Southern Baptists face push for public record of sex abusers

A blistering report on the Southern Baptist Convention’s mishandling of sex abuse allegations is raising the prospect that the denomination, for the first time, will create a publicly accessible database of pastors and different church personnel recognized to be abusers.

The creation of an “Offender Data System” was one of the key suggestions in a report launched Sunday by Guidepost Options, an impartial agency contracted by the SBC’s Government Committee after delegates to last year’s national meeting pressed for an investigation by outsiders.

The proposed database is expected to be one in all a number of suggestions offered to hundreds of delegates attending this year’s nationwide assembly, scheduled for June 14-15 in Anaheim, California.

“Those recommendations can be open to questions, debate and feedback on the meeting floor,” stated SBC President Ed Litton.

He expressed hope that the surprising findings within the Guidepost report will deliver “lasting change” to the SBC, America’s largest Protestant denomination. It has been shedding membership steadily in recent years, while being wracked by inside divisions over race and gender roles.

The Guidepost report mentioned survivors of abuse by SBC clergy repeatedly shared allegations with the Executive Committee, “only to be met, time and time again, with resistance, stonewalling, and even outright hostility from some inside the EC.”

“Our investigation revealed that, for many years, a number of senior EC leaders, along with outdoors counsel, largely controlled the EC’s response to these experiences of abuse ... and have been singularly focused on avoiding liability,” the report said.

The movement for an independent investigation was put ahead at last yr’s national assembly by the Rev. Grant Gaines, senior pastor of Belle Aire Baptist Church in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

Reading the Guidepost report, Gaines said he was struck by repeated examples of a callous disregard for survivors, as well as leaders prioritizing safety of the SBC from legal responsibility over abuse prevention.

“We’re at a fork in the street,” Gaines said. “I feel this report supplied the information that we wanted for there to be a groundswell of help to take the appropriate actions.”

Specifically, Gaines mentioned he helps the proposal to create a system that alerts communities to recognized offenders.

“I believe that’s one of many first issues we should do,” he said.

Lawyer and writer Christa Brown, who says she was sexually abused as a teen by the youth minister at her SBC church, has been pressing the SBC since 2006 to create a publicly accessible database of recognized abusers. She was heartened that Guidepost was recommending such a system, but stated questions stay about its implementation.

“What is totally critical is that the native church can not function because the default or presumed beginning place for a survivor to try to obtain an investigation of clergy sex abuse,” she mentioned through e mail. “If the native church is deemed to be a requisite first cease for survivors to pursue action, then many survivors’ voices can be choked in their throats earlier than sound is ever uttered.”

Among the Guidepost report’s findings was that the Executive Committee kept a secret listing of a whole lot of SBC-affiliated clergy and different personnel recognized as sex abusers. Brown stated the committee, at a particular meeting Tuesday, ought to conform to launch this checklist.

“I urge you to make public everything of your checklist of pastors & ministers accused of sexual abuse, in whatever form it’s been stored for lo these many years,” Brown tweeted. “Put up. It. Now.”

The final decisions about suggestions to undergo the Anaheim delegates will probably be made by the SBC’s Sexual Abuse Job Pressure, comprising seven members and two advisors. Its work over the previous year has been an emotional journey, stated Pastor Bruce Frank, who led the group.

“We saw patterns and things that had been deeply regarding,” he said. “Our important job was to empower Guidepost to do their job, they usually have completed a very remarkable job within the final 9 months to take a look at events that occurred over 20 years.”

In the next week or so, the task drive will deliver forth formal motions in “precise language,” which will be made public and introduced to the delegates in Anaheim for a vote, mentioned Frank, lead pastor of Biltmore Baptist Church in Arden, North Carolina.

Frank stated the crux of the duty drive’s suggestions based mostly on Guidepost’s report might be summarized in two words – prevention and care.

“Our fundamental aim ought to be stopping sexual abuse,” he mentioned. “And if abuse does happen, how do we care for survivors in a a lot better pastoral way? How can we higher talk to make sure (abusers) don’t go from one church to another?”

His hope is that this report serves as “a catalyst for change.”

“Any one that is fair-minded will look at what’s in that report and demand that issues be better,” Frank stated. “SBC is a giant family with 48,000 church buildings. There is perhaps some disagreement on find out how to make things higher. But I’m assured that we’ll work through the difficulties.”

Along with intercourse abuse, the agenda for the assembly in Anaheim consists of election of a new SBC president to succeed Litton.

One of many leading contenders is Bart Barber, a pastor from Farmersville, Texas, who expressed dismay on the mean-spirited behaviors attributed to some SBC officers in the Guidepost report.

If elected, Barber stated in a broadcast interview Monday, “I’m praying that God will give me the wisdom to know what to do.... We’re sailing into uncharted waters.”

“The work’s not performed,” he added. “We’ve gotten the report, however I feel everybody within the survivor neighborhood that I’ve heard from has said stories are one factor, however we’ll see if this family of church buildings has the braveness and resolve to take action.”

The intercourse abuse scandal was thrust into the spotlight in 2019 by a landmark report from the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Categorical-Information documenting a whole lot of instances in Southern Baptist church buildings, together with several during which alleged perpetrators remained in ministry.

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