(RNS) — Christian conservative leaders are listening to mounting criticism for his or her silence in regards to the nomination of U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz to function the brand new Trump administration’s legal professional common, as allegations about drug-fueled events and intercourse trafficking involving the nominee proceed to swirl in Washington.
“These most vocal about supposedly loving Jesus and embracing Christian values are those which are least prone to arise and object to nominations of this sort of particular person,” Boz Tchividjian, grandson of famed evangelist Billy Graham and longtime legal professional for sexual abuse survivors in spiritual settings, advised RNS on Wednesday (Nov. 20).
Shortly after President-elect Donald Trump tapped Gaetz, a Southern Baptist, as his decide to go the U.S. Division of Justice, consideration turned to a congressional ethics investigation trying into allegations by a Gaetz affiliate that Gaetz knew that ladies had been paid for intercourse at events he attended and that Gaetz had intercourse with a 17-year-old in 2017. ABC Information has reported that it obtained Venmo data suggesting the previous congressman paid $10,000 to 2 ladies who testified to the ethics panel.
Gaetz, who has repeatedly denied the allegations, stepped down from his Florida Home seat a day earlier than a Home Ethics Committee report targeted on him was resulting from be launched. A Division of Justice investigation into intercourse trafficking allegations in opposition to Gaetz ended final 12 months with out forwarding felony expenses.
On Monday, Chris Davis, a Southern Baptist pastor and abuse survivor, revealed a put up on the social media web site Bluesky addressed to abuse survivors, saying, “I’m grieved that you need to see a gradual stream of sexual abusers put forth as leaders of our nation,” making a veiled reference to Gaetz and another Trump Cupboard nominees. “You deserve higher.”
Based on Christianity At present, a number of organizations devoted to combating intercourse trafficking have additionally publicly challenged Gaetz’s appointment. Amongst them is Shared Hope Worldwide, whose founder Linda Smith, a Republican and former congresswoman from Washington state, advised RNS she believes “the ethics committee report should be launched previous to any affirmation listening to.”
President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be legal professional common, former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., closes a door to a non-public assembly with Vice President-elect JD Vance and Republican Senate Judiciary Committee members, on the Capitol in Washington, Nov. 20, 2024. (AP Picture/J. Scott Applewhite)
“Intercourse trafficking is a critical crime, and any allegation must be absolutely investigated,” Smith stated in an announcement. “Shared Hope Worldwide will all the time search justice in any and each case of intercourse trafficking — justice in opposition to the consumers and the traffickers and justice for the victims.”
Mat Staver, a Southern Baptist and founding father of the conservative authorized agency Liberty Counsel, additionally got here out in opposition to Gaetz, writing in a weblog put up final week that the previous congressman “has neither the expertise nor the ethical character to function the very best regulation enforcement officer of the US of America.”
However some have famous that SBC leaders, together with those that have been outspoken about sexual abuse in recent times, have been quiet about Gaetz’s nomination.
On Monday, Mark Wingfield, a former pastor of a Cooperative Baptist church in Texas and government director of Baptist Information World, revealed an editorial titled “Matt Gaetz is a Southern Baptist who seems to get a free move.”
Wingfield pointed to a 1998 decision adopted by the SBC urging all Individuals “to embrace and act on the conviction that character does rely in public workplace, and to elect these officers and candidates who, though imperfect, show constant honesty, ethical purity and the very best character.”
Wingfield famous that Home Speaker Mike Johnson, who opposes releasing the Home ethics report on Gaetz, can be a Southern Baptist.
This week, Brent Leatherwood, president of the Ethics and Non secular Liberty Fee, the Southern Baptist Conference’s political arm, was not obtainable to touch upon Gaetz’s nomination, based on ERLC representatives, who cited scheduling points. The SBC’s press workplace additionally didn’t reply to a request for remark.
The SBC, the biggest Protestant denomination within the U.S., has been embroiled in a looking on intercourse abuse since no less than 2019, when the Houston Chronicle revealed an investigation figuring out some 700 abuse victims in SBC church buildings over 20 years, a few of whom had reported their abuse however had been urged to forgive their abusers or get abortions.
Final October, Leatherwood issued a prolonged assertion condemning sexual abuse and referred to as on the church to do extra. “Why is it when abuse is the problem — a catastrophe that so usually strikes our church buildings — we get weak within the knees or let attorneys take the reins of choice making?” Leatherwood wrote. “Do the identical tasks outlined in Scripture to do what is correct and search justice not apply right here, as nicely? In fact they do.”
Brent Leatherwood speaks from the ground of the Southern Baptist Conference annual assembly on the Indiana Conference Heart in Indianapolis, June 12, 2024. (RNS photograph/AJ Mast)
Leatherwood additionally stated SBC messengers — voting members of the denomination’s governing physique — imagine “abuse is a scourge upon our church buildings, and this evil should be confronted; survivors who’ve suffered a lot are to be supported; and the susceptible in our midst—even these it’s possible you’ll not have on the forefront of your thoughts—are to be protected.”
In June, SBC President Clint Pressley of Hickory Grove Baptist Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, despatched a letter to members of his church informing them {that a} volunteer had been arrested. Church leaders, the letter defined, had knowledgeable police the volunteer had been accused of sexual abuse by a pupil on the church’s college.
“We don’t tolerate abusive habits of any sort,” he wrote. “Sexual abuse is particularly heinous. It’s a despicable injustice that we condemn within the strongest phrases. Any sufferer ought to really feel they’ll speak about it, freely report, and be listened to and cared for.”
Requested if he was shocked by the silence about Gaetz, Tchividjian stated, “Why wouldn’t it shock me that the denomination that’s had lots of and lots of of credible allegations of sexual abuse minimized and coated up could be silent in regards to the nomination of Matt Gaetz?”
Boz Tchividjian. (Picture by Christopher Breedlove)
Tchividjian prolonged his criticism to the conservative Christian group, who, he stated, “spent the final two years screaming up and down in regards to the tradition wars and the way immoral our nation is turning into” however at the moment are “remaining silent or twisting themselves up into pretzels rationalizing why Matt Gaetz ought to grow to be the legal professional common of the US.”
Tchividjian stated the silence is finally about entry to political energy. “These megachurch pastors all assume they’ve a seat on the desk,” he stated. “They know in the event that they converse out and say what must be stated — say what Jesus would have them say — they might lose that phantasm of getting a seat on the desk.”
Some Republicans have publicly expressed doubt that the Gaetz nomination will survive the affirmation course of, together with the president-elect himself. However Trump has pushed ahead and Gaetz appeared on Capitol Hill on Wednesday alongside Vice President-elect JD Vance, hoping to shore up help amongst Republican senators.
Within the meantime, Tchividjian stated nationwide dialogue of the allegations dealing with Gaetz can retraumatize abuse survivors. “It’s troubling to individuals, and I believe particularly for victims — they actually battle with that, and it makes them really feel much less secure.”
