Discernment is not a matter of telling the difference between right and wrong; rather it is telling the difference between right and almost right.
—Charles Spurgeon—
When a person goes into a relationship emotionally needy, they are not going to have discernment in choosing people.
—Jennifer O’Neill—
Esse quam videri
—Latin for “to be rather than to seem,” the motto of North Carolina—
Key points: A man in a boat noticed that the boat was taking on water through a hole in the bottom. Quickly he began drilling additional holes in the boat so the excess water would drain. What the man thought was a good solution turned out to exacerbate the problem, and the boat sank. Sometimes actions that look like solutions make a situation worse. They even can make it much worse. Kyle Whitt points to clear items in the SATF report that effectively warn Southern Baptists against adopting the very “solutions” the report recommends. Messengers to the SBC meeting in Anaheim would be wise to listen to Kyle and to heed his insights and advice.
All the posts in this series are available from this page.
Last time, with help from our friend Kyle Whitt, we began exploring the SBC Sexual Abuse Task Force report from Guidepost Solutions. Kyle contends, rightly, I believe, that despite the narrative being promoted by SBC leaders, the report proves that sexual abuse within the SBC is neither systemic nor widespread. Further, it shows that there has been no massive, conspiratorial cover-up of abuse.
This is not to say that instances of sexual abuse aren’t present at all. We live in a fallen world, people are sinners, and abuse does occur. When it occurs, it must be addressed. Of paramount importance is that the principles of biblical justice must be upheld. Preventative steps also are vital. Measures to prevent abuse need to be put in place and followed consistently and with vigilance.
Especially as far as the local church is concerned, policies must be implemented and principles applied at the local level. Training is appropriate, but already there have been problems with the training that has been offered. Regulatory oversight from a denominational committee is not appropriate, nor is it a solution or a step in the right direction. Those removed from the situations needing to be addressed know less about those situations than those on site, so they have an inherent disadvantage in being able to deal with them effectively.
That said, SBC institutions must be held accountable. A report has surfaced of an attempt apparently from Kevin Ezell, the top administrator at the North American Mission Board (NAMB), to pressure an award-winning journalist to avoid reporting certain facts that have been part of the public record for years.
It’s clear that dissemination of these facts will put Ezell’s actions in a bad light. He was not an abuser, but a pastor who apparently kept abuse of which he had knowledge under wraps, appealing to clergy-penitent privilege. But the concern isn’t just this — it’s also his pressuring a journalist not to cite information that has been a part of the public record for a very long time, and doing so for a self-serving reason. You may remember that Kyle Whitt called out NAMB last year for promoting false gospel.
Yes, there are problems that need to be addressed. In part 3 Mr. Whitt will share important insights on some of the things that need to occur, but for now, let’s dive into part 2.
In the second of three audio segments taken from Kyle’s video, Mr. Whitt walks through details from the report that appear on pages 134, 135, and 136. Breaking down the details and analyzing them carefully, Kyle demonstrates that only a small number of instances of sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention were found. Because Kyle builds his case carefully, it’s important to hear all he says in this segment. I’m providing highlights of his discussion below; but you’ll want to hear the complete audio track of segment 2. I’m making it available here, along with a manuscript of everything Kyle says in it.
You will want to hear the complete audio track of segment 2. You can hear and read what Kyle says on this page. The information he shares is mind-blowing!
As promised, here are some highlights.
Clip 1: Shockingly Deflating
And I think this is kind of one of the shockingly deflating points of this investigation. Not that it’s deflating to us, I mean that it deflates the investigation, the assumption. And this really goes into the assumption that this is a huge issue. They make it very clear that they are going into this with a hypothesis rather than from a neutral standpoint. So,
Clip 2: A Shockingly Low Number
But as for this huge systemic issue, this secret list, all this stuff — 703 names boils down to two. We’ll give them the two. Should the two be taken care of? Yes! But that is two, not churches, that is two individuals among over 40,000 churches. And, so just currently still active, so we’ll shorten it to just today — not the whole list, because the whole list goes back decades. Two people still active among over 40,000 churches, well over 100.000 people in ministry. And that’s very, very conservative. It’s much, much higher than that.
Let’s just, for the sake of having an easy number to work with, two out of 100,000. That is lower than I thought it was going to be! Those two need to be taken care of. We need to always be working to drive that to zero. But for what this investigation was all about, for what it was supposed to establish, that’s shockingly low.
Clip 3: Why Can’t They Do That on Their Own?
We will provide the information regarding those persons we believe are still associated with an SBC church to the Credentials Committee for further review.
