Southern Baptists face push for public record of intercourse abusers

A blistering report on the Southern Baptist Convention’s mishandling of sex abuse allegations is elevating the prospect that the denomination, for the primary 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 many key recommendations in a report released Sunday by Guidepost Solutions, an unbiased agency contracted by the SBC’s Govt Committee after delegates to final yr’s national assembly pressed for an investigation by outsiders.

The proposed database is expected to be certainly one of several recommendations offered to hundreds of delegates attending this 12 months’s nationwide meeting, scheduled for June 14-15 in Anaheim, California.

“These recommendations can be open to questions, debate and feedback on the assembly ground,” stated SBC President Ed Litton.

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

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

“Our investigation revealed that, for many years, a couple of senior EC leaders, along with exterior counsel, largely managed the EC’s response to those stories of abuse ... and had been singularly targeted on avoiding legal responsibility,” the report stated.

The motion for an impartial investigation was put ahead finally yr’s national meeting by the Rev. Grant Gaines, senior pastor of Belle Aire Baptist Church in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

Reading the Guidepost report, Gaines stated he was struck by repeated examples of a callous disregard for survivors, in addition to leaders prioritizing protection of the SBC from liability over abuse prevention.

“We’re at a fork in the road,” Gaines stated. “I feel this report provided the data that we needed for there to be a groundswell of assist to take the correct actions.”

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

“I feel that’s one of the first things we must always do,” he stated.

Lawyer and author 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 mentioned questions stay about its implementation.

“What is totally essential is that the native church cannot operate as the default or presumed beginning place for a survivor to try to get hold of an investigation of clergy intercourse abuse,” she said by way of electronic mail. “If the native church is deemed to be a requisite first cease for survivors to pursue motion, then many survivors’ voices can be choked of their throats before sound is ever uttered.”

Among the Guidepost report’s findings was that the Executive Committee saved a secret listing of lots of of SBC-affiliated clergy and other personnel identified as sex abusers. Brown mentioned the committee, at a particular assembly Tuesday, ought to comply with release this listing.

“I urge you to make public the whole thing of your record of pastors & ministers accused of sexual abuse, in whatever kind it’s been stored for lo these a few years,” Brown tweeted. “Put up. It. Now.”

The ultimate decisions about recommendations to undergo the Anaheim delegates shall be made by the SBC’s Sexual Abuse Task Pressure, comprising seven members and two advisors. Its work over the previous year has been an emotional journey, mentioned Pastor Bruce Frank, who led the group.

“We saw patterns and things that have been deeply regarding,” he stated. “Our main job was to empower Guidepost to do their job, and so they have achieved a really outstanding job in the final nine months to have a look at occasions that occurred over 20 years.”

Within the subsequent week or so, the task drive will bring forth formal motions in “exact language,” which will probably be made public and presented to the delegates in Anaheim for a vote, stated Frank, lead pastor of Biltmore Baptist Church in Arden, North Carolina.

Frank mentioned the crux of the task force’s suggestions based on Guidepost’s report might be summarized in two words – prevention and care.

“Our main goal ought to be stopping sexual abuse,” he said. “And if abuse does occur, how do we care for survivors in a much better pastoral method? How can we better 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 person who is fair-minded will look at what’s in that report and demand that things be better,” Frank stated. “SBC is an enormous household with 48,000 church buildings. There may be some disagreement on how you can make things better. But I’m assured that we’ll work by way of the difficulties.”

Along with sex abuse, the agenda for the meeting in Anaheim includes 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 at the mean-spirited behaviors attributed to some SBC officials within the Guidepost report.

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

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

The intercourse abuse scandal was thrust into the highlight in 2019 by a landmark report from the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Specific-News documenting tons of of cases in Southern Baptist church buildings, including several in which alleged perpetrators remained in ministry.

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