“It’s the end of an era,” said Tiffany Thigpen following the announcement that the Southern Baptist Convention’s (SBC) Executive Committee is no longer pursuing the implementation of an abuser database.
Thigpen is one of several key abuse survivor advocates who have for years worked alongside SBC leaders and task forces to bring about reforms to address the decades-long failure of the denomination to properly respond to allegations of clergy sex abuse.
Among the proposed reforms has been the “Ministry Check” website, an online database of pastors, church leaders, and volunteers who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse.
For a time, it appeared that advocates were making headway. At the annual meeting of the SBC in 2022, they cried tears of joy as local church delegates (called messengers) overwhelmingly voted in favor of creating the database.
“We really thought, wow, people are really listening,” Thigpen told ChurchLeaders. “For us, rejoicing for that is just knowing that other people are going to be safe and other people are not going to have to go through what we’ve been through.”
The vote for reform came roughly one month after a third-party investigation conducted by Guidepost Solutions revealed that the SBC Executive Committee, at the advice of legal counsel, had systematically ignored and/or silenced victims of sexual abuse who had come forward with credible abuse allegations.
The report became a motivating factor to push reforms forward. However, Thigpen said, “That was the year that I believe the entity heads and everyone else got scared.”
“ Everyone else in the larger structure got really afraid,” she added. “Because they saw what the power of the people could do. I think that they were looking out there going, ‘Oh no, we are possibly in trouble.’”
A number of key leaders consistently opposed the creation of the database, citing issues of liability and due process.
Two years later, the task force charged with implementing the creation of the database had still not completed the task. As the group disbanded following the denomination’s annual meeting in June 2024, it handed over the reins to the Executive Committee.
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Task force chairman Josh Wester said at the time that the team had been plagued by liability concerns that had kept it from succeeding. Wester nevertheless expressed optimism that the Executive Committee would complete the task under the leadership of its new president, Dr. Jeff Iorg.
