The Executive Committee (EC) of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has announced the rollout of a revamped hotline for reporting sexual abuse.
Called the SBC Abuse Response Helpline, the hotline is being implemented in partnership with the Evangelical Council for Abuse Prevention (ECAP) and will deliver “gospel-focused abuse support for survivors and ministry leaders through the collaborative partnership,” the EC said in a press release.
The hotline will provide reporting of abuse to law enforcement and the SBC Credentials Committee, coaching for churches’ responses to abuse claims, referrals for trauma-informed counseling, and guidance for abuse prevention.
“Our new Helpline suite of services enhances our efforts at providing Southern Baptist churches and ministries the resources they need to prevent sexual abuse or respond to sexual abuse allegations,” said EC president Dr. Jeff Iorg.
“The new Helpline will provide competent assistance to those seeking assistance—for survivors as well as services for ministry leaders who are responding on these issues,” Iorg added. “We are putting in place long-term strategies for confronting this pernicious evil because even one instance of sexual abuse is too many.”
The SBC EC first established an abuse reporting tip line in 2022 in partnership with Guidepost Solutions. The hotline was created shortly after the EC contracted Guidepost Solutions to investigate whether the EC had mishandled allegations of sexual abuse across a 20-year period. The ensuing report revealed a pattern of ignoring and at times silencing survivors of sexual abuse.
That same year, SBC church delegates, called messengers, voted overwhelmingly in favor of implementing reforms to abuse prevention and reporting structures in the denomination. One of the reforms mandated by messengers was the creation of a “Ministry Check” website to serve as a database of SBC pastors and leaders who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse.
Despite the sustained efforts of an implementation task force and no vote from messengers to revoke the mandate to create a database, the idea of a “Ministry Check” website has largely been abandoned by the EC.
“At this point, it’s not a focus for us,” Iorg said of the database during an EC meeting in February.
Nevertheless, the EC has followed through on its promise to create a permanent office dedicated to implementing reforms for abuse prevention and reporting. In January, Jeff Dalrymple was appointed head of that office.
