It ain't moral just cuz it's legal

Many think the law is all black and white. It’s not. There are huge areas of grey. If there weren’t so much grey, lawyers wouldn’t have so much to argue about.

One of those grey areas is the area in between zealous advocacy and overstepping the bounds.

Some lawyers will use the threat of a lawsuit as an intimidation tactic. It’s a way to shut someone up. It forces them to spend a lot more money and it lets them know that they’re going to be in for a whole heckuva lot more headaches if they don’t back off and shut up. So that’s exactly what a lot of people do.

Recently, such a tactic was used against bloggers who wrote about the religious violence of the “Left Behind” video games.

Personally, I consider such intimidation tactics as overstepping the bounds. But some lawyers might shrug and call it zealous advocacy.

I got to experience similar intimidation tactics when I tried to report a Baptist clergy child molester. Much like a doctor who gains a new perspective on hospital policy when he himself becomes a patient, I felt the full brunt of it, not with the professional detachment of a lawyer, but as an ordinary wounded person trying to protect others and trying to get some denominational help.

Worse than a body blow, it felt like an evisceration. I curled up on my bed in a ball, and tried to make myself small, as though if only I curled tightly enough, I might be able to disappear.

I could not believe that the faith community I grew up in would do such a thing. Why would they threaten to sue me when the music minister had already admitted his knowledge of the other minister’s abuse of me as a kid?

I could think of only one reason: to shut me up.

What finally brought me out of my fetal ball was the knowledge that this lawyer had been working for the Baptist General Convention of Texas for over a decade and the realization that, if he used such intimidation tactics on me, he had probably used them on a whole lot of other clergy abuse victims as well. I figured his tactics probably worked exceptionally well with clergy abuse victims, given how reluctant most are to talk about it anyway.

Ultimately, I couldn’t let go of wondering how many other clergy abuse victims had been shoved right back into silence by such bald Baptist bullying tactics, and how many perpetrators had been left in their pulpits as a result.

I expect the BGCT’s long-time lawyer thought he was engaging in zealous advocacy. But I would say he was treading a very dark grey area. Some might even call it witness intimidation.

Whatever you call it, the real question is why the largest statewide Baptist organization in the country seems to condone such tactics. He’s THEIR lawyer, and he’s also the lawyer to whom the BGCT often refers churches when they're confronted with clergy abuse.

Just because such tactics may be legal doesn’t mean they’re moral.

The same is true of Baptist leaders’ use of confidentiality agreements to silence clergy abuse victims. Not long ago, the BGCT’s lawyer publicly described such agreements as being “standard.”

You got that? He was essentially justifying the practice of throwing a few thousand dollars at clergy abuse victims in exchange for their signature on a contract saying they’ll never again speak of it. It’s an abhorrent practice that perpetuates the secrecy of sex abuse and leaves predators in their pulpits.

Back in 2002, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops adopted an express policy against the use of confidentiality agreements with clergy abuse victims. But Baptist leaders are still using them.

Even if such agreements are legal, they sure as heck seem mighty immoral when they silence the wounded, keep predators in pulpits, and leave other kids at risk.

Just because something may be within the bounds of the law doesn’t mean it’s within the bounds of morality. The two are not one and the same. If anyone should realize that, it should be religious leaders. But apparently not.

And don’t just blame the lawyer. He may indeed be treading the grey on the very dark side, but Baptist leaders are the ones who insist on the wrong question.

Instead of asking “Is it legal?” Baptist leaders should be asking “Is it moral?”

They should be asking whether such silencing tactics reflect what Jesus would do if confronted with a clergy abuse victim. They should be asking whether such tactics are consistent with the mission of their organization.

By comforting themselves with the easy balm of a grey legality, Baptist leaders abdicate their OWN moral obligation.

[Incidentally, the BGCT’s lawyer on clergy abuse issues is the same one who advised the BGCT on the Valleygate mess. See a pattern? Looks like the BGCT may feel right at home in shadowy grey terrain.]

Body Issues

Some of you have noticed my running notes.

No, I’m not trying to turn any of you into runners, but I do hope you’ll do something good for your bodies.

So many of us who were sexually abused as kids wind up with “body issues,” don’t we?

Beloveds, I can already hear some of you out there chuckling at that. I know what you’re thinking.

