Baptists should heed mother's call for accountability

Members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP)
at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, on January 26, 2012.

A mother, who says her son was repeatedly molested by a minister at one of the Southern Baptist Convention’s largest churches, claims the church needs to come clean about a cover-up of child sexual abuse.

“I want people to know the truth,” she said in a written statement released to CBS News last Saturday. “The hurt our family endured…is indescribable. . . . The church never reported John to the police . . . . We ask that Prestonwood take responsibility for their cover-up, and to say they are sorry.”

After minister John Langworthy was allowed to simply walk away from abuse allegations at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas in the late 1980s, he went on to serve two decades as music minister at another prominent Southern Baptist church, Morrison Heights in Clinton, Mississippi. There, he recently received a 50-year suspended sentence for molesting multiple boys as young as six. But Langworthy avoided prison time because, in the plea bargain process, prosecutors were concerned about the statute of limitations.

So, thanks to many years of secrecy surrounding his crimes, minister John Langworthy walks away with no prison time. But no one should overlook the fact that his crimes could have been disclosed many years earlier – and countless kids better protected -- if only the leadership of Prestonwood had spoken up and reported Langworthy to police.  

As described in the Associated Baptist Press, Prestonwood is the fifth-largest church in the Southern Baptist Convention. Its pastor, Jack Graham, was a two-term Southern Baptist Convention president from 2002-2004. So this is a pastor who is well-entrenched in Baptists’ good-ol’-boy network.

Who in that Baptist network will now answer this mother’s anguished call for accountability? Who will require that Prestonwood “take responsibility for their cover-up”? Will anyone do diddly-squat? Not if the patterns of the past continue.

Much like the insider network that covered up a coach’s abuse of kids at Penn State, the Baptist good-ol’-boys don’t hold one another accountable.

This is not the only time that Prestonwood has dealt with ministerial child sex allegations. In 2008, another Prestonwood minister, Joe Barron, was arrested for soliciting sex from an officer posing as a 13-year-old. On that occasion, pastor Jack Graham had little possibility for keeping it quiet because Barron had already been arrested and was making headlines. So, after Barron’s arrest, Graham took the pulpit and preached about doing the right thing. And he claimed that, “in forty years of ministry,” he had “never had one moral problem with a staff member” prior to the Barron case.

Now that we know about the prior Langworthy allegations, we know Graham’s statement wasn’t accurate. Perhaps pastor Graham just forgot about the Langworthy case – meaning a staff minister’s molestation of a kid was not a memorable problem for him – or perhaps Graham remembered the Langworthy case but chose to keep up the smokescreen and to heck with the safety of kids.

In any event, despite Graham’s inaccuracy, his preaching was the usual fine performance, and many heaped praise on him for his cheap, toothless pulpit talk.

The Southern Baptist Convention’s chief executive officer, Morris Chapman, urged other church leaders to follow Graham’s example “in confronting this horrible crime, exposing it for what it is, and doing everything within our power to protect the children under the care of the ministries of our churches.”

But is that what Graham did with Langworthy? Did he do everything within his power to protect children? I expect most ordinary parents would say no.

Graham and other Prestonwood leaders simply allowed Langworthy to move on. They got him off their own turf, while leaving countless other kids at risk. And even as recently as 2011, Prestonwood’s executive pastor, Mike Buster, proudly described Prestonwood’s modus operandi of a quiet dismissal by saying that the church had “firmly and forthrightly” dealt with the Langworthy matter.

If that’s what Southern Baptists call being firm and forthright with clergy molestation allegations, then parents should keep their kids out of Southern Baptist churches.

But Graham is a prominent somebody. Not only did other Baptist officials sing his praises, but so too did the Dallas Morning News. After Graham took the pulpit following Joe Barron’s arrest, the Dallas Morning News published an editorial extolling Graham as though he were the perfect example of a pastor who had done all the right things. And even as Prestonwood’s leaders basked in that over-the-top praise, they continued to keep their dark secret about Langworthy locked tight in their closet.

And Langworthy continued to work with kids.

“In the end,” wrote the Dallas Morning News, “the real scandal in cases like this comes not from the sins and crimes of sexual offenders. . . . The truly damaging scandals arise when church leaders mishandle these crises by failing to treat them with the gravity they deserve.”

