While we are on the subject of religious dirty laundry.....

[Jilly_in_VA]

Explosive Southern Baptist sex abuse report expected to be released Sunday

Leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention on Sunday released a major third-party investigation that found that sex abuse survivors were often ignored, minimized and “even vilified” by top clergy in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

The findings of nearly 300 pages include shocking new details about specific abuse cases and shine a light on how denominational leaders for decades actively resisted calls for abuse prevention and reform. They also lied to Southern Baptists over whether they could maintain a database of offenders to prevent more abuse when top leaders were secretly keeping a private list for years.

The report — the first investigation of its kind in a massive Protestant denomination like the SBC — is expected to send shock waves into a conservative Christian community that has had intense internal battles over how to handle sex abuse. The 13 million-member denomination, along with other religious institutions in the United States, has struggled with declining membership for the past 15 years. Its leaders have long resisted comparisons between its sexual abuse crisis and that of the Catholic Church, saying the total number of abuse cases among Southern Bapitists was small.

The investigation finds that for almost two decades, survivors of abuse and other concerned Southern Baptists have been contacting the Southern Baptist Convention’s administrative arm to report child molesters and other abusers who were in the pulpit or employed as church staff members.

The report, compiled by an organization called Guidepost Solutions at the request of Southern Baptists, states that abuse survivors’ calls and emails were “only to be met, time and time again, with resistance, stonewalling, and even outright hostility” by leaders who were concerned more with protecting the institution from liability than from protecting Southern Baptists from further abuse.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/05/22/southern-baptist-sex-abuse-report/?itid=hp-top-table-main
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What really sucks is that, since the SBC is not hierarchical, they will refer everything back to the congregations, IOW, giving the rats free reign over the garbage

[COL Mustard]

1. Sheep to be fleeced.

That's all their congregations are. Sheep.

[TomSlick]

2. Perhaps but it was those congregations that elect delegates to the SBC annual convention.

It was those delegates that forced the external investigation that revealed the efforts of the SBC leadership to cover-up the abuse and the cover-up of the cover-up.

Like all religious organizations, the SBC is chock-full of people and, therefore, far from perfect. The SBC is, IMHO, more imperfect than many and certainly more imperfect than should be acceptable. Nevertheless, this time the delegates, who are largely laity, forced the independent investigation that found the truth.

Every now and then, the non-hierarchical nature of the SBC works to its advantage. When the stench grows bad enough, the folks in the pews will remember that the convention leadership works for them and not the other way around.

[lees1975]

3. Right wing political influence has re-shaped the Southern Baptist Convention

and it has a lot of troubles and controversy beyond the sex abuse scandal, which is huge.

https://signalpress.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-southern-baptist-convention-meeting.html

[Jilly_in_VA]

4. My dad was raised Northern (now American) Baptist

mainly because his mom was raised that way, although she wasn't particularly religious. (He later bacame Episopalian, but that's a story for another time) He said his main gripe with the Southern Baptists was that, unlike the "northerns", they were creedal, insisting that everyone had to believe exactly the same thing or they couldn't be one, whereas the church he was brought up in taught that every human was free to interpret the scriptures and the pastor was there to teach them how to do it.

[Hotler]

5. I wonder what percentage of the dirty laundry was touching kids.