{"id":1513182,"date":"2022-06-13T08:20:36","date_gmt":"2022-06-13T12:20:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1513182"},"modified":"2022-06-13T08:21:12","modified_gmt":"2022-06-13T12:21:12","slug":"southern-baptists-shouldnt-write-blank-checks-for-sbc-leaders-on-sexual-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/southern-baptists-shouldnt-write-blank-checks-for-sbc-leaders-on-sexual-abuse\/","title":{"rendered":"Southern Baptists Shouldn\u2019t Write Blank Checks For SBC Leaders On Sexual Abuse"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fsouthern-baptists-shouldnt-write-blank-checks-for-sbc-leaders-on-sexual-abuse%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1513182&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/06\/southernbaptistconvention20222.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Next week, the Southern Baptist Convention meets in Anaheim. Delegates (called \u201cmessengers\u201d) will face two proposals relating to sex abuse. All evangelicals interested in healthy ministries should take note of what\u2019s going on in the SBC.<\/p>\n<p>As things stand today, the proposals ask for blank checks, secured only by leaders\u2019 promises of a blue sky. But Southern Baptists should not vote for anything they don\u2019t understand, and should not accept legal responsibility for a half-baked \u201cprocess\u201d that is not yet just and not yet complete.<\/p>\n<h2>How We Got to This Point<\/h2>\n<p>Last year, messengers to the 2021 Southern Baptist Convention authorized an internal investigation of the convention\u2019s Executive Committee (EC). The motion the convention adopted created a task force and directed the president to name sex abuse experts who would hire and oversee an outside, independent expert to investigate \u201cany allegations of abuse, mishandling of abuse, mistreatment of victims, a pattern of intimidation of victims or advocates, and resistance to sexual abuse reform initiatives\u201d by members of the EC staff or board of trustees, going back to 2000.\u00a0It also authorized them to recommend best practices.<\/p>\n<p>The report and recommendations come to the task force, which would prepare and submit a final report and recommendations before the 2022 annual meeting. The president appointed his task force of Baptists (and some non-Baptists), called the SBC Sex Abuse Task Force (SATF), which contracted with Guidepost Solutions.<\/p>\n<p>Two weeks ago, Guidepost\u2019s report and recommendations were released. The report described a deeply dysfunctional organization. It presented the SBC\u2019s lawyers as paralyzed by litigation risk, refusing to meaningfully engage information brought to them by abuse victims and advocates.<\/p>\n<p>The report also presents the EC trustees as never asking hard questions,\u00a0preferring for staff to solve any problems quietly and out of public view. The report also included a bombshell sexual assault allegation against a prominent pastor who was a former SBC president, and (until the report) a high official at the SBC\u2019s domestic missionary entity, the North American Missions Board (NAMB).<\/p>\n<p>Except for the bombshell about the NAMB leader, most of the incidents and individuals had been previously disclosed online or in print. Some people welcomed Guidepost\u2019s recommendations, and others praised the narrower, and materially different, recommendations of the SATF issued on June 1.<\/p>\n<p>But there was also widespread criticism of the recommendations as not biblical, not Baptist, and not just. Guidepost proposed that the SBC should maintain an \u201coffender information system,\u201d a public list of those \u201ccredibly accused\u201d of sexual abuse and those who \u201caided and abetted\u201d them. As Matthew Schmitz noted in the Wall Street Journal, this standard \u201ctrample[s] the rights of the accused.\u201d In the American Reformer, one of us compared the process to federal Title IX tribunals imposed by the Obama administration on colleges, another \u201cprocess\u201d that was famously criticized by legal experts for lacking adequate fairness.<\/p>\n<h2>Independent Contractor Celebrates Gay Sex<\/h2>\n<p>Then, just after the report\u2019s release, Guidepost kicked off a public celebration of LGBT Pride Month, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/GuidepostGlobal\/status\/1533872616812978176\">announcing on Twitter that it was an ally of progress and equality<\/a>, directly opposed to the declaration of the SBC\u2019s \u201cBaptist Faith &#038; Message\u201d that homosexuality and same-sex marriage is sin. Guidepost\u2019s CEO is a graduate of Baylor University, a historically Baptist school, and it had purportedly hired a number of \u201cBaptist subject matter experts,\u201d but Guidepost evidently declined to reverse course.<\/p>\n<p>Clearly, the Task Force has been caught off-guard, first by the Guidepost recommendations, then by its flagrant opposition to the convention\u2019s theology of sex, marriage, and what constitutes an abuse of sexuality. Once touted as experts that understood Baptists, Guidepost is now excused as a mere private investigator.<\/p>\n<p>Also, rather than forward Guidepost\u2019s recommendations, the task force claims they were always tasked with reproducing recommendations to suit the SBC, even though only a few days separate the report\u2019s\u00a0release and the SBC\u2019s annual meeting. Even the SATF\u2019s recommendations appear tentative; the initial recommendations were published on June 1. A week later, the task force substantially revised them and deleted prior drafts from their blog.