Matt Queen's Return to the Pastorate Sends a Message: Sexual Abuse Coverup? No Big Deal
In October 2024, Matt Queen pled guilty to lying to the FBI in a sexual abuse investigation, and now, just a year later, Queen has been hired as a staff pastor at a prominent Southern Baptist church.
At the time of his crime, Queen was a professor and administrator at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He was accused of falsifying records, providing false information to law enforcement, and trying to mislead investigators about the facts concerning a reported sexual assault at that Southern Baptist institution.
It’s worth noting that Queen also exploited God to try to legitimize his lies. He claimed that God had spoken to him in a dream, causing him to change his testimony to the FBI.
As prosecutors pointed out, Queen offered “evolving explanations for his conduct,” but when he finally pled guilty, shortly before a scheduled trial date, another Southern Baptist pastor, Matt Henslee, wrote to the judge to urge leniency in the sentencing.
In his letter, Henslee described the actions of Queen as “a mistake,” and he urged the judge “to consider dropping everything or reducing the charge so he can continue serving as a minister.” (Thanks to
for digging up this letter.)
Thus, from the get-go, Henslee conveyed a view that Queen’s actions were really no big deal. He wanted “everything” dropped so that Queen could continue as a minister.
The judge, however, had a more serious view of the matter. During sentencing, Judge Lewis Kaplan rebuked Queen:
“This is a crime in which you falsified evidence, you lied about the evidence, you lied about facts other than the creation of the phony evidence, and you did it over a period of months, and you did one or the other of these things several times. It wasn’t a mistake. It was a plan. And you carried it out until it became clear to you that it was simply not going to fly.”
The judge sentenced Queen to one year of probation with six months of home confinement wearing an ankle monitor. That time ended in September, and shortly after, Queen was hired by the church where Henslee is senior pastor, Plymouth Park Baptist Church in Irving, Texas. Henslee recommended Queen.
Thus, Henslee got his wish: Queen will continue as a pastor.
Despite Queen’s lies. Despite Queen’s disdain for the seriousness of sexual assault. Despite Queen’s corrupt effort to protect the institution through falsity.
I wish I could help people see this through the eyes of clergy sex abuse survivors.
What we see is yet another example of the good old boys protecting their own. What we see is yet another example of an entrenched system that holds neither predators nor their enablers accountable.
What we see is yet another example of this powerful institution – the Southern Baptist Convention – telling us by its actions that what was done to us doesn’t really matter and that what is far more important is the perpetuation of a man’s ministerial career.
Most clergy sex abuse survivors say that the greatest harm was done, not by the abuse itself, but by the way so many others in the faith community responded. And actions always speak louder than words.
I don’t doubt that, if asked, Matt Henslee would say that he’s against all forms of abuse. But his actions speak louder. His actions shout a message that says: “Sexual abuse coverup? No big deal.”
Though there have been countless reported cases of pastors and churches that covered up sexual abuse, few face any consequence at all, and a criminal conviction for a coverup is extremely rare. So, it is disheartening indeed to see that even a criminal conviction will not deter the recycling of an abuse cover-upper into another position of trust as a Southern Baptist pastor.
It’s also dangerous. This pattern of recycling cover-uppers is part of why I say that children are not safe in the Southern Baptist Convention – because so long as there are no institutional consequences for abuse cover-uppers, the abuse perpetrators will persist.
This news about Queen’s hiring comes on the heels of news about the Southern Baptist Convention’s plan for five webinars on abuse prevention and response. The first webinar was held on October 14, and it was led by a man named Robert Showers.
Showers was previously an attorney for the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism (ABWE) which had a missionary named Donn Ketcham who was accused of sexually abusing many young girls and women over the course of two decades. With an outside investigation, the reports of 18 child victims and 5 adult victims were corroborated. That’s just the ones we now know about.
How did Ketcham’s abuses stay concealed for so long?
According to the investigatory report, ABWE “lied about and hid the existence of hundreds of documents pertaining to Ketcham at the direction of ABWE attorney Robert Showers.”
Do you see the parallel?
Unlike Matt Queen, Robert Showers has not been criminally convicted, but his abuse coverup actions are nevertheless documented. According to investigators, Showers directed the concealment of a massive amount of evidence related to a missionary’s sexual abuse.
And now, like Queen, Showers is given a new platform within the Southern Baptist Convention.
It’s yet another institutional action that shouts this message: Sexual abuse coverup? No big deal.
Thanks to Baptist News Global for picking up this column and running it here. (BNG is NOT affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.
For more on the ruses and maneuvers of the Southern Baptist Convention, check out my book, Baptistland: A Memoir of Abuse, Betrayal, and Transformation.
At this point it's more than the SBC minimizing abuse and its coverup. The leaders are actively rewarding those who engage in coverups, rewarding that attitude of "protect the church" over "protect the people."
Even a criminal conviction doesn't matter because the crimes never mattered to them. The fact that they keep moving the goal posts of 'what is bad enough to have consequences' exposes the truth of what they really believe vs. what they say.