WAYNESBURG (KY)
ForwardKy.com [Louisville, KY]
October 10, 2026
By Kevin Maples
Yes, they do, and here’s why.
On Friday the news broke of (yet another) pastor arrested for multiple charges of sexual abuse. Specifically, the pastor of Pleasant View Baptist Church of Waynesburg, Kentucky was charged with sexual abuse, sodomy, and incest.
I have made a decision to share some thoughts about these horrendous sexual abuse cases in churches, because I am in a fairly unique place to comment on what I see happening in places like Pleasant View Baptist.
I want to make it clear that I do not know the man involved or his family, and I have not attended this church since the very early 1990s. Furthermore, I have not identified as a Baptist since 1994. My comments are more general in nature and do not presume any knowledge of this specific situation beyond what has been reported by local media.
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I spent a few of my formative teen years in the same church this man pastors. It is where, as a high school senior, I first felt drawn to a career in ministry. It is the church where my faith began to be my own, and where I found a path to college and the resulting trajectory of my life thereafter. My wife and were married in this church in 1991.
I have spent most of my life and career within evangelical churches and institutions. From 1971, the year of my birth, until 2023, I was a highly devoted member of several evangelical churches in three different denominations.
I was educated in a Kentucky Baptist college and attended a Southern Baptist seminary. I later completed a Master of Divinity from a respected seminary in the Wesleyan tradition.
While I haven’t been employed by a church in any capacity since 1993, I worked for 20 years in multiple Christian organizations who generally adhered to evangelical theological positions.
(As an interlude, I want to state clearly that I have absolutely not left Christianity behind. I am still devoted to Christ and the church writ large. I am still a member of a local church where I attend and participate regularly. However, I have left behind a form of Christianity that I can no longer support.)
The decades that I spent in evangelical churches and organizations have led me to some significant critiques. Among them, I believe that I have some relevant insights into the conditions in which sexual abuse (along with other types of breaches of trust) sometimes develop within some of these churches.
Multiple significant aspects of these systems have long caused me concern. I will discuss three.
1. No standardized education and hiring requirements
To be a pastor in most Southern Baptist churches, there is no process required outside of the local congregation. The people within those churches determine their own hiring criteria and education requirements. Many churches have minimal education requirements for their pastoral staff. Many of the smallest churches have zero requirements.
In my personal experience, especially in the smaller churches, which are the most common, they will often “call” a pastor based mostly on the candidate’s likability, personal reputation, and a “trial sermon.” If people like them, they seem sufficiently godly, have an air of pastoral leadership, and can preach one or two good sermons, they are hired.
Many denominations have mandatory, multi-year processes for ordination and requirements for continuing education. They also often have a formal accountability relationship with a regional or national board to maintain their standing and ability to work within the denomination.
Southern Baptists and many similar denominations have none of these requirements. In fact, ordination may only take a matter of weeks, and the process may be completely conducted by only a handful of people within a small church with limited experience and resources.
Once these men are hired into one of these churches (and they are always men), the next problem immediately arises.
2. No serious accountability
Many churches and denominations have no accountability for pastors outside of the specific congregation in which they work. That is certainly the case within the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in America with 47,000 congregations.
Accountability within the church often consists of a formal or informal relationship with a board of deacons or elders. Most conservative churches only have men in these leadership roles, and most of them never receive any formal training on how to operate as an effective leadership board. They certainly do not receive effective human resource training.
Depending on the church, the worst thing that might ever happen to a pastor is being fired by a vote of this board or the congregation as a whole. However, because they have no accountability beyond the local congregation, they are free to be hired immediately by another church. If there was good cause for the termination, the next church may never know – or possibly even care. No structure exists within many of these systems to force the pastor to address the issues of concern.
During my life I have watched pastors who needed correction and accountability move from church to church. Few guardrails exist to prevent them from continuing to do harm or correct poor behavior or job performance.
Many denominations have standardized regional or national accountability structures required of pastors outside of the local congregation. Those structures provide another layer of policy and procedure protection for the clergy, the churches, and the denomination itself.
When no type of external structure exists, like in Southern Baptist churches and similar denominations, an environment for potential abuse grows unchecked.
3. A damaging theology of gender
Most conservative evangelical churches and denominations embrace a theology called “complementarianism.” This is the view that while women and men are of equal worth as humans, God has ordained different roles for each within the family and church that are distinct, but “complement” one another.
In this pervasive view, husbands are called to God-ordained leadership and oversight of the family and church (often called “headship”), and wives are called to responsive submission. Within many of these churches, pastoral and governing leadership offices, such as deacon or elder, are restricted to men. Women are also restricted from pastoral roles, but are permitted to serve in other ways that rarely include any type of authority over men.
Note that this is *not* the only approach to gender that has been taken by churches throughout history. A contrasting theological view is called “egalitarianism,” which teaches that Christ’s redemption removes gender-based role restrictions entirely in both the home and church. In egalitarian systems women are not restricted from any roles of service or leadership. Men and women are free to work together in partnership and collaboration. No gender hierarchy exists.
Complementarian churches generally have only men in leadership roles. Whether they realize it or not, the manner in which they choose to read the Bible has significant and often negative impacts on the people raised within those systems. Men and women are both victims of this damaging theology.
Women are taught directly or indirectly to be subservient and submissive. It is reinforced to them that they have a lower standing within the church and their job is to follow rather than lead (regardless of their personal talents, gifts, or interests).
Men are taught directly or indirectly that they are alway in charge and in a position to make the important decisions. God has called them to lead and protect. They start to understand themselves, consciously or subconsciously, to be elevated in their relationship with women in their lives.
Over time, these generational messages become deeply rooted and internalized.
What happens when a man in this system, a man who is highly respected, poorly trained, and given significant authority, stars to believe he is entitled to pursue all of his sexual desires or to feed his power fantasies?
What happens when those desires are centered on someone who isn’t his wife?
Or a girl who already looks like a woman?
Or even a young girl or boy?
The system that exists within many of these churches and denominations — with poorly trained pastors, no functional accountability, and a toxic understanding of gender dynamics — is well-suited for predators.
And unfortunately, these same systems can gradually shape some well-intentioned men into predators, once they are inside a system with few guardrails, no accountability, and a theologically-driven sense of inflated self-worth.