Southern Baptist leaders covered up sex 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 usually ignored, minimized and “even vilified” by top clergy within the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

The findings of almost 300 pages embody stunning new particulars about particular abuse cases and shine a light on how denominational leaders for many years actively resisted requires abuse prevention and reform. Evidence within the report suggests leaders additionally lied to Southern Baptists over whether they could preserve a database of offenders to forestall extra abuse when high leaders were secretly protecting a private listing for years.

The report — the primary investigation of its sort in a large Protestant denomination like the SBC — is anticipated to ship shock waves all through a conservative Christian community that has had intense internal battles over the best way to deal with intercourse abuse. The 13 million-member denomination, together with different non secular institutions in america, has struggled with declining membership for the past 15 years. Its leaders have lengthy resisted comparisons between its sexual abuse disaster and that of the Catholic Church, saying the overall variety of abuse circumstances amongst Southern Baptists was small.

The investigation finds that for almost twenty years, survivors of abuse and other 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 within the pulpit or employed as church employees members. Many of the instances referred to within the report had been considered exterior the statute of limitations, the time survivors can report sex abuse, so it’s unclear what number of abusers had been criminally charged.

The report, compiled by an organization referred to as Guidepost Solutions on the request of Southern Baptists, states that abuse survivors’ calls and emails have been “only to be met, time and time again, with resistance, stonewalling, and even outright hostility” by leaders who have been involved more with defending the establishment from legal responsibility than from defending Southern Baptists from further abuse.

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

While the report focuses primarily on how leaders dealt with abuse issues when survivors got here 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 conference. The report finds that Johnny Hunt, a beloved Georgia-based Southern Baptist pastor who has been a senior vice president on the SBC’s missions arm, was credibly accused of assaulting a girl throughout 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 in the Guidepost report. I have never abused anybody.”

Hunt resigned on Could 13 from the North American Mission Board, in line with a statement by NAMB President Kevin Ezell. Ezell mentioned that earlier than May 13, he was not aware of alleged misconduct by Hunt. Generally, he referred to as the main points of the report “egregious and deeply disturbing.”

Southern Baptists have been immersed in their own intercourse abuse scandals. Now, they’re debating their response.

Sex abuse survivors, many of whom have been sharing their stories for years, anticipated Sunday’s launch would verify the details round lots of the stories they have already shared, however many were nonetheless shocked to see the sample of coverups by the best ranges of leadership.

“I knew it was rotten, but it’s astonishing and infuriating,” mentioned Jennifer Lyell, a survivor who was once the highest-paid feminine executive at the SBC and whose story of sexual abuse at a Southern Baptist seminary is detailed in the report. “It is a denomination that is by and thru about power. It's misappropriated power. It does not in any method reflect the Jesus I see within the scriptures. I'm so gutted.”

The report also names a number of senior SBC leaders who protected and even supported alleged abusers, together with three previous presidents of the convention, a former vice chairman and the previous head of the SBC’s administrative arm.

The third-party investigation into actions between 2000 and 2021 focused on actions by the SBC’s Govt Committee, which handles monetary and administrative duties. Although Southern Baptist church buildings operate independently from each other, the Nashville-based Government 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 told the denomination couldn't put together a registry of sex offenders as a result of it could go in opposition to the denomination’s polity — or how it capabilities. What the report reveals is that leaders maintained an inventory of offenders whereas maintaining it a secret to avoid the opportunity of getting sued. The report also includes private emails exhibiting how longtime leaders akin to August Boto were dismissive about sexual abuse considerations, calling them “a satanic scheme to completely distract us from evangelism.”

In an April 2007 electronic mail, the convention’s lawyer despatched Boto a memo explaining how a SBC database could be applied 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 “quick motion to signal the Convention’s desire that the [executive committee] and the entities start a extra aggressive effort in this area.” That same yr, after a Southern Baptist pastor made a movement for a database, Boto rejected the thought.

For a denomination designed to offer more democratic power to its lay leaders or “messengers” who voted to fee the third-party investigation, the report reveals how lay Southern Baptists allowed a few key leaders, including Boto and the convention’s longtime lawyer, James Guenther, to control the nationwide institutional response to sex abuse for decades. Guenther, the longtime lawyer for the SBC, said he had not learn the report yet. Makes an attempt to reach Boto on Sunday had 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 within the report. “It buoys what we’ve been saying all alongside. Now Southern Baptists have to carry the weight.”

Throughout Executive Committee conferences in 2021, some members argued against waiving attorney-client privilege, which would give investigators entry to information of conversations on legal matters among the committee’s members and staffers. They said doing so went towards the advice of conference attorneys and will bankrupt the SBC by exposing it to lawsuits.

The controversy over waiving privilege upset a big swath of Southern Baptists, causing some to believe 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 Govt 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 decision over attorney-client privilege additionally led to the resignation of the conference’s attorneys, who're named throughout the report.

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

According 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 the emphasis on the sexual abuse crisis.” He then stated: “Our precedence can't be the newest cultural disaster.” Floyd didn't instantly 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 a number of 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 Government Committee betrayed not solely survivors who labored arduous to attempt to make something occur, but betrayed the entire Southern Baptist Conference,” stated Brown, who is a retired appellate legal professional in Colorado. “They’ve made their own religion right into a complicit accomplice for their very own decision to decide on institutional safety over the protection of youngsters and congregants.”

The report, which was requested by Southern Baptists throughout its final annual assembly, comes simply weeks before its subsequent gathering in Anaheim, Calif., where members are anticipated discuss next steps. Suggestions by Guidepost embody offering devoted survivor advocacy help and a survivor compensation fund.

“We must be ready to take meaningful steps to change our culture as it relates to sexual abuse,” Ed Litton, the present SBC president, mentioned in an announcement.

Since a long time of sex abuse and coverups in the Catholic Church were reported by the Boston Globe in 2002, some U.S. dioceses have published lists of priests they say have been credibly accused of sexual abuse to stop the switch of abusers to other church buildings. Not like 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 sex abuse crisis, wrote to the SBC and Government Committee presidents, based on the report. He expressed his concerns that SBC leaders could be falling into some of the same patterns as Catholic leaders in not coping with clergy intercourse abuse, and he urged that Southern Baptists should be taught from Catholic mistakes and take motion early on to implement structural reforms in order to make kids safer.

The report states that Frank Web page, who was main the Government Committee on the time, responded to Doyle in a brief letter that “Southern Baptist leaders truly have no authority over native church buildings” but that they would try to use their “affect” to provide protections. In an article, Web page accused a survivor group of having a hidden agenda of organising the nation’s largest Protestant physique for lawsuits. Page later resigned from his place in 2018 over having a “morally inappropriate relationship.” Page didn't instantly 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 activity power on the difficulty and mentioned that the report shows a necessity for establishments just like the SBC to hunt outdoors experience on intercourse abuse.

“It exhibits a stage of coverup and harassment and resistance to reforms on an institutional level that has led to decades of survivors being victimized and hurt,” Denhollander said. “The question Southern Baptists need to ask is, ‘How might this happen?’”

The issue of intercourse abuse was a outstanding theme in leaked personal letters written by Russell Moore, who left his place in 2021 as head of the SBC’s policy arm, the Ethics & Spiritual Liberty Commission. Moore stated he expects Southern Baptists to obtain Sunday’s report in the same strategy 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. “Folks will say, ‘This isn't all Southern Baptists, have a look at all the good we do.’ The report demonstrates a pattern of stonewalling, coverup, intimidation and retaliation.”

Moore stated he hopes the SBC will take into account 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.