"Submission and authority"

Jerry Sutton, pastor of Two Rivers Baptist Church in Nashville and prior SBC v.p., used $4300 in church money to pay for his daughter’s wedding reception. The Associated Press reports that Sutton’s former administrative assistant also accused him of looking at pornography on his church computer and of having an “affair” with a church staff member.

I can’t help but wonder whether Sutton’s administrative assistant became a “former” because she didn’t keep her mouth shut. Maybe it was something like what Kaye Maher went through at the church of former Florida Baptist Convention president, Dwayne Mercer. She was an administrative assistant who lost her job at FBC-Oviedo when she didn’t stay quiet. When Maher complained about two ministers’ “inappropriate sexual conduct,” she found that she herself was “put on trial,” asked to leave, and told not to repeat the accusations.

Two Rivers claims that “the church investigated” and “found no evidence.” Uh-huh. If you believe that, you’ve probably got the mind-set of a cultist, and evidence is probably immaterial to you anyway.

Sutton’s own administrative assistant said that Sutton looked at pornography on church computers. That’s eyewitness testimony. You don’t have to believe the testimony, but it does at least constitute some “evidence.” Duhhhh.

The problem isn’t that there was “no evidence.” It’s that the church leaders are in total control, and their standard of what constitutes “evidence” simply deletes whatever they don’t want to see or hear.

“There has to be submission and authority,” says Two Rivers’ executive pastor Scott Hutchings. Uh-huh. That Borgian statement makes me think the church’s so-called investigators probably just intimidated any witnesses whose views they didn’t like.

It reminds me of what I heard about the sort of investigation that was done at Bellevue, another prominent Southern Baptist church in Tennessee.

“Two Rivers is the home church for many Southern Baptist bureaucrats, and Sutton is the pastor to the people who do the day-to-day decision-making of the Southern Baptist Convention.”

Do you get the picture, folks? Is it any wonder that Southern Baptist officials sit back and do nothing about clergy abuse reports when this is the sort of pastor who leads their own church in Nashville?

Is it any wonder that other Southern Baptist churches handle clergy abuse reports so miserably when SBC officials’ own home-church responds to a sexual misconduct report with a proclamation on “submission and authority”?