RALEIGH (NC)
North State Journal
Oct. 9, 2019
By David Larson
After a series of high-profile sex abuse revelations in 2018 and 2019, church leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention met in Dallas, Texas, last week to confront the issue. The event, billed as the “Caring Well Conference,” took place over the Oct. 4-6 weekend and was organized by the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the public policy arm of the SBC.
Despite already approving legislation on abuse during their 2019 annual convention, the amendments cannot go into effect until they are affirmed again at 2020’s convention in Orlando, Florida. Rather than wait another year, SBC leaders decided to hold this conference in Dallas to begin the process of addressing abuse in the church.
J.D. Greear, the pastor of Summit Church in Durham and current SBC president, rose to his role in 2018 as the scandal was beginning to gain headlines. It has defined his time in leadership as he’s looked for ways to keep the country’s second-largest denomination together.
The major initiative that Greear and the SBC presented at the weekend conference is called the “Caring Well Challenge,” which the SBC hopes will give member churches some tools as they wait to vote on more concrete measures in 2020. The SBC also created a website and a video of Greear describing the program.
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