Southern Baptist Convention selling its headquarters as coffers dry amid sex abuse scandal

The Southern Baptist Convention is selling its Nashville headquarters after having spent more than $12 million to address clergy sexual abuse scandal over the past three years.

The building, erected in 1980, was appraised at $31.7 million in 2021, according to a report from The Tennessean. As of now, the property is also home to the SBC’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission.

The denomination’s reserves are so that auditors are warning its current spending is unsustainable, according to Baptist News Global. Its financial strain is due, in part, to the $3 million spent defending against a lawsuit filed by former SBC president Johnny Hunt, whom the SBC’s Guidepost Solutions report named as a sexual abuser two years ago.

The SBC’s abuse report was a part of an internal investigation aimed at reforming how the SBC handles sexual abuse allegations. But Mr. Hunt’s lawsuit claims the SBC leadership tarnished his name by publicly associating him with the broader abuse scandal.

In response to the financial crisis, the SBC Executive Committee on Tuesday voted to create a new department tasked with overseeing the implementation of reforms, shifting responsibilities from volunteer task forces to full-time staff.

Jeff Iorg, president of the Executive Committee, said it was time to stop talking and take action, beginning with an administrative response. He called the new department a first step toward a creating “workable solution” for handling sexual abuse within the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, according to the Religion News Service.

One of the key unresolved components of the reform effort is the Ministry Check website, a tool approved at the SBC’s annual meeting in 2022.

The site was intended to list Southern Baptist pastors and leaders who have been convicted of abuse, admitted to abuse, sustained court judgments or had credible allegations made against them.

Despite its approval more than two years ago, no names have been added to the site. And the SBC leadership has yet to provide clear plans for updating or maintaining it.

Currently, the Ministry Check site is under the control of the Abuse Response Commission, a nonprofit with no official ties to the SBC.

Mr. Iorg insisted that the committee’s focus is on something else: hiring an executive director to lead the newly created abuse reform department.

“Once that new leadership is in place, we will begin to take next steps, including enhancing resources available through that website,” Mr. Iorg said in an email to trustees, the RNS reported.

Funding for the new department will come from Send Relief, the SBC’s humanitarian arm, which has pledged $1.8 million to support the effort, according to various reports.