Southern Baptist Convention task force will be proactive, help survivors, minister says
A Lawton minister will help guide the nation's largest Protestant denomination as it implements much anticipated sexual abuse reforms.
The Rev. Mike Keahbone, recently appointed to the Southern Baptist Convention's new Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force, said he is particularly ready to help oversee the creation of a database aimed at keeping predator preachers from going from congregation to congregation to prey on unsuspecting church members.
Keahbone said he was honored when the Rev. Bart Barber, Southern Baptist Convention president, appointed him to the new task force in late July. The appointment was made public earlier this month. Barber appointed the Rev. Marshall Blalock, senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Charleston, South Carolina, as the task force's chairman, while Keahbone will serve as vice chairman.
"I am looking at what has to be done and feel like we're already years behind, so it's an honor, but it's gonna be a lot of work and a lot of responsibility," Keahbone said.
Barber discussed the new task force in a recent story by the Baptist Press, the Southern Baptist Convention's official news outlet.
“The purpose of this task force is to assist the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention in our efforts to shut the doors of our churches to those who would act as sexual predators and to wrap our arms around survivors and those who love them,” Barber told Baptist Press.
Barber released the names of the other task force members on Tuesday. They include: the Rev. Todd Benkert, Indiana; Melissa Bowen, Alabama; the Rev. Brad Eubank, Mississippi; Cyndi Lott, North Carolina; the Rev. Jon Nelson, Missouri; and the Rev. Jarrett Stephens and Gregory Wills, both of Texas.
Keahbone has served on the Southern Baptist Convention's Executive Committee for about a year. In the months leading up to the denomination's annual meeting in June in Anaheim, California, the Native American minister became one of the more outspoken members of the executive committee, voicing his concerns about the continued need for transparency and his empathy for the sexual abuse survivors who had come forward with credible allegations only to be mocked discredited by some denomination leaders.
The preacher expressed his concerns before and after release of a shocking independent report that gave details of how some executive committee leaders downplayed and covered up sexual abuse allegations made against ministers and other individuals associated with Southern Baptist churches across the country. The report also noted that a "secret" database of predator preachers was kept even as some Executive Committee members said such an archive could not be created and shared between Baptist churches because of the autonomy of the denomination's affiliated houses of worship.
More: Oklahoma Baptists speak out on establishment of Southern Baptist sexual abuse hotline
The Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force will operate for one year and Southern Baptist delegates called "messengers" will vote at each annual meeting to determine if the group will get additional time to complete their work. The task force will be required to give a report to the messengers each year for as long as the group exists.
The Baptist Press reported that the denomination's messengers will have to the authority to adopt the task force's recommendations.
“The ability to apply the resources and recommendations that this process produces resides with the various autonomous churches that cooperate through the Southern Baptist Convention," Barber told Baptist Press. "We can only be successful as we earn their confidence and supply their needs. I am confident that this task force is well equipped to do just that.”
Task force appointments were well-reasoned, minister says
Meanwhile, Keahbone acknowledged that there seemed to be some controversy surrounding Barber's appointment of only two women to the task force. He said Barber released a video on his personal Twitter explaining his reasons for appointing each individual to the task force and he also explained that he asked more people to join the group but they turned the appointment down.
"One of the things that he shares in there is that he actually asked nine men and 12 women, and seven men accepted and only two women accepted," Keahbone said. "So, it wasn't for lack of effort, for sure."
Keahbone said he wasn't surprised that more women didn't accept the appointment because they seemed to have good reasons, including family commitments and professional career duties.
He said both men and women may also have been concerned about the negative attention that may come from the task at hand.
"I think that being a part of something like this puts a huge target on you," he said. "Some people don't mind getting blasted on Twitter, but for some people, it would be super hurtful to take that kind of criticism and that kind of thing."
Keahbone said such criticism doesn't bother him, especially because he thinks he is doing the right thing. He said if someone wants to call him and visit him to discuss matters, he is open to it, but he doesn't get upset by criticism spouted on social media.
"I don't care what people say, or what people write," he said. "I know who I am, I know what I'm doing as far as the fight that I'm in and what I'm fighting for. So, that stuff just kind of rolls off me."
Efforts to protect survivors and potential victims
Keahbone said he is most looking forward to setting up an abuser database that will be deemed effective by the survivor community.
"I think the proposed structure, or the one that everybody thinks is kind of where we're going — I don't know that that's enough," he said. "So I'm looking forward to kind of get into the weeds of that to study what that looks like, and to speak with survivors and get their input on putting together a database that will definitely protect our survivors, but also protect potential victims."
The preacher said a suitable database would be one that gives assurance to abuse survivors that people who are committing these heinous crimes aren't given opportunities to hide anonymously.
"They can be brought to the forefront through the database and they can be easily identified and that's huge," he said. "When you do that, you prevent future victims. You're able to stop things before they happen. So, it puts us on the offensive, not the defensive and to me, that's a good thing."
Keahbone said he's also anticipating an opportunity to ensure that the denomination properly cares for abuse survivors.
"There's definitely some folks that, when looking back, we could have done a lot better in the way that we treated people," he said. "How do we protect ourselves from that — handling these situations badly? "So, getting into the weeds of that, I'm excited to do that."
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Rev. Mike Keahbone named to Southern Baptist abuse reform task force