“Body issues” is a bit of a euphemism and a laughable understatement, isn’t it?

Lots of sexual abuse victims wind up as anorexics, bulimics, and cutters. Or they try to detach by numbing themselves with alcohol and drugs. Many try the ultimate means of physical detachment -- suicide. Far too many succeed.

One way or another, we’re pretty good at detachment, aren’t we?

So that’s part of why I’m running more. I want to reconnect physically.

I’ve also been thinking about how something so physically horrible caused such awful consequences for us mentally. So I’m thinking the same body-mind connection may work with good things.

Maybe if we do things that are physically good for our bodies, it will wind up having good consequences for us mentally.

So here’s my mom-style advice for the day: Do something good for your body.

Take a walk, schedule a check-up, stretch to the sky, eat more vegetables, or my personal favorite (the one that always makes my daughter roll her eyes)….drink more water.

Whatever you choose, at least for today, do something good for your body.

Kudos to the Alabama CBF!

The Alabama Cooperative Baptist Fellowship has adopted a new policy for reviewing reports of clergy sex abuse. It's a policy that is light-years ahead of any policy in any statewide Southern Baptist group, including the Baptist General Convention of Texas. It sets an example for how faith groups with a congregationalist polity can nevertheless make a moral, Christian, compassionate and effective response to individuals attempting to report clergy abuse.

Here are some of the noteworthy features of the Alabama CBF policy:

1. It allows individuals to report abuse, not merely churches. (Since the well-known pattern is that churches are too often unable to lift the blinders of denial, this is a critically important policy advancement.)
2. It establishes a 5-person review committee at the Alabama CBF.
3. The committee will have 2 non-Baptists, with strong consideration given to people with psychological or counseling experience so as to bring both outsiders and people with expertise to the committee.
4. It requires at least 2 people of the same gender as the accuser on the committee.
5. The committee will engage in good-faith investigatory action. (In other words, it doesn't leave the entire investigatory burden on the shoulders of the individual to substantiate his or her own report.)
6. The committee will allow the accused to respond and to appear personally.
7. The committee will determine whether the allegations of abuse are credible.
8. The committee will provide information about its decision in writing to the individual making the report, the accused, and 2 church officers.
9. The Alabama CBF will keep a file with the names of those for whom there has been a determination of a credible abuse allegation.

I was very honored and very grateful that Brent McDougal and the Alabama CBF afforded me the opportunity of consulting with them in their policy-making process.

Is it a perfect policy? No. And ultimately, policies are only as effective as the individuals who implement them. But policies are a starting place, and this is a good one. For the sake of preventing abuse in the future and reaching out to those wounded in the past, I hope other Baptist groups will adopt similar policies.

The Alabama CBF is a small group, but this policy carries the potential to be a seed that bears good fruit. The American Baptists also have a system of review boards for clergy abuse. As review board policies are adopted by smaller Baptist groups, and perhaps eventually by the national Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, it may become more difficult for the Southern Baptist Convention leadership to keep standing on the sidelines spouting “autonomy.”

To each and every one of you who have shared your story or supported StopBaptistPredators in any way, I hope you will give yourselves a huge pat on the back. Your stories, your work, and your care have helped to raise awareness of Baptist clergy abuse, to keep the issue in the news, to reach out to still more victims, and to educate others. YOU are the people who have made this bit of daylight possible.

What would accountability look like?

Last week, an Episcopal bishop was suspended from ministry for failing to report the 1973 abuse of a 14-year old girl by a lay-minister.

The bishop, who was a rector at the time, is not accused of having committed any abuse himself. Nevertheless, the Episcopals are taking action because he kept quiet about another minister’s abuse.

They’re holding him accountable.

What would THAT be like in Southern Baptist circles? Can you even imagine it?

Southern Baptist leaders typically don’t take any action even against reported perpetrators, and they sure aren’t doing anything to hold accountable all the ministers who have kept quiet about clergy sex abuse.

Here are the allegations against the Episcopal bishop: (1) He didn’t provide pastoral care to the 14-year old; (2) He didn’t inform the girl’s parents (until several years later); (3) He didn’t report the abuse to anyone else; (4) He didn’t investigate whether there might be other victims. He is accused of having reacted “passively and self-protectively.”

If Southern Baptists held their leaders accountable for this kind of “passive, self-protective” conduct, a whole lot of church and denominational leaders would face consequences.

