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 sex abuse survivors were usually ignored, minimized and “even vilified” by high clergy within the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

The findings of nearly 300 pages include surprising new particulars about particular abuse circumstances and shine a light on how denominational leaders for decades actively resisted calls for abuse prevention and reform. Proof within the report suggests leaders also lied to Southern Baptists over whether or not they may preserve a database of offenders to prevent more abuse when top leaders had been secretly keeping a private list for years.

The report — the first investigation of its variety in a massive Protestant denomination just like the SBC — is predicted to ship shock waves all through a conservative Christian community that has had intense internal battles over how one can deal with intercourse abuse. The 13 million-member denomination, along with other non secular institutions in the US, 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 full variety of abuse instances amongst 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 youngster molesters and other accused abusers who were within the pulpit or employed as church staff members. Many of the cases referred to in the report were thought of outdoors the statute of limitations, the time survivors can report intercourse abuse, so it’s unclear how many abusers have been criminally charged.

The report, compiled by a company called Guidepost Options at the request of Southern Baptists, states that abuse survivors’ calls and emails had been “only to be met, time and time again, with resistance, stonewalling, and even outright hostility” by leaders who had been concerned extra with defending the institution from liability than from protecting Southern Baptists from additional abuse.

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

While the report focuses totally on how leaders dealt with abuse points when survivors got here ahead, it also states that a major Southern Baptist chief was credibly accused of sexually assaulting a girl 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 vice chairman at the SBC’s missions arm, was credibly accused of assaulting a girl during a Panama Metropolis Beach, Fla., trip 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 press release on Twitter, saying, “I vigorously deny the circumstances and characterizations set forth within the Guidepost report. I've by no means abused anyone.”

Hunt resigned on Could 13 from the North American Mission Board, in line with an announcement by NAMB President Kevin Ezell. Ezell said that before May 13, he was not conscious of alleged misconduct by Hunt. Usually, he referred to as the main points 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.

Sex abuse survivors, lots of whom have been sharing their tales for years, anticipated Sunday’s release would confirm the facts round most of the tales they've already shared, but many had been nonetheless stunned to see the sample of coverups by the very best levels of management.

“I knew it was rotten, however it’s astonishing and infuriating,” stated Jennifer Lyell, a survivor who was as soon as the highest-paid female government on the SBC and whose story of sexual abuse at a Southern Baptist seminary is detailed within the report. “This is a denomination that is by and thru about energy. It's misappropriated power. It doesn't in any manner mirror the Jesus I see within the scriptures. I am so gutted.”

The report also names a number of senior SBC leaders who protected and even supported alleged abusers, including three previous presidents of the convention, a former vice chairman 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 Executive Committee, which handles financial and administrative duties. Although Southern Baptist churches function independently from one another, the Nashville-based Govt Committee distributes more than $190 million cooperative program in its annual budget that funds its missions, seminaries and ministries.

For decades, the findings present, Southern Baptists have been advised the denomination couldn't put together a registry of intercourse offenders because it would go in opposition to the denomination’s polity — or the way it features. What the report reveals is that leaders maintained an inventory of offenders while maintaining it a secret to avoid the possibility of getting sued. The report also includes private emails showing how longtime leaders equivalent to August Boto have been dismissive about sexual abuse issues, calling them “a satanic scheme to completely distract us from evangelism.”

In an April 2007 email, the convention’s attorney despatched Boto a memo explaining how a SBC database might be implemented according to SBC polity, saying “it will fit our polity and present ministries to assist church buildings on this space of child abuse and sexual misconduct.” The report states that he advisable “instant action to signal the Conference’s need that the [executive committee] and the entities start a extra aggressive effort in this space.” That very same 12 months, after a Southern Baptist pastor made a motion for a database, Boto rejected the thought.

For a denomination designed to give more democratic energy to its lay leaders or “messengers” who voted to commission the third-party investigation, the report exhibits how lay Southern Baptists allowed just a few key leaders, including Boto and the conference’s longtime lawyer, James Guenther, to regulate the nationwide institutional response to sex abuse for decades. Guenther, the longtime lawyer for the SBC, stated he had not learn the report but. Makes an attempt to achieve Boto on Sunday have been unsuccessful.

“The report is going to validate a lot about how they really 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 within the report. “It buoys what we’ve been saying all alongside. Now Southern Baptists have to carry the load.”

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

The debate over waiving privilege upset a large swath of Southern Baptists, causing some to consider the Government 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 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 also led to the resignation of the convention’s attorneys, who're named all through the report.

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

In accordance with the report, Floyd informed SBC leaders in a 2019 e 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 stated: “Our precedence can't be the most recent cultural disaster.” Floyd did not immediately return a request for comment.

Christa Brown, who instructed 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 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 Government Committee betrayed not solely survivors who worked hard to attempt to make one thing occur, but betrayed the entire Southern Baptist Convention,” mentioned Brown, who is a retired appellate legal professional in Colorado. “They’ve made their very own religion right into a complicit partner for their very own decision to choose institutional protection over the safety of youngsters and congregants.”

The report, which was requested by Southern Baptists throughout its final annual assembly, comes just weeks earlier than its subsequent gathering in Anaheim, Calif., the place members are anticipated talk about subsequent steps. Recommendations by Guidepost embody offering devoted survivor advocacy help and a survivor compensation fund.

“We should be ready to take meaningful steps to alter our tradition as it relates to sexual abuse,” Ed Litton, the current SBC president, mentioned in a statement.

Since decades of intercourse abuse and coverups in the Catholic Church were reported by the Boston Globe in 2002, some U.S. dioceses have revealed lists of priests they are saying have been credibly accused of sexual abuse to prevent the switch of abusers to other church buildings. Unlike 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, according to the report. He expressed his concerns that SBC leaders might be falling into some of the same patterns as Catholic leaders in not coping with clergy sex abuse, and he urged that Southern Baptists should study from Catholic errors and take motion early on to implement structural reforms so as to make children 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 really have no authority over local churches” however that they'd try to make use of their “influence” to provide protections. In an article, Web page accused a survivor group of getting a hidden agenda of setting up the nation’s largest Protestant body for lawsuits. Web page later resigned from his position in 2018 over having a “morally inappropriate relationship.” Web page did not 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 job power on the difficulty and stated that the report exhibits a need for establishments just like the SBC to hunt outside expertise on sex abuse.

“It shows a degree of coverup and harassment and resistance to reforms on an institutional degree that has led to a long time of survivors being victimized and harm,” Denhollander said. “The query Southern Baptists need to ask is, ‘How might this happen?’”

The issue of intercourse abuse was a prominent theme in leaked private letters written by Russell Moore, who left his position in 2021 as head of the SBC’s coverage arm, the Ethics & Spiritual Liberty Fee. Moore stated he expects Southern Baptists to obtain Sunday’s report in the same way 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. “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 mentioned he hopes the SBC will consider 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 previous two decades fighting for reform.