Prestonwood and Jack Graham failed miserably, and Baptists should heed the mother’s call for accountability. In the end, when organizations do not impose consequences for those who turn a blind-eye, then blind-eyed behavior continues, and kids remain at greater risk.

________________________

 

Thanks to the Associated Baptist Press (an independent news service) for publishing this post!

Related posts:

Jack Graham: Deceiver, believer or in-betweener, 10/1/11

Penn State and Prestonwood: Consequences are necessary, 11/10/11

Penn State lesson for Baptists: Outsiders needed for oversight, 11/25/11

Related ABP column:

Prestonwood saga shows clergy abuse database is overdue, 8/19/2011
 

Update:

Amy Smith's persistence brings justice in John Langworthy clergy abuse case, Clarion Ledger, 2/6/2013
Sex offender loses pharmacy license, ABP, 3/1/2013 (with numerous additional links to articles on the Prestonwood / Langworthy scandal)

Clergy sex abuse and the "silence of the many"

"True evil lies not in the depraved act of the one, but in the silence of the many." On this day, I am contemplating these words, attributed to a black Baptist preacher, Martin Luther King, Jr.

In countless stories of Baptist clergy sex abuse, we have seen the sad truth of King’s words made manifest. Even with childhood histories of horrific abuse – of having been molested, raped and sodomized by Baptist preachers – many have said that the worst of their experience came when they tried to tell about the abuse within the faith community.

That was when they faced “the silence of the many.”

That was when the relational fabric of community, and often even of family, was torn asunder.

That was when faith itself was deemed a fraud.

Church after church has stood, not in solidarity with those who have been abused by clergy, but rather, with the accused minister-molesters. Often, the churches have stood with the ministers even when they admit their soul-murdering deeds, and sometimes, even when they have been criminally convicted.

Church leaders have quietly allowed accused preacher-predators – even those with multiple accusations -- to hop to new churches – and to do so repeatedly.

Denominational leaders have sat back and claimed powerlessness. Simultaneously, they have stayed silent about Baptist pastors, including some high-profile pastors, who kept quiet about abuse allegations involving ministerial staff.

The unmistakable message of so much silence and do-nothingness is that, among Baptists, clergy sex abuse is typically treated as “no big deal.”

No one in Baptistland wants to hear the voices of those who were sexually abused by Baptist clergy. Indeed, in the Southern Baptist Convention, there does not even exist a basic structure to support the compassionate hearing of such wounded people. Instead, they are told that they must take their allegations to the church of the accused minister. This is like telling bloody sheep that, if they want help, they must go to the den of the wolf who savaged them. It is a system that does not work.

But no one in denominational offices will take responsibility for assuring that clergy abuse allegations will be responsibly heard, or even that any records will be kept.
 

As a practical matter, because the vast majority of molestation allegations cannot be criminally prosecuted, a Southern Baptist preacher can stand in a pulpit so long as he is not literally sitting in prison. There is no denominational entity that will stop him. Even when a minister has hopped through multiple churches in multiple states with multiple allegations, Southern Baptist denominational entities pretend that it is better to not know -- to not even try to know.

Denominational leaders claim that their hands are tied by the congregationalist polity of Southern Baptist churches. In effect, they assert an “it’s our religion” rationalization for denominational do-nothingness.

However, some have realized that this is not truly a stance based on religion. Rather, it is based on the weighing of “responsibility and liability issues.” In effect, it’s a business decision. As David Roozen, director of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research at Hartford Seminary, recently explained: “If the organizing body of a denomination claims no responsibility for supervising, or even ordaining clergy, it may be harder to hold it responsible when a pastor molests a child.”

Southern Baptist leaders have weighed these “responsibility and liability” issues and have come down on the side of seeking to protect denominational entities via a do-nothing response. Other major faith groups, including some congregationalist faith groups, have come down on the side of seeking to protect church kids via the implementation of denominational review boards to assess abuse allegations. Such review boards can at least provide a first step toward denominationally hearing the voices of those abused by clergy.

But for Southern Baptists, this first step remains untaken. They stand on an island of inertia.

The result is that Baptist church kids are being ravaged, not only by the sexual abuse of many ministers, but also by the denomination’s complicit silence. The rationalization by which the denomination cloaks its do-nothingness is of little consequence; this is true even when that rationalization is called “religion.”

