For a decade now, the Southern Baptist Convention has abided a voracious liar in its midst and done nothing publicly to silence him. That liar is Allen Jordan, who lives in Houston and is the most persistent denier of a sexual abuse crisis in the denomination.
We have hashed and rehashed all his nonsense before. If you need to catch up, see here and here.
For reasons unknown to any of us, Jordan has been on a one-man campaign to disprove what already has been proved time and time again. He insists that those who speak of being abused by Southern Baptist clergy are lying and seeking attention — all while he lies and seeks public attention.
His emails to journalists and denominational officials are relentless and unhinged. He simply will not stop.
Mark Wingfield
And now, based on BNG’s reporting last week of his claims about Jeff Iorg, president of the SBC Executive Committee, and my commentary in last week’s Friday Roundup, Jordan is accusing me of being a liar too.
His latest email to all of us says: “You need to realize Mark that just because BNG is the media outlet for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, that does not give you the journalistic right to use your BNG platform as a tool to try to destroy the SBC, its churches and its leaders as you have done since becoming its editor over five years ago.”
Note: We are not the media outlet for CBF and receive zero funding from them.
Then he restates his oldest lie: That the Houston Chronicle’s “Abuse of Faith” series “presented no evidence of a clergy sex abuse crisis in the SBC” and that the Guidepost Solutions report “presented no evidence that any Executive Committee member or staff had ever mishandled any allegation of abuse during the 20-year period Guidepost investigated and that the abuse stories of the professional activists cited in the Guidepost report are not credible.”
And here’s the real tell of a world-class narcissist: “Salacious and misleading talking points and social media postings does not count as evidence. Comprehensive, detailed research and fact-checking as I have done does.”
Once again, only he has the truth and the rest of us are just dumb schmucks.
In fairness, here’s what I wrote back to him: “You are a liar and a deceiver and need to be rebuked by leaders of the SBC for your malicious and unending attacks on sexual abuse survivors. What you are doing is evil and mean and abusive. I am waiting patiently for SBC Executive Committee leaders to say what the convention already said in a previous resolution, that Christa Brown and Tiffany Thigpen are telling the truth. I cannot comprehend why you are so singularly obsessed with this. As I have told you before, you are sick. This really needs to stop.”
“Every time Allen Jordan goes on his campaign to say clergy sexual abuse survivors aren’t credible, he rips open the old wounds and causes them pain.”
And it does need to stop. Why? Because every time Allen Jordan goes on his campaign to say clergy sexual abuse survivors aren’t credible, he rips open the old wounds and causes them pain.
Jordan is a misguided and mean bully who needs to be publicly rebuked — not just privately rebuked as some others have tried in the past. If SBC leaders want to help sexual abuse survivors, they need to make known clearly and specifically that Allen Jordan is a liar who is causing abuse survivors to suffer over and over again.
It is not enough to ignore him, as most have tried to do. It is not enough to avoid reading his voluminous emails, as most have tried to do. He must be repudiated in the strongest possible terms.
Right now, it looks like the president of the SBC Executive Committee agrees with Jordan because the president has refused to say publicly that he believes the stories of Christa Brown and Tiffany Thigpen — both well-documented stories of abuse by Southern Baptist clergy.
There can be no healing in the future until the lies of the past are put to rest.
Does anyone in SBC leadership — Jeff Iorg, Clint Pressley, Al Mohler, Brent Leatherwood, for example — have the courage to stand publicly against Allen Jordan’s lies?
Or will it be left to the victims themselves and me?
Mark Wingfield serves as executive director and publisher of Baptist News Global. He is the author of five books, including Honestly: Telling the Truth About the Bible and Ourselves.
Related articles:
Does Jeff Iorg really believe Christa Brown and Tiffany Thigpen are liars?
Not everyone believes there’s a sexual abuse crisis in the SBC
SBC Executive Committee publicly apologizes to sexual abuse survivor
A guide to understanding this week’s conversations about the SBC and sexual abuse
SBC clergy sex abuse crisis doesn’t stem from ‘the Sexual Revolution’ | Opinion by Christa Brown
SBC can’t admit its problem with sexual abuse, Boz Tchividjian says