Southern Baptist officials knew of sexual abuse allegations 11 years before leader’s arrest
“The missionary arm of the Southern Baptist Convention knew about allegations against Southern Baptist leader Mark Aderholt more than 10 years before he was arrested July 3 on charges that he sexually assaulted a 16-year-old girl, according to police records, emails and an internal investigation from the organization. In 2007, the International Mission Board conducted an investigation into allegations that Aderholt had a sexual relationship with the girl while he was a 25-year-old student at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. At the time of the investigation, Aderholt was one of the more prolific missionaries with the Mission Board, which has sent Southern Baptists around the globe for more than a century. The International Mission Board did not report the allegations to authorities.” - Fort Worth Star Telegram
Bert, I’ve laid it out as clearly as I can and you haven’t rebutted any of the specifics I set out in my last response; the same is true for at least some specifics in my earlier responses. You’re simply wrong. But let’s do keep in mind that our whole discussion has been on the limited issue whether Texas law in 2007 required IMB to report to the authorities the then-25-year-old’s report of abuse from 9-10 years earlier. None of my arguments were aimed at defending IMB’s failure as an employer to mark the abuser/liar for future employers, especially churches. That is where I think they ought to be faulted, and I hope their review results in positive changes for future such situations.
One note about Platt’s statement: it’s good to see him addressing the victim’s suffering. Too many church/denominational/school statements about such abuse fail to even acknowledge the damage to the victim(s).
As the old saying goes, people get to make up their own opinions; they do not get to make up their own facts.
It’s instructive to look through this thread and see where most of the clear verifiable facts are vs. where most of the asserting-of-opinion-as-if-fact is.
As for Platt and IMB’s decision to launch some independent investigations, etc., I hope for the sake of all involved that the investigators are swift, clear, apolitical, and fact-focused (vs. the kind of “investigation” that polls all sorts of people about how they feel about things!).
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
It’s how they’re interpreted. One side here is assuming that all feedback to IMB ought to be through the lens of Greg Abbott’s 2012 ruling; that makes sense if what you’re doing is lining up IMB for prosecution. A fairly authoritative reinterpretation of the law can be a buffer against prosecution. But I conceded way back that prosecution is unlikely, so it’s the wrong line of reasoning.
Side note is that if prosecutors generally won’t prosecute non-reporting, as appears to be the case, it raises the question of whether the law ought to be revised.
The flip side is if you’re seeing the matter as one of regulatory compliance, whether IMB is doing best practices, and in that light, reviewing their behavior in 2007 in light of a 2012 decision makes no more sense than reviewing ISO practices from 2010 in light of ISO:9001 from 2015. In that light, what matters is what people knew at the time, which would be the broad interpretations of 1995 and 1997. It doesn’t matter that the specific question wasn’t addressed then; it matters what the interpretations said, which is, again, a broad responsibility.
It also matters in what we know about investigations; IMB has no subpoena power and no ability to collect physical evidence. Therefore necessarily they would be conducting an inferior investigation that may well have exposed other women to being violated. Since the coordination was done by a lawyer, this is an important oversight, and something that makes IMB look really, really bad.
And I would be very, very surprised if the investigation does not emphasize points like this. Really, the head of IMB has tipped his hand to this already; you don’t commission an independent investigation if you’re persuaded that everything is OK. You do so if you’re persuaded that you’ve got some problems to fix that need an outside look.
Aspiring to be a stick in the mud.
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