For starters, the most obvious one would be Steve Gaines. He kept quiet about a known, confessed clergy child-molester, and to this day, Gaines stands in the pulpit at Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis. He has NOT been held accountable.

Then there’s Jim Moore, the music minister who kept quiet about my own clergy perpetrator, even after the perpetrator himself talked about the abuse, and even after I talked about it. Moore allowed that man to go right on working in children’s ministry at other churches. And like the Episcopal minister, he didn’t provide any pastoral care, didn’t inform my parents, didn’t report the abuse, and didn’t investigate whether there might be other victims. Yet, Moore is still the music minister at FBC-Farmers Branch. He has NOT been held accountable.

And remember James Crittenden? He’s the Denton minister who knew about Pastor Larry Reynolds’ reported abuse of a kid and tried to keep it quiet. Crittenden has NOT been held accountable. Of course, Crittenden’s congregation is about as blind as they get. After extensive media coverage prompted Reynold’s resignation, the congregation gave him a $50,000 “love-offering” as a send-off and named a building after him.

And let’s not forget that leaders at the Baptist General Convention of Texas knew there was “substantial evidence” a minister had abused a kid, and yet they didn’t bother to tell people in the pews where the minister was currently working. They kept that information quiet…along with the names of all the other ministers who are in their secret file of clergy sex abusers. Accountability? I don’t think the BGCT knows the meaning of the word.

Accountability isn’t exactly Southern Baptists’ strong suit, is it?

In fact, “passive and self-protective” seems to be the generally accepted norm of behavior for Southern Baptist leaders when it comes to clergy sex abuse. Compare the Episcopals’ action with the typical Baptist “hush-it-up” pattern.

What would it be like if Southern Baptist president Frank Page showed the same sort of moral courage and commitment that was shown by the Episcopals’ highest leader?

Even if Page can’t actually discipline ministers, what would it be like if he used the Baptist Press to publicly denounce ministers for their conduct of keeping quiet about sexual abuse?

Don’t Southern Baptist kids deserve the same kind of protection that Episcopal kids have? It’s the sort of protection that’s provided by a faith community that actually holds its leaders accountable when they turn a blind eye to sexual abuse.

"Do Not Be Ashamed"

You will be walking some night
in the comfortable dark of your yard
and suddenly a great light will shine
round about you, and behind you
will be a wall you never saw before…

Though you have done nothing shameful,
they will want you to be ashamed.
They will want you to kneel and weep
and say you should have been like them…

Be ready.
When their light has picked you out
and their questions are asked, say to them:
“I am not ashamed.” A sure horizon
will come around you. The heron will begin
his evening flight from the hilltop.

-- Wendell Berry

Screaming at the ocean

Years ago, on moonless nights, I would sometimes go to a small ocean-side park. There wasn’t much of anything there – just a few picnic tables. No one else was ever around.

I’d go down to the ocean’s edge and stand in the pitch-black darkness and scream.

I screamed and screamed and screamed.

I screamed until my voice gave out. I screamed until I was depleted.

There at the ocean’s edge, my screams became one with the sound of the crashing waves.

The waves brought my screams immediately back to my ears, but transformed them.

Sometimes the waves took my screams and made them even louder, as though the ocean itself were roiling in rage along with me.

Sometimes the waves took my screams and allowed them to simply join with the cosmic chorus, as though they were mere accompaniment to the ocean’s own endless music.

However the ocean responded, I would keep screaming until I could scream no more.

Once I was surprised when I heard a man’s voice mock my scream. He sounded no further than 25 feet away, but it was so dark I couldn’t see him. When he started making fun of me, a woman’s voice immediately rose. “Stop it John. Let her scream.”

I pondered the darkness and the voices and I left that night. But my need to scream didn’t go away so easily. It called me back to the ocean’s edge again and again.

I didn’t have a clue why I was screaming. Nowadays, the reason seems obvious to me. But back then, I only knew that I needed to scream and that, when I stood in the dark at the ocean’s edge, the screams came forth from within me.

BGCT provides counseling for clergy perpetrators

Since about 1990, the Baptist General Convention of Texas has provided counseling for clergy “to help them put their lives back together after sexual misconduct.” And the BGCT has repeatedly defined “sexual misconduct” as “including child molestation.”