The end of power remains the same  --  to preserve the status quo. If Southern Baptists want to responsibly engage their faith with respect to clergy sex abuse, they must start by considering the silent complicity of their own church and denominational power structures. They must respond to this systemic problem from a position of compassion and care rather than from a position of power.

What better way for Baptists to honor a Baptist preacher’s timeless voice for justice than by committing to actively hear the voices of those brutalized by their own clergy and ostracized by their own complicity?
___________________

Thanks to the Associated Baptist Press (an independent news service) for publishing this column! 

Deadly Secrets: New book shows terrible cost of Baptists' keep-it-quiet culture

Author Kathryn Casey tells the true crime story of Southern Baptist pastor Matt Baker, who was able to migrate through many Baptist churches and schools despite multiple reports of sexual assault and abuse. In Baptistland, Baker apparently learned that his deeds carried no consequence. Ultimately he tried to get away with murder. . .  and he nearly did.  This is NOT fiction. Here’s aere’s Hn excerpt from Deadly Little Secrets.

”When her parents arrived, they accompanied Lora back to the stadium to meet with Sims. Once Lora explained what had happened, Matt was called into Sims’s office. 'Matt admitted what he’d done, but he said he didn’t realize he was hurting me,' she said. But there was no doubt that Lora had attempted to fight him off, attested to by the bite mark on his shoulder. 

'This will be taken care of,' Sims assured her, saying she didn’t need to involve the police. Lora and her parents agreed to let the university handle the situation.. . . .  [“The university” is Baylor, a school affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas.]

Lora returned to the campus after Christmas break… When she reported for work at the stadium, Matt was there, and it appeared his only punishment was to be confined to the training room to work with the players. ‘That was something that usually only the seniors were able to do,’ Lora says. ‘It wasn’t a punishment. It was more of a promotion.’

For Lora, the effects of Matt Baker’s attack lingered. She dropped out of athletic training and left Baylor before the semester ended. Months later, she was asked to put her recollection of the events in writing for Matt’s file. She did so. At the time, she was told there’d been another episode with Matt. . .

Departing Waco and Baylor, however, didn’t end Lora’s suffering. For years after, she endured nightmares in which it happened all over again . . . . Such nights, Lora woke up terrified. . . .

Were there any ramifications for Matt? . . . The university and Mike Sims would later refuse comment, so there would be nothing by which to judge their actions but the results. The undeniable consequence of the attack was that no one at Baylor filed a police report . . . and Matt Baker was allowed to continue at the university.

Perhaps it would have been expected that Matt would have learned from what he’d done, but then, he’d apparently suffered no punishment, so why should he change his ways? If Baylor had taken action, made sure that he was charged with a crime, Matt might have been held accountable. But they didn’t, and he wasn’t, and the following January, just weeks after Baker’s attack on Lora Wilson, he was home in Kerrville. It was there that he struck up an old friendship with Dina Ahrens . . . . Dina would later testify about what happened that night . . . It took all her physical strength to keep her clothes on. Why did Baker finally stop? According to Ahrens, it was only because he heard her mother at the door. . . .

Meanwhile, all continued to go well for Matt Baker. . . . The month after Wilson accused him of assault, no one from the university apparently protested when Matt was given a highly coveted position, an internship in the recreation department at the First Baptist Church of Waco, the premier church in the city, one tightly tied to Baylor. Perhaps they didn’t realize or maybe they didn’t care that at the church Matt’s duties would include working in the recreation center and at the summer youth camp, often around young, vulnerable women.

The man who hired him, Jake Roberts, was one of Matt’s teachers at Baylor… who also worked at First Baptist. . . .

In Texas, many [Baptist churches] belong to the Baptist General Convention of Texas (BGCT) at the state level and the Southern Baptist Convention at the national level….  Says a former member of the BGCT’s board: ‘We can’t tell them whom to hire. Basically, to be called a pastor of a Baptist church, all you have to do is have a church vote to hire you.’. . . .

When it comes to ministerial misconduct. . . ‘Many [Baptist churches] just fire the offending pastor or ask him to find something else and move on,’ says a former BGCT employee. ‘They want to get rid of their problem. They don’t worry about where that pastor goes next and what he might do once he’s there.’ . . .

It would later be unclear whether anyone at First Baptist reported to the BGCT regarding the allegations against Matt Baker since BGCT would refuse requests for records. . . .

