Southern Baptists stand in agreement that we must demonstrate to the world that sexual abuse is a wicked thing, that we will protect and minister to victims, and that the days of cover-up among us have come to an end. When we leave our Annual Meeting in Birmingham, we want to have spoken with one voice and loudly that we are united on this issue.
The exact path to achieve that end is less clear and there is certainly a hefty amount of disagreement as to the best way to achieve that end. Since the Executive Committee meeting a few weeks ago when our president J.D. Greear boldly stood up and challenge the SBC and its leaders to a new approach to the issue, a discussion has exploded around our convention as to what way is the best way.
What Has Happened
1. Of course, there was some turmoil in the SBC apparatus about the naming of names in the report – most of that apparently centered on two issues, the naming of a megachurch, Second Baptist of Houston, and the fear that a church might respond with a lawsuit. The fear of lawsuits drives us far too often.
2. President Greear asked that the Bylaws workgroup explore a system for vetting churches that were not in friendly cooperation with the SBC based on their failure to deal justly with accusations of sexual abuse. Instead, EC chair Mike Stone sought a more rapid fix. He devised the constitutional amendments that have circulated, the four-point system of judging whether a church is in violation (requiring a conviction, not just a credible accusation) and the Bylaws workgroup rushed through an inquiry that found that 6 of the 9 churches, even one with a known pedophile as music minister, needed no further inquiry. President Greear was not a part of any of that, according to sources with direct knowledge of the situation. The Sexual Abuse workgroup was not consulted either.
3. The response to the Bylaws workgroup report has been resoundingly negative and while there was initial enthusiasm about the constitutional amendment approach, there has been a growing backlash that is questioning whether that is the best approach for the SBC to take.
- Since it is a constitutional amendment, it requires a 2/3 majority at 2 consecutive conventions, meaning that it could easily be defeated and will take about a year and a half to implement.
- Is continuing to amend the constitution to add standards that define friendly cooperation the way to go? A while back, homosexuality was added as an example of a church practice that might put a church out of friendly cooperation with the SBC. But that is not an exclusive statement, it is listed as an example. According to the wording of that section, a church engaging in racism or recalcitrant sexual abuse could already be deemed as not in friendly cooperation.
- This likely fits more as a bylaws change than a constitutional amendment. It is hard to change the constitution because it is best not to change the constitution unless it is absolutely necessary. If we can do this without amending the constitution it is best to do it that way. There are other ways.
- Some are nervous about putting this responsibility in the hands of the EC Bylaws group after their initial inquiry into this said that a church with a known predator as music minister did not need any further inquiry.
- The issue of whether a church ordains a homosexual or performs homosexual marriages is a relatively objective standard. Questions of racism and sexual abuse response are anything but objective. What is racism? When is a response to abuse inadequate? These are tough issues and a few conference calls will not suffice.
4. Our chief concern here should be that the SBC deal with this issue in a responsible and adequate way. We need to be timely, but we need to get it right. Please, let’s not have an inadequate proposal on the floor at the Annual Meeting and vote it down. We do not need another black eye like that. We have time to get it right.
If there is a better way, we should seek it now. Egos, personalities, turf – those things matter not a bit. Who made what proposal? Who cares? Let’s get this thing right before we hit Birmingham so we can send a resounding message that we stand together on these issues.
Ben Cole’s Credentials Committee Proposal
In the midst of all of this, Ben Cole has released a proposal at his site, “The Baptist Blogger,” that brings forward a different proposal in an article entitled “The SBC Committee on Credentials.” In that article, he proposes that we vote a BYLAWS change to make the Credentials Committee a standing committee, with the registration secretary as its chair. Committee members would serve 3-year terms on a rotating basis. There are details still to be fleshed out and questions to be answered, but this proposal has merit.
1. There will be those who will oppose this simply because Ben is advancing it. He has certainly been outspoken in his advocacy and has ruffled feathers. But this idea does not have merit because Ben advanced it and it is not devoid of merit because someone may have sore feelings over a past tussle with him. The idea should be judged on its merits and for no other reason.
