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.