Can't wait for the Catholic bashes to defend this one

Prosecute them all

Sad to read that.

It doesn't matter who the guilty parties are (Catholics/Baptists/teachers/etc), these stories are always hard to hear about.

Baptist churches are autonomous (self-ruling), so you don't have the same top-down structure as some others.

That said, there is no excuse for any church not to do a thorough background check on any staff member and reasonable checks on volunteers.

My wife and i rotate teaching a 4 yr old Sunday school class and we had to undergo a background check similar to what i did to get a job.

It's a Methodist church, Or are we Baptists who admit we drink.

Our church runs background checks and won't let men teach kids alone. There has to be a woman in the classroom. They tolerate 1 woman, put prefer 2 teachers. We go through training every year too.

I am a Southern Baptist pastor. Like post above, we mandate two teachers with children and youth. Require background checks of all teachers, volunteers who work with children, and pastoral staff. We also do annual training. I say throw any sexual predator in an SBC church in a hole and bury them. I suspect most of these cases are repeat offenders who took advantage of naive congregations or lazy folks who just don't want to bothered by extra effort in taking these precautions.

As for the Op, would need some hard numbers before drawing conclusions on level of severity.

380 Baptist Leaders. 700 victims.

What constitutes being a Baptist "leader"? What is the criteria?

How many people would the term "Baptist Leader" define over a period of 20+ years?

How would this compare to other religious "leaders", teachers, daycare workers, coaches, non-religious volunteers, etc.?

It's relevant. And as noted, hope all cases with merit are fully prosecuted.

You can't really lump SBC churches together and act like it's meaningful. Hard to tell if this article shines light on anything when it uses decades of data and matches it up against a very large grouping of churches. Over 47000 congregations make up SBC, making it second in the country behind Catholics. Total membership is something like 15 million.

The claims about church leaders hiding charges or protecting offenders is worthy of pursuit (similar to the Catholic priest coverups). The article did identify a couple of cases where this happened and alleged that it may have happened at high profile Houston and fort worth churches. Local Texagers probably have more inside info on this.

I think the investigation is awesome. Shine a light on it.

Here is what you know.
Most churches do background checks for anyone dealing with kids. I have had them every year. I am required to have one if I serve in the church with kids. I have to have one if I just go to church camp for 2 days. This is a good thing. It prevents past issues from occurring repetitively.

Unfortunately, a background check isn't forward looking and it isn't predictive. In these cases, most churches have policies, as mentioned above. In addition, at the churches I've been a member, males are not allowed to hold kids, and DEFINITELY not sit on their lap.

Reality is we are all sinners and these types of people are out there and can be a part of any organization. It is important to prevent them from being allowed in these circumstance, and more importantly, to identify them and root them out as quickly as possible.

How does this differ from issues in the Catholic Church, for those that asked?!

From the article:

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380 Southern Baptist church leaders and workers who were accused of sexual misconduct since 1998, leaving more than 700 victims.

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They were able to identify 380 people... likely by name who have been alleged (and convicted in many cases) to have committed a crime. They are not hidden. Not protected. We know who they are and likely now unable to pass a background check.

Not only are they identified, but:

Quote:

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About 220 offenders among them pastors, ministers, Sunday school teachers, deacons and church volunteers have been convicted or have taken plea deals, with dozens of cases still pending.

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58% have been convicted. That means there was cooperation by the church and authorities have been able to successfully root these people out.

Quote:

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Nearly 100 are still in prison, according to state and federal records. Dozens of others made plea deals and served no time. More than 100 are registered sex offenders, and some have returned to the pulpit.

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Those are some positive outcomes.

It is sad if even 1 person commits a crime like these. Let's identify them, convict them and clean this up.

380 people and 700 victims. Over 20 years. About 19 victims/year. About 1.8 victims per accuser.

There are 47,544 SBC affiliates.


From wiki:

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The report stated there were approximately 10,667 reported victims (younger than 18 years) of clergy sexual abuse between 1950 and 2002:

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About 205 victims per year in the Catholic Church.

It is terrible, but most of those SBC churches didn't try to hide or protect the perpetrator. They are largely in prison. In the case of the Catholic Church... the priests were shuffled around, relocated and mostly avoided criminal prosecution. In the recent Dallas Diocese disclosure... many of the identified were deceased, or their where-abouts were largely unknown.

The shuffling of priests and hiding of predators mostly happened decades ago in the 50s 60s and 70s. Pretty irrelevant comparison to this current report. The Catholics certainly have a great deal to be shameful about, but trying to use that as a cover for abuse in another denomination is not becoming.

The sad reality is that there are predators everywhere. From scouts to little league to Sunday school. Fortunately people have become much more aware of this fact and willing to deal with it head on instead of hiding it out of shame.

Quote:

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It is terrible, but most of those SBC churches didn't try to hide or protect the perpetrator. They are largely in prison. In the case of the Catholic Church... the priests were shuffled around, relocated and mostly avoided criminal prosecution. In the recent Dallas Diocese disclosure... many of the identified were deceased, or their where-abouts were largely unknown.

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Whatever sanctimonious spin helps you sleep at night.

pagerman @ work said:

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Quote:

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It is terrible, but most of those SBC churches didn't try to hide or protect the perpetrator. They are largely in prison. In the case of the Catholic Church... the priests were shuffled around, relocated and mostly avoided criminal prosecution. In the recent Dallas Diocese disclosure... many of the identified were deceased, or their where-abouts were largely unknown.

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Whatever sanctimonious spin helps you sleep at night.

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Do you really not grasp the difference? "SBC leaders" are not employees of the SBC. They are employees or volunteers at individual churches, which do not answer to the SBC hierarchy in any meaningful way. Their bills are not paid for by the SBC or any individual association. As such, SBC leadership does not/did not move them around or hide them.

If you can't understand how that is dramatically different than what happened within the Catholic Church, you need some help.

That said, I am aware of an older (55+ y.o.) man at my church growing up who molested a teenaged boy who was a little slow mentally. When it was discovered, our church leaders immediately turned the man in to police. They also formally kicked the guy out of our church. When they found out what church he later moved to, they notified church leadership there to prevent it from happening again.

I grew up a Southern Baptist - Dad was a prominent deacon wherever we were - and converted to Catholicism at 26.

We can fairly generalize about "culture" in these ways:

- charismatic and well spoken young men "mentoring" teenage girls in a youth group setting - not a good idea
- the Catholic scandals are primarily homosexual. There is a strong culture of this, including widespread seminary "acceptance" - look at the Sipe Report if you don't believe me (he's a progressive).
This has been true for a very long time - from Spellman and Bernandin to Cupich and Tobin and McCarrick. It's a "network" - an extremely powerful one.

Christ have mercy.