NASHVILLE, Tenn. — In May, the Southern Baptist Convention released a list showing hundreds of pastors and church-affiliated personnel accused of sexual abuse. The list was 205 pages long and was previously secret before it was made public in response to an explosive investigation.
Eleven people were named on the list with ties to East Tennessee. At least eight were pastors or youth ministers. On Monday, SBC announced the members of a task force created to help address abuse in churches and support survivors.
The task force is tasked with setting up a "Ministry Check" website to track pastors named in sexual abuse cases. They will also look into making a fund to help survivors and set up a "permanent committee or entity" to address abuse.
“The purpose of this task force is to assist the churches of the Southern Baptist Convention in our efforts to shut the doors of our churches to those who would act as sexual predators and to wrap our arms around survivors and those who love them,” said Bart Barber, president of the SBC.
It is called the Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force and Marshall Blalock, a senior pastor in Charleston, will serve as its chair. Mike Keahbone, a pastor in Lawton, Oklahoma, will be the task force's vice chair. Other members are listed below.
- Todd Benkert, pastor and lead elder of Oak Creek Community Church in Mishawaka, Ind.
- Melissa Bowen, member of First Baptist Church in Prattville, Ala.
- Brad Eubank, senior pastor of Petal First Baptist Church in Petal, Miss.
- Cyndi Lott, member of Catawba Valley Baptist Church in Morganton, N.C.
- Jon Nelson, lead pastor of Soma Community Church in Jefferson City, Mo.
- Jarrett Stephens, senior pastor of Champion Forest Baptist Church in Houston, Texas
- Gregory Wills, a member of Travis Avenue Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas, as well as a professor of church history and Baptist heritage and dean of the School of Theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
The task force will work with consultants, according to a release from the SBC. They would include survivors of clergy sexual abuse, lawyers, other pastors, educators and a person who was the subject of a false accusation of sexual abuse.
The task force will need to report back to the 2023 annual meeting. They would need to tell leadership about which reforms could be feasibly adopted and how they should be implemented, such as a survivor care fund, auditing the "Caring Well" curriculum or building a memorial.
Send Relief announced it would give $3 million to find the first year of work to help address sexual abuse, and another $1 million to create a fund to help survivors get trauma care and train pastors on how to handle trauma.
“The ability to apply the resources and recommendations that this process produces resides with the various autonomous churches that cooperate through the Southern Baptist Convention," Barber said. “We can only be successful as we earn their confidence and supply their needs. I am confident that this task force is well equipped to do just that.”