The 300-page report contains explosive details about how denomination leaders worked to avoid liability, rather than help victims of sexual abuse.
Investigators reviewed correspondence between executive committee staff and members, and attorneys from Guenther, Jordan & Price, the Nashville-based law firm that served as legal counsel to the SBC and the executive committee for 56 years.
Due to a fear of legal liability,"the lawyers were advising to say nothing and do nothing, even when the callers were identifying predators still in SBC pulpits," investigators stated. As these leaders sought to avoid these costs, however, it's clear in the report they incurred a debt that future leaders will be paying off years to come. "There are not adequate words to express my sorrow at the things revealed in this report," SBC President Ed Litton said in a statement after the report's release. "I am grieved to my core for those who have suffered sexual abuse in Southern Baptist contexts, both for those named in this report and the many who are not."Hunt is accused in the report of sexually assaulting a woman at a beachside condo in Florida a month after he finished his second and final term as SBC president. Guidepost investigators say Hunt pulled down the woman's shorts, made sexual comments to her and then pinned her to a couch before groping her and violently kissing her. Later, in a separate conversation, he told the woman “he would like to have sex with her three times a day,” according to the report. Hunt told Guidepost investigators in an interview he had no physical contact with the woman, but investigators determined Hunt was not credible. Investigators spoke with the woman and her husband, who is a pastor and had known Hunt for 25 years by the time of the alleged assault, four additional people, and reviewed other documentation the couple had retained. Ahead of the release of Guidepost's report, Hunt resigned May 13 from his job as vice president of evangelism at the SBC-affiliated North American Mission Board, a spokesperson confirmed Saturday. Hunt released a statement on Sunday following the report's release."To put it bluntly: I vigorously deny the circumstances and characterizations set forth in the Guidepost report," Hunt said."I have never abused anybody." The woman and her husband have not shared the story publicly until they spoke with Guidepost investigators. Shortly after the alleged incident in July 2010, the woman and her husband met with Hunt, who was then senior pastor at First Baptist Church in Woodstock, Georgia, and another pastor who works with Hunt. Hunt and the other pastor told the couple to not discuss the incident. In the first meeting, Hunt tried to downplay the incident and stated, “thank God I didn’t consummate the relationship,” the woman and her husband told investigators. Guidepost did not mention additional allegations against any other current or former executive committee members between 2000-2021. The SBC president, an elected position that presides over the annual meeting, holds a de facto seat on the executive committee.A select cohort of mainly executive committee staff, in consultation with attorneys from Guenther, Jordan & Price, did not escalate reports of abuse and sought ways to discontinue or slow down pushes for policy changes, investigators explain throughout the report. Those leaders and lawyers"were singularly focused on avoiding liability for the SBC to the exclusion of other considerations," the Guidepost report states."In service of this goal, survivors and others who reported abuse were ignored, disbelieved, or met with constant refrain." The most prominent figure in the report is August “Augie” Boto, who worked for the executive committee between 1998 to 2019, first as a vice president then as general counsel and then interim CEO/president. Boto’s long tenure puts him at the center of many flashpoints in the debate over sex abuse accountability in the SBC. He led the charge in 2008 against a proposal for a clergy abuser database, resisted efforts by SBC President J.D. Greear to ensure greater accountability, and was among a group of staff and attorneys who influenced and then later mishandled the fallout of an inaccurate Baptist Press article about abuse survivor Jennifer Lyell. Boto also ignored several reports about pastors accused of misconduct and said in an internal email that some survivor advocacy was due to “the devil being temporarily successful.” Boto met with Guidepost investigators and said he still opposes a database and still believes the devil is responsible for the “magnitude” of focus on abuse in the SBC. Meanwhile, Boto and another executive committee vice president maintained a list of accused ministers between 2008-2018 “yet never took any action to ensure that the accused ministers were no longer in positions of power at SBC churches,” investigators found. The most recent version of that list had 703 names, nine of which are still active in ministry, investigators determined. Guidepost said it will engage with the credentials committee, which evaluates church cooperation, about the list. Boto faced criticism in the report for at least 33 different examples, according to an analysis of Guidepost's report. Ronnie Floyd, former executive committee CEO and president from 2019-2021, and his deputy Greg Addison faced criticism in the report for 23 different examples collectively, according to a Tennessean analysis of the report's findings.
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