The Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s second-largest religious group, said Friday that the Justice Department is investigating multiple branches of the denomination after an internal report showed mishandling of sexual abuse cases. The investigation is related to a recent third-party bomb report commissioned by the SBC, a spokesman said late Friday. The report concluded that survivors of sexual abuse were often ignored, minimized and “even vilified” by top clergy in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. Southern Baptist leaders covered up sex abuse, kept secret database, report says “The SBC Executive Committee was recently informed that the Department of Justice has launched an investigation into the Southern Baptist Convention and that the investigation will include several SBC entities,” said the statement issued Friday by 14 SBC leaders from several top entities. “Individually and collectively each SBC entity is committed to fully and fully cooperating with the investigation.” The third-party report, which included an examination of the period from 2000 to 2021, focused on the actions of the executive committee, which handles financial and administrative tasks. Southern Baptist churches operate independently of each other, but the Nashville-based Executive Committee distributes more than $190 million through the partnership program in its annual budget that funds its missions, seminaries and ministries. The 300-page report, the first of its kind in a massive Protestant denomination like the SBC, showed how denominational leaders for decades actively resisted calls for abuse prevention and reform. Evidence in the report shows that leaders also told Southern Baptists they could not maintain a database of offenders to prevent further abuse, while secretly keeping such a list for years. Anger over the report in June led the SBC’s massive annual meeting to approve a recommendation to create a database to track sex offenders and a formal team to handle sexual abuse allegations in the future. Southern Baptists Vote on Sexual Abuse Propositions, Debate Women Pastors The Justice Department declined to comment. “While we continue to lament and lament past mistakes related to sexual abuse, current leaders throughout the SBC have demonstrated a firm conviction to address these issues of the past and are implementing measures to ensure they never happen again in the future . The fact that the SBC Executive Committee recently completed a fully transparent investigation is a testament to this commitment,” the statement said. “We recognize that our reform efforts are not over.” For years, survivors of sexual assault in church settings have called on churches to admit the extent of the abuse. He helped spawn a movement called #ChurchToo, a spinoff of the broader #MeToo movement, calling out not only sexual predators but also religious leaders who engage in cover-ups or other mishandling of abuse allegations. Attorneys for the SBC Executive Committee said in a statement Friday night that the committee had received a subpoena, but “no individuals have been subpoenaed at this point.” The statement announcing the DOJ investigation was signed by leaders, including SBC seminary heads; the highest official in his vast mission corps and newly elected President Bart Barber. “While so many things in the world are uncertain, we can be sure that we serve a mighty God. Nothing, including this investigation, surprises Him,” the statement said. “We take comfort in this and humbly ask you to pray in the coming days and weeks. In particular, we ask God to give wisdom and discernment to every person engaged in research.”