<\/p>\n<p>So it is concerning that the task force\u00a0is resorting to the same dysfunctional habits that Guidepost criticized in the old guard. The task force is letting legal risk aversion limit the experts\u2019 recommendations. And it is trying to get <em>carte blanche<\/em> authority from messengers to do the sausage-making for them, out of public view.<\/p>\n<p>Messengers should not give their SATF friends a blank check, any more than the EC trustees should have given their lawyer friends a blank check. Even good people with good intentions are poorly served by unaccountable systems.<\/p>\n<h2>An Extrajudicial Process for Judging Accusations<\/h2>\n<p>Enter Matthew Martens, a Washington, D.C., lawyer for death row inmates and a former clerk for Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Martens is a gifted advocate, but, by his own description, not an SBC insider nor a messenger to any prior convention, so perhaps he is not as familiar with the culture of dysfunctional SBC experts asking to be trusted to do the right thing in the back room.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mbcpathway.com\/2022\/06\/08\/first-person-messengers-should-consider-approving-a-ministry-check-list\/\">Writing for the SBC\u2019s in-house news service<\/a>, Martens says SBC messengers should approve the SATF\u2019s Recommendation II, including blanket authority to \u201ccreate a ministry check website.\u201d This appears to be\u00a0a much-reduced version of the \u201coffender information system\u201d recommended by Guidepost.<\/p>\n<p>The \u201cMinistryCheck\u201d site proposes to keep a permanent record of pastors, denominational workers, ministry employees, and volunteers who have been \u201ccredibly accused\u201d (a minimal standard that the accusation is more likely than not true) of sex acts that violate local laws. If a judge or jury has not decided the question, the SATF proposes that outside lawyers could be hired, in some cases by the SBC, to write opinion letters after an investigation.<\/p>\n<p>Martens approves of the new authority because he has questioned \u201cthose involved in crafting the Task Force\u2019s recommendation,\u201d and those unnamed persons have made undisclosed representations to him. They \u201chave assured [him] that in conformity with scripture, any process implemented as a result of the Task Force\u2019s recommendation would not allow for a finding that an allegation is more likely than not true if based only on the testimony of a single, uncorroborated witness.\u201d Yet good intentions could pave the road to the lawyers\u2019 den, or worse.<\/p>\n<p>Martens also says the same, unnamed people \u201cshould\u201d add safeguards. \u201c[T]he process established should include a validation\u2026\u201d He says it should require impartial decision-makers, meaningful opportunities to be heard, and exclude single-uncorroborated witness claims. It \u201cshould\u00a0also include a method for removing a name.\u201d \u201cUnder those conditions,\u201d the SATF could make recommendations about a database that\u00a0\u201cwould conform to the biblical standard of justice\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<h2>Messengers Need to Know What They\u2019re Voting On<\/h2>\n<p>This is doubly troubling. First, it admits that <em>the\u00a0proposal Baptists will vote on is not yet just<\/em>. Rather, it will take work to make it biblically just, and someone related to the task force tells Martens that could still happen after the convention votes.<\/p>\n<p>But this is the dysfunctional pattern shown in the Guidepost report, and the SBC should reverse it. Baptists should demand, before any vote is cast, to see a biblically just process on paper, in advance, that solves a meaningful problem.<\/p>\n<p>We agree with many of Martens\u2019 ideas about due process and the burden of proof, yet we have our doubts about the fairness and practicality of the investigation protocol. Prominent victim advocates say MinistryCheck doesn\u2019t meet their minimum standards. But all the close observers seem to agree the SATF\u2019s skeleton proposal must be fleshed out before we know whether it will satisfy standards of biblical justice. The call for a vote on a work-in-process is itself unjust.<\/p>\n<h2>We Want Evidence, Not Hearsay<\/h2>\n<p>Second, Martens should know better than to present the promises of unnamed others as true. He is using his legal and theological credentials to vouch for, or bolster, the good faith of \u201cthose involved in crafting\u201d the recommendations. Not only is it hearsay, it asks us to substitute Martens\u2019 personal or professional judgment for the real evidence.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of judging the actual proposal or persons doing the work, we are dared to doubt the predictive abilities of this lawyer from a powerful DC law firm who is a member in a powerful DC church and a former board member in a popular evangelical organization. Now the argument is not about the motion, but a call to trust Martens because he\u2019s a lawyer and more.<\/p>\n<p>This is a flawed argument in any debate, but especially in a debate this important. Messengers are facing a motion that Martens admits does not yet display biblical justice. But he says it could be made just. And Martens vouches that the people in charge are the people who bring forth such justice.<\/p>\n<p>But vouching is an unreliable shortcut and should not serve as the basis for this vote. Martens wouldn\u2019t let a prosecutor abuse his death-row clients with this kind of argument in a trial. In front of a jury, it could be grounds for a mistrial. We trust he agrees it shouldn\u2019t even be used for a MinistryCheck report. Using this kind of argument to get Baptists to write a blank check at the SBC\u2019s once-a-year business meeting is unfair, too.