(RNS) — Legal professionals for the Southern Baptist Conference acknowledged Wednesday (March 12) that the U.S. Division of Justice has ended an investigation into the denomination’s response to allegations of sexual abuse committed by Southern Baptist pastors and institutional leaders.
That investigation was as soon as launched in 2022 after the free up of the Guidepost file that demonstrated that SBC executives had mistreated abuse survivors and sought to downplay the effects of abuse within the convention.
“Earlier this day, the U.S. Attorney’s Set up apart of business for the Southern District of Contemporary York beneficial us that the investigation into the Southern Baptist Conference and Govt Committee has formally concluded,” SBC attorneys Gene Besen and Scarlett Nokes instructed Baptist Press, an first rate SBC outlet.
Megan Energetic, an abuse survivor and activist, acknowledged she was as soon as upset to listen to from an FBI agent that the investigation was as soon as over. She had hoped, she acknowledged, that the investigation would hotfoot the SBC to rob abuse reforms seriously. “It’s only a broad quantity,” she added.
A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s dispute of business for the Southern District of Contemporary York declined to comment.
No abuse funds have been filed as a results of the Guidepost file, though Matt Queen, a passe Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary professor and provost, pleaded responsible closing tumble to mendacity to the FBI, and closing week was as soon as sentenced to 6 months of residence arrest, a year of supervised free up and a $2,000 swish.
However with the exception of Queen’s case, few tiny print of the investigation have been made public. On condition that nationwide SBC leaders create no longer have any train management over pastors or churches, it was as soon as always unclear what crimes SBC leaders would be charged with.
The BH Carroll Memorial Constructing Rotunda at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Citadel Price, Texas. (Reveal by Michael-David Bradford/Inventive Commons)
Leaders from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, where Queen was as soon as as soon as a professor moreover provost, acknowledged in a assertion: “For added than two years, Southwestern entirely cooperated with the DOJ at some level of the investigation and is pleased that there have been no findings of wrongdoing against the institution or present staff. We remain committed to making obvious the security of all participants of the seminary neighborhood.”
This is the 2nd time the SBC’s attorneys have announced an end to the DOJ investigation. Final March, those attorneys acknowledged that the investigation into the Govt Committee, which oversees the denomination’s day-to-day operations, was as soon as over, however later clarified that the investigation into the denomination as a complete continued.
Southern Baptist leaders have spent extra than $2 million on lawful funds associated to the investigation. Those funds, along with extra than $3 million spent defending court docket cases filed by a pair of passe SBC leaders named within the Guidepost file, and the price of the Guidepost investigation itself, have drained the Govt Committee’s reserves and left it unable to pay its lawful funds.
On Wednesday, Jeff Iorg, president and CEO of the Govt Committee, gave thanks for the investigation’s end. “We’re grateful that we are in a position to end this chapter in our lawful complaints and hotfoot forward,” he acknowledged.
The SBC’s makes an try to manage accusations of sexual abuse have occupied the leadership for extra than a decade, and the convention’s governing body, the annual meeting of “messengers” from local churches, has demanded reform, forcing the Govt Committee to commission the Guidepost investigation in a floor vote in 2021.
A messenger ballotat the annual meeting of the Southern Baptist Conference, June 15, 2021, at the Song City Heart in Nashville, Tenn. (RNS photograph/Kit Doyle)
However critics of the reform efforts stamp the price of the Guidepost investigation to yelp that it was as soon as a mistake. Abuse advocates fear that those critics will now use the tip of the DOJ investigation to derail reforms.
The Guidepost file led Southern Baptists to pass a series of reforms supposed to contend with abuse in churches, including extra coaching and publishing a database of abusive pastors. Those reforms have largely stalled. While the SBC has dispensed coaching offers and hired a nationwide staffer to support oversee reforms, the database has been tabled for now, with SBC leaders saying closing month it is no longer a precedence.
Abuse survivors now fear that the tip of the investigation and the tabling of the database brand that abuse reforms have scramble out of steam.
“The entirety looks to be falling apart,” acknowledged Energetic.
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