Baptist leaders must consider possible consequences

Southern Baptist pastor Matt Baker church-hopped through Texas, leaving a trail of sexual assault and abuse allegations. Yet, no one stopped him. Now he's indicted on a murder charge.

Matt Baker didn't even have to move across state lines. Every step of his career, Baker was in churches and organizations affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas. Yet, even within that single entity, no one was keeping track of the many allegations against Baker.

A Texas Monthly investigative journalist offered this explanation for why Baker was able to keep getting jobs in Baptist-land despite the many accusations against him:

"To avoid defamation lawsuits, leaders of a church have an incentive to keep their mouths shut when it comes to questionable behavior among clergy, which is perhaps why First Baptist officials said nothing about the allegations when other churches later called, interested in hiring Matt.”

So, Baker was able to keep moving on, and the trail of allegations grew longer.

Now, he's charged with having murdered his wife. It's alleged that his motive was a desire to pursue another young woman in his church.

Of course, the question of Matt Baker's guilt or innocence on the murder charge will be decided in a courtroom. But whatever the murder-charge verdict may be, it won't answer the question of why so many sexual abuse and assault allegations were allowed to stack up against Baker, with no one in Baptist-land doing anything about it. That's a question that Baptist leaders ought to have to answer -- and especially leaders at the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

Many experts say that, when predators are allowed to get away with abuse, they often become emboldened and their conduct escalates.

Would Kari Baker still be alive if Matt Baker had been made to answer for all the abuse and assault allegations instead of simply being allowed to move on?

I don't imagine we can actually know the answer to that specific question. But I do think Baptist leaders need to seriously consider all the possible consequences of all their do-nothingness in the face of clergy sex abuse.

CBS News 48 Hours aired an update on the Matt Baker story on June 9, 2009. (It's 42 minutes.)



For more details on Matt Baker's career, including the Baptist churches and organizations where he worked, and including news links, see my prior blog posting: Why didn’t Baptists bust him?