Southern Baptists set to clean house
Church aims to protect flock, not reputation
Southern Baptist leaders are pushing ahead with plans to address a sexual abuse crisis rocking the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.
J.D. Greear, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, unveiled a series of proposals this week aimed at holding congregations and their leaders accountable for protecting those that attend their churches.
The steps could include expelling some churches that have a “wanton disregard for prevention of sexual abuse.”
“If we don’t get this right, our churches will not be a safe place for the lost. That is not something that I am OK with,” Greear told the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee in Nashville, Tennessee. “I know that it is not something that you’re OK with either.”
Greear, who leads the Summit Church in North Carolina, outlined 10 recommendations for change. They are the first proposals to come out of the sexual abuse advisory group Greear formed last year.
The changes range from providing free training for ministry leaders and encouraging churches to review their policies on abuse to calling for a re-examination of the ordination process.
The Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News reported that 380 Southern Baptists with formal church roles have faced sexual misconduct allegations in the past 20 years. Many were convicted of sex crimes and some are still in prison, but others continue to work in churches, the news organizations found.
“We need to regard any exposure, any shining of light on abuse, as our friend, even if it makes us ask some uncomfortable questions about ourselves publicly. Our job is to love and serve people, especially those who have suffered abuse,” Greear said. “Our job is not to protect our reputation.”
Greear addressed the regularly scheduled meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee on Monday night.
“This is not a fabricated story that is made up by people with a secular agenda that is against us. We’ve not taken reports of abuse in our churches as seriously as our gospel demands that we do, and sometimes even worse, outright ignored or silenced victims,” Greear said. “We know that it is time that we back up our words with actions and we demonstrate our commitment to this.”
The recommendations include a call to repent for decades of inaction and to make sure abuse is part of the discussion at the denomination’s annual meeting in Birmingham, Alabama, in June.
Greear called out 10 Southern Baptist churches by name, including Second Baptist Church in Houston, that were accused in media reports of having “displayed a wanton disregard for the seriousness of abuse.”
Greear said those churches and any others facing allegations need to be looked into and possibly removed from the Nashville-based Southern Baptist Convention.
“I am not calling for disfellowshipping any of these churches at this point, but these churches must be called upon to give assurances to the Southern Baptist Convention that they have taken the necessary steps to correct their policies and procedures with regards to abuse and survivors,” Greear said. As he made his way through the list of recommendations, a murmur of “amens” underscored his point. His speech was met with a standing ovation.
In September, the convention’s Executive Committee allocated $250,000 for the sexual abuse advisory group Greear created soon after he was elected in June. The advisory group’s purpose is to figure out how Southern Baptists can better respond to incidents and prevent abuse from happening.
Greear said he formed the group because church leaders have “known that there is a problem.”
“The reason I formed this group last summer was we have known that there is a problem,” Greear said. “Whatever we’ve done in the past we know clearly was not enough.”
The implementation of all 10 recommendations is not a done deal. One barrier could be the denomination’s structure. Southern Baptists believe in church autonomy, not top-down control like some other Christian denominations. “In order to accomplish a lot of these things, everybody is going to have to come and play a role,” said Amy Whitfield with Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary.
“I’m encouraged that the advisory group has been taking that challenge very seriously and bringing in the best expertise to dig through how can we do this,” said Russell Moore, who leads the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.