You may recall that in May, a 288-page investigative report found that the SBC kept a database of sexual abusers but did nothing about them. “[S]urvivors and others who reported abuse were ignored, disbelieved, or met with the constant refrain that the SBC could take no action due to its polity regarding church autonomy – even if it meant that convicted molesters continued in ministry with no notice or warning to their current church or congregation,” the report said.

Now the U.S. Justice Department has gotten involved.

Church leaders issued a statement saying they plan to “fully and completely cooperate” with the federal investigation. “While we continue to grieve and lament past mistakes related to sexual abuse, current leaders across the SBC have demonstrated a firm conviction to address those issues of the past and are implementing measures to ensure they are never repeated in the future.”

Not surprisingly, the SBC did not address those past mistakes of their own volition.

From the Houston Chronicle:

The SBC’s handling of abuse has been in the public spotlight since 2019, when the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News published the first of an ongoing series, Abuse of Faith, that found hundreds of church leaders and volunteers had been convicted of sex crimes.

They left behind at least 700 victims, nearly all of them children.

The newspapers’ reporting prompted churches in the nation’s second-largest faith group to request a third-party review last year of the SBC’s Executive Committee’s handling of abuse reports dating back to 2000.