Southern Baptist leaders covered up intercourse abuse, explosive report says

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

The findings of practically 300 pages embrace shocking new particulars about specific abuse instances and shine a light on how denominational leaders for many years 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 stop more abuse when prime leaders were secretly maintaining a non-public list for years.

The report — the primary investigation of its type in a massive Protestant denomination like the SBC — is predicted to ship shock waves throughout a conservative Christian neighborhood that has had intense inside battles over find out how to deal with intercourse abuse. The 13 million-member denomination, along with other non secular establishments in the USA, has struggled with declining membership for the past 15 years. Its leaders have long resisted comparisons between its sexual abuse disaster and that of the Catholic Church, saying the whole variety of abuse cases amongst Southern Baptists was small.

The investigation finds that for almost 20 years, survivors of abuse and different concerned Southern Baptists have been contacting the Southern Baptist Convention’s administrative arm to report alleged baby molesters and different accused abusers who had been within the pulpit or employed as church employees members. Most of the instances referred to in the report were thought-about outside the statute of limitations, the time survivors can report intercourse abuse, so it’s unclear how many abusers were criminally charged.

The report, compiled by a company known as Guidepost Options on the request of Southern Baptists, states that abuse survivors’ calls and emails were “solely to be met, time and time once more, with resistance, stonewalling, and even outright hostility” by leaders who have been concerned extra with protecting the institution from legal responsibility than from protecting Southern Baptists from additional abuse.

“Whereas stories of abuse have been minimized, and survivors had been ignored or even vilified, revelations got here to light in recent times 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 came forward, it also states that a major Southern Baptist leader was credibly accused of sexually assaulting a girl just one month after he accomplished 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 vp on the SBC’s missions arm, was credibly accused of assaulting a lady during a Panama City Seaside, Fla., trip in 2010.

The report states that Hunt, in an interview with investigators, denied any bodily 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 never abused anyone.”

Hunt resigned on May 13 from the North American Mission Board, in accordance with a press release by NAMB President Kevin Ezell. Ezell said that earlier than May 13, he was not conscious of alleged misconduct by Hunt. Typically, he known as the main points of the report “egregious and deeply disturbing.”

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

Intercourse abuse survivors, lots of whom have been sharing their tales for years, anticipated Sunday’s release would verify the details around many of the tales they have already shared, but many were still stunned to see the sample of coverups by the highest ranges of management.

“I knew it was rotten, but it’s astonishing and infuriating,” said Jennifer Lyell, a survivor who was once the highest-paid feminine 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 means of and thru about power. It's misappropriated energy. It does not in any manner reflect the Jesus I see in the scriptures. I am so gutted.”

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

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

For decades, the findings present, Southern Baptists had been informed the denomination couldn't put collectively a registry of sex offenders as a result of it might go against the denomination’s polity — or how it functions. What the report reveals is that leaders maintained a list of offenders whereas maintaining it a secret to avoid the opportunity of getting sued. The report additionally consists of private emails exhibiting how longtime leaders such as 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 attorney despatched Boto a memo explaining how a SBC database could be carried out according to SBC polity, saying “it could match our polity and present ministries to assist church buildings on this area of kid abuse and sexual misconduct.” The report states that he recommended “speedy motion to sign the Conference’s need that the [executive committee] and the entities begin a more aggressive effort on this space.” That same year, after a Southern Baptist pastor made a movement for a database, Boto rejected the idea.

For a denomination designed to give more democratic power to its lay leaders or “messengers” who voted to commission the third-party investigation, the report reveals how lay Southern Baptists allowed a number of key leaders, including Boto and the convention’s longtime lawyer, James Guenther, to regulate the national institutional response to intercourse abuse for decades. Guenther, the longtime lawyer for the SBC, said he had not read the report yet. Attempts to achieve Boto on Sunday had been unsuccessful.

“The report is going to validate a lot about how they actually blindly chose to stay on the identical path all these years,” said 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 alongside. Now Southern Baptists have to carry the weight.”

During Govt Committee meetings in 2021, some members argued in opposition to waiving attorney-client privilege, which might give investigators entry to information of conversations on authorized matters among the committee’s members and staffers. They stated doing so went against the advice of conference lawyers and could bankrupt the SBC by exposing it to lawsuits.

The controversy over waiving privilege upset a large swath of Southern Baptists, causing some to consider 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 also led to the resignation of the Government Committee’s head, Ronnie Floyd, who also as soon as 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 intercourse abuse claims

In accordance with the report, Floyd told SBC leaders in a 2019 electronic mail that he had acquired “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 cannot be the latest cultural disaster.” Floyd didn't immediately return a request for comment.

Christa Brown, who informed SBC leaders that she was abused by a youth pastor who went on to serve in different Southern Baptist churches 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 Govt Committee “turned his again to her during her speech and one other chortled.”

“The Government Committee betrayed not solely survivors who worked exhausting to attempt to make one thing happen, but betrayed the entire Southern Baptist Convention,” mentioned Brown, who is a retired appellate lawyer in Colorado. “They’ve made their very own religion into a complicit partner for their very own resolution to choose institutional safety over the protection of children and congregants.”

The report, which was requested by Southern Baptists during its final annual assembly, comes simply weeks earlier than its subsequent gathering in Anaheim, Calif., the place members are anticipated discuss next steps. Suggestions by Guidepost include providing dedicated survivor advocacy assist and a survivor compensation fund.

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

Since many years of sex abuse and coverups within the Catholic Church had been reported by the Boston Globe in 2002, some U.S. dioceses have printed lists of monks they say have been credibly accused of sexual abuse to prevent the transfer of abusers to other church buildings. In contrast to the Catholic Church, the SBC has a non-hierarchical structure.

In March 2007, the Rev. Thomas Doyle, a priest and canon lawyer who first warned of the looming Catholic intercourse abuse crisis, wrote to the SBC and Executive Committee presidents, in response to the report. He expressed his issues that SBC leaders may very well be falling into some of the same patterns as Catholic leaders in not dealing with clergy intercourse abuse, and he urged that Southern Baptists should study from Catholic errors and take motion early on to implement structural reforms in order to make children safer.

The report states that Frank Web page, who was main the Government Committee at the time, responded to Doyle in a short letter that “Southern Baptist leaders actually haven't any authority over native church buildings” however that they'd attempt to use their “influence” to offer protections. In an article, Web page accused a survivor group of getting a hidden agenda of establishing the nation’s largest Protestant physique for lawsuits. Web page later resigned from his place in 2018 over having a “morally inappropriate relationship.” Page did not 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 force on the problem and said that the report reveals a necessity for establishments like the SBC to seek outdoors experience on sex abuse.

“It reveals a stage 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 said. “The query Southern Baptists need to ask is, ‘How could this happen?’”

The issue of intercourse abuse was a distinguished theme in leaked non-public letters written by Russell Moore, who left his place in 2021 as head of the SBC’s coverage arm, the Ethics & Spiritual Liberty Fee. Moore stated he expects Southern Baptists to receive Sunday’s report in the same technique 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 said. “Individuals will say, ‘This isn't all Southern Baptists, have a look at all the nice we do.’ The report demonstrates a sample 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 home state in 2016, with a statue of Christa Brown, the abuse survivor who spent the past 20 years preventing for reform.