2. One significant advantage of this proposal is that it is a Bylaws change and requires only a 2/3 majority vote at one convention. We can leave Birmingham with this in place.
3. Our current registration secretary, Donald Currance, is an administrative pastor with experience in children’s ministry issues. He is likely more qualified to deal with some of these issues than many others of us.
4. Most large state conventions have a system such as this in place, with a standing credentials committee that oversees issues as to whether churches are in friendly cooperation.
5. Ben does not intend for his proposal to be viewed as a final document but a working statement and realizes that there are issues that need to be discussed.
- The best solution would be for the EC to take up this idea, perhaps with input from the Sexual Abuse Workgroup, to come up with a final plan to present to the Annual Meeting in June.
- I have been asked about whether the members of the credentials committee should be appointed by the president or nominated by the nominating committee. That is a good discussion point.
- Another discussion point is the exact process we might take in dealing with a recalcitrant church. Let’s say Siouxland Saints Baptist (there is no such church) here in my hometown hid an incident of abuse or hired a predator as pastor. How would I go about making a complaint? What would the process be to get them declared as not in friendly cooperation? Ben has this in his document but it seems like it needs to be fleshed out more.
Conclusions
Here is where I am at this point:
- Though initially, I was enthusiastic, I now have some serious questions about the constitutional amendment approach being taken. We should not change the constitution if there are other ways to accomplish the same thing.
- Ben’s proposal is, at its worst, well worth exploring. It makes sense and should be given serious consideration. The EC should examine all possible solutions, not dig its heels in on the constitutional approach that was so hastily constructed.
- We have six seminaries, some knowledgeable experts, a Sexual Abuse Workgroup – it would seem the EC might avail itself of the wisdom of the seminary presidents, of the workgroup, of others who have expertise and knowledge in this area. One of the more disturbing things here is the speed at which the EC responded without consultation, study, or research, to come to its proposals. We have time before Birmingham to do research, put the great minds of the SBC together, to “leverage our polity” to come up with the right solution.
- For the love of all that is holy, let us not arrive at Birmingham with a mediocre solution and then see it defeated. That would be a black eye none of us wants. And we do not want to adopt a bad proposal just to avoid such a black eye.
I have not reached a conclusion here, and I believe that is where the SBC should be. The constitutional amendment approach was arrived at too quickly to be our final word. This proposal deserves a serious look. Maybe there is another solution that no one has mentioned yet. There are three months between now and Birmingham to get this thing right.
Good to speculate, conjecture, and ruminate about possible solutions. We weren’t talking about these things two years ago. If the abuse workgroup isn’t already way beyond you and me in thinking about these things, we’ve wasted a lot of time and money.
A more aggressive credentials committee is fine with me though I wouldn’t expect this to be a panacea. I’ve never liked the idea of a permanent governing document trying to address a current issue with language like “such as…”. And I’d presume all parties of the work thus far, the EC, the EC staff, the workgroup have acted in good faith.
It’s impossible for the Executive Committee or any SBC-wide committee to evaluate all 47k SBC churches in regard to being in friendly cooperation. Why the 41 state conventions and 1,131 associations aren’t more involved is a good question. Churches are much closer to them than to Nashville.
I have read only what you have written about the proposed approach of making the Credentials Committee a standing committee, I haven’t read the site to which you link.
But my first reaction is that this is merely a procedural suggestion.
It seems to me that the EC could have a subcommittee among its members that is called the Subcommittee on Credentials. For all I know, there already is such a thing.
Having such a subcommittee created within the EC would do away with the need to amend the bylaws. Complaints about churches could be sent to the EC, and the EC could refer those to the subcommittee on credentials. The subcommittee could contact the church, verify the facts, and then report back to the EC. The EC could make recommendations to the Credentials Committee and the Convention.
This is what we currently do with regard to churches that violate the sexuality provisions.
I am not sure why we need a different procedure at all.
I believe that what we need here is not an investigative arm of the EC to figure out close cases. We don’t have the manpower or the ability to do that.
But we can follow up on complaints, and when it’s obvious a church has gone off the rails, it would be an easy call for the EC.
