(RNS) — An investigation into how leaders of the Southern Baptist Conference have handled sexual abuse by clergy has price greater than $12 million over the previous three years, inflicting the nation’s largest Protestant denomination to place its Nashville, Tennessee, headquarters up on the market, the SBC’s Govt Committee introduced on Tuesday (Sept. 17).
The expenditures, which embody $3 million spent keeping off a lawsuit filed by a former SBC president, have led the committee to spend down its reserves in what its auditors have referred to as an unsustainable method. The group, which met in Nashville this week, additionally accredited a mortgage to cowl funds shortfalls.
Attorneys for the SBC will meet Thursday with attorneys for the previous SBC president, Johnny Hunt, in a court-order mediation session, the place the 2 sides will focus on settling their dispute. Hunt has claimed the SBC management ruined his repute by reporting on his previous sexual misconduct and for together with him in a report on allegedly abusive leaders.
The Govt Committee’s fiscal woes come because the denomination is struggling to implement reforms ordered by the SBC’s governing physique two years in the past, designed to assist church buildings higher stop and reply to abuse.
On Tuesday, members of the Govt Committee additionally voted to arrange a brand new division to cope with the problem of abuse reforms, which can take over the reform effort from volunteers.
“Southern Baptists, we now have had two job forces which have accomplished troublesome and essential work, however it’s time now to cease speaking about what we’re going to do and take an preliminary strategic step of motion that places into place an administrative response to this difficulty,” Jeff Iorg, president of the Nashville-based Govt Committee, instructed trustees. Iorg described the brand new division as a “starting level of a workable answer” on the problem of abuse reform.
Jeff Iorg speaks at Gateway Seminary in Oct. 2023. (Video display seize)
Nevertheless, the destiny of the “Ministry Examine” web site, a long-sought aspect of the sexual abuse reforms that was accredited by the Southern Baptist annual assembly greater than two years in the past, stays unsure.
A web site, accredited in June 2022, was supposed to incorporate the names of Southern Baptist pastors and leaders convicted of abuse, those that confessed to abuse or have a courtroom judgment for abuse in opposition to them, in addition to those that have credible allegations of abuse made in opposition to them.
To this point, no names have been added to the web site, and SBC leaders haven’t any present plans to replace it and have taken no duty for it.
As a substitute, the Ministry Examine web site stays within the palms of a volunteer-led nonprofit referred to as the Abuse Response Fee, which has no official ties to the SBC.
Josh Wester, a North Carolina pastor who helped begin the fee, mentioned names can’t be added to the location and not using a go-ahead from the SBC’s Govt Committee.
“When and if the EC notifies us they’ve cleared the hurdles on their finish, we are going to make it stay,” Wester instructed RNS in a textual content. Wester is the previous chair of a job drive, dissolved earlier this 12 months after making restricted progress, that had been charged with implementing abuse reform.
On the Govt Committee’s assembly on Tuesday, Iorg mentioned that the committee had no ties to the Abuse Response Fee or any management over its work. As a substitute, he mentioned, the committee would give attention to hiring employees for the brand new division earlier than taking on points such because the Ministry Examine web site.
“Our first step shall be to rent a full-time government director,” Iorg mentioned in an e mail. “As soon as that new management is in place, we are going to start to take subsequent steps, together with enhancing assets out there via that web site.”
The Govt Committee’s new abuse reform division shall be funded initially with $1.8 million supplied by Ship Aid, a humanitarian mission led by the SBC’s two mission boards. A spokesman for the North American Mission Board mentioned the funds shall be given on to the Govt Committee. Previously, the heads of the mission boards barred funds from going on to the Abuse Response Fee.
Govt Committee trustees additionally mentioned the ongoing prices of the SBC’s abuse disaster, together with the Hunt lawsuit.
Court docket paperwork filed within the lawsuit present the legal professionals for Hunt first reached out to the SBC’s attorneys in February to debate a potential decision. After a courtroom order in early September, the 2 sides scheduled a mediation listening to for Sept. 19 and can replace the courtroom by Sept. 26.
The Govt Committee’s constructing, at 901 Commerce St. in downtown Nashville, was initially constructed for $8 million within the Eighties, on land donated by Lifeway, the SBC’s publishing arm, in accordance with Baptist Press, an official SBC publication. The property additionally homes the SBC’s Ethics and Non secular Liberty Fee and a library and historic archive. The constructing was appraised for $31.7 million in 2021, in accordance with The Tennessean newspaper.
