What Non-Southern Baptists Can Learn from the SBC Guidepost Report
Recently a report was released regarding sexual abuse within the Southern Baptist Convention. You can find the report here. This is a devastating report that will (hopefully) shake the SBC to the core.
But what about those of us who are not Southern Baptist? I’m a Baptist, even though I would differ quite a bit from the SBC and many of my readers would not be Baptist of any stripe. What do we do with this report?
One option if for us to point our fingers at those “dirty rotten” Southern Baptists. After all, that’s what Protestants did for years about the sexual abuse and coverups that took place in the Roman Catholic Church. But I hope that this is not our response.
The first thing that we need to take away from this report is that clergy (and other Christian leader) sexual abuse is widespread. There is a good chance that there is someone in your congregation that has experienced this. For many years, victims kept quiet out of shame or even a desire to protect their abusers. We are only seeing the the tip of the iceberg.
We also need to see that sexual abuse is not always in the form of violent rape. There have been a number if examples of abusers who claim to have had an affair but not to have abused. What is becoming more understood is that abuse does not require physical force. The abuse of authority by a pastor or seminary professor can be sexual abuse, even if it was positional power rather than physical force that was used.
One of the most heartbreaking part of this story is not just that some people abused but that so many people in authority worked hard to cover it up. I do not think that this was done because they were in favour of sexual abuse. Rather they thought the organization needed protection, even if that meant ignoring or even attacking victims. This has been seen in other organizations as well. There is a temptation to see the victimization of individuals as an acceptable price for the flourishing of the organization.
One other thing that we all need to reminded of is that truth always comes out. There are people who think that they can get away with whatever they are doing. They fool themselves that it will remain a secret forever. And yet we have seen extremely prominent Christian leaders, even with the support of wealthy organizations, having their secrets revealed to all.
The final thing I want to state is that what we are talking about is not based on a certain kind of theology. It happens in Roman Catholic and Protestant, conservative and liberal, Baptist and Anabaptist. It is not even that it is a Christian problem. We are seeing similar things in secular organizations. This means we cannot point at one group as the source of the problem.
Are you a Southern Baptist? Do you belong to a different denomination or tradition? We all need to grieve. We need to stand with the victims and we need to stand up for justice. We need to call for change. Not just within the SBC but within all organizations. Abuse and covering up abuse cannot continue.
