Unholy news from Palestine

Palestine: It’s a name that conjures holy ground.

But what’s been happening in Palestine, Texas, isn’t holy at all. It’s unholy.

On February 26, long-time Southern Baptist pastor, Hezekiah Stallworth, was arrested for sexual indecency with a 7-year-old child.

Since Stallworth’s arrest, a 9-year-old has also come forward. And two adults have brought forward allegations that, in the 1980s, they too were sexually abused as children by Stallworth.

Sheriff Greg Taylor said they expected to conduct a lengthy and far-reaching investigation. “Unfortunately, he preached in this area for more than 30 years, so chances are good there are additional victims out there,” Taylor added.

So . . . in just one week’s time, we have learned about 4 alleged victims, and the Sheriff says more victims are likely. It’s sad, isn’t it? What if Stallworth could have been stopped sooner?

Two women have said they were abused as far back as the 1980s. When news hit the paper about the criminal charges against Stallworth, they didn’t waste any time telling the Sheriff about their own accusations.

They were obviously more-than-ready to talk.

How many kids might have been spared if only there had been some place where those two women might have been heard sooner?

Their claims were likely too old for criminal prosecution by the time they were capable of talking about it. That’s the most common scenario. But what if Baptists had a denominational review board to which these women could have reported their accusations against Stallworth?

What if there had been some responsible Baptist office that could have looked into the women’s allegations? And what if Baptist officials had concluded the allegations were credible and then informed the people in Palestine?

How many kids could have been spared the trauma of being sexually abused by a religious authority figure if only Stallworth had been removed from his ministerial position of high trust?

How many kids could have been spared if only people in Palestine had been warned?

But even though other major faith groups now have review boards to assess accusations against clergy, Southern Baptists don’t. They just sit back and wait for the law to take action.

And if that never happens . . . well . . . too bad for the kids.

We’ve seen this tragic pattern too many times before.

Remember the case of music minister David Pierce at the prominent First Baptist Church in Benton, Arkansas? When Pierce was finally brought up on criminal charges involving one boy, it came to light that church leaders also knew about three adult men who had said that Pierce abused them as kids. And by the time Pierce was led off to jail, we learned that he had sexually victimized scores of boys over a period of 20 years.

And how about the horror of the recent Matt Baker case? It took a murder for people in the pews to finally learn about the numerous sexual abuse and assault allegations against this Baptist pastor. For 18 years, he moved through churches and organizations affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas, and even though some Baptist leaders knew about abuse and assault accusations, no one did anything. Baker was even allowed to work as a chaplain for emotionally disturbed kids. Since he hadn’t yet been criminally convicted of anything, Baptist leaders acted as though it wasn’t their problem. . . and to heck with those vulnerable kids.

None of this is anything new. Back in 2007, after ABC 20/20 aired its exposé on “Preacher Predators,” Baptist high-honcho Augie Boto acknowledged that, in some instances, “abuse had occurred earlier at churches where those men had been previously employed.”

Nevertheless, Boto also told us the reality of how things work in Baptistland -- leaders wait for the law. “The proper investigatory panel for Baptists should be law enforcement officials,” he said. (Baptist Press, 2/22/07)

In other words, if the law doesn’t throw a Baptist pastor in prison, he can still stand in a Baptist pulpit. That’s how low the standard is in Baptistland.

Baptist pastors carry the Baptist “brand” out into the world, but Baptists refuse any responsibility for oversight of the “brand.” Baptists simply leave it up to secular law enforcement. Yet, virtually all experts recognize that most active child molesters have never been criminally convicted of anything.

In fact, in the Catholic Church, over 700 priests have now been removed from ministry, but only about 3 percent of those have ever been criminally convicted. This means that, if Catholic leaders in the U.S. still followed the same tragically low standard as Southern Baptists, about 679 of those priests could still be in ministry and working with kids.

But despite the many scandals and the rising numbers of wounded people, Baptists still haven’t learned anything.

Imagine that you’re someone who was sexually abused as a kid by some other Baptist pastor connected to a church in Palestine. You’ve gotten older, and you’ve talked to some of your childhood friends who experienced similar horrors, and now you’d like to try to protect other kids from the hell of what you went through. But it’s too late for criminal prosecution. So who in Baptistland can you safely tell?

You told some people once before, but they only heaped on more hurt. Why should you now believe that anything in Baptistland has changed?

Who will now treat your allegations seriously? Who will give a hoot?

One thing for sure . . . it won’t be Augie Boto. And it won’t be anyone else at Southern Baptist headquarters in Nashville. And it won’t be anyone at the Baptist General Convention of Texas. And it won’t be anyone at that other statewide Texas Baptist convention either.

Unlike other major faith groups, Baptists haven’t taken the first baby-steps toward setting up a system for the responsible assessment of clergy abuse reports or even for keeping denominational data on how many abuse reports a minister might have.

If Baptists hope to prevent clergy sex abuse in the future, they must find a way to institutionally listen to those who are trying to tell about abuse in the past. Let’s pray they do it soon.

With so many Baptist churches, and so little of any system of clergy accountability, things are unholy indeed in Palestine, Texas.
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Photo by Dominic Greyer.