Is the $12.5 million judgment against the Florida Baptist Conv. a game changer?

The assessment of a $12.5 million judgment against the Florida Baptist Convention last Saturday, damages awarded to a victim of sexual abuse by a Florida Baptist church planter/pastor, is being called a "game changer" by the victim's lawyers and by advocates for clergy abuse victims.

The story is reported by ABP in this article: Florida Baptists to appeal abuse award

A subsequent ABP article with comments from the plantiff's lawyer: Lawyer: Abuse verdict possible game-changer

Christa Brown of Stop Baptist Predators and the most well known advocate of Southern Baptist clergy abuse victims has a commentary: Change is coming to Baptistland

The matter of clergy sexually abusing children in SBC churches is no small matter and certainly not a game. I would offer that the landscape has already changed in the way abuse is viewed at every level in SBC life; however, the judgment against the FBC does escalate things. If the judgment stands (the FBC expresses confidence that their appeal will be successful, no surprise there) it will be the first time a denominational entity has been successfully sued in such cases (save for one other occasion where an insurer settled to avoid high legal costs) and awarded damages for the action of a local church minister.

We Baptists do have this polity that we tout early and often, local church autonomy. In our system everyone knows that "Southern Baptist Convention" hires, supervises, and fires exactly zero local church ministers. Each church does that on their own, as they see fit. Critics maintain that SBC leaders "hide behind" this local church autonomy polity to avoid responsibility for the actions of local church ministers. SBC leaders respond that there is no material connection between an SBC church and the denominational machinery, since the Executive Committee of the SBC, state conventions, and associations have no control and power over any church or any church's ministers. 

But  we do have some hybrid arrangements where ministers receive funds from various SBC organizations other than their local church, where some ministers have some supervision by denominational entities, and where some have mandatory reporting requirements. Church planters, for example, are interviewed, trained, vetted, and selected by various people representing associations, the North American Mission Board, or other entity and some by joint arrangements among these. The failure of the FBC to check the abuser's previous places of service was the cause of the jury's decision in this case.  

I'm guessing that associations and associational missionaries, denominational executives, seminary administrators, state convention executives, and some pastors are pondering this matter now moreso than ever. 

Questions:

1. Associational Missionaries often handle resumes, try and place ministers seeking a church position, and provide references to churches asking about particular ministers. Will the association be held liable for negligence if an abuser with a history easily discovered is passed along to a church? Will associational missionaries just stop handling resumes altogether?

The common scenario for a clergy sex abuser is for him to leave a church where he has been suspected of abuse, either voluntarily or by forced termination, but without arrest or prosecution and relocate to another association or state where he is unknown and can start over with the same behavior. Associational Missionaries are the closest to the local churches, so they may be involved, unknowingly, in helping such a minister relocate and find another church. 

2. State conventions maintain online resume services. Will they continue or require more of those whom they permit to place a resume on their server? Will the state convention pastor relations staffer restrict or refuse to make referrals?

Most of us have been referred to churches sometimes in our career by state convention staff who assist in relocations. In my state a minister may create and place his resume on the state convention's website where church may access it and contact the minister about a position. I am unsure if state conventions are as helpful in placing ministers as they once were.

3. Will any SBC entity who provides funding, training, and supervision for church planters or other ministry positions tighten up their vetting processes?

The answer to this had better be 'yes' or we have cases of denominational malpractice. We would be severely ill served were our denominational staff not to have already done and be doing this.

4. Will churches or SBC entities that sponsor an individual as a church planter by providing funding be open to liability for his actions?

Take the mammoth and successful North American Mission Board's Send North America church planting program. Among other things, each planter must have a sponsoring or partner church, some local SBC congregation that commends him and is involved in some way with his church planting work. Does this expose that church to liability for the planter's actions? NAMB provides millions in funding for planters. Do they thereby acquire liability for each planter's actions?

