For two decades, music minister David Pierce was able “to sexually victimize scores of boys” at the prominent First Baptist Church of Benton in Arkansas.
Now, thanks to statute of limitations reform in Arkansas, some of those boys may see a bit of justice. They’ve filed a civil lawsuit.
The lawsuit names not only the church but also the SBC, the SBC Executive Committee, the Arkansas Baptist State Convention, and the Central Baptist Association.
Hallelujah.
How did Pierce get away with it for so long?
That was the question pondered by reporter David Koon when he wrote about the criminal prosecution of Pierce back in 2009. The answer rested in the minimizing responses of the church’s senior pastor, other church leaders, Baptist officials, and community leaders.
In the criminal case, Pierce had been charged with 54 counts of sexual indecency with children, and in a plea bargain, he pled guilty to four counts. But even after news spread that dozens of boys may have been victimized, “some of Benton’s most powerful citizens” wrote letters to the prosecutor and the judge, urging leniency for Pierce in the sentencing. They cited Pierce’s “devotion to the congregation” and urged that he should receive only probation, and no prison time.
The civil lawsuit alleges that senior pastor Rick Grant had been informed of Pierce’s abusive conduct as far back as November 2008 but initially kept Pierce on the job.
After receiving two troubling reports, Grant took another church official with him and confronted Pierce. Pierce “didn’t deny any of the allegations.”
Despite that, Grant didn’t fire Pierce; nor did he report Pierce to the police. Instead, Grant told Pierce to apologize, to ask forgiveness, and to provide him with the names of all the boys he’d had “inappropriate contact” with.
Pierce gave Grant a list of twelve names.
Twelve.
Grant still did nothing.
Not until Grant heard from yet another victim did he fire Pierce. And even then, he minimized Pierce’s conduct, telling the congregation that Pierce was terminated for “moral failures.”
If you want a better idea of what constituted the “inappropriate contact” and “moral failures,” here’s an excerpt from Frank Lockwood’s reporting on the civil lawsuit’s allegations. They’re nauseating.
Finally a younger victim stepped forward who was still within the statute of limitations for criminal prosecution. So, a criminal investigation ensued.
In the process of the criminal investigation, still more young men came forward with harrowing reports of what Pierce had done to them as kids. Many of the young men had spent their 20s and 30s struggling—some with wrecked marriages and others with substance abuse problems.
Still, church and community leaders continued to betray them.
Even after Pierce pled guilty, people minimized it. Two-term Arkansas Baptist State Convention president Greg Kirksey wrote a letter urging no prison time for Pierce.
Between 2009 and 2011, I put up ten blog postings about the boys of Benton. I was haunted by their suffering, and by the reckless, callous responses of church and denominational leaders. I still am.
Why aren’t more Southern Baptists haunted by what was done to those boys in Benton?
The horror of it rests not only on the sexual abuse inflicted on so many boys for so long, but also on the countless complicit enablers who turned a blind eye and acted as though it were no big deal. In all these years, it seems the church has never truly reckoned with that reality.
Pastor Rick Grant’s abysmal response to child sex abuse was reported on back in 2009 when Pierce faced criminal charges. Plenty of people knew. Yet there was never any consequence for Grant. He has remained the church’s senior pastor for all these years.
Now he’s announced his retirement, and the church is going to throw him a party.
Thank you for telling the truth, over and over. Let justice roll down like thunder.
This is outrageous, infuriating, and utterly heartbreaking.
Reckless, callous, minimizing, blind, complicit and enabling should not be words that characterize the response of the church to horrific, life-shattering abuse, and yet this is what we get, in seeming endless repetition.
May justice come.