Southern Baptist leaders covered up sex abuse, explosive report says

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

The findings of practically 300 pages embody stunning new details about particular abuse cases and shine a light-weight on how denominational leaders for decades actively resisted calls for abuse prevention and reform. Evidence within the report suggests leaders additionally lied to Southern Baptists over whether or not they might preserve a database of offenders to prevent extra abuse when prime leaders were secretly keeping a non-public checklist for years.

The report — the primary investigation of its variety in an enormous Protestant denomination just like the SBC — is anticipated to ship shock waves all through a conservative Christian group that has had intense inner battles over deal with sex abuse. The 13 million-member denomination, along with other religious institutions in the United States, has struggled with declining membership for the past 15 years. Its leaders have lengthy resisted comparisons between its sexual abuse crisis and that of the Catholic Church, saying the overall variety of abuse circumstances 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 child molesters and other accused abusers who were in the pulpit or employed as church employees members. Many of the circumstances referred to in the report have been 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 corporation called Guidepost Options at the request of Southern Baptists, states that abuse survivors’ calls and emails were “only to be met, time and time again, with resistance, stonewalling, and even outright hostility” by leaders who had been concerned more with protecting the establishment from legal responsibility than from protecting Southern Baptists from further abuse.

“Whereas tales of abuse have been minimized, and survivors were ignored and even vilified, revelations came to mild 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 handled abuse issues when survivors got here forward, it also states that a major Southern Baptist leader was credibly accused of sexually assaulting a lady just 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 on the SBC’s missions arm, was credibly accused of assaulting a lady during a Panama City Seashore, Fla., trip in 2010.

The report states that Hunt, in an interview with investigators, denied any physical contact with the lady 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 an announcement 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 Might 13 from the North American Mission Board, in keeping with an announcement by NAMB President Kevin Ezell. Ezell said that before Might 13, he was not aware of alleged misconduct by Hunt. Generally, he known as the small print 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, many of whom have been sharing their tales for years, anticipated Sunday’s release would verify the details round lots of the tales they've already shared, but many have been nonetheless surprised to see the sample of coverups by the very best levels 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 feminine govt at 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 way of and thru about energy. It's misappropriated power. It does not in any manner 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 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 financial and administrative duties. Although Southern Baptist church buildings function independently from one another, the Nashville-based Govt Committee distributes greater than $190 million cooperative program in its annual budget that funds its missions, seminaries and ministries.

For decades, the findings show, Southern Baptists had been told the denomination could not put together a registry of sex offenders as a result of it will go against the denomination’s polity — or how it capabilities. What the report reveals is that leaders maintained a list of offenders while maintaining it a secret to keep away from the potential of getting sued. The report also contains non-public emails exhibiting how longtime leaders equivalent to August Boto were dismissive about sexual abuse concerns, calling them “a satanic scheme to utterly distract us from evangelism.”

In an April 2007 e mail, the convention’s lawyer despatched Boto a memo explaining how a SBC database may very well be carried out in step with SBC polity, saying “it will fit our polity and present ministries to assist church buildings on this space of kid abuse and sexual misconduct.” The report states that he advisable “fast action to sign the Convention’s need that the [executive committee] and the entities begin a extra aggressive effort on this area.” That very same 12 months, after a Southern Baptist pastor made a movement 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 fee the third-party investigation, the report shows how lay Southern Baptists allowed just a few key leaders, together with Boto and the convention’s longtime lawyer, James Guenther, to regulate the nationwide institutional response to intercourse abuse for many years. Guenther, the longtime lawyer for the SBC, said he had not learn the report yet. Makes an attempt to reach Boto on Sunday were unsuccessful.

“The report goes to validate a lot about how they actually blindly selected 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 burden.”

During Executive Committee conferences in 2021, some members argued in opposition to waiving attorney-client privilege, which might give investigators access to data of conversations on authorized issues among the many committee’s members and staffers. They said doing so went against the recommendation of convention lawyers and will bankrupt the SBC by exposing it to lawsuits.

The controversy over waiving privilege upset a large swath of Southern Baptists, causing some to imagine the Executive 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 Executive 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 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 e mail that he had acquired “some calls” from “key SBC pastors and leaders” expressing “rising concern about all of the emphasis on the sexual abuse crisis.” He then said: “Our priority cannot be the most recent cultural disaster.” Floyd did not instantly return a request for remark.

Christa Brown, who informed 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 Govt Committee “turned his back to her throughout her speech and another chortled.”

“The Govt Committee betrayed not solely survivors who worked arduous to attempt to make something occur, however betrayed the entire Southern Baptist Conference,” mentioned Brown, who is a retired appellate lawyer in Colorado. “They’ve made their very own religion right into a complicit accomplice for their very own resolution to decide on institutional safety over the safety of kids and congregants.”

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

“We have to be able to take significant steps to change our culture as it relates to sexual abuse,” Ed Litton, the current SBC president, mentioned in a statement.

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 published lists of monks they are saying have been credibly accused of sexual abuse to forestall the transfer of abusers to other churches. Not like 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 Govt Committee presidents, based on 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 sex abuse, and he urged that Southern Baptists ought to be taught from Catholic mistakes and take motion early on to implement structural reforms so as to make kids safer.

The report states that Frank Page, who was leading the Govt Committee on the time, responded to Doyle in a short letter that “Southern Baptist leaders really don't have any authority over native churches” however that they would try to make use of their “affect” to supply 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. Page later resigned from his place in 2018 over having a “morally inappropriate relationship.” Page didn't instantly return a request for remark.

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 difficulty and mentioned that the report reveals a need for establishments like the SBC to hunt outside experience on sex abuse.

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

The difficulty of intercourse abuse was a distinguished theme in leaked personal letters written by Russell Moore, who left his place in 2021 as head of the SBC’s coverage arm, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. Moore said he expects Southern Baptists to obtain Sunday’s report in an identical solution 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, take 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 consider replacing 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 20 years combating for reform.