Sex Abuse in the SBC and Taking Steps To Stop It

Sexual abuse survivors in a meeting after Tuesdays SBC

This 2019 Southern Baptist Convention, which is the 40th anniversary of the 1979 Houston SBC which began what some call the Conservative Resurgence, will go down in history as the Stop Sexual Abuse Convention.

In 2005, my first year as a trustee of the International Mission Board, I discovered that the SBC had a patriarchal power problem. Men in denominational leadership were doing everything they could to exclude women from leadership,  from teaching others Gospel truth, and from doing anything that "imitated the authority of a male." I won't take time to recount the issues, but you can read about them in Hard Ball Religion.

It didn't long for me to see there was a massive sexual abuse problem in the SBC. Power trips typically end in twisted trysts of sexual submission.

Sadly, rather than approving my recommendation to create a sexual abuse database in 2007 to track the patriarchal power problem in the SBC, it took the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio News-Express in 2019 to jolt the SBC into action.

At least things are now moving.

The Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, under the leadership of Russell Moore, has zoomed to the forefront of the fight to stop sexual abuse. The ELRC has published some superb materials called Becoming a Church that Cares Well the Abused. Every Southern Baptist Church should take advantage of them.

That said, the International Mission Board did not mention the problem of sexual abuse on the SBC mission field in their report to the Convention. To be fair, on May 29, 2019, the IMB published on their website the preliminary sexual abuse report that the law firm Gray Plant Mooty released. The preliminary sexual abuse report contained specific recommendations for the IMB to prevent any further sexual abuse cases on the mission field.

We had a wonderful IMB commissioning service at the Convention, but the Southern Baptist Convention has a moral obligation to put in the official record what is needed to reverse the curse of sexual abuse within our respective agencies.

The IMB made a wise choice  by using outside counsel to investigate past history of the IMB’s handling of sexual abuse cases and to recommend specific steps the IMB can implement to prevent sexual abuse on the mission field.

I made a motion to put into the Southern Baptist Convention's Offical Annual the specific steps the law firm Gray Plant Moody recommended that the IMB take.

According to the platform, SBC "legal counsel" advised them against such an action. After the session, I had a cordial but heated exchange with the Southern Baptist Convention’s legal counsel. They said the International Mission Board decides what they wish to report out to the SBC, and we can't make them report anything.

That’s wrong.

It's our (the SBC's) report, and we can do anything we desire with it because WE (the SBC) place it in our Convention Annual three months from now. The SBC needs in “the official record" what the IMB must do (according to Gray Plant Moody). The SBC legal counsel gave the Convention bad legal counsel, mostly because they don’t understand parliamentarian rules, the SBC annual and archives, and they didn’t take the time to understand the motion I made (a simple phone call would suffice because they had my cell).

We (the SBC) has every right to put into the official record the following sixteen recommended steps for the IMB:

1. Create a new full-time position to oversee prevention and response efforts. This new senior staff member would have a broad range of responsibilities, including overseeing training, receiving reports of child abuse or sexual harassment (including sexual assault), and overseeing the investigation process;

2. When IMB receives a report of child abuse or sexual harassment (including sexual assault), involve outside legal counsel with expertise in this area to provide advice throughout the process;

3. Continue the current practice of using a forensic psychologist with expertise in interviewing children to conduct investigation interviews of children.

4. Adopt protocols for consistently reporting allegations of child abuse committed by IMB personnel or others affiliated with IMB to U.S. government authorities, even when there is not a legal duty to do so.

5. Adopt protocols for reporting allegations of child abuse to foreign government authorities;

6. Revise policies and trainings to make clear that in addition to personnel’s obligations to report suspected child abuse internally to IMB, personnel also have the option, and sometimes the obligation, to report directly to government authorities;

7. Report every known incident of alleged child abuse by IMB personnel or others affiliated with IMB that has not previously been reported.

8. Revise the screening process for employees to more thoroughly screen for concerns related to child abuse or sexual harassment (including sexual assault);

9. Provide increased training, incorporating additional content, for expanded audiences, and with greater frequency. Topics should include child safety, sexual harassment, sexual assault, and domestic violence, as well as more frequent age-appropriate education for children of IMB personnel to help children recognize and report abuse;

10. Implement a consistent, centralized process for screening volunteers including effective oversight from IMB personnel;

11. Modify the investigation process to use trauma-informed interview techniques and a trauma-informed approach to weighing evidence;

12. Adopt additional policies to enhance the resources and support available to victims during and after the investigation;

13. Publicize IMB’s current reference policy to encourage employers considering working or partnering with former IMB personnel to contact IMB to receive accurate information;

14. Encourage reporting to IMB leadership when individuals are aware that perpetrators are working in a position that would provide access to children following the end of their affiliation with IMB;

15. Adopt a clear process by which IMB will provide affirmative safety warnings when individuals report to IMB leadership that perpetrators are working in a position that would provide access to children following the end of their affiliation with IMB;

16. Implement overall changes to policy and practice aimed at eliminating or reducing barriers to reporting and strengthening IMB’s prevention and response efforts.

These actionable steps to prevent sexual abuse within the International Mission Board should have been reported out and placed into the official record of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Legal counsel said "No."

We live in a crazy day when the SBC legal counsel says "no" to our Convention placing into the official record of the Southern Baptist Convention sixteen steps of action recommended by a legal firm (Gray Plant Mooty), an action plan paid for by the International Mission Board, and made public on the IMB website.

Talk is cheap.

The Southern Baptist Convention messengers are charged to hold accountable the independent agencies of our Convention. I will be back next year to make sure we have a report from the IMB that tells us if they have actually taken the steps Gray Plant Mooty recommended.

Now, off to the Convention to see if we're going to continue to promote patriarchal power plays by limiting the "functions" of a pastor to males only.