Leaders in the Souther Baptist Convention cover up decades of sexual abuse by ministers and other leaders.
Prestonwood Baptist Church's Jack Graham became the senior pastor in 1989.According to the report, abuse survivors and other concerned Southern Baptists had been contacting the SBC and their Executive Committee to report alleged child molesters and other abusers employed by the church or on the pulpit for over two decades.
The SBC leaders in the Executive Committee and their legal council controlled the response to the allegations and “were singularly focused on avoiding liability for the SBC,” according to the report. The investigation looked at more than two decades of allegations from Jan. 1, 2000, through June 14, 2021, and conducted upward of 300 interviews, finding mishandling of allegations by the EC, a pattern of intimidation of victims and their advocates, resistance to reform initiatives and mistreatment of victims.
One senior staff member, D. August “Augie” Boto, the EC general counsel and at one point interim president, said in an internal email that the sexual abuse was the work of the devil.