Kudos to Baptist abuse survivor Debbie Vasquez!

In a Bible drill, Debbie Vasquez would definitely beat me. She’s a woman who loves the word of God and loves her faith.

She’s also a Southern Baptist clergy abuse survivor who finally got fed up.

Debbie’s story is especially close to my heart because she first contacted SNAP after seeing TV news coverage about my own case. When I see how strong and outspoken Debbie has become, it allows me to think that perhaps the pain of going public with my own case was worthwhile.

I’m embarrassed now to admit how impatient I once felt with Debbie. Like so many other clergy abuse survivors, she wanted desperately to believe that her experience could be used to make other kids safer. And for such a long time, she persisted in believing that the Baptist General Convention of Texas would want to help her. She tried and tried to communicate with the BGCT, and she couldn’t believe they wouldn’t do anything to warn people about her perpetrator, who was still in the pulpit.

Of course, part of why I felt so frustrated with Debbie was because the persistence of her belief in the BGCT was so similar to what I myself had once felt. Watching how things unfolded with Debbie was like watching my own history re-enacted. The Baptist General Convention of Texas was just as big on talk and short on action as it had always been. People there weren’t any better educated than before, and kids in Baptist churches were still being left at risk. Nothing had changed.

But as time went on, something did change. Debbie changed.

She grew weary of the easy talk of Baptist leaders.

Debbie stood with me at a press conference in Dallas during last year’s annual meeting of the Baptist General Convention of Texas. She carried a print-out of pertinent Bible verses in her hand.

She then stood by my side as we talked with a BGCT leader who rambled on about how most ministers who commit “sexual misconduct” are mere “wanderers” and not “predators.” When I pointed out that Debbie and I were abused as kids, such that there could be no doubt about the predatory nature of it, his eyes simply glazed over. I guess we didn’t fit his abstract theory, and so he just continued his monologue.

Months later, when Debbie saw press statements of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, proudly saying how they were “cracking down” on sex abuse, Debbie called it what it was – “a publicity stunt.” She knew it was just talk and that kids were still just as much at risk.

She wrote to Frank Page and Augie Boto at the Southern Baptist Convention in Nashville, and for a long time, she kept their responses confidential. But again, she ultimately grew weary with the lack of action.

When Debbie realized that Boto was the SBC staff person assigned to assist the committee on the clergy sex abuse study, she wondered how Boto could possibly be the right person for the job, given the things he had said. Last week, she turned his emails over to the press. Bravo Debbie!

Shouldn’t that committee have assistance from someone who doesn’t have such a negative attitude? That was Debbie’s essential question, and it’s a good one.

Given that 8600 Southern Baptist messengers voted for the predator database study, shouldn’t the committee be getting advice from people who aren’t already biased against it? Doesn’t the vote of 8600 Baptist believers deserve at least that much respect?

You can read more about Debbie’s story in the Denton Record-Chronicle and in her own words. Be sure to notice Dickie Amyx’s quote at the bottom of the Chronicle story: “I didn’t have sex with her when she was 16 or under.”

It’s a sad day for Southern Baptists when that’s the sort of excuse their ministers put up…and nobody does anything.

Debbie says the abuse began when she was 14, and I know for sure which person I believe. But even if you take Dickie Amyx at his own word, if you’re a parent with kids in a Southern Baptist church, wouldn’t you like to think that someone in leadership would DO something about this? Yes? Well that’s what we want too.