Where's the study?

At last year’s Southern Baptist annual meeting, 8600 “messengers” directed the SBC Executive Committee to conduct a study on creating a database of “Southern Baptist ministers who have been credibly accused of, personally confessed to, or legally been convicted of sexual harassment or abuse.”

At this year’s annual meeting, the Executive Committee reported back. It declined to create a database “to help churches identify predators or establish an office to field abuse claims.”

So it issued a decision. But where’s the study?

Southern Baptist officials made it clear from the get-go that they didn’t like the idea of a database and didn’t want to help churches with outside assistance for determining credible accusations. But does it constitute a “study” if a group of guys do little more than churn out a document that supports a position they’ve already taken?

In the ordinary world, if someone plans to conduct a legitimate study, you expect to see a budget for the study.

Where was the budget?

In the ordinary world, if someone plans to conduct a legitimate study, you expect to see a proposal on how the research will proceed and who the sources will be.

Where was the proposal?

In the ordinary world, if someone conducts a legitimate study, you might expect to see transcripts of hearings with testimony from experts.

When were the hearings? Who were the experts? What was their testimony?

In the ordinary world, if someone conducts a legitimate study, you expect to see data, charts or graphs. For example, in this case, you might have expected to see data on what other denominations do.

Where is the data?

The sub-committee that was charged with conducting the study met 3 times. At the first meeting, they took an adversarial tone toward clergy abuse survivors. David Clohessy, SNAP’s National Director, was at that meeting, but they didn’t invite him to speak. What a missed opportunity to hear from an expert! Just two days later, David was at the podium of the Institute on Violence, Abuse & Trauma, where he was publicly recognized with a lifetime achievement award for his extraordinary contributions in the field.

At the second meeting, “there wasn’t much news to report,” and “the whole meeting was a lot of talk about why the SBC’s hands are tied.”

At the third meeting, according to their own account, “much of the discussion centered on whether it would be reasonable for a child sex offender – after accepting Christ – to be employed again in a Southern Baptist church.” So they were focused on the offenders rather than on how to help the wounded or prevent future victims.

So if that’s what they did for those 3 meetings, when was the study done? And where is the actual study?

It’s not as if these guys just don’t like studies. They’ve done recent studies and surveys on Calvinism, pastoral terminations, attendance at SBC annual meetings, unchurched Americans, and private prayer language. They even did a survey on how Southern Baptist pastors plan to vote in the presidential race.

And just last year, Southern Baptists managed to conduct a survey and compile data for a study designed to provide churches with accessible online information about how to adequately compensate their ministers. They thought it was important for denominational entities to “work together to serve our churches with information to help them adequately compensate our ministers.”

So why isn’t it equally important for denominational entities to work together to provide churches with information about credibly accused clergy child molesters? Isn’t that sort of data even MORE important than data on ministers’ salaries?

Where is the study on Baptist clergy-predators and the database of credibly accused?