If we don’t need to change the constitution to add sex abuse (as you have suggested above), then all that is really needed is the will to act and a simple procedure to follow.
So in short, I like the idea of having a credentials review by the EC, and that can be done within a subcommittee of the EC.
The EC could report this at the next convention. And that would be the end of it.
The real problem is the willingness to deal with things.
We are all sensitive about liberal churches with policies on sexuality that do not fit what we believe. We don’t want them attending the Convention and constantly trying to politic to change the SBC on sexuality. The procedure we have on that question seems to work well.
If we don’t need a Constitutional Amendment to add sex abuse to a list of things that will keep you out, then we should just use the same procedure, and we should announce that the EC is going to use that procedure in the future on sex abuse issues.
The press and others will say we aren’t doing anything. That would only be true if we demonstrate a refusal to act in the future to churches that are acting irresponsibly.
On a side note, Donald Currance is incredibly gifted in administration and a dedicated servant to the our Lord and the SBC. If he volunteers to serve in an SBC position he is diligent and thorough in his duties. If we could keep him in this position permanently we would be wise to do so.
I think that the first challenge is to determine on what basis churches would be excluded from cooperation. Will we exclude churches simply on the basis of poor handling of a past situation or will we focus solely on current practice. That is what the bylaws committee chose to do and are still getting shot at for. Most of the comments here focused on the one church that had a past perpetrator leading music. While we can question whether a person with such a past should have been leading music, have we, as a convention, decided that music leaders with such a past would disqualify a church from cooperation? What about leaders with 3 divorces or ten dui’s? What about murders or folks convicted of assault and battery? If we are going to draw lines on this then where we do we stop? Do we stop where the activists and advocates tell us to stop or do we stop at “such were some of you but….” As it turns out, in that case the music leader apparently had lied and was lying about the number of victims involved so he was dismissed. Had it been a single episode we might be having a different discussion. For the record, I believe elder level leaders must be “above reproach” meaning that there aren’t these kinds of things that will be dug up and thrown at the church.
As for the rest singled out “on the list”, folks have advocated that there should have been a lengthy and thorough investigation. What is the purpose of a lengthy investigation into churches who had long past dealt with abuse situations? Most of these Churches were obviously not harboring molesters among their leadership? Folks want those churches to undergo a lengthy investigation to determine what? That they handled a past situation poorly? To show up and investigate whether there continues to be perpetrators hidden among the staff and congregation? Would the victims, victim advocates and activists, have us require them to take certain steps and make appropriate repentance before they could be in fellowship with the convention? If we are going to investigate one church with a sexual abuse charge then all churches that have a sexual abuse situations should be investigated and not just the ones where the victim and advocates are unhappy about the resolution or lack thereof.
What should be noted is that after all the music has played and the party is over, out of 50,000 churches it seems that only the single church in south Georgia appeared to be currently harboring a former molester on staff. Maybe it has all been worth it but it does seem that folks are trying to solve a problem that generally solves itself.
I think this has already been made clear. A church that persists in the hiring or protection of predators.
We are not seeking some for of denominational inquisition.
I guess I got the impression that some folks preferred something of an inquisition given their support for the list that included long past dealt with accusations of mishandling abuse situations. I don’t have a problem with addressing churches that are harboring abusers there are just so few that actually knowingly harbor these kinds of folks. It seems that the greater part of the ire toward churches by victim advocates is how they mishandle abuse situations rather than that there are many churches that harbor these folks. There are other situations such as drug and alcohol abusers, murderers and con men that create a threat to church members as well that we probably ought to address while we are at it.
