Many are aware of this scandal--but for some reason most want to focus of the Catholics or the LDS..and not acknowledge that child sexual abuse has been a problem in almost all Christian denominations...perhaps with this release the blinders will come off for the Southern Baptists and the perpetrators punished~
Southern Baptist leaders on Thursday evening released a list of alleged church-related sexual abuse offenders that denomination heads had kept secret for more than a decade. The Executive Committee for the Southern Baptist Convention said earlier this week it would publish the names after it issued a third-party investigation that suggested a widespread coverup by top leaders who ignored and even “vilified” people who came forward with stories of abuse.
The database, which an SBC attorney said includes people who have been criminally convicted of abuse and those who have confessed to abuse, is expected to show what top leaders knew behind the scenes while telling Southern Baptists they could not create a list of accused abusers because the denomination is not hierarchical and churches operate independently from one another.
A description at the top of the document reads: “This is a fluid, working document." It consists of more than 600 entries, the date the person was reported and information largely pulled from news articles, compiled from 2007 until 2022. “It is incomplete. It has not been proofed. It has not been adequately researched. It is not Southern Baptist specific," the document reads. It notes that, after June 2008, “only alleged/convicted names of abusers and [titles] of articles were catalogued.”
The release of the database comes 15 years after Christa Brown began sounding the alarm that Southern Baptists needed to keep such a list to prevent abusers from transferring from church to church. She first told SBC leaders in 2004 that she had been abused by a youth pastor who went on to serve in other Southern Baptist churches in multiple states. But the report published Sunday by the SBC said she was met with hostility when she suggested the idea in 2007.
Brown, 68, was emotional Thursday when she learned that the man she alleges abused her was listed in the database — an official acknowledgment by the Southern Baptist Convention.
“This means so much to us survivors,” she said. “It’s a reflection of how cruel it was to stonewall any kind of validation for decades. For survivors to heal, this kind of validation is an acknowledgment of the truth of the horror of what was done to us.”
The man she alleges abused her, who has not been charged or convicted, hung up the phone in response to a Washington Post request for comment. She said the man began to abuse her in 1968 and that when she initially pursued a civil case against him in 2005, the statute of limitations had expired.
But, Brown said, the list is also a “very small measure of justice.”
“They don’t get to pat themselves on the back for this,” Brown added. “I’m sorry. God only knows why they were keeping it secret. It’s the very tiniest thing of what needs to be done.”
Key takeaways from the bombshell sex abuse report by Southern Baptists
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Southern Baptist leaders on Thursday evening released a list of alleged church-related sexual abuse offenders that denomination heads had kept secret for more than a decade. The Executive Committee for the Southern Baptist Convention said earlier this week it would publish the names after it issued a third-party investigation that suggested a widespread coverup by top leaders who ignored and even “vilified” people who came forward with stories of abuse.
The database, which an SBC attorney said includes people who have been criminally convicted of abuse and those who have confessed to abuse, is expected to show what top leaders knew behind the scenes while telling Southern Baptists they could not create a list of accused abusers because the denomination is not hierarchical and churches operate independently from one another.
A description at the top of the document reads: “This is a fluid, working document." It consists of more than 600 entries, the date the person was reported and information largely pulled from news articles, compiled from 2007 until 2022. “It is incomplete. It has not been proofed. It has not been adequately researched. It is not Southern Baptist specific," the document reads. It notes that, after June 2008, “only alleged/convicted names of abusers and [titles] of articles were catalogued.”
The release of the database comes 15 years after Christa Brown began sounding the alarm that Southern Baptists needed to keep such a list to prevent abusers from transferring from church to church. She first told SBC leaders in 2004 that she had been abused by a youth pastor who went on to serve in other Southern Baptist churches in multiple states. But the report published Sunday by the SBC said she was met with hostility when she suggested the idea in 2007.
Brown, 68, was emotional Thursday when she learned that the man she alleges abused her was listed in the database — an official acknowledgment by the Southern Baptist Convention.
“This means so much to us survivors,” she said. “It’s a reflection of how cruel it was to stonewall any kind of validation for decades. For survivors to heal, this kind of validation is an acknowledgment of the truth of the horror of what was done to us.”
The man she alleges abused her, who has not been charged or convicted, hung up the phone in response to a Washington Post request for comment. She said the man began to abuse her in 1968 and that when she initially pursued a civil case against him in 2005, the statute of limitations had expired.
But, Brown said, the list is also a “very small measure of justice.”
“They don’t get to pat themselves on the back for this,” Brown added. “I’m sorry. God only knows why they were keeping it secret. It’s the very tiniest thing of what needs to be done.”
Key takeaways from the bombshell sex abuse report by Southern Baptists
