The Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee has voted to create a department that will be dedicated to tackling and preventing sexual abuse within congregations.
SBC EC Trustees voted Tuesday to approve a recommendation to create the department, following up a vote from the SBC Annual Meeting in June that called for a permanent entity for sex abuse response and prevention.
Jeff Iorg, the recently installed president and CEO of the SBC Executive Committee, said the efforts to create a department stemmed from conversations with the Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force earlier this year.
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“We have had two task forces that have done difficult and hard work,” Iorg told committee members, as quoted by The Baptist Press, the official news organ of the SBC.
“But it’s time to stop talking about what we’re going to do and take an initial, strategic step of action that puts into place an administrative response to this issue.”
The initial funding for the new department will derive from funds given by Send Relief in 2022 meant for sexual abuse reforms in the SBC, which BP reported is approximately $1.8 million.
“This is not the final step by any means, but it is the first step,” Iorg continued. “Things can still evolve out of this initial decision. But this decision starts us on a path — a concrete, specific action and is a workable solution, or at least the beginning point of one.”
In recent years, SBC leaders have been accused of failing to properly handle credible allegations of sexual abuse in its member congregations.
In 2022, an extensive investigation report from Guidepost Solutions concluded that SBC leaders mishandled sexual abuse allegations, engaged in a pattern of intimidation of victims and resisted efforts to make churches safer mostly to avoid legal liability.
Later that year, the U.S. Department of Justice opened an investigation into the SBC regarding the allegations, with which the convention vowed to cooperate.
In March, The Tennessean reported that the DOJ decided not to file any charges against SBC officials for lack of evidence.
In May, the DOJ filed a charge against former Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary evangelism professor and provost Matthew Queen, accusing him of falsifying records related to the investigation of the school’s handling of sexual abuse allegations.
Last year, a civil lawsuit was filed against the Executive Committee and multiple SBC member congregations, accusing them of violating the Racketeers Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. The plaintiffs later voluntarily dismissed their complaint in May.
