Why Southern Baptists’ Social Justice Spat Is Actually About the Sufficiency of Scripture

Regarding the need for the church to take action, isn’t that a great part of 1 Corinthians? The trick with not doing an investigation while the state’s investigation is going on is first of all that it can be interfering with an investigation/obstruction of justice, and second of all to give the state the best possible chance to make the case. They have, and we don’t have, subpoena power, the ability to collect physical evidence (e.g. DNA), mandatory rights for the accused and accuser, huge resources (if they choose to use them), and quite frankly people who are trained to have an excellent nonsense detector. I’ve seen it in action personally when a friend of my daughter’s was making suicidal texts, and I figured I’d get blue involved because while I suspected it might just be “drama queen” behavior, I wasn’t willing to find out the hard way I was wrong.

Thankfully, the officer and I were right, and it worked out fine, but I’m glad I visited Macomb’s finest that night.

But that noted, the simple fact of the matter is that about 69% of victims don’t report to the police at all (keep in mind the shame and the fact that many were threatened with death and you’ll understand), and of those that do report, precious few (20% in MN and we’re better than average) get a wholehearted investigation, and huge portions of rape kits go unprocessed. In other words, we want to give the system a chance, but too often, they’re more interested in handing out speeding tickets and arresting potheads.

Long and short of it is that a huge portion of victims so appear to be failed by the system—yes raising Hell about it if you see evidence of it in your town might be appropriate—and God calls us to discipline the wayward in our midst. So in our society, yes, work with authorities and then do your own investigation is exactly what’s called for. If that doesn’t happen, then what you’re doing is telling victims in your church that they don’t matter, and for that matter you’re telling God that the purity of His church doesn’t matter. No?

[dcbii]

I’m not at all against a church taking appropriate action if they so choose. I don’t like the idea that seems to be present in this new approach towards abuse that first says the church must not do its own investigation (even in parallel after notifying the state), but if the state doesn’t convict then the church must take action. Maybe I’m reading into this from the comments and various things published, but it certainly seems the church is being hung for not turning certain things over to the state, but then if they do and the state somehow “gets it wrong” (i.e., the accuser doesn’t “get justice”) then the church must act. It seems like a form of double jeopardy to me for the accused, and a double standard for the church.

If the church immediately gives the investigation to the state, then I believe they also have no obligation to investigate further or take further action if they trust that the state will take appropriate action to determine the guilt or innocence of the involved parties. What they choose to do afterwards (especially if new evidence is uncovered) is up to them, and they definitely need to consider the spiritual state of the parties involved, but they should still be careful to not get themselves into legal trouble.

I agree with this and don’t think the church must take action if the state doesn’t convict. That being said, I do think there are times when the church should be able to come to its own conclusions if it feels the state has not pursued the case properly or hasn’t reached a right verdict (e.g., the state didn’t convict, but who really believes OJ is innocent?). There definitely is always the need to be cautious to avoid legal trouble, but I have also heard a church use that excuse as a reason to not act where it clearly should have.

[Jay]

Jacob just put this quote on Twitter. Since it’s germane to this thread, I wanted to quote it:

When advocates say “believe women” or “believe victims,” they don’t mean “discard due process” or “accept all claims uncritically.” It’s simply a way to expose what is too often the status quo victims experience, which is “disbelieve women” and “suspect victims of lying.” And yes, I am sure there are some people who might want to do away with due process, but their existence doesn’t negate what most people mean when they use this terminology.

While I’m 100% behind the sentiment expressed in this tweet, for me the phrase “I believe you” or “believe victims” is problematic even though it’s not intended to mean “discard due process”. The reason for this is that once I say that phrase, I’ve automatically positioned myself on one side. It means that in saying to the accuser “I believe you”, I’ve essentially said to the accused “I don’t believe you”. It means the accuser/potential victim walks away from the conversation thinking that I am on their side and I am against the accused and that I am working toward showing the accused to be guilty. I think it puts me in the position of having already answered the matter before I’ve fully heard it.

Yes, it’s more wordy, but in my opinion Larry’s response “I hear you. I take you seriously. I will help you.” is a better phrase, or something similar to that. I want both the accused and the accuser to know that I am going to search for the truth and follow due process so that justice will be served appropriately.

I was just thinking about that very thing yesterday. Just because someone wants to engage social problems with the Gospel in a faithful way (ala Carl Henry’s book), this doesnt mean they’ve been infected with CRT.

