers. She was heartened that Guidepost was recommending such a system, but mentioned questions stay about its implementation.

“What is completely important is that the native church can't function as the default or presumed beginning place for a survivor to attempt to get hold of an investigation of clergy intercourse abuse,” she stated by way of electronic mail. “If the native church is deemed to be a requisite first stop for survivors to pursue motion, then many survivors’ voices will be choked in their throats earlier than sound is ever uttered.”

Among the many Guidepost report’s findings was that the Government Committee saved a secret checklist of tons of of SBC-affiliated clergy and different personnel identified as intercourse abusers. Brown mentioned the committee, at a special assembly Tuesday, should comply with release this checklist.

“I urge you to make public the entirety of your list of pastors & ministers accused of sexual abuse, in no matter form it’s been kept for lo these many years,” Brown tweeted. “Put up. It. Now.”

The ultimate decisions about recommendations to submit to the Anaheim delegates will likely be made by the SBC’s Sexual Abuse Job Force, comprising seven members and two advisors. Its work over the previous 12 months has been an emotional journey, said Pastor Bruce Frank, who led the group.

“We saw patterns and things that were deeply concerning,” he said. “Our fundamental job was to empower Guidepost to do their job, they usually have achieved a really remarkable job within the final nine months to look at events that occurred over 20 years.”

Within the subsequent week or so, the duty power will bring forth formal motions in “precise language,” which will be made public and offered to the delegates in Anaheim for a vote, stated Frank, lead pastor of Biltmore Baptist Church in Arden, North Carolina.

Frank mentioned the crux of the duty force’s recommendations primarily based on Guidepost’s report could be summarized in two phrases – prevention and care.

“Our predominant purpose must be stopping sexual abuse,” he said. “And if abuse does occur, how can we look after survivors in a significantly better pastoral way? How can we higher talk to make sure (abusers) don’t go from one church to a different?”

His hope is that this report serves as “a catalyst for change.”

“Any one who is fair-minded will look at what’s in that report and demand that issues be better,” Frank mentioned. “SBC is a giant family with 48,000 church buildings. There may be some disagreement on find out how to make issues better. But I’m confident that we’ll work via the difficulties.”

In addition to intercourse abuse, the agenda for the assembly in Anaheim includes election of a new SBC president to succeed Litton.

One of many leading contenders is Bart Barber, a pastor from Farmersville, Texas, who expressed dismay at the mean-spirited behaviors attributed to some SBC officers within the Guidepost report.

If elected, Barber stated in a broadcast interview Monday, “I’m praying that God will give me the knowledge to know what to do.... We’re sailing into uncharted waters.”

“The work’s not executed,” he added. “We’ve gotten the report, but I feel all people in the survivor group that I’ve heard from has said stories are one thing, but we’ll see if this household of church buildings has the braveness and resolve to take action.”

The sex abuse scandal was thrust into the spotlight in 2019 by a landmark report from the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-Information documenting a whole lot of cases in Southern Baptist church buildings, together with a number of wherein alleged perpetrators remained in ministry.

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