Concerned about Baker, Roberts… took an additional step, writing a report on all that had transpired and putting it in First Baptist’s safe . . . .  [where it certainly didn’t function to keep anyone else any safer]

Later it would be difficult to pin down dates when Matt Baker worked at particular churches since few kept records. According to Matt’s resume, his first church position after First Baptist Waco was as a part-time youth and music minister working under the pastor at … First Baptist of Robinson . . . . Like so many of his jobs, his position in Robinson was short-lived, less than a year.. . .

In the summer of 1996, after losing the job in Robinson, Matt worked as recreation director at the prestigious Columbus Avenue Baptist Church in downtown Waco. . . . Matt’s sojourn as assistant recreation director, however, lasted only four months. . . .Yet, that fall, Matt was given another plum job, to pastor Pecan Grove Baptist, a small country church outside Waco. Pecan Grove was known as a good assignment for Truett students, a place where the seminary’s stars were groomed for the future . . . .”

_______________________________

Baptist pastor Matt Baker was convicted of murder in January 2010. At the time of his trial, prosecutors said they were prepared to put on evidence of at least 13 young women, including four minors, toward whom Baker had made sexual assaults and inappropriate “advances.” Here is a list of the many churches, schools and organizations where Baker worked, as they were reported by Texas Monthly magazine. Notably, almost all of them are affiliated with the same umbrella organization, the Baptist General Convention of Texas – an organization that is obviously lost in oblivion on the need for effective systems of clergy accountability. Indeed, even after multiple allegations, it was Baptists’ endorsement of Baker as a chaplain that allowed him to still get a job working with vulnerable kids at the Waco Center for Youth. If only Baptists had held Matt Baker accountable from the start, and precluded him from carrying the mantle of trust as a Baptist minister, perhaps the murder of a vibrant young woman could have been avoided, and almost certainly, numerous girls and young women could have been spared the savagery of sexual abuse and assault. Read the book.

Multi-accused pastor preaches on forgiveness

First Baptist Church of Stover, Missouri
(photo by Tim Townsend)

Excerpts below are from the 12/8/2012 St. Louis Post Dispatch article by Tim Townsend: "Fate of Baptist pastor accused of abuse is in the hands of his flock"

Last Sunday, the Rev. Travis Smith paced First Baptist Church’s sanctuary, decorated for the holidays with poinsettias and a Christmas tree. He addressed his congregation, speaking to them about forgiveness.

Smith read verses from the Gospel of Matthew that follow the Lord’s Prayer:

“For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you,” he said.

Since Smith’s arrest in October on sexual abuse and statutory rape charges, which follow similar allegations from 2010, forgiveness from his congregation has become critical to his survival as its pastor. . . .

A deacon at First Baptist Church of Stover said that at its last monthly business meeting no one from the congregation even put forward a motion to dismiss Smith. . . .

The most recent accusations against Smith, 42, by two different women, stem from alleged incidents in 1998, 1999 and 2005, when the women were minors. Those allegations led to what the Missouri Highway Patrol called a “lengthy investigation.” The Martineau County prosecutor has charged Smith with six felonies, including sexual abuse, second-degree statutory rape and forcible rape. . . .

In 2010, according to news reports and law enforcement officials, Smith was arrested after a 14-year-old girl, a friend of his daughter, accused him of molesting her during a fishing trip. Another girl then came forward and said Smith began having sex with her, in 2005, when she was 15. Both girls were members of his congregation.

Last year, Smith was acquitted in one case and the other was dropped. A year later, he was arrested on the current charges, which involve different girls. . . .

In a statement, Rob Phillips, a spokesman for the Missouri Baptist Convention said the Convention has “no direct authority over” First Baptist Church of Stover, but that it was “deeply grieved by the allegations,” and prays . . . .

Advocates for clergy sexual abuse victims say Southern Baptist leaders are hiding behind their governing structure to avoid taking responsibility for the misconduct of Southern Baptist pastors.

“There’s nothing about autonomy that precludes denominational structures,” said Christa Brown, author of “This Little Light: Beyond a Baptist Preacher Predator and His Gang.” “Other large congregational faith groups have regional bodies that assess a minister’s fitness to continue ministry.”. . .

“When a Southern Baptist church faces a crisis like this, the easiest thing to do is just let the guy go — he moves to a different state, gets a job at another church and there’s no record of his actions,” Brown said. “If a minister is not literally sitting in prison, he can find a Southern Baptist pulpit to stand in.”. . .

