What Does "Category 4" Look Like?

The messengers to the SBC Annual Meeting have thrice affirmed that churches should have access to a warning system. This warning system would exist to help churches who know about allegations of abuse warn other churches who might not know about those allegations. Churches would benefit from that warning system because otherwise, ignorant of what they might learn from the warning system, they could be considering hiring as an employee or drafting as a volunteer someone who was alleged to have committed abuse in another context.

In the proposal for that warning system, the term "credibly accused" was defined by four categories. The first three categories involve people who have been convicted in a criminal court, people who have lost a civil suit, and people who confessed (except for people who confessed to an attorney, a spouse, or in any other context in which they have legal privilege). The fourth category involved people for whom a third-party investigation of alleged abuse found the allegations to be credible.

Much of the conversation about "category 4" has suggested that it consists of he-said-she-said situations where no one has any evidence to know what happened. It's easy to have Twitter wars about what this category means when there's no warning system and people are just imagining hypotheticals. These sometimes-bad-faith objections seem to assume incompetence or intransigence on the part of the people involved in managing a warning system like this. And yet, even if we assume hypothetically that there are people spiteful enough or agenda-driven enough to manage a warning system recklessly, where will they find customers? Who is going to consult a bad, error-ridden warning system? Anyone who wants such a warning system to succeed is going to be motivated to earn the trust of churches by approaching every category—1, 2, 3, or 4—carefully and responsibly.

The objections are built upon hypothetical assumptions that those in charge of the warning system will not act carefully and responsibly.

But we don't have to settle for hypotheticals. Let's look at a concrete example and see how well it compares to some of the scaremongering online. Consider a congregation that was deemed not to be in friendly cooperation with the SBC back in February of this year (2024). Here's part of an article from the Nashville, Tennessee newspaper, The Tennesseean:

Among the latest additions, West Hendersonville Baptist in North Carolina employed a pastor who is “biblically disqualified” according to SBC standards on abuse response.

That pastor, Jerry Mullinax, faced discipline in 2003 when he taught at a middle school and reportedly sent “improper emails” to a female student, according to news reports. The North Carolina Board of Education revoked Mullinax’s teaching license in 2004.

Source: https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/religion/2024/02/20/top-southern-baptist-convention-panel-ousts-four-churches-over-woman-pastor-abuse-response/72586735007/

Here are some things we learn in this story.

• If Mullinax has been convicted of a crime in this case, the story makes no mention of it.
• If Mullinax has lost a civil judgment in this case, the story makes no mention of it.
• If Mullinax has confessed to a crime in this case, the story makes no mention of it.
• Therefore, this scenario does not fit under categories 1, 2, or 3 in the definition of "credibly accused."
• And yet, the SBC Executive Committee declared this church not to be in friendly cooperation (following, from the appearance of the records, similar action by the local association and the state convention).
• The local school district (a third party) and possibly the state board of education (another third party) investigated the claim (see the next paragraph). Pursuant to that investigation, they revoked his teaching license.
• Therefore, this scenario fits under category 4 in the definition of "credibly accused." A third-party investigation found the allegations to be credible enough to revoke that license.

The Tennessean had earlier reported on Mullinax's case when it first became public knowledge back in 2003 (see the story here, https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2003/05/14/teacher-offers-resignation-after-parents-complaints/28133007007/). At the time of that story, Mullinax had resigned but his teaching license had not been revoked. The school district was still investigating the matter. At some point subsequently, if the newspaper article is correct, the state of North Carolina revoked Mullinax's teaching license.

When you encounter a scary hypothetical online, you'll read that category 4 is some contested allegation with no evidence one way or the other culminating in a rush to judgment. In real life, it shows up as situations where the state board of education and the local school district conducted an investigation and revoked someone's teaching certificate for the emails he was sending to middle-school girls.

I don't know what happened in North Carolina. I wasn't there. I do know that the Southern Baptist Convention does not have the authority to tell any church whether they can hire a pastor whose teaching license has been revoked by the state over allegations about "'improper emails' to a female student." That's the decision of the local church. I don't know what West Hendersonville Baptist Church's reasoning was for hiring and retaining Mullinax as their pastor.

But here's something I do know. I know that the revocation of someone's teaching certificate under such circumstances will not appear on anyone's criminal background check. I further know that it would be easy on a pastoral resume to hide one's having lost a teaching license for such allegations. I therefore know that any church considering such a candidate, if they are putting their trust in a standard criminal background check, runs a high risk of not knowing about this sort of episode in a candidate's past.

I also know that I would not want to have to explain to the parents in my church why we didn't know that the Sunday School teacher we put in the fourth-grade class had previously had his teaching license revoked in another state on the basis of allegations of improper conduct toward middle-school girls.

