The proposal by professors Whitfield and Yarnell, of Southeastern and Southwestern seminaries respectively, is serious, comprehensive, and deserves due consideration.
In my reading of their 2500 word article, Addressing Abuse in the SBC: A Proposal, it seems to me that the key sentence is this:
We must leverage our autonomy to call our churches into a covenant of protecting the vulnerable.
I do not know if their article previews the conclusions and recommendations of the work currently being done by SBC President J. D. Greear’s Sexual Abuse Presidential Study Group a partnership with the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Committee. The group, now called a “council” is said to be a diverse group, mostly women. Greear will present “steps to address sexual abuse,” the culmination of the group’s work thus far, at today’s Executive Committee meeting in Nashville.
My guess is that the concept of “leveraging our autonomy” will be the key focus of any recommendations. We’ve been roundly criticized for talk of our autonomous system so I’d expect that phrase, “leverage our autonomy,” to be used repeatedly. In the end, the only leverage a Baptist association, state convention, or national convention has over churches is the power of exclusion. In a time when there is less identification with denominations can that leverage be used in a positive way? I judge that there are several factors that lead to a “yes” answer.
The Whitfield and Yarnell article calls for a number of measures including: the creation and funding of some SBC level staff or groups that are given the assignments in various aspects of abuse in churches including an investigatory function, creation of a registry of churches that voluntarily submit to and follow certain strict standards and receive a certification of such, creation of a victim’s advocate office or official that is available to churches to call, establishment and funding of a foundation to help survivors with legal fees and counseling expenses, and a call to exclude churches that have knowingly hired an abuser.
The measures proposed by the professors are quite broad and far-reaching. It surprises me that little has been said in response but then we’re only a few days from publication. Besides, the offical word comes today from J. D. Greear at the Executive Committee. I would note, and don’t presume that our leading spokespeople, elected officers, and entity leaders are unaware of it, that the average SBC church sees about 125 people in their pews on Sunday morning. The median size for the more than 47,000 SBC churces is around 70. Tens of thousands of SBC churches have a single paid minister who may be part time or bi-vocational. Kids should be just as safe in a church of 50 as a church of 5000 but let’s see what the concrete proposals are. It may be my own bias and tendentiousness but I’m sensitive to the SBC’s affection and preference for big church solutions that may not consider small or average church characteristics.
If it hasn’t been noted already elsewhere the measures proposed by our two professors look a lot like what the abuse victims and advocates have been suggesting all along.
Let’s see what happens at the Executive Committee meeting today.
“The measures proposed by our two professors look a lot like what the abuse victims and advocates have been suggesting all along.”
They /do/, right? With one exception: they don’t propose any consequences for churches that fail to report abuse allegations to the authorities. Churches looking the other way is a huge part of the problem and we need disincentives for it.
Still… it’s not quite time to take a victory lap, but we’ve come a long way when institutional Southern Baptists’ suggestions are largely aligned with advocates’ suggestions.
I don’t know Mr. Whitfield, but know Mr. Yarnell very well, and think highly of him.
There are some things that I cannot get into due to promises of confidentiality made some time ago, but I will try to address some concerns.
Let me start out by saying that the SBC office in Nashville is run by very fine people, but they are strapped. The SBC keeps a list of the churches that are in the SBC, but in many cases they do not know if those churches are actually qualified to be in the SBC.
The churches send a letter and a check and representations that they meet the SBC Constitutional qualifications, and the churches are put on a list.
The SBC does not have the staff that looks at the Charter, Bylaws, doctrinal statement, practices etc. of the church to see if it really does qualify. If they send money and make the nominal representations, they are an SBC church.
Moreover, I am aware of concerns that have been raised by Baptist laymen about whether certain churches do qualify to be in the SBC. The complaining laymen have been told that the SBC staff cannot make that determination. If there is a facial case to be made, the church is put on the list of SBC churches. If someone complains that the church does not qualify, the SBC does not have the staff to look into it. Even when the data and evidence is presented to the staff, the staff does not feel that it has the authority to take any action. They only see if the Executive Committee wants to take it up.
