When it comes to child predators, many often think of the Catholic Church,
given their worldwide epidemic of child sexual assault that spans centuries. Likewise, Christian
religious organizations in the United States are no stranger to abuses against children. And
that's not the only thing they're strangers too, because, despite insisting that reforms
are underway, the Southern Baptist Convention has failed to guarantee the safety of children
after pledging long term protections and safety measures. Strangely, they are also strangers
to fixing the internal threat that they pose to innocent children. To put it
bluntly, this is yet another example of how religion is unsafe for the youth.
This story is entitled how many churches use background checks? It's from Baptist's
Standard by Bob Smeatana on May twentieth, twenty twenty four. Eli. You
know, given the challenges that have the Southern Baptist Convention not complying with their
own safeguards, what kind of challenges actually are there for them to do so?
So, so, what it seems like is that this Southern Baptist Convention
is is kind of what's uh, the body that is kind of preventing the
progress, so to speak. So there was established a secondary nonprofit called the
Abuse Response Committee and that's tend to oversee the website ministry check dot org.
I believe it might have been dot com and that was intended basically to be
a database of like when you can search like clergymen, pastors, and and
to see their background information and have they ever been convicted of anything? And
the ARC has. They claim to have one hundred names vetted and ready to
publish, with more ready to vet once the website is successfully launched, but
they are being halted by the Southern Baptist Convention. They have concerns with like
liabilities and UH and and it seems as if they also have concerns with like
just keeping money. They don't want to lose support or they there was even
some mention of not wanting to have to pay out UH damages or have an
having to pay out lawsuits or settlements because of things that might have might arise
as a result of the information people will. So it seems like the SBC
themselves are what's stopping it. They've contributed zero funding to the task The task
force raised seventy five thousand by themselves and They even the SBC actually pledged nearly
four million dollars to assist churches with abuse reform, but they said that none
of that money can be given to the Abuse Response Committee, that the committee
that's running that website. So I think that's where it looks like they're sitting
right now. Yeah, so it looks like, you know, they've come
out and said, hey, we need to do these things to fix the
internal threat to children, but then they're not doing those things because it would
just make life difficult for that church, wouldn't it. Yeah, insurance reasons
were cited. Not only do they have to pay pay out to abuse victims,
but maybe even have to pay high premiums. I mean, who's going
to ensure a church that would have a record of abuse in their church?
Siddy, I want to ask you, you know, when it comes to
submitting to background chess, because this this article largely centered on our church is
using background checks like they say they're going to do in the SBC. But
if they were to do that, is this an admission of guilt in anyway?
I mean, if not individually, you know, then in representing the
faith itself, so is saying yeah, you can check us out an admission
that maybe there's something wrong, if anything, what they should do. If
they were smart, even if they even if let's just say they're this you
know, dark dark entity, if they were smart, they would say,
come in and background check everybody, because that would show we're not afraid.
We stand with God if somebody comes up. You know, we're praying that
if somebody comes up on this list, God showed us for a reason,
and we're gonna do what we need to do with that person, you know,
which probably means just like paid administrative leave until they like forget what their
face looks like, and then they can come back. But if they were
smart, if they really wanted to keep things going the way they were going
and not ruffle feathers, they would agree to it. They would say,
come in, run a thousand background checks, do what you gotta do,
because one the likelihood that everyone's going to get their background checked is probably pretty
slim. All people need to see is that they're doing it. They're doing
what they say. If they were smart, they would cut a check to
this other organization. They would say, wow, thank you so much for
everything you're doing. We care about children, We care about their safety,
and also by submitting to a background check, whether or not it actually happens,
by coming out and publicly saying before being too busy to actually go through
with it, Hey, you know what, go for it, Come run
my background you know what, take a hair sample if you need to take
my thumbprint. People would be like, see, that's an organization we can
get behind without ever following up on what they're doing afterward. That would say
to everybody that they're worried about losing you know, wow, this is a
godly organization. This is a godly word. And then if somebody does come
up, they have the opportunity to be like to take one of two stances.
They have the opportunity to say, do you know what, We're going
to pray about this and see what God says for our next Our next move
to be, do we let him go? Do we like make peace with
the fact that this gentleman. Do we pray over him at the altar?
They have so many other opportunities to then decide what they're going to publicly do
about that. I honestly think it would be a good thing. And anyone
who comes up on that list or comes up with any kind of bad background.
They can transfer any negative attention they get to that name. They've got
a name now that they can blame. So I think by being cagey about
the whole thing, they're actually doing so much more harm to their organization than
good when all they need to do is say, you know, come on
in, do what you gotta do. Yeah, like bless you Yeah.
