Thread by @ChristaBrown777

🧵I give thanks for the #SBC21 vote for investigation of @SBCExecComm & audit re #SBC abuse. But I want to also be clear about the limitations of this vote. It carries POTENTIAL but for that potential to eventually be realized there must be bird-dogging & follow-up. 1/

https://twitter.com/ChristaBrown777/status/1405223633438404608

The #SBC21 vote does not serve to expose a single clergy abuser or enabler; nor does it create a database of clergy predators. It doesn't provide communal validation to #SBCtoo survivors by naming their abusers. It doesn't provide any aid or therapy costs to #SBCtoo survivors. 2/

It does not make public institutional apology to any #SBCtoo survivor for grotesqueries of #SBC officials.

These much-needed steps are wholly left up in the air. Moreover, rather than helping #SBCtoo survivors, the vote is actually asking that survivors help the #SBC. 3/

It asks #SBCtoo survivors to share deeply traumatic stories of child rapes, molestations & sexual abuse committed by clergy, without even a system in place to act on their stories, to help the survivors or to hold the perpetrators accountable. 4/

After so many years of institutional do-nothingness, #SBCtoo survivors are now expected to believe that MAYBE if we bleed-out our stories yet again, #SBC MIGHT choose to take action & implement structural change. That asks an awfully lot from #SBCtoo survivors. 5/

So...while there is great potential in what was done at #SBC21, the potential is still unrealized. And history holds lessons.

After I began publicly advocating in 2006 for an #SBC clergy-abuser database, a motion for a study of the possibility passed near-unanimously in 2007. 6/

Many sang praises for the #SBC’s vote on that 2007 motion. Yet, here's what happened: There was never even a budget allocated for the voted-for study of having a database. NO ONE BIRD-DOGGED THE MOTION, seemingly not even the pastor who had put the motion on the floor. 7/

So in the end, the so-called “study” amounted to little more than the ExecComm’s predetermined negative conclusion put into writing with a glossy brochure. The near-unanimous will of the 2007 #SBC messengers for a study has STILL never really been done. #SBCdatabaseNOW 8/

And though it was obvious that no legit study was done of the proposal for a denominational database, even the pastor who had sponsored the motion said ExecComm took the abuse issue “very seriously” & suggested it was "an adequate response.” 9/
religionnews.com/2008/06/11/sou…

So, with that 2007 motion for study of a database on #SBC sexual abuse, though many praised it then as progress, the net result was, from get-go to final disposition in 2008, it seemed as more a slick PR show, and survivor trust was trampled even more. #InstitutionalBetrayal 10/

I realize that the 2 abuse-related motions of #SBC21 are not the same as the motion of 2007. Yes, there are differences. But I still think the 2007-08 history holds a lesson: THE MOTIONS MUST BE ACTIVELY BIRD-DOGGED. End/

#InvestigateSBC #SBCTruthandJustice #SBCreckoning