The final thing I know is this: Whatever the church decides about putting someone like that into service, they deserve to make an informed decision—to have all of the pertinent information available to them when they make their decision. If (a) I were considering hiring someone in that circumstance, if (b) I didn't know about the revocation of their teaching license, if (c) you did know about it, and (d) you didn't tell me, I would not consider that to be the behavior of a friend. Indeed, if my church were plunged into scandal by way of that person's actions after being hired by us, your unwillingness to warn me would likely mark the end of our friendship. Friends—how much more so brothers and sisters!—warn one another about dangerous situations and dangerous people.

So, whenever you hear someone say that category 4 is unjust, unbiblical, and untenable legally, ask them if they are aware that the SBC already deems churches not to be in friendly cooperation on the basis of category-4 scenarios. Ask them if they want someone teaching their daughter's Sunday School class whose teaching certificate was revoked in response to allegations that he was sending inappropriate emails to female middle-school students. Ask them if they plan to make a motion in Dallas to reinstate West Hendersonville Baptist Church to correct what they must surely think is a grave injustice that has been wrought, if they think that category 4 is categorically unjust.

Any warning system, no matter what categories or rules it may follow, does not deny anyone employment. Local churches make decisions about whom to employ or whom to use as volunteers. Anyone has the opportunity to explain the falsity of any allegation to a church who is considering them. Any church that knows about allegations of sexual abuse has the right to ask to hear both sides of the story before making a decision. None of those things are at question here. 

Rather, the question is this: Do you prefer a world in which your church gets to know about situations like this one when you hire people or recruit them as volunteers, or do you prefer a world in which it is easy to hide such allegations from you when you are making hiring or recruiting decisions as a church? For me, that's an easy question to answer.

Epilogue

From those who are skeptical about this warning system, just once, here's what I would love to hear. 

"Hey, we also think that scenarios like this one (where someone's teaching license, state bar membership, medical license, etc., have been revoked) are situations that churches ought to be warned about when they have to hire new staff members or recruit new volunteers. We are open to hearing about other category-4 scenarios similar to this one that we can all agree give good reason to make churches aware of what has been alleged. But we are still worried about murky cases where no one knows what happened. Here are the constructive proposals we offer about how to have a functional warning system that helps churches to avoid putting minors into the care of the people you are worried about, Bart, while alleviating the concerns that we still have about the possibility of people's being damaged by false accusations."

I would LOVE to have that conversation. I would totally respect and give careful attention to the input from anyone who approached this question in that way.

A Parable for the Election

I present the following parable to promote understanding and grace. I composed it for that purpose and that purpose alone.

• I did not compose it to direct, shape, inform, or change anyone's planned vote in the upcoming election.
• I did not compose it to tell you how I will vote in the upcoming election, although I can tell you that I will not be voting for either of the pro-choice candidates.
• I did not compose it to stir up controversy, although I resign myself to the fact that controversy will inexorably come as day follows night.
• I did not even compose it to defend the rationales, ideas, and characterizations that will appear below as accurate or helpful (nor to malign them as inaccurate or unhelpful).

Rather, knowing that large numbers of self-styled Evangelicals will vote for Donald Trump in November, I anticipate the think-pieces that will be written in the aftermath (no matter the election's outcome) lambasting or lampooning those believers who will do so, accusing them of never having really cared about the lives of babies murdered by abortion, etc. Many of these jeremiads will display little willingness to try to understand why, even when he stabs Evangelicals in the back, Donald Trump remains the most appealing candidate for many of my friends who are Evangelicals.

And so, I offer you a parable of a married couple with three children.

They were married in 1942, just before he shipped off to war. Their first child—a son— was born while Dad was fighting at El Guettar in North Africa. America won, and Dad returned home. The firstborn son grew up, excelled in school, was the catcher for the high school baseball team, and fell in love with a high school sweetheart. His parents loved him and were proud of him. Following in his dad's footsteps, he enlisted in the Army straight out of high school. He went missing in action in Vietnam, and they never heard from him again.

Back in 1945, when Dad came home from Europe at the end of World War II, the family soon welcomed a second son. To be honest, he found it difficult to live in the shadows of his older brother. His grades weren't quite as good; his athleticism wasn't quite as exceptional. It all became worse when his older brother went missing, presumably dead, as a war hero. How could he possibly measure up to a shrine—a martyr. So, maturing in the early 1970s, he fell into alcohol, marijuana, womanizing, and a life of wanton abandon. He never finished college. He held some jobs, but never any plan so grandiose as to be called a career. He eventually came to a balance where he earned just enough and drank just little enough to survive.

But he loved his parents, this second son. The line between love and manipulation was difficult to discern sometimes, to be sure. But he showed up. He apologized after fights and failures. He needed them, and they loved to be needed. He was, in many ways, the repudiation of all of the values they had taught him, but he never explicitly repudiated those values all the way. He just never quite lived out those values. Nevertheless, they could not help but love him.