And it sounds to me like you're saying that perception is important, right,
the perception of compliance, but also the perception of taking care of business when
something arises. What was interesting to me is that this article centered on somebody
an interview with somebody last named Beninger, and forgive me, I don't remember
her first name, but somebody who came on to an organization under the SBC,
who was going to administer background checks and then was told, don't check
up on the pastors. Don't worry, they don't work with kids, they
don't need background checks. Let's talk about the perception inside the church. Should
that have not been a red flag for her? Right? Does she not
bear some responsibility now for turning a blind eye? Right? And is she
now not part of the problem? Eli. I want to get your take
on that you know, how should Benager have responded when being told don't worry
about the pastors? And does that speak to maybe a larger issue on how
Benager has been affected by her religion. I think, yeah, absolutely,
I'm both counts. So I for me, if someone's like, hey,
you know what, like this group of people that I'm a part of,
we're good, we don't need you can trust us, that's the person that
I'm going to background check first, Like that's the one I'm like, yeah,
right, I'm looking at you. Yeah, because nobody else has come
up to me and been like, hey, like I really really don't want
you to, you know, learn about my past that hasn't done anything you
know that I would not like. So that definitely seems strange to me.
And I think, like you said, Jimmy, the idea that clergy are
like above reproach, they're above question, which was it was touched on in
the article as well and all the time on this show. The idea that
they are inherently trustworthy just because they went to like they got this particular degree
and have this particular like profession is what it is, you know, now,
like we can automatically trust them and I just don't think that's the case
this honestly. So this is the first I've ever heard of like churches actually
doing things to prevent child abuse. So it makes sense that it probably has
been happening once. I'm like, yeah, obviously, people, but I
just had never heard of it before. I'm like, okay, cool,
like actually like something's happening. And the I liked, I really like the
one church that they talked about that had like this six month period, there
was somebody that came in on like their first son. They was like,
I want to work with the kids, and the church was like, absolutely
not, because we have no idea who you are. And I think the
idea of letting the parents get comfortable knowing who that person the kids is obviously
absolutely idea. And I think that church said they also do the background checks
and like extensive training before they before they even let somebody alone with the kids.
And they're never even alone. There's always you know, two adults with
a door open, is what they said. So yeah, and let's talk
about Well, first of all, actually before I pivot, Sidney, did
you have anything that you wanted to add? Go ahead? I did,
so I was thinking about this, and sadly, the statistics on child abuse
that has actually reported and prosecuted is very low. So my question is,
if you run a background check on somebody, the likelihood that child abuse is
going to show up is actually very small because you can abuse one hundred kids
and statistically maybe two will say something and maybe one will be believed. Right,
So my question is what else is going to show up that's worse than
child abuse? That's my question because child abuse is very likely not going to
show up, unfortunately because of the lack of reporting in general. And then
once it is reported, especially within the church, the parents probably go to
the pastor first right to talk about it if it's a clergyman. So if
you know that going in that that's probably not going to be what shows up.
And you're still arguing that you don't want background checks to be run even
though it probably won't make much of the difference when it comes to child abuse,
why we should be extra concerned. Yeah, and that speaks to the
larger issue I think where religion kind of self perpetuates to well, it protects
itself essentially, you know, by keeping these pastors keep their clergy in a
domain where they are beyond approach, right and when they're not, they're the
first ones that go to So they can do damage control on the front line
right there, and they can move around, they can disappear, or they
can you know, convince parents or children that there's absolutely nothing wrong when there
is. You know, what does this say about the level of indoctrination that
people people fall victim to, and how does that kind of lend itself to
people to become further victimized. Sydney. I think what it does is,
I think it has less to do with well, I guess it still is
in doctrination. I think what it does is it doesn't make people believe less
that these things are happening. It just it brings to the surface what all
somebody has at stake when they leave the church, or when they stand up
against the church, or when they reprimand the church. For men many people,
the church is your social your familial, your neighborhood, your town,
like your church is everything. I live in Tennessee, and when you meet
somebody new, the first question is what church do you go to? What
a loaded question, by the way, right right, I always say I
don't and then I slave it, but so it what it does is it
says, what is worse something that we don't know is even happening. We
don't even know if it's happening. It's just an accusation from the Satan or
this other church who doesn't like us, or the liberal media. Is that
worth losing everything? You know, without saying we're going to punish you,
they say, is it worth everything that you've built here and everything that you
have here? And is it worth your salvation? Which is really messed up.
Yeah, Eli Cydny's talking about what church is like in Tennessee, and
there were some reports about how things were a little bit different, you know,
in this article across the country. Can you talk to the regional differences
in addressing reform and you know how they were different from each other, how
the different regions are different. Yeah. Absolutely. So it looks like out
of there are forty one distinct Southern Baptist state conventions, and out of those
forty one, only twenty nine of them collected any data on child abuse prevention
in the in the churches within their convention. But the questions weren't mandatory,
So that is like it wasn't mandatory to answer the questions when they I guess
whatever survey they did that collected that data, So that is a concern to
me. That's something that I would want to know more about. But what
they found was that churches in the Northeast are the most likely to provide training
on how to report abuse, and then Northeastern churches along with Western churches,
are more likely to give training on and I didn't finish it up, but
training on the appropriate care of children, how to essentially the ways to prevent
abuse and recognize it, and the proper care for the children while they're there.