So the BGCT provides readily available counseling for clergy perpetrators but it doesn’t provide counseling for the clergy’s victims. Instead, it insists that clergy abuse victims should ask for help from the church where the abuse took place, even though it knows full well that most churches “just try to keep it secret” and don’t help the victims.

This BGCT duality drives me nuts: counseling for clergy perpetrators but none for clergy victims. I could go on and on about it, but for now, I’ve actually got a different dichotomy to talk about.

A while back, I had a lengthy email exchange with a prominent Texas Baptist who is considered by many to be one of the most knowledgeable Baptists in the country on the subject of clergy abuse. The BGCT frequently consults with him.

This man views clergy who commit “sexual misconduct” as falling into two categories: “predators” and “wanderers.” So I began by telling him that I thought this academic dichotomy was being misused as a rationalization for denominational inaction. In effect, denominational leaders seem to avoid taking action against “predators” on the theory that they all may be mere “wanderers.”

I reminded this man that I had been abused as a kid, as have many others, and I told him that the “wanderer” label could not ever be appropriate for clergy who abuse kids. For a minister to molest a kid is predatory. Period. To allow that such a minister might be considered a mere “wanderer” is to minimize a terrible crime, I said.

In response, this prominent Texas Baptist persisted in defending the predator/wanderer distinction. My point about clergy child molesters seemed to completely elude him.

Then he told me about a man “who for years counseled ministers for the BGCT” and who “indicated he had NEVER had a ‘predator’ come for help, but he had worked with numerous persons who fit the category we describe as a ‘wanderer’.”

I suppose he thought this bit of information might comfort me, as though it would prove how few in number the “predators” are because ALL the ministers who go through the BGCT’s ministerial counseling service are mere “wanderers.”

But I didn’t see it that way. I saw that bit of information as another horrifying piece of the puzzle. It makes the BGCT’s ministerial counseling service sound a lot like the sort of counseling that many Catholic bishops sent child molesting priests to. The bishops provided blind-eyed counselors who quietly treated the priests and then sent them back out for restoration to ministry.

Is that what has been happening for the past two decades with abusive Baptist ministers who got counseling provided by the BGCT? Was every single one of them a mere “wanderer” who got restored to ministry?

In the course of the same email, this prominent Texas Baptist repeatedly referred to clergy sex abuse as “moral failure,” “moral trangression,” “sexual immorality,” and “sexual misconduct.” Then he ended by saying “I have NEVER known anyone to excuse or minimize the sexual misconduct of a person.”

I feel as though I should hold up a mirror for this prominent Texas Baptist.

The reason he has “NEVER known anyone” to minimize it is because he simply doesn’t see the minimization when it happens. He doesn’t see the minimization even when he himself does it with his own language.

It’s no wonder Texas Baptists are so far off the mark in how they address clergy sex abuse. Their most prominent leaders and advisers just don’t get it.

Help for clergy victims like taxis to Mars

When I heard the recorded voice of my perpetrator telling a congregation about how blessed he was to work with them in their children’s ministry, I threw up on the spot.

He had been working in children’s ministry all along and no one had stopped him. He had been working in children’s ministry despite my report of being abused and raped as a kid. He had been working in children’s ministry even though my report was substantiated by another minister who knew about the abuse when I was a kid. He had been working in children’s ministry even after 18 Southern Baptist leaders in 4 different states were informed about my substantiated report of abuse. He had been working in children’s ministry even though the SBC had told me it had no record of him being in ministry. He had been working in children’s ministry even while the Baptist General Convention of Texas’ lawyer threatened to sue ME instead of doing anything about HIM.

All of those facts were more than I could bear, and I began to slowly unravel.

My friend Elana noticed. She saw how much I was struggling, and she wouldn’t let up about trying to get me to see a counselor.

I contacted several. But each time, it was so difficult that I would back off and wouldn’t try again for weeks.

I even went to a couple appointments, but I didn’t think the person I saw had a clue about clergy abuse, and I became even more discouraged.

It felt as though I was cutting myself open and bleeding all over the place just to try to tell someone even the bare gist of why I needed a counselor. I couldn’t figure out what to say, or how to say it. My throat would clutch and I couldn’t get words out. Even calling for an appointment became an impossible task.

Elana offered to call counselors for me, but I wouldn’t let her. I wanted to be able to hear their voices and get some feeling about them.