We’ll see what comes of that.
We will also provide the information regarding non-SBC affiliated churches to the Credentials Committee to ensure accuracy as to the denomination affiliation.
One point seven million dollars, and they cannot do that on their own. If I had the names of the churches, I could go figure out if they’re SBC-affiliated. And it wouldn’t be hard. It’s not hard to find out if a church is SBC-affiliated. There are some “edge” cases that provide complexity. But in general, it’s not hard. If you want to figure that out, you can figure that out. The SBC keeps records of those things. And, again, that would be just using the publicly available church-finding data. They have access to all the internal data. The fact that the couldn’t blows my mind. One point seven million dollars and they can’t do the digging that they were supposed to do.
Clip 4: Just 22 Survivors Is an Extremely Small Number for a Denomination as Large as the SBC
[Twenty-two survivors is] so incredibly low of a number over the course of decades, as this report goes back at least 30 years. I wish it was zero, but I’m glad it’s as low as it is.
Clip 5: Sweeping Changes Recommended Based on Very Little Evidence
So, they’re trying to establish [that there is] this huge quantity, yet the amount they’re able to interview of actual survivors is 22, plus an additional 6, so 28 survivors. And then an unknown amount of family members of survivors, because they lump that together with advocates. That’s tiny! For a 288-page document that is tiny! That is not a very good sample size, yet they recommend big, huge, sweeping changes to the SBC. Which, again, as many people point out, that was the goal of may who put this forward.
Clip 6: Stick to the Facts!
While some reports did not fall within the scope of our investigation, either because of time period limitations or because the conduct was not reported to the EC, we acknowledge the value and importance of survivors and others sharing their histories with us. These histories underscore how sexual abuse within churches is a wide-ranging and long-standing problem that has a profound effect on survivors and their loved ones.
What does this have to do with the investigative report? This is getting into opinion; it’s preaching at this point. Why is the report preaching?
During our investigation, many of the survivors we spoke with were sexually abused as children, both boys and girls, who were of varying ages at the time of their abuse. We also had adult survivors of clergy sexual abuse come forward to share their histories with us.
I don’t know what they’re establishing there. They’re not clarifying anything. At least they’re clarifying incredibly little.
In our interviews with survivors, they spoke of the 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,
Wait! This is about the SBC in particular, so I’m confused about that sentence, why it says “of the churches and institutions like the SBC.” At the minimum that sentence is confusing. It makes it seem like they’re talking to more than just SBC people, but they’re trying to lump it all with the SBC. They may not be saying that, but it’s very unclear.
Clip 7: Sexual Assault Has a Specific Legal Meaning
With around fifteen to thirty percent of women experiencing a sexual assault within their lifetime,
I’m going to call bogus on that right now based on a lawyer friend of mine who’s made it very clear to me that sexual assault [note the term assault, not abuse] is a very specific legal term. It is not general. It does not mean it the way we use it in common parlance. It means something very specific in a legal sense. So in a document like this, they should be following investigative practices; they should be very legal in how its using its terminology. To say that is very dubious.
Also, “fifteen to thirty percent” is a gigantic window and shows a huge degree of error. I have not looked into that. I’m just saying sexual assault is something very, very specific. And, yes, sexual abuse is incredibly common, way too common, among both men and women. And, in fact, it’s more common because of all the LGBTQ nonsense which is just riddled with sexual abuse, and it, in its very nature is a type of sexual abuse. So, it’s incredibly common. It should to be, but, again, it kind of raises the question, Why are they bringing this up?
[I]t is important for church leaders and others in helping positions to understand the effect that they can have on the emotional and spiritual health of those who trust them enough to come and confide in them regarding a sexual assault or rape.
Again, it’s just opining. It’s preaching to the Southern Baptists, [saying] you guys aren’t doing a good job, you need to do this. It also, again, confuses things. “Fifteen to thirty percent of women” — it’s not saying women in the church. It’s not saying women in the SBC. It’s using things in a very confusing way. It’s opining; it’s just going on about opinion, what it thinks. It’s bad! It’s bad of investigative reporting.
More to Come!
Bad investigative reporting for 1.7 million dollars, few findings, little evidence of abuse (although it’s concerning and must be addressed wherever it is found) and recommendations for sweeping changes in the Southern Baptist Convention? These factors make a strong case in themselves to reject the recommendations.
But there’s even more reasons to reject the recommendations. Keep watching for Part 3! It will arrive soon!
Copyright © 2022 by B. Nathaniel Sullivan. All rights reserved.
Sexual Abuse Task Force webpage
Guidepost Solutions SATF report
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