The Scandal of Evangelicals Protecting Sexual Abuse…with Doctrine

It’s not the first time evangelicals justified inaction with Scripture, just the most recent.

Disappointed just isn’t a strong enough word. Disheartened maybe. Disillusioned gets at it more. Disgusted — disgusted describes it best.

In this month as I am reminded of the horrific revelations and events since 2017 that have catalyzed the #metoo and #timesup movements, I am most disgusted by the revelations of #churchtoo that have come to light this past year. And even more so at the excuses given by a church that ought to know better and is, in fact, called upon by its very faith to behave better.

I remember in the 1990s when allegations began to surface regarding sexual abuse within the Catholic Church — the justifiable outrage in 2002 that greeted The Boston Globe’s reporting on priests who abused and a church that obfuscated. It remains one of the deepest and most abiding post-Reformation examples of the extent corruption can flourish at the hands of a religious institution.

Until 2019 revealed similar corruption in the Protestant church.

In February of this year, The Houston Chronicle and The San Antonio Express-News rolled out the first of a 6-part series detailing sexual abuse within the ranks of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the US. The report exposes over 700 victims by 400+ church ministers, youth pastors, Sunday School teachers and volunteers since 1998, 260 of which have been convicted or pled out with more cases pending.

Perhaps even more troubling, the investigation uncovers the complicit behavior of top leaders who mis-handled complaints and protected predators, the continued employment of many offenders — including their role in the pulpit, the deliberate failure to alert law enforcement to criminal activity, and the perennial excuse of the church’s ecumenical political structure for the continuing injustice.

As unbelievable as this seems, these revelations were not news to Southern Baptists.

In 2007, just five years after The Boston Globe’s explosive report, as sexual abuse allegations began to surface within the ranks of the Southern Baptist Convention, SBC pastor Wade Burleson proposed to the denomination’s Executive Committee the creation of a database to track convicted or indicted sexually abusive staff and clergy within the SBC. Incredibly, the proposal was denied.

At the time, Time Magazine, included the decision in its list of “The Top 10 Under-reported News Stories of 2008”. Time explained that, “The SBC decided against such a database in part because its principle of local autonomy means it cannot compel individual churches to report any information. And while the headlines regarding churches and pedophilia remain largely focused on Catholic parishes, the lack of hierarchical structure and systematized record-keeping in most Protestant churches makes it harder not only for church leaders to impose standards, but for interested parties to track allegations of abuse.”

Harder is one word for it. Easier may be another word — as in easier to avoid responsibility.

In the absence of a database, the Houston Chronicle and The San Antonio Express-News built their own.

So now, in 2019, with the newspapers’ report looming over their head, the SBC considered a second proposal from Burleson which met with greater favor. Additionally, SBC president J.D. Greear created the Sexual Abuse Presidential Study Group to further explore problems and solutions to facilitate greater safety for victims and accountability for perpetrators. Greear told the Houston Chronicle that churches harboring offenders had no place in the SBC.

However, when he requested the SBC’s Executive Committee to investigate the denominational affiliation of ten churches who had allegedly done just such harboring, the committee determined after a mere 24 hours of review, to pursue only three of the ten, again citing church autonomy for the failure to dismiss the offending churches. The denial was met with condemnation from Greear and many within the organization as abject failure, particularly since the SBC has already disassociated with churches before over conflicts of race and LGBT issues.

What is this church autonomy that is held so sacrosanct? Besides being an excellent example of systemic injustice, what is behind its unquestioned dominion?

It is more than the simple adoption of democratic principles. It is more than an attempt to apply New Testament models of church politics. It is doctrinal evidence of the departure from the Catholic Church with its emphasis on tradition and papal authority in the interpretation of Scripture. By contrast, Protestants believe in Sola Scriptura and the private interpretation of Scripture. Ecclesiastical hierarchies are not only unnecessary, but unbiblical. The head of each individual congregation is Christ himself.

