“This view from a window on the SpaceX Dragon Freedom spacecraft looks out at Baja California Sur and the Gulf of California as it was docked to the International Space Station (@iss) orbiting 261 miles (420 kilometers) above the Pacific Ocean.” NASA
“Transparency is not about restoring trust in institutions. Transparency is the politics of managing mistrust.” Ivan Krastev
I just spent the day with my Mom at Urgent Care. Sadly, the difficulties she is experiencing are due to her extreme age. She is frustrated when things don’t “work right” and believes there must be a pill to fix it. It is difficult for the medical folks to tell her that no medication or procedure will cure her. Sometimes, it is hard to know how to help her; today was one of those days.
The hotline is expensive and worth it.
Two days ago, I posted Valerie’s story: Valerie Swope: I Thought He Needed a Babysitter, but Former SBC Youth Pastor, Christian Watts, Had Other Ideas. A Survivor’s Story of Sexual Abuse. She reported her abuse to the SBC hotline. I am sure this resource has received many sad and difficult stories like hers. There is no question that the hotline for survivors of sexual abuse in the SBC is well worth it, whatever the cost. I know that I have referred others in that direction.
Today I spoke with someone and said, “I don’t care if it costs $10-20 million. The SBC has so messed up in the area of abuse that any efforts to change how they used to deal with abuse are sorely needed. The current SBC President, Bart Barber, admits that the entity is “expensive.” He gives the example of lawsuits filed against the SBC in the past. He believes that the hotline is one way to prevent such legal action, which is highly expensive and draining of the SBC’s financial coffers. I assume he means the defense and the settlements with victims.
Listen as he explains it.
The cost of doing something.
The cost of doing nothing. pic.twitter.com/rpyAWUXWro
— Bart Barber (@bartbarber) January 17, 2023
Barber talks about “God’s economy.”
The Roys Report posted SBC President Bart Barber Says Sexual Abuse Hotline Worth the Cost:
Barber said despite the high costs, he believes having the hotline is the right thing to do.
“I think according to God’s economy and according to the way that accountants look at the economy,” he said, “it’s a good investment for Southern Baptist to do everything that we can, even if it costs some money to do it, everything that we can to assist our local churches to prevent abuse and to comfort those and provide support for those who are survivors of abuse.”
Barber is referring to the Paul Pressler lawsuit
Shortly after I started blogging, I was contacted by those who wanted me to write about Pressler’s abuse. Unfortunately, no one was willing to come forward with their story then. They were afraid that Pressler, a prominent attorney, would sue them. I had nothing to work with. Over time, I, along with Amy Smith, continued receiving information that many prominent SBC leaders knew about or were told about Pressler’s abuse and chose to do nothing about it. These are names that might surprise you. Well, maybe they wouldn’t.
According to Baptist Press in Barber says sexual abuse hotline worth the cost:
The case Barber is referring to is a civil suit against Paul Pressler, which is currently being heard in the Harris County District Court. The charges in the case date back to the 1980s.
Pressler, a former SBC Executive Committee member, former SBC first vice president (2002 and 2003) and former Texas legislator and judge, is being sued by Gerald Duane Rollins. In the suit originally filed in October 2017, Rollins alleges Pressler raped him in 1980, when Rollins was 14 years old and attending a Bible study at Pressler’s church. According to the affidavit, Pressler continued to rape Rollins, “over the course of the next 24 years or so” as Rollins progressed into his 30s.
However, will the SBC ever release the exact cost of the project?
I have been in conversation with some folks who have pointed out difficulties in getting exact numbers for anything. Take the North American Mission Board as an example. Are the messenger’s ever told exactly how many church plants have occurred, were houses bought for these church planters, and what happened if the church failed? How many church plants fail? How much do they pay their leaders?
I am digging into the finances of the SBC and am somewhat surprised how little is shared with women like Auntie Harriet, who is willing to use her estate to help the “poor missionaries.” I hope that the SBC will become as transparent with its finances as it is about its failings in sexual abuse. That means telling the messengers exactly how much the hotline cost and how it was conducted. I’m sure other denominations are watching this process, and such transparency will also help them.
In the meantime, I’m waiting patiently, hoping the SBC can figure out how to curb sex abuse in their churches while claiming church autonomy. How it will happen remains to be seen.
