By Jeff Brumley
The Georgia preacher who proposed a resolution urging the Southern Baptist Convention to get tough on predators says Baptist leaders’ public support of an evangelical preacher accused in a lawsuit of covering up child sex abuse has tarnished all Southern Baptists.
What’s more, said Peter Lumpkins, pastor of Corner Stone Baptist Church in Waco, Ga., a show of support by Albert Mohler and Mark Dever for C.J. Mahaney of Sovereign Grace Ministries sends a painful message to those who have been abused: that alleged perpetrators are valued over victims.
“Mohler and Dever make these victims appear that they don’t count,” Lumpkins said Monday in Houston, where he will be a messenger at the SBC’s annual convention Tuesday and Wednesday. “And because they are such high-profile leaders, they make Southern Baptists look like that, too.”
Should it make it out of committee and be approved by messengers, Lumpkins’ resolution would urge convention entities to enact more stringent and uniform anti-abuse policies, implore ministers and churches to more readily notify authorities anytime abuse is reported, and push convention officials and agencies to break ties with outside groups involved in abuse cases.
Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and Dever, senior pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, have joined evangelical author and preacher John Piper and others who have expressed support for Mahaney, whose Sovereign Grace Ministries is the target of a multi-plaintiff Maryland lawsuit alleging multiple instances of child sexual abuse by various SGM ministers.
The endorsements were roundly criticized by victim-abuse advocates who say it sends the wrong message to support a credibly accused minister before all the facts are known.
Mohler declined to speak specifically about SGM when asked by ABPnews, but added that he supports any measure to strengthen the SBC’s ability to protect victims of sexual abuse — especially children.
“The Southern Baptist Convention must do everything in its power to raise awareness and to train pastors and leaders to have the instinct to do everything in their power to protect children,” Mohler said at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston. Pastors and other leaders have had “less of an instinct” to do so in the past, he added.
“What every leader should do is call police” when abuse allegations arise, Mohler said. “No one wants to dissuade any victim from calling police.”
But victims are now dissuaded, said Amy Smith, the Houston representative of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
For years, Smith has tried to expose what she sees as a systemic problem of abuse and cover-up in the SBC – due in part because of a polity that allows congregations to hire and fire its own ministers. More recently she has claimed her own Southern Baptist congregation tried to silence her ahead of this week’s meeting. The church has denied that claim.
Either way, Smith said the local SNAP chapter will stage a protest outside the convention center 11 a.m. Tuesday. Participating will be the mother of one of the SMG sex-abuse plaintiffs, Smith said.
Smith said she applauds Lumpkins for submitting his resolution, but added she wishes it went further by identifying specific instances of alleged abuses in the SBC.
Lumpkins said the measure “is just a start, just a beginning.” He added that even if the resolution emerges from the committee in some amended form, something is needed to make the SBC more intentional in fighting abuse and supporting victims.
“We have got to tell people this is what we stand for,” he said.