\n<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a story my family has told since before I was born about my great-uncle Johnny. When his four daughters were teenagers, the family took a long trip in which they had to stop in a familiar town for dinner.<\/p>\n
About 30 minutes out, Aunt Betty Jane and the girls started talking through the variety of eating options and, after 10\u201315 minutes of deliberation, they agreed upon the best restaurant. But when they arrived in town, Uncle Johnny, who hadn\u2019t said a word, pulled into a different restaurant, got out of the car, and walked silently inside, leaving five dumbfounded women looking at each other and wondering what had just happened.<\/p>\n
That story\u2014at least, a sinister reading of it\u2014came to mind as I tried to process last week\u2019s revelation<\/a> of an amicus brief<\/a> filed in April by legal counsel for the Southern Baptist Convention, the SBC\u2019s Executive Committee, Lifeway Christian Resources, and The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.<\/p>\n The case is Samantha Killary\u2019s lawsuit against the city government of Louisville, Kentucky, where law enforcement employees allegedly enabled her years-long sexual abuse by her father, also a police officer.<\/p>\n No SBC entity is named in the lawsuit. But because it is similar to other lawsuits being brought against the SBC and the Executive Committee in Kentucky, legal counsel apparently advised these entities to file the amicus brief, encouraging the state Supreme Court to exclude \u201cnon-offender third parties\u201d from Kentucky\u2019s recent change in the statute of limitations for abuse claims.<\/p>\n This may protect the SBC from legal liability, but it harms Killary and excuses the institution that hurt her. It is an enormous betrayal to abuse survivors and our allies for accountability within the SBC, and the consequences will\u2014and should\u2014be grave.<\/p>\n In the SBC version of my family\u2019s story, the passengers riding in the car are the abuse survivors and advocates who\u2014following in the footsteps of Christa Brown<\/a>, Debbie Vasquez<\/a>, Dee Ann Miller<\/a>, and others who have demanded change for decades\u2014have been working within the convention since the Houston Chronicle<\/em>\u2019s \u201cAbuse of Faith\u201d investigation<\/a> shocked many Southern Baptists in 2019. That year, Southern Baptists launched a number of anti-abuse programs.<\/p>\n The Caring Well initiative<\/a> and Church Cares curriculum<\/a> were quickly created and made available to equip churches to prevent and address abuse. A resolution passed during the annual meeting that included a specific call<\/a> \u201cto ensure that \u2026 statutes of limitations (criminal and civil) do not unduly protect perpetrators of sexual abuse and individuals who enabled them.\u201d The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission changed its<\/a> fall conference theme to \u201cCaring Well: Equipping the Church to Confront the Abuse Crisis.\u201d<\/p>\n Then, during the 2021 meeting in Nashville, messengers overwhelmingly approved<\/a> a motion calling for a third-party investigation into the mishandling of abuse claims by the Executive Committee. Months later, after contentious pushback, the Executive Committee voted to waive attorney-client privilege so that the investigation<\/a> by Guidepost Solutions could be thorough<\/a>.<\/p>\n As a Southern Baptist pastor<\/a> who has shepherded abuse survivors for 18 years and as a survivor of grooming and abuse by<\/a> SBC conservative resurgence<\/a> luminary Paul Pressler, I counted these steps as major victories.<\/p>\n The genius of Southern Baptist polity\u2014in which any church messenger can make a motion or submit a resolution or propose directives to entity trustees\u2014was finally working in the favor of survivors. While some found the progress to be too little, too late, real energy was stirring. In the back of the car, it seemed like we were finally heading in the right direction.<\/p>\n And then the car pulled into the parking lot of Killary\u2019s case, and the SBC\u2019s considerable legal resources were put to work against<\/em> a survivor\u2019s pursuit of justice and to protect the institution that enabled her abuse.<\/p>\n Not only was this move not discussed by anyone in the car, it was diametrically opposed to every step our gathered convention had affirmed over four years. Here we are\u2014survivors and pastors and therapists and attorneys who thought things were changing for the better\u2014wondering what had just happened.<\/p>\n And lest my driver metaphor sound reductive, let me be clear: This is not a story about an avuncular man being stubborn. This is a story about pure betrayal.<\/p>\n The most insidious element is that we don\u2019t even know who the driver is. Is legal counsel driving the SBC? Is it one of the trustees? Or the presidents of these four entities?<\/p>\n After the brief became public, multiple Executive Committee members said they never knew about it. \u201cNot one SBC Executive Committee trustee was involved in the decision to join this amicus brief,\u201d the committee said in a statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n That statement reports that the brief was approved on \u201cthe advice of legal counsel, and only in response to their request,\u201d but it studiously omits the brief\u2019s origin story. Even the lawyers are let off the hook: \u201cCounsel for the SBC Executive Committee reviewed the brief and recommended it be joined.\u201d If counsel only reviewed it, who wrote it?<\/p>\n SBC president Bart Barber has admitted<\/a> to approving the brief on a short deadline during a busy afternoon of meetings. (\u201cDoes it even lie within the power of the SBC President to make decisions about amici curiae<\/em> unilaterally on behalf of the Convention?\u201d he asks as part of his apology. \u201cI think probably not.\u201d)<\/p>\n But Barber\u2019s statement likewise doesn\u2019t explain where, why, and with whom the brief originated. He simply describes receiving \u201can email from the SBC\u2019s legal team making me aware of this brief and recommending that we join it.\u201d<\/p>\n Who is responsible for this? Who is to blame? Who is driving the SBC, if not our elected and appointed leaders? Who has dismantled, in one legal move, any semblance of institutional trust so many have worked to rebuild? Whoever they are, they apparently feel no need to explain themselves.<\/p>\n I do not claim to speak for every SBC survivor and advocate. But those with whom I have been in contact for the last week feel this betrayal in a visceral way that words strain to capture. Still, let me give it a shot.<\/p>\n Years ago, I heard the (apocryphal, I\u2019m guessing) story about a teen on a mission trip who, when the power went out during a worship service, started to pet the cat that sidled up next to her on the windowsill. Only, when the lights came on, she realized it wasn\u2019t a cat. It was a large, furry tarantula.<\/p>\n Magnify that jump-scare 1,000 times to know the horror of the woman who, years later, realizes her youth pastor didn\u2019t love her when he wanted that special alone time with her. He was raping her.<\/p>\n Inhabit the terrified confusion of the 13-year-old who bravely tells her pastor how a revered deacon touched her, only to be told to forgive him immediately and tell no one else.<\/p>\n Or you can enter the emotional vertigo swirling around me when I pieced together that Pressler didn\u2019t actually want to invest in me as a next generation leader in the battle for the Bible. He just wanted to see me naked\u2014or worse<\/a>.<\/p>\n What every survivor has had to come to terms with is betrayal. It\u2019s betrayal not only by the abuser but by the leaders and community that kept the abuse quiet or refused to ask questions for the sake of the greater \u201cgood.\u201d<\/p>\n