AUDIO SHOWS SO. BAPTIST LEADERS DITHERING ON SEX ABUSE QUIZ

Newly released audio clips from a Southern Baptist whistleblower appear to corroborate accusations Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) leaders were reluctant to take action against churches accused of mishandling abuse, Bob Smietana and Adelle M. Banks reported for the Religious News Service (RNS).

The audio contains a recording of Ronnie Floyd, president of the SBC’s Executive Committee, telling SBC leaders in an October 2019 meeting that he is concerned about preserving the base in the denomination — even if that leads to criticism from abuse survivors.

“As you think through strategy — and I am not concerned about anything survivors can say,” Floyd says in the recording, taken during a meeting to debrief the Caring Well Conference, held to address the handling of sexual abuse allegations within the SBC.

“OK. I am not worried about that. I’m thinking the base. I just want to preserve the base.”

The audio also contains a May 2019 recording of Georgia pastor Mike Stone, a leading 2021 candidate for SBC president, saying a working group deciding how to deal with churches accused of mishandling sexual abuse had been “bullied” and “thrown under the bus,” the Associated Press (AP) also reported.

“There’s this human factor, where good people are thrown under the bus, trying to do their best,” he said during an Atlanta meeting on sexual abuse. “And now we are asking the group to trust some of the ones who threw them under the bus.”

The recordings and a “whistleblower report,” released by Texas pastor Phillip Bethancourt, reveal more details about the divides between SBC leaders over how to deal with sexual abuse in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

The report comes on the heels of the leaking of two letters from former SBC ethicist Russell Moore, who resigned recently as president of the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), detailing his disagreements with Stone and other SBC leaders.

In his letter, Bethancourt said he made the recordings of meetings involving Moore, Stone — who was then chair of the SBC’s Executive Committee — and Floyd in 2019. At the time, Bethancourt was on the staff of the ERLC.

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