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	Advocate: Southern Baptist Abuse Victims Still Need ‘safe Place’ By Peter Smith The Courier-Journal December 8, 2011 http://blogs.courier-journal.com/faith/2011/11/30/advocate-southern-baptist-abuse-victims-still-need-safe-place/ The devastating Penn State revelations have prompted top Southern Baptist officials to tell their flocks of the need to report sexual-abuse allegations to police immediately. But a leading advocate for victims of sexual abuse among Southern Baptists said that’s a welcome but insufficient step. “Just as internal reporting is not enough, neither is it enough for denominational authorities to simply preach to local churches about reporting to the police,” said Christa Brown of the group Stop Baptist Predators: “In the real world, Southern Baptist churches are rarely the first party to report child sex abuse by clergy to the police. The fact that churches typically don’t report their pastors is what often allows the limitations period to run so that criminal prosecution becomes impossible.” She cited a recent Associated Baptist Press analysis of a collection of press accounts about 130 Southern Baptist clergy accused of sexual abuse in the past decade. It found that only in six cases did a pastor or other church leader make the first call to police. Brown writes that such a “reality must be dealt with, and preaching about it isn’t enough. There must be institutional consequences for church leaders who don’t report child sex abuse and for churches that engage in keep-it-quiet cover-ups” Brown adds: “The denomination must provide a safe place where clergy abuse survivors can make a report with a reasonable expectation of being objectively and compassionately heard. That ‘safe place’ will almost never be the church of the accused minister, but an independent review board could be.” In the wake of the Penn State revelations, top Southern Baptist policy advocate Richard Land called on church leaders to report any known or suspected abuse to police. And Albert Mohler, president of Louisville’s Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, sent a letter to the seminary community telling them of that obligation, which is also required long-standing Kentucky law. Mohler said he had thought the seminary’s written policies already required a report to police, not just a supervisor. But he said another review of the policies in the wake of the Penn State scandal found that wasn’t the case, prompting the seminary immediate to change the policy “to require that employees first contact law enforcement officials, then their supervisor.”
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