The Alleged Sex Abuse Crisis and What’s Next for the Southern Baptist Convention

The working assumption that a systemic sex abuse crisis exists in the 47,000+- churches affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is now officially unchallengable received dogma. Question the claim or evidence from which the claim is inferred, and the unwary enquirer will quickly be on the receiving end of the Southern Baptist internet mob.

After raising questions concerning the accuracy of data driving the claim of a SBC sex abuse crisis on Twitter recently, one responder tweeted suggesting I personally cared more about statistical numbers than I did about sex abuse victims. Another tweeted he could understand if I had a question about data, but since I was “trolling survivors”, it was obvious to him I was insincere.¹

The Houston Chronicle Abuse of Faith Series

Thanks to a series of articles compiled by journalists mainly writing for The Houston Chronicle (HC), Southern Baptist elite leaders quickly joined the caravan headed toward officially changing the structure of the SBC so as to accommodate the troubling numbers of sex offenders supposedly hiding within our churches. While the digital ink was still wet on HC’s first article published Feb 10, 2019, Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) president, Russell Moore, condemned Southern Baptists for their ungodly tardiness in dealing with the issue all these years. Indeed, the very day HC’s first article ran, Moore was quoting it as established fact:

This morning’s edition of the Houston Chronicle features a major investigation into church sexual abuse in Southern Baptist contexts, looking at the harm done to over 700 survivors, including children as young as three years old. The report also details over 200 offenders who were convicted or took plea deals, demonstrating how a shocking number returned to ministry to abuse again. The report is alarming and scandalous, the courage and grace of these survivors is contrasted with the horrific depravity of those who would use the name of Jesus to prey on them. So how should Christians think about this latest revelation?

One would think the president of Southern Baptists’ ethics and religious liberty commission would have waited at least until the full study was posted, and its claims reviewed and scrutinized, before issuing a formal statement on HC’s claims. Even so, Moore unequivocally declares the HC article as fully established and demands doubters bow their heads in shame should they dare question the papers’ findings.

We should see this scandal in terms of the church as a flock, not as a corporation. Many, whether in Hollywood or the finance industry or elsewhere, see such horrors as public relations problems to be managed. The church often thinks the same way. … No church should be frustrated by the Houston Chronicle’s reporting, but should thank God for it. The Judgment Seat of Christ will be far less reticent than a newspaper series to uncover what should never have been hidden.

Consequently, not only did Moore (among others including J.D. Greear, president of the SBC) lead the convention to change its by-laws and re-envision the Credentials Committee as a “clearing house”, so to speak, for determining if churches affiliated with the SBC were following undefined compliance in dealing with alleged sex offenders, Moore scraped a planned conference and instead launched a Caring Well Conference to deal with HC’s recently alleged crisis of sexual abuse in the SBC.

Numerous articles have continued to flow from HC about the supposed SBC sex abuse crisis. HC’s well-promoted “databank” of sex abuse offenders claimed by HC to be affiliated with Southern Baptist churches remains the centerpiece of its Abuse of Faith series.

When the story first broke in early 2019, my first inclination was far different from Russell Moore, J.D. Greear, and a host of other SBC elite leaders who so quickly presumed the claims were fully accurate. The dark, depressing picture drawn about Southern Baptist churches from HC did not stir within me a sort of knee-jerk anger I heard coming from SBC public spokesmen. Instead my inclination was to question whether it was so. I have no problem whatsoever believing the worst about either people or organizations, even people or organizations I happen to love. Not only does the Bible clearly reveal all people are sinfully depraved, so does the daily newspaper.

Yet, when sweeping indictments are made about an entire ecclesial convention of tens of thousands of churches, the evidence must necessarily reasonably substantiate the claim. And, given questions surrounding the evidence HC cited, doubts surfaced as to whether a crisis existed in the SBC or whether a crisis was created about the SBC.² Further evidence has surfaced from more intensive research than I initially performed into HC’s databank that has vindicated my initial doubts about this so-called sexual abuse crisis.³

The Lawsuit involving an Arkansas pastor, a church, an association, and a convention

The latest push by HC promoting an alleged sex abuse crisis in the SBC involves the lawsuit against Arkansas pastor, Teddy Leon Hill, Jr., alleging he sexually abused and repeatedly raped a minor over which he had obtained legal guardianship status. Though Hill has apparently neither been charged nor convicted of a crime since police learned of it presumably some two years ago, HC made sure the story was framed to continue its purported narrative that a “sex abuse crisis” exists in the SBC.

