Okay... so start with the admitted ones

From time to time, I hear from Baptist pastors who seem to at least recognize that the status quo won’t do. They say they’re in favor of keeping a database of Southern Baptist clergy who have admitted to sexual abuse or been criminally convicted. But they still think it would be wrong to create any sort of review board to assess abuse reports. That would interfere with local church autonomy, they say.

I’m always a bit puzzled when I hear this view because I think it reflects such a profound naivety.

Do they imagine that clergy sex abusers are simply going to raise their hands and say “Put me on the list, please”?

It doesn’t work that way.

When confronted, ministers sometimes say things that constitute admissions to sexual abuse, but the admissions usually come out in ways that are oblique and minimizing. And the admissions always come out in ways that require an open-eared listener.

The colleagues and cronies of a minister are almost never open-eared listeners for these sorts of admissions. They plug their ears. They blind their eyes. They lapse into denial.

They conjure every rationalization possible to avoid hearing the full reality of the admission that is right in front of them. . . and to avoid dealing with it.

For example, when minister David Pierce was confronted with the accusations of a man who said Pierce had abused him as an adolescent church boy, Pierce “didn’t deny any of the allegations leveled against him.” But he told Rick Grant, the senior pastor of First Baptist Church of Benton, that the events were “a one-time run of bad decision-making.” And rather than hearing that admission for what it was, pastor Grant apparently closed his ears.

Then minister David Pierce wrote down a “list of 12 names” of boys “whom he’d had inappropriate contact with,” but pastor Rick Grant apparently blinded his own eyes. Even with such an admission on paper squarely in front of him, pastor Grant was apparently incapable of recognizing the admission for what it was and of seeing the need for immediate action.

Pastor Rick Grant is the perfect example of why a minister’s colleagues and cronies cannot possibly assess the credibility of abuse reports. Heck… most of the time, the minister’s colleagues and cronies can’t even appropriately hear the guy when he makes a plain admission.

That’s exactly why an outside professionally-staffed review board is so desperately needed.

And even if the only thing you’re willing to agree to is a database of convicted and admitted clergy-predators, Baptists still need an outside review board to assess whether there has been an admission.

"But what happened at pastor Rick Grant’s church was something unusual" -- is that what you’re thinking?

Tragically, it’s not. Far from it.

Consider the case of George “Tom” Wade, Jr., a Southern Baptist missionary. When his 14-year-old daughter told the mission-school housemother that her minister-father had been sexually abusing her, the housemother told the Southern Baptist area director, Marion “Bud” Fray, who confronted Wade.

Wade admitted “only to a little fondling” and said “it happened a long time ago.”

Fray was apparently incapable of hearing that as the admission of abuse that it so obviously was. Fray kept quiet, and Southern Baptist missionary Tom Wade went on to sexually abuse other kids.

Consider the case of Paul Williams, a minister at the prominent Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis. Williams admitted to “inappropriate sexual behavior with his son,” but senior pastor Steve Gaines was apparently incapable of hearing the reality of the admission with the seriousness it so obviously deserved. Instead, he simply accepted Williams statement that “the activity had not reoccurred”…. and Gaines stayed quiet.

Other church staff also knew about minister Williams’ admission . . . but they too stayed quiet. Later, after it was brought to light in the press, an investigation determined that Williams had engaged in “egregious, perverse, sexual activity with his adolescent son over a period of 12 to 18 months.”

And consider the case of pastor Larry Reynolds at Southmont Baptist Church in Texas -- a church that is aligned with both the Southern Baptist Convention and the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship. It’s an affluent, well-educated congregation in a university community.

After a woman alleged that Reynolds had sexually abused her when she was 14, Reynolds openly admitted at a church banquet that he had “made a terrible mistake.” He called it a “lapse in judgment,” confessed “that proper boundaries were not kept,” and asked forgiveness from the woman.

It was an admission, but other church staff ministers and church members were apparently incapable of hearing that admission for the child molestation reality that it was. They did nothing, and Reynolds stayed in the pulpit until the case was finally brought to light in the press. Even then, despite Reynolds’ own admission, the church gave him a $50,000 “love offering” to send him on his way.

Or consider the case of pastor Dale “Dickie” Amyx. When accused of sexually abusing a church girl, who said the abuse started when she was 14, his response was to say, “I did not have sex with her when she was 16 or under.” He also said, “I told her many times I never meant to hurt her.”

These were words that obviously constituted an admission of sexual abuse. And there was also the fact that the girl gave birth to a child when she was 18, and Amyx was legally determined to be the father. He finally began paying child support when the child was 8.

Yet, despite his admissions, and despite the paternity determination, pastor Dale “Dickie” Amyx remains a Southern Baptist minister to this day. Apparently there was no one in his congregation who was capable of hearing the seriousness of his admissions.

And so far, no one else in Baptistland has been willing to hear those admissions either. That’s the problem.

So to those of you in Baptistland who proclaim that you’re all in favor of having Baptists keep a database of admitted clergy-predators, I say, “Fine -- start with that -- do it”

But Baptists will still need an independent review board in order to have people who will actually hear the admissions when they happen.

Because even when a minister admits to sexual abuse, his colleagues, cronies, and congregants can’t hear him.