“curb sex abuse in their churches”
Are they curbing sex abuse or receiving victims’ testimonies of clergy predation to “catch and kill”?
If I was a woman and had suffered sexual abuse in the SBC, why would I share it with someone at an SBC Hotline? Bart and his SBC Power brokers will never share the costs of this.
It will soon have been a year since the last SBC Convention and what has Bart and other SBC leaders done-not much IMO.
Woman here. I agree.
It’s like appealing to the Cult Awareness Hotline (owned by Scientology) for help in a Cult situation.
Tom Parker,
There are some of us ho agree with you.
“ I’m waiting patiently, hoping the SBC can figure out how to curb sex abuse in their churches while claiming church autonomy. ”
I have a recommendation that might help, at least with potential female victims. (But it would send Barber and crew into tizzy fits):
STOP PUSHING COMPLEMENTARIAN THEOLOGY AND FEMALE SUBMISSIVENESS!
Women and girls need to know that resisting unwanted or uncomfortable advances from ANYONE, with force if necessary, is the right thing to do.
Tom, totally agree with you. Sorry, given the history with the SBC, find your own attorney and call the cops.
Do insurance policies carried by churches have requirements that help deter sex abuse?
‘ I spoke with someone and said, “I don’t care if it costs $10-20 million. The SBC has so messed up in the area of abuse that any efforts to change how they used to deal with abuse are sorely needed. The current SBC President, Bart Barber, admits that the entity is “expensive.” ‘
How will they come up with the money?
Well, they have the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering and the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering…….
Maybe they will start a Paige Patterson April Fools’ Offering and an Augie Boto Halloween Offering. How would pastors explain that?
Nah, they’ll just push giving ‘til it hurts to support the Cooperative Program.
I read the recent releases detailing the hotline, and they kept using the phrase “trauma-informed”. In my opinion as I understood what I was reading – I couldn’t see anything about the hotline that seemed very trauma-informed. Maybe someone can counter argue how I interpreted it?
So basically you call to report and they may or may not do anything about it and you won’t know if anything happens with your report until someone gets back to you – which if they don’t do anything with your report they will never get back to you. And what exactly they’re “doing” with the reports they do “do something with” remains a mystery. They’re not investigating anything but they’re doing something with the reports they decide to do something with – so what are they doing with it, exactly?
And they can refer you to counseling or legal options – but only if you ask for them (and this is one area where they invoked the “see, look this is trauma-informed” – but the SBC and the hotline team aren’t investigating or able to support the person calling in any direct way?
The whole thing seems about as opposite as trauma informed as I can imagine and redundant and unnecessarily circular. The hotline at its foundation doesn’t make sense, to me. I agree with others that people should contact outside SBC legal counsel and support.
Trauma-informed is a recent phrase that gets thrown around and people mean different things when they say it and there’s no regulation around the term and anyone can use it at any time. Kind of like how people use love and faith and theology words but the actions and meanings could mean something different based on the person or group and there might even be nothing or the complete opposite going on behind it. If someone or a group uses the word “trauma-informed” doesn’t mean that they are, even if they use the phrase a hundred times as an adjective it doesn’t make it so.
Prayers for your mom and your family
JDV,
I get the feeling that the SBC elites are doing everything they can to watch their own backs.
https://www.abusereformtaskforce.net/updates/the-role-and-function-of-the-sbc-sexual-abuse-hotline
“Calls that come into the hotline are received exclusively by Guidepost and seen only by their staff. This is guaranteed in the contract which the Executive Committee executed with Guidepost. The only exceptions to this occur if mandatory reporting is triggered, if the information is relevant to the ongoing investigation with the Department of Justice, or pursuant to a lawful subpoena,”
Nancy2(aka Kevlar),
Sorry, I hit the wrong reply…….
emily honey,
That’s what it reads to me as well when you try to follow the logic – it all goes in a circle and leads back to the same point of control. And then back again.
To the quote you highlighted – If people are reporting sexual abuse how are there incidents that don’t fall under any of those categories? They state that it is an exception that an incident actually fits one of those categories – otherwise the report stays within the Guidepost sphere of information gathering. It’s not clear how many and what prompts the information to leave their sphere and go elsewhere and what is really happening with that information.
