UNITED STATES
Associated Baptist Press
By Bob Allen
The mother of a child sex abuse victim who is suing a Maryland ministry with ties to leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention said June 11 that a “good-old-boy” network among evangelical preachers is just as effective in covering up clergy predators as the Catholic hierarchy.
“It’s almost like a mafia system,” Pam Palmer, a plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit heard June 9 by the Maryland Court of Special Appeals, said in a media event staged outside the SBC annual meeting in Baltimore by the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
“To me, as a Bible-believing Christian, it should not be that way,” Palmer said of an alleged conspiracy to conceal child abuse by Sovereign Grace Ministries, an evangelical network of churches that during internal strife moved its headquarters from Montgomery County, Md., to Louisville, Ky., in part because of proximity to Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
“They have come out very publicly in support of Sovereign Grace Ministries,” Palmer described the grievance that brought her to Baltimore for a demonstration prodding Southern Baptist officials “to take child sex abuse cases more seriously and take strong steps now to safeguard innocent children and vulnerable adults from those who commit and conceal clergy sex crimes.”
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