NASHVILLE (TN)
Tennessean [Nashville TN]
January 13, 2025
By Liam Adams
- Key Points
- Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) Credentials Committee receives and evaluates reports against churches for abuse, a key accountability mechanism in denomination’s larger abuse reform efforts.
- Former East Tennessee worship pastor Preston Garner is suing for defamation over a SBC Credentials Committee inquiry into alleged abuse, causing job loss. Garner says allegations are baseless.
- TN Court of Appeals rejects SBC’s request to throw out the case, raising stakes of first-of-its-kind legal challenge to the credentials committee.
The Southern Baptist Convention cannot use a religious doctrine aimed at exempting churches from outside court review in a case that could have major consequences on a key abuse response measure, the Tennessee Court of Appeals ruled.
The court made the ruling in the case of an East Tennessee minister who has quietly faced an abuse allegation and is now suing the SBC for defamation.
Preston Garner argues Southern Baptist Convention officials recklessly handled a report of alleged misconduct during an inquiry into the Maryville, Tennessee church employing him at the time. A three-judge panel for the appeals court sided with Garner last week, yet another defeat for the SBC’s efforts to insulate itself legally in abuse-related cases and likely to its ability to hold churches accountable for mishandling abuse.
Garner’s case revolves around the SBC Credentials Committee, one of very few tools the nation’s largest Protestant denomination can use to put pressure on its autonomous partner churches not to employ ministers credibly accused of abuse. If not already, Garner’s case will likely dampen the credentials committee’s willingness to forcefully chase down reports of abuse and cover-up.
“It certainly should,” attorney Bryan Delius, who’s representing Garner in the appeals court battle and the original civil case in Blount County Circuit Court, said about his client’s claims potentially affecting the credentials committee. “Any reasonable person that looked at this procedure would find it horrendous. You set up a mechanism where anyone could make an anonymous statement. It’s unvetted, completely unvetted and then you’re going to repeat that as if it were true?”
Delius reiterated his client’s denial of any alleged abuse and said they welcomed the Tennessee Court of Appeals ruling last week.
“We are so pleased that we have an opportunity to go forward and to get justice for Preston,” Delius said. “He’s certainly been aggrieved.”
The SBC did not respond to a request for comment.
The Nashville-based denomination and its administrative arm, called the SBC Executive Committee, are facing abuse-related civil cases more than ever before following a historic report in May 2022 from a third-party investigator on convention leaders’ handling of an abuse crisis. Most cases have sought to hold the SBC liable for failing to an alleged victim’s abuse, but Garner’s case and at least two others are from men accused of abuse who allege the SBC and Guidepost defamed them.
Garner’s alleged misconduct, related to his tenure at a Rocky Mount, North Carolina church he worked at more than 12 years ago, is unique in that allegations against him were communicated behind-the-scenes when the SBC Credentials Committee received a report in December 2022 that prompted an inquiry into a different church employing Garner at the time. Garner resigned from that church, Everett Hills Baptist Church in Maryville, in January 2023 because he received a job offer to serve as a pastor at First Baptist Church of Concord, which is one of East Tennessee’s largest megachurches. At the time, Garner also worked at The King’s Academy, a private K-12 school in Seymour, Tennessee, as the music director.
The King’s Academy and First Baptist Church of Concord eventually learned about information the SBC Credentials Committee shared with Everett Hills about its report against Garner, prompting FBC Concord to withdraw its job offer to Garner and The King’s Academy to suspend and then dismiss its music director. Specifically, court filings cite a Jan. 7, 2023 letter from the credentials committee to Everett Hills leadership referencing “an allegation of sexual assault of a minor involving Garner.”
Tennessee Court of Appeals filings do not include evidence of any police reports or law enforcement documents related to these allegations, though the filings do not definitively rule out the existence of such records. The SBC Credentials Committee, which determines whether to recommend Southern Baptist leaders disfellowship a church, conducts its inquiries privately and has thus disappointed abuse survivors when reports against churches don’t yield any disciplinary action.
Davis rejected the SBC’s two main defenses against Garner’s defamation claims, originally filed in May 2023. The first, known as the ecclesiastical abstention doctrine, argued the SBC is exempt from a court outside the denomination ruling on an internal church disciplinary matter. The second, citing the Tennessee Public Participation Act, sorted through how the credentials committee shared information about the abuse allegation and the level of detail it disclosed. Though the information wasn’t widely publicized, Garner said the credentials committee recklessly responded to an “anonymous” report.
The report about Garner initially went to an SBC abuse hotline, which like the credentials committee is among the few available mechanisms to raise awareness among SBC-affiliated churches about potentially abusive ministers. Many of these mechanisms have failed to receive the necessary support and investment lately, causing abuse response in the SBC overall to flounder. Proponents of this change worry defamation lawsuits, or even the threat of defamation claims, further dissuades denomination leaders from a tougher, more outspoken posture against ministers accused of abuse.