Champion Forest Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist megachurch in Houston, has settled with “strict confidentiality” a lawsuit alleging church and denominational leadership’s complicity in the sexual misconduct of former youth pastor Timothy Jeltema. Three women, anonymously referred to as “Jane…
New Law Requires Priests to Break Seal of Confession to Report Child Abuse
The secrecy of the confessional in the Roman Catholic Church is so sacrosanct that any priest who violates it is automatically excommunicated.
SBC clergy sex abuse crisis doesn’t stem from ‘the Sexual Revolution’
Sexual abuse is “the rotten fruit of the Sexual Revolution,” says Jeff Dalrymple, director of the Southern Baptist Convention’s newly created Sexual Abuse Prevention and Response department, which operates under the SBC Executive Committee. In two Baptist Press columns published…
Jane Roe case against Patterson and Southwestern will go to trial now
One key portion of Jane Roe’s defamation case against Paige Patterson and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary will go to trial, according to the latest filings in the federal case. In February, the Texas Supreme Court ruled on two questions of…
Elon Musk dismantles evangelical ‘family values’
“Family values” have returned to eugenics, the practice of selective breeding of humans to improve their genetic composition. The new champion of eugenics, now known as the pro-natalist or genetic-determinist movement, is Elon Musk. “Family values,” a political weapon of…
Arrest of Italian priest for abuse may renew calls for national reckoning
An Italian priest has been placed under house arrest on charges of aggravated sexual assault against a minor, while also facing at least five other charges of abuse in other communities said to date from 2011 to 2013.
Judge says sexual abuse cases against San Francisco Archdiocese can go to trial
The cases of two men who allege they were sexually abused as children in Northern California by a now-deceased priest can proceed to trial, a federal judge ruled.
Judge picks apart Johnny Hunt’s claims against SBC point by point
With academic precision, a federal judge’s 74-page opinion picks apart Johnny Hunt’s lawsuit against the Southern Baptist Convention, SBC Executive Committee and Guidepost Solutions. The full decision was published April 1, the day after Judge William Campbell granted summary judgment…
The SBC’s clergy sex abuse database is dead, so why the hotline?
After years of trailing out hollow words, impotent task forces and phony dog-and-pony shows of purported reform, the Southern Baptist Convention’s top CEO straight-up admitted that a database of clergy sex abusers is “not a focus for us.” This bit…
Closure of DOJ probe doesn’t mean no SBC sex crimes
The United States Department of Justice has shut down its investigation into sexual abuse within the Southern Baptist Convention. Attorneys for the SBC Executive Committee said they were notified last Wednesday of the investigation’s closure, and since then prominent Southern…
Matt Queen sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement
The former Southwestern Seminary professor who confessed to lying to the FBI about a sexual abuse case was sentenced March 5 to time served, to be followed by one year of supervised release that includes six months of home confinement…
Founder of ‘Thank You Jesus’ yard signs arrested for child sexual exploitation
Lucas Timothy Hunt, the 25-year-old founder of Thank You Jesus Yard Signs, was charged Feb. 25 with one count of second-degree sexual exploitation of a minor in Randolph County, N.C., after a brief investigation by the Invictus Task Force. North…