Priesthood of the unaccountable

I’m still pondering Suzii Paynter’s explanation for why Southern Baptists can’t institute the same sorts of pro-active protective measures as other faith groups.

Remember? She said “because there are no bishops.”

What’s sad is that I think Paynter actually believes this blasphemous Baptist spin. I think she actually believes that words such as these can somehow excuse the reality of a powerful religious organization that leaves clergy child molesters in their pulpits without warning people in the pews. She says the words like a loyal foot soldier for Baptist power-brokers.

Baptists have a truly amazing capacity for denial when it comes to the consequences of their own acts and beliefs. As long as they can couch it in the rule-based language of “autonomy,” they can even convince themselves that it’s O.K. to leave kids in harm’s way of clergy-predators.

Paynter’s “because there are no bishops” explanation reminded me of something a high-level official from the Baptist General Convention of Texas said to me at last year’s SBC annual meeting. I was trying to tell him about how desperately clergy abuse survivors need a safe place to report abuse -- a place that is outside the church of the pastor-perpetrator.

He said “maybe so” but insisted that, for Baptists to implement such a system “would make us into slaves.” Baptists aren’t subject to bishops, he explained. “What we lose in safety, we gain in freedom.”

Apparently, this seemed like a fair trade-off to him -- the safety of kids for the freedom of a free-wheeling polity that renders clergy unaccountable.

I realized then that we were having parallel conversations. His abstract words about religious slavery seemed meaningless to me as I tried to tell him about the real problems of real people who have been terribly wounded by real Baptist preachers, many of whom still stand in real Baptist pulpits. But from his vantage of religious nobility, it seemed that my talk about real people was equally meaningless to him.

Perhaps this is how it has always been. The religious high-honchos talk high-falutin’ religious talk, but they are blind to the real-world human beings who are hurt by their religiousity.

Baptist leaders toss out rote words - “because there are no bishops” - to displace the emotional immediacy of real people raped and molested by Baptist clergy. Abuse survivors ask for bread, and Baptist leaders give them only the stone of wrong-headed religious talk.

They wall themselves off behind their “no bishops” excuse and use it to proclaim their own powerlessness. Powerlessness to prevent reported Baptist clergy child molesters from abusing others. Powerlessness to warn congregants. Powerlessness to minister to the wounded.

With all their self-proclaimed powerlessness, it seems to me that Southern Baptists are already slaves.

They are slaves to a belief system that says it is better to protect the status-quo than to protect kids. They are slaves to a belief system that says it is better to allow credibly accused clergy child molesters to stay in their pulpits than to do anything about it. They are slaves to a belief system that spews forth religious rhetoric at the cost of kids’ safety.

Southern Baptist leaders have turned “priesthood of the believer” into “priesthood of the unaccountable.”