A new lawsuit filed against Kanakuk Kamps June 24 by child sex abuse survivor Andrew Summersett of Denver seeks to expose how the “largest youth camp in the U.S. intentionally omitted critical information about known cases of child sexual abuse…
What’s happening to megachurch pastors in Dallas?
Megachurch pastors in Dallas are starting to drop like flies. On June 9, Tony Evans stepped away for an unspecified period of time from the 10,000-member Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship, a church he started in his living room and led for…
‘Bad Guys’ vs. ‘Good Guys’ narrows the framing on SBC and sexual abuse
The Southern Baptist Convention’s Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force disbanded without having implemented much of anything. The database they purported to “launch” last year — even hyping it as “historic” — remains empty. It holds not a single name of…
Texas youth pastor booked by feds on child sexual abuse charge
Note: This article was updated at 1 p.m. Eastern time June 21 to include additional charges filed against Luke Cunningham. Luke Cunningham, a former youth pastor at four Texas churches, was arrested June 19 by United States marshals in…
Ben Mandrell should take humility lessons from Bart Barber
I thought I had seen arrogance in Southern Baptist Convention agency heads in my 62 years of living, but I had not heard from Ben Mandrell until today. His cold-hearted arrogance speaking before the SBC annual meeting today is in…
A call for state AG investigations of sexual abuse in the SBC
As the Southern Baptist Convention prepares for its annual gathering next week in Indianapolis, few in the abuse survivor community hold any expectation that it will make meaningful progress toward protecting kids and congregants against clergy sex abuse. It’s now…
Former Christian school employee and Kanakuk staffer Matthew Harmon arrested for child sexual assault
On May 28, after a yearlong investigation, the Dallas Police Child Exploitation Squad arrested Matthew Harmon, 46, on charges of sexual assault of a child for an offense that allegedly occurred in 2007. The alleged incident involved a victim Harmon…
Notes from the abused at Kamp Kanakuk: ‘You know what Satan is doing, but you still let him in’
Editor’s note: Names of some survivors are omitted to respect their privacy. Since the exposure of sex abuser Pete Newman at Kanakuk Kamps in 2009, a growing community of child sex abuse survivors and justice advocates has formed. In interviews…
Dockery comments on indictment, names two other employees involved
The president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary has weighed in with a public statement identifying the two other employees mentioned but not named in a federal indictment. In a May 29 release, President David Dockery identified Terri Stovall, longtime-serving dean…