“In those days, this was a
no-no in terms of publicizing it,” said Rev. James Griffith, former executive
director of the Georgia Baptist Convention.
Griffith was talking about
the numerous child sex abuse allegations against former scoutmaster Ernest
Boland, whose troops were sponsored by Baptist churches, including Griffith’s
own church, Beech Haven Baptist in Athens, Georgia.
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Griffith
acknowledged that, as Boland’s pastor, he had heard reports about Boland’s “sexual
transgressions.”
“It was suspected, but there
was not much done about it,” said Griffith.
No one at Griffith’s church
discussed the possibility of reporting Boland to the police or even telling the
boys’ parents.
Boland started his troop at
Beech Haven Baptist Church after he was accused of molesting
boys in troops that were sponsored by two other Georgia Baptist churches –
First Baptist of Athens and Green Acres Baptist. When the allegations arose at
Green Acres, Boland simply resigned.
Three years later, Boland
started the troop at Griffith’s church.
Nobody stopped him – neither the
Boy Scouts nor the Baptist churches.
All of this came to light
recently when the Boy Scouts’ long-confidential files on accused scoutmasters
were finally released. Apparently, Boland’s name in that file is what delayed his start of a new troop for three years . . . but it didn’t stop him.
Obviously, the Boy Scouts
should have done a whole heckuva lot more to stop Boland and to protect
children. Many kids could have been spared profound wounds if the Boy Scouts had
properly reported Boland to the police. As one mother said, in speaking of her
son’s alcoholism and premature death, “The only time he didn’t think about this
was when he was drinking.”
But before you focus all
ten of your fingers on pointing at the Boy Scouts, consider this. At least the Boy Scouts
were keeping organizational records on accusations against scoutmasters. That’s
more than Southern Baptists do when molestation allegations arise against their
preachers.
How do Baptists imagine that
they will ever illuminate the darkness of the preacher-predators in their
ranks if they don’t even bother with systematic record-keeping?
And now, Rev. James Griffith,
a former Southern Baptist leader in Georgia, dares to suggest that this sort of
institutional secrecy is a problem from an earlier era.
Yet, we have seen many, many
other Southern Baptist pastors and denominational officials who have engaged in
similar sorts of secrecy when clergy abuse allegations arose in their own
churches. And, these keep-it-quiet scandals have implicated some of Baptistland’s
top honchos – men such as former Southern Baptist president Jack Graham of
Prestonwood Baptist megachurch in Dallas, president of the Southern Baptist
North American Mission Board Kevin Ezell, former president of the California
Southern Baptist Convention Wayne Stockstill, executive director of the Baptist
General Convention of Oklahoma Anthony Jordan, and former president of the
South Carolina Baptist Convention Wendell Estep.
Baptists have been using the
keep-it-quiet approach to clergy child molesters for a very long time, and so
far, we have seen virtually no indication that anything about this has changed
in Baptistland. While other major faith groups have begun to implement
denominational accountability systems for their clergy, Southern Baptists remain
sitting on the sidelines of this enormous problem, acting as though they are
somehow above the fray and refusing to implement even the most basic system of denominational
record-keeping on their clergy.
Meanwhile, Southern Baptist
ministers such as James Griffith seem to still brag about how they handled
things. ”It’s the kind of thing that can tear up your church,” said Griffith. “A
wise pastor certainly will not do anything to hurt the entire congregation.”
Wise? I think Griffith's self-delusion
concisely illustrates the problem – the continuing Baptistland ethos that it’s
better to leave kids at risk of clergy sex abuse than to do anything that might
“hurt” the illusions of the congregation.
When the accusations against
Boland arose in Griffith’s Beech Haven church, Griffith says he asked a church
deacon and a lawyer in the congregation to speak to Boland.
“That took care of it,” saysGriffith.
Took care of it for whom?
Certainly not for the children.
Posts