So finally, Elana flat-out put the words in my mouth. “Trauma response.”

“You need someone with experience in trauma response,” she said. “That’s what you should ask about."

On our weekly walks, Elana insisted that I practice saying the words: “Do you have experience with trauma response?” It seemed silly, but I did it. I said the sentence over and over until I could get the words out smoothly. I liked it because, that way, I didn't have to start out saying anything at all about church, sex, religion, or ministers.

Finally, I found a good counselor with the right sort of background and experience, and I began to make progress. (I considered myself fortunate to be able to afford counseling. That would be still another problem for many people, but that’s another topic.)

When I realized what a huge hurdle it had been for me to even find an appropriate counselor, and when I thought about how difficult it must also be for others, I asked the Baptist General Convention of Texas to put together a referral list that they could give to clergy abuse victims who contact them. I asked them to simply make a list of counselors in the major cities of Texas who had experience with the dynamics of clergy sex abuse.

I thought a referral list could at least give clergy abuse survivors a starting place for getting help. And it wouldn’t have cost the BGCT one dime. Just a list. A simple list.

They wouldn’t do it.

I might as well have asked them to provide taxis to Mars. That’s how difficult it is to get denominational leaders to provide any help for clergy abuse victims.

The reality of the victims’ suffering has not penetrated the consciousness of Baptist leaders. Until they allow themselves to see that reality and to feel the suffering of the wounded, there will be no effective change in how Baptist leaders address clergy sex abuse.

They must be changed in their hearts before they will change what they do about it.

If only....

Baptist leaders in Texas cannot bring themselves to admit even to themselves the tragedy that they’re allowing to happen. The Baptist General Convention of Texas persists in the delusional belief that local churches might somehow be educated so that they will report clergy sex abuse.

But this delusion has been going on for well over a decade. If only the BGCT puts together a committee…if only the BGCT publishes a brochure…if only the BGCT puts information on its website…. If only this… if only that…but virtually nothing really changes.

There is no “if only….”

With every attempt the BGCT makes, it becomes even more painfully clear that the BGCT has nothing to offer on this subject except more of what has failed in the past and shows no sign of working in the future.

The BGCT fails at this because the most critical problem is denial…and denial is something normal. It’s a normal human response in the face of horror and a very common aspect of human psychology.

It is precisely because denial is such a normal human response that institutions must have systems of accountability that recognize the reality of human denial.

No matter how often the BGCT revises its website or how many brochures it publishes, most churches will not report their own ministers. Church people know that sexual abuse is wrong. But they simply don’t bring themselves to the point of realizing that their own ministers commit abuse. It’s called denial.

Or they tell themselves that maybe it wasn’t the way it seemed, or that it happened just once and so he’s not really a child molester, because after all, child molesters are bad people, and Brother Bill isn’t bad.

Or they tell themselves that, even though it looked bad, they don’t really KNOW exactly what happened (and they don’t really want to know), and so to make everyone more comfortable, they simply allow Brother Bill to move on without ever getting to the bottom of it.

This pattern of denial has been played out over and over again, and BGCT leaders know it. They know that “in the normal scenario” churches “just try to keep it secret.”

Did you get that? “Normal.” So why does the BGCT keep pretending that something outside the normal is going to happen. It almost never does.

“In the normal scenario,” churches do nothing, and because the BGCT provides victims with nowhere else to turn, clergy-perpetrators remain in their pulpits even after victims have tried desperately to report them.

No one would expect Grandma to have to decide whether beloved Uncle Joe molested little Suzy. Her instinct for denial would be too great. Congregations are similar. Typically, they love and trust their minister. They are incapable of objectively considering whether he may have done something so heinous as to molest a kid.

Those who have been victims of clergy sex abuse know and understand this. The BGCT still acts as though it doesn’t.

It’s one thing for churches to engage in denial. But it’s long past time when the BGCT should lift its own veil of denial and exercise leadership. The consequences of its failure are terrible. Perpetrators stay in their pulpits. Additional kids get molested. And adults who try to heal their wounds get re-wounded by churches that “just try to keep it secret.”

The BGCT must move past “if only” and start dealing with reality.

Why the BGCT?

“Why so much focus on the Baptist General Convention of Texas?”

