An epidemic of violence and broken lives. Leaders fail or refuse to respond. And the most vulnerable bear the cost of inaction.
While this story line describes the wave of mass shootings we’ve witnessed recently, it also summarizes another tragedy, described in an investigative report released, coincidentally, just days before the Uvalde massacre. In this case, the violence was perpetrated by ministers, the victims were members of their flock, and the leaders were senior officials in the nation’s second-largest Christian denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).
Released on May 22, the report details the findings of an independent investigation into how the SBC dealt with sexual abuse within its ranks over the past two decades. Though the report focuses on a single religious group, there are lessons here for all of us, Baptist and non-Baptist, religious and non-religious.