“This is a delicate situation for our church,” said Marriott, the church deacon. “We could jump to conclusions and dismiss him, but what if we’re wrong? We’re just a bunch of average people trying our best to live by God’s word.”

Smith’s sermon Sunday resonated with that struggle. Just as the Gospel of Matthew promises heavenly forgiveness to those who forgive, so, too, does it spell out consequences for those who refuse.

“But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”

“Salvation,” Smith told his flock, “is conditional.”

_____________________

Related posts:
Multi-accused pastor remains in pulpit; Baptist officials claim they're powerless, 11/18/2012
Local church autonomy: Theory or reality? 12/19/2009

Three allegations in three years, but church kept quiet

In Oklahoma, police arrested Southern Baptist youth pastor Dustin Ray Werneburg on multiple charges of child sex crimes. Werneburg, who was previously a pastor at First Baptist Church in Coalgate, now faces three counts of second degree rape and three counts of forcible sodomy along with charges of lewd molestation and lewd or indecent proposals to a child. Investigators say that all of the crimes were committed against a girl under the age of 16.


Jeff Self
(Savannah Morning News photo)

Jeff Self, the senior pastor at First Baptist Church in Coalgate, has admitted that he knew about prior allegations against Werneburg.

"We had three allegations over the course of three years,” said pastor Self in a statement to KXII News. “Two of them he had come to me and said you are going to hear this . . .  and it was a he said she said and we believed him . . . but once we had that third allegation that was really significant in August," Self said.

So what exactly did pastor Self do with the third allegation – the one that he finally viewed as being “really significant”?

He met with the leadership of the church, and they asked for Werneburg’s resignation.

So, even after three allegations, pastor Self still did not take appropriate action for the protection of kids.

Having resigned at the church, Werneburg was able to continue working as a teacher’s aide at a middle school, which is where he was when he was arrested last week. A parent reported Werneburg to the police after finding text messages and photos exchanged between his daughter and Werneburg.

Thanks to that parent, perhaps the justice system will be able to hold Werneburg accountable.

But what about accountability for the church’s senior pastor, Jeff Self, whose irresponsible do-nothingness betrayed kids and left them at risk for terrible harm?

In all probability, pastor Self will face no consequence whatsoever. Institutionally, the Southern Baptist Convention does nothing at all when pastors keep quiet about clergy sex abuse allegations in their churches. Indeed, the Southern Baptist Convention doesn’t even have the bare pretense of any process of denominational accountability for keep-it-quiet pastors such as Jeff Self.

__________________________

 

Wondering how pastor Jeff Self can look at himself in the mirror? Wondering whether he's even cognizant of the soul-murdering harm that his do-nothingness allowed? Is Self even rethinking his conduct? For more insight into Self's way of thinking, read his column in the Savannah Morning News. His words purport to place high value on the younger generation; his deeds say otherwise.

Related posts:
Pastor accused of cover-up is featured speaker for Southern Baptist Convention, 6/16/2012
Dear Al, 12/8/2011

See also: Churches not typically first reporters of sexual abuse, ABP, 11/22/11

Multi-accused pastor remains in pulpit; Baptist officials claim they're powerless

Travis Ray Smith (ABC 17 News)

Missouri Southern Baptists stand by their man despite multiple child sex charges  . . .  again.

Southern Baptist Pastor Travis Smith stands accused of child sex crimes, and he remains in the pulpit at the First Baptist Church in Stover. Despite the fact that Pastor Smith also faced child sex charges in 2010, when he was youth pastor at Pilot Grove Baptist Church, his congregants remain steadfast. Shortly after his arrest, First Baptist congregants held a fish fry, which some described as a show of support for Pastor Smith.

So what do Southern Baptist denominational officials do when a pastor such as Smith is accused of multiple sex crimes with multiple kids, and he stays in the pulpit?

Nothing.

Top officials of the country’s largest Protestant denomination claim they are powerless.

They pray.

Meanwhile, the multi-accused minister remains in the pulpit. And if First Baptist gets tired of the negative publicity and decides to let Pastor Smith move on, he will likely be able to find some other Baptist church that will take him. Prison is about the only thing that will keep a Baptist pastor out of the pulpit, because unlike other major faith groups, Southern Baptists do diddly-squat denominationally when a minister is accused of sexual abuse.