So the churches in the South, surprising nobody, were the least likely
to do either of those things. I am, yeah, yeah, they
And they found that the Baptist General Convention of Texas, the Pennsylvania South Jersey
Convention, and the Minnesota and Wisconsin Convention all had the highest occurrence of background
checks for their for people working with the children within their churches. So northern
it seems like. So part of the study, part of this research that
we did included a report or a study that was done by the SBC and
it's the ar IF and I am looking for the exact the abuse reform implementation
task for some twenty twenty four did a study on what factors, what risks
were being medicated, and what actions were being taken. But while the very
biased and Christian leaning report stated that the SBC actually is doing something, what
it came to find is that it really had done nothing, and it admitted
that, and it cited a lack of resources, a lack of ability to
obtain buy in. But Sidney, do you think that church leaders would want
to avoid action? And we touched on this a little bit, but here's
an opportunity for us to kind of dive into that a little bit and maybe
talk about why they would merely want to give the illusion of compliance instead of
actually doing anything. I think there's a few factors there. One. I
think, like anything else, church is a business. As much as people
who are super duper religious want to believe that it's not, it is.
It's just a business. It doesn't get taxed, like that's why you have
so many millionaire and billionaire television evangelists. So there's like the business aspect,
right, their money comes from certain things that they can't they can't harm,
or they can't negate, or they can't bring into question, otherwise that money
disappears. I also think there's that idea, especially here in the South,
where it's like, do I really want to get my buddy in trouble?
You know, I'm friends with this person. We've been in the same ministry
for fifteen years or And I think this has a lot more to do with
it personally. I think it's if I allow background checks to happen, and
I know, brother Bob is gonna get in trouble. He's gonna tell what
he knows about me. And I think it's a bunch of like I don't
know if I'm allowed to say shit, but it's a bunch of shitty people
who all do wrong stuff. Some of them it makes onto their records,
some of them it doesn't. In fact, I would say most of them
get away with stuff that doesn't show up on the record, and it's just
lore that you hear about, you know. And then they also they recognize,
you know, if I do anything that this guy thinks turned him in,
he's gonna do whatever it takes to bring as many of us down with
him. In my opinion, that's what it's about. Yeah, this is
certainly a power structure and It's as if the people that are all doing something
wrong need each other to stay in power, and even the ones that aren't
doing anything wrong, well, they become accomplices by not doing anything because they
also want to stay in power. They want to have this influence over their
society, over their community. They want to keep getting money, the free
house, whatever it is that they get from doing what they're doing. Maybe
there's some people that genuinely think they're doing some good, but I would say
that once you become an accomplice, you have negated your entire purpose. So
I want to kind of talk about how that plays into the Christian message overall.
I mean, for me, that is like one of the big the
best ways, the most concrete ways to say this religion's bullshit. And yes,
Sydney, you can't say shit, Eli, what say you on that
relationship? This stain on Christianity? How is trying to manage this crisis affecting
the state of affairs in Christianity and in these SBC churches now, well,
so you'll see and especially based on like the churches talked about in the auto
collect the one I mentioned earlier, and like the people that are actually taking
real substantive steps toward like preventing and investigating abuse. You can see that there
are those people within, like the churches, that want to make sure the
abuse isn't happening. But those aren't the people that are like in power because
like you can't, like there needs to be some power dynamic for there to
be abuse, right, So the ones in power are the ones that want
to keep it under wraps. And that's what the way that it's I mean
as far as how it's affecting Christianity internally, I mean I'm on the outside.
I don't know, but sure it's it's I think it's going to reveal
hopefully going to reveal that, you know, to the people going to these
churches, like we may not be able to trust these people the way we
thought we could. There might be something going on here or they're going to
keep turning a blind eye and they're going to keep you know, not that
deify, but idolizing I guess there, or exalting their clergy to this unquestionable
status, and kids are going to keep getting harm. Yeah, yeah,
you know, Sidney, I want to give you the chance to kind of
close us out, and in doing so, I want to leave you with
this finding from this study that we looked over, and it says that ther
the ar IF report says churches need help in times of crisis, someone to
walk alongside them. And that report was given as a justification as why these
churches are unable to implement these reforms that they have pledged. What's going on?
I mean, is that not ironic? Or what? I thought?
The whole point was that they already had somebody walking beside them and guiding them,
right, Like, isn't that the whole thing? Isn't that like the
whole brand? I thought? I'm confused. That's like, yeah, that's
the whole That's more confusing to me than the study done by the company who
benefits from the study showing that they did a study that in fact shows them
innocent. You know, but yeah, my whole thing is like, y'all
do have somebody walking beside you? Like y'all literally say in your hymns that
he's walking beside you? So what else? Like do you want to cop
Like what else do you need? I'm confused? Like who, like,
who else should be walking beside you? Yeah? Yeah, they can't get
the support from their God that they're set up to worship, and then they
can't get the support from each other, and so they continue to enable each
other to do the wrong thing. You know, it really is troubling to
me to have to sit here and categorize everybody in the Christian Church, whatever
church as the bad person. But like the person that was covered in this
article, when given the opportunity to speak up, she did nothing and waited
a really long time. So for those of you out there that really don't
like what we have to say about the Christian Church, you need to do
something about it. You need to be the ones to fix your our own
problems. Otherwise we're going to stand here and point out what all those problems are.