I’m reading an intro to CRT written by CRT scholars, and it is a very dangerous feamework for reality. VERY DANGEROUS. I’m also reading a similar work on intersectionality, and gave identical concerns.

But, we must be careful to not tar everyone who champions mercy ministries and social engagement with a CRT label. In other words, let’s not be the worst examples of 1950s style separatists and be simplistic.

I wonder if this makes me a moderate? Would I have been one of the guys in the Fuller orbit back in the day saying, “guys, we ALL KNOW neo-orthodoxy is BAD, but let’s make sure we’re careful about throwing out the label whenever someone says something that could be interpreted as neo-orthodox …”?

Very true. And also in the past, I’ve shared why I hold to a version of White Privilege, however, I define it quite different than others within the CT/CRT camp. https://sharperiron.org/comment/95060#comment-95060. But I am using the term as an analytical tool in a limited way without compromising Scripture along the same lines as how the SBC resolution 9 articulates, “affirm Scripture as the first, last, and sufficient authority with regard to how the Church seeks to redress social ills…”

To truly discern if a person has compromised to the spirit of the age when it comes to social justice, we need to pay close attention to how they define their terms and what is and what isn’t being said. In other words, what is their authorial intent of what they write or say? I find it ironic that many conservative Christians within the anti-social justice camp are very faithful to the importance of authorial intent when it comes to the writers in Scripture, doing all research and grunt work to make sure they are not reading their own bias into the text, but do not hold to the same standard when critiquing their fellow conservative Christians words who happen to see Social Justice as a vital implication of the Gospel. Rather they have unknowingly embraced a more reader’s/researcher’s intent such as the example that I gave above with Josh Buice critiquing Eric Mason in his racial justice article on the Founders Blog. https://sharperiron.org/comment/111431#comment-111431 The Anti-Justice Founders group has every right to ask the question, “By Whose Standard” in discerning truth from error, but if they continue embracing an inconsistent standard of their own where they take a more post-modern approach, where the intent of the reader/researcher determines the meaning of the writings and statements of the people that they are disagreeing with, they have failed in their discernment and should not be looked to as experts to equip the church in how to discern truth from error when it comes to CRT/CT.

Anti-Justice Founders

The Founders folks are against justice??

How is it “wokeness” to say “I hear you. I take you seriously. I will help you” and then follow up on it so that the woman gets a chance to put her assailant behind bars?

I didn’t say that was wokeness, and I used quotation marks to indicate I wasn’t using it precisely how it is often used. The point is that there are a lot of people who think they are really up to date and enlightened who say silly stuff even though they mean well. To confuse the idea of presumption of innocence seems well-meaning but is wrong. The presumption of innocence has no meaning with respect to an accusation or allegation.

So it sounds really enlightened and caring, but it is nonsense.

Doesn’t it strike you as odd that so many will argue for “the benefit of the doubt” or a criminal conviction for the accused and then say that we can’t trust the story of the crime itself when it’s first disclosed?

No, not at all.

It is not about trusting one or the other. We absolutely should give the benefit of the doubt for an accused person until the case has been investigated. It is a biblical requirement, it is biblically wise, and it is legally required in the judicial system.

Nobody is disputing that the accused [whoever they are] are entitled to due process and a legal defense; that’s what we all want.

Actually there are some who seem at the very least very close to saying that. This was part of the problem with GRACE and their investigations. Legitimate investigations are adversarial. A representative of both sides questions the people involved. GRACE does not do that. They interviewed the accusers and write a one-sided report. An accused is not given a chance to cross examine witnesses, to examine evidence, and to present a defense in most cases. That’s why GRACE can be helpful in helping organizations plan and protect, but they are not an investigative body designed to get at the truth.

The victim is always pre-identified because they have to 1. file the police report and 2. be prepared to give detail in court. That’s part of why it’s so hard to get convictions or even criminal complaints filed.

Again you make the mistake that Wilson is trying to address. You presume that the person filing a police report is a victim. That has to be established by investigation. A victim cannot be identified until after an investigation has taken place. Until that point, they are an accuser. Consider the Jessie Smollett case. He was a victim. Until it turns out he wasn’t a victim at all. Many people rushed to judgement and were wrong to do so. The proper approach to accusations is, “I hear you. i will take you seriously. I will help you.” And then wait until the process takes place.

I’ve also been very careful to separate the judicial process from ecclesiastical procedures in this thread, but you keep conflating the two as though they are the same. I don’t understand that either.

Where did I conflate judicial and ecclesiastical. I don’t think I have said anything about ecclesiastical procedures have I? I do not believe that ecclesiastical standards and judicial standards are necessarily the same.

