Hiland Park Baptist Church in Panama City, Florida, one of two churches for which the SBC Credentials Committee has launched an inquiry for hosting disgraced pastor Johnny Hunt, has fired back in an open letter, indicating that they will fight for their place in the SBC—by legal means if necessary.
Controversy swelled around Hiland Park Baptist after their pastor, Steven Kyle, along with a team of three other pastors, led former pastor and denominational leader Johnny Hunt in a “restoration” process following the revelation last year that he had been credibly accused of sexual abuse.
Kyle characterized his role in returning Hunt to ministry as a “sacred duty.”
The allegations against Hunt came to light in the Guidepost Solutions report that had been commissioned by the SBC and sought to determine whether the denomination’s Executive Committee had mishandled sexual abuse in the last two decades.
Released in May 2022, the report described Hunt’s alleged sexual assault of the wife of a pastor he was mentoring. The survivor claimed that the abuse occurred in 2010 toward the end of Hunt’s term as SBC president.
Investigators found the testimony of the survivor and other witnesses close to the situation to be credible. Hunt, whose story shifted throughout the course of the investigation, was not found credible. Hunt eventually conceded that he had a sexual encounter with the survivor, but he denies that he sexually assaulted her.
Following the revelation, Hunt was stripped of his title of pastor emeritus at First Baptist Church in Woodstock, Georgia, a congregation he had pastored for over three decades. FBC Woodstock would go on to void his membership to the church. Hunt also resigned his position as Vice President of Evangelism and Leadership at the SBC’s North American Mission Board.
To the understanding of most Southern Baptists, the credible allegations against Hunt constituted a permanent disqualification from pastoral leadership, in accordance with a resolution passed by the Convention in 2021.
Nevertheless, Kyle and three other pastors declared Hunt cleared for ministry in November 2022. The announcement was sharply criticized by SBC leaders, including current SBC president Bart Barber.
In January of this year, Hunt made his defiant return to the pulpit at Hiland Park Baptist Church, preaching a sermon that indicated his belief that he was being persecuted by SBC leadership. In March, Hunt preached his second sermon since his “restoration” at New Season Church in Hiram, Georgia. That church is also under inquiry.
Since the SBC is a collective of autonomous churches, denominational leaders do not have the power to tell churches who may fill their pulpits. However, they can disfellowship churches that are deemed by the Credentials Committee to no longer be in “friendly cooperation” with the SBC.
In the case of Hiland Park Baptist and New Season Church, this is the process that the Credentials Committee has begun. They informed the two churches that they would be the subject of an inquiry earlier this month.
