Southern Baptist leaders covered up intercourse abuse, explosive report says

Leaders within the Southern Baptist Conference on Sunday released a major third-party investigation that found that sex abuse survivors were usually ignored, minimized and “even vilified” by prime clergy in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

The findings of practically 300 pages embrace shocking new details about specific abuse circumstances and shine a light-weight on how denominational leaders for decades actively resisted calls for abuse prevention and reform. Evidence in the report suggests leaders also lied to Southern Baptists over whether they may keep a database of offenders to forestall more abuse when high leaders have been secretly conserving a private record for years.

The report — the first investigation of its type in a large Protestant denomination like the SBC — is expected to ship shock waves throughout a conservative Christian neighborhood that has had intense inner battles over handle intercourse abuse. The 13 million-member denomination, along with different non secular establishments in the USA, has struggled with declining membership for the previous 15 years. Its leaders have long resisted comparisons between its sexual abuse disaster and that of the Catholic Church, saying the total number of abuse circumstances amongst Southern Baptists was small.

The investigation finds that for nearly 20 years, survivors of abuse and different involved Southern Baptists have been contacting the Southern Baptist Conference’s administrative arm to report alleged baby molesters and other accused abusers who were within the pulpit or employed as church workers members. Most of the cases referred to in the report were considered outside the statute of limitations, the time survivors can report intercourse abuse, so it’s unclear what number of abusers were 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 “solely to be met, time and time once more, with resistance, stonewalling, and even outright hostility” by leaders who had been concerned extra with protecting the establishment from legal responsibility than from protecting Southern Baptists from additional abuse.

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

Whereas the report focuses primarily on how leaders dealt with abuse issues when survivors got here ahead, it additionally states that a major Southern Baptist chief was credibly accused of sexually assaulting a woman only one month after he completed his two-year tenure as president of the convention. The report finds that Johnny Hunt, a beloved Georgia-based Southern Baptist pastor who has been a senior vp at the SBC’s missions arm, was credibly accused of assaulting a lady during a Panama Metropolis Beach, Fla., trip in 2010.

The report states that Hunt, in an interview with investigators, denied any bodily contact with the girl but acknowledged that he had interactions together 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 by no means abused anybody.”

Hunt resigned on Could 13 from the North American Mission Board, in accordance with a press release by NAMB President Kevin Ezell. Ezell stated that before Might 13, he was not conscious of alleged misconduct by Hunt. Usually, he called the small print 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, lots of whom have been sharing their tales for years, anticipated Sunday’s launch would affirm the info around most of the tales they've already shared, but many have been nonetheless surprised to see the sample of coverups by the best ranges of leadership.

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

The report also names several senior SBC leaders who protected and even supported alleged abusers, including three previous presidents of the conference, a former vice president and the previous head of the SBC’s administrative arm.

The third-party investigation into actions between 2000 and 2021 centered on actions by the SBC’s Govt Committee, which handles financial and administrative duties. Though Southern Baptist churches function independently from each other, the Nashville-based Govt Committee distributes greater than $190 million cooperative program in its annual budget that funds its missions, seminaries and ministries.

For many years, the findings present, Southern Baptists have been advised the denomination could not put collectively a registry of intercourse offenders because it could go against the denomination’s polity — or the way it functions. What the report reveals is that leaders maintained an inventory of offenders whereas conserving it a secret to keep away from the potential for getting sued. The report additionally consists of non-public emails showing how longtime leaders akin 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 e mail, the convention’s lawyer sent Boto a memo explaining how a SBC database could be carried out in line with SBC polity, saying “it will fit our polity and present ministries to help church buildings in this space of kid abuse and sexual misconduct.” The report states that he really helpful “rapid action to signal the Convention’s desire that the [executive committee] and the entities begin a more aggressive effort on this area.” That same year, after a Southern Baptist pastor made a motion for a database, Boto rejected the idea.

For a denomination designed to provide more democratic energy to its lay leaders or “messengers” who voted to fee the third-party investigation, the report reveals how lay Southern Baptists allowed just a few key leaders, including Boto and the conference’s longtime lawyer, James Guenther, to control the nationwide institutional response to intercourse abuse for many years. Guenther, the longtime lawyer for the SBC, mentioned he had not learn the report but. Attempts to succeed in Boto on Sunday were unsuccessful.

“The report is going to validate so much about how they actually blindly selected to remain on the identical path all these years,” stated 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 along. Now Southern Baptists have to carry the weight.”

During Govt Committee conferences in 2021, some members argued towards waiving attorney-client privilege, which might give investigators access to records of conversations on authorized issues among the committee’s members and staffers. They stated doing so went towards the recommendation of convention attorneys and could bankrupt the SBC by exposing it to lawsuits.

The controversy over waiving privilege upset a big swath of Southern Baptists, inflicting some to believe 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 additionally led to the resignation of the Govt Committee’s head, Ronnie Floyd, who additionally once served as SBC president and was on President Donald Trump’s evangelical advisory council. The choice over attorney-client privilege additionally led to the resignation of the conference’s attorneys, who are named throughout the report.

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

Based on the report, Floyd informed 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 said: “Our precedence can't be the newest cultural disaster.” Floyd didn't immediately return a request for remark.

Christa Brown, who told SBC leaders that she was abused by a youth pastor who went on to serve in other 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 Govt Committee “turned his back to her during her speech and another chortled.”

“The Government Committee betrayed not only survivors who labored hard to try to make one thing happen, but betrayed the whole Southern Baptist Conference,” said Brown, who's a retired appellate attorney in Colorado. “They’ve made their own faith right into a complicit associate for their own decision to choose institutional safety over the protection of children and congregants.”

The report, which was requested by Southern Baptists throughout its final annual meeting, comes simply weeks before its next gathering in Anaheim, Calif., where members are anticipated talk about next steps. Recommendations by Guidepost include providing devoted survivor advocacy support and a survivor compensation fund.

“We have to be ready to take meaningful steps to alter our tradition because it relates to sexual abuse,” Ed Litton, the current SBC president, stated in a press release.

Since a long time of sex abuse and coverups in the Catholic Church have been reported by the Boston Globe in 2002, some U.S. dioceses have revealed lists of monks they say have been credibly accused of sexual abuse to forestall the transfer of abusers to different churches. 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 Government Committee presidents, in accordance with the report. He expressed his concerns that SBC leaders could be falling into among the similar patterns as Catholic leaders in not dealing with clergy intercourse abuse, and he urged that Southern Baptists ought to be taught from Catholic errors and take action early on to implement structural reforms in order to make youngsters safer.

The report states that Frank Page, who was leading the Govt Committee on the time, responded to Doyle in a brief letter that “Southern Baptist leaders actually don't have any authority over native church buildings” but that they would attempt to make use of their “influence” to offer 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. Page later resigned from his position in 2018 over having a “morally inappropriate relationship.” Web 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 job drive on the problem and stated that the report exhibits a necessity for establishments just like the SBC to hunt outdoors experience on intercourse abuse.

“It reveals a degree of coverup and harassment and resistance to reforms on an institutional stage that has led to a long time of survivors being victimized and harm,” Denhollander stated. “The question Southern Baptists should ask is, ‘How might this occur?’”

The difficulty of sex 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 & Religious Liberty Fee. Moore stated he expects Southern Baptists to receive Sunday’s report in an analogous method 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 stated. “Individuals 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 mentioned he hopes the SBC will contemplate changing a statue of evangelist Billy Graham, which was moved from Nashville to Graham’s house state in 2016, with a statue of Christa Brown, the abuse survivor who spent the previous twenty years fighting for reform.