DOJ Investigates Southern Baptist Convention Over Sex Abuse

For years the leadership of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC") sought to pretend that there was no sex abuse problem within the denomination - smugly acting as if sex abuse was uniquely a Catholic Church problem - or cited the denomination's lack of a strict hierachy to dismiss responsibility for what was happening in Baptist churches across the country.  Then came a SBC funded report that showed wide spread mishandling and/or cover ups of sexual abuse sometimes by those in the highest levels of the SBC leadership.   It turned out that the SBC like the Catholic Church hierarchy had long known of problems and put the public image of the denomination over the safety of children and women.  Another less charitable but more accurate description of what occurred could also be to say that power, control and money was more important than the wellbeing of countless sex abuse victims.  Both the SBC scandal and the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal make a mockery of the blind deference to religion being pushed by the extremist majority on the U. S. Supreme Court.  Religion, especially institutional religion, continues to cause horrors in the world.   A piece in the Washington Post looks at the Justice Department's investigationof the SBC.  Here are excerpts:

The Southern Baptist Convention, the second-largest faith group in the country, said Friday that the Justice Department is investigating multiple arms of the denomination following an internal report that showed mishandling of sexual abuse cases.

The investigation is related to a recent bombshell third-party report commissioned by the SBC, a spokesman said late Friday. The report concluded that sex abuse survivors were often ignored, minimized and “even vilified” by top clergy in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

“The SBC Executive Committee recently became aware that the Department of Justice has initiated an investigation into the Southern Baptist Convention, and that the investigation will include multiple SBC entities,” the statement issued Friday by 14 SBC leaders from multiple top entities said. “Individually and collectively each SBC entity is resolved to fully and completely cooperate with the investigation.”

The third-party report, which involved an examination of the period from 2000 to 2021, focused on actions by the executive committee, which handles financial and administrative duties. Southern Baptist churches operate independently from one another, but the Nashville-based Executive Committee distributes more than $190 million through its cooperative program in its annual budget that funds its missions, seminaries and ministries.

The 300-page report, the first of its kind in a massive Protestant denomination like the SBC, showed how denominational leaders for decades actively resisted calls for abuse prevention and reform. Evidence in the report suggests leaders also told Southern Baptists they could not maintain a database of offenders to prevent more abuse while secretly keeping such a list for years.

The Justice Department declined to comment.

For years, survivors of sexual assault in church settings have been calling on churches to admit the extent of abuse. It helped to generate a movement called #ChurchToo, a spinoff of the wider #MeToo movement, calling out not just sexual predators but also religious leaders involved in coverups or other mishandling of abuse claims.

Lawyers for the SBC Executive Committee said in a Friday night statement that the committee has received a subpoena, but “no individuals have been subpoenaed at this point.”

The statement announcing the Justice Department probe was signed by leaders including SBC seminary heads, the top official at its huge missionary body and newly elected President Bart Barber.

“While so many things in the world are uncertain, we can be certain that we serve a mighty God. Nothing, including this investigation, takes Him by surprise,” the statement said. “We take comfort in that and humbly ask you be in prayer in the days and weeks ahead. Specifically, we ask God to grant wisdom and discernment to each person dealing with the investigation.”

Expect much more dirt and scandal to come out.