It has been less than three weeks since the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette broke the story of a Little Rock church’s failure to notify members of alleged sexual abuse of minors, and the story continues to take twists and turns.
The latest news shortly before Christmas was that the church had hired — and then dismissed — the Baptist attorney who defended convicted sex offender Josh Duggar.
The Democrat-Gazette reported Dec. 22 that “church officials” had hired Fayetteville attorney Travis Story in November to help with a new child safety and sexual abuse prevention program. The attorney reportedly was hired for $10,000 without consultation with the church’s finance team.
“After investigating and discovering Story’s role in defending Josh Duggar against child pornography charges, financial team members insisted that the ties between the Little Rock church and the Story Law Firm be severed,” the paper reported, citing an unnamed member of the church’s finance team.
“Some people did some research on that (attorney), discovered who he had represented, and we didn’t feel like it was advisable to have that person representing our church at this time,” the team member told the paper.
“We didn’t feel like it was advisable to have that person representing our church at this time.”
Story is a graduate of Liberty University School of Law and previously has shown up as a speaker for the Arkansas Baptist Convention. He also previously was a staff member at a campus of CrossChurch, the Springdale, Ark., church previously led by Ronnie Floyd, who resigned as president of the SBC Executive Committee in protest of a vote for transparency in a massive sexual abuse investigation.
Travis Story
For four years, Story served as medical marijuana commissioner for the state of Arkansas but was criticized in that role because he had ties to the industry. He is managing partner of Story Law Firm.
But he is perhaps best known as legal counsel for the Duggar family and specifically Josh Duggar, not only at his trial on charges of possessing child pornography but earlier in a real estate scandal. In that earlier case, Story was disqualified due to a conflict of interest because he was listed as an officer of the company involved in the scandal.
Already under intense scrutiny for allegedly mishandling at least two cases of child sexual abuse at the church, Lead Pastor Steven Smith sought legal help from Story. But after dissent from lay leaders in the church, that engagement was cancelled.
“The church conducted an internal review for purposes of implementing new or updated sexual abuse policies and procedures. A recommendation was made within the church to engage an advisor to assist the church with this process,” Smith said in a statement. “The Story Law firm was selected and engaged to draft and implement policies and procedures based on advice from within the church and recommendations from other organizations. The church has since ended its engagement with the Story Law firm and does not use its services in this capacity. The church now utilizes policies developed as part of the Caring Well Initiative program.”
Caring Well is a program of the SBC created by two successive sexual abuse response task forces.
One of the yet-to-be accomplished mandates given the current SBC task force is to create an online database of credibly accused and convicted clergy sexual abusers. Had such a database been available five years ago, former Immanuel staff member Stephen Miller might have been listed on it and not passed off to another church.
But that likely wouldn’t have happened because Miller’s alleged transgressions were not reported to the church and even his plea deal with prosecutors was not widely known.
Steven Smith
Faced with a rolling series of revelations about this and another abuse case involving a youth worker, the pastor has faced calls for his resignation. Smith has resigned his role as an adjunct professor at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, an SBC school.
A week before Christmas, Smith vaguely offered to resign as pastor if that’s what the church desires, he told the newspaper. “If at any point now (or) in the future, this church believes God’s anointing or call upon my service at Immanuel has been lifted, I will not resist the will of the church. Until then, we want to continue to press on in our mission to advance the kingdom.”
By multiple reports, some church lay leaders want Smith to resign. In the meantime, as a few lay leaders have spoken to media, Smith has declared he will be the sole spokesman for the church on these issues.
Smith told the Democrat-Gazette: “While the deacons have been discussing the situation reflected in your recent coverage, they do so as an internal matter, and they are responsible only to the church. It is not their role to communicate to the news media or the general public about their work in the church.”
That silence apparently extends also to Greg Crain, chairman of deacons and an executive with Baptist Health, the paper reported.
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