NEW YORK (ABP) — With awareness of sexual abuse by clergy in Southern Baptist churches on the increase, a well-known television newsmagazine is taking notice.
In show — scheduled to air the evening of April 13 — called “Preacher Predators,” ABC's “20/20” will examine the problem of sexual predators in Baptist churches as well as those of other denominations. According to ABC producers, the show will also study the unique role that Baptist polity and autonomy can play in perpetuating or resolving the problem.
Producers said they decided to investigate sexual abuse because several Baptist ministers in states across the South have been prosecuted for sex crimes within the last year.
Frank Page, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, agreed to appear on the program. Page, in an open letter explaining why he chose to speak in a show he said may prove “overwhelmingly negative,” said he spoke to ABC producers because “even one instance of sexual abuse is too much.”
Still, he said, he does not believe the problem of sexual abuse in Southern Baptist churches is “systematic and large-scale.”
“[F]or years the press has complained that the hierarchy of the Catholic Church has enabled the hiding of sexual predators,” Page wrote. “Now, they are stating that the lack of our hierarchy is helping hide sexual predators. The truth is that people can abuse any system. There are people who seek out positions in the church where the trust level can be so high that they can then be involved in horrible actions.”
But one Catholic priest who says he tried to warn his denomination's leaders about the sex-abuse problems of the 1980s warned Page, in a March 30 letter, against downplaying the denomination's role in the problem.
In the communiqué, Thomas Doyle of Vienna, Va., wrote that bishops in the Roman Catholic Church, like SBC leaders today, said they lacked “direct authority” over any diocese to monitor the abuse problem. But in 2002, after the scandal threatened to shatter the church's very structure, Doyle said Catholic leaders created new rules for accountability within the institution.
“I am concerned by what I fear may be developing as a similar pattern in the nation's largest Protestant denomination,” Doyle wrote. “Clergy sex abuse is a scourge that knows no bounds of theology, denomination, or institutional structure. To effectively address this scourge requires a strong cooperative effort.”
He continued, referring to the SBC's in-house news agency: “Yet, in recent Baptist Press statements, I have seen that Southern Baptist leaders disclaim that possibility on the ground that the Southern Baptist Convention has 'no authority' over autonomous churches.”
And while the hierarchical structure of the Catholic Church differs significantly from that of Baptists, SBC leaders should realize that the “no authority” argument is “actually quite analogous to what Catholic bishops were espousing prior to 2002,” Doyle wrote.
Christa Brown, who maintains the StopBaptistPredators.org website, said she was also dismayed by Page's statement regarding sex abuse. Brown is a member of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, a group started in response to the Catholic molestation scandal that now works to stop clergy sexual abuse across denominations.
Via e-mail, Brown disagreed with Page's characterization that there had been “several” reports of abuse in Southern Baptist life in the past year. “Even if you only count the last six months' worth of publicly reported cases, there have been a lot more than 'several,' and Page should have known that and acknowledged it.”
Brown said she hopes the “20/20” segment will help Southern Baptist leaders see the extent of the problem. Some have already taken notice.
Some Southern Baptist activists plan to push the denomination on the issue. Two pastors with nationally-prominent blogs about Southern Baptist Convention politics recently said they intend to present a motion and a resolution dealing with clergy sexual abuse at the SBC's annual meeting this year. Oklahoman Wade Burleson and Texan Benjamin Cole will propose that convention officials and local churches find a more comprehensive way to track abusive ministers.
As for Page's response to Doyle's letter, he agreed in a letter to the priest that Baptists have “severe limitations” due to the convention's governing structure, because Southern Baptists as a whole “truly have no authority over the local church.” He has said the autonomy of the local church is a biblical mandate, so local churches must learn to avoid, uncover and prosecute predators.
“The local church is where accountability must be enforced,” he said. “I call upon every local church to develop written policy guidelines for the care of children and youth. I call upon every church to have a system or policy in place to deal with any accusations made…. Simply put, there is no place in the church for persons who would take advantage of these relationships.”
For all that, Brown says she has yet to see any effective changes.
“His statement [regarding the ABC show] effectively minimizes the problem, which tells me that he still doesn't really see the problem,” she said. “That's what I'm hoping the '20/20' show will change, because until Baptist leaders at least see the problem, I don't figure they're likely to effectively address it.”
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Read more:
Are Baptists leaders doing enough about clergy sex-abuse revelations? (12/7/2006)
Victims of Baptist clergy abuse urge SBC leaders to take action (9/27/2006)
Baptist churches more vulnerable to clergy sex abuse, experts say (10/23/2007)