by William Thornton » Sat Jan 02, 2010 9:59 am
No, I don't expect the SBC at a national level to take the steps advocated by Christa Brown and others, We've discussed it at lenght in the past but a system where the SBC at a national level (or even state level) assumes responsibility for personnel that they do not hire, supervise, set standards for, policies for, or fire is not realistic.
Christa's number three above ("an efficient means of assuring that the assesment information reaches people in the pews -- i.e., a database") is one I don't see a problem with, although I doubt such a database would be much more efficient in informing the 40k+ churches but I do believe that the money spent on that would be as helpful to the SBC as a couple of new high-level positions that the Executive Committee has added in the past decade or so.
As far as change goes, the difference between the SBC of 2000 and 2010 is quite noticeable. Here in Georgia, we pastors get a steady diet of material, policy recommendations concerning this. A church cannot participate in any GBC stuff that involves kids or kid ministry without a heavy dose of sexual abuse checks and policies.
I rather think that clergy sexual abuse is certainly one of the top ten stories of the decade past.
I'd be interested in what folks think the new decade will bring on this? Some states already have their own abuser files (though, as Christa often reminds us, the Texas one is a 'secret' file). The CBF in Alabama has a formal policy together with an investigative group. ABP never misses a story on SBC clergy sexual abuse.
My stray thoughts on SBC stuff may be found at my blog,