Here's a pastoral letter from Senior Pastor Garrett Vickrey about the Guidepost report on the SBC......When Cameron and I lived in Charlotte I was on staff at a large baptist church and she worked as a nanny for a small child in the same neighborhood as the church. I worked with teenagers as the minister to students. The family Cameron worked for asked that I not come over to the house and that their child never come over to our house. They were religiously unaffiliated. And this was in the days right after the Boston Globe’s groundbreaking reporting on the sexual abuse scandals within the Catholic Church. This family didn’t trust the Church— any church with the safety of their child. At this point, who could blame them? That family could not distinguish between Catholics and Baptists. We can be sure that our neighbors cannot distinguish between Cooperative Baptists at Woodland and our Southern Baptist brothers and sisters. We will be linked with them through our church’s “middle name.” That name has been dragged through them mud for decades by baptists behaving badly. Now, we have reached a new low in baptist life. And there is much work to do working for healing, calling for justice, and persevering for reconciliation.On Sunday the independent firm Guidepost Solutions released a 400-page report detailing the actions of the Executive Committee that essentially runs the Southern Baptist Convention. The deeds of the Executive Committee detailed in the report are nothing short of disgusting. For 20 years leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention silenced and belittled sexual abuse survivors. They ignored demands for policies to stop sexual predators and dismissed any suggested reforms under the guise of local church autonomy.Here’s a short list of significant findings from the report:Former SBC President from 2008-2010 Johnny Hunt sexually assaulted the wife of another SBC pastor in 2010. At the time this pastor was on his church staff in Georgia and Hunt told them to go to the unlicensed counselor at their church. Until this past weekend when he resigned, Hunt was senior vice president for evangelism with the North American Mission Board. There is documented mistreatment by the Executive Committee of a sexual abuse survivor, whose own story of her abuse was altered to make it seem that her abuse was a consensual “affair”—resulting, which had devastating effects on the victim.The Executive Committee used the denominational news source Baptist Press to portray survivors in an unflattering light and mischaracterize allegations of abuse. They changed stories and held back articles that made the denomination look bad. Longtime SBC leaders within the Executive Committee kept a private list of abusive pastors and ministers despite claiming for years that such an idea was impractical for stopping predators and impossible to adopt because of the SBC’s decentralized structure. This secret list was kept in a file at the convention’s headquarters contained the names of over 700 offenders most of whom had SBC connections. A few still work at SBC churches.Augie Boto, who served for 21 years (1998-2019) as executive vice president and general counsel for the Executive Committee repeatedly blocked any kind of reforms. The Guidepost report places Boto at the center of a closely held group attempting to protect the SBC from accusations of inaction on sexual abuse claims while actively burying sexual abuse claims and at times denigrating victims. The fact that the largest protestant denomination in the country systematically ridiculed and ignored sexual abuse victims is crushing. The lack of moral conscience is unfathomable. The idea that so many people trained in “pastoral arts” lacked enough compassion to see the plight of these victims is devastating to us as we read this report. As we listen to the stories of women who have been abused, I think of the story of Jesus in John 8 intervening for the woman supposedly caught in adultery. After all, isn’t it likely she too was a victim of abuse? Jesus stepped between the woman and the accusers ready to stone her. He kneeled on the ground and began to write something in the dirt. Then he stood up and said, “Let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone.” For the abuse survivors within the SBC it was the body of Christ who threw the first stone. LET’S PRAYLet’s pray for the victims whose stories have not yet been told. Let’s pray for the courageous survivors who have come forward. Pray for them because they are being drug through the the mud on social media by denominational henchmen who will do anything to protect the "baptist brand.” Pray for those who grew up in Southern Baptist Churches and now wonder what it all meant. Pray for those for whom this is the last straw. Many have been on the margins questioning the moral sincerity of baptist leaders. Many will slip away never to return to church. And most people in the pews will not notice. Pray for those who will blame the media and scapegoat the victims. Pray for those who refuse to listen and will continue to obfuscate and deny. SPEAKING OF THE MEDIAThe Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News did some incredible reporting that unearthed this pattern of abuse and coverup back in 2019. Baptist News Global, an independent baptist news source supported by Woodland’s Missions & Ministries Budget, also has done incredible work detailing the abuse and covering the denomination’s response. These incredible journalists have helped to hold the SBC accountable for its sins. WHAT ARE WOODLAND’S CONNECTIONS TO THE SBC?Woodland is not a Southern Baptist Church. The sign out front clearly says, “A Cooperative Baptist Fellowship Church.” And yet, our 501c3 status is through the BGCT (a.k.a. Texas Baptists) which is connected with the SBC. The only way to sever this connection is to go through the process of getting our own private 501c3 status, which is something that the Church Council has talked about as recently as last fall. The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (CBF) started back in 1991 when a group of churches decided that the SBC was no longer a suitable home for baptists who believe in the traditional baptists values such as local church autonomy, freedom of conscience, and religious liberty. