re: Houston Chronicle Article on Southern Baptist Sexual Abuse 

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That’s nice talk and all but did he not know about any of these crimes before the article? Why wait until somebody else exposes it?

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tom1987 posted comments from a wig in the SBC. You read them, but not this part?:

“The Baptist doctrine of church autonomy should never be a religious cover for passivity towards abuse. Church autonomy is about freeing the church to do the right thing — to obey Christ — in every situation. It is a heinous error to apply autonomy in a way that enables abuse.” D. August Boto, interim president of the SBC Executive Committee, said in an interview with the Chronicle that the newspaper is “not the opponent of the Southern Baptist Convention.” “You’re helping us. I’m all for shining the light of day upon crime,” Boto said.

Baptists don't get their marching orders from big daddy bureaucracy, which is what makes the Catholic response all the more damning. It wasn't the parish churches playing musical pedophile from church to church. It was Catholic leadership, all the way up the line. Just as it is today, where the Pope calls enablers and probably pedophiles to work in the Vatican, when they can't be arrested or extradited to pay for their crimes.

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Your comments have nothing to do with what I said.

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Well, they do. Unless you think the head cheese at the SBC is omniscient, or you think he can know what goes on ala Minority Report. Baptist churches aren’t sent their preachers by a higher up in the church, they don’t report to anyone about who they hire. You might as well expect yourself to know what happened, and when. Understand?

ETA: even if they did know, there is no real infrastructure or hierarchy to do much about it. The reforms they are talking about, maintaining a list of offenders to protect future congregations, will only protect fellow SBC affiliated churches, if the SBC makes them choose between being a member or maintaining the relationship with whomever a member church has hired.

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My head isn’t in the sand. People talk. He knew about some of the instances.

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Maybe. Maybe not. The point is moot, because there is no real mechanism by which the SBC can dictate to the individual churches. I’m sure at this point there will be pressure applied to churches who employ someone on the list they end up compiling, but that’s going to be close to the extent of it.