Lawyers say Justice Department probe of SBC closed

NASHVILLE (RNS)—Lawyers for the Southern Baptist Convention said March 12 the U.S. Department of Justice has ended an investigation into the denomination’s response to allegations of sexual abuse committed by Southern Baptist pastors and institutional leaders.

That investigation was launched in 2022 after the release of the Guidepost report that demonstrated SBC executives had mistreated abuse survivors and sought to downplay the effects of abuse in the convention.

“Earlier today, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York informed us that the investigation into the Southern Baptist Convention and Executive Committee has officially concluded,” SBC attorneys Gene Besen and Scarlett Nokes told Baptist Press, an official SBC outlet.

Megan Lively, an abuse survivor and activist, said she was disappointed to hear from an FBI agent the investigation was over. She had hoped, she said, the investigation would move the SBC to take abuse reforms seriously.

“It’s just a mess,” she added.

A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York declined to comment.

No abuse charges have been filed as a result of the Guidepost report. Matt Queen, a former Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary professor and provost, pleaded guilty last fall to lying to the FBI, and recently was sentenced to six months of house arrest, a year of supervised release and a $2,000 fine.

But aside from Queen’s case, few details of the investigation have been made public. Given that national SBC leaders have no direct control over pastors or churches, it always was unclear what crimes SBC leaders might be charged with.

Leaders from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, where Queen was once a professor as well as provost, stated: “For more than two years, Southwestern fully cooperated with the DOJ throughout the investigation and is pleased that there were no findings of wrongdoing against the institution or current employees. We remain committed to ensuring the safety of all members of the seminary community.”

This is the second time the SBC’s attorneys have announced an end to the Department of Justice investigation. Last March, those attorneys said the investigation into the Executive Committee, which oversees the denomination’s day-to-day operations, was over, but later clarified the investigation into the denomination as a whole continued.

‘Grateful we can close this chapter’

Southern Baptist leaders have spent more than $2 million on legal fees related to the investigation. Those fees, along with more than $3 million spent defending lawsuits filed by a pair of former SBC leaders named in the Guidepost report, and the cost of the Guidepost investigation itself, have drained the Executive Committee’s reserves and left it unable to pay its legal bills.

Jeff Iorg, president and CEO of the Executive Committee, gave thanks for the investigation’s end, saying, “We’re grateful that we can close this chapter in our legal proceedings and move forward.”

The SBC’s attempts to manage accusations of sexual abuse have occupied the leadership for more than a decade, and the convention’s governing body, the annual meeting of messengers from local churches, has demanded reform, forcing the Executive Committee to commission the Guidepost investigation in a floor vote in 2021.

But critics of the reform efforts point to the cost of the Guidepost investigation to claim it was a mistake. Abuse advocates worry those critics now will use the end of the Justice Department investigation to derail reforms.

The Guidepost report led Southern Baptists to pass a series of reforms intended to address abuse in churches, including more training and publishing a database of abusive pastors. Those reforms largely have stalled.

While the SBC has distributed training materials and hired a national staffer to help oversee reforms, the database has been tabled for now, with SBC leaders saying last month it is no longer a priority.

Abuse survivors now worry the end of the investigation and the tabling of the database signal abuse reforms have run out of steam.

“Everything seems to be falling apart,” Lively said.