Here's Why the DOJ Is Investigating the Southern Baptist Convention

Earlier this week, the news broke that the U.S. Department of Justice is investigating the Southern Baptist Convention, the country's largest Protestant denomination, with around 47,000 independent member churches. 

The investigation comes just three months after the investigative firm Guidepost Solutions published a report that detailed sexual abuse allegations within the SBC, leadership's reported attempts to cover up allegations and the alleged mistreatment of survivors.

Here's a breakdown of what we now know:

What did the report say?

With decades of allegations, a group within the SBC known as The Messengers, which includes specifically selected representatives of up to 12 members per attending church, created a task force to probe the claims.

Commissioned as a third party by the SBC to investigate sexual abuse allegations and the SBC leadership's response to them, Guidepost Solutions delivered its report on May 15 and made it public on May 22.

Guidepost Solutions probed more allegations made over a period of more more than two decades, from January 2000 to June 2021. The group conducted more than 300 interviews.

For decades, victims of sexual abuse reported the problems to church leaders on the organization's executive committee but were continually ignored or met with resistance, the report concluded.

Abuse survivors "made phone calls, mailed letters, sent emails, appeared at SBC and EC [Executive Committee] meetings, held rallies, and contacted the press … only to be met, time and time again, with resistance, stonewalling, and even outright hostility from some within the EC,” the report reads.

The SBC's executive committee remained "singularly focused on avoiding liability for the SBC," it adds.

Some accused abusers were allowed to continue preaching, and congregations were never informed of the allegations against them. Meanwhile, the report alleges, victims were routinely mistreated and intimidated.

“Stories of abuse were minimized, and survivors were ignored or even vilified,” the report reads. “Rather than focusing on these accused ministers, some EC leaders turned against the very people trying to shine a light on sexual abuse. The survivors … were denigrated as ‘opportunistic,’ having a ‘hidden agenda of lawsuits,’ wanting to ‘burn things to the ground,’ and acting as a ‘professional victim.’”

Are there Texas connections?

The report touched on SBC member churches in Texas, including in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

For instance, Prestonwood Baptist Church, a megachurch with facilities in Plano and Prosper, appeared in Guidepost Solutions' report, as did the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth.

Prestonwood's Jack Graham, who was once a member of former President Donald Trump's Religious Advisory Council, "allowed an accused abuser of young boys to be dismissed quietly in 1989 without reporting the abuse to police," according to the report.

In 2011, the accused abuser, a music director named John Langworthy, was charged and pleaded guilty in Mississippi to abusing young boys.

In the past, Prestonwood has denied those allegations, telling media outlets that the church "never protected or supported abusers, in 1989 or since."

The report further alleged that Paige Patterson, once the president of Fort Worth's Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, urged a student to not report a rape in 2003. (Patterson was fired in 2018.)

How did the SBC respond to that report?

In May, after the Guidepost Solutions report was made public, Jon Wilkes, the SBC's director of media relations, told the Observer by email that the executive committee "seeks to publicly repent for its failure to rectify this position and wholeheartedly listen to survivors."

"Today, in the immediate aftermath of the report’s release, the SBC executive committee seeks to make clear that it views engaging with survivors as a critical step toward healing our Convention from the scourge of sexual abuse and working to avoid its continued impact on our loved ones, their families, and our network of churches," Wilkes added.

Despite dissenting views, Rolland Slade, SBC executive committee chairman, said in a special online SBC board meeting earlier this year that the SBC needs to do everything possible to help vulnerable populations, including the victims of this abuse.

The SBC subsequently created a hotline number and an email for victims as well as friends and family members to report abuse. It also published a list of alleged abusers and created what they call the Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force.

“I don’t want us to say, well, we didn’t have enough money, so therefore we didn’t protect a little one,” Slade said in a June meeting. “It can’t be about the dollars. It’s got to be about the people.”

In an Aug. 8 press release, SBC President Bart Barber said "the purpose of this task force is to assist the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention in our efforts to shut the doors of our churches to those who would act as sexual predators and to wrap our arms around survivors and those who love them."

What's happening with the DOJ investigation?

The SBC seemed to be dealing with the issue internally, until an Aug. 12 SBC press release stated that their executive committee “recently became aware” that the DOJ has initiated an investigation and that it “will include multiple SBC entities.”

Earlier this week, NPR reported that those "multiple entities" include the SBC Executive Committee, but not yet any specific individuals.

In its news release, the SBC pledged to fully cooperate with the DOJ throughout the investigation.

“While we continue to grieve and lament past mistakes related to sexual abuse, current leaders across the SBC have demonstrated a firm conviction to address those issues of the past and are implementing measures to ensure they are never repeated in the future,” the release said.

“We recognize our reform efforts are not finished," the release added. "Our commitment to cooperate with the Department of Justice is born from our demonstrated commitment to transparently address the scourge of sexual abuse."

Thus far, the DOJ has not commented on the investigation.