Leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention, America’s largest Protestant denomination, stonewalled and denigrated survivors of clergy sex abuse over almost two decades while seeking to protect their own reputations, according to a scathing 288-page investigative report issued Sunday.
“Crisis is too small a word. It is an apocalypse,” Moore wrote for Christianity Today after reading the report. “As dark a view as I had of the SBC Executive Committee, the investigation uncovers a reality far more evil and systemic than I imagined it could be.”
Survivors “spoke of trauma from the initial abuse, but also told us of the debilitating effects that come from the response of the churches and institutions like the SBC that did not believe them, ignored them, mistreated them, and failed to help them,” the report said.
SBC President Ed Litton, in a statement Sunday, said he is “grieved to my core” for the victims and thanked God for their work propelling the SBC to this moment. He called on Southern Baptists to lament and prepare to change the denomination’s culture and implement reforms.
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/22/1100616952/southern-baptists-sex-abuse
Questions:
- Is anyone surprised?
- Is this kind of evil something specific to religions, or would any institution of similar size and scope be likely to act this horrendously?
- Does the prevalence of this kind of evil in Christianity discredit the Gospel?
- Should we applaud SBC for commissioning this report?