Just a year younger than him was the final child—a daughter. She was the apple of her Daddy's eye and the spitting image of her mother. Studious and hardworking, she excelled at school. She saw first-hand how her parents grieved over the misbehavior that their middle child so enthusiastically pursued, and she was, by firm resolve, nothing like him. She was chaste. She never drank to excess and never experimented with drugs. She was studious and hardworking, and her classes readily succumbed to her academic regimen.

This youngest daughter became the first in the family to earn a college degree, having earned a scholarship at the state university. She made the Dean's List. She dated a promising college peer who was as level-headed and responsible as she was. This was truly an exemplary child.

While in school in the late 1970s, this daughter took a required class in Sociology from a professor who was enamored with the Frankfort School's early Critical Theory. The moment was ripe to convince students to be suspicious of power structures—the Vietnam War had just ended and Watergate had been the biggest story in the newspaper during the formative years of these college students. And so, the couple's youngest child excelled at the University and became a thoroughgoing critic of American military power, white racism in the 1960s, and the general way (she came to believe) in which her parents' generation had ruined the world.

Here you have them: The three children of this couple. One is dead but forever alive in their memories, one is a perennially self-absorbed screw-up they could justifiably have disowned years ago, and the third is a successful, moral, hardworking success story who just happens to think that her parents and her deceased brother are basically Hitler.

From which child will they feel the greatest betrayal? The one who misbehaves, or the one who repudiates the things for which they have sacrificed the most? To which child will they give the most of their time, their hearts, their money, and their support?

The Republican Party has manipulated Evangelicals for years and has failed to deliver on their promises time after time. Many Republican leaders live a lifestyle that is antithetical to the lifestyle prescribed by Evangelical Christianity. And yet, even with all of that being true, they have never told Evangelicals that Evangelicals were the source of all of the problems in American life.

On the other hand, the Democratic Party has, in the minds of many Evangelicals, called Evangelicals deplorables, racists, ignoramuses, fascists, and hypocrites. Many Evangelicals get the feeling that Democrats view Evangelicals as The Enemy. They have repeatedly threatened, by way of things like the curiously (mis)named "Do No Harm Act," the very liberty of Evangelicals to preach and practice their faith whenever it comes into conflict with their radical sexual agenda.

Some Evangelicals will practice some "tough love" this November and will withhold their vote from a now-pro-choice National GOP. Very few Evangelicals will vote for Vice-President Harris (although they few may make a lot of noise), but some will vote third-party or not at all. Others, even if they feel like they ought to be tough-love conservatives, will not be able to find the strength within themselves to keep from pulling the lever for Republican candidates. After all, the Texas GOP's party platform is not pro-choice at all, so it is technically inaccurate to declare that the Republican Party en masse has abandoned the Pro-Life cause. So, some genuinely Pro-Life Evangelicals will stick with the Republican Party in the hope that the party will come around to Evangelical sensibilities eventually.

Even if you think the Evangelicals who still vote for President Trump are foolish, I hope you'll show them a little sympathy. These are matters of the heart, and life sometimes forces difficult choices upon us.

Three Things Messengers Know when Voting on Sex Abuse Reform

For the third straight year, the messenger body of the Southern Baptist Convention gave their overwhelming endorsement to the creation of a warning system¹ to warn churches about people who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse. In other words, they keep affirming the creation of the "Ministry Check" website. Why have they so consistently voted in this way?

Over the past two years, I have sometimes heard people speculate (that is, people who oppose this measure) that the messengers keep voting for Ministry Check because of what they do not know. They don't know the legal risks, we are told. They don't know what "biblical justice" is, others say. And yet, those criticisms (along with all of the others) have been aired for more than three years. It is no longer (if it ever was) a credible argument to suggest that messengers are voting the way that they are voting because of ignorance.

Rather, messengers are voting to affirm Ministry Check over and over with massive majorities because of at least three things that they DO know:

1. They know that their names will not be listed.
2. They know that there will be a growing number of people rightfully listed.
3. They know that they are going to need to hire employees and recruit volunteers for their churches sooner or later.

There it is. They keep voting for Ministry Check because they know those three things.

1. The messengers know that their names will not be listed. How can they know that? Because they know that they haven't been guilty of sexual misconduct. Whichever Southern Baptists are pursuing teenagers from the youth group sexually, are filling their hard drives with child porn, or have had their teaching certification pulled by the state for inappropriate behavior with teenagers, those are Southern Baptists who are not voting for the warning system. The Southern Baptists who are voting for the warning system know that no one has ever even accused them of any of these things.