The DOJ investigation is highly mysterious to me, as well. By mysterious I don’t mean suspect because by nature it should be closed off to public knowledge to protect the integrity of the investigation. Just mysterious as there hasn’t been any news or updates since it was announced the DOJ was investigating the SBC and no one outside probably inner SBC leaders know what’s being investigated. But somehow Guidepost has some sort of awareness of what the DOJ is investigating if they’re discerning if a report needs to be passed on to them and which reports don’t.
I have a hard time understanding what’s so “hot” about a “hotline” that doesn’t trigger immediate action — that doesn’t trigger an immediate investigation. There’s a lot that’s unclear, but at this point, it appears they receive reports that may then effectively go into cold-storage until such time as someone chooses to actually do something, which might be… who knows when? Maybe they should call it a “coldline?”
the ‘expense’ of protecting innocents from predation?
some costs are not to be reckoned . . .
I’m surprised that the SBC does not know this truth.
And yet, the history . . .
God have mercy
I see a major conflict of interest with the SBC asking victims to provide them with personal information about their case. Surely the SBC is biased.
The SBC has been kicking this major issue down the road for years, IMO this will never change.
How responsive would the hotliners have been to calls from victims of Judge Pressler, Johnny Hunt, Frank Page, Paige Patterson and other SBC elites?
Nah, don’t call SBC … don’t call Pastor … CALL 911!
Every female SBC member should call the hotline about that! The beauty of complementarity, women are mere derivatives of men, women are eternally subordinate just like Jesus, and other theo-mumbo-jumbo are abuses that need to be reported!
Or call the Houston Chronicle. Robert Downen’s reporting did more good to expose, inform, and warn Southern Baptists of sexual predators in their midst than SBC. The world is still waiting for SBC movers and shakers to complete the bad-boy list he started. The list they had, they hid.
“Lukewarm Line” ?
I have to assume that most SBC women just accept their place in the SBC. Because it has been crickets for years from the majority of the SBC women as it relates to being labeled and treated as less than men.
I am glad that the Houstin Chronicle did their serious work but it seems to me it has made very little difference in the SBC.
Max,
Jerry Vines, Morris Chapman, Jack Graham, Augie Boto, Ronnie Floyd,……., and then there’s Johnny Hunt…… year after year, president after president, Executive Committee after a Executive Committee knew, and did nothing……… unless we give then kudos for protecting predators and covering things up.
They worried more about protecting the brand, the business and themselves than they did about the safety and welfare of children and women.
Until #metoo, #churchtoo, and the Houston Chronicle almost burned the place to the ground, figuratively speaking.
And everybody is supposed to trust them now???
HC is secular … on the other hand, the big boys at SBC are spiritual and can handle it OK (not).
Things won’t change in SBC in this regard until female believers rise up en masse, declare “Enough is enough!”, and start dragging their sorry husbands/boyfriends out of the mess by their ears!
Does just knowing that SBC has a “Hot Line” make you feel warm?
“Hot Cocoa”
I remember
when our classroom was cold
my friends and I
would look across our desks at each other
each of us holding
an invisible pitcher of hot cocoa in one hand
an invisible mug in the other hand.
At the same time
we would pour imaginary hot cocoa.
At the same time
we would pretend to drink it.
The hot cocoa was not real
but somehow we felt warm.
(Amy Ludwig VanDerwater)
The SBC sexual abuse hotline is expensive……..
That hotline is Guidepost Solutions, in a contract with the SBC EC.
I wonder how much of that expense goes to Guidepost??? I also wonder….. who is Guidepost really contracted to protect.
Am I overthinking the situation?
With all the secrecy about the cost, I’m wondering if it’s used as a bottomless personal sluxh fund for the SBC’s top brass.
That or they’re really spending about $1.98 on the whole schmeer and don’t want that to get out.
Remember the Cult Awareness Network (owned by Scientology in a hostile takeover)?
Or Plausible Deniability?
We talking a Lysistrata here?
“Lukewarm” carries too much Christianese baggage.
Maybe “Scam – for show only” or “Pretending until the heat blwes over” is more appropriate?
Headless Unicorn Guy,
Cryogenicsline sound less Christianese?
How about Flatline?
Wondering the same.
If the Mob set up a hotline to report Mob activities, what good is that?