A couple of us on Twitter are looking for better phrasing, if “believe the survivors” is so problematic. So why do you keep going back to the idea that “believe the survivors” really means “cancel due process and execute them immediately”?

What do you mean looking for better phrasing? What’s wrong with “I hear you and take you seriously. Let me help you”? You don’t have to look for it. You simply have to use it. It doesn’t make a great slogan to be sure. But it has the added benefit of being correct.

BTW, the whole idea that X% of things go unreported seems a nonsensical statistic. Since they don’t report, how do you know they didn’t report? There is no way to know what isn’t known.

A representative of both sides questions the people involved. GRACE does not do that. They interviewed the accusers and write a one-sided report. An accused is not given a chance to cross examine witnesses, to examine evidence, and to present a defense in most cases.

Did you read any part of the GRACE report on BJU? Or any of their other investigations?

You can say whatever you may like, but for at least the BJU report, they did speak with both sides, and they did compare the claims to the responses by the administrators and staff. That’s how investigations are supposed to work. Are they supposed to just clear whoever they investigate? Are they not supposed to report failures and blindspots in the organizations they are investigating when they’re complete?

What’s wrong with “I hear you and take you seriously. Let me help you”? You don’t have to look for it. You simply have to use it. It doesn’t make a great slogan to be sure. But it has the added benefit of being correct.

I’ve already ceded this point to you. I’m not sure why it’s coming up again, but I have no objection to this phrase. If it’s really that much clearer and less inflammatory, then fine. So why are you parking on it? Is it because we use the term “victim” instead of “accuser”?

BTW, the whole idea that X% of things go unreported seems a nonsensical statistic. Since they don’t report, how do you know they didn’t report? There is no way to know what isn’t known.

You know, NY just passed a law permitting people to come forward and either press charges or reopen old investigations. As of yesterday’s report, US News said that 427 cases had been opened or filed. There’s a slew of reasons why people don’t report, as Bert and I have mentioned. I’ve given you specific detail on one case I was involved in. It’s not just a matter of “this statistic is nonsensical, therefore it is bogus”. Read part of the USN report:

Scores of people in New York state who were sexually abused as children sued institutions, including the Roman Catholic Church, on Wednesday, the first day a new law temporarily enabled them to file lawsuits over decades-old crimes.

By the close of business of Wednesday, 427 such lawsuits had been filed in courts across the state, according to a courts system spokesman. The vast majority of them were against the Church and its various dioceses in the state, as claimants accused priests of sexually abusing them as children and Church leaders of covering up the priests’ crimes, according to state court records.

The state’s landmark Child Victims Act includes a provision that lifts for one year a statute of limitations that had barred older complaints and which critics said was too restrictive. Although the majority of the new lawsuits appeared to be against the Church, other people sued schools, hospitals and individuals, and at least two people sued the Boy Scouts of America.

Here are some reasons why people don’t report:

• Some people don’t want to report immediately because they don’t want to deal with the publicity of a trial.
• Some people don’t want to relive the attack over and over again for others they don’t know.
• Some people just want to try and rebuild their lives.
• Some people muster up the courage to report and then find out there’s no way to prosecute (statue of limitations, etc).
• Some people don’t even realize they were assaulted for years (Several of Nassar’s victims, in particular, said this although they knew it wasn’t right).
• Some people feel like the judicial system isn’t going to take them seriously.
• Some people know that the judicial system won’t take them seriously - would you believe the sex assault claim of a prostitute? It happens, though, and more often than you might think.

There’s a dozen reasons that I could give, and I’m not even an abuse victim. Is it that terrible to say “we should investigate a persons’ claim”?

Did you read any part of the GRACE report on BJU?

Yes, I read all of the BJU report. I have known many of the people in it personally for almost my entire life.

You can say whatever you may like, but for at least the BJU report, they did speak with both sides, and they did compare the claims to the responses by the administrators and staff. That’s how investigations are supposed to work.

You missed the point completely. The point isn’t that they spoke with both sides. It is rather that there was no cross examination of witnesses. In a court of law, there is an adversarial process by which claims are made and then questioned. It is basic legal procedure. It’s part of the Bill of Rights. Someone on one side tries to make a case, while someone on the other side tries to disprove the testimony, or poke holes in it, causing reasonable doubt (or greater). The same person cannot be both the prosecuting attorney and defense attorney. It requires two different people. No one at GRACE does that. And that’s a major problem with the GRACE. Their investigations have no adversarial process. They play both sides and they are biased towards victims. They should be. They can’t try to prove an accuser wrong. They are victim advocates. But that will color their approach. And in a significant sense, that makes it worse than a criminal investigation because an accused person has no chance to defend themselves.

