National leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention have suppressed reports of sexual violence and opposed proposals for reform for two decades, according to a third-country investigation released by the convention on Sunday. The report also said that a former denomination president was accused of sexually assaulting a woman in 2010, an accusation the report described as “credible.”
Accusations of sexual violence and the church’s treatment of them have shaken the convention for years. Following growing pressure from survivors of sexual violence in southern Baptists, delegates to the denomination’s annual meeting last summer voted overwhelmingly to commission the report and called on its 86-member executive committee to hand over confidential documents in cooperation. The report covers reports of abuse of women and children against male pastors, church officials and officials from 2000 to the present.
The Baptist denomination comes after a major, protracted scandal involving sexual violence in the Roman Catholic Church that affected thousands of victims and bankrupt dioceses and is still being resolved through courts and agreements.
The country’s largest Protestant denomination, the convention has long stressed that its decentralized structure means it has little ability to force churches to take any action, as each church is legally independent and does not report to higher authorities. But the report claims that a handful of powerful leaders have had the ability to block reports of abuse and attempts at accountability and reform.
He also found a pattern of intimidation of survivors of sexual violence and their defenders, and said they were “blackened as” opportunists “.
In an internal email, August Boto, an influential member of the executive committee, described the advocates’ efforts as “a satanic scheme to completely divert us from evangelization”, citing the work of Christa Brown, a survivor and Rachel Denholander, a lawyer who works with the denomination. “The devil is temporarily succeeding.” Mr Boto could not be found immediately to comment.
The guidepost Solutions report states that “many reform efforts have met with resistance over the past two decades, usually due to fears of legal liability.” The Times did not independently check the content of the report.
It revealed that an employee of the executive committee working for Mr Boto had maintained for more than 10 years a detailed list of ministers accused of abuse. But no one has “taken any action to ensure that the accused ministers are no longer in power in the SBC churches,” the report said. “The latest list drawn up by the EC staff member contains the names of 703 perpetrators, 409 of whom are believed to be linked to the SBC at some point in time.
It says leaders, including Ronnie Floyd, a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention who resigned as head of the executive committee in October, opposed setting up a task force to investigate the executive committee. Mr Floyd did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The report describes revelations in recent years that top leaders have “defended or even supported the perpetrators.” Leaders included three former denomination presidents, Steve Gaines, Jack Graham and Paige Patterson, as well as a former vice president and Mr Boto, a former interim president and chief adviser to the executive committee.
During the Guidepost investigation, the report said, the pastor and his wife came out to claim that Johnny Hunt, who was president of the denomination from 2008 to 2010, sexually raped his wife shortly after his presidency. The report described the pastor and his wife as “reliable” and said parts of their story had been corroborated by four other credible witnesses.
Mr Hunt denied the allegations to the Guidepost, but resigned from the denomination’s North American Missionary Council this month. Mr Hunt did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
When the denomination’s public policy department, the Ethics and Religious Freedom Committee, drew up a report on sexual violence, the heads of the executive committee and external advisers proposed changes to the report to avoid potential liability, including removing the word “crisis” when refers to sexual violence, “the report said.
The 2007 proposal to track down indicted sex offenders was rejected in 2008 on the grounds that it interfered with individual church autonomy, the report said, although an external adviser suggested it could be done according to denominational structure. .
The report comes weeks before the convention’s annual meeting and is likely to send shockwaves to nearly 14 million members.
“This report is appalling. The number of lives destroyed by those who claim to follow Jesus is almost beyond comprehension, “said Boz Chividjian, a lawyer who represents survivors of violence across the country. “Maybe it’s time for SBC to be gone.”
The leaders of the executive committee said in a statement that they would hold a meeting on Tuesday to discuss the report.
“For members of the survivors’ community, we are saddened by the findings of this investigation,” Roland Slade, the group’s chairman, and Willie McClorin, the group’s interim president, said in a statement. “This is the beginning of a season of listening, complaining and learning how to deal with sexual violence in the Southern Baptist Convention.
The report recommends action for future reforms. These steps include setting up an information system for offenders, “to alert the community to known offenders”, which can be provided to churches on a “voluntary basis”, and setting up a self-certification program to prevent abuse of churches and other Baptist actors, which would also be voluntary.
The report also recommends that Southern Baptists eventually set up a new administrative group to oversee “comprehensive long-term reforms on sexual violence and related wrongdoing” and that church groups should limit the use of non-disclosure agreements and civil agreements, which require confidentiality unless requested by the survivor. He also suggested that the commission, which is currently dealing with allegations of abuse, improve its procedures to make it more transparent.
Add Comment