1. Because the BGCT has repeatedly bragged that it does more than any other statewide Baptist organization to address clergy sex abuse. If indeed the BGCT is doing the most, then it bears a close look because it shows us how horrifically little this denomination is doing…even among those who claim to do the most.
2. Because, given how much the BGCT has bragged, it ought to be doing something that's brag-worthy, but it's not. (It’s like a runner who’s been lapped on the track and doesn’t even know it. The BGCT acts like it’s a leader when, in reality, it’s a quarter-mile behind if you look at what the leaders of most other major faith groups are doing.)
3. Because I am aware of more Baptist clergy abuse survivors in Texas than in any other state. (Florida and Tennessee are close seconds. South Carolina and Missouri aren’t far behind.)
4. Because too many clergy abuse victims have been RE-wounded by the BGCT. It lures victims into thinking it has functional policies, when it doesn’t, and as a result, victims who try to report their perpetrators wind up being further betrayed. As best I can tell, no other statewide Southern Baptist group is doing any better, but the others don’t put forward as much pretense. It’s the BGCT’s pretense that draws victims in closer and effectively allows them to be sucker-punched… so that it winds up hurting all the worse.
5. Because the BGCT is the largest of the statewide Southern Baptist groups. If only the BGCT would take effective action, so many kids and families could be protected, and so many wounded people could be helped.
6. Because the BGCT has managed to provide counseling for clergy perpetrators since 1990, and yet it still can’t come up with the will or the funding to readily provide counseling for clergy abuse victims.
7. Because the BGCT has had more opportunities than most other Baptist groups to lift its veil of denial, and this makes its continued failures all the more tragic. Fifteen years ago, former Southern Baptist missionary Dee Miller started trying to educate BGCT people on the dynamics of clergy abuse and cover-ups. After Dee, there was a succession of us: Deborah Dail, Stephanie Burt, myself, Debbie Vasquez, and others. So many of us have given so much of our time, anguish and energy in the belief and hope that BGCT leaders might be educated to respond more effectively and compassionately when confronted with clergy abuse reports. Some of the same leaders that Dee spoke with years ago are still there, but little has changed.
8. Because the BGCT has a file with reported clergy child molesters against whom there is “substantial evidence” of abuse, and it keeps that information secret from people in the pews. That sort of secrecy serves only the predators. It does nothing to protect kids, and it’s an abdication of moral responsibility.
9. Because I’m fed up with the way BGCT leaders constantly refer to clergy child molestation as mere “misconduct.” How much longer will it take before the largest statewide Baptist organization in the country stops minimizing this horrific crime?

"Protecting the Innocent"

Next Monday, at the annual meeting of the Baptist General Convention of Texas, Sonny Spurger will lead a workshop called “Protecting the Innocent.” He'll talk about “how to keep your own children and those in your church safe against sexual predators.”

It seems surreal that Sonny Spurger would be the person to lead such a workshop. He's "all hat no cattle."

In handling clergy sex abuse, Sonny’s role is like the “good cop” role in a twisted sort of good cop/bad cop routine that the BGCT plays with clergy abuse victims. Sonny dishes out pastoral pats on the head and effectively says “oh boo hoo.”

But Sonny also acts as the BGCT’s crisis intervention specialist for churches. In that role, he often refers churches to the BGCT’s attorney, who then goes to work to try to make the “problem” go away. In effect, Sonny is a sort of front-man for this other guy who plays the “bad cop” role. (The BGCT’s attorney reminds me a lot of the Mr. Wolfe, character in the movie “Pulp Fiction.” Remember him? The guy who “takes care of problems.”)

How does the BGCT’s attorney try to make the problem go away for the church? One way is by threatening to sue the victim. He does that, even while knowing that the victim’s report of clergy child molestation is substantiated by another minister. He does that, even while the known clergy-perpetrator continues working in children’s ministry.

Does that sound like a good way to “protect the innocent”?

If the threat of legal recourse doesn’t silence the victim, then the BGCT’s attorney tries to get the victim’s signature on a secrecy agreement. We’ve talked with enough people to know that he’s actually been doing this for over a decade with clergy abuse victims. But the BGCT’s attorney doesn’t try to deny it. He is so blind to how morally reprehensible this is that he himself recently described these sorts of agreements as being “standard.”

