Report on Southern Baptist Churches: the SBC Covered Up Cases of Abuse and Mistreated Abuse Victims for Years
This report about sex abuse cover up by the Southern Baptists was actually released around May of 2022, but I’m not blogging about it until now.
I was brought up in the Southern Baptist Church. My parents took me to different SB churches when I was a kid – we moved often.
I think I kind of stopped considering myself as being a Southern Baptist a few years ago, long before the abuse blow-ups and other scandals started to be revealed more and more a few years ago.
Southern Baptists used a secular group called Guidepost Solutions to investigate how the SBC has dealt with abuse, and lately, (Link): some Baptists are very unhappy with Guidepost Solutions.
I’m sorry for all the people who were abused in the church or by church staff and that the SBC covered it up.
On another level, as I grow older and periodically reflect back on my life, this is another one of those regrets.
I wasted so many years on things, like belief in the Christian faith, being a Southern Baptist, and believing in Southern Baptist, evangelical precepts.
I was told when I was a kid and older – by my Baptist parents, in Sunday morning sermons, or in Sunday school classes, and in books by Christian authors my Mom brought home back then – that if I just trusted in God, lived a clean life, had faith in God, that God would protect and provide – but that turned out not to be true.
I was told by Southern Baptists (and other types of Christians) that if I stayed sexually abstinent, went to church, lived a clean life (as defined by Baptists), etc, not to worry about finding a spouse by my own efforts, that God would provide .
I was also told by Christians on TV, Christians at church, in Christian books, etc not to date outside the faith (the “equally yoked” rule). I was assured if I was a good Christian girl that God would bless me with a Christian “Mr. Right,” which turned out to also be a bunch of garbage.
What a waste of time it was for me to be a Christian for all those years!
My parents taught me, that as I was a single woman, that Southern Baptist Churches would be a preferable place to meet single men as opposed to night clubs or bars.
As I’ve been saying for years now, considering all the Christian perverts found in churches, I don’t see how churches are any safer to use as a place to meet potential dates than your average bar or dating site.
Looks like a bunch of sexist, abusive men love to attend Southern Baptist churches. If not all the Southern Baptist men are abusing women, the other ones are busy denying it’s taking place or making excuses for the men who are abusive.
This means that Southern Baptist churches are not a good or safe place for single women to meet men (then there’s the gender imbalance problem, with more women than men in attendance).
I don’t necessarily regret in its entirety living a clean life, though, because that kept me from dabbling in drugs, alcohol, sleeping around and getting diseases and so on.
But the rest of the Christian faith, as it was taught to me, and as I lived it, was not effective in many areas. And quite a bit of what was taught to me was in a Southern Baptist context.
(Link): Report: Top Southern Baptists Stonewalled Sex Abuse Victims
May 23, 2022
Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest Protestant denomination, stonewalled and denigrated survivors of clergy sex abuse over almost two decades while seeking to protect their own reputations, according to a scathing 288-page investigative report issued Sunday.
(Link): Southern Baptist leaders mistreated abuse survivors for decades, report says
Excerpts:
A blockbuster report found that SBC lawyers worked for years to protect the institution and demonized abuse survivors and accused a prominent pastor of abusing a colleague’s wife.
May 22, 2022
(RNS) — For decades, a handful of leaders in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination treated sexual abuse survivors as enemies of the church, denied responsibility for the actions of local churches and downplayed the number of sexual abuse cases in those churches, all in the name of protecting the institution, according to a report released Sunday (May 22).
The report, conducted by a third-party investigations firm, Guidepost Solutions, and made public by the Southern Baptist Convention’s sex abuse task force, reveals a callous disregard for abuse survivors and a relentless commitment to protecting the denomination from liability.
Guidepost Solutions found that SBC leaders were well aware of abuse cases in the church and even compiled a list of offenders but took no steps to find out if alleged abusers remained in ministry, instead focusing on protecting the SBC from liability.
(Link): SBC Leaders to Release Secret List of Pastors, Church Leaders Accused of Sex Abuse
(Link): SBC leaders ‘grieved’ over report finding sexual abuse claims ignored for years to avoid liability
Excerpts:
by Leonardo Blair
May 23, 2022
Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention have said they are “grieved” after an independent investigation found the denomination’s leadership mishandled sexual abuse allegations, mistreated victims and advocates, engaged in an abusive pattern of intimidation and repeatedly resisted reforms aimed at making their churches safer largely to avoid liability.
The report from Guidepost Solutions was promised to be delivered ahead of the denomination’s annual meeting set for Anaheim, California, in June. Released on Sunday, the report alleges that for the last 20 years, the SBC sought to protect the interests of the denomination above alleged sexual abuse victims even as they fielded credible claims of abuse.
These claims include one made against former SBC President Johnny Hunt, who was accused of sexually assaulting another pastor’s wife while on a beach vacation in Panama City, Florida.
“Our investigation revealed that, for many years, a few senior EC leaders, along with outside counsel, largely controlled the EC’s response to these reports of abuse. They closely guarded information about abuse allegations and lawsuits, which were not shared with EC Trustees, and were singularly focused on avoiding liability for the SBC to the exclusion of other considerations,” Guidepost Solutions investigators wrote in their 288-page report to the denomination’s Sexual Abuse Task Force.
“In service of this goal, survivors and others who reported abuse were ignored, disbelieved, or met with the constant refrain that the SBC could take no action due to its polity regarding church autonomy – even if it meant that convicted molesters continued in ministry with no notice or warning to their current church or congregation,” investigators continued.
Leaders made list public days after 288-page report exposed alleged culture of cover-ups of sexual abuse in denomination
May 27, 2022
by Tyler O’Neil
The Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee publicly released a list of alleged sexual abusers, urging churches to use the list “proactively” to protect the vulnerable, in the wake of an exhaustive report into sexual abuse and decades of cover-ups in the denomination.
The list, which the committee submitted to Guidepost Solutions as it compiled its 288-page investigative report, (Link: off site, PDF format): runs to 205 pages of names, with some names and claims redacted.
“The recently released Guidepost report revealed a list of alleged abusers compiled by a former employee of the SBC Executive Committee,” Willie McLaurin, interim president and CEO of the SBC Executive Committee, and Rolland Slade, the committee’s chairman, wrote in a joint statement Thursday. “This list is being made public for the first time as an initial, but important, step towards addressing the scourge of sexual abuse and implementing reform in the Convention.”
…The list comes days after news of the Guidepost Solutions report broke on Sunday. The report found that sexual abuse victims in the church were stonewalled and faced “outright hostility” from leadership, as suspected perpetrators were allowed to remain in leadership positions.
“Our investigation revealed that, for many years, a few senior EC leaders, along with outside counsel, largely controlled the EC’s response to these reports of abuse … and were singularly focused on avoiding liability for the SBC,” the report said.
In a statement Sunday, SBC President Ed Litton said he is “grieved to my core” and called on Southern Baptist members to work on changing the culture found in the report.
…Al Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, said the report should bring Southern Baptists to repent, as biblical prophets did in wearing “sackcloth and ashes.”
Related:
(Link): Southern Baptists Say Denomination Faces DOJ (Department of Justice) Investigation
(Link): Guidepost Solutions’ LGBT Pride Tweet Sparks Uproar in SBC
(Link): Ending Priestly Celibacy Would Not Stop Abuse by E. Condon – Celibates Are Not Pedophiles
(Link): Baptists Still Advocating Unbiblical Bedroom Evangelism as Growth Strategy (2015)
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