Abuse of Faith - 20 years, 700 victims

[DaisyDay]

For obvious reasons, some people, non-Catholics, like to point fingers at the Catholic abuse scandal. They don't seem to realize that it isn't limited to a single faith. The Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express have done an expose on the Southern Baptist Convention spanning 20 years.

In the past 20 years, a disturbing number of Southern Baptists with formal church roles have engaged in sexual misconduct, a new investigation by the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News reveals. They were pastors. Deacons. Youth pastors. They left behind more than 700 victims. Read and hear the stories of those victims, and learn the depths of the crimes and misconduct of the church leaders they trusted.

Abuse of Faith: Houston Chronicle, San Antonio Express-News investigation reveals decades of sexual abuse from Southern Baptist church leaders, volunteers

In June 2008, she paid her way to Indianapolis, where [Debbie Vasquez] and others asked leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention and its 47,000 churches to track sexual predators and take action against congregations that harbored or concealed abusers. Vasquez, by then in her 40s, implored them to consider prevention policies like those adopted by faiths that include the Catholic Church.

Days later, Southern Baptist leaders rejected nearly every proposed reform.

The abusers haven't stopped. They've hurt hundreds more.​

Southern Baptist churches hired dozens of leaders previously accused of sex offenses

At least 700 people — nearly all of them children — reported being sexually abused by those who worked or volunteered at Southern Baptist churches since 1998. Records show that about 220 Southern Baptist church leaders and volunteers have been convicted of sex crimes or took plea deals. The charges range from possessing child inappropriate contentography to raping children.

The SBC had an opportunity to stop some of the abuse.

More than 100 Southern Baptist youth pastors convicted or charged in sex crimes

 

[Hank77]

It would be ridiculously naive for anyone to think that there aren't sexual predators in all walks of life and most large organizations, even churches. The SBC, just doesn't have the same authority over Southern Baptist churches as say the Assemblies of God, the RCC, etc......the SBC isn't moving known offenders from one church to another in order to hide them within the organization. Surely they should do more to instruct and set up suggested hiring requirements. They could do more to help the individual churches to avoid hiring a predator.
The article linked below gives more information, examples of poor hiring practices, and victims stories.

No religion is immune to sexual misconduct in its ranks. But unlike the Roman Catholic Church, which is wrestling with its own sex-abuse scandal, Baptists don't answer to a pope or bishop.

Local church autonomy is a bedrock foundation of Baptist faith. There's no diocese that assigns priests to a parish. Instead, each church is responsible for ordaining and hiring its own ministers.

Boto said the SBC can't force its churches to participate in any efforts to track sex abuse. That means each Baptist church in the SBC — there are 47,000 of them — decides for itself how vigorously to screen job applicants.

Southern Baptist churches hired dozens of leaders previously accused of sex offenses

 

[cow451]

Being a recovering Southern Baptist I can validate the fact that evangelical churches have been a great cover for many criminals and scoundrels. The SBC, like many organizations simply moved problem individuals out and they went on to other communities.

That said, the SBC is no more nor less guilty than any other male heterosexually led organization.

 

[DaisyDay]

It would be ridiculously naive for anyone to think that there aren't sexual predators in all walks of life and most large organizations, even churches. The SBC, just doesn't have the same authority over Southern Baptist churches as say the Assemblies of God, the RCC, etc......the SBC isn't moving known offenders from one church to another in order to hide them within the organization. Surely they should do more to instruct and set up suggested hiring requirements. They could do more to help the individual churches to avoid hiring a predator.

Yes, considering they haven't done anything, they could certainly do more. So far, they've refused to institute any of the suggested reforms. While they can't require a church to use their registry, they could have and maintain one so a church that wanted to, could.

 

[DaisyDay]

That said, the SBC is no more nor less guilty than any other male heterosexually led organization.

Except they've refused to take any responsibility or institute any accountability. That is not true of all other male heterosexually led organizations.

 

[cow451]

Except they've refused to take any responsibility or institute any accountability. That is not true of all other male heterosexually led organizations.

Like the athletic department at Penn State?

 

[DaisyDay]

Like the athletic department at Penn State?

My post had two parts, so like which part? Can't be both.

 

[cow451]

My post had two parts, so like which part? Can't be both.

I’ll take part “A” for $200, Alex.

 

[loveofourlord]

of course there are, the issue with the catholics is more the breath and scope of the problem along with the institutional hiding and moving of them, and 20 years later they are JUST NOW thinking maybe they should do something...and even then it's just holding a conference.

 

[DaisyDay]

of course there are, the issue with the catholics is more the breath and scope of the problem along with the institutional hiding and moving of them, and 20 years later they are JUST NOW thinking maybe they should do something...and even then it's just holding a conference.

