Churches’ autonomy empowers predators
A joint investigation by the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News has revealed that since 1998, roughly 380 Southern Baptist church leaders and volunteers have faced allegations of sexual misconduct, leaving behind more than 700 victims.
The first part of their report, “Abuse of Faith,” was published on Sunday. Many Americans found it shocking, in addition to distressing. Some readers were left wondering if a similar pattern of abuse might be discovered in other religious communities, or other Christian churches.
That’s a fair question, and one that people of faith should take seriously.
“At the core of Southern Baptist doctrine is local church autonomy, the idea that each church is independent and selfgoverning,” my colleagues reported.
That would help explain the number of predators they identified during the course of a yearlong investigation. A Southern Baptist pastor who’s behaved inappropriately isn’t subject to oversight by the Southern Baptist Convention — which explains, on its website, that it’s a “collaborative ministry partner” rather than a governing body.
Southern Baptists aren’t the only people prone to sin, however, and a number of evangelical pastors have been accused of sexual misconduct since the #MeToo movement began. According to many American “exvangelicals,” these cases are reflective of a broader problem, rooted in Christian teachings on gender, sexuality and relationships.
Also, the Southern Baptist Convention isn’t the first denomination to be roiled by a “Church Too” scandal, although the phrase itself is a new one. Last month, 14 Catholic dioceses in
Texas identified 286 priests who had been credibly accused of sexually assaulting minors since 1941 — 42 of whom were listed by the Archdiocese of GalvestonHouston.
In other words, it’s possible that other denominations would face a similar reckoning if confronted with the results of a yearlong newspaper investigation.
As a Methodist, however, I doubt the United Methodist Church would be among them. My denomination isn’t better, per se, than any other. But it has a different organizational structure, for example, than the Southern Baptist Convention.
Later this month, for example, delegates from Methodist churches around the world are gathering in St. Louis for a Special Session of the General Conference, concerning language pertaining to human sexuality in the church’s Book of Discipline.
The present language is from 1972, notes a report from the church’s Commission on the Way Forward, and in recent years it has caused “increasing harm to one another, and a deepening impasse related to human sexuality and the unity of the church.”
The report lays out three possible approaches the United Methodist Church might take to ameliorate those problems, given that some Methodists take a progressive view of LGBTQ rights while others are traditionalists.
The Southern Baptist Convention doesn’t allow for that kind of disagreement. It may be a “collaborative ministry partner” but under the Constitution of the convention, it only partners with Baptist churches that are deemed to be “in friendly cooperation with the Convention, and sympathetic with its purposes and work.”
Churches that act to “affirm, approve, or endorse homosexual behavior,” for example, wouldn’t make the cut, because they would be at odds with the statement of faith adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention itself.
At the same time, the SBC’s commitment to local church autonomy inevitably frustrates would-be reformers.
That helps explain why the Southern Baptist Convention ended up being the subject of a newspaper investigation in the first place.
The leaders of the churches that cooperate with the Southern Baptist Convention have to toe the line, in terms of what they preach. But those who abuse or assault members of their congregation can’t be held accountable easily, even if their victims come forward. SBC leaders have invoked the doctrine of local church autonomy in response to calls for action.
And the doctrine of local church autonomy helps explain why the Southern Baptist Convention’s problem is systemic. It’s a distinguishing characteristic of the denomination.
The “Frequently Asked Questions” section of the Convention’s website includes the following question: “I believe our pastor (or my church) has acted inappropriately. What can the SBC do about it?”
The answer leaves the impression that the question itself might be deemed inappropriate.
“The SBC is not a church and has no authority to renounce, censure, investigate, or otherwise attempt to discipline members of any local church,” it says in part.
That kind of response is hardly likely to dissuade a sexual predator, especially if they’ve been ordained as a pastor in a denomination that considers the pastor to be the best judge of himself, as well as the most vulnerable members of his flock.