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Churches and state conventions would not be required to use resources.
A Southern Baptist task force has asked the denomination to set up a “Ministry Check” website to track abusive pastors, church employees and volunteers, and to spend millions on reforms to prevent abuse. Most of the suggested reforms are voluntary and some could involve years of study and preparation, prompting a skeptical response from some abuse survivors and advocates.
Other suggested reforms, released on Wednesday, include hiring a national staff person who would receive reports of abuse and forward them to church leaders for a response; increasing training for churches; doing background checks on the trustees who oversee Southern Baptist entities; and encouraging state conventions to consider hiring staff to respond to abuse allegations.
The requests are part of a series of recommendations from the Southern Baptist Convention’s sexual abuse task force, which oversaw a recent investigation into how leaders in the 13.7 million-member convention have responded to abuse.
That investigation found that leaders of the SBC’s Executive Committee had shown callous disregard for abuse survivors—often demonizing or ignoring them—while working at all costs to protect the denomination from liability.
In response to the report, the task force has proposed two sets of recommendations.
The first set of requests—made to the Executive Committee, state conventions and other Baptist entities—are voluntary. That may make them ineffective, said Christa Brown, an abuse survivor and longtime activist, who called the task force’s recommendations disappointing.
“I don’t give much credence to suggestions and requests because they are toothless,” she said.
from Christianity Today Magazine
Umn ministry
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