So his “standard” method is to wear down the victim, who is usually a person in desperate need of counseling, and then get them to sign a secrecy agreement. That silences the victim and saves the church from scandal. All too often, it also allows the perpetrator to stay in his pulpit.

Does that sound like a good way to “protect the innocent”?

For Sonny Spurger to talk about “protecting the innocent” while, in reality, the BGCT continues to engage this good cop/bad cop treatment of clergy abuse victims is disingenuous.

For Sonny Spurger to talk about “protecting the innocent” while, in reality, the BGCT fails to warn people in the pews about reported clergy child molesters is duplicitous.

For Sonny Spurger to talk about “protecting the innocent” while, in reality, the BGCT continues to keep a secret file with the names of child molesting ministers against whom there was “substantial evidence” is downright dangerous.

If the BGCT won’t even warn people in the pews about the clergy child molesters they’ve already been told about, why should anyone imagine that the BGCT will be able “protect the innocent” against the clergy child molesters they don’t yet know about?

Spurger’s co-leader for the workshop is Emily Prevost, who is on the BGCT’s congregational leadership team. When the BGCT announced today that Spurger will be retiring next January, Prevost praised Spurger as being “the presence of Christ for churches in times of distress.”

As someone who has personally experienced Spurger’s handling of clergy sex abuse, I absolutely disagree with Prevost.

I believe the actual "presence of Christ” would have been very different in those churches. Christ would have loudly turned the tables upside down in some of the churches where Spurger chose to quietly intervene. But of course Christ wasn’t much concerned with appearances and public relations the way the BGCT seems to be.

And Christ would have gone to work to help heal the wounded, not to revictimize them with strong-arm tactics and silencing strategies.

And Christ wouldn’t just talk about “protecting the innocent.” He would actually do it.

BGCT's Secret File is Tip of Iceberg

Not quite a year ago, I stood with SNAP members Debbie Vasquez, Susan Dancer, Ron Dancer, and Kris Galland outside the annual meeting of the Baptist General Convention of Texas and urged the BGCT to disclose the names of reported child-molesting ministers who are in the BGCT’s secret file. That’s right. The BGCT has a file. They’ve had it since early 2000. A minister’s name could get into that secret file if he was reported by a church and if the BGCT determined there was “substantial evidence” of sexual abuse.

You might imagine that disclosure of those ministers’ names would be a no-brainer. In this day and time, how could anyone possibly believe that such information could rightly be kept secret?

Yet the BGCT does keep that information secret. They defend it by calling it “confidential;” I call it “secret.” Whichever word you use, the reality remains the same: The people who most need to know – i.e., the parents in the pews – have still not been told the names of the ministers in that file.

How many molesting ministers’ names are in that file and how many kids have they hurt? Why aren’t the parents of Baptist kids entitled to know which ministers’ names are in that file?

I asked those same two questions over a year ago in a Dallas Morning News op-ed piece. The questions are just as valid today as they were then.

Last year, we also urged the BGCT to begin archiving abuse reports received from abuse victims, and not merely abuse reports received from church officials. Why? Because all too often church officials try to keep scandal a secret, and perpetrators wind up moving on to other churches. It’s a well-known pattern.

Just a few months ago, Joe Trull said that the BGCT’s confidential file contains “about 11 cases involving clergy abuse with minors.” Since it’s a secret file, we are afforded no alternative other than to simply take Trull’s word as to the number. However, Trull himself acknowledged that these 11 are “just the tip of the iceberg” because churches don’t have to report cases to the BGCT and “aren’t likely to.”

“In the normal scenario, they just try to keep it secret,” said Trull.

So…the BGCT receives clergy abuse reports only from churches, and not from victims, even though the BGCT knows full-well that most churches don’t report abuse. That doesn’t seem very functional, does it? It’s certainly not a system that’s likely to be effective for protecting kids and ridding the ranks of clergy predators.

Even in the rare case when a church actually does report abuse, the names that comprise even that most-substantiated “tip of the iceberg” will still remain secret anyway. They sit in that secret file cabinet at the BGCT.

Who are the Baptist clergy-perpetrators in those 11 “tip of the iceberg” cases? Why aren’t the parents of kids in Baptist churches entitled to know at least that much?

The BGCT’s annual meeting is coming up again at the end of October. How many more annual meetings will come and go before Texas Baptists finally rise up out of their pews and say “Protect our kids!”