Scandals will continue

Frank Lockwood’s excellent reporting has exposed more than one scandal at Immanuel Baptist Church in Little Rock. Not only has sexual abuse once again been covered up and sent on to another unsuspecting church, but the whole corrupt system of super-pastors at mega-churches has been exposed. I hope the members will flee wholesale and seek out churches with better biblical leadership and true congregational government.

I do not know the pastor personally, but rubbed shoulders once with his late father, a member of the super-pastor cabal that ran the Southern Baptist Convention for many years. The son is probably a man of good faith and decent character who made a deplorable mistake. He is a product of the nepotism and cronyism which defines the SBC, put into a position way over his head. I pray he finds solid ground elsewhere and learns to be a genuine shepherd rather than a CEO.

The reason he tried to put a lid on the first scandal is the second scandal. Full transparency in this situation, caring more for the victim than the public image of the church, acting with compassion and honesty rather than expediency and opportunism, could have—horror of horrors—lowered the attendance and cash flow of the church! Mega-churches can only survive with mega-numbers and mega-contributions.

Until such SBC churches begin to value the souls and bodies of people more than attendance records and record budgets, these scandals will continue, as will the abysmal slide of the SBC.

CHARLES F. DeVANE JR.

Hot Springs