Clergy Sex Abuse and "the Silence of the Many"

Some MLK Day Reflections

“True evil lies not in the depraved act of the one, but in the silence of the many.”

Today, I’m contemplating these words, attributed to a Baptist preacher, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (Wes Candela photo)

In countless stories of clergy sex abuse, we have seen the tragic truth of King’s words made manifest. Even with childhood histories of having endured horrific depraved acts – of having been molested, raped and sodomized by pastors wielding God as a weapon – many survivors have said that the worst of their experience came when they tried to tell about the abuse within the faith community.

That was when they faced “the silence of the many.”

That was when the relational fabric of community, and often even of family, was torn asunder.

That was when faith itself was deemed a fraud.

Within the Southern Baptist Convention, church after church has stood, not in solidarity with those who have been abused by clergy, but rather, with the accused minister-molesters. Some have stood with the ministers even when they admit their soul-murdering deeds, and even when they have been criminally convicted.

Church leaders have quietly allowed accused preacher-predators – even those with multiple accusations — to hop to new churches – and to do so repeatedly.

Denominational leaders have sat back and claimed powerlessness. Again and again, they have stayed silent, not only about pastors reported for abuse but also about pastors who covered up abuse allegations.

The unmistakable message of so much silence and do-nothingness is that, among Southern Baptists, clergy sex abuse is treated as “no big deal.”

I’m reminded of more words from MLK:

“In the midst of blatant injustices…churchmen stand on the sideline and mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities.”

And it’s all performative.

With no accountability mechanism for abusive pastors, and with a denominational “helpline” that functions more as a theater piece, the Southern Baptist Convention has ossified into a structure that protects the institution and sidelines survivors.

It is a faith group in which quiet complicity is the engine of oppression.

And it is the complicity of the many that moves the problem beyond the abuses of individual pastors and into the realm of the systemic. The institutional structure fosters the silence and allows rampant clergy sex abuse to persist.

No one in denominational offices will take responsibility for assuring that clergy abuse allegations will be responsibly heard, or even that any records will be kept.

As a practical matter, because the vast majority of child sex abuse allegations cannot be criminally prosecuted, this means a Southern Baptist preacher can probably find a pulpit to stand in, so long as he is not literally sitting in prison. There is no denominational office that will stop him.

Even when a minister has hopped through multiple churches with multiple allegations, Southern Baptist leaders pretend that it is better to not know.

They refuse the common-sense safeguard of a database system for sharing that information.

Denominational leaders claim their hands are tied by Southern Baptists’ congregationalist polity. In effect, they assert an “it’s our religion” rationalization.

However, some have realized that this is not truly a stance based on religion. Rather, it is based on the weighing of liability issues. In effect, it’s a business decision. As David Roozen, director of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research at Hartford Seminary, explained: “If the organizing body of a denomination claims no responsibility for supervising, or even ordaining clergy, it may be harder to hold it responsible when a pastor molests a child.”

Southern Baptist leaders have weighed the liability issues and have come down on the side of prioritizing the protection of denominational offices rather than the protection of kids.

Other major faith groups – including some congregationalist faith groups – have come down on the side of seeking to protect kids via the implementation of review boards to independently assess credible abuse allegations and keep records on them. While sometimes problematic, such review boards can potentially provide a first step toward denominationally hearing the voices of those abused by clergy.

But for Southern Baptists, this first step remains untaken. They stand on an island of inertia and choose instead the cruelty of indifference.

The result is that Baptist church kids are being ravaged, not only by the sexual abuse of many pastors, but also by the denomination’s complicit silence.

The rationalization by which the denomination cloaks its do-nothingness is of little consequence, and this is true even when that rationalization is called “religion.”

The end of power remains the same — to protect the status quo. If Southern Baptists want to responsibly engage their faith with respect to clergy sex abuse, they must start by considering the silent complicity of their own church and denominational structures. They must respond from a position of compassion and care rather than from a position of power.

But of course, by now, we have seen time and again that they won’t.

Tomorrow, plenty of Baptist pastors will pimp the words of MLK in order to primp their own vaunted self-image. And all the while, their lack of action will continue to render them complicit in widespread abuses.

For more on the ruses and maneuvers of the Southern Baptist Convention, check out my book, Baptistland: A Memoir of Abuse, Betrayal, and Transformation.