I think you’ve summarized things well. Most of the commentary seems to be on ajudicating the past. I do think that victims and victim’s advocates are rightly concerned about the way churches magnify harm in the way they handle these situations. I think this is because an institutional culture has has replaced a Spiritual culture at many churches. One incident should be cause for mourning and reflection far beyond the those closest to the situation, but the “business” of the church must go on. Rather than knees humbly bowed, we see insulation, isolation, and evisceration similar to what we see in the world. Incidences that should result in silence and canceled events throughout the denomination become opportunities to signal virtue. We make champions of those who make a strongly worded 280 character statement. Though I see and hear few statements these days that I agree with in content, spirit, tone, or perceived intentent; I do find people that do agree with those things that I can fellowship with in the Spirit. I often have to ignore opposite extremes of opinion to maintain this fellowship, but humility in fellowship is dear to my heart and essetrial in living a life pleasing to my God. As I’ve been taught by God to fellowship in this way, I’ve sacrificed nothing important in terms of belief, but I’ve gained much in practice. I don’t know exactly what it looks like for an entire denomination to maintain fellowship in the Spirit, But I’m pretty sure treating a local congregation like a franchisee will neither maintain fellowhip or lead to safer environments for children.
Surely the problem of sexual abuse in churches requires far more than simply seeking to identify and disfellowship churches who mistreat victims or harbor perpetrators.
1. Prevention – take steps to prevent abuse within every church program and organization.
* Provide education to make church members and leaders aware of the extent and impact of sexual abuse. This should include training for members, lay leaders, serving staff and seminary students.
* Provide churches with tools (suggested procedures and training) to prevent abuse from happening and encourage victims to report incidents. ie help churches provide as safe an environment as possible within their programs and activities.
* Provide training and tools to help churches screen for potential or known abusers (ministers, employees, volunteers). This might include assistance with background checks and a data base of known offenders who for various reasons do not have criminal records.
* Include abuse prevention training and incident reports in regular church statistical reporting.
2. Remediation – when abuse does occur, respond quickly, emphasizing support for victims, identification and isolation of perpetrators and prevention of further abuse.
* Provide education to churches and leaders to help them understand the effects of abuse and how to respond to reports of abuse, including reporting to law enforcement, and referral to appropriate mental health professionals.
* Provide consultation and training to churches specifically focused on response to incidents of abuse with a focus on providing help to victims and preventing reoccurrence in that specific church situation.
* Provide a mechanism (hot line?) for victims or family members to report incidents which by passes local church leadership.
3. Separation – Churches which do not adequately respond to abuse incidents in their support of victims or identification and isolation of perpetrators, and do not seek to remedy the failure must be publicly identified and refused further fellowship in order to protect both the reputation of the convention and potential victims within that church.
* Identify through independent reporting churches that ignore or respond inappropriately to abuse incidents.
* Consult directly with identified victims, and church’s leadership, both pastoral and lay.
* Churches who consistently do not adequately prevent abuse and protect victims should be disassociated from the convention. Constitutional and/or bylaw changes may be needed to support this process.
Note that most of the heavy lifting in addressing this problem is in education, tools and resources, not constitutional amendments and bylaw changes (which of course are far easier to do and more fun to argue about.)
The reason to look at a structural addition to the SBC about sexual abuse is this: all of those are things which *should* be done, but there is no mechanism to make certain they actually get done.
That is: a local church decides not to bother with implementing any training to their leaders, does not pass forward information about how to report, etc…
By implementing a clear statement at the cooperative level, that you are not cooperating with the SBC if you do not use the education, tools, and resources, and therefore allow the victimization of people within the local church.
“By implementing a clear statement at the cooperative level, that you are not cooperating with the SBC if you do not use the education, tools, and resources, and therefore allow the victimization of people within the local church.“
Sorry Doug, This will never fly. Even as someone who did not grow up SBC, I know that Mandating curriculum and programs as a test for fellowship simply won’t happen.
We can debate about the need a structural addition to create, distribute, and encourage these resources among churches, associations, States, and seminaries…but once you get into requiring those things vs dis-fellowship…you are talking about things that will never happen in our organization. It’s just not set up that way. The attempt to do so would mean losing thousands of churches.
-Andy
Andy,
You’re right.
Plus, how are the Nashville offices supposed to police 45,000 churches and how they are doing with their education, tools, resources etc.?
It’s one thing for a committee to write a letter asking why a church has called a convicted pedophile to be its pastor. The church writes back and says, “Because God led us to do that.” The SBC could find that church not in friendly cooperation.
But keeping up with the materials purchased and used, the training etc., that would be an impossible task.
Even if you tried, you couldn’t really do it with any level of accuracy.