‘An Apocalypse’: Probe Into Southern Baptist Sex Abuse Turns Up ‘Bombshell’ Findings
Monday Plug-in 🔌
Editor’s note: This is a special Monday edition of “Weekend Plug-in,” which each Friday features analysis, fact checking and top headlines from the world of faith. Subscribe now to get this newsletter delivered straight to your inbox. Got feedback or ideas? Email Bobby Ross Jr. at therossnews@gmail.com.
(ANALYSIS) “It is an apocalypse,” declares Russell Moore, former president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.
It is “far worse” than anything Ed Litton, the 13.7 million-member denomination’s president, had anticipated, report the New York Times’ Ruth Graham and Elizabeth Dias.
It is a “bombshell” (per the Houston Chronicle’s Robert Downen and John Tedesco). It is “historic” (The Tennessean’s Liam Adams). It is a “blockbuster report” (Religion News Service’s Bob Smietana).
Sunday brought the long-awaited release of an independent investigation into sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention, and damning might be too feeble a word to characterize the findings.
The bottom line, according to Guidepost Solutions’ 288-page report:
An unprecedented investigation of the Southern Baptist Convention’s top governing body found that an influential group of Baptist leaders systematically ignored, belittled and intimidated survivors of sexual abuse for the past two decades while protecting the legal interests of churches accused of harboring abusers.
The claims are “expected to send shock waves throughout a conservative Christian community that has had intense internal battles over how to handle sex abuse” (Washington Post’s Sarah Pulliam Bailey).
Guidepost led the “$2 million undertaking, involving 330 interviews and five terabytes of documents collected over eight months” (Christianity Today’s Kate Shellnutt).
The SBC’s Executive Committee, Shellnutt adds, “also committed another $2 million toward legal costs around the investigation — making it a total investment of $4 million, funded by churches and conventions giving to the Cooperative Program.”
“The Baptists should offer ‘both a sincere apology and a tangible gesture’ including a ‘survivor compensation fund,’ the report … said” (Washington Times’ Mark A. Kellner).
Associated Press religion reporters Deepa Bharath, Holly Meyer and David Crary cite these specific accusations:
“Our investigation revealed that, for many years, a few senior EC leaders, along with outside counsel, largely controlled the EC’s response to these reports of abuse ... and were singularly focused on avoiding liability for the SBC,” the report said.
“In service of this goal, survivors and others who reported abuse were ignored, disbelieved, or met with the constant refrain that the SBC could take no action due to its polity regarding church autonomy – even if it meant that convicted molesters continued in ministry with no notice or warning to their current church or congregation,” the report added.
The report asserts that an Executive Committee staffer maintained a list of Baptist ministers accused of abuse, but there is no indication anyone “took any action to ensure that the accused ministers were no longer in positions of power at SBC churches.”
The Houston Chronicle’s Downen and Tedesco note:
The report is by far the SBC’s most consequential response yet to widespread abuses detailed in Abuse of Faith, a 2019 investigation by the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News that found hundreds of SBC church leaders and volunteers have been criminally charged with sex crimes since 2000. The series also detailed numerous incidents in which denominational leaders mishandled, ignored or concealed warnings that SBC churches were being targeted by predators.
Even before the Texas newspapers’ powerful reporting (which Downen discussed in a 2020 Weekend Plug-in interview), sex abuse in the SBC had become a subject of intense national news coverage.
Ironically, Christianity Today’s Shellnutt recalls that today marks the four-year anniversary of a 13-hour, closed-door meeting in which trustees of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, dismissed the seminary’s longtime president, Paige Patterson.
Patterson’s May 23, 2018, demotion (which later became a firing) came “amid an evangelical #MeToo moment: a massive backlash from women upset over comments he made in the past that are newly perceived as sexist and demeaning,” as Bailey, Michelle Boorstein and I reported for the Washington Post. (I’ll never forget that meeting. I showed up expecting it to last a few hours. It ended up taking all night.)
As for the latest news, it’s sure to make for an explosive SBC annual meeting in just a few weeks.
Southern Baptists plan to gather in Anaheim, California, from June 12 to 15.
Power Up: The Week’s Best Reads
1. A band of brothers drives Ukraine: My Christian Chronicle colleague Erik Tryggestad, who has made frequent reporting trips to Ukraine over the past two decades, returns to that war-torn nation.
In this compelling feature (with photos by the Chronicle’s Audrey Jackson), Tryggestad reports on how “Christians who escaped the horrors of war journey back to the front lines to aid the hurting and share Jesus.”
In all, Tryggestad has reported from 80 countries. I’ve reported from all 50 states. My friend points out that’s just one country.
2. How Black people and Jews are bound together in ‘great replacement’ theory: “Dozens of pages of the Buffalo shooter's manifesto are devoted first to Blacks and then to Jews, replete with photos, drawings, graphs and caricatures,” Religion News Service’s Yonat Shimron reports.
