NASHVILLE (TN)
Baptist News Global [Jacksonville FL]
February 19, 2024
By Mark Wingfield and Maina Mwaura
The Southern Baptist Convention will create a new, independent nonprofit to address allegations and investigations of sexual abuse in SBC churches, according to the second task force assigned to figure out solutions.
Josh Wester, chairman of the SBC’s Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force, reported this news to members of the SBC Executive Committee meeting in Nashville Feb. 19. Although Wester did not give the cost of creating such a commission, BNG has learned the estimated startup could cost as much as $5 million.
Additional operating revenue reportedly would be generated by fees paid by churches to participate in the clergy screening service. The commission would be independent of the SBC’s oversight.
“Given the current legal and financial challenges facing the SBC and the Executive Committee, the formation of a new independent organization is the only viable path that will allow progress toward abuse reform to continue unencumbered and without delay,” Wester said.
The Executive Committee currently is defending itself against more than a dozen lawsuits related to sexual abuse claims and has spent more than half its net assets on legal fees and investigations. An outsider audit called the Executive Committee’s financial status “unsustainable.”
The task force reportedly is seeking funding from existing SBC entities, especially the two mission boards that receive the largest share of Cooperative Program funding from churches. Messengers to this summer’s SBC annual meeting could, in theory, adopt a budget that would carve out funds for the new commission as well.
After Wester spoke, when it was time for SBC President Bart Barber to speak, he called Wester back to the podium.
“Come up here! Come up here right now! Come up here!” Barber said sternly. “In the report you just gave, you tagged me among others to provide financial support and unlike any of the other entity leaders, I’ve got to say, ‘Do you realize that the Southern Baptist Convention actually does not have any money at all? So I’m going to pay you off out of my wallet and say President Barber has done his part and send you back down.”
Then as Wester left and the banter continued, Barber made a comment about giving Wester “Monopoly money” to fund the new entity. Later that night, Barber posted on X an apology for that comment, calling it “really bad judgment on my part.”
In his task force presentation, Wester said of the SBC: “We have a sin problem, and it runs deep.” He specifically mentioned two high-profile people in the SBC who have been accused of sexual abuse: “Heroes from the past such as Paul Pressler and heroes from the present such as Aaron Ivey.”
Pressler was co-architect of the “conservative resurgence” that turned the SBC in a more conservative direction; Ivey until last week was worship leader at Austin Stone Church in Austin, Texas.
This marked the first time any SBC leader has publicly named Pressler as an abuser and not a hero to conservative Southern Baptists.
As for the mission of the new commission, Wester said: “This organization will be committed to giving Southern Baptist churches and entities the very best resources to prevent sexual abuse, stop predators from moving from church to church, care for survivors, and become an abuse-free family of churches.”
Chief among those tasks would be completion of a Ministry Check website to track known clergy abusers — something the two task forces have been working on and failed to accomplish.
The commission also would create a “Ministry Toolkit” to help churches prevent abuse and deal with cases of abuse when they happen, Wester said.
That toolkit will give a step-by-step plan for churches to address abuse, members of the task force said at Monday’s meeting. They plan to have video-based training materials for churches available in time for the SBC’s annual meeting.
Exactly how the new commission would be created is not clear. Neither is it clear when its creation would require a vote of messengers to the SBC annual meeting, although Wester spoke of the commission as being operational before the June meeting.
In other news, the chairman of a committee tasked with recommending a new staff leader for the Executive Committee said they expect to present a candidate at a called meeting in Dallas March 21. That candidate’s name should be presented to Executive Committee members by the end of February.
This will be the fourth attempt to recommend a new president for the Executive Committee in two and a half years. One candidate was voted down, and two others withdrew before a vote was taken.