“This would include Defendant Miller hiding in a darkened and locked closet with one of the students. During these ‘hiding’ sessions…Defendant Miller would tickle, grope, and molest the young adolescents he was charged to teach.”
Gates, an Immanuel member, Sunday school teacher, and father of three, shared statistics that indicate high rates of reoffending among sexual abusers. On Dec. 8, two days before Pastor Smith addressed church members, Gates wrote a letter to church staff. He indicated that the parents of Miller’s first victim implored leaders to alert parents of other “potentially affected girls” about what had occurred. The leaders did not do so.
The second accuser, Gates added, “was met with disbelief” in 2022 when she told Pastor Smith and Executive Pastor Doug Pigg about her allegations against Miller.
After Miller was convicted and as the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) was facing a major abuse scandal, Smith wrote to congregants, promising that Immanuel would “stand with the abused to provide a church where people can heal and find shelter.” The church, he added, had long had “protocols in place that, by God’s grace, have proven effective in the prevention of abuse.”
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Gates countered those assertions from Smith, however, writing that “neither” was true.
Church Seemed To Ignore Denomination’s Guidelines
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reporter Frank Lockwood wrote that Immanuel and Smith didn’t follow SBC guidelines, set forth in the 2019 Caring Well handbook. That manual encourages church officials to “communicate with the congregation verbally and in writing, informing them of the name of the abusive leader and the basic allegation(s).”
Lockwood also reported that the SBC’s Executive Committee said it “had no knowledge” previously of the situation at Immanuel. In a statement to Baptist Press Dec. 12, Smith said, “During the law enforcement investigation, church leaders did not publicly discuss the matter. There’s a very real concern that doing so could have undermined or negatively affected the ability of prosecutors to make their case and obtain a conviction.”
Canaan Chapman, who served as student pastor at the Little Rock church from 2019 to July 2023, said staff members “were given little, if any, information” about Miller.
Courtney Reissig, who left her role as Immanuel’s discipleship content creator in September, wrote that she “only found out about these two victims…after my resignation and departure.” In a Dec. 11 Facebook post, Reissig added that Pastors Smith and Pigg made no disclosures to her about allegations and prosecution, despite “daily and weekly interactions” with them.
If she had known what was happening at Immanuel, Reissig said, “I would have stood with these victims.” She added, “The truth must come to light.”
Arkansas Pastor Brad Lewter, president of the state’s Baptist convention, said he wasn’t aware of the details until Smith shared them Sunday. As part of his role on an abuse taskforce, he helped establish numerous measures to safeguard children and churchgoers.
Lewter, who urges as much transparency as possible, said, “I think pastors today, especially after all we’ve gone through as a Southern Baptist Convention, I just don’t think you get a pass by saying, ‘I didn’t know what to do.’”
