Southern Baptists press for sex abuse review to advance
Source: AP
By HOLLY MEYER
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A top Southern Baptist Convention committee is facing mounting pressure from within the denomination to move forward without further delay an investigation into how it handled sexual abuse allegations.
Many seminary presidents, state convention leaders and pastors in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination are frustrated with the Executive Committee’s inaction.
The critics, growing in number, have called for the committee to accept the terms of the investigation set by thousands of Southern Baptist delegates in June. Some have warned a failure to do so risks financial contributions from churches, erodes trust within the convention and runs counter to the evangelical denomination’s bottom-up structure.
The Executive Committee, which acts on behalf of the convention when it is not holding a national meeting, is facing a crisis of confidence, said the Rev. Adam Greenway, president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. The Executive Committee is at this point because of a “colossal failure of leadership,” he said.
FILE - In this Wednesday, June 16, 2021, file photo, people attend the morning session of the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Nashville, Tenn. At the national SBC gathering in June, thousands of delegates sent the message that they did not want the Executive Committee to oversee an investigation of its own actions on how it handled sexual abuse allegations. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey, File)
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/business-religion-sexual-abuse-by-clergy-sexual-abuse-baptist-de29aa0722729de0072b8a31fa8b2f1e
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