Here’s what Missouri Baptist Convention spokesman, Rob Phillips, said about the “situation in Stover” – a “situation” in which at least four kids have now made some pretty dreadful allegations:

“While we respect the independence of the local church and have no direct authority over it, we are deeply grieved by the allegations. We pray that the courts will administer justice fairly and swiftly, and that there will be healing among the wounded church members. We also pray that the church members will have the wisdom, grace and courage to act biblically in their dealings with their pastor.”

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the coded language of Baptistland, allow me to offer a translation:

“Thank goodness that we as Southern Baptists give lip-service to local church autonomy because we’re able to use this religious-sounding construct as a ruse to protect the $500 million per year that local churches send to denominational offices through the “Cooperative Program.” (That’s the money that helps to fund all those nice undisclosed salaries of denominational officials, not to mention all those cushy travel expenses at the Wyndham.) So trust me when I say this, we really really respect the independence of the local church because, that way, if something goes really wrong (such as a bunch of church-kids getting molested), then we can say that the local church messed up totally independently, and we don’t really care much if a local church winds up going out of business so long as we can protect our denominational coffers. But hey – we are deeply grieved. Trust me. We really are. We just don’t plan to do anything about it. But of course, we pray that the courts will administer justice (because, first of all, we’re big on saying that we pray, and second, because unlike other major faith groups, the Southern Baptist denomination has totally abdicated clergy accountability to the criminal justice system, and so, if the courts don’t do anything,  there’s no one else who will, and yeah, we’re aware that less than 10 percent of child molestation cases are prosecuted, but hey, this denomination is just totally powerless with its mere $500 million per year. Trust me. We really are powerless – unless of course a church hires a woman pastor or a gay man – and then we’ll do something about it. Confused? Well duh. It’s definitional. In Baptistland, “independence” means that churches can keep accused and admitted child molesters as pastors, but “independence” doesn’t mean churches can keep women or gays as pastors. It’s our religion -- or so we say.) We also pray that there will be healing among the wounded church members. (But please, please, please don’t even mention the kids who say they were molested and raped. We don’t want to pray for them because we prefer to pretend they don’t exist.) We also pray that the church members will have the wisdom . . . yadda yadda yadda . . . to act biblically. (Hey, I’m a communications guy for Baptists and so I have to talk about how much we pray and say biblical-sounding stuff. Saying we pray is what’s important to us. Doing something to protect kids against clergy child molesters? Not so much.)" 

In addition to the $500 million in annual revenues that Southern Baptists take into denominational coffers through their “Cooperative Program,” the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention take in about $10.4 billion in annual “offerings” and they have about $42 billion in congregational assets.

Yet, even with such massive resources, Southern Baptists claim that they are powerless to even keep denominational records on the molestation allegations against their ministers, much less to remove a multi-accused minister from the pulpit. It's a claim that strains credulity.
____________________________

Related post:
Multi-accused pastor preaches on forgiveness, 12/8/2012

Update:
Accused Missouri pastor faces new charges, 6/14/2013

"Those days" are still here in Baptistland

“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.

Blasting child rape victims is cruel tactic


What do Jerry Sandusky and Frank Page have in common?



Jerry Sandusky

Sandusky, the former Penn State coach convicted of molesting children, blasted his accusers as “opportunistic.”

Page, the current chief executive of the Southern Baptist Convention, blasted support groups for clergy molestation victims as “opportunistic.”

One man blasted child molestation victims in an apparent effort to undermine their credibility so as to salvage some shred of his own reputation, despite the overwhelming evidence against him.



Frank Page

The other man blasted child molestation victims in an apparent effort to undermine their credibility so as to preserve the reputation of the Southern Baptist Convention, despite the overwhelming number of Baptist clergy abuse and cover-up cases.

What does it say about the nation's largest Protestant denomination when their highest official blasts clergy rape victims with the same cruel language as a convicted child molester?

And Page has never bothered to apologize.

With this sort of example at the denomination’s highest level, is it any wonder that Southern Baptists are so far behind the curve in protecting church children against predatory preachers?
_______________

Related posts:
Frank Page: Another side
Pastor accused of cover-up is featured speaker for SBC

Studies show religious sex offenders do more harm

Thanks to BaptistPlanet, these two eye-opening studies were recently brought to my attention.

