Office of Ministerial Accountability

In response to one of my comments on the bbcopenforum blog, junk99mail suggested an SBC "Office of Ministerial Accountability and Integrity." Bravo! Great name and a much-needed office. The rest of junk99mail's 1/26/07 remarks are also insightful - so here they are again:
"I am so sorry to hear of the abuse you suffered, and the continual compounding of it by those in SBC leadership who would hide behind the doctrine of local church autonomy as an excuse for not helping prevent abusive ministers from continuing in ministry. I believe in the doctrine of local church autonomy, but I also think part of the intent of it is supposed to be to increase (not decrease) accountability, by ensuring that members and leaders are closely and connected to a local body of believers. So that doctrine is being abused each time it is given as an excuse for not doing the right thing. The autonomous SB churches cooperate to support their seminaries, publishing agencies, missions organizations, public policy organizations, etc. -- so there is no reason at all that a means could not be established to keep track of ministers with a record of abuse, or of any other form of misconduct. It's true that any office or agency set up for this purpose would not be able to prohibit any given local church from hiring someone with a bad record, but at least the information would be accessible to members and churches, as part of a routine background check. Just the opportunity to have the information would be an extremely positive step. SB churches give so much to the Cooperative Program -- I'm sure the safety of congregations, families, and children would be considered by SB church members to be well worth the relatively minimal funds it would take to establish a denominational "Office of Ministerial Accountability and Integrity." I got the impression from one of your posts that you have communicated with Richard Land on this need without success ... which disappoints me, as I would have expected that a man so committed to the protection of innocent unborn children to also desire to protect innocent born children as well."