The Executive Committee is also recommending that the SBC set aside $3 million of its annual budget for legal fees. The funds will be taken from the Cooperative Program (CP), the denomination’s central fund for missionaries, seminaries, church plants, and other ministries.
This recommendation is likely to be a source of controversy at the SBC’s next annual meeting.
In light of this financial hardship, a number of SBC leaders have taken to social media to express their ongoing frustration with the effort to implement sexual abuse reforms.
“The SBC is in serious trouble. Many of those who foolishly led us into this trouble would like us to forget their complicity in doing so,” wrote Florida Pastor Tom Ascol, a once SBC presidential hopeful. “Yes ‘decisions were made by the messengers.’ But it is simplistic to the point of being deceptive to leave it at that. The messengers followed outspoken leaders who, as is now evident, led them foolishly.”
Georgia Pastor Mike Stone, who has also unsuccessfully run for SBC president, wrote, “If only someone had warned us…”
“There isn’t a better example of ‘Emotional Sabotage’…than what happened to the SBC in the ‘sex abuse crisis,’” wrote Texas Pastor Tom Buck. “Those who rose to positions of leadership because they were ‘steered’ by the sabotage should resign; those who warned us and resigned should be reinstated.”
However, Thigpen argues that SBC messengers were not unaware of the possible consequences associated with pursuing sexual abuse reforms.
“ The whole thing is that the messengers made a choice, and just like they tried to do last year, and they’re still doing now, they’re trying to say that the messengers didn’t know what they were doing,” Thigpen said. “The messengers fully understood what they were doing, and every year that we went to that convention, they voted again for moving forward. They didn’t do that unaware.”
Nevertheless, as it stands, Thigpen expressed that she does not see a clear path forward to complete the task. While she acknowledged that survivor advocates still have important work to do, she doesn’t believe that “it does any good to do it within the SBC.”
Thigpen indicated that if change is going to happen, it will need to start at a “grassroots” level.
