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msclaritea · 11 months

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"We need to speak bluntly about this:

The Southern Baptist Convention is not (and has never been) a theologically serious organization.

It is a political organization dedicated to marshaling and expanding the power of the southern aristocracy.

The SBC started when the dude (Basil Manly Sr.) who went on to serve as a Confederate chaplain demanded that slaveholders be allowed to hold Baptist offices.

The Triennial Convention balked at committing to that.

That’s the birth of the SBC.

*Not* theology.

That’s important to note, because it helps shed light on how they keep arriving at theologically unserious positions.

In 1995, the finally admitted to getting slavery and civil rights wrong.

But, not only had the rest of society already decided they were wrong…

They also never explained how their theological commitments led them to getting things so wrong.

The hermeneutical lens that led them to get slavery and Civil Rights wrong is the same one they’re using to kick churches out for ordaining women *right now*.

The SBC is hiding behind harmful interpretations of scripture and calling it fidelity to scripture.

It’s the same reason they used to defend slavery and oppose civil rights.

And they’re doing it again right in front of our faces.

The SBC’s history is clear: they lag behind on ethics. A literal war dragged them into a post-slavery reality. Legislation & shifting demographics dragged them into the era of “racial reconciliation”.

*Not* their theological commitments.

Theology has NEVER been the driver. 6/8

From its inception, the Southern Baptist Convention has been a political action committee (PAC) with some chaplains (and at least 1 seminary attached to it for all but 14 years of its existence).

They take political positions THEN develop the theology to support them. 7/8

When you see it as a PAC? The main thing holding the SBC together today??? Is money. There’s A LOT of money there.

More than most denominations.

Because the theology is secondary to the politics.

And politics loves money.

That’s the root of all evil."

"A landmark investigation into hundreds of cases of sexual abuse in Southern Baptist churches opened with a collage of pictures of the offenders, row after row of headshots and mugshots of men who had been accused of abusing a total of 700 victims over the past 20 years.

In Sunday’s report, the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News were able to do what victims say the nation’s largest Protestant denomination has failed to for years: provide a picture of the extent of the abuse within the Southern Baptist Convention and a database of those found guilty of their crimes.

With allegations against 380 church leaders in 20 states (a majority of whom were convicted or took plea deals), it’s believed to be the biggest report on sexual abuse among Southern Baptists in the movement’s history. The report confronts the longstanding defense that the organization can only do so much to monitor abuse since affiliated congregations operate autonomously.

Another set of pictures captures a sense of the impact of abusers in Southern Baptist congregations. In response to the investigation, Southern Baptist women and fellow Christians shared childhood photos on Twitter from the age when they first suffered abuse.

Dozens joined a thread started by Living Proof Ministries founder and popular Bible teacher Beth Moore, including advocate and abuse survivor Jules Woodson and other ministry leaders.

Over the past couple years, the #MeToo campaign has raised awareness about abuse within the SBC and galvanized official efforts to improve the denomination’s response. Last December, as the Fort Worth Star-Telegram rounded up more than 400 allegations among independent Baptists, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) executive vice president Philip Bethancourt wrote, “it would not be surprising if journalists are working on a similar type of story focused on Southern Baptist churches as well.”

That day has come. TheHouston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News revealed in the first of a three-part series that more than 200 Southern Baptist abusers were convicted or took plea deals for their crimes since 1998, including 90 who remain in prison and 100 who are registered as sex offenders.

Even worse, “at least 35 church pastors, employees and volunteers who exhibited predatory behavior were still able to find jobs at churches during the past two decades,” the reporters found. “In some cases, church leaders apparently failed to alert law enforcement about complaints or to warn other congregations about allegations of misconduct.”

In response, Southern Baptist leaders and pastors have spoken even more frankly about the problem of abuse and reiterated their commitment to more rigorous, research-driven efforts launched last year to address the issue. SBC president J. D. Greear called the voices in the article “a warning sent from God, calling the church to repent.”

“The Baptist doctrine of church autonomy should never be a religious cover for passivity towards abuse. Church autonomy is about freeing the church to do the right thing—to obey Christ—in every situation. It is a heinous error to apply autonomy in a way that enables abuse,” he said in a statement to CT. “As a denomination, now is a time to mourn and repent. Changes are coming. They must.”

During the 2018 scandal involving Paige Patterson’s response to abuse claims, top leaders in the denomination had already begun to see the extent of the problem among their own. “When people said that evangelicals had a similar crisis coming, it didn’t seem plausible—even to me,” wrote Southern Baptist Theological Seminary president Al Mohler, comparing the situation within the SBC to the abuse crisis in the Catholic church. “I was wrong. The judgment of God has come.”

Last year’s annual meeting of the SBC came in the wake of Patterson’s departure and hosted prominent discussions of women and abuse. As incoming president, Greear formed a study group in partnership with the ERLC to examine sexual abuse in the denomination and improve resources for its leaders.

“Our approach is seeking to encourage policies and practices that protect children and the vulnerable from sexual abuse in autonomous but cooperating churches, all the while promoting compliance with laws and providing compassionate care for those who have survived trauma,” ERLC president Russell Moore wrote.

