“In a sharply critical review, Clear Resources concluded that Guidepost departed from any recognizable professional investigative standard by permitting conflicts of interest and failing to uphold due process. Rachel Denhollander, who had previously represented Lyell against the Executive Committee, was directly involved in the investigation of that same committee and, along with Lyell, was allowed to edit the final report.”
(Jon Harris) There is a crisis of legitimacy in our country because of legacy institutions who failed to live up to their own standards. When this includes organizations that represent the moral anchor of society, it deepens the severity of the problem. Unfortunately, the largest Protestant denomination in the country has done just that. Leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention squandered much of their moral credibility crusading for causes on the Left, such as amnesty with extra steps, DEI-related policies, and a costly thirteen million dollars and counting alliance with the #metoo movement.
The pretext for this alliance, which has exposed the denomination to significant legal liabilities and contributed to the decision to place its headquarters on the market to cover expenses, is mostly attributed to actions taken in 2021-2022. These included paying Guidepost Solutions over two million dollars to investigate the denomination, waiving attorney client privilege for the Executive Committee, and developing a survivor hotline. However, to get to this actionable point required a moral justification that developed several years earlier. First was the 2018 firing of Paige Patterson, a conservative stalwart and president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, for remarks concerning marital submission in abusive situations. Second was a 2019 series of articles in the Houston Chronicle reporting over 700 victims across a twenty year period within the denomination. Third was the 2019 Jennifer Lyell case at the denomination’s flagship seminary, in which she reported that missions professor David Sills had abused her.
Research
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