Timeline of the Sexual Abuse Crisis in the Southern Baptist Convention
If you grew up in a Southern Baptist church, as I did, one of the first things learned was that your church was "closer to God" than other churches. Yes, indeed, in the Beginners Sunday School class where I have some of my earliest memories of church, my very sweet teacher, a middle aged lady who grew up in the Missouri boot heel, regularly told us that we were in the right place if we wanted to "get close to Jesus," because our church taught the truth from the Bible, while other churches didn't always get it right.
Her husband didn't accompany her to church, so my Dad would often take her home after services. We would pass both the Presbyterian and Methodist churches in the small town where I grew up and almost every Sunday, she would make the comment, looking at their empty parking lots as we drove by around 12:20 p.m., "Well look there, they've done turned out and gone home," meaning that their spiritual depth and Christian commitment was measured by the amount of time the sermon went past noon, and a church that dismissed early enough for the parking lot to be empty by 12:20 couldn't be very serious or spiritual. I never had the heart to tell her the Methodist service started at 10:00, instead of 10:50 like ours did.
But I've heard the same from the pulpit in more than one church. It does not take very long in encounters with Southern Baptists, to pick up on the fact that they do think quite highly of themselves when it comes to getting their Christianity right, and many of them are quite opinionated when it comes to criticizing other churches and denominations, and pointing out their flaws and errors. There is a lot of emphasis on "Baptist distinctives," which, translated into real English means "things we believe that no other Christians believe, that make us better than them." This includes belief that the Bible is without error and its contents are infallible in all areas, not just in spiritual matters, but science, human psychology and history, too; belief that the correct mode of baptism is by immersion only after a person has made a "profession of faith in Christ"; non-connectional, independent and autonomous churches; and the belief that the church must exist free from the control of the governing authorities of the state.
There are still some strains of "landmarkism" among the churches affiliated with the SBC, which is the belief that Baptists alone are the "true church" descended from the apostolic succession, and the only valid baptism is by immersion in a true Baptist church, and the only valid communion or Lord's supper experience is the one given in a Baptist church where non-members are excluded. Most churches in the SBC are not "landmarkers", but there is still a very strong sense of exclusivity and superiority over "those liberal mainline Protestants" and, of course, widespread condemnation of the Catholic church as apostate.
The GuidePost Solutions Report was a Shock
Even as awareness of the scope and size of the sexual abuse problem among Southern Baptist ministers and church staff members hit the denomination in 2019, when the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express published the results of their investigation, there were Southern Baptist leaders, according to the GuidePost report, who claimed that at least it wasn't as bad as the Catholics. And in spite of information coming out which supported what victims groups had been saying for decades, there was very little movement toward doing anything about it.
What has been done since the Chronicle/Express investigation was revealed, has met with continued resistance and an ongoing effort to keep Southern Baptists in the dark about who was involved in the cover-up and what was going on. At the highest levels of leadership and legal counsel within the Executive Committee, which is the group that is responsible for convention operations when the annual meeting is not in session, efforts to respond appropriately to the crisis were criticized as being a satanic plot to distract Southern Baptists from their evangelistic ministry.
The messengers from the churches who were gathered for the annual meeting in Nashville last year decided to take the matter out of the bureaucrats hands, and directly ordered an investigation into executive committee actions regarding sexual abuse in the SBC. The bureaucrats, including the SBC's Executive Director, Dr. Ronnie Floyd, who had only been on the job a couple of years, fought tooth and nail to prevent it, but the messenger vote was overwhelming and their will prevailed.
The GuidePost Solutions Investigation and the Chronicle/Express Investigation Point to a Problem that Requires a Solution
The Southern Baptist Convention as a denomination was already experiencing decline and downsizing its operation prior to the Chronicle revelations. According to its most recent statistical report, membership has declined by just under 3 million in a decade, with more than half of those departures happening since 2016. That's a staggering loss, even worse than the kinds of declines most mainline Protestants have been experiencing since the 1960's. Baptisms, which are a measure of the most important outcome of the denomination's mission and purpose, are at a number that is one-fourth of what they were at their peak and over 80% of those are children whose parents are already members of the church.
There's no question that this crisis, or "apocalypse" as Russell Moore called it, will have a negative impact on all of the statistics, including financial receipts. And the image that Southern Baptists have carefully crafted, based on their "fidelity" to the Bible and their emphasis on moral and ethical rule-following, has been substantially damaged. The Southern Baptist name is now being equated with the Catholic church in terms of sexual abuse scandal, and the numbers, on a per-capita basis, are about the same.
