Southern Baptists face push for public list of sex abusers

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

The creation of an “Offender Data System” was one of many key suggestions in a report released Sunday by Guidepost Options, an independent firm contracted by the SBC’s Govt Committee after delegates to final 12 months’s nationwide meeting pressed for an investigation by outsiders.

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

“These recommendations can be open to questions, debate and feedback on the assembly floor,” mentioned 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 dropping membership steadily lately, whereas being wracked by inner divisions over race and gender roles.

The Guidepost report said survivors of abuse by SBC clergy repeatedly shared allegations with the Executive Committee, “solely to be met, time and time once more, with resistance, stonewalling, and even outright hostility from some within the EC.”

“Our investigation revealed that, for many years, a number of senior EC leaders, together with exterior counsel, largely controlled the EC’s response to these studies of abuse ... and had been singularly centered on avoiding liability,” the report stated.

The motion for an unbiased investigation was put ahead finally 12 months’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, in addition to leaders prioritizing safety of the SBC from legal responsibility over abuse prevention.

“We’re at a fork in the road,” Gaines said. “I think this report supplied the data that we wanted for there to be a groundswell of help to take the correct actions.”

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

“I feel that’s one of many first things 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 urgent the SBC since 2006 to create a publicly accessible database of known abusers. She was heartened that Guidepost was recommending such a system, however stated questions remain about its implementation.

“What is absolutely essential is that the local church can not perform because the default or presumed starting place for a survivor to attempt to acquire an investigation of clergy intercourse abuse,” she stated by way of e mail. “If the native church is deemed to be a requisite first stop for survivors to pursue action, then many survivors’ voices will likely be choked of their throats before sound is ever uttered.”

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

“I urge you to make public the whole thing of your checklist of pastors & ministers accused of sexual abuse, in whatever form it’s been saved for lo these many years,” Brown tweeted. “Publish. It. Now.”

The final choices about recommendations to undergo the Anaheim delegates might be made by the SBC’s Sexual Abuse Job Drive, comprising seven members and two advisors. Its work over the previous 12 months has been an emotional journey, said Pastor Bruce Frank, who led the group.

“We noticed patterns and issues that were deeply regarding,” he said. “Our major job was to empower Guidepost to do their job, and so they have performed a really remarkable job within the last nine months to take a look at occasions that occurred over 20 years.”

Within the next week or so, the task force will carry forth formal motions in “exact language,” which will probably be made public and offered 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 task force’s suggestions primarily based on Guidepost’s report may be summarized in two phrases – prevention and care.

“Our main goal ought to be preventing sexual abuse,” he said. “And if abuse does occur, how will we look after survivors in a significantly better pastoral means? How can we better talk to ensure (abusers) don’t go from one church to a different?”

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

“Any one who is fair-minded will look at what’s in that report and demand that things be better,” Frank stated. “SBC is a big family with 48,000 church buildings. There is perhaps some disagreement on easy methods to make issues higher. However I’m assured that we’ll work by means of the difficulties.”

Along with intercourse abuse, the agenda for the assembly in Anaheim consists of election of a brand 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 officers in 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 finished,” he added. “We’ve gotten the report, but I feel everyone within the survivor group that I’ve heard from has stated stories are one factor, but we’ll see if this family of churches has the courage and resolve to take motion.”

The sex abuse scandal was thrust into the spotlight in 2019 by a landmark report from the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Specific-Information documenting lots of of circumstances in Southern Baptist churches, together with a number of through which alleged perpetrators remained in ministry.

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