It’s apparent than the Southern Baptist organization is every bit as converged as the Roman Catholic Church and the other big Protestant denominations. And it’s so-called leadership is every bit as awful too.
Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in America, stonewalled and denigrated survivors of clergy sex abuse over almost two decades while seeking to protect their own reputations, according to a third-party investigation sought by the church’s leaders.
These survivors, and other concerned Southern Baptists, repeatedly shared allegations with the SBC’s Executive Committee, ‘only to be met, time and time again, with resistance, stonewalling, and even outright hostility from some within the EC,’ said a 288-page investigative report revealed on Sunday.
The seven-month investigation was conducted by Guidepost Solutions, an independent firm contracted by the Executive Committee after delegates to last year’s national meeting pressed for a probe by outsiders.
‘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 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,’ the report added.
The report asserts that an Executive Committee staffer maintained a list of Baptist ministers accused of abuse, but there is no indication anyone ‘took any action to ensure that the accused ministers were no longer in positions of power at SBC churches.’
Any and every organization that protects itself rather than expelling child molesters and other predators does not deserve to survive. And I’m not interested in hearing excuses about how each Southern Baptist church is an independent organization; even if the Executive Committee had no power to fire a church minister, they absolutely had the ability to a) inform the congregation and b) expel the church if the congregation did not take action to expel the guilty minister.
Just look at the smug pedoface on this former president of the Southern Baptist Executive Committee. Finding out that he’s involved in some sort of abuse scandal is the exact opposite of surprising. On what planet are these sort of creatures even allowed around children, much less given positions of church leadership? Throw in all the cucked Churchian gammas like Russell Moore and it’s no wonder that the Southern Baptists are in a state of crisis.
This is what comes of persistently seeking the world’s approval rather than obeying the Word of God. And of giving second chances to the fallen and the wicked.
UPDATE: Never, ever, let the lawyers decide the strategy. Because very few lawyers understand that there are worse things than losing a lawsuit, and “on the advice of our lawyers” is not a get out of culpability card.
Armed with a secret list of more than 700 abusive pastors, Southern Baptist leaders chose to protect the denomination from lawsuits rather than protect the people in their churches from further abuse.
Survivors, advocates, and some Southern Baptists themselves spent more than 15 years calling for ways to keep sexual predators from moving quietly from one flock to another. The men who controlled the Executive Committee (EC)—which runs day-to-day operations of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC)—knew the scope of the problem. But, working closely with their lawyers, they maligned the people who wanted to do something about abuse and repeatedly rejected pleas for help and reform.
“Behind the curtain, the lawyers were advising to say nothing and do nothing, even when the callers were identifying predators still in SBC pulpits,” according to a massive third-party investigative report released Sunday.