The most shocking aspect of the revelations of this investigation is the fact that the convention's executive leadership at the highest level was fully aware of the scope of the problem, but instead of reaching out to help victims and expose the sin that was being done, they kept silence, using their own database to track the perpetrators, which they said couldn't be done under SBC polity, they were protecting the assets of the convention from lawsuits, and protecting their own positions of power, influence and money.
Where Do They Go From Here?
NPR Inverview with Dr. Russell Moore, former ERLC Executive Director
The problems that the denomination is facing, this issue in particular, is at least partly due to the blending of secular, right wing politics with Biblical doctrine and theology being preached from pulpits. Their own doctrine, which includes affirmation of the Bible's inerrancy, states very clearly that infiltration by "worldly influences" posing as allies will lead to the corruption of the church's mission and purpose. Trumpism, which is all about protecting power by hiding truth and promoting lies, has done to the Southern Baptist convention and many of its churches exactly what the Bible's writers warned about. Just look at what's happened to Southern Baptists as a result of this sexual abuse scandal.
Now, they must face a reality that is screaming to the world that Southern Baptists are not any closer to God, more theologically and doctrinally correct, or "better Christians" than those in any other denomination, and they don't seem to have an answer for this problem that has been going on for at least four decades that we know of. Is the leadership they have, in the limited little circle of influencers and kingmakers who run the SBC now, capable of the kind of admission of guilt and repentance that will be required to demonstrate sincerity? Will they step up and actually do something besides dialogue and investigation?
Take a look at the link from NPR, which is an interview with Russell Moore, who initiated the inquiries and actions which eventually led to the investigation being called for from the floor of the convention. This is a former "insider," someone who had a front row seat to the corruption, yes corruption that was going on at the highest levels of the convention. The insiders and their supporters intensely dislike Moore, ostensibly because he is a never-Trumper, but really because he called them out and tried to prevent an apocalypse from happening to a denomination in which he was raised, came to saving faith in Christ, was educated, and in which he had a vocational Christian ministry. Don't you dare question his authority or insights in making these statements.
We're talking conspiracies to keep information from getting to messengers who show up and vote at annual meetings, which is the only power in the SBC capable of reversing executive and attorney actions within the executive committee. The last two executive directors of the committee both resigned because they committed corrupt acts, Frank Page because of an "improper relationship" and Ronnie Floyd, for attempting to interfere and prevent messengers from getting information and then, from trying to stop messengers from taking action, which is an abuse of power that lacks integrity. Moore, on the other hand, has crossed the denominational boundary, respect and integrity intact. That gives his words credibility and nullifies his detractors.
It's Time for a House Cleaning
There are still multiple members of the executive committee who have demonstrated their resistance to this whole investigation and report. Even though many executive committee members resigned, rather than submit to waiving privilege, it took several votes to get to that point, after some of the resisters walked away. Those who left helped reduce some of the dead weight holding the convention back. But anyone who opposed the waiving of privilege, which was a direct instruction of the messengers, needs to resign. It may be difficult to determine what other activity took place on that committee which members were aware of, but failed to speak out or take action so anyone who calls for all of them to step down would be justified in their request.
The messengers need to take control of this out of the hands of the bureaucrats. Whether that can be done with votes of instruction from the floor, or whether they have to vote out every member of the executive committee, change must occur. Those who have stonewalled this, which includes most of the EC members who have signed on to the Conservative Baptist Network, need to go, now. And whatever it takes to get that done needs to be done. This report doesn't just implicate those individuals who were directly involved in covering up, or mishandling sexual abuse, it also implicates those who resisted the investigation and voted against waiving privilege and those who knew all this was happening but, because they wanted to keep their seat and their influence, did nothing.
Frankly, given the information provided in the GuidePost report, that's just about everyone on that committee. They all need to be replaced by individuals who have never served on an SBC committee or board, and who are interested in advancing the denomination's mission and purpose, not their own career and resume. Otherwise, the Southern Baptist Convention will quickly cease to be the "nation's largest Protestant denomination," and will be on a quick track to ruin. Unless there is a house cleaning and genuine repentance, with real action to follow, the Southern Baptist Convention will not survive this apocalypse intact.
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