Barry Baker (trustee of Baptist Children’s Home & Family Services, Illinois): While a youth worker at First Baptist Church of Fairfield, Illinois, Baker wrote to a judge to urge leniency in the sentencing of a prominent pastor who pled guilty on child sexual charges. In doing so, he put blame on how girls dress by saying: “The girls come to youth meetings wearing much less than is fair for us as boys and men.” Two years after that letter, Illinois Baptists elected Baker as a trustee of their Children’s Home & Family Services.
Murrill Boitnott (former senior pastor of Wayside Baptist Church in Miami and currently the president of Macedonian Call Ministries): Even after staff minister Keith Geren admitted to sexually abusing 10 teen boys, pastor Boitnott couldn’t bring himself to recommend that Geren be fired or even that he have no further contact with church youth. Later, it came out that Geren had also abused boys during his prior stint at First Baptist Church of Lakeland where Boitnott was also working at the time.
Augie Boto (an SBC vice-president): Rationalized and justified the Southern Baptist Convention’s inclusion of criminally convicted sex offenders on the Southern Baptist registry of ministers. Though Boto himself acknowledges that abusive ministers have been able to church-hop and that most sex offenders have no criminal record, he nevertheless insists that the Southern Baptist Convention cannot keep denominational records on credibly-accused clergy child molesters. Boto was identified by the SBC’s president as the de-facto “man in charge of the subcommittee” that was supposed to study Baptist clergy sex abuse but effectively did nothing.
Keith Brickell (senior pastor of Sylvan Hill First Baptist Church in Sherwood, Arkansas): Despite complaints about the principal of the church's school, and even though those complaints alleged "inappropriate behavior" with female students, Brickell did not take action or go to the police. An investigation was initiated only when an anonymous caller contacted the police. The police then contacted Brickell, not vice-versa.
Morris Chapman (president of the SBC Executive Committee): Despite the vote of 8600 Southern Baptist “messengers,” directing the Executive Committee to conduct a study on Baptist clergy sex abuse, Chapman never even took it seriously enough to set aside a budget for the study. The Nashville Scene provided this summary of the Executive Committee’s response to abuse victims’ calls for help: “Abuse is sad. But because of that pesky matter of church autonomy, we can’t remove predatory pastors from the pulpit. Please stop calling and emailing about your suffering. Our hands are tied, but we hear prayer heals all wounds. God bless.” Think that sounds ludicrous? That’s the point.
http://www.stopbaptistpredators.org/collusion_individuals.html
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