This point exists in contradiction to anyone who would suggest that the SBC is chock full to the brim of sex offenders in our pulpits. If that were so, why would these people be voting for their own annihilation? Vote after vote, the Southern Baptist Convention has demonstrated that our rank-and-file Southern Baptists find church sexual abuse to be abhorrent and that they themselves are not sexual abusers.

2. The messengers know that there will indeed be a lot of names rightfully listed. In the 14 days surrounding the SBC Annual Meeting, serious allegations of sexual misconduct and abuse emerged regarding two mega-church pastors and a Southern Baptist pastor in Florida. Again, that's just over the span of a few days.

It's not crying wolf to acknowledge the growing problem of abusive sexual behavior among church leaders. It's also not "wokeism." It is utterly conservative to expect pastors, deacons, and church volunteers to follow the Christian sexual ethic. It is utterly conservative to refuse to give leadership positions to abusers. The Ministry Check website is conservative, Bible-believing Christianity. We live in a decadent culture. It gets worse every year. Sexual abuse is not unique to churches (it's in schools, Hollywood, athletics, etc.), but it is waging war against the churches and infiltrating them, constantly seeking to breach what Roger Williams called "the hedge of separation" between the wilderness of the world and the garden of the church. The worse the culture gets, the more of this we are going to see.

We rightly ought to be guarding the wall. We rightly ought to be alarmed. We rightly ought to take a defensive posture on behalf of the flocks alloted to our charge.

The warning system only makes us better at doing that.

3. The messengers know that they are eventually going to need to hire an employee or recruit a volunteer. They don't want to hire or recruit someone else's sexual abuse problem. They don't want to hire the predator who got chased away from another church and then came to their town fleeing the consequences of abuse and looking for somewhere to start fresh.

Can you blame these pastors for not wanting to be kept in the dark about these people when they have to hire someone? Their own children attend their churches. Their friends' children attend their churches. Children they visited in the hospital when they were born. Children they baptized when they came to faith in Jesus. They want to hire good people to serve their flock. They don't want to hire some wolf in sheep's clothing.

The warning system will benefit every kind of church that ever hires anyone or recruits anyone to volunteer. It will benefit megachurches and small churches. It will benefit urban churches and rural churches. It will benefit IX Marks churches, CBN churches, NAAF churches, Pillar churches—it will benefit every kind of church that doesn't want to hire that guy who created a sexual abuse scandal at another church three states away but didn't wind up on a sex offender registry.

Earlier this year, candidates for the SBC presidency debated whether we have a sexual abuse "crisis." For those who eschewed the description, they commonly offered the caveat that any church sexual abuse is a crisis for that one church. Yes, it is a crisis if a sexual predator plunders the flock of one church. Sometimes, because people are sneaky and devilish and highly motivated by their depravity, it is a crisis that could not easily have been prevented in that first church. But it is an even greater crisis when a single sexual predator creates crises at two churches, three churches, or a dozen churches. For any church after that first one, somebody could have done something to prevent it.

The messenger body knows that. They want to do everything they can do to avoid being that first church in crisis, but at the very least they also want to receive adequate warning to avoid being that second, third, or fourth church to fall into the clutches of a serial church abuser.

The messengers know that people will keep secrets and will work against them. They want every advantage they can get in the battle against these predators. It's good for their churches. And so, that's how they vote—they vote for the thing that will protect their churches and will protect the people in their churches.

Conclusion

There's just no mystery in this. The SBC Executive Committee now holds in its hands the third consecutive affirmation of this plan, referred to them by the messengers. There will be discussion about this. The perennial opponents of any kind of warning system will most definitely make their case. The members of the EC and everyone else will hear from those opponents all the reasons not to provide this warning system to churches.

I'm not looking to get in the way of anyone who wants to make their case against a warning system. We have a deliberative system. Let each one make his case as best he can (and let them make it publicly and on the record). And Southern Baptists should listen carefully (and critically) to what those people say.

But I do want to get in the way of this: When people dismiss the repeated votes of the messenger body by calling into question their knowledge or wisdom, I hope we'll all throw a little side-eye their way and point back to these three undeniable truths that have motivated the messenger body. The messengers' voice and the messengers' case should be articulated with appropriate clarity, enthusiasm, attesting data, and force. The reasons that motivate the messengers from the churches may not make a lot of sense to people whose daily work is outside the local-church context, but to a pastor, these three things are important realities. Although there is a further case to be made with additional reasons to implement a warning system, these three reasons are sound and compelling all by themselves. Let us show the respect due the messenger body—overwhelmingly populated by leaders in their own churches—and take their reasons and their needs seriously, too.

After all, don't the entities of the SBC exist "to assist the churches"?

¹This is often called "the database." I call it a "warning system" because I am open to any methodology that adequately warns churches about dangerous people.