Southern Baptists seek speedy sex abuse review
Critics fear delays would damage denomination
NASHVILLE, Tenn. – A top Southern Baptist Convention committee is facing mounting pressure from the denomination to move forward without further delay an investigation into how it handled sexual abuse allegations.
Many seminary presidents, state convention leaders and pastors in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination are frustrated with the Executive Committee’s inaction.
The critics, growing in number, have called for the committee to accept the terms of the investigation set by thousands of Southern Baptist delegates in June. Some have warned a failure to do so risks financial contributions from churches, erodes trust within the convention and runs counter to the evangelical denomination’s bottom-up structure.
The Executive Committee, which acts on behalf of the convention when it is not holding a national meeting, is facing a crisis of confidence, said the Rev. Adam Greenway, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. The Executive Committee is at this point because of a “colossal failure of leadership,” he said.
“We’re seeing play out before a watching world something that should never have been allowed to escalate to this point,” Greenway said.
The Executive Committee is facing a third-party investigation into allegations it mishandled sexual abuse cases, resisted reforms and intimidated
survivors, but it’s divided on the terms of the review, including a request to waive its attorney-client privilege that protects some communications with its lawyers. The waiver is viewed as a key demand of the delegates, known as messengers, who put the investigation in motion.
This is the latest tension point in the SBC’S reckoning with its abuse scandal. A 2019 report from the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-news revealed the scope of the issue by documenting hundreds of cases in Southern Baptist churches, including several in which alleged perpetrators remained in ministry.
The recent wave of pushback includes a letter signed by 25 Southern Baptist pastors in South Carolina. They called on the Executive Committee to submit to a thorough, independent assessment
and said they plan to consider directing their churches’ financial support of the committee elsewhere if it does not comply.
A statement attributed to an Executive Committee spokesperson said investigators will be given “appropriate access” to documents and the committee thinks the delegates’ intentions can be achieved without exposing the SBC to unnecessary damage.
The task force has urged the Executive Committee to waive attorney-client privilege for the investigation. But attempts to do so have failed to get enough votes during the top panel’s two recent meetings. Some Executive Committee members are wary of taking that step, saying it could jeopardize their insurance policies, while others are concerned about the consequences of not doing what the delegates have asked.