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Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention on Sunday published a major third-party investigation that found that survivors of sexual violence were often ignored, minimized and “blackened” by senior clerics in the country’s largest Protestant denomination.
The nearly 300-page findings include shocking new details on specific cases of abuse and shed light on how denominational leaders have been actively opposing calls to prevent abuse and reform for decades. They also lied to Southern Baptists about keeping a database of violators to prevent more abuse when senior leaders secretly maintained a private list for years.
The report – the first of its kind in a massive Protestant denomination such as the SBC – is expected to send shockwaves to a conservative Christian community that has had intense internal battles over how to deal with sexual violence. The 13-million-strong denomination, along with other religious institutions in the United States, has struggled with declining membership over the past 15 years. Its leaders have long opposed comparisons between the crisis of sexual violence and that of the Catholic Church, saying the total number of cases of violence among southern Baptists is small.
The investigation found that for nearly two decades, survivors of violence and other concerned Southern Baptists have contacted the Southern Baptist Convention administration to report abusers and other perpetrators who have been to the pulpit or hired the church.
The report, compiled by an organization called Guidepost Solutions at the request of Southern Baptists, states that calls and emails from abuse survivors are “just to be met, over and over again, with resistance, opposition and even outright hostility” from leaders, who were more concerned with protecting the institution from liability than about protecting southern Baptists from further abuse.
“While stories of ill-treatment have been kept to a minimum and survivors have been ignored or even blackened, revelations have emerged in recent years that some senior SBC leaders have defended or even supported alleged perpetrators,” the report said.
While the report focuses mainly on how leaders deal with abuse issues when survivors come out, he also points out that a major Southern Baptist leader sexually abused a woman just one month after completing his two-year term as convention president. The report found that Johnny Hunt, a beloved Georgia-based Southern Baptist pastor who was senior vice president of the SBC’s missions, was credited with assaulting a woman during a vacation in Panama City Beach in 2010.
The report said Hunt denied any physical contact with the woman in an interview with investigators, but admitted that he had interacted with her.
Southern Baptists are mired in their own sexual violence scandals. Now they are discussing their answer.
Survivors of sexual violence, many of whom have shared their stories for years, expected Sunday’s release to confirm the facts surrounding many of the stories they have already shared, but many were still surprised to see the pattern of cover-ups at the highest levels. guide.
“I knew it was rotten, but it’s amazing and infuriating,” said Jennifer Lyell, a survivor who was once the highest-paid executive at the SBC and whose history of sexual violence at a Southern Baptist seminary is detailed in the report. “This is a denomination that refers to power. This is misappropriated power. This in no way reflects the Jesus I see in the scriptures. I’m so gutted. “
The report also cites several senior SBC leaders who have defended and even supported alleged perpetrators, including three former convention presidents, a former vice president and a former head of the SBC administration.
The third-party investigation between 2000 and 2021 focused on the actions of the SBC Executive Committee, which deals with financial and administrative obligations. Although the southern Baptist churches operate independently, the Nashville-based executive committee allocates the $ 121 million budget for the cooperation program, which funds its missions, seminaries, and ministries.
For decades, Southern Baptists have been told that the denomination cannot compile a register of sex offenders because it would run counter to the denomination’s policy – or how it works. The report reveals that leaders maintain a list of violators while keeping it secret to avoid the possibility of prosecution. The report also includes private emails showing how longtime leaders like Augusto Boto ignored fears of sexual violence, calling them “a satanic scheme to completely divert us from evangelization.”
In an email from April 2007, the convention’s lawyer sent Boto a note explaining how an SBC database could be implemented in line with SBC policy, saying that “this will be in line with our policy and the current services will help of the churches in this area of violence against children and sexual misconduct. ” The report states that it recommends “immediate action to signal the desire of the Convention that [executive committee] and subjects are starting more aggressive efforts in this area. “That same year, after a Southern Baptist pastor made a proposal for a database, Boto rejected the idea.
For a denomination designed to give more democratic power to its secular leaders or “envoys” who voted to outsource the investigation to a third country, the report shows how secular southern Baptists admitted several key leaders, including Boto and longtime convention lawyer James Gunther, to oversees the national institutional response to sexual violence for decades.
“The report will confirm so much about how they have blindly chosen to stay the same way all these years,” said Tiffany Tigpen, whose history of sexual violence in the southern Baptist church is detailed in the report. “It simply came to our notice then. Southern Baptists must now bear the brunt. “
During Executive Committee meetings in 2021, some members opposed the waiver of the privilege of a client lawyer, which would give investigators access to recordings of legal discussions between committee members and staff. They said this contradicted the convention’s lawyers’ advice and could bankrupt SBC by suing it.
The debate over the denial of privileges has upset many Southern Baptists, leading some to believe that the Executive Committee is not carrying out the “will of the envoys” or following the example of secular leaders who had already voted in favor. This led to the resignation of EC President Ronnie Floyd, who was also former president of the SBC and was on President Donald Trump’s evangelical advisory council. The decision on the privilege of a client lawyer also led to the resignation of the lawyers of the convention, who are listed throughout the report.
A recent letter describes allegations that Southern Baptist leaders have misrepresented allegations of sexual violence.
According to the report, Floyd told SBC leaders in an email from 2019 that he had received “some calls” from “key pastors and SBC leaders” expressing “growing concern about the whole focus on the sexual violence crisis.” He then said: “Our priority cannot be the last cultural crisis.”
Christa Brown, who told SBC leaders she was abused by a youth pastor who continued to serve in other southern Baptist churches in many states, has long advocated a church-wide database for years and has been met with hostility. The report states that when she met with SBC leaders in 2007, a member of the Executive Committee “turned her back on her during her speech and another giggled.”
“The executive committee not only handed over the survivors who worked hard to try to do something, but they handed over the entire Southern Baptist Convention,” said Brown, a retired appellate attorney in Colorado. “They have turned their own faith into an accomplice partner in their own decision to choose institutional protection over the protection of children and siblings.”
The report, requested by Southern Baptists during their last annual meeting, comes just weeks before its next meeting in Anaheim, California, where members are expected to discuss next steps. The recommendations of the Guidepost include the provision of special support for the advocacy of survivors and a survivor compensation fund.
“We need to be ready to take meaningful steps to change our culture, as it is linked to sexual violence,” said Ed Lyton, the current president of SBC, in a statement.
As decades of sexual violence and cover-up in the Catholic Church were reported by the Boston Globe in 2002, some U.S. dioceses have published lists of priests they believe have been credibly accused of sexual violence to prevent the perpetrators from being transferred to other churches. Unlike the Catholic Church, the SBC has a non-hierarchical structure.
In March 2007, the Rev. Thomas Doyle, a priest and canonical lawyer who first warned of the looming crisis of sexual violence among Catholics, wrote to the chairmen of the SBC and the Executive Committee, according to the report. He expressed concern that SBC leaders could fall into some of the same patterns as Catholic leaders by failing to deal with sexual violence by the clergy, and called on Southern Baptists to learn from the mistakes of Catholics and take action early. stage of implementing structural reforms to make children safer.
The report states that Frank Page, who chaired the Executive Committee at the time, told Doyle in a short letter that “Southern Baptist leaders really have no power over local churches” but that they would try to use their “influence”. to provide protections. In the article, Paige accused a group of survivors of having a hidden agenda to create the nation’s largest Protestant body for litigation. Paige later resigned in 2018 due to “morally inappropriate …
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