Remember the recent events with Judge Kavanaugh and Dr. Ford. Remember how virtually everyone believed her until the adversarial process started and it turns out there were all kinds of problems. Kavanaugh had no chance to question the accuser. He had no real way to defend himself. But those problems were not raised by a process like GRACE. No one does that in a GRACE investigation. I am not saying they should do that but it colors the approach and the result.

GRACE might be a good way to help organizations develop plans and policies for dealing with sexual abuse. It isn’t a great way to get at the truth of a accusation.

So the problem is that people treat GRACE like a judicial entity who discovers crimes and declares guilt. But they are no such thing. That’s also why it is so difficult to make any comments critical of GRACE because people (as I am sure some will do here) will think I am discounting the accusations and blaming victims, etc. I am doing no such thing. I am simply commenting on the limits of GRACE’s procedures and process.

Are they not supposed to report failures and blindspots in the organizations they are investigating when they’re complete?

I would say this is what they are supposed to do. They should not act as both attorneys, judge, and jury.

I’ve already ceded this point to you. I’m not sure why it’s coming up again, but I have no objection to this phrase. If it’s really that much clearer and less inflammatory, then fine. So why are you parking on it? Is it because we use the term “victim” instead of “accuser”?

I am not parking on it. It’s coming up again because you said several of you on Twitter were looking for a better phrase and I was pointing out that you had already agreed there was a better phrase. So why not use it?

You know, NY just passed a law permitting people to come forward and either press charges or reopen old investigations. As of yesterday’s report, US News said that 427 cases had been opened or filed. There’s a slew of reasons why people don’t report, as Bert and I have mentioned.

Again, you completely miss the point. Prior to yesterday, you had no idea there were 427 unreported cases. There was no way to know because they aren’t reported. And there are no way to know how many will be reported next week or next month. Because we don’t know how many there are. How is that not so incredibly clear? How would we know how many things we weren’t told about?

BTW, my guess is that many of those will get thrown out. There is a statute of limitations for a reason and it probably won’t be overruled for long. Statutes of limitations are to protect the cases and people from the deterioation of evidence over time.

Here are some reasons why people don’t report:

Of course, there are all kinds of reasons why people don’t report. Some are good and some are bad. That is again, completely missing the point. The point is that they don’t report and there is no way to know how many people don’t report because they don’t report.

To say X% of assaults are not reported requires knowing how many people were assaulted and how many people report to do the math to figure the %. By virtue of reality, you only know the people who report. You don’t know the total number of assaults to begin with.

Is it that terrible to say “we should investigate a persons’ claim”?

Not at all. That is what I have said all along. I am glad you agree with me on this.

Don’t mean to pick on BJU. Cedarville is openly associating with the worst on going criminal missionary organization there is which is named Ethnos 360 AKA New Tribes Missions. Ethnos 360 makes the BJU situation and other situations look like the minor leagues.

And my entire point is that we all need to get better at handling these types of allegations and charges. It doesn’t matter if it’s BJU, the SBC, Ethnos, ABWE, or whoever. Churches need to improve on this subject.

Larry, there are numerous researchers who do phone surveys of various populations to determine that a huge portion of people who report actions meeting the definition of sexual assault do not report this to police. The numbers are messy, to be sure, and I have some concern that there may be a difference in the nature of crimes reported to police vs. those not reported to police, but over the past 25 years or so, a fair number of studies have been done to demonstrate that a huge portion of crimes of various types are not reported.

Regarding the investigations that GRACE does, what they are is the best we can do without subpoena power and the ability to collect physical (circumstantial) evidence. Both sides are interviewed, and just like the police doing initial interviews of accusers and accused, they comb through the testimony and try and figure out what really happened. It’s definitely not as good as what the police do (again, when they’re motivated), but it is fair to both sides, and does use prosecutorial best practices.

What it does, really, is to function as an audit akin to those of ISO, and that in turn will allow the organization to see its own culture clearly, its strengths, and its weaknesses. For example, the strength of BJU, as revealed in the Grace report, was that a lot of the matters involved were already documented. The weaknesses were that the counseling model tended to blame the victim (often punishing student code misdeeds like fraternization but ignoring sexual assault), and that the school tended to handle things in-house instead of alerting authorities, effectively pushing the matters under the rug until #MeToo encouraged victims to speak up.

