Baptist guidelines leave kids "by the wayside"

Last week, SBC spokesman Roger “Sing” Oldham told the Tennessean that the Southern Baptist Convention is going to “develop recommendations and set up guidelines” to combat clergy sex abuse.

That’s nice talk, but we’ve heard it before.

Back in 1994, a terrible case of clergy child molestation got a lot of press in Florida. It involved Southern Baptist minister Keith Geren, who eventually admitted to abusing at least 17 boys at three different churches: Wayside Baptist Church in Miami, First Baptist Church of Lakeland, and Park Avenue Baptist Church in Titusville. Even after Geren admitted to Wayside’s senior pastor that he had abused 10 boys, Geren wasn’t fired. And even though he told a minister at Park Avenue about his “temptation” to abuse teen boys, no one stopped him from working with boys. In fact, he was cleared to be a guardian at the Florida Baptist Children’s Home, a residential center for troubled teens.

When this story came to light, the Southern Baptist Convention said in 1994 that it was “working on guidelines for just such situations.”

Fast forward to 1998, when the press covered abuse allegations against several prominent Southern Baptist pastors in Texas. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission said “it’s clearly a widespread and growing problem.” He told the press that his commission “will formulate suggestions for a possible denomination-wide response.”

And the Baptist General Convention of Texas reacted to those 1998 headlines by having a task force develop “guidelines” for churches and “suggested procedures for hiring and screening clergy.”

Now fast forward to 2007. The Southern Baptist Convention tells ABC’s 20/20 that the problem is “neither widespread nor systemic.” Southern Baptist president Frank Page says he doesn’t believe it’s a “large and systemic” problem.

So does this mean that the admitted “widespread” problem of 1998 has been addressed? No. It just means that Southern Baptist officials have stuck their heads in the sand even deeper.

In the intervening years, countless more kids have been molested, raped and sodomized by Southern Baptist ministers. Countless more congregants have been betrayed and countless more families torn asunder. There have been many, many more headlines, and there have also been many traumatized victims who barely whispered the abuse and didn't make headlines.

Richard Land was right back in 1998 when he said “it’s clearly a widespread and growing problem.” It’s a problem that clearly hasn’t gotten any better.

What good did the SBC’s so-called “guidelines” from 1994 do?

What became of that “denomination-wide response” that Richard Land talked about in 1998?

And why should we think that the SBC’s current plan for “guidelines” is going to be any more effective than their 1994 and 1998 plans were? Are more brochures on “screening procedures” going to have any greater impact now than they did back in 1998? Is all of this just still more talk from denominational leaders who have already shown themselves to be big on talk and small on action when it comes to clergy sex abuse?

It is long-past the time when Southern Baptist leaders should have realized that, to rid their ranks of clergy predators, it will take a lot more than a few brochures with “recommendations and guidelines.”

There is no better place to start than by warning parents about ministers who are proven, admitted, or credibly accused child molesters.

If Southern Baptist officials won’t even warn people about the clergy child molesters they’ve been told about, why should anyone imagine that they’ll be able to stop the clergy child molesters they don’t yet know about?

They can issue “guidelines” from now to kingdom-come, but if they fail to warn people about identified clergy child molesters, all the guidelines in the world will amount to mere window-dressing.

Fast forward to a decade in the future. Will Southern Baptist officials still be talking about “guidelines”? How many more kids will have been horribly hurt while this denomination’s leaders bragged about a few brochures?