From the OP:
Some random thoughts….
I’d be curious to find out (if possible) a breakdown of the hotline costs. The actual cost of the hotline ‘phone number (phone line), how much the people who man the hotline are paid, etc..
emily honey (in an upthread comment) mentioned “trauma informed”. Are there actually any trauma informed people answering the hotline? Or are the people answering the hotline an intermediary who then redirects the call to someone else? Are lawyers part of the hotline process (in the sense of covering the backsides of the “institution”, rather than protecting the victims / survivors)?
And other questions….and I doubt there will be any “transparency”.
Again, Cult Awareness Network hotline, with Clears answering the phones and redirecting the calls to Operating Thetans covering the backside of The Bridge to Perfect Freedom.
When SBC first contracted with Guidepost was announced, I went over to Guidepost’s website and read up who are they and what they do.
They are not an impartial 3rd party.
They are a for hire law firm to do investigation for the interest of the entity who hires them.
As it turns out this is exactly what they did. SBC exec limited the scope to mostly the high profile cases and how SBC exec. handles the communication. There was no investigation in any of the other SBC entities IMB, NAMB and Seminaries.
IMO, Guidepost handling of the hotline is a conflict of interest because their customer is SBC. They are only accountable to SBC not to the reported victims.
Here is my prediction. The usage of the hotline will fizzle out in a few years. New SBC exec will shut down the hotline because of low usage. To me whole thing is a farce and waste of resources for IMAGE MANAGEMENT, not for a long term solution to help victims.
As I type this out I feel my anger rises up. To SBC and all the SBC churches. Y’ll can keep calling for revival year after year – IT WILL NOT COME, not until you are able to act justly (Amos 5:24)
Sowre-Sweet Dayes,
“ Here is my prediction. The usage of the hotline will fizzle out in a few years. New SBC exec will shut down the hotline because of low usage.”
And this scandal will be a distant memory…… if the majority of Southern Baptists get their way.
I was a member of SBC churches for decades….. grew up in it.
I walked away before all of this mess was exposed. I walked out on Feb. 28, 2016, and I haven’t regretted leaving for a single second.
And, no…. I was not a victim of sexual abuse…..
it was the complementarian theology itself thing that did me in.
IMO, “the beauty of complementary” is a form of sex abuse, where the female gender is told by church leaders to sit down, shut up, and submit.
Max,
Yeah, they really started stressing that “beauty” more and more and more, for the last 4 or 5 years I attended.
I don’t even say bye-bye. I just walked in one Sunday morning, gathered all of my personal belongings, got back in my car, and went back home.
While the good ole boys in SBC always wanted to put wimmenfolk in their place, the “beauty of complementarity” as a distinct teaching started to pick up steam when New Calvinism raised its ugly mug in SBC ranks about the time you bailed out. When you left, I’m sure Jesus went looking for you.
It IS “beauty” to the guy who Holds the Whip.
He gets to do anything he wants and she has to Submit.
Look how well this works (and the maturity of the men) in Saudi & Talibanistan.
And MONEY TALKS.
In the words of Matthew Pierce:
“I’m always telling the third party investigators: Jesus and I can’t both pay the price for my mistakes; that’s double geography”
I was a Southern Baptist for 70+ years, until the NeoCal movement drove me from the chaos. I saw lots of “hot” things come and ago, turning cold quickly.
“Nothing gets Old-Fashioned faster than Over-Relevance. Except Pretentious Over-Relevance.”
— my old Dungeonmaster
Organizations tend towards stasis and equalibrium. So my bet is that eventually the apparatchiks will start to put their own people on the hotline. And eventually the hotline will become part and parcel of the abuse. As in, you too can call, tell of your suffering, and be ignored or demonized for saying something.
Sorry to be a passimist, but we’ve been down this road before.
An organisation I know a lot about, set up by some politicians in conjunction with “apparent representatives” of some religions, has been steering those referred towards its favoured causes, which it doesn’t overtly identify, and at the same time mischaracterises others, so as to further confuse the public.
Now what would happen if a dropout from some movement or other, desiring support in self-deprogramming, finds themselves reprogrammed instead?
What happens furthermore when what they dropped out of (exhausted or terrified) is one of the favoured destinations of this body? Will what they say about it be reported back to it?