Thoughts and Prayers: The Religion Thread

Christ and critical thinking are incompatible

 

Having one foot in the Tribe, it's gratifying to see the stereotype of young women seeking their MRS as a primary objective of going to school being disproved. Still, that paragraph makes it seem awfully broad. I'd like to know what her sampling process was. Judaism and Christianity both encompass fairly disparate spectrums of faith and lifeways.

 

It depends on the person and their ability to see the nexus points between belief and how it manifests as a component of inquiry into the observed world. There are people who are devout and find the various iterations of evolutionary theory to be profane. There are others who see it as part of the process of the world we have been given. It takes a dual understanding of the Christian Bible as both a political/historic text that might be more political and social commentary than inerrant word and gospel truth as well as an incomplete blueprint for a good life. Don't think I've seen any bit of proclaimed divine writ so far that was 100% consistent or accurate in terms of what we now about the Bronze Age and what came before.

Your mileage may vary.

Speaking as someone who probably went to law school in another timeline, I feel like a portion of the rent I pay to live on this earth is to understand freedom of religion includes freedom from religion.

 

Pretty sure the Caterwauling One's mileage won't.

 

I am more likely to be caterwauling right now. xD

 

Been waiting for this one. Should make some folks around where I live pretty uncomfortable.

Leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention on Sunday released a major third-party investigation that found that sex abuse survivors were often ignored, minimized and “even vilified” by top clergy in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.​

Yeah, no shit.

The findings of nearly 300 pages include shocking new details about specific abuse cases and shine a light on how denominational leaders for decades actively resisted calls for abuse prevention and reform. They also lied to Southern Baptists over whether they could maintain a database of offenders to prevent more abuse when top leaders were secretly keeping a private list for years.​

And if you’re familiar with the Southern Baptist Convention, none of this should surprise you.

The investigation finds that for almost two decades, survivors of abuse and other concerned Southern Baptists have been contacting the Southern Baptist Convention’s administrative arm to report child molesters and other abusers who were in the pulpit or employed as church staff members.​

The report, compiled by an organization called Guidepost Solutions at the request of Southern Baptists, states that abuse survivors’ calls and emails were “only to be met, time and time again, with resistance, stonewalling, and even outright hostility” by leaders who were concerned more with protecting the institution from liability than from protecting Southern Baptists from further abuse.​

This is what happens when you run your church like a corporation.

While the report focuses primarily on how leaders handled abuse issues when survivors came forward, it also states that a major Southern Baptist leader sexually assaulted a woman just one month after he completed his two-year tenure as president of the convention. The report finds that Johnny Hunt, a beloved Georgia-based Southern Baptist pastor who has been a senior vice president at the SBC’s missions arm, was credibly accused of assaulting a woman during a Panama City Beach vacation in 2010.​

Didn’t expect that, but I’m not surprised.

Sex abuse survivors, many of whom have been sharing their stories for years, anticipated Sunday’s release would confirm the facts around many of the stories they have already shared, but many were still surprised to see the pattern of coverups by the highest levels of leadership.​

“I knew it was rotten, but it’s astonishing and infuriating,” said Jennifer Lyell, a survivor who was once the highest-paid female executive at the SBC and whose story of sexual abuse at a Southern Baptist seminary is detailed in the report. “This is a denomination is through and through about power. It is misappropriated power. It does not in any way reflect the Jesus I see in the scriptures. I am so gutted.”​

The Southern Baptist Convention hasn’t reflected Jesus in the Scriptures for at least 40 years, but it’s nice to have it all written down in public.

The report also names several senior SBC leaders who protected and even supported alleged abusers, including three past presidents of the convention, a former vice president and the former head of the SBC’s administrative arm.​

Rotten to the core. As I said, this is what happens when you run your church like a major corporation.

The issue of sex abuse was a prominent theme in leaked private letters written by Russell Moore, who left his position in 2021 as head of the SBC’s policy arm, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. Moore said that he expects Southern Baptists to receive Sunday’s report in a similar way to how Nikita Khrushchev shocked the Soviet Union when he detailed Joseph Stalin’s crimes in a speech in 1956.

“The depths of wickedness and inhumanity in this report are breathtaking,” Moore said. “People will say, ‘This is not all Southern Baptists, look at all the good we do.’ The report demonstrates a pattern of stonewalling, coverup, intimidation and retaliation.”​

Southern Baptist leaders covered up sex abuse, lied about secret database, report says — The Washington Post

 

More coverage:

Southern Baptists Refused to Act on Abuse, Despite Secret List of Pastors

 

Shocked that organized religion is just a Front for grooming children for the voracious sexual assault culture that is white Christian conservatives.

 

Amazing how the guys most interested in policing the sex lives of others so often have their own little something something on the side. And by that I mean not amazing at all.

 

Liked your comment yet felt really gross liking it.

 

I look forward to the people protesting in front of Disney World moving their protests to the local SBC mega-church.

 

I get it. Spent the first three decades of my life immersed in SBC culture. This is a gut shot to me.