Southern Baptist Churches Hired Accused Ministers: Report

By Megan Trimble
U.S. News & World Report
February 12, 2019

https://bit.ly/2TNmKUO

A 7-foot tall statue of evangelist Billy Graham graces the front entrance to the headquarters of the Southern Baptist Convention in Nashville. Photo by Michael S. Williamson

More than two dozen Southern Baptist church leaders had faced sexual misconduct charges, but churches employed them anyway, according to a new report from the Houston Chronicle.

A San Antonio Express-News and the Houston Chronicle investigation found churches in the Southern Baptist Convention hired at least 35 Southern Baptist pastors, youth ministers and volunteers in the last two decades, despite their being convicted of sex crimes or accused of sexual misconduct. The Southern Baptist Convention is the largest coalition of Baptist churches in the U.S. It has refused proposed reforms, such as creating a registry to track abuse cases, the Houston Chronicle reports.

According to the second of three installments published on Tuesday, churches, in some cases, knew of a pastor's past but still allowed him to work. In other cases, church inaction might have allowed the employees to move between parishes undetected, the report said.

The first installment of the bombshell report revealed sexual misconduct allegations against roughly 380 church leaders and volunteers dating to 1998 and involving some 700 victims. About 220 offenders have been convicted or taken plea deals, the report found.

One pastor has compared the recent report to removing a cancerous lesion.

“The analogy I would give is this: I recently had a cancerous lesion removed from my skin and it hurt and the hole left behind was deep. Was it good? No, it was needed.," Pastor Wade Burleson told NBC News of the report, which he called a "punch in the gut."

Burleson told NBC that he thinks the recently published database will lead to change, but he also said he was sad "we didn’t do it ourselves."

In tweets, Southern Baptist Convention President J.D. Greear said church leaders "should have listened to the warnings of those who tried to call attention to this."

The revelation is the latest in a series of abuse scandals plaguing religious communities nationwide. Earlier this month, the Catholic Church in Texas named nearly 300 priests it said have been credibly accused of sex abuse.