“True, we have no bishops. But we have a priesthood of believers. And a key task of that priesthood is maintaining the witness of Christ in the holiness and safety of his church. That means training churches to recognize sexual predation and how to deal with charges or suspicions when they emerge, and equipping churches to stop the pattern, in their church or from their church to others.”

In all, the SBC numbers 47,000 congregations and 15 million members.

Still, “it would be sorrow if it were 200 or 600” cases of abuse, Augie Boto, interim president of the SBC’s executive committee, told the Houston Chronicle. “What we're talking about is criminal. The fact that criminal activity occurs in a church context is always the basis of grief. But it’s going to happen. And that statement does not mean that we must be resigned to it.”

Individual churches and pastors have described the abuse within the SBC in stark terms and pledged to bring it to light.

“It is clear from the article that these weren’t isolated cases. Instead, it reveals a pattern of abuse and cover-up that extends to some of the highest levels of leadership inside the SBC,” wrote the Sojourn Collective, a church network based in Louisville. “Christians should be thankful for reporting like this that exposes systemic sin; it’s the only way it can be purged out of our institutions.”

Texas pastor Bart Barber, who previously proposed a resolution for the SBC to decry sexual misconduct and institutions that tolerate it, has lamented the instinct to cover up or downplay abuse to preserve the church’s reputation.

“Any church the @HoustonChron has identified as employing a pastor with a history of sexual misconduct, if still employing that pastor in June and haven’t already left the SBC by then, should be disfellowshipped at that meeting,” tweeted Barber, of First Baptist Church of Farmersville. “I’m willing to stand up and make that motion.”

The newspaper reported that the SBC executive committee had previously said it would be “justified” to cut ties with affiliated churches that employed known sex offenders. Greear told the Houston Chronicle that any congregation with a “pattern of sinful neglect—regarding abuse or any other matter” should be removed from the SBC.

Last year, the SBC’s International Mission Board also launched an independent investigation of how it handled a 2007 abuse allegation.

The Texas newspapers’ investigation comes less than a week after the Today show featured abuse allegations against New Tribes Mission. CT had previously reported on efforts to investigate misconduct among the missionary organization..."

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — "Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention said Friday that several of the denomination's major entities are under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice in the wake of its multiple problems related to clergy sex abuse.

The SBC's Executive Committee has received a subpoena, but no individuals have been subpoenaed at this point, according to the committee's lawyers.

"This is an ongoing investigation and we are not commenting on our discussions with DOJ," they said.

The statement from SBC leaders — including Executive Committee members, seminary presidents and heads of mission organizations — gave few details about the investigation, but indicated it dealt with widespread sexual abuse problems that have rocked the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S.

"Individually and collectively each SBC entity is resolved to fully and completely cooperate with the investigation," the statement said. "While we continue to grieve and lament past mistakes related to sexual abuse, current leaders across the SBC have demonstrated a firm conviction to address those issues of the past and are implementing measures to ensure they are never repeated in the future."

There was no immediate comment from the Justice Department about the investigation.

Top Southern Baptists stonewalled and denigrated sex abuse victims, report says

Earlier this year, an SBC sex abuse task force released a blistering 288-page report from outside consultant, Guidepost Solutions. The firm's seven-month independent investigation found disturbing details about how denominational leaders mishandled sex abuse claims and mistreated victims.

The report focused specifically on how the SBC's Executive Committee responded to abuse cases, revealing that it had secretly maintained a list of clergy and other church workers accused of abuse. The committee later apologized and released the list, which had hundreds of accused workers on it.

Following the release of the Guidepost report, the SBC voted during its annual meeting in June to created a way to track pastors and other church workers credibly accused of sex abuse and launch a new task force to oversee further reforms. Earlier this week, SBC President Bart Barber, who also signed Friday's statement, announced the names of the Southern Baptist pastors and church members who will serve on the task force.

Southern Baptist sex abuse survivor Christa Brown, who has long called for the SBC to do more to address sex abuse across its churches, celebrated the news of the DOJ investigation.

"Hallelujah. It's about time," Brown said in a Friday post on Twitter. "This is what's needed."

Another survivor, Jules Woodson, went public with her abuse story in 2018 and has been pushing for reforms in the SBC ever since. On Friday, she reacted to the investigation news by tweeting, "May justice roll down!!!"

Oklahoma pastor Mike Keahbone, who serves on the Executive Committee and is the vice chair of the new abuse task force, said on Twitter that the investigation "is not something to fear ... If there is more work to do, we will do it."

Instead of doing something about the very real abuse culture in their organization, the Southern Baptist Convention simply decided to get rid of women. It makes perfect sense. We are natural protectors. American churches have become cesspools of sex abuse against women and children, both boys and girls. It's time to leave.

#SBC #Southern Baptist Convention #War On Women #Michael Caputo #Yradcaths #Russia involvement #The churches are tainted #Catholic Church #Evangelical #Check for corollstions between SBC locations and states voting for Child Labor Laws #Leave The Kids Alone indeed #Florida #Tennessee #Iowa

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