More coverage:
• One week later, Buffalo shooting sparks a familiar refrain with few solutions (by Hamil R. Harris, ReligionUnplugged.com)
• Buffalo church members help save lives during grocery store shooting (by Gabriel Grant Huff, Christian Chronicle)
• Faith on the ground in Buffalo: Voice Buffalo executive director Denise Walden (by Adelle M. Banks, RNS)
3. When are attacks on churches classified as hate crimes?: “Both local and federal authorities are considering hate crimes charges against the man who attacked a California church on May 15,” according to the Deseret News’ Kelsey Dallas.
Associated Press religion writer Deepa Bharath reports from Los Angeles, “The recent deadly shooting at Irvine Taiwanese Presbyterian Church in California didn’t just violate a sacred space. Taiwanese Americans across the country say it ripped through their cultural bastion.”
BONUS: The possible overturning of Roe v. Wade remains big news.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s Shelia Poole talks to religious women on both sides of the abortion debate. Poole’s assessment of their views: It’s complicated.
More coverage:
• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi banned from receiving Communion over abortion support (by Clemente Lisi, ReligionUnplugged.com)
• In wake of Pelosi Communion ban, pope backs pro-life demonstration in Italy (by Inés San Martín, Crux)
• Some Catholic abortion foes are uneasy about overturning Roe (by David Crary, Associated Press)
• Religious backers of abortion rights say God’s on their side (by Claire Galofaro, AP)
• Does religious freedom law give you a right to abortion? (by Kelsey Dallas, Deseret News)
• With Roe in peril, abortion rights advocates prepare appeals to religious liberty (by Jack Jenkins, Religion News Service)
• As Roe’s potential fall nears, abortion abolitionists turn on ‘pro-life elites’ (by Bob Smietana, RNS)
• That big abortion scoop that Time forgot, and other tales from the news magazine era (by Richard Ostling, GetReligion)
More Top Reads
• U.S. report details church-state collusion on Native schools (by Peter Smith, Associated Press)
• Exodus, Judges or Nehemiah: Lebanon’s evangelicals assess surprising election victory (by Jayson Casper, Christianity Today)
• ‘Being the smoke’: One man’s choice to be cremated under the open sky (by Ruth Graham, New York Times)
• In Mexico, a decade of images shows Mennonites' traditions frozen in time (by Jose Luis Gonzalez and Cassandra Garrison, Reuters)
• Christian nationalism is shaping a Pa. primary — and a GOP shift (by Michelle Boorstein, Washington Post) (Update)
• From hiding his religion to using it as a platform, this man raises millions of dollars (by Brandon Drenon, Indianapolis Star)
• Preservationists seek to acquire beloved Hollywood home to cloistered nuns (by Alejandra Molina, Religion News Service)
• Ministry of disgraced Christian evangelical figure can be sued for donation refunds, court says (by Mark A. Kellner, Washington Times)
Inside The Godbeat: Behind The Bylines
How can news organizations build trust with religious Americans?
That will be the subject of a National Press Club Journalism Institute discussion June 24.
In other Godbeat news, the New York Times’ Ruth Graham was a recent guest on NPR’s “Fresh Air,” discussing an evangelical “divide between the pulpit and the pew.”
Charging Station: In Case You Missed It
Here is where you can catch up on recent news and opinions from ReligionUnplugged.com.
• Inside the rise of Kansas hoops powerhouse Sunrise Christian Academy (by Clemente Lisi)
• Hindus in Kashmir are protesting a man's death, demanding security from militants (by Zaffar Iqbal)
• Love for many wrong reasons: Three years after the cathedral’s fire, a look back at Victor Hugo’s passion for Notre Dame (by R.T.M. Sullivan)
• Mission Berlin: The Church Of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and its nearly 170 years in Germany’s capital city (by Ken Chitwood)
• Andrew Garfield, deconstructionist extraordinaire: A look at the actor’s faith-based roles (by Jillian Cheney)
• Pro-abortion rights protesters hit Catholic churches: why you didn't read about it (by Clemente Lisi)
• The Buffalo shooter wanted to murder Blacks and Jews, especially Jews (by Dr. Michael Brown)
• ‘Reading the Church Fathers’ tells the story of how the past shaped the church we know today (by Clemente Lisi)
The Final Plug
“Will John Lennon, the ex-Beatle famous for imploring fans to ‘imagine there’s no heaven,’ greet fans when they enter the Pearly Gates?”
The Washington Times’ Mark A. Kellner asks that provocative question in a feature on pastor Greg Laurie’s new book, “Lennon, Dylan, Alice & Jesus: The Spiritual Biography of Rock and Roll.”
In case you missed it, here’s why Plug-in didn’t publish Friday: Last week was just incredibly busy for me. Hopefully, this special (and timely) Monday edition makes up for it.
Thank you for reading!
Bobby Ross Jr. is a columnist for ReligionUnplugged.com and editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. A former religion writer for The Associated Press and The Oklahoman, Ross has reported from all 50 states and 15 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.