What’s thoroughly telling about the Arkansas lawsuit is the implied direction many seem to be taking the SBC. Reading through the lawsuit, one immediately detects not just an historic ignorance of Baptist ecclesiology and polity but an undeniable defiance of it—indeed, even a hatred toward it. The $10,000,000 suit not only names Hill and his former church, Millcreek Baptist Church in Hot Springs as defendants, it also names the local Baptist association to which Millcreek church belonged, the Arkansas Baptist State convention (ABSC), and J. D. “Sonny” Tucker, its Executive Director. The ABSC has publicly denied any wrongdoing by either the convention or its executive director.

The specific way which the lawsuit repeatedly frames the relationship between individual Baptist bodies remains at the heart of the supposed sexual abuse crisis in the SBC claimed by HC in February 2019. At several places in the lawsuit, the notion repeats that a hard-line hierarchy of authority exists between local churches and the associations it has with Baptists bodies, both local and at the state level.

“DEFENDANTS [i.e. all defendants including pastor, church, association, and state convention] are part of a hierarchical religious institution in which there exists a system of oversight and control by ABSC over DIAMOND LAKES and MILLCREEK and HILL and by DIAMOND LAKES over MILLCREEK and HILL” (p.3)

“[Therefore,] Defendants MILLCREEK, DIAMOND LAKES, and ABSC are liable for HILL’s
wrongful conduct under the doctrine of respondeat superior” (p.10).

Every Southern Baptist pastor knows both historically and experientially the relationship between church, association, and state convention in the SBC does not resemble the manufactured hierarchy the lawsuit claims above. Indeed the narrative portrayed should make every Southern Baptist shudder. Since 1845 when it began, no such ecclesial authority has existed in the Southern Baptist Convention. Neither the SBC nor state convention or association has ever claimed a local church pastor to be under its authority or supervision, and it’s absurd to try to make this connection. Yet, that is the narrative driving the supposed sex abuse crisis in the SBC.

Only time will tell whether this hierarchical ecclesiology, no matter how corrupt or false it is, will finally win out in the judicial system. And, make no mistake. Though the Arkansas lawsuit does not name the SBC as a defendant, given the very same argument hierarchically connecting church, association, and state convention, it inevitably—if not, necessarily—follows to include the SBC. That’s where HC, ERLC, and many SBC elites are taking us.

Though I’ve spent the greater part of my ministry serving as pastor in God’s church beginning in 1981; and though all I’ve ever known is personal participation in a church aligned with the Southern Baptist Convention…

If this ecclesial template ever takes root, were I a pastor in the SBC, I would seriously question the viability of remaining in the SBC, or affiliating with any other Baptist body for that matter, since the free church tradition would be effectively overthrown, if not in name, at least in function.

Free churches are just that—free churches. Churches not beholding to or under the authority of anyone other than her One and Only True Sovereign Lord, the Head of the church, Jesus Christ. Thus, a free church is under the Lordship of Jesus Christ alone, guided by His infallible and sufficient Word alone, interpreted and illuminated through His Holy Spirit alone.

Others may do as their conscience allows.

As for me and my house, we ever remain in the free church tradition.

¹The sheer ignorance not to mention the notable absence of conscience of so many on Twitter remains puzzling to me. Continuing to log back on becomes more difficult daily.

²My purpose here is neither to deny sex abuse happens in SBC churches nor to question any report of any individual who’s claimed he/she is a sex abuse victim. We know tragedies like this take place, and my heart bleeds for the hurt it causes. Instead my purpose is to question whether a systemic sex abuse crisis exists in the SBC.

³No need exists to go into detail concerning the questionable evidence upon which HC based its SBC databank in this piece. Suffice it to say that dozens of names of individuals are listed in HC’s databank that have no affiliation with Southern Baptists. This fact alone should caution Southern Baptists to be very careful in exploring changes in our convention organizational structure to accommodate a flawed analysis (i.e. crisis) based on flawed data. The really big question is, why has not our ERLC already engaged this study? Isn’t that part of their charge? Why would Russell Moore and other SBC leaders presume HC’s study was accurate and act upon it without first testing the data? Here are a few examples of names in HC’s databank of SBC sex abusers but have no known affiliation with the SBC (if HC “painstakingly” researched for months and months, why is their databank so easily discredited?): Angelo “Doogie” Golatt; Kenneth “Atlantis” Keith Long; Shane Flournoy; Johnny McCullough. More names could easily be listed as questionable whether they belong in a databank promoted as evidence of an “SBC sex abuse crisis.” Either HC should publicly defend entries in its databank it boasts as evidence of an “SBC sex abuse crisis,” or stop promoting the databank as exclusively SBC. To do neither is only to lend itself to today’s trendy “fake news” phenomenon. It also seems to constitute a form of defamation and/or libel. Though admittedly libel might be very hard to prove since SBC leaders like Russell Moore have already implicitly declared HC’s research to be established fact.