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One of the biggest religion stories of the summer centers on the Southern Baptist Convention, the country’s largest Protestant group. In May, the denomination released a shocking report detailing leaders’ mishandling of a sexual abuse crisis. A month later, delegates at the group’s annual convention voted to enact some sweeping reforms.
Then, on Friday, a new twist arrived: Southern Baptist leaders confirmed that the denomination’s handling of the sexual abuse crisis is being investigated by the Department of Justice.
“The investigation will include multiple SBC entities. Individually and collectively each SBC entity is resolved to fully and completely cooperate,” a statement from the Southern Baptist Convention’s executive committee said.
One of the first questions that popped into my mind when I saw news of the investigation was, “Has this happened before?” It seemed unusual for the federal government to get so deeply involved in church affairs.
I still don’t have a firm grasp of the legal landscape, but, after doing some research this weekend, I realized that the Justice Department launched a very similar investigation in October 2018, two months after a Pennsylvania grand jury released a bombshell report showing that “more than 300 Catholic priests in Pennsylvania had sexually abused children over seven decades,” according to The Washington Post.
As part of that investigation, the U.S. attorney’s office in Philadelphia interviewed and collected files from Catholic leaders across the state. However, they weren’t able to achieve much beyond that.
In its first two years, the investigation led to just a single arrest, The Associated Press reported in 2020. Robert Brennan, a defrocked priest in his 80s, was “charged with lying to FBI agents who showed up at his door,” the article noted.
In the new investigation focused on Southern Baptists, it’s not yet clear what kinds of charges the Justice Department is hoping to bring, as Christianity Today reported. But the statement from the executive committee says that authorities are looking into a number of entities tied to the church.
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Term of the week: Lambeth Conference
The Lambeth Conference is a gathering of Anglican bishops from around the world that happens about once a decade. The faith leaders involved discuss what’s going on in their part of the world, talk through theological challenges and share tips and tricks.
“For many of the bishops attending, this is a rare opportunity to meet with their peers from around the world, as they learn from one another and share their ministry experiences,” the website for this year’s conference explains.
This year’s Lambeth Conference took place earlier this month in the United Kingdom and brought together around 650 bishops, including about 100 from the Episcopal Church in the United States. “The conference, meeting for the first time in 14 years, was supposed to be an attempt to bring the Anglican Communion together,” Religion News Service reported.
However, much of the reporting on this year’s gathering focused on conflict, rather than reconnection. Articles, including the one from RNS, highlighted the tense debate over same-sex marriage, which pitted more liberal bishops from the West against more conservative bishops from the Global South.
In the end, the group of faith leaders seemed to find a way to agree to disagree.
“There was some movement on the willingness of the bishops to respect our differences but at the same time hold fast to our respective convictions. I think that is a healthy thing because for people to be able to stay in relationship with profound differences is a kind of diversity. And we think diversity is a good thing,” said the Rev. Michael Curry, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church, to Religion News Service.
What I’m reading ...
Have you ever wondered why few surveys from Pew Research Center include the views of members of smaller faith groups, including The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? Researcher Besheer Mohamed published a post last week explaining the limits of Pew’s religion research.
Some Catholics probably laugh when they hear about pop singer Britney Spears’ interest in Catholicism, but Jim McDermott takes it seriously. In a recent column for America, he used the story of Spears’ interest in getting married in a Catholic Church to reflect on whether faith leaders are doing enough to accommodate unexpected or unusual requests.
I was delighted to see a story on “the gospel according to Dungeons & Dragons” in Christianity Today last week.
Odds and ends
I forgot to share some good news last week: I’m a finalist in Religion News Association’s 2022 contest. So is my colleague Mya Jaradat!
You might have heard that tennis legend Serena Williams announced that she’s retiring soon. But did you know her “spiritual goals” played a role in her decision?