NASHVILLE (TN)
Baptist News Global [Jacksonville FL]
June 19, 2025
By Mark Wingfield
The most persistent denier of a sexual abuse crisis in the Southern Baptist Convention now says SBC Executive Committee President Jeff Iorg agrees with him that the stories of two key abuse survivors are false.
In a June 18 email to Iorg copied to various journalists, Allen Jordan continues to deny the reality of a sexual abuse crisis in the SBC as he has steadfastly done for a decade.
“What is most troubling, Dr. Iorg, is that you acknowledged to me in January 2025 that you knew that both (Christa) Brown and (Tiffany) Thigpen’s stories were not credible and requested my help in exposing both the AOF and the GP report before the convention,” Jordan wrote. “At that time, you felt that the SBC world needed to know the factual truth that there never was a CSA crisis in the SBC, but, for some reason, after you hired Jeff Dalrymple in late January, you decided that you would continue this cover-up.”
AOF is short for the “Abuse of Faith” series published by the Houston Chronicle and Austin American-Statesman, which documented hundreds of cases of known clergy sexual abusers being passed within SBC churches. GP is for the Guidepost Solutions investigation that corroborated the Abuse of Faith series and more.
BNG reached out to Iorg through his media spokesman, specifically asking for a response to Jordan’s claims that Iorg agreed with him that Brown’s and Thigpen’s stories are not credible.
His response: “My focus is on implementing sexual abuse prevention and response strategies, not sorting out past accusations. Our efforts are about dealing with the present problem and giving Southern Baptists the resources they need to create safer ministry environments.”
He did not deny Jordan’s assertions.
He did not deny Jordan’s assertions.
The claim that Brown and Thigpen are not credible in their stories of abuse is documentably false. For example, Brown has a letter from First Baptist Church of Farmers Branch, Texas, apologizing for the abuse she experienced at the hands of a former youth minister there. And the documented allegations against her abuser were among the secret list of sexual abusive clergy previously kept by Executive Committee Vice President Augie Boto — who on his own did the very thing SBC leaders said could not be done: Keep a list of credibly accused and convicted abusers.
Brown has written extensively about her abuse — including a book titled Baptistland — and never has been sued for defamation.
Thigpen was one of many victims of Darrell Gilyard, a former Southern Baptist pastor promoted heavily by key SBC leaders who later was convicted and is a registered sex offender. Outside people like Jordan, there is no equivocation about Thigpen’s claims.
Yet there is a cottage industry of abuse deniers inside the SBC, and leaders have done nothing to silence them.
Jordan, who holds no official role in the denomination, is chief among them. He has waged a multi-year campaign to get SBC leaders and journalists to agree with his assessment that there never has been a sexual abuse crisis in the SBC. He frequently emails SBC leaders and journalists — including BNG — with lengthy treatises and attachments he says prove his point.
His denial of sexual abuse has led to estrangement with his own daughter, who denounces his attacks. His daughter, Amy Smith, was in the youth group at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Dallas in the late 1980s when John Langworthy was youth minister. Langworthy was accused of multiple cases of sexual abuse and was forced out at Prestonwood yet landed in another church in Mississippi. There, he confessed to and was convicted of multiple counts of inappropriate sexual contact with minors over a long period of time, spanning before and after his time at Prestonwood. He has since died.
Jordan denies Langworthy abused anyone at Prestonwood, even though friends of his daughter were among the known victims.
Why Jordan is on this relentless campaign is not clear. However, there appears to have been no effort by any SBC leader to counter him or hold him accountable.
In his latest email, Jordan tells Iorg: “Now that the convention is over with, I am once again going to remind you that there never was a clergy sex abuse crisis in the SBC. Despite you knowing that fact, you chose to mislead the messengers at this year’s convention by continuing the cover-up of the corrupt actions of SBC leaders over the past six years that has led to this massive financial and reputational damage to the SBC.”
Jordan is a CPA by vocation. During his time as a member at Prestonwood, he served as chief financial officer of Buckner Benevolences, a Baptist-affiliated charity based in Dallas. By multiple insider accounts, he was fired from that role after he attempted a coup on the incoming president, Ken Hall.
Brown and Thigpen responded to the latest news with dismay.
“This is exactly the kind of dynamic that causes long-continuing and exacerbated harm to clergy sex abuse survivors,” Brown said. “When Southern Baptist leaders refuse to stand with survivors, it creates a permission structure for others to behave in ways that are flat-out brutish. Jordan’s smear campaign has been ongoing for a decade. It is very hurtful, and the hurt is magnified by the cowardly complicity of men like Iorg.”
Thigpen added: “I will reiterate the words of my dear friend, Jennifer Lyell, I don’t need to be under oath to tell the truth. My story has been known and hasn’t changed for 34 years. Jerry Vines admitted to it, Paige Patterson admitted to it, Darrell Gilyard was charged for the same crimes against others. Although my statute had run out, there are other witnesses as to my truth-telling at the time that it happened.
“I would ask that Jeff and Allen prove otherwise. Show me the proof. It’s easy to cast aspersion; it is far more horrifying to live the truth. Both of these men will answer before a holy God one day.”
Thigpen noted her story and Brown’s story have brought about no change in the SBC. “So why even bother to try to discredit us? Why bother to claim our stories are fabricated if they’ve had no bearing and no weight? This leads me to believe that, in fact, they’re more afraid of the truth than we even realized, and there’s a need as we’ve always said to silence us.”
Related articles:
Not everyone believes there’s a sexual abuse crisis in the SBC
SBC Executive Committee publicly apologizes to sexual abuse survivor
A guide to understanding this week’s conversations about the SBC and sexual abuse
SBC clergy sex abuse crisis doesn’t stem from ‘the Sexual Revolution’ | Opinion by Christa Brown
SBC can’t admit its problem with sexual abuse, Boz Tchividjian says
Tennessee appeals court rules against SBC in anonymous accusation of sexual abuse