Worth noting is that this is about the same list of things observed at ABWE, with the MSU/USA Gymnastics/USOC/Larry Nassar scandal, with the Tina Anderson/Chuck Phelps rape scandal, the Boy Scouts, and the Catholic Church.

Joeb,

That’s a rather strange post in response to me it seems. I am not sure you read anything I said since you didn’t address any of it and in fact seemed to imply things I never said. Nonetheless, it sounds like you agree with me in large part so I am glad for that.

Bert,

Phone surveys are fine but they do not provide actual data. As far as GRACE and the best we can do, I disagree. What GRACE does could be very helpful im identifying weaknesses and problems and establishing policie and procedures, but it’s not fair to both sides in any meaningful sense of fair. There is no opportunity to cross examine witnesses. There is no collection of physical evidence (which is generally not circumstantial I don’t believe). The mistake many seem to make is taking a GRACE report (or similar reports) and giving them the weight of a judicial finding.

I think the best we can do is report where required and encourage others to report and establish good policies for protection.

Phone surveys are data, Larry. It’s not the same kind of data that you get from court records, but it is data, and it’s the same kind of data, really, that companies use to see their own weaknesses. It suggests that there are a LOT of victims out there who don’t report, and if we’re trying to understand and mitigate the problem, it’s data we ignore at our peril. Cross examination is certainly useful in a court situation, but we can infer a bit about how far these data are from the police data by a look at the police data.

Specifically, the portion of reports made to police that are found to be false—the officer is willing to bet something between a tuna salad sandwich and his job that it is false, more or less—is 2 -10%. Unless we determine some big reason for anonymous reports to university/FBI researchers to be false where police reports will not be, we’ve got to assume that most of the data collected by researchers reflects some degree of sexual assault.

If you take a look at the twitter feeds of a number of prosecutors and victims of Larry Nassar, you’re also going to learn why people don’t report. Beyond the obvious “I don’t want to tick off somebody who already pointed a gun at me”, there is the general climate of people reflexively doubting and attacking the victim. The survivors not surprisingly say to us “I would make up a story about that and sign up for that…..why?”

[Bert Perry]

Phone surveys are data, Larry. It’s not the same kind of data that you get from court records, but it is data, and it’s the same kind of data, really, that companies use to see their own weaknesses.

It’s also the same kind of data that said >90% chance Hillary Clinton will be president. Even what the 538 guy gathered said something like >73%. Wonder why we are skeptical of such data? Sometimes it turns out not to be true. Probability and statistics are great. I also have a degree in mathematics and understand their limitations. I’m not a psychologist, but I suspect that there are plenty who can explain why phone survey answers will not always be accurate, even if the sample is gathered correctly. I’m not saying we should throw phone survey data completely out, but it also can’t be treated the same as hard data, for reasons that should be obvious. However, such data is often treated as equivalent to hard data by those trying to make a point.

That’s why there needs to be a system, adversarial in nature (which accusers don’t like, for various reasons, legitimate or otherwise) to get to the truth. Simply having one set of investigators can never be completely impartial, even if they talk to both sides. And as I said before, I personally can’t subscribe to a process that could end up with 10% falsely convicted, simply because it’s likely that 90% of the verdicts are correct.

Both sides can lie — accusers as well as accused. That’s why neither should control the process, and why the accused (and accuser for that matter) should NEVER submit to a one-sided process, no matter the supposed virtuousness of the ones carrying it out.

If the surveys are within 5%, as were most of the polls, then we would assume that between 64% and 74% of sexual assaults are not reported. Double the confidence range, you’re between 59% and 79% not reported.

Still sounds horrendous to me, Dave. What you’re doing is to confuse a poll being off by a few percentage points, and the poll being of no value whatsoever. As a math PhD, you should know better than that.

That noted, if you want to stick with what is known from the police, check out the Star-Tribune’s series on sexual assault, which reviewed a random sample of cases reported to police in Minnesota, and found that only 20% of cases got even a good basic investigation including things like interviewing both the accuser and accused. The series also suggests Minnesota does a better job than average, as our conviction/incarceration is about 2.5x higher than the national average. In other news, ProPublica found a huge rate of police declaring sexual assault cases “cleared” when what they’re really doing is abusing the concept of exceptional clearance, using it as a cover for not doing best practices.

Now consider that in light of women who know other women whose cases were ignored. Are they more, or less, likely to report the crime? The polls are simply telling us what we’d guess from the statistic that 80% or more of reports are not getting even a good basic investigation.