{"id":295657,"date":"2019-02-10T22:58:29","date_gmt":"2019-02-11T03:58:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/?p=295657"},"modified":"2019-02-10T22:58:29","modified_gmt":"2019-02-11T03:58:29","slug":"its-everywhere-investigation-finds-700-victims-of-southern-baptist-sex-abuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/deaconsbench\/2019\/02\/its-everywhere-investigation-finds-700-victims-of-southern-baptist-sex-abuse\/","title":{"rendered":"It’s Everywhere: Investigation Finds 700 Victims of Southern Baptist Sex Abuse"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a>
Pixabay\/Public Domain<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

From The Washington Post:\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

\u201c20 years, 700 victims\u201d<\/p>\n

So reads part of the headline of a sweeping\u00a0investigation<\/a>\u00a0that has found years of sexual abuse perpetrated by hundreds of Southern Baptist church leaders against an even larger number of victims.<\/p>\n

The Houston Chronicle<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0the San Antonio Express-News<\/a>\u00a0reported that nearly 400 Southern Baptist church leaders and volunteers have faced sexual misconduct allegations in the past two decades. As many as 700 victims \u2014 some as young as 3 \u2014 were sexually abused, some raped and molested repeatedly, according to the report.<\/p>\n

But instead of ensuring that sexual predators were kept at bay, the Southern Baptist Convention resisted policy changes, the newspapers found. Victims accused church leaders of mishandling their complaints, even hiding them from the public. While the majority of abusers have been convicted of sex crimes and are registered sex offenders, the investigation found that at least three dozen pastors, employees and volunteers who showed predatory behavior still worked at churches.<\/p>\n

The revelations, published Sunday, have not only led to a chorus of condemnation and calls for restructuring, but have also pushed church leaders to grapple with the troubling history \u2014 and future \u2014 of the largest Protestant denomination in the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe must admit that our failures, as churches, put these survivors in a position where they were forced to stand alone and speak, when we should have been fighting for them,\u201d J.D. Greear, who was elected president of the Southern Baptist Convention last summer, said on Twitter. \u201cTheir courage is exemplary and prophetic. But I grieve that their courage was necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n

The investigation comes amid a string of recent allegations of widespread sexual abuse by Catholic priests and coverups by the church hierarchy. Just a few days earlier, Pope Francis\u00a0acknowledged<\/a>\u00a0that members of the Catholic clergy had abused nuns for years.<\/p>\n

The Southern Baptist Convention, a fellowship of more than 47,000 Baptist churches and 15 million members across the United States and its territories, is the country\u2019s second-largest faith group after the Catholic Church.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Read it all.\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From The Washington Post:\u00a0 \u201c20 years, 700 victims\u201d So reads part of the headline of a sweeping\u00a0investigation\u00a0that has found years of sexual abuse perpetrated by hundreds of Southern Baptist church leaders against an even larger number of victims. The Houston Chronicle\u00a0and\u00a0the San Antonio Express-News\u00a0reported that nearly 400 Southern Baptist church leaders and volunteers have faced […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":132,"featured_media":290640,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[246,12352],"class_list":["post-295657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ripped-from-the-headlines","tag-church-sex-abuse","tag-southern-baptist"],"yoast_head":"\nIt's Everywhere: Investigation Finds 700 Victims of Southern Baptist Sex Abuse<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"From The Washington Post:\u00a0 \u201c20 years, 700 victims\u201d So reads part of the headline of a sweeping\u00a0investigation\u00a0that has found years of sexual abuse\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, 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