Southern Baptist Convention holds annual meeting a year after abuse scandal
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) -- The Southern Baptist Convention is holding its annual meeting this week one year after documents were released on leader's mishandling of abuse reports. This year's annual convention plans to focus on the future and unity of its millions of members.
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How will the Southern Baptist Convention move forward with or without the proposed amendment?
The task force created to look into the allegations of abuse and cover-up will give an update on what it found in the last year. The group has been working on a new online database with a list of abusers will also be shown called the Ministry Check Website. It will show ministers credibly accused of sexual abuse.
Church leaders will be asked to vote on a renewal of the task force so it can continue working. Critics said the website will take a lot of work to keep up and will require vetting and local churches to actually report abuse to be effective.
This year's conference comes at a time when research shows while baptisms and attendance are up since the pandemic, memberships have declined by more than 400,000 members.
Experts said the SBC's work is important because it is a big humanitarian arm around the world donating millions of dollars in Global Hunger Relief and hundreds of thousands of hours of volunteer and disaster work.
"if these denominations in particular, like for example this case Southern Baptist can't figure out how to get along and can't continue to do this work, then it's going to affect a lot of people in unexpected ways," said Bob Smietana with Religion News Service.
Other topics that will be voted on during the convention include the next president of the SBC and women pastors.