Bellevue Baptist Church responds to sex abuse lawsuit
Bellevue Baptist Church said Friday that the church is “committed to supporting victims of abuse and take any allegations of abuse very seriously” in response to a lawsuit filed against it by the parents of a teenage sexual abuse victim.
The response comes after a report in The Commercial Appeal about the suit. The lawsuit alleges Bellevue officials knew or should have known the 15-yearold’s abuser, a paid volunteer coordinator at the church, was a risk to minor children. Initially, officials at Bellevue declined to comment. They provided the statement to The Commercial Appeal after Baptist Press, the official news service of the Southern Baptist Convention, began working on their own article about the lawsuit. The statement from Bellevue notes that James A. Hook, the 15year-old’s abuser, resigned from his position as a part-time employee at Bellevue in March 2019, two months before his arrest. “The lawsuit makes various allegations pertaining to Bellevue’s knowledge of the former part-time employee’s actions.” the statement reads. “Again, we take all allegations seriously. We have filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit and are waiting for the court to rule . ... The wellbeing of our church family is of the utmost importance to us. We pray for and will continue to support anyone who has been a victim of abuse.”
Bellevue Baptist Church is one of the largest churches in the Memphis area, with an average Sunday attendance of about 8,000. It is a flagship church of the Southern Baptist Convention, and its pastor, the Rev. Steve Gaines, once led the denomination as its 61st president.
The Southern Baptist Convention has recently grappled with sexual misconduct within its churches after a 2019 investigation by the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-news found about 380 Southern Baptist church leaders and volunteers who had faced allegations of sexual misconduct over the past 20 years, with more than 700 victims.
This isn’t the first time Bellevue has faced accusations of mishandling sexual abuse. In 2007, an assistant pastor at the church confessed to Gaines that he had sexually abused a minor – his son – in 1990 for 12-18 months. Gaines did not report the disclosure for six months. The assistant pastor was eventually investigated and fired.
In the recent case of abuse of a teenage girl, Hook pleaded guilty to sexual battery by an authority figure in January after officers found Hook and the 15year-old girl in a car together in May 2019. Hook admitted to sexual contact with her, but denied having intercourse, according to the affidavit. Hook was charged with sexual battery by an authority figure and solicitation of a minor at the time. According to the lawsuit, Hook used his position to encourage “Janet Doe” – the pseudonym used to identify his 15-year-old victim – to volunteer in the children’s Sunday School program, where he had access to her alone. There, the complaint says, he groomed her, giving her gifts, complimenting her and sending her sexually explicit photos of her mother taken during an extramarital affair seven years earlier.
He began kissing and having other physical contact with her, sometimes on Bellevue property or when driving her home. Hook was the father of “Janet Doe’s” sibling, according to court documents, and had previously engaged in an extramarital affair with her mother.
In its response filed in court, Bellevue denied “any suggestion or insinuation that Bellevue permitted, condoned or was aware” that Hook was grooming his victim. The church also denied any liability for Hook’s actions “which were outside the course and scope of his employment.”
Katherine Burgess covers county government, religion and the suburbs. She can be reached at katherine.burgess@commercialappeal.com, 901-5292799 or followed on Twitter @kathsburgess.