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   DeSanctimonious wants to distract everybody from the right wing pedophile   
   scandals.   
      
   Rightwing Christians are raping children everywhere yet only rightists   
   protect them.   
      
      
   Southern Baptists Refused to Act on Abuse, Despite Secret List of Pastors   
      
   Investigation: SBC Executive Committee staff saw advocates' cries for help   
   as a distraction from evangelism and a legal liability, stonewalling their   
   reports and resisting calls for reform.   
      
   Armed with a secret list of more than 700 abusive pastors, Southern   
   Baptist leaders chose to protect the denomination from lawsuits rather   
   than protect the people in their churches from further abuse.   
      
   Survivors, advocates, and some Southern Baptists themselves spent more   
   than 15 years calling for ways to keep sexual predators from moving   
   quietly from one flock to another. The men who controlled the Executive   
   Committee (EC)-which runs day-to-day operations of the Southern Baptist   
   Convention (SBC)-knew the scope of the problem. But, working closely with   
   their lawyers, they maligned the people who wanted to do something about   
   abuse and repeatedly rejected pleas for help and reform.   
      
   "Behind the curtain, the lawyers were advising to say nothing and do   
   nothing, even when the callers were identifying predators still in SBC   
   pulpits," according to a massive third-party investigative report released   
   Sunday.   
      
   The investigation centers responsibility on members of the EC staff and   
   their attorneys and says the hundreds of elected EC trustees were largely   
   kept in the dark. EC general counsel Augie Boto and longtime attorney Jim   
   Guenther advised the past three EC presidents-Ronnie Floyd, Frank Page,   
   and Morris Chapman-that taking action on abuse would pose a risk to SBC   
   liability and polity, leading the presidents to challenge proposed abuse   
   reforms.   
      
   As renewed calls for action emerged with the #ChurchToo and #SBCToo   
   movements, Boto referred to advocacy for abuse survivors as "a satanic   
   scheme to completely distract us from evangelism."   
      
   Survivors, in turn, described the soul-crushing effects of not only their   
   abuse, but the stonewalling, insulting responses from leaders at the EC   
   for 15-plus years.   
      
   Christa Brown, a longtime advocate who experienced sexual abuse by her   
   pastor at 16, said her "countless encounters with Baptist leaders" who   
   shunned and disbelieved her "left a legacy of hate" and communicated "you   
   are a creature void of any value-you don't matter." As a result, she said,   
   instead of her faith providing solace, her faith has become   
   "neurologically networked with a nightmare." She referred to it as "soul   
   murder."   
      
   Another victim, Debbie Vasquez, was repeatedly sexually assaulted by an   
   SBC pastor starting at the age of 14. When one assault led to her   
   pregnancy, she was forced to apologize in front of the church but   
   forbidden to mention the father. The pastor went on to serve at another   
   Southern Baptist church, and when Vasquez reached out to the EC, her   
   entreaties were ignored and evaded for years until a Houston Chronicle   
   investigation three years ago.   
      
   Over the past 20 years, meanwhile, a string of SBC presidents failed to   
   appropriately respond to abuse in their own churches and seminaries. In   
   several instances, leaders sided with individuals and churches that had   
   been credibly accused of abuse or cover-up. One former president-pastor   
   Johnny Hunt-sexually assaulted another pastor's wife in 2010,   
   investigators found. This Is the Southern Baptist Apocalypse   
   Public Theology   
   This Is the Southern Baptist Apocalypse   
   The abuse investigation has uncovered more evil than even I imagined.   
   Russell Moore   
      
   At the annual meeting in Anaheim, California, next month, one year after   
   they voted to launch the investigation, thousands of Southern Baptists   
   will decide if they are ready to make the dramatic and costly changes the   
   report recommends for the sake of survivors and church safety.   
      
   "Amid my grief, anger, and disappointment over the grave sin and failures   
   this report lays bare, I earnestly believe that Southern Baptists must   
   resolve to change our culture and implement desperately needed reforms,"   
   said SBC president Ed Litton in a statement to CT. "The time is now. We   
   have so much to lament, but genuine grief requires a godly response."   
      
   Guidepost Solutions, the third-party investigative firm, wants the   
   13.7-million-member denomination to create an online database of abusers,   
   offer compensation for survivors, sharply limit non-disclosure agreements,   
   and establish a new entity dedicated to responding to abuse. The   
   directives in the 288-page report will sound familiar to survivors and   
   advocates, who have been calling for those measures all along.   
      
   "How many kids and congregants could have been spared horrific harm if   
   only the Executive Committee had taken action back in 2006 when I first   
   wrote to them, urging specific concrete steps? And how many survivors   
   could have been spared the re-traumatizing hell of trying to report clergy   
   sex abuse into a system that consistently turns its back?" asked Brown in   
   a 2021 letter. "The SBC Executive Committee's longstanding resistance to   
   abuse reforms has now yielded a whole new crop of clergy sex abuse victims   
   and of survivors re-traumatized in their efforts to report."   
      
   As they anticipated the release of the report, current interim EC   
   president Willie McLaurin and EC chairman Rolland Slade quoted   
   Ecclesiastes: "God will bring every act to judgment, including every   
   hidden thing, whether good or evil" (12:14, CSB).   
      
   The current leaders urged Southern Baptists to be receptive to the bad   
   news.   
      
   "This is a time and season to search out our shortcomings, a time to   
   embrace the findings of the report," they wrote last week, "a time to   
   rebuild the trust of Southern Baptists and a time to heal by meeting the   
   challenges required with the necessary changes expected." Largest   
   investigation in SBC history   
      
   The report represents a $2 million undertaking, involving 330 interviews   
   and five terabytes of documents collected over eight months. The EC also   
   committed another $2 million toward legal costs around the   
   investigation-making it a total investment of $4 million, funded by   
   churches and conventions giving to the Cooperative Program.   
      
   Advocate Rachael Denhollander, who advised the SBC task force that   
   coordinated the investigation, tweeted that "the level of transparency is   
   . unparalleled." It's the largest investigation in SBC history; it's   
   already changed the makeup of the EC and stands to determine the   
   trajectory of the 177-year-old denomination.   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)