HOUSTON (TX)
Houston Chronicle
May 23, 2019
By Sarah Smith
The Southern Baptist Convention’s missionary arm knew of sexual abuse allegations against one of its former top missionaries for over 10 years before his arrest — accusations that exploded last year and forced the organization to bring in a third party to investigate its handling of abuse.
Anne Marie Miller told the International Mission Board in 2007 that Mark Aderholt, then a missionary to Central Europe, had initiated sexual contact with her as a teenager. He resigned quietly from the IMB and went on to rise in the Southern Baptist ranks until Miller reported him to police and went public with her story in 2018. No one from the IMB contacted law enforcement during the course of its 2007 investigation.
The law firm retained by the IMB in the wake of the Aderholt scandal put out a release on Wednesday recommending sweeping changes to the organization’s policies for reporting abuse to law enforcement.
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