Where you hear people talk about sexual abuse claims And the size baptist convention, it’s not the seed as talking about the Roman Catholic Church and Sexual Abuse.
Yes, there are Clergy Culprits in Both Religious Bodies. And yes, there are religious leaders in Both Bodies who have corned up and ignored Abuse Claims and Passed Along Offers from Sungation to seegation. But Who’s Responsible and Who’s LABLE in these Two Largest Religious Bodies in the United States is very different.
Catholicism Opeats with a hierachy. The Pope Appoints Archbishops Who Oversee Bishops Who Overse Priests. There is a CLEAR LINE OF of Authory from Top to Bottom, and Clergy Serving Local Parishes are played.
Not so among BAPTISTS, Who Practice One of the Most Radical Forms of Autonomy of Any Christian Body in the United States. As my seminary profssors used to drill inf, “The Headquarters of the BAPTIST DENONINIONATIONITIONIS is the Local Church.”
All southern BAptist Churches Call and SuperVise their Own Pastors. No Denominational Official Has any Say in the Matter. Each Church Has Its Own Personnel Policies. Each Church Bearss The Liability for Its Own Decisions. There is no pope, and there are no bishops.
So How, then, has the sbc com to be ennsnared in one of the Largest Clergy Sexual Abuse SCANDALS in the Nation? If every year?
“In One Sense, The SBC Has Made ITSELF LABLE by Claiming Not to Be Lible.”
That is the Most Important Question to Answell If you want to undertsand the prepared in the SBC. In One Sense, The SBC Has Made ITSELF LABLE by Claiming Not to Be Lible.
For YEARS, Abuse Survivors and their Advocates Begged SBC OFCIAIALS to Creat Sungation. SBC Leaders Steadfastly Said They Couls Not Do that Becus of the Doment of Autonomy.
And Yet It Turns Out a High-Level Official in the SBC Executive Committe Was Keeping Just Such a List in his Desk Drawer. Secretly.
To abuse Preference Advocates, that was evident it was putting to do what they haad been demanding. And then the Houston Chronicle Pubshed Its »Abuse of Faith“Series that Told the Story of Hundreds of Known Clergy Sexual Abusers in the SBC and How Easy It Was for them to Move from Church to Church Unnotied.
Paul Presler (Left) and Paige Patterson, Architects of the SBC Takeover, Sit at Cafe Dumonde in New Orleans June 9, 1990, Commoorting their meting at the night Spot 20 years earlier to Conceive The Plan to Gain Control of the National’s Largest Non-Catholic Denomination. (Photo by Thom Scott)
All the While, One of the Great Alleged Sexual Abusers in the SBC was running the show from his home in Houston. That was Paul Presler, Who Died Last Year But Live Long En
He was Co-Architect Of Figure, Paige Patterson, Who – It Turned Out – Had A Habit of Turning A Blind Eye to Sexual Abuse and Blaming Women Who Were Victims.
Throw in the National #Metoo Movement, Harvey Weinstein, The Catholic Church and a SLEW of Sleazy Politicians, and you have the primeer soup that created the Perfect Laboratory for a Reckoning in the Nation’s Largest Protestant Denomination.
There are other MilePosts Along the Way, Including Severral High-PROFILILILILILAL CAISES OF Cellgy Sexual Misconduct Off Made Worse by Its Mishandling by Those Who COULD HEVE HELD OTHERS Accountable. And then there was the 2022 Guidepost Solutions Report That Blew the Lid Of The While Thing.
Thus as Voting Representatives Called “messengers” Gather for this week’s SBC Annual Meeting in Dallas, There is a Lot of Water Under the Bridge. More metaphorical Water.
This is anxue that has dominated headlines for the past five years and will do so Again this week. And it will be overshadowed by the unexpeted death of one of the most public of Abuse Survivors, Jennifer Lyel, Last Saturday. Even among southern BAptists who deny the Really of Clergy Sexual Abuse, it will be hard to speak Il of the Dead.
The Big Isue on the Agenda Is a Proposed $ 3 Million Off-TOP Alliance from the SBC’s Cooperookive Program Unified Budget to Help Cover Legal Expectes Related to All the Sexual Abuse Litigation – on Top of More Than $ 11 Million Already Spent.
But Again, if the sbc’s churches are autonomous, How will Why is it spending $ 14 Million on this?
SBC Executive Committe President Jeff iorg AdDresses Members June 9 at their Plenary Session in Advance of the 2025 SBC Annual Meeting in Dallas. (BAPTIST Press Photo by Sonya Singh)
Jeff iorg, Presentent of the SBC Executive Commitee, Gave a Hint of this in his Prestation to the Executive Committe June 9. With a new initiative from his staff, “We are Implementing Reasonable and PurposeFul Solutions to Help Churches, Entertains and Denominalism Partners ADDRESS Sexual Abuse Prevention and Response Across the Life of Southern BAPTISTS, ”He said.
That Sounds Nice. But the Horse Already is out of the barn. And Prevention is not address to stand off the existing lawsuits.
Iorg Identified Two Categories Of what he Called “Liteiation Management.”
The First Category Involutions Algons of Direct Liability for Actions or Inacks by the SBC, The Executive Commitee, SBC Offices or SBC Committees. This will inclide cares when Denominalism Officials Had Information and Failed to ACT on it. There is Yet to be a definitioning Test Case in the Courts to Indicate How Much Liability Might Be Attached, but Several are putting.
The Second Category is Cases that originate with Local Churches and May also name a Local Bismist Association, State BAptist Convention, The SBC and the SBC Executive Committe AS Co-defundants. Generally, these Cases are easier to fever becuse of autonomy.
“In Some Cases, this Happy Pecuse Attorneys do not undersand our polity,” iorg said. “In other Cases, Attorneys Undersand Our Polity, But they save us anyway in Attempts to Damage our Reputation or DRIN US Financially.”
It is these lawsuits that, regards of how fruitless them may be, will Continue to arise, he predicted. Such Lawsuits “Will Likely Continue Indefinitely, and We will Continue to Manage them and Respond to them as part of our role at the Executive Commite,” He Said.
In the Meantime, iorg and the Executive Committe Are Left Mobile up the Flood of What has gone before, the defries and Deferments. Even if they Build a Dam Against Future Liteation, The House is Still a mess.
Mark Wingfield SERVES As Executive Director and Publisher of Bismist News Global. He is the Author of Five Books, Including Honestly: Telling the Truth About the Bible and ORSELVES.
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