Southern Baptists give task force another year to implement sex abuse reforms
A group tasked with implementing Southern Baptist Convention sexual abuse reforms will get more time to develop tools aimed at making the denomination's churches and affiliates safe from predators.
Delegates, called messengers, at the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting in New Orleans voted on Wednesday to extend the work of the faith group's Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force for a year after the group's chairman requested additional time to complete the task force's mission. The Rev. Marshall Blalock, the task force's leader, said that mission includes the eventual launch of a database of "credibly accused" sex abusers and messengers were given a glimpse of how this tool would work.
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Messengers voted on the matter by raising colored ballots in the air. One of the task force members, the Rev. Mike Keahbone, of Lawton, said he felt gratitude as he watched the voting unfold.
"Before I pray, I say thank you — I've never been so happy to see a wave of yellow ballots," he said, before his prayer concluding the task force's presentation.
The task force has found itself at the center of controversy over the past year as the nation's largest Protestant denomination continued to grapple with a sexual abuse crisis that has snowballed since the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News published the investigative report "Abuse of Faith" in 2019. Then, Southern Baptist messengers asked for a third-party investigation into leaders' response to sexual abuse allegations. Scandal erupted anew once the report from the investigation was released in 2022, exposing how some of the denomination's leaders, from 2000-2020, mishandled sex abuse allegations.
Wednesday, Keahbone alluded to the criticism the task force has received over the last year, but he said it was nothing compared to what sex abuse victims have experienced.
"As hard and as difficult as this last year has been for us, it pales in comparison to what it's been like for survivors and their families for well over this last year ― from the time of their abuse, the time of their brokenness, and all that they've lost," he told meeting attendees.
Wednesday, Blalock said he was confident that the database, referred to as the "Ministry Check" website, would be up and running soon to maintain a record of individuals with ties to a Southern Baptist church or affiliate entities who would qualify as "credibly accused" from three categories: they have confessed; they have been convicted in a court of law; a civil judgment has been rendered against them.
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He said individuals who were named in the 2022 independent sex abuse report were currently being vetted by legal advisors to determine if their names should be added to the Ministry Check database.
Task force members endured a wave of criticism in May when they said a fourth "credibly accused" category for inclusion in the database was being removed for further review. The fourth category was determination by an independent third party according to a preponderance of evidence. Some Baptists had expressed concerns that an individual could easily be falsely accused of sexual abuse under what they considered a loosely defined definition of the term "credibly accused." Many sex abuse survivors said database would be incomplete without it.
Blaklock took time on Wednesday to explain why the fourth category would be important criteria for the database to keep predators from hopping from church to church to prey on unsuspecting congregations.
Blalock said the fourth category would essentially be made up of individuals who have had allegations made against them by a third-party investigation. He said these cases would go through several levels of scrutiny and review before the individuals' names would be added to the Ministry Check database.
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"I've heard the concern 'So how do we conclude that someone's credibly accused if there's no conviction or judgment or confession?' I've heard the question 'Will a mere allegation put someone someone on this list?' I want you to hear these words: Absolutely not," Blalock said. "I don't care what you read onto Twitter, a mere allegation absolutely will not put someone's name on the database."
He said this category will be key because statistics have shown that when it comes to sex abuse, "the vast majority of cases never make it to a conviction and court."
"Estimates are as high as 90 plus percent never make it to court of any kind," Blalock said. "And that means most abuser will never be identified and they'll go from church to church."
As it stands, the Ministry Check website was perhaps the most key component of a series of sex abuse reform measures approved by Southern Baptist messengers at the faith group's 2022 annual meeting in Anaheim, California. Task force members have been criticized for taking too long to launch the database.
Keahbone, who serves on the Southern Baptist Convention's Executive Committee and is one of the task force's more outspoken members, told The Oklahoman he wasn't sure if messengers would grant the group more time to implement reforms.
"There was so much misinformation and active campaigning," he said. "However, the overwhelming vote obliterated that concern."
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Task force, sex abusers database top talks at Southern Baptist meeting
