The Changing Landsape of Clergy Sex Abuse in the SBC

By William Thornton
SBC Plodder
June 11, 2012

http://sbcplodder.blogspot.com/2012/06/changing-landsape-of-clergy-sex-abuse.html

We are autonomous; always have been and always will be.

Every church that identifies with the SBC, with any state Baptist convention, with any local association of Baptist churches hires and fires their own clergy and any crime committed by the pastor or staff is a local church matter, Responsibility and liability fall to the individual and perhaps the church.

Right?

Yes, maybe, sort-of. But not always.

Last month a jury in Florida held the Florida Baptist Convention and the Lake County Baptist Association partially liable for a pastor of two FBC church plants who was convicted of abusing a boy. (My blog on this case is here.) The FBC and association provided funding and training and were found to have been negligent in checking the perpetrator's former churches.

Damages were to be assessed and the case is continuing in that phase.

But just last week a pastor of a cowboy church in Alabama, affiliated with the Alabama Baptist Convention and the Marshall Baptist Association, was arrested on sex abuse charges for alleged crimes in Texas.

The pastor was a former convict with a long record. Evidently, someone in Alabama didn't do their homework.

No accusations have been made of crimes by the pastor while at the Alabama church but the Alabama cowboy church that he pastored has fired him.

The association's Director of Missions released a statement that refused comment due to "legal issues." No comment was reported from the Alabama Baptist Convention.

While further details weren't given, these cowboy churches almost always are congregations promoted, supported, and touted by state conventions and local associations. Were I with the Alabama Baptist Convention or the Marshall Baptist Association, I would be just a bit nervous. Who knows what the man might have done while in this church in Alabama.

Another month, another SBC clergy sex abuse report.

A few observations:

• The landscape for liability of SBC clergy has changed. State conventions, associations, along with the North American Mission Board and any other SBC entity have to be deliberate, meticulous, and thorough when finding, training, supporting, and placing clergy into churches or they may be liable for the actions of the clergy. Local church autonomy may no longer be a bulletproof defense.
• State conventions have to take the lead here, since most laypeople in churches and many associational missionaries are not sufficiently current on the legal issues in clergy sex abuse.
• NAMB has the resources to put internal controls in place immediately for their church planting program. If they have not already addressed this I would be surprised.
• It is not a bad development that Southern Baptists at every level have a strong incentive to be more careful in calling ministers. It has always been a scandal that SBC clergy who act unethically and sometimes criminally, have been able to move to new places of service with tacit approval of former churches, DOM's, and others who have knowledge but kept quiet because they didn't want to ruin a brother's ministry.