Baptist church: Members and staff are forbidden from trashing us in public

Proposed by-laws at Immanuel Baptist Church in Arkansas would prohibit members from harming the church's reputation in the press

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A Southern Baptist church that’s been accused of covering up allegations of child sexual abuse committed by its staff has finally proposed a solution to make sure it never happens again: Members and staffers will have to sign paperwork pledging never to speak to the media if it makes the church look bad.

The problems have been building up at Immanuel Baptist Church in Little Rock, Arkansas for years now.

According to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Patrick Stephen Miller, the church’s Assistant Director of Children’s Ministry from 2014 to 2016, was accused of sexual abuse by three separate women. (He had apparently “fondled and sexually abused multiple elementary-age girls after grooming them through games of ‘hide and seek’ where they would be locked in darkened rooms at the church.”) In 2019, he was charged with second-degree sexual assault by one of them and later pleaded guilty to misdemeanor harassment. This past June, in another case, he pleaded not guilty of charges of sexual assault and kidnapping. And in September, the third victim came forward with her allegations, though no charges have yet been filed in that case.

Another former church volunteer, Reagan Danielle Gray, was also accused of sexually assaulting a high school boy, but she has pleaded not guilty.

If you were the leader of the church, there’s pretty much a standard playbook for how to handle these situations. You publicly apologize, you explain how you’re going to do better with background checks, you give church members a safe way to come forward with any other stories they might have about the accused staffers (preferably with the help of an independent third party), etc.

That’s not what church leaders did at Immanuel.

Pastor Steven Smith (screenshot via YouTube)

Pastor Steven Smith didn’t tell his congregation about any of the allegations against Miller until last December—long after they had been made and several years after he had known about them—and the only reason he did it then was because the local newspaper had just reported that Miller tried to have his criminal record sealed. In other words, he told his congregation only after the story had gone public.

And while Smith had told the congregation about Gray, he insisted the allegations were, as the Democrat-Gazette put it, “noncriminal in nature.” (That’s not true.)

It got worse. Smith told his leadership team they would handle any future abuse reports with the help of an outside party… but that party would have to sign a non-disclosure agreement that withheld information from many of the church’s own leaders. Also, it would not be an independent party investigating the allegations. Instead, it would be a lawyer who worked for the church’s insurance provider.

All of that infuriated some of the church leaders enough that there was a mini-revolt.

The deacons were going to cast a vote of no-confidence against Smith at a meeting in February, but that was tabled. Instead, they were asked to sign a “recommitment form”—basically pledging to stand behind the church no matter what. Eight of the deacons quit rather than sign what they felt was a “loyalty oath” to Smith.

They spoke with reporters about how they felt, too, and that turned out to be the last straw for Smith. He was so furious about the bad reputation his church was acquiring that he apparently told the deacons, “I can’t have trust restored if people inside the church are talking to the newspaper.” As if that was the problem and not the way Smith was mishandling everything.

A month later, Smith announced his resignation. But by the time he finally left, “hundreds of members” had already walked out the doors, disgusted by his actions.

It was all a huge mess. That was largely due to Smith’s awful leadership. But some of it could also be blamed on the fact that they were all flying by the seats of their pants this entire time because there were no policies in place for how to handle allegations of misconduct.

So now, for the first time in the megachurch’s 132-year history, the deacons have drafted by-laws. A set of rules for everyone to follow. For example, if there’s any suspected child abuse, all staffers and members must report it to the Arkansas Child Abuse Hotline, which is run by the state. (That’s good! That’s important!)

But this is the section (permanent link) that’s getting all the attention:

Church members are expected to avoid making statements to the general public, media, or via the Internet with intent to breach Church business confidentialities, injure the reputation of the Church, or disregard Jesus’ imperative to love one another as He loves us so that others will know we are His disciples (John 13:34-35)

You know, it could be argued that putting public pressure on the church (by leaking information about its inability to handle allegations of abuse, for example) is an act of love… but that’s obviously not what they think.

(Also worth pointing out? The section before that says the resolution should occur internally and those options should be “completely exhausted before bringing parties outside the Church into an intra-Church matter.” It also cites 1 Corinthians 6:1-7, a passage in the Bible that says those outside parties are “ungodly” or “unrighteous.” They say that even though secular authorities were the only reason any action was taken against the church’s predators.)

If this rule goes into effect, consider what would happen if church members wanted to let people know about something awful that happened during a service. If they speak to their neighbors about it, or leave a critical Facebook post, or talk to a reporter about it, they could be kicked out of the congregation. (Ironically, there’s nothing in the by-laws about how excommunication would work except to say it would meet “biblical requirements and principles.”)

What if a church member wants to go public about the abuse suffered at the hands of a church employee? Given this church’s history, no one should have any confidence that it would be taken seriously if handled internally.

What even constitutes “business confidentialities”? What counts as “intent”? Why is maintaining the church’s “reputation”—no matter what—a requirement for membership or employment? Whistle-blowing shouldn’t be punished, especially when the goal is to make the church a better place. Sometimes it takes airing out the dirty laundry for churches to fix themselves. That was certainly the case with the abuse allegations.

This rule is also not common when it comes to churches like these. When the Democrat-Gazette spoke to former Southern Baptist Convention president Bart Barber about it, he was surprised: “That’s the first I have ever seen of a mention of the media in governing documents.”

For now, the by-laws haven’t been enacted. Church members will be voting on whether they should adopt these rules on November 17. Before then, the church website says, deacons are listening to feedback and open to changing aspects of it. An updated version is scheduled to go up by November 7.

Either they go all in on silencing critics within the church and go down the cult pathway, or they admit that public scrutiny might be warranted even if it’s unpleasant.

This shouldn’t be a difficult choice. But this is a conservative church so who knows which option they’ll go with.

(via Julie Roys)

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