An attempt to mediate the legal dispute between Johnny Hunt and the Southern Baptist Convention has failed, according to court filings. Meeting last Tuesday in Nashville, trustees of the SBC Executive Committee reportedly approved some framework for a possible settlement…
SBC may be heading toward settlement with Johnny Hunt, will sell building
Faced with millions of dollars in unbudgeted legal expenses related to sexual abuse investigations, defenses and settlements, the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee will sell its downtown Nashville office building, which is valued at more than $30 million. While that…
A cautionary tale of celebrity pastors and family empires
Late last month, Liberty University and its former president, Jerry Falwell Jr., settled for an undisclosed amount to end a multi-year, sprawling set of multi-million dollar lawsuits brought by Falwell against the Lynchburg, Va.-based school. For the world’s “largest evangelical university,” the…
Megan Basham sharply criticized for outing Johnny Hunt’s alleged abuse victim
A prominent religion reporter has lambasted far-right culture warrior Megan Basham for exposing the name of Johnny Hunt’s alleged sexual abuse victim in her new book. Evangelical Twitter is lit up with critiques of Basham’s book, Shepherds for Sale, that…
SBC leader offers little hope for change on addressing clergy sex abuse
Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee Chair Philip Robertson gives his thoughts on the clergy sex abuse problem within the Southern Baptist Convention in this video. Spoiler: He doesn’t think it’s much of a problem. Robertson attempts to discredit and sow…
Johnny Hunt tells his side of the story, including his definition of ‘adultery’
Johnny Hunt finally got to tell his side the story about what happened at a beachside condo in 2010, when he is accused of sexually abusing a pastor’s wife the age of his own daughters. In a court deposition taken…
‘Pastor Johnny’ wins a bid to unseal Guidepost documents
Of the more than two dozen legal cases currently pending in courts against the Southern Baptist Convention or its entities, one takes particular aim at the work of Guidepost Solutions, the independent researcher that produced the scathing report of mishandled…
Guess who has spoken most frequently at the SBC Pastors’ Conference?
Johnny Hunt has spoken at the Southern Baptist Pastors’ Conference nearly twice as frequently as any other person in the last two decades. The once-disgraced and now controversially “restored” pastor has spoken at the annual preach-a-thon 14 times since 2000…
Here’s how to force SBC entities to be accountable to people in the pew about their finances
Within the past week, Baptist News Global has run two news analysis pieces about Southern Baptist Convention agencies and leaders who are not telling people in the pew the full story of their financial situations. There are policies in place…