WINSTON-SALEM (NC)
Baptist News Global
December 7, 2018
By Christa Brown
Since last July when Southern Baptist Convention president J.D. Greear announced the formation of a sexual abuse study group, people have been asking me, “Do you think they’ll finally change things?”
Often, I hear a note of hopefulness in the question and remember when I too might have believed that such an announcement meant Baptist officials were rising to the task of addressing clergy sex abuse. Not anymore. After 12 years of hearing the stories of survivors of Baptist clergy abuse, I’ve learned that, on this subject, the words of Baptist leaders are worthy of wariness.
SBC officials say they’re “studying it.” So what?
First, let’s remember that SBC officials have sung this “studying it” song before. Their prior 2008 “study,” with its seemingly predisposed do-nothing result, left many of us Baptist abuse survivors with a healthy measure of skepticism.
“But this is a new generation of Baptist leaders,” people say, and true enough, there are some younger faces. However, this is not a problem of old-guard versus new-guard.
“Decades of institutional patterns will not be changed by simply repopulating the same inadequate structures with new faces, no matter how well-intentioned they may be.”
The problem is that the SBC system fosters a climate for abuse and cover-ups because it lacks effective structures for clergy accountability and for information-sharing among congregations. Decades of institutional patterns will not be changed by simply repopulating the same inadequate structures with new faces, no matter how well-intentioned they may be.
Second, it’s not even clear exactly what SBC officials are “studying” this time around. The details of their process are not transparent, and some of their remarks provide little reason for confidence. It’s hard to imagine that these leaders will be able to remediate effectively their own institutional failures when, so often, they avoid even speaking of them. For example, Executive Committee chairman Mike Stone claimed there had “never” been any “hesitancy about addressing these issues” in the SBC, and said it was engaging the study because of the increased emphasis on sexual abuse “in the culture and in the media.” Executive Committee interim president Augie Boto talked about the study as a way “to address evil, human failure and the consequences of sin.”
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