Protestants saw this shift away from tradition towards Sola Scriptura as a refining of the faith. It may have been at the time, but it has led to many of the same abuses it sought to avoid in the Catholic church. It is beyond tragic to witness in both religious institutions the political infrastructure protected at the expense of the most vulnerable. Even more tragic that doctrine was used to excuse such unforgivable neglect.

How Christ must weep at such failure. Or get angry. I seem to remember him flipping more than a few tabernacle tables over such disparity.

The church autonomy providing such convenient cover for so many in the Southern Baptist Convention facilitated even more outrageous abuse among the Independent Fundamental Baptists (IFC). In December of 2018, the Fort Worth Star Telegram released a 4-part investigative series exposing over 400 allegations of sexual misconduct in 187 IFC churches and para-church organizations across 40 states and Canada.

With significantly less political infrastructure than even the SBC, victims and advocates describe the culture within the IBC as one where pastors’ authority remained unquestioned, where women were held responsible for their own abuse, and where male guilt, on the rare occasion it was acknowledged at all, was forgiven as momentary stumbling.

This extension of grace to the abuser, but not the abused was a chilling refrain returning again and again like a perverse Groundhog Day within both denominations. SBC pastor Dwight McKissic compared this duplicity to a darker time of misappropriated Scripture in evangelical history. “The SBC EC has bowed to political expediency over biblical principles in their hasty and unwise decision to minimize and marginalize and reenact the pain of the victims in order to assuage the wrath of the accused, alleged violators. Same mindset undergirded slavery/Jim Crow in SBC.”

Yet another time in religious history where doctrine has been used as a weapon against the marginalized and a shield for the privileged.

Rachael Denhollander, the gymnast whose courageous accusations against USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar triggered the testimony of over 265 women resulting in his eventual conviction and incarceration, has been openly critical of the way in which the SBC has handled abuse within its ranks.

As an evangelical Christian attorney and victims advocate she has publicly spoken out about the coverup and corruption she encountered at SBC’s Sovereign Grace Church in Louisville, KY. In interview with Christianity Today she contrasted her own experience with Nassar to the experience of victims at Sovereign Grace saying,

“…if the organization I was speaking out against was Sovereign Grace under the leadership of [CJ Mahaney] instead of [Michigan State University] under the leadership of Lou Anna Simon, I would not only not have evangelical support, I would be actively vilified and lied about by every single evangelical leader out there…That’s the reality.”

At least in part this is because of evangelicals’ emphasis on punitive justice rather than restorative justice. Denhollander told Christianity Today “We have a lot of leaders who are saying the right things: ‘We need to make change. We need to deal with these problems. Abuse is a terrible thing.’ What I’m not hearing many leaders say yet is ‘I need to learn. Where do I go to learn?’”

A particularly poignant reminder of this oversight involves the assault of Jules Woodson, the first #churchtoo case to get viral attention. When Woodson was 17, her youth pastor at the time, Andy Savage, while driving her home from church allegedly pulled over, unzipped his pants and asked for a blowjob. Two decades later, inspired by the 2017 events of #metoo, Woodson reached out to Savage. When she did not hear back, she posted her testimony on a blog for church assault victims.

Rather than responding to Woodson directly, Savage stood before his congregation at High Point Church in Memphis where he pastors. With soft music playing and reading from his iPhone, he confessed to the sin of a “sexual incident” with a high school senior. He went on to reassure the church that when this happened he “took every step to respond in a biblical way. . . I did everything I knew to do under the counsel I was given to cooperate with those involved to repent of my sins, take responsibility for my actions and seek forgiveness. In hindsight I see that more could have been done for Jules. I am truly sorry more was not done.”

The church responded with a standing ovation. Punitive justice accomplished. Check. Move on.

But restoration — that is another thing. Not surprisingly, the apology rang hollow with Woodson who watched a video of Savage’s comments. How different would it be if the Savages of the world paused and asked the Woodsons — What was the abuse like for you? What did it mean to you for me to so misuse my authority, my privilege, my position? How did it feel for me to be celebrated while you were doubted and maligned? How can I be sure to not take you for granted again?

Now those are questions worth applauding.