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE SBC?In the 20th century the Southern Baptist Convention was as broad and diverse a denominational body as the United Methodists. But, this diversity was a threat to some. And so Paige Patterson and Paul Pressler, along with Augie Boto, drew up a plan in 1979 to take control of the institutions of the convention. They were able to get “their people” on the nominating committee. From their the nominating committee began nominating fundamentalist Christians from the Patterson/Pressler camp to all of the trustee boards of the seminaries, missions boards, and denominational entities. In the following years people like Molly Marshall, Bill Leonard, and Daniel Vestal (all friends of Woodland) were shut out. Marshall and Leonard were fired from their faculty positions at the Southern Baptist Seminary in Kentucky. Vestal was denounced as a liberal for his support of women in ministry. The denomination took a hard turn to the right and became unified in its fundamentalist vision of Christian faith. Patriarchy and autocracy came to define the convention. And that dangerous mix has led to devastating results. Now, the truth is coming out about the architects of the SBC’s conservative resurgence. Paul Pressler is in civil proceedings about multiple allegations of the rape of young men. Paige Patterson was fired from the presidency of Southwestern Seminary for his mishandling a rape victim’s report, making inappropriate comments about the bodies of teenage girls as a conference, and his counsel that women abused by their husbands should stay in the marriage. Babs Baugh’s father John Baugh (and of course, Jackie Moore’s grandfather) was deeply involved in this denominational schism back in the 1970s and 1980s with Pressler and Patterson. He witnessed their unscrupulous behavior firsthand and wrote about it in his book (copies available at church). Mr. Baugh was a fierce advocate for the freedom of conscience and baptist freedoms. He argued back then that the so-called conservative resurgence was nothing more than a power-play by a small number of men. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR WOODLAND?The Southern Baptist Convention is the largest denominational body in the U.S. outside of the Catholic Church. Every other baptist group is significantly smaller. CBF is but a small minority of the larger baptist movement. And there will only be very few who will be able to distinguish between Southern and Cooperative baptists. Most people will not take the time or care. Ultimately, all baptists will bear the consequences of the Southern Baptist Convention’s sins. My thinking has changed a lot over the past 5 years about including the word “baptist” in our name. For the longest time, I wanted to redeem the name and teach people what it meant to be baptist. I was proud of baptists like Thomas Helwys, Walter Rauschenbusch, Lottie Moon, Martin Luther King, Jr., Carlyle Marney, Molly Marshall, and John Baugh. But, the sad truth is that the baptist name is associated with being closed-minded, anti-women, anti-gay, racist, anti-science, against modern biblical scholarship, tied up in conservative politics, exclusive, and in a word— “mean.” These are the associations for people with the name baptist. Woodland is not like that. Our statement of faith lays out a vision of a church that is inclusive and open to following the Spirit of Christ in our world today. But, many people who are looking for a church like us will not even consider us because of the word baptist in our name. Many are looking for a church that sings hymns, lifts up lay leadership, advocates for the common good, works hard in missions, and takes seriously the deep study of scripture and theology. And yet, they won’t give us a chance because our name is Woodland BAPTIST Church. Unfortunately, our middle name is hurting our mission. Carlyle Marney once said there are too many in our churches for whom it can be said they are more baptist than Christian and more southern than baptist. I would advocate that we seriously consider changing our name to THE WOODLAND CHURCH and do so under our own 501c3 so that we make clear who we are. We are a truly baptist congregation who values the freedoms and responsibilities gifted to us by God. We remain baptist in our governance and connection to CBF, but not in our messaging to the outside world for whom that language has no meaning. Is this an overreaction? If we don’t react to this in some way, I wonder what other horrible situation would be worthy of a reaction. We cannot keep doing the same things in the same way. The world has changed. KEEPING PEOPLE SAFE AT WOODLANDAs I mentioned above, we are surrounded by families like the one Cameron nannied for long ago. They will look at us and wonder if their kids will be safe among us. Maybe some of our own members are wondering that. I’ve asked our church staff to review all of our practices and policies. For years we’ve done background checks for staff and any volunteers with children and youth. The children’s committee will be reviewing our child safety policy. For a copy of that current policy contact Lisa Shinkins. Student Minister Jana Morga is reviewing our practices with our students and making sure that we are providing a safe environment. One of the reasons we have contracted with an HR firm a few years ago is to provide the highest amount of accountability and safety within our staff and community. We’ve sought professional guidance on our personnel policy approved earlier this year. We want to make sure we are doing everything we can to create a safe environment and a place where people can be heard and cared for. Members of our church staff joined a ZOOM training put on by the School of Social Work at Baylor for church leaders on how to deal with domestic violence in churches last month. The Cooperative Baptist Fellowship created a Clergy Sexual Misconduct Task Force several years ago and partnered with Baptist Women in Ministry to create resources for congregations. The church must be willing to put itself between abusers and victims. That takes risk. But, it’s the only way we can live out our calling to be the hands and feet of Christ today. I firmly believe that Jesus would not seek the preservation of the church, but would risk its reputation to protect the sheep. WHAT NOW?Healing for victims. Pray for it. Advocate for it. Let’s make sure our conversations make space for those who have gone through this hell. And in all our conversations make space for listening. This kind of abuse is far too common. In John 16 Jesus says, “My peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you.” We can share this peace now. As the body of Christ at Woodland this is what we have to give now. To give that peace we have to be willing to walk in Christ’s path. That path always includes a cross. But, the gospel reminds us our faith is in a God who overcomes crosses. May God bring healing. And may God be with us as we seek to be a people of hope where every member is a minister. Grace and peace, garrettwww.youtube.com/watch?v=PlHsm0_jYy0 ... 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