1.  In Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, a study examined "associations between self-reported religious affiliations and official offense histories among 111 incarcerated adult male sexual offenders. Four categories of religiosity were devised according to self-reported continuities and discontinuities in life-course religious affiliations: atheists, dropouts, converts, and stayers. . . .  Stayers (those who maintained religious involvement from childhood to adulthood) had more sexual offense convictions, more victims, and younger victims, than other groups. Results challenge assumptions that religious involvement should, as with other crime, serve to deter sexual offending behavior."

2.  In the Journal of Child Abuse and Neglect, an article reported on a study comparing twenty-four male clergy who were accused of sexual offenses with twenty-four male sex-offender controls who were matched on offense type, age, education and marital status. "The most noteworthy features differentiating the clerics from highly-educated matched controls were that clerics had a longer delay before criminal charges were laid, or lacked criminal charges altogether, and they tended to use more force more often in their offenses."

Thus, those men who were the most consistently religious were also the men who had more sexual offense convictions, more victims, and younger victims. The very fact of religiosity seems to be a factor that gives rise to more sexual offenses -- perhaps because religiosity allows for the "repent and repeat" model which results in "more victims."

Not only does religiosity itself form a factor that results in more sex-abuse victims, but for clergy, it also means that the perpetrators will be able to get away with their crimes more frequently. And that their victims will suffer the use of force more often.

Meanwhile . . . Southern Baptist leadership remains in la-la-land on this issue, refusing to address clergy sex abuse in a systematic denominational manner and leaving many thousands of kids and congregants at greater risk.

How long until Southern Baptists implement safeguards against clergy sex abuse?

The Southern Baptist Convention is convening its annual ballyhoo in New Orleans this week, but it doesn’t look as though they will make any progress on protecting kids against clergy sex abuse.

Since 2006, clergy abuse survivors, and others, have been asking the Southern Baptist Convention to implement denominational safeguards against clergy child molesters. Southern Baptists have refused.

The requests are nothing radical. We asked for the sorts of safeguards that already exist in other major faith groups in this country. We asked that the denomination provide (1) a safe place where people may report abusive ministers, (2) a denominational panel for responsibly assessing abuse reports (particularly those that cannot be criminally prosecuted), and (3) an effective means, such as a database, of assuring that assessment information reaches people in the pews.

In 2008, TIME magazine ranked Southern Baptists' rejection of a sex-offender database as one of the top 10 underreported stories of the year.

Now here we are in 2012, and Southern Baptists are still sitting on the sidelines.

A faith group that so devalues its children must change. So we know where this is going. Change is inevitable.

Sooner or later, Southern Baptists will learn the lesson that pious preaching won't protect kids against clergy predators. What we don't know is how long the lesson will take.

Maybe it will take 10, 20 or 50 years. But we know how this ends. Southern Baptists will eventually come up to speed with what other faith groups are doing to assure that predators cannot easily hide among their clergy ranks.

It is inevitable. A future is coming when children in Baptist churches will be a great deal safer than they are now. A future is coming when those who report clergy abuse will be met with ministry and outreach rather than minimization and denial. A future is coming when people in the pews will be able to find out about credibly accused clergy so that predators cannot so easily church-hop.

When that future arrives, we will all look back with a vague sense of wonder at why it took Southern Baptists so long.

But there is always someone who fights a rear-guard action to preserve the status quo. And it doesn't matter how irrational or dysfunctional that status quo may be.

When it comes to dealing with clergy sex abuse, it looks as though the rear guard status quo will be Southern Baptists.

While other major faith groups have recognized the need for clergy accountability mechanisms, Southern Baptists persist in denominational do-nothingness. Worst of all, they claim religious principle as the reason. Confronted with people trying to report predatory clergy, Baptist leaders retreat behind the Pharisee-like legalism of their autonomous polity as an excuse for why they are powerless.

It might be comical if it weren't so dangerous.

But someday, even this most recalcitrant of faith groups will see the light and take action. It is inevitable.

Meanwhile, the rear guard is convening in New Orleans this week. How many more conventions will it take before Southern Baptists provide their kids with the same sorts of safeguards as kids in Presbyterian, Lutheran, Methodist and Episcopal churches?

______________________

This is a revised version of a column that was written on the eve of the Southern Baptist Convention’s June 2010 annual meeting and that was previously published by Ethics Daily.

Thanks to Associated Baptist Press for republishing this post on June 19, 2012.