An 18-month-long federal investigation into the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) Executive Committee has concluded with none charges or motion against it, the Executive Committee said on Wednesday.
The country’s largest Protestant denomination has been the topic of a Justice Department probe following a 2022 report that showed SBC leaders refused to answer allegations of abuse resulting from legal liability and didn’t enact policies to guard its members from predatory pastors.
The Executive Committee—with staff at its Nashville headquarters and dozens of elected trustees from across the country—oversees on a regular basis business for the SBC. The entity said it was informed last Thursday that its a part of the investigation had concluded “with no further motion to be taken.”
A spokesperson for the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York declined to verify or comment on the status of the inquiry when reached by CT.
The Justice Department has not publicly acknowledged or commented on the SBC investigation because it began. Federal grand jury subpoenas and proceedings—for higher or worse—are shrouded in secrecy. To protect the accused and the integrity of the investigation, the federal government often doesn’t disclose who had been involved.
According to the Executive Committee, the investigation was expected to look into multiple entities. Presidents of every of its seminaries and agencies had signed a letter in 2022 agreeing to participate and saying, “Our commitment to cooperating with the Department of Justice is born from our demonstrated commitment to transparently address the scourge of sexual abuse.”
Jonathan Howe, the interim president of the Executive Committee, said in a press release Wednesday that the investigation into his entity had ended. He didn’t comment on the status of other SBC entities that might be involved.
“While we’re grateful for closure on this particular matter, we recognize that sexual abuse reform efforts must proceed to be implemented across the Convention,” he said. “We remain steadfast in our commitment to help churches in stopping and responding well to sexual abuse within the SBC.”
Multiple advocates for abuse victims—including SBC abuse survivors Megan Lively and Tiffany Thigpen in addition to attorney Rachael Denhollander, who has advised the SBC task forces charged with abuse reform—say they were told by officials that the case remains to be open and ongoing.
Christa Brown, a survivor who has led the charge calling for reforms including a database of abusive leaders, responded on X.
“This doesn’t lessen SBC’s moral responsibility for grievous harms. Nor does it alter the truth that, in countless SBC churches, leaders violated state laws & standards,” she said.
From the surface, it was never clear what federal statute Southern Baptists may need violated or how federal prosecutors might make their case, several experts told CT.
There’s loads still unknown. Neither the SBC nor Justice Department officials have publicly specified the scope or focus of the inquiry, which dated back to August 2022. At the time, the Executive Committee’s general counsel said the entity had received a subpoena but no individuals had been subpoenaed yet.
The Justice Department website says that child sexual abuse is “generally handled by local and state authorities, and never by the federal government.” It’s unusual for federal investigators to get entangled in clergy abuse, though they’ve examined abuse and coverup by Catholic priests in Pennsylvania, New York, and New Orleans, starting in 2018.
So far none have been charged under federal laws, similar to those who restrict racketeering (RICO) or interstate trafficking (the Mann Act). Any possible federal penalty for Southern Baptist entities as a part of the probe into abuse response can be the primary of its kind.
Besides the Executive Committee, no other SBC entity—similar to the denomination’s six seminaries and its missions agencies—has publicly acknowledged any involvement within the investigation.
A spokesperson for the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), the SBC’s public policy arm, said it had not been subpoenaed or asked for information from federal investigators.
In a response to CT, ERLC president Brent Leatherwood stated:
We have a responsibility to combat abuse by ensuring predators do not need the power to prey on our churches, and equipping pastors with the tools to achieve this. The Gospel demands it and messengers have consistently called for such motion. Carrying out that objective in a cooperative way stays the goal.
The ERLC continues to supply resources around abuse response and prevention. It was a part of the SBC’s initial abuse response following the landmark 2019 investigation by the Houston Chronicle that compiled 700 cases of abuse in Southern Baptist churches.
The issue of abuse has dominated the SBC ever since. There were claims of former seminary president Paige Patterson mishandling abuse at two schools; a lawsuit involving Conservative Resurgence leader Paul Pressler, accused of abusing young men for many years; conflicting factions over whether abuse was really an enormous problem for the denomination; limited mechanisms for expelling churches who employed abusive pastors; and a large third-party investigation authorized by convention messengers.
The SBC can be currently facing lawsuits from victims of abuse in addition to from leaders named in abuse reports.
The Tennessean reported that legal expenses cost the Executive Committee $2.8 million within the previous fiscal 12 months and that the entity underwent layoffs partially resulting from the associated fee of the abuse response.
Last month, the volunteer task force overseeing abuse reform within the SBC announced plans to launch an independent nonprofit to administer the programs, including a database of abusive pastors.
This is a breaking news story and has been updated.
