Letter to the Editor October 10, 2022 Dear Editor: Anderson Cooper’s “60 Minutes” interview of Bart Barber began on a hopeful note. Asked if he believed the 2020 presidential election was stolen, the Southern Baptist Convention president answered: “No.” Asked…
Why can’t churches get handling abuse right?
Yet another evangelical megachurch is repenting for mishandling clergy sex abuse. Every few days, it seems, we’re hearing about a different instance of a pastor or church leader who has abused women and/or children and a church (or denomination) that…
Seven years later, Will McRaney might get his day in court against NAMB — maybe
Seven years after he was fired as the leader of a Baptist state convention, Will McRaney may finally get his day in court against the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board. After years of legal wrangling, a new trial…
Former Bellevue youth pastor ‘credibly accused of abusing adolescents’ at Baptist church in Arkansas
A former youth pastor at one of the Southern Baptist Convention’s flagship churches was arrested last week on one charge of sexual indecency with a child, according to a report in the Memphis Commercial-Appeal. Keenan Hord, 32, worked at a…
More questions than answers right now regarding DOJ investigation into SBC
As news spread late last Friday that the U.S. Department of Justice has opened an investigation into the Southern Baptist Convention regarding sexual abuse, many more questions than answers swirled about. And while the DOJ itself has neither confirmed nor…
Department of Justice investigating SBC on sexual abuse
The U.S. Department of Justice has launched a criminal investigation into allegations of sexual abuse within the Southern Baptist Convention, the SBC Executive Committee confirmed late Friday, Aug. 12. The scope and focus of the investigation were not made public,…
Skepticism holds seeds of hope: The SBC and clergy sex abuse
People speak of hope as if it is this delicate, ephemeral thing made of whispers and spider’s webs. It’s not. Hope has dirt on her face, blood on her knuckles, the grit of the cobblestones in her hair, and just…
SBC president says he tried to enlist more women for sexual abuse task force but got turned down repeatedly
On the same day Baptist News Global published an analysis showing severe underrepresentation of women on both the first and the second Southern Baptist Convention task forces addressing sexual abuse, the new president of the convention issued a video explaining…
Where are the women on the SBC’s first and second sexual abuse task forces?
The newest task force appointed to address sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention shares one key thing in common with the first Sexual Abuse Task Force that wrapped up its work this summer: Only two women are represented on…