What makes the breadth and scope greater than the simple breadth and scope of the Church itself? The Catholic Church has been dealing with it, not well at the upper echelons, for a decade now - see Father Doyles' letter in the article. The Southern Baptists aren't even at the point of admitting there is a problem.

 

[loveofourlord]

What makes the breadth and scope greater than the simple breadth and scope of the Church itself? The Catholic Church has been dealing with it, not well at the upper echelons, for a decade now - see Father Doyles' letter in the article. The Southern Baptists aren't even at the point of admitting there is a problem.

dealing? How many arrests, they list a ton of priests in the two grand juries and such and only after pushed do they list priests not dead or statute or limtations gone.

 

[DaisyDay]

dealing? How many arrests, they list a ton of priests in the two grand juries and such and only after pushed do they list priests not dead or statute or limtations gone.

How many priests are in a ton? You're correct that not enough has been done and that dealing with it has mainly consisted of paying off the victims and either retiring or laicizing the priests and their superiors rather than turning them over to the civil authorities for criminal prosecutions. However, this problem is not confined to the Catholic Church; it was simply exposed there first. It seems to be human nature to cover up and excuse those in power.

 

[tampasteve]

MOD HAT ON

Please note, this thread has been moved to a more appropriate forum. The SOP for this forum may be different from the original.

MOD HAT OFF​

 

[essentialsaltes]

The Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express have done an expose on the Southern Baptist Convention spanning 20 years.
Abuse of Faith: Houston Chronicle, San Antonio Express-News investigation reveals decades of sexual abuse from Southern Baptist church leaders, volunteers

​

More than 100 Southern Baptist youth pastors convicted or charged in sex crimes

A mere 2.5 years later, and the SBC is hot on the case.

An investigation of the church’s handling of allegations is moving forward. Women have been telling their stories for years.

The Southern Baptist Convention nearly unanimously approved a third-party audit of sexual abuse allegations within its more than 47,000 churches. It also authorized an investigation into a suspected widespread coverup by the Executive Committee.

This week, Southern Baptist executives reaffirmed the probe into the church’s handling of sex abuse allegations. But a top denominational committee voted against full transparency in the investigation on Tuesday, declining to waive attorney-client privilege in the inquiry.

These developments come after a landmark investigation in 2019 by the Houston Chronicle revealed that more than 250 pastors and church leaders in the SBC had been charged with sex crimes in the past 20 years, affecting more than 700 victims. Overwhelmingly, the victims were children. Most of them were girls.

[3 women's stories]
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“There are pastors commenting online saying I’m lying and deserve the death penalty,” Williams said. “They literally want me dead.”

Those comments came after Williams publicly alleged that her father, a Southern Baptist pastor who ministered at more than 20 churches throughout her childhood, repeatedly raped her, starting as far back as Williams can remember.

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“they blamed me, calling it a mutual sin. [youth pastor] Andy [Savage] got to go on the next day — business as usual. It completely destroyed my life.”

After the assault, Woodson’s life quickly began to buckle, she said. Unable to endure the sense of betrayal she felt, she stopped going to church. She became ostracized from her family, she said, and couldn’t focus on her studies at Texas Christian University after being hospitalized for major depression and anxiety, dropping out of school before graduating.

“As a college student on staff at a church in Texas more than 20 years ago, I regretfully had a sexual incident with a female high school senior in the church,” Savage had said to his congregation at High Point in 2018. He received a standing ovation from the audience for the public apology.

---

For more than a decade of near-constant physical and sexual abuse, Douglas remained silent out of fear, she said: fear that her father would find out and punish her, fear of no one believing her, fear that the church would blame her for being a temptress and, most of all, fear of being separated from her younger sisters, who are now 13 and 10.

 

[cow451]

Hey, the earth wasn't created in a week, you know. A little patience, please.

 

[essentialsaltes]

A mere 2.5 years later, and the SBC is hot on the case. An investigation of the church’s handling of allegations is moving forward. Women have been telling their stories for years.
These developments come after a landmark investigation in 2019 by the Houston Chronicle revealed that more than 250 pastors and church leaders in the SBC had been charged with sex crimes in the past 20 years, affecting more than 700 victims. Overwhelmingly, the victims were children. Most of them were girls.

Ronnie Floyd, the acting CEO of the business arm for the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, has resigned from his position as head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee after a weeks-long internal battle over how the denomination should handle a sex abuse investigation.

Floyd’s resignation comes after weeks of intense debates that played out on Zoom and Twitter over an internal investigation into how the Executive Committee has handled sexual abuse allegations.

The SBC has been rocked by reports of hundreds of sexual abuse cases revealed in a 2019 investigation by the Houston Chronicle. It has ousted churches that employed pastors who were abusers and set up resources for churches to prevent sexual abuse. However, several sexual abuse survivors have said the denomination has not done enough to investigate and prevent more abuse from happening, because it does not have a way of tracking abusers within its network of churches.