5. What can be done?

The question of what Southern Baptists can do is a rather prickly one. We have in the past refused to establish an SBC Executive Committee level registry for convicted and confessed clergy sex abusers. Part of the reason for not doing this was, as I have heard, the question of liability. Even if there were such a registry, the abuser in this Florida case would not have been on it.

Should Southern Baptists establish an independent committee of professionals who would receive and maintain credible accusations against SBC clergy? This is one of the goals of Christa Brown and Stop Baptist Predators. The abuser in this case might have been reported to such a committee. Do SBC clergy wish to have an independent committee evaluating accusations against them and judging whether or not they are credible accusations? 

The long running Roman Catholic clergy sex abuse scandal has caused the matter of clergy sex abuse in local SBC churches to undergo not a few changes. Many, perhaps all, church insurers require churches to have formal sex abuse policies and to do background checks on staff and volunteers. State conventions and otther entities have had such policies for years. I expect more change is coming. 

Perhaps our denominational brain trust could be roused to address this.

Whether the FBC award stands or not, now would be a good time to do something more than we are doing.

Put down the Bible, pick up the phone, call the cops

Looks like I erred last week when I wrote conerning child sex abuse, Pick up the Phone, Call the Cops.

This Associated Baptist Press story is an opinion piece by Baptist General Convention of Texas, "Theologian-In-Residence" Jim Denison. It conflates the Penn State sex abuse scandal and the Herman Cain sexual harrassment stories and offers what he says God feels and what scripture says about the scandals.

Read it and wonder if Dr. Theolog-in-Residence was out to lunch when he wrote the piece.

Not surprisingly, Christa Brown has noted some difficulties, some inconsistencies in attempting to handle clergy child sex abuse though any theology of Matthew 18.

She writes, angrily I would surmise:

Denison’s statement reveals a dangerous ignorance about the dynamics of child sex abuse.

It is the sort of ignorance that Baptist clergy abuse survivors have encountered in case after case, as church and denominational leaders have blinded themselves to abuse reports, seeing only the facts that suit them, minimizing the reality of clergy child molestations, and citing Matthew 18 as support for their own keep-it-quiet do-nothingness.

Take any of the sad scenarios that are recent and apply the Denison test.
Should the ten year old boy have gone back to his adult rapist and attempted some reconciliation? Such is absurd.

Should Brown herself, as a child, gone back to her abuser, waved her Bible and attempted to reconcile? Absurd.

Denison, and others, take this passage in Matthew 18 and seem to make it an absolute prerequisite. Yet, we live in a society of civil laws. When a law is broken, particularly one that involves children and abuse, the moral and legal obligation is, first, to report the crime.

Suppose the child went to his rapist who apologized, asked for personal forgiveness, and offered assurances of no further such behavior. Is that sufficient to satisfy God? The parties can now go merrily on their way and the way of the pedophile is almost invariably to merrily molest other children. After Matthew 18 is there no criminal penalty need be applied here? Absurd.

Some Southern Baptists have turned Matthew 18 into a formulaic protocol to absolve criminals of heinous crimes and deprive their victims of justice. Matthew 18 has been made into the magic wand that spiritual leaders must simply wave to make ugly situations go away and things to go back to the status quo ante, victims usually be damned (in a real but non-theological sense and pardon my language).

Among Christians, some offenses may indeed be resolved by adults having adult, Christian conversations. But we aren't in a theocracy. We live as Christians in a country of laws. While there are times we may have options in conflict resolution, sexual abuse of children by adults is not one of those.

It's tough to argue with Christa Brown when she describes this sort of response to sex abuse of children as "ignorance."

Surely in a reflective moment Denison would rethink this and do better.

Random Friday stuff: Paterno/Mohler, Perry/Cain,

Paterno is out, his final chapter, an ugly one, being written for him. It didn't have to end this way.

Al Mohler steps up to say more elegantly what I said earlier, and plainer: Pick up the phone. Call the cops.

