Independent Investigation Report on Sexual Abuse in SBC Churches Issued 5-22-2022

[Howl]

Seems like good advice, but not as good as just consulting an attorney and NOT calling the hotline.

 

[hoipolloi]

The SBC has released its secret list of sexual predators. 

More background in this WaPo article.

Quote

The SBC has long sought to distinguish itself from the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse scandal by saying its churches were independent from one another. But University of Pennsylvania professor Marci Hamilton, an expert on laws aimed at preventing child abuse, said the SBC has no standing in distinguishing itself legally from the Catholic Church in terms of its responsibility to victims, be they minors or adults when incidents happen. The SBC, she said, is the “governing body of the whole church, so they are responsible for the policies and for the coverup, which is evident.”

 

[FiveAcres]

5 hours ago, hoipolloi said:

The SBC has released its secret list of sexual predators. 

More background in this WaPo article.

 

Here is an article about the secret list from the Houston Chronicle:

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/investigations/article/Southern-Baptist-sex-abuse-secret-list-17200327.php

 

[CTRLZero]

From the WaPo article (my bolding):

The release of the database comes 15 years after Christa Brown began sounding the alarm that Southern Baptists needed to keep such a list to prevent abusers from transferring from church to church.

——-

I hope these offenders are tracked down to their current locations and not allowed to disappear into the depths of some other church.  It’s discouraging to think that this 200+ page list is just the tip of the iceberg.   I hope it’s the start of prompting people to take a closer look at everyone interacting with children within the church system. 

[Howl]

Just saw this tweet, and can't quite sort it. 

 

[FiveAcres]

1 minute ago, Howl said:

Just saw this tweet, and can't quite sort it. 

 

I interpret this as meaning that since the constituent churches of the SBC are largely autonomous, these report does not reflect how much abuse is going on in those congregations. 

[hoipolloi]

1 hour ago, FiveAcres said:

I interpret this as meaning that since the constituent churches of the SBC are largely autonomous, these report does not reflect how much abuse is going on in those congregations. 

That's how I understand it. That's been the SBC EC's argument from the get-go: Who, us? How could we possibly know anything about all of the thousands of independent SBC churches and pastors out there?

Hopefully, it won't take much effort & money to pierce that corporate veil.

[Bethella]

On 5/27/2022 at 2:42 PM, FiveAcres said:

I interpret this as meaning that since the constituent churches of the SBC are largely autonomous, these report does not reflect how much abuse is going on in those congregations. 

In addition to the individual constituent churches, there are also eleven other overarching SBC boards that were not investigated.

1. Guidestone Financial Resources 
2. International Mission Board 
3. North American Mission Board 
4. Lifeway Christian Resources 
5. Southern Baptist Theological Seminary 
6. Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary 
7. New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary 
8. Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary 
9. Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary 
10. Gateway Seminary 
11. Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission 

[hoipolloi]

This article is a good, in-depth analysis of the SBC's history and why the sex abuse debacle cannot be understood or dealt with adequately without addressing the deeply racist origins of the denomination: 

Quote

That white stories of abuse are given primacy is also of a piece with the racial terrorism at the roots of SBC traditions. I documented this phenomenon in a previous piece for The New Republic on the so-called deconstruction movement, and Anthea Butler, associate professor of religious studies and Africana studies at the University of Pennsylvania, highlighted it in the context of the unfolding scandal. “You know what I really want to see in the next few months/years?” Butler tweeted. “A similar report on African American denominations and sexual abuse in the church, just like this SBC report.... #notholdingmybreath.” Theologian and preacher Kyle Howard also expressed regret that, “in so many cases, church abuse isn’t a real problem until White people experience it.” Both Butler and Howard have consistently stirred dialogue on racism within evangelicalism, along with influencer Jo Luehmann, host of the Straight White American Jesus podcast Brad Onishi, public historian Jemar Tisby, and author and founder of the Public Religion Research Institute Robert P. Jones.

 

[hoipolloi]

The WaPo has published a detailed account of what Naghmeh Panahi went through in trying to deal with her abusive former husband, Saeed Abedini, who was championed by Franklin Graham. Graham still has connections to the SBC although, according to the article, he attends a Christian and Missionary Alliance church.

Quote

 

...Graham said the marriage could “be fixed easily,” and he seemed to dismiss the severity of her abuse. “I’m not here to defend him calling you bad names, yelling at you, whatever,” he said.

“Beating me,” Panahi interjected.

Graham told her that abuse is a “gray area,” that an abusive husband was someone who “comes home and he takes a six-pack of beer and he jumps off the chair because the kids are making noise and beats his wife and beats the kids and that’s something that goes on almost every day.”

And that was not her situation, Graham told her, because he felt an abusive husband was someone who “stomped” on his wife every night.

“I was beaten,” she replied.

 

 

[Howl]

These men -- utterly horrifying how damned clueless they are, or worse, indifferent, to the horror of domestic abuse.  They cannot be bothered to inform themselves about DV, because, ya know,  so punch away, men, it's just women and children. 

[hoipolloi]

According to his official bio, it's not clear that Graham attended divinity school or received any pastoral training, apart from his "ordination" by Grace Community Church in 1982. Instead, after a prolonged adolescence of helling around, Graham climbed on to daddy's gravy train and the rest is history.

Mind you, I'm not sure that his exalted father would have done any better by Naghmeh Panahi or other survivors of abuse.

