Dave's Top Eight

1. Jerry Reed...Revisited by Darrell Toney (reviewed 6/07) (5 Stars)
2. Sounds Like Sunday by Janet Paschal (reviewed 5/07) (5 Stars)
3. True To The Call by Kingdom Heirs (reviewed 3/07) (4 1/2 Stars)
4. Revival by Gold City (reviewed 10/06) (4 1/2 Stars)
5. Get Away Jordan by Ernie Haase & Signature Sound (reviewed 2/07) (4 1/2 Stars)
6. Breakin' Chains by Three Bridges (reviewed 5/07) (4 1/2 Stars)
7. Big Sky by The Isaacs (reviewed 4/07)
8. Skywriting by Mercy's Well (reviewed 7/07)

Click title to purchase at CBD.com...click artist name to read Dave's Review. A CD will automatically fall out of the Top Eight after twelve months if no CD surpasses it before then.

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February 23, 2007

Baptist Church Workers Aren't Under SBC Authority

The following is quoted from the New York Times:
The Chicago-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests has started a campaign to call attention to alleged sex abuse committed by Southern Baptist ministers and concealed by churches.

SNAP presented a letter Monday to Southern Baptist Convention executive committee members in Nashville, asking the group to adopt a zero-tolerance policy on sex abuse and to create an independent review board to investigate molestation reports.

Church leaders concede there have been some incidents of abuse in Southern Baptist congregations, but say their hands are tied when it comes to investigating complaints across the denomination.

Unlike the Catholic Church, with its rigid hierarchy, Baptist churches are independent. They make their own decisions about hiring ministers and conducting investigations, Baptist leaders say.

''They don't want to see this problem,'' said Christa Brown, a SNAP member from Austin, Texas, who says she was sexually abused as a child by a Southern Baptist minister. ''That's tragic because they're imitating the same mistakes made by Catholic bishops.''

The article goes on at length about how the Southern Baptist Convention supposedly doesn't want to deal with this issue, even though the SBC has already done as much as its level of authority (none) allows it to do, and that is to advise. The situation has been clearly explained more than once to SNAP. Southern Baptist churches volunteer their participation in the SBC. All SBC churches are independent entities. The SBC as a whole answers to the churches, not the other way around. The same applies for state Baptist conventions as well as local Baptist Associations. The only entity that has authority over a staff member at a Baptist church is the church itself, and even then, all they can do is fire the person and cooperate with law enforcement to see that they are properly prosecuted.

This concept is so foreign to the world at large, even when it's abundantly and plainly spelled out, the people who ought be hearing it instead stick their fingers in their ears and chant, "La la la la la."

Child molesters need to be removed from churches. Everything that can be done should be done. But asking the SBC to exercise authority over a local church when it has no legal right to exercise some sort of authority makes no sense at all.

I'm on the staff of a Southern Baptist church. The SBC doesn't have the authority to force me to lift a pencil, much less submit to a review that might result in disciplinary action. Neither does the state convention. Neither does the local association of Southern Baptist churches.

In the past, the SBC has passed resolutions that may have seemed to speak for all member churches as far as the mainstream press is concerned...a boycott of Disney, for example...but it has always been up to each church to go along.

SBC churches don't even have to pay dues to the convention in order to maintain membership. All that is required is that they be a member of a local SBC association, and some member churches choose not to donate to the local association.

The SBC has done everything it can with regard to advising and educating local churches regarding this problem. I'm sure the convention will continue to provide advice in the future as well. Trying to shame the SBC into overstepping their authority makes no rational sense.

The SBC already encourages background checks before hiring a staff member and encourages churches to cooperate openly and fully with law enforcement whenever there's an accusation of abuse or molestation. The church where I attend is in the process of writing policy that would require background checks even on people who simply volunteer to work with children and youth.

I completely admire and support SNAP's cause, but they've gone about this backwards. As foreign as the concept may be to someone coming from a Catholic or even a United Methodist background, church staff members, including everyone from the senior pastor to the piano player, answer to the congregation in a Southern Baptist church.

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posted by David Bruce Murray @ 12:00:00 PM


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