Johnny Hunt, who last summer was forced from his role as executive vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board over sexual abuse allegations, was back in the pulpit last Sunday. Not only did Hunt preach at…
Pedophilia at Kanakuk: Power, lies and evangelical values that cover up abuse
Sometimes ministers and church volunteers make mistakes. Usually, these can be corrected, and the adults who made them can learn how to be better and continue their ministry. As many evangelicals proudly assert, forgiveness and reconciliation are important in the…
SBC’s sexual abuse hotline raises ethical issue
Editor’s note: On Monday, Jan. 9, the SBC task force published a response to this opinion column. Callers to the Southern Baptist Convention’s sexual abuse hotline are often routed to a person who also serves the SBC’s abuse reform implementation…
The story of Tamar and the epidemic of sexual violence in evangelical churches
Susan Shaw recently wrote an article for BNG titled “The Abusers in the Pews,” discussing how sexual violence runs rampant in Christian churches. She explained that churches rarely actively engage in the work needed to achieve gender justice, perpetuating the…
Your words are not enough, Beth Allison Barr tells male SBC pastors on sexual abuse after Johnny Hunt’s ‘restoration’
Pastors guilty of sexual abuse never should be restored to ministry, Baylor University professor and author Beth Allison Barr wrote for a news service in the United Kingdom Dec. 9. The opinion piece published by Premier Christianity addresses the case…
An important conversation about ordaining and unordaining
Our motto here at BNG is to inspire you, dear readers, with change-making conversations. We’ve hit a nerve with one of those conversations this week, which tells me it is extremely important that we talk about this. The “this” is…
Once ordained, always ordained?
Long ago, Carlyle Marney, an irascible Baptist preacher of blessed memory, praised Ralph Waldo Emerson for leaving the ministry because his conscience prevented him from serving the Lord’s Supper. Marney noted if he ever left the ministry, it would be…
SBC president blasts idea of Johnny Hunt’s ‘restoration’ to ministry
In a highly unusual move, the current president of the Southern Baptist Convention has denounced the “restoration” of a former SBC president to ministry six months after public allegations of sexual abuse. “The idea that a council of pastors, assembled…
Panel of four male pastors clears Johnny Hunt to return to ministry
Six months after publicly admitting sexual misconduct, Southern Baptist pastor and denominational leader Johnny Hunt has been cleared to return to ministry by a group of four male pastors who have been counseling him. Of the 70-year-old Hunt, one of…