<\/p>\n<p>The truth is, no one can rely on the questions Martens asked, nor his recollected answers of \u201cthose involved\u201d for the Task Force. The SBC will be bound by the words of any motion it passes, not a BP op-ed.<\/p>\n<h2>This Is Too Important to Let Unknowns Decide<\/h2>\n<p>Indeed, the task force\u2019s actual proposal <em>gives authority to another committee<\/em>, the \u201cARTIF\u201d and the SBCEC, who will turn over implementation to yet another group. There is no assurance that \u201cthose involved\u201d that Martens spoke to will be able to deliver on their promise of making a spuriously just process comport with standards of biblical justice.<\/p>\n<p>Further, the words of the actual motion, good intentions notwithstanding, say the website \u201cwill be established and maintained through an independent firm, selected by the Credentials Committee.\u201d Once the outside firm is selected, it will be given the written instructions from the convention, and by design, the SBC will lose the power to change the process of an independent administrator.<\/p>\n<p>If the back room produces something unjust, something that injures other people, who will judges and juries hold responsible? It will not be Martens. It will not be the unnamed person or persons \u201cinvolved in the crafting\u201d of the process. No, this is an action of the SBC. It is not even an act of a legally distinct entity. If injustice occurs, the SBC will be likely held responsible for, yet again, giving SBC operators <em>carte blanche <\/em>authority under emotional and spiritual pressure.<\/p>\n<p>The Guidepost and SATF recommendations deserve more than three weeks of consideration by Bible-believing Baptists. Getting secular recommendations dumped on messengers at the last minute isn\u2019t a process that leads to justice or more faithful churches.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, Baptists try to appoint committees of faithful people. But those committees are supposed to bring us final processes for approval, not proposals and promises of future fidelity.<\/p>\n<p>Would anyone vote to give a committee the power to amend the Baptist Faith &#038; Message without a convention vote on the final product? The SATF recommendation is <em>at leas<\/em>t as important to the future of the SBC as an amendment to the BF&#038;M. Getting it wrong may imperil the convention\u2019s existence.<\/p>\n<h2>Why Not Due Process for the Accused?<\/h2>\n<p>Aside from the narrow set of issues we\u2019ve raised here, other important questions linger that deserve reasoned deliberation. For example, the discussion of \u201cautonomy\u201d has probably been oversimplified and straw-manned. \u201cAutonomy,\u201d like \u201cconsent,\u201d is a richer idea than \u201ca choice was available.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For another, given that the goal is to say whether conduct violates local laws, and the impact that being listed on MinistryCheck would have before a trial, can any third-party investigative entity provide sufficient due process to either side? If testimony under oath, mandatory discovery, and cross-examination aren\u2019t available until court, should a person insisting on those rights be put on the list before a full trial?<\/p>\n<p>Why would a victim risk an underpowered investigation that might conclude their allegations don\u2019t violate the law? And what lawyers (for, in almost every state, advising people about laws and rights is limited to licensed attorneys) will be willing to undertake the heightened responsibility of making predictions about local juries? The messengers need to be careful not to confuse the godly authority of the courthouse and the church house.<\/p>\n<p>None of this is a call to ignore the sin uncovered in Guidepost\u2019s report. Romans 1 says worldly minds may \u201chave no understanding,\u201d but Baptists see the sins, and tremble at the prospect of God\u2019s discipline. Yet that does not mean acting with haste.<\/p>\n<p>The EC and any ARITF will be bringing more recommendations to messengers next year. There is no reason they cannot bring us a robust, reasoned, biblically just MinistryCheck process, too. In the interim, SBC churches can be guided to the currently available abuse lists and websites, including the one just released from the EC\u2019s files.<\/p>\n<p>The proposal before us should\u00a0be just,\u00a0but it is not yet just. And messengers should not give the old guard, or the new guard, blank-check authority to solve that fundamental issue for the churches in a back room. Closed doors, back rooms, and empty promises got the SBC into these problems. The way forward is, by God\u2019s grace, transparent and wise dealings that accord with standards of biblical justice and historic Baptist principles.<\/p>\n<p>We recommend that the SATF withdraw Recommendation Two, or that the SBC messengers vote against it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<p>\n  The authors are both lawyers and Southern Baptists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Next week, the Southern Baptist Convention meets in Anaheim. Delegates (called \u201cmessengers\u201d) will face two proposals relating to sex abuse. All evangelicals interested in healthy ministries should take note of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":926,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1513182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1513182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/926"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1513182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1513182\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1513182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1513182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1513182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}