But the problem for Southern Baptists is more complicated. The PSU crimes are years in the past. What happens today when SBC churches or clergy are accused or involved in crimes a decade or more in the past? Ask Christa Brown. I don't have a simple, plain solution.

And does Al Mohler have a copy of This Little Light in his reknown library?
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We are a nation of political pundits. Here's my punditry:

Rick Perry, continuing to be the incredible shrinking candidate, wants to be Commander in Chief, not Debater in Chief. Sorry, demonstrate competence in simple things before being given the presidency. His latest gaffe makes him more likeable but less electable.

Hummon, bro, 9-9-9 cannot be the answer to every question posed to you. I'm afraid Cain has reached his high water mark even if you excise the sexual harrassment talk of the past two weeks.

Huntsman, Santorum, Bachmann...you are all just taking up valuable time that the other candidates, ones who actually have a chance of winning, might use. Declare victory and depart.
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Significant voice about SBC matters to retire...

...without much notice, I'm afraid. If an influential SBC leader retired from public life you will usually find Baptist Press, the state papers, and many bloggers noting the fact.

Not so with the lady pictured here, Christa Brown, who says in her latest blog, "Goodbye for now" "...for now, I'm going to take a break."

Blogging for about five years, she has been quite influential in the SBC, although in an odd sort of way.

Her website
Stop Baptist Predators is, best I can tell, the main if not the only blog focusing on clergy sex abuse in the SBC. Her sad story of being abused by an SBC minister is on that site as are a number of similar stories.

Christa Brown is responsible more than any other single individual for putting a spotlight on cases of clergy sex abuse in SBC churches. Her persistent voice has increased the attention given to such things by the SBC Executive Committee, at SBC annual meetings, in state conventions, in churches, and by SBC pastors.

While the specific changes she has sought in the SBC have been resisted, things like an Executive Committee-level independent review board to receive and evaluate cases of abuse in SBC churches, I don't think it is arguable that churches and pastors are far more aware, much better prepared, and have implemented much more in the way of child protection policies as a result of Brown's advocacy.

I blogged about her last year under the title, "This lady could save your ministry", a piece worth reading then and now.

She has endured the ire of not a few Southern Baptist leaders. She has been a lonely voice at times, an irritating voice at others, but a persistent voice always.

We have never met, nor spoken, and I am sorry she is leaving her blog for now.

This lady could save your ministry

This lady is Christa Brown, whose blog , Stop Baptist Predators, I have been following for years. The reason she may save your ministry is simple – clergy sex abuse is something that is present in SBC churches, among SBC clergy, and how pastors and churches protect against it, confront it when it is present, and handle accusations of such is critical. Church staff and laypeople can learn some things from her they didn’t know and haven’t thought about. Handling an accusation of abuse in the church the wrong way could cost a pastor his job or even land him in jail.

Christa is the most visible, forceful, and relentless critic of these things in Southern Baptist Churches. While she sometimes despairs that Southern Baptists have any interest in stopping clergy sexual abuse (anyone who has ever read her story, knows that she is a survivor of appalling sexual abuse by a church staff member when she was a youth), but I would credit her with raising the profile of the issue in SBC life to a much higher level. One can be assured that because of her forceful advocacy no example of, or untoward statement about, clergy sexual abuse in a Southern Baptist church gets ignored. Good for her.

While I do not share her goal that the Executive Committee establish an independent review board (the local church autonomy question, more on that later) to hear and archive reports of clergy sexual abuse, I believe she should be heard, respectfully and considerately, on the subject. Well, she has been heard all around the SBC, although not always respectfully and considerately.

She has a book about her experience, This Little Light. She kindly sent me a copy which I read, reviewed, and discussed .

I recommend that all of my brethren read every link in her Stop Baptist Predators website. She has Frank Page's picture up there at the moment. Sure, it's irreverent and sometimes maddening, but I do read it.

There are lots of questions and issues to be considered here. Perhaps later. But, I commend her book, blog, and website.