Southern Baptist leaders stonewalled, denigrated clergy sex abuse victims, report says

According to a scathing 288-page investigative report issued Sunday, leaders of the Southern Baptist ConventionSouthern Baptist Convention, America's largest Protestant denomination, stonewalled and denigrated survivors of clergy sex abuse over almost two decades while trying to protect their own reputations.

These survivors and other concerned Southern Baptists shared allegations with the SBC's Executive Committee, only to be met again and again with resistance, stonewalling and even outright hostility from some within the EC, according to the report.

The seven-month investigation was conducted by Guidepost Solutions, an independent firm contracted by the Executive Committee after delegates to last year s national meeting pressed for an independent investigation.

Our investigation revealed that a number of senior EC leaders, along with outside counsel, largely controlled the response of the EC to these reports of abuse and were focused solely on avoiding liability for the SBC, the report said.

The report said survivors and others who reported abuse were ignored, disbelieved, or met with the constant refrain that the SBC could take no action due to its polity regarding church autonomy, even if they continued in ministry with no notice or warning to their current church or congregation.

SBC President Ed Litton said he is grieved to my core for the victims and thanked God for their work propelling the SBC to this moment. He called on Southern Baptists to lament and prepare to change the denomination's culture and implement reforms.

I pray Southern Baptists will begin preparing to take deliberate action today to address these failures and chart a new course when we meet in Anaheim, Litton said.

It is possible to establish an independent commission and establish a permanent administrative entity that oversees long-term reforms regarding sexual abuse and related misconduct within the SBC.

An Offender Information System is used to alert the community to known offenders.

Restrict the use of nondisclosure agreements and civil settlements thatbind survivors to confidentiality in sexual abuse matters unless requested by the survivor.

A landmark report from the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News in the year 2019 showed that hundreds of cases in Southern Baptist churches, including several in which alleged perpetrators remained in ministry.

Last year, thousands of delegates at the national SBC gathering sent the message that they did not want the Executive Committee to oversee an investigation of its own actions. They voted to create a task force that would provide oversight of the third-party review. The panel was appointed by Litton, pastor of Redemption Church in Saraland, Alabama.

The Executive Committee members had a week to review the report before it was publicly released Sunday afternoon. The recommendations based on Guidepost's findings will be presented on June 14 - 15 at the SBC's annual meeting in Anaheim, California.

In February, the Executive Committee offered a public apology and a confidential monetary settlement to the sexual abuse survivor Jennifer Lyell, who was mischaracterized by the denomination's in-house news service when she decided to go public with her story in March 2019.

After learning the man she accused of abuse, a former Southern Baptist seminary professor, had recently returned to ministry, Lyell publicly disclosed that she was a sexual abuse survivor. She came forward with her story to prevent the man from engaging in further abusive acts.