Sex abuse prevention advice approved
NASHVILLE — The Tennessee Baptist Convention, the state convention of Southern Baptists, has approved a recommendation to create a task force to study policies related to sexual abuse prevention. The messengers, or voting delegates from local churches, overwhelmingly approved a recommendation from the convention’s outgoing president, Bruce Chesser. The Tennessee Baptist Convention met for two days last week for its annual gathering, which it calls a “Summit.”
The Tennessee Baptist Convention is the body of messengers that meets for the two-day annual gathering. The Tennessee Baptist Mission Board is a standing entity comprised of staff governed by a board of directors that handles day-today activities throughout the rest of the year.
The recommendation by Chesser, lead pastor of First Baptist Church in Hendersonville, Tennessee, asks for the task force to evaluate the convention’s processes to respond to abuse allegations and prevent future abuse, and the resources to educate local church leaders to prevent abuse.
“This is not an investigation,” Chesser said in a session Tuesday. “We want, rather than react to the problem when it comes, to be proactive. To help the [Tennessee Baptist Mission Board] know how best to assist churches, to educate people, to keep sexual abuse from being a problem in our churches.”
The Tennessee initiative runs parallel with two sexual abuse inquiries at the national level — one investigating the Southern Baptist Convention executive committee and the other under the jurisdiction of the SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission — and other recent state-based initiatives. From late September to early November, all the state Southern Baptist conventions have been gathering for their annual meeting.
Sexual abuse survivors have been speaking out about abuse in Southern Baptist churches for decades, but initiatives related to abuse response and prevention have gained momentum in recent years after a Houston Chronicle investigation in 2019 that found more than 700 sexual abuse victims in Southern Baptist churches since 1998.
After the Houston Chronicle investigation, Randy Davis, Tennessee Baptist Mission Board executive director, the chief staff position, created a task force in 2019 to evaluate sexual abuse response and prevention policies, said Bill Choate, a board staff member who oversaw the 2019 task force.
The task force the messengers approved a recommendation for Tuesday will be similar to the 2019 effort. However, Choate noted, the new task force is different because the convention messengers approved it, not staff.
Choate expects the new task force to build on and expand the work of the 2019 task force.
Not all messengers were initially for Chesser’s recommendation. Prior to a vote, messengers debated the recommendation. Floyd Paris, pastor of Leawood Baptist Church outside Memphis, said clauses in the recommendation give the convention authority to compel churches to act a certain way.
“The Tennessee Baptist Mission Board cannot respond to any allegation of sexual abuse from any church at any time,” Paris said.
Southern Baptists believe strongly in the idea of local church autonomy.
Other messengers disagreed with Paris. “It’s not mandating that we respond as a convention … it’s an evaluation process,” said Ashley
Ray, pastor of Ridgeway Baptist Church in Memphis. “We need to be blameless and we need to be the first to step in line and show that we are willing to be accountable to one another.”
Chesser’s successor, Clay Hallmark, who the Tennessee messengers elected Tuesday afternoon, will appoint the members of the new task force. Hallmark is the senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Lexington.
Hannah-Kate Williams, an activist who has pushed for sexual abuse reform initiatives across the Southern Baptist Convention and who reported abuse to church staff when she lived in Knoxville, said she is hopeful about the new task force.
“I think this is a good first step and we will have to wait and see if they follow through,” Williams said.