Indicted Southern Baptist Minister in Kentucky, Stop Baptist Predators, July 7, 2009

Indicted Southern Baptist Minister in Kentucky

Stop Baptist Predators
July 7, 2009

http://stopbaptistpredators.blogspot.com/2009/07/indicted-southern-baptist-minister-in.html

In June, when the Southern Baptist Convention was having its annual hoopla in Louisville, Kentucky, a former Southern Baptist minister was indicted just down the road in Lawrenceburg, Kentucky.

That minister, Gordon H. Lunceford, now faces thirteen charges of sex crimes, including rape, sodomy, sexual abuse, and sexual assault. He is accused of “using his position as a youth minister to have sex with two juveniles.” (See WKYT video.)

The victims were both under 16 years of age. That’s just the victims who are identified by initials in the indictment. No telling how many more child-victims may be identified before this case is over. And no telling how many more there may be who will remain silent, mired in undue shame, while no one in Southern Baptist leadership even bothers to reach out to try to help them.

According to the news reports, Lunceford church-hopped through First Baptist Church in Lawrenceburg, First Baptist Church in Richmond, Rosedale Baptist Church in Richmond, and Immanuel Baptist Church in Frankfort. All of these Kentucky churches are affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.

So picture this. Even while the mighty Southern Baptist boys were whooping it up in Louisville, it was coming to light that four of their nearby churches had harbored a minister who was being indicted on child sex charges.

And even while the mighty Southern Baptist boys were preaching about “actions speak louder than words,” they weren’t actually taking any actions to prevent predator-church-hopping scenarios in the future.

The pastor of First Baptist Church in Richmond said that Lunceford was their youth minister “for a very short time” and that “there were no complaints or accusations against Lunceford during the brief time he worked” there.

Based on what I’ve seen in other Baptist clergy abuse stories, I can’t help but wonder if what that pastor really means is that there were no complaints or accusations that anyone kept a record of. That’s the great beauty of Baptist-land for predators. No one keeps systematic records of complaints. That way, no one ever has to take ownership of knowing anything.

If someone in the church suspects something, or if people get uncomfortable with a minister, they can just quietly let him go. Problem ended. They wash their hands of him, and the minister moves on to become some other church’s problem.

At Immanuel Baptist Church in Frankfort, a church representative who declined to be identified said that “because of turnover, none of the current staff had worked with Lunceford.” “It’s been years since he was here,” she said.

So there it is again -- that minimizing “not my problem” hand-washing that goes on in Baptist-land. It’s a land where everyone is able to neatly distance themselves -- everyone except the kids who get molested and raped.

Baptist-land: It’s an endless porous sieve of church-hopping predators and cover-uppers. It’s a land where no one ever seems to know anything.

Baptist-land: It’s the perfect faith group for the unaccountable and the irresponsible. And because everyone in Baptist-land can so easily turn a blind eye, it’s also a perfect paradise for predators.