ORLANDO (FL)
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette [Little Rock AR]
June 14, 2026
By Frank E. Lockwood
The newly elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention denies that there was ever a “systematic” cover-up of sexual abuse by top denomination officials, telling reporters that people with political agendas had used the issue to attack the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.
Critics, including abuse survivors, have accused the 12.3 million-member church of failing to properly safeguard its children and of breaking its promises to fix the system.
“The people, sometimes, who purport to speak for all survivors don’t speak for all survivors. There are activists who, this is their platform, and I understand that,” Florida Pastor Willy Rice said at a news conference Wednesday, one day after his election by delegates, known as messengers.
Within the church, the topic of sexual abuse “absolutely was weaponized, just like the #MeToo movement in the secular culture was weaponized,” Rice said. “That’s what tends to happen in social justice movements.”
On June 5, former Southern Baptist Convention President Jack Graham posted on X that the church “does not have a systematic sexual abuse crisis” and that “the whole thing was a reckless hoax which has cost us not only millions of dollars but immeasurable damage to our witness.”
Speaking with reporters, Rice echoed Graham’s assertion that the problems were not “systematic,” portraying the denomination’s response as flawed but not malign.
“There really wasn’t cover-up at the highest levels. I think that the worst thing you could say is that we had leaders that maybe were slow to respond and slow to act in providing churches pathways to do better,” he said.
The mishandling of abuse within some Southern Baptist congregations has also been harmful, he said.
“Obviously, anytime that sexual abuse has been mishandled, it absolutely damages our witness,” he said.
His advice to pastors would be to “call the police” when credible accusations of abuse arise, he said.
“When there’s an accusation of criminality, the first thing, every — not just Baptist leaders but people in our church should do — is call the appropriate authorities. Don’t delegate it. Don’t refer it. You call it. You make sure it gets called in,” he said.
Churches also need to inform members about the accusation, though precisely how they do that will depend on their own circumstances and the facts, he said.
The information should not be withheld, he said.
“It cannot be covered up. It needs to be known and it needs to be known as widely as possible, obviously, because if something else has been done you want to uncover that and you want people to be encouraged to report it as well,” he said.
The new president acknowledged that abuse has been a problem for churches and throughout society, but he questioned whether the denomination’s critics are representative of survivors as a whole.
“Over my 42 years (as a pastor), I’ve known of dozens — I’m sure I have pastored hundreds of people — who suffered from sexual abuse,” he said.
“Many of the ones I’ve spoken to would say that some of the prominent voices — self-proclaimed prominent voices — don’t necessarily represent them. Don’t have the same views on this that they do,” Rice said. “Many, many people who’ve suffered from sexual abuse have found a home in their Baptist church, a family in their Baptist church, people who love them and support them. And those aren’t the ones that are usually out there talking.”
“I think there were some political vendettas. I think there was some personal ambition at stake. I think there were people who were angry and wanted to take out their anger on the Southern Baptist Convention,” he said.
Rice, senior pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Clearwater, Fla., was elected convention president on the first ballot, defeating Josh Powell, lead pastor at Taylors First Baptist Church in Taylors, S.C., by a vote of 5,217 to 3,821.
His statements about victims’ advocates differ from those expressed by the messengers in 2022, when they thanked, by name, ten sexual abuse survivors for their advocacy and “unreservedly” apologized to them for “not heeding their collective warnings and taking swift action to address clergy sexual abuse sooner.”
One of the ten named in the resolution, retired attorney Christa Brown, says Southern Baptists have reversed course since the annual meeting in Anaheim, Calif., four years ago.
She skipped the Orlando meeting.
“They are not moving forward. They are not progressing on abuse reform or how they treat women. They are regressing and becoming even more hardline,” the Colorado woman said Friday.
“Certainly for many, many survivors — Southern Baptist clergy abuse survivors — this has been very, very painful. The human cost, I think, is just enormous,” she said.
Tiffany Thigpen, another of those named, said Southern Baptist leadership had “overpowered the will of the messengers,” making attendance at the annual meetings pointless.
Attacks on survivor advocates by Graham and others are false, the Florida woman said in a June 7 text.
“We were not politically motivated, nor a hoax or distraction, we were not manipulative or aligned with a faction,” she said, calling that type of rhetoric “harmful and hurtful.”
“We wanted, and still want, for churches to be better educated as to abuse, how to handle it properly and to take a more preventative approach. … The ‘hoax’ drama only allows for churches to look away instead of step up; creating far more harm.”
Thousands of Southern Baptists have left because of the denomination’s mishandling of abuse, its “endless fighting” and the “continual cruelty” of a segment within its ranks, she said.
Work by survivors and their allies was not in vain, she said, though they were left “more battered and bruised than should have been allowed.”
“We have made a difference, culturally,” she said, referring to pastors, leaders and parents who have reached out to her.
People in the pews are better informed about the problem and many of them are more vigilant, taking steps to better safeguard children and speaking up when abuse occurs, she said.
At the convention’s 2021 annual meeting in Nashville, Tenn., messengers called for an independent investigation of the convention’s past handling of sex abuse accusations, requesting that the denomination’s executive committee waive attorney-client privilege and give investigators access to documents that would otherwise have been privileged.
Released in May 2022, the 288-page report, prepared by Guidepost Solutions, said a few of the senior leaders on the convention’s executive committee and outside attorneys had been “singularly focused on avoiding liability for the SBC.”
Those reporting abuse “were ignored, disbelieved, or met with the constant refrain that the SBC could take no action due to its polity regarding church autonomy – even if it meant that convicted molesters continued in ministry with no notice or warning to their current church or congregation,” it said.
Rice had initially planned to be nominated for president four years ago but withdrew after one of his church’s deacons came under fire.
Prior to joining the congregation, the man had been a school teacher but resigned after confessing to a sexual relationship with an 18-year-old student.
In Anaheim, messengers elected Lake City-native Bart Barber over three other candidates.
An Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force was established by the convention but eventually disbanded without completing one of its central objectives — creation of an online database identifying credibly accused pastors, ministry workers, denominational employees and volunteers.
At Wednesday’s news conference, Rice said some of the steps proposed by reform advocates had proven to be “unworkable solutions” but also expressed a willingness to work with survivors and victim advocates in the future.
“If the aim is to stop predators, protect children, equip our churches, they’ll have a friend in me,” he said. “If the aim is a political agenda, weaponizing investigations, then, no, I’m not for that.”
In her text, Thigpen said advocates plan to continue their work.
“We aren’t giving up, but we know there will be no change here as long as it’s about right vs. left, politics, strongholds, money, infighting, factions,” she said.
“One day there will be an account and I know that we, survivors and advocates and those who worked with us, will hear ‘well done good and faithful servant’ because no matter what you twist around to thwart us, one thing remains true — evil has no place in God’s house, ever,” she said.