Southern Baptist Leaders Allegedly Covered Up Sexual Abuse, Kept Secret Database, Report Finds

A bombshell report released on Sunday found that leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention covered up incidents of sexual abuse and ignored, minimized, and vilified survivors.

The nearly 300-page report includes new details regarding the specific abuse cases and shines a light on how denominational leaders have, for decades, actively resisted calls for abuse prevention and reform. Evidence cited by the report suggests that leaders of the group also lied to Southern Baptists over whether or not they could maintain a database of offenders to prevent more abuse when top leaders secretly kept a private list for several years.

Ignoring Sexual Abuse

The report is the first investigation of its kind in a massive Protestant denomination like the SBC and is expected to send a ripple into a conservative Christian community that has had an intense internal battle over how best to handle sexual abuse. The denomination, which has roughly 13 million members, has struggled with declining membership for the past 15 years, similar to other religious institutions in the United States, as per the Washington Post.

The group's leaders have long resisted comparisons between its sexual abuse crisis and that of the Catholic Church. They said the total number of abuse cases among Southern Baptists was relatively small.

However, the investigation has found that for almost two decades, survivors of abuse and other concerned Southern Baptists have been contacting the convention's administrative arm to report alleged child molesters and other accused abusers who were in the pulpit or employed as church staff members.

An organization called Guidepost Solutions was responsible for compiling the report at the request of Southern Baptists. It states that abuse survivors' calls and emails were "only to be met, time and time again, with resistance, stonewalling, and even outright hostility."

According to the Houston Chronicle, a small, insular, and influential group of leaders allegedly "focused on avoiding liability for the SBC to the exclusion of other considerations" to prevent abuse. Guidepost Solutions conducted 330 interviews and reviewed SBC's internal files in the investigation that lasted seven months.

Findings and Recommendations

The report concluded that survivors and others who reported the abuse were ignored, disbelieved, or met with a constant refrain that the SBC could take no action due to its structure. This comes even if it meant that convicted molesters continued in ministry with no notice or warning to their current church or congregation.

The organization investigated the convention's 86-member executive committee, which is its highest governing entity. Guidepost Solutions had unprecedented access to the SBC's leadership and reviewed thousands of internal documents, including previously confidential communications between SBC lawyers.

Guidepost Solutions said in its report that almost always, the internal focus was to protect the SBC from legal liability and not on caring for survivors or creating any plan to prevent sexual abuse within its churches. The organization made 17 recommendations in its report, including urging the SBC to establish an offender database, formally apologize to survivors, and clarify standards for churches and clergy.

The situation comes as this year's annual meeting is only three weeks away and is scheduled to be held in Anaheim. The bombshell report is expected to be front-and-center of the discussions as thousands of delegates, called messengers, will likely vote on measures related to the findings and recommendations, the Tennessean reported.