 

[Pecansforeveryone]

@hoipolloi, it has always been my understanding that Franklin Graham has never attended seminary and by his own admission isn't much of a preacher. Billy and Franklin both reported that it was Franklin's sister who was the preacher of the family. Alas, she will never be "called" to be a pastor because that isn't the ordained order of things.  

[hoipolloi]

@Pecansforeveryone - thank you for the clarification. The Wiki entry just refers to his "ordination" so I assumed it followed the typical route for many fundie "pastors."

Naghmeh's comments on Twitter are quite powerful.

 

[hoipolloi]

The DOJ is now investigating sexual abuse in the SBC:

Quote

 

Federal officials have begun an investigation into sexual abuse in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, Southern Baptist Convention officials announced Friday. 

A spokesman for the SBC Executive Committee’s lawyers said that the committee “has received a subpoena. No individuals have been subpoenaed at this point.”

Southern Baptist leaders pledged to cooperate fully with investigators, who will be looking into several SBC entities, according to a statement released by the SBC Friday (Aug. 12). 

 

 

[Howl]

Shit's getting real for the SBC. 

[Columbia]

There is a massive list of people who should be very nervous right now. 

[hoipolloi]

We'll probably be adding Matt Chandler of The Valley Church (TVC) to the list of SBC predators:

Quote

 

On Sunday (August 28), The Village Church (TVC) announced that Matt Chandler would be taking a leave of absence from preaching and teaching following an inappropriate direct messaging relationship with a woman who is not his wife. While not romantic or sexual, Chandler described the messaging relationship as being characterized by “familiarity” and “coarse and foolish joking.”

Chandler further described his online behavior as “unguarded and unwise,” and his leave of absence is both “disciplinary and developmental.” He further expressed his agreement with and submission to the elder board’s decision, which came after an independent, third-party investigation.

 

As Boz Tchivijian said, there's almost certainly more and worse to come to light:

 

 

[neuroticcat]

Yup. Saw that today. Super gross how they got in front of it by having the pastor himself frame the narrative, explain his actions (minimizing and framing them of course), imply that they were taking this interaction (which, don't worry, we assure you it was a nothingburger, just silly embarrassment) uber seriously (let's call that time for spiritual reflection b/c the "pace" of his faithful ministry so you don't thik about why a nothingburger requires a megachurch pastor to step down) so that he can come back better and godlier to carry on.

I wasn't very familiar with Village Church (though the stories floating around twitter today were the usual horrors of covering up CSAM usage of a staff missionary & disciplining his wife for divorcing him, weird domineering threats against people who had anonymous complaints, and silencing survivors of abuse) until today, but the playbook is always the same. Control the narrative. Tell the congregation minimal details. No doubt some quashing of "gossip" or "slander" is forthcoming. And the pastor gets a standing ovation for his "courage." 

I don't know if the original woman or her friend who confronted him wanted to tell their story, but they sure didn't bother to have a neutral party attempt to. They didn't acknowledge the courage it took the woman to confront her spiritual authority. They used vague language like "Inappropriate" and "coarse jesting" while also reassuring everyone it wasn't a sexual affair. It's the usual hot paternalistic mess of the men in charge taking care of everything. 

As someone on twitter pointed out, it's either an unhealthy overreaction to the Billy Graham Rule in which the women involved are owed an apology. Or it's an underreaction to a level of wrongful interaction that is way more problematic than they are indicating. Since he is stepping back as a senior pastor of a megachurch and hasn't done so for far more egregious things, I'm going to guess the latter.

Edited August 29, 2022 by neuroticcat

[hoipolloi]

Having read more now on Chandler's "leave of absence," it seems even more likely that something pretty bad has been going on. The Wartburg Watch has a good post that includes links & a transcript of Chandler's apology or whatever it was:

Quote

 

Hey guys. I know it just feels like ‘oh my gosh, what’s coming?’ So let me, I’m the lead pastor of this church, I plan on being the lead pastor of this church for the next 20 years. But I do need to… It’s harder seeing you.

Several months ago, a woman approached me, outside here in the foyer, she had some concerns for how I was DMing on Instagram with a friend of hers. I didn’t think I had done anything wrong in that; my wife knew that, her husband knew that. And yet, there were a couple of things that she said, they were disorienting to me. [WW added the emphases]

 

Here is TVC's statement. So, this was only about DMs between Chandler and another woman but it required commissioning "an independent law firm to conduct a review of Matt’s messaging history across social media platforms, cell phone, and email" WTF? And he plans to be lead pastor at TVC for the next 20 years?

Burn it down. Burn it all down.

[neuroticcat]

I've wondered if the messages perhaps were him talking crap about people in the church. That could be breach of confidentiality or all sorts of things that could cause legal issues.

Preston Sprinkle (not very familiar with him but Big Eva platformed guy) jumped to his defense, scapegoating the woman who confronted MC and said the texts were just jokes about alcohol. Then he hopped on a plane.

Would have loved to see his face when he logged back on to twitter and got blasted from anyone who's ever witnessed churches/leaders who offer these crap statements. He has since deleted his defense of MC being a "good guy just trust me" kind of thing. 

Their megachurch celebrity pastor is not taking a leave of absence for messaging someone some alcohol memes. 

Also, for those interested, I didn't know this but apparently Matt met his wife when he was in his twenties as a the camp pastor.

She was a teen camper and new convert.

Edited September 3, 2022 by neuroticcat