If anyone was looking for an excuse not to deal with sexual abuse and mistreatment of survivors within the SBC, Guidepost Solutions provided the perfect cover yesterday with their “pride” month tweet. I was both disappointed and stunned. A couple of thoughts about this…
Guidepost is a multinational secular company that specializes in corporate investigations. They are not a Christian company although they routinely work for Christian organizations. The SATF chose them for their expertise and capacity to complete the investigation in time…
Why not choose a Christian company? We would have preferred to choose a Christian company, but no other firm had the capacity to do this work. We published an RFP open to all, but other companies pulled their proposals when the scope and time constraints were presented…
But here is what Guidepost did out of respect for the faith and values of the SBC: They assigned Christian people to lead our investigation, more often than not, Baptist people. Their subcontractors were chosen for their competence but they specifically chose Christian people…
Guidepost did a professional investigation, they operated with integrity, they respected our faith and values, they even ate a significant amount of the cost because they wanted to help us discover the truth and assist us to be more Christlike in how we respond to sexual abuse…
Guidepost has completed their contract, and the SATF has published their report, unedited, as required. We were all grieved by what they found. The next steps are in the hands of the messengers in Anaheim. The SATF (not Guidepost) will make recommendations…
And the goal of every recommendation? That we may live and think more biblically regarding this grievous sin of sexual abuse, to be more Christlike in how to minister to the survivors, to help churches protect their most vulnerable from predators.
The SATF is refining and improving the recommendations right now based upon the insights of many across the SBC who want us to make the right steps. The bottom line: Had we taken these steps 20 years ago, thousands of abuse victims could have been spared. We can’t fail now…
But we do have an enemy…and it’s not whoever you think is on the wrong side of sbc politics. Yesterday’s tweet reminded me that Satan is all over this to divide us. He is the father of lies, and he wants us to lie about each other and to each other…
Please join me in a desperate prayer, that we may have one mind to walk in what God has said is required: to do justice, to love mercy, and walk humbly with our God. The world has “pride” month, I’m praying we in Anaheim will have humble, contrite, broken over sin month.
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