Basically no one

A reader recently answered the question of my prior posting: “Among Baptists, who will give a hoot?”

The answer: “Basically no one.”

Of course, he didn’t realize he was answering the “who gives a hoot” question. He thought he was explaining Baptist polity to me. His answer came in a comment under one of my postings about the murder trial of Southern Baptist preacher Matt Baker.

Remember Matt Baker? He’s the Baptist preacher who, despite multiple reports of sexual assault and abuse, continued to move through a slew of schools, churches and organizations affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas. No one stopped him. There was “basically no one” who cared enough to track the allegations, assess the allegations, or inform others about the allegations.

Ultimately, it took a murder for people to find out about the long history of abuse allegations against this Baptist pastor. At the start of the murder trial, prosecutors said they had evidence of 13 abuse and assault reports, including 4 that involved minors, and investigators said Baker had spent years leading “a secret life as a sexual predator.”

My take on the story was that it shouldn’t take a murder for people in Baptist pews to find out that a Baptist pastor has multiple allegations of abuse and assault. It seemed particularly tragic to me because almost all of Baker’s jobs were in schools, churches and organizations affiliated with the exact same umbrella organization -- the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

Wouldn’t you think that there should have been some way for this Baptist umbrella organization to monitor abuse allegations and inform people?

That’s what I thought.

But the reader who made the “basically no one” comment thought otherwise. Here’s what he wrote:

“Obviously this is a tragedy, however it's extremely near sighted to blame the BGCT for the work of one individual. Perhaps a better understanding of Baptist polity would bring light to the situation. The BGCT isn't an episcopal organization- there is no mechanism in place, no chain of command to deal with such instances. . . . we Baptist's are no monarchy. Who exactly was this guy reporting to? In an organization that runs from a system of autonomy the answer is: basically no one.”

[Incidentally, as you might note, he made this anonymous comment 4 months after the posting. Baptistland seems to have a lot of these lily-livered poltroons who try to get the last word by skulking onto the blog with anonymous late comments. . . but I digress.]

So this guy thinks I’m “near-sighted” because, if only I understood Baptist polity, I’d realize that there is “basically no one” who can rein in these church-hopping preacher-predators or who can even warn people in the pews.

But he’s wrong in thinking our difference turns on an understanding of polity. Our difference turns on perspective.

I see quite clearly that there is “basically no one” in Baptistland who will do diddly-squat about reports of clergy sex abuse. The difference in our points of view is that he seems to think this is something for Baptists to be proud of, while I think it’s a travesty.

It’s as though Baptist preachers just thumb their nose and say “nanny nanny boo boo… we’re accountable to no one… it’s our religion.”

Isn’t that the worst of it? They use religion as an excuse for irresponsibility.

And they do it when what’s at stake is the safety of kids.

Personally, I expect that most parents in Baptist pews would probably place far greater value on protecting their kids against predators than on protecting the parameters of Baptist polity in precisely the manner that Baptist leaders proclaim it.

After all, every time a Baptist official turns his back on a clergy abuse report by pontificating about polity, he is increasing the probability that another kid will be sexually abused. That’s the near-sighted trade-off that Baptist officials are making.

They are choosing the protection of their own self-created, radicalized polity at the cost of kids’ safety against predators.

There is nothing theoretical about this. In a face-to-face conversation, a Texas Baptist official bluntly explained to me that “for Baptists, what we lose in safety, we gain in freedom.”

He obviously thought this was a fair trade-off. I don’t. I think it’s reckless and callous.

Besides, there is nothing contrary to Baptist polity in the notion of denominationally providing churches with information. It is only for Baptist officials’ own pontificated polity that it winds up being a problem . . . not for authentic Baptist polity.

In fact, for authentic Baptist polity, it would actually strengthen the power and freedom of local churches if they could have ready access to information about ministers.

The secrecy in Baptistland serves no one… except those with something to hide.