Patriarchal attitudes and the Southern Baptist sexual abuse problem

Chris Stroop, a prominent figure in the "Exvangelical" movement, has an article about the low expectations he has for the Southern Baptist Convention dealing with its sexual abuse problem, Why the Southern Baptists Won't Solve Their Abuse Problem Playboy (!) 02/15/2019. He makes an important point about cultural attitudes intertwine with SBC theology and denominational rules:

[T]he SBC (and white evangelicalism writ large) continue to cling to (white) Christian supremacism and patriarchy, which they justify with reference to a doctrine of “biblical inerrancy” that just happens to function primarily to uphold straight white male authority over women, children, people of color, and members of the LGBTQ community. ...

[T]he doctrine of so-called “complementarianism,” which, unlike best practices in response to sexual abuse, is required of churches to retain membership in the SBC. Complementarianism teaches that God created men and women with distinct roles, roles that include “male headship” over the family and that entail female submission. The SBC does not allow women leadership roles over men. ... As long as it refuses to examine the culpability of its explicitly patriarchal theology in fostering abuse, the SBC’s systemic abuse problem is going to remain unsolved. [my emphasis]

I'm not sure how far down in SBC organizations the not allowing women to exercise "leadership roles over men" goes. It's the rule for pastors in churches. But it's hard to imagine that in the denominational departments missions office, and the staff of the larger urban churches that there are no men being supervised by women in some job or other.

But the basic point he's mking is an important one. I would argue that allowing and recruiting female pastors would go a long way toward breaking up the "boys club" mentality that currently exists.

That won't in itself solve the problem. But it would create a better organizational environment in which to handle such cases. Other reforms could be implemented more quickly, such as those covered in my two recent posts on the problem here and here.

Stroop cites this article by Keith Whitfield, Sex Abuse Among Southern Baptists 02/03/2019 at the very conservative First Things site. And he explains why he finds Whitfield's appeal to a “Moral Resurgence" essentially unserious.

Whitfield's piece does admit two important elements in the problem. One is:

[Southern Baptists] have lived in denial of the problem. Wittingly or unwittingly, for some the denial served to protect our reputation as a body of churches with a storied theological resurgence. Others lived in denial because they could not envision a way to stop it, and the difficulty of facing the reality was too great. Still others insist there’s not a major problem because the percentage of offenders is a relatively small number of Southern Baptist members. Yet this issue is not primarily about math, but about neglect in how cases were handled. Regardless of the reasons, denial creates a safe haven for abusers and silenced for decades what could have been a loud and unified voice of churches defending the weak and vulnerable. [my emphasis]

In other words, the SBC collectively responded like all large organizations tend to do, by trying to cover up the problem as much as possible and making that a priority over protecting even minors from sexual predators among the clergy. And I think it's inevitable that such attitudes would have expressed itself in issues of sexual harrassment of adults in that same organizational context.

Another he describes this way:

[W]e’ve failed to understand the power dynamics of abuse and have often viewed these instances through the lens of sexual sin. This led to abusers being superficially reprimanded and penalized, while the survivors were simultaneously overlooked and/or treated as complicit. Such a reductionist understanding gave rise to unrighteous sympathy that sought to protect the future of the perpetrator at the expense of justice and protection of the victim. Then, when survivors would not let the injustice go, they were characterized as troublemakers—unwilling to “forgive” their abusers. [my emphasis]

That problem is a part of larger issue of patriarchal/heteronormative attitudes, practices, and religious beliefs that Southern Baptists will have to challenge to some extent to significantly improve their churches' and denomination's handling of sexual abuse problems within their organizations.