In the cases that I am aware of, the Executive Committee has not decided to take it up.
I don’t think this is avoidance on the part of the SBC staff or the Executive Committee.
I think it is a matter of manpower and energy primarily.
Perhaps because this is such a big media deal that has caused everyone to apologize (e.g. I never thought I would see Dr. Mohler apologize for his association and support of SGM and C.J. Mahaney for several years in the face of credible concerns that child molestation went on in SGM churches and the policy was to force reconciliation and not report such incidents to the police) – this big media deal has move an previously immovable mountain.
But the will to do something is not the same thing as doing something, and doing it well.
We can create a culture of concern and encouraging good due diligence before hiring and reporting to police and caring for victims afterwards.
But I do not believe for a moment that we can execute well in a centralized manner. There are over 47,000 SBC churches. If we cannot even vet which churches qualify to be in the SBC, I do not believe the central offices will be able to evaluate execution in this area.
To promise that we can is over-promising and under-delivering. We don’t have to wait to see that happen. We all know that’s what will happen.
But at least we can celebrate our efforts, and get the media off our backs.
The “qualifications” to be an SBC church are listed in its constitution and bylaws and the determination is made by the messengers to the meetings of the group they seek to join, whether it is a local association or state convention. The staff in the headquarters in Nashville stating that they cannot make that determination is exactly correct, they can’t. That has do be done at an annual meeting by messengers. Complaints about churches that don’t belong in the convention are taken up in the annual meeting.
One of the suggestions for dealing with the issue of sexual assault by pastors and church leaders is to add a statement to the constitution and bylaws of the SBC stating that a church which knowingly hires a staff member who has committed sexual assault is not in friendly cooperation with the convention. If someone brought a motion to dismiss a church from fellowship for hiring such a person, they’d have to present the evidence and the convention messengers would vote on it. This has occurred in the past with three or four churches for what was defined by the evidence as an endorsement of homosexuality and in so doing, the SBC determined it wasn’t a violation of the church’s independence and autonomy.
Lee,
Thanks for the clarification.
So what kind of a system do we have? A church doesn’t have to show anything, I suppose.
My basis point is that the staff in Nashville doesn’t have the authority or time to vet churches joining.
You are emphasizing that they also do not have the authority to expel or recommend expulsion.
But the EC, which is the Convention between annual meetings, would have that authority.
I guess you are showing that the reporting will be left up to individual churches, pending Convention action.
My post was directed to those people who think that the SBC staff in Nashville should run a database and have the power of investigation.
You and I both know that would take significant changes to the SBC’s structure. I am pointing out that even if we did that, the chance of that being well executed is doubtful.
If we rely on what you have proposed – other churches or Christians reporting churches, we could vote them out. But I suspect this manner of proceeding will be unsatisfactory to quell public opinion, or perhaps even opinion in some quarters of the SBC.
I agree with you, Louis. I don’t see how any measures for all the churches can be monitored. A decade ago our church insurer required us to state in writing that we had child protection policies.
At first, I was satisfied the children ministry thinking that the children at the church were safe and given appropriate discipline from the nursery. But, was not the way I thought and seeing or hearing some imappropriate behavior at the church which taught by the church’s leaders ( not the Church ) . Now, the Church leaders must provide kids safety and discipline at the right ways. Thank you.
I think one thing that would show our serious concern for this issue would be to ask Al Mohler, Danny Akin, and Russell Moore to step down from their positions for supporting Matt Chandler during the sexual abuse scandal at his church. They stood by him and condemned other Southern Baptists who said that they should not. In the same fashion that Paige Patterson was penalized for something that supposedly happened decades ago, these men should either have enough integrity to step down for their support of Chandler and their condemnation of Southern Baptists who had concerns about this or their trustees should have enough integrity to have them fired. Or do they think they are above the same condemnation that they poured out on Patterson? We need to quit playing favorites and call a spade a spade and act quickly to remove these men for what they have supported.