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The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has a history of not only turning a blind eye to child abuse in its own ranks, but also to protecting predatory leaders in their churches. On May 22, 2022, Guidepost Solutions (a third party investigation firm) released its report detailing rampant cover-ups, deception, stonewalling, and intimidation of sex assault victims within SBC churches. In fact, high-ranking staff at the SBC Nashville headquarters possessed a growing list of over 700 sexual assault cases involving SBC ministers, and they deliberately chose to do nothing to stop the abusers.
Well, actually . . . they did do some things. SBC leaders actively told its staff members not to entertain sex assault allegations in order to protect them from legal liability. And then they mocked and slandered abuse survivors in emails to each other.
Now, the Convention is in full blown crisis mode. But are we surprised by these revelations?
I wish I could say that the SBC’s recent mishandling of sexual predators is a dark stain on the denomination’s reputation. But it was already stained permanently long before this, and we saw their true colors unabashedly emerge during the 2016 election of Donald Trump (himself a sexual predator). How else could SBC leaders so easily embrace a presidential candidate who boastfully flaunted his sexual immorality, misogyny, bigotry, corruption, and cruelty toward others . . . unless they were already doing it within the walls of their own organization?
As the history of the SBC reveals, they rarely confront social injustices or target systemic dysfunctions until forced to do so. And it seems that from the top down, hypocrisy has been the cultural status quo since its beginning.
"They wanted to protect unborn human life inside the womb, but didn’t seem to care about born human life in slums or prisons or nations they considered enemies. They loved to paint gay people as a threat to marriage, seeming to miss the irony that heterosexual people were damaging marriage at a furious pace without any help from gay couples. They consistently relegated females to second-class status, often while covering up for their fellow males when they fell into scandal or committed criminal abuse." —Brian D. McLaren, A New Kind of Christianity (2011)
The Hypocrisy of Purity Culture
If Christianity today can engage in (or tolerate) things like sexual abuse and mass shootings, then something is terribly wrong with the Christian church. And a denomination purporting to be guardians of the best news in the world should have a better grasp of right and wrong. But they don't.
History has consistently shown that the people who preach the loudest often have the most licentious lives to hide from public view.
The SBC implores its members to fight against "the homosexual agenda," secular humanism, and abortion . . . all the while the real boogeymen was their own clergy. In fact, the SBC's past obsession with controlling other people's sex lives is even more disheartening when considering these new revelations about their own sexual misconduct. But are any of us really surprised? No.
At GCRR, we have seen time and again the effects of sexual abuse and purity dogmas in our research on religious trauma. What we have found is that when people are preoccupied with always choosing the right careers, the right sexual partners, building the perfect little family, etc., there develops an unhealthy obsession with appearances of being moral and virtuous . . . all the while neglecting the very behavioral patterns and internal character traits necessary to actually be "holy" or "pure" (whatever that means!).
"Born-again Christians divorce at about the same rate as everyone else. Self-centered materialism is seducing evangelicals and rapidly destroying our earlier, slightly more generous giving. Only 6 percent of born-again Christians tithe. Born-again Christians justify and engage in sexual promiscuity (both premarital sex and adultery) at astonishing rates. Racism and perhaps physical abuse of wives seem to be worse in evangelical circles than elsewhere. This is scandalous behavior for people who claim to be born-again by the Holy Spirit.” —Ronald J. Sider, The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience (2005)
Of course, people are hardwired to focus on the superficial and not the true core of who we are. We have a natural tendency to want to be seen as moral, but the more we become obsessed with our appearance of virtue, the less we act with any real dignity. It's time that we not only expose the crimes and hypocrisy of these religious leaders, but it's also time to expose some of the destructive doctrinal beliefs that facilitate this type of cover-up culture.
Check out the presentation below from our most recent academic conference on religious trauma and learn more of what's really going on.
"Chewed Up Gum and Broken Rose Petals: Problematizing Purity Culture in Evangelical Christianity" by Katelynn Steinhauser
