By Carla Hinton
The Oklahoman
August 20, 2011
http://newsok.com/article/3595760
The Rev. Wade Burleson, senior pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Enid, said a Southern Baptist Convention clergy sex abuse database is needed to prevent abusers from going from congregation to congregation undetected.
BY CARLA HINTON chinton@opubco.com Comment on this article 0
Published: August 20, 2011
An Oklahoma Southern Baptist pastor has expressed his desire to see the nation's largest Protestant denomination create a database that tracks sexually abusive ministers.
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| The Rev. Wade Burleson sits in the sanctuary at Emmanuel Baptist Church in Enid. David McDaniel - THE OKLAHOMAN |
And it's not the first time the Rev. Wade Burleson has called for a Southern Baptist Convention database of clergy sexual predators.
But the pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Enid said he hopes this time to get a different response from Southern Baptist leaders heading up the denomination's Executive Committee.
“It's a complicated issue — it's not going to be easy,” Burleson said this week.
“But the fact that we continue to push along people who have sexually abused children or sexually abused women is unconscionable.”
Burleson's comments stem from a recent controversy involving a ministry leader at Morrison Heights Baptist Church in Clinton, Miss. The Clarion Ledger newspaper in Jackson, Miss., reported Aug. 9 that Morrison Heights music minister John Langworthy had confessed to inappropriate behavior with young males at a church where he formerly worked, Prestonwood Baptist, a prominent church in Plano, Texas.
“These decisions were ungodly,” Langworthy told the Morrison Heights congregation in a video of his confession that is posted on the Clarion Ledger's website.
Langworthy has resigned from his position at the Mississippi church.
Burleson said Langworthy kept his past a secret until a former staff member at Prestonwood, Amy Smith, recently contacted Morrison Heights about the man's previous behavior, which she said started at Prestonwood with an allegation involving a teen.
WFAA-TV in Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas, reported that Prestonwood's executive pastor, Mike Buster, recently presented a brief statement about Langworthy:
“In the summer of 1989, the church received an allegation that John Langworthy had acted inappropriately with a teenage student. Based on this allegation, he was dismissed immediately, removing him from all responsibilities with the church. In no way did officials of the church seek to cover up the actions of Mr. Langworthy or silence his accuser. The elected officers dealt with the matter firmly and forthrightly.”
Burleson said he preached at the Mississippi church when he was president of the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma and he considers the people there his friends.
He said the turmoil resulting from the Langworthy confession could have been avoided with the implementation of a database listing sexually abusive clergy.
“Unless you have a database for these types of issues, what happened at Prestonwood and Morrison (Heights) will happen again,” Burleson said.
Previous action
At the 2007 Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in San Antonio, Burleson asked the convention's Executive Committee to conduct a study on the feasibility of a database of Southern Baptist ministers who have been credibly accused of, personally confessed to or legally been convicted of sexual harassment or abuse. At the time, Burleson said the database would be a resource that would be accessible to Southern Baptist churches to help prevent any further sexual abuse or harassment.
At the convention's annual meeting in Indianapolis in 2008, the Executive Committee reported back that such a database was not feasible for several reasons:
Due to the autonomy of Southern Baptist churches, the convention does not have any authority to require local churches to report instances of alleged sexual abuse to their local association, the state Baptist convention or the national convention.
It would be impossible to ensure that all convicted sexual predators who ever had a connection with a Baptist church would be included in such a database.
Creating a database of “Baptist only” convicted sexual offenders would exclude predators previously identified in other faith groups.
At that time, the committee recommended that Baptist churches screen potential volunteers and employees through the U.S. Justice Department's national database.
Wednesday, Roger Oldham, communications director for the Executive Committee, said nothing has changed since 2008 and that Burleson knows the difficulty of creating the database.
“He himself indicated how it can't happen because of polity,” Oldham said, referring to the autonomy of Southern Baptist churches.
Will try again
Burleson said a recommendation for the creation of a database tracking sexually abusive ministers will be made at the convention's 2012 annual meeting in New Orleans.
He said he hopes his fellow Southern Baptists agree with his assessment that the dilemmas that have kept the denomination from creating a database can be resolved.
He said the difficulty would be well worth the effort.
“I think what they are saying is, ‘We don't want this headache. We don't want to track this.' My answer to that is, ‘Why not?' When a life of a child is at stake, it's worth it.”
Wednesday, Christa Brown, creator of the website StopBaptistPredators.org, said she discussed the need for a database with Burleson shortly after she sent a letter to the Southern Baptist Convention in 2006 asking for the denomination to create a centralized system to track clergy sex abusers.
She said she hopes convention leaders reconsider the database idea.
“I pray that, this time, people of the Southern Baptist Convention will listen,” Brown said.
Brown, formerly Baptist outreach director for the organization Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests (SNAP), said other denominations have created a denominational process for assessing threats from their clergy. She said a database would be a valuable resource for congregations.
Brown said she knows the tradition of autonomy among Southern Baptist churches is one of the reasons convention leaders have rejected the database idea, but Baptist congregations have collaborated for other important efforts, and they can do the same to safeguard their children.
“Surely they can also engage in a cooperative endeavor to identify clergy with credible accusations to keep them from church-hopping.”
Contact: chinton@opubco.com
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