I spent a good portion of my youth being terrorized by Southern Baptists. For me, being terrorized by Baptists was being preached to by Baptists. It wasn’t a weekly thing, but anytime I was forced to go to church was a very miserable experience for me. And there was an entire year when I was forced to go to a Southern Baptist private school. I hated going to a private school so much that one day I asked to use the restroom, left the school, and didn’t come back for three days.

I was a class clown who specialized in making fun of other people. Cruel at times, yes but I learned how to punch up and I even did it with cartoons. It got me in trouble in public school so you can imagine how well my attitude went over in a private Southern Baptist school. I did not have a good time in private school and I worked to make sure the church people didn’t enjoy having me around either. I don’t do well with authority.

Other than just hating mandatory conformity, I was a skeptic. Even as a little kid I smelled bullshit in religion. And no, I was never sexually abused or assaulted but I do recall pastors making girls feel creepy. In addition to my female friends telling me about it, I could see it, even as a kid. Even though it wasn’t happening to me, I didn’t like it.

I still don’t like it. Everything I’m reading today about Southern Baptists reminds me of why I didn’t like them back in the day. They’re hypocrites. What the fuck are they preaching when they allow sex abuse to continue and cover it up?

For over two decades, the Southern Baptist Convention stonewalled investigations and denigrated survivors of sex abuse by their clergy in order to protect their reputation.

A report was issued Sunday saying survivors, and other concerned Southern Baptists, repeatedly shared allegations with the Executive Committee, “only to be met, time and time again, with resistance, stonewalling, and even outright hostility from some within the EC.”

The seven-month investigation was conducted by Guidepost Solutions, an independent firm contracted by the Executive Committee after delegates to last year’s national meeting pressed for a probe by outsiders. Basically, they were forced to have an investigation conducted…and no. You can’t investigate yourself.

The report states, “Our investigation revealed that, for many years, a few senior EC leaders, along with outside counsel, largely controlled the EC’s response to these reports of abuse … and were singularly focused on avoiding liability for the SBC.”

“In service of this goal, survivors and others who reported abuse were ignored, disbelieved, or met with the constant refrain that the SBC could take no action due to its policy regarding church autonomy – even if it meant that convicted molesters continued in ministry with no notice or warning to their current church or congregation.”

What would Jesus do? Probably not that.

We also learn from the report that the Executive Committee maintained a list of Baptist ministers accused of abuse, but there is no indication anyone “took any action to ensure that the accused ministers were no longer in positions of power at SBC churches.”

The survivors of Southern Baptist sex abuse have been calling for there to be a database for years but only for the Executive Committee to deny them while keeping one in secret. Just like Baptists do, they wanted to keep track of everyone while not doing anything about it.

SBC President Ed Litton said he is “grieved to my core” for the victims and thanked God for their work propelling the SBC to this moment. What? You’re thanking God for forcing you to stop covering up sex abuse?

He said, “I pray Southern Baptists will begin preparing today to take deliberate action to address these failures and chart a new course when we meet together in Anaheim,” where they’ll be holding their next convention in the coming weeks. Yeah, I don’t have a lot of faith (pun totally intended) that the people who covered it up and the people who did the abuse will “address those failures” and “chart a new course.”

What I didn’t hear the president of the Southern Baptists call for was jail time for the abusers. I didn’t hear him call for financial penalties for them or the church. All they’re going to do about it is pray. Yay.

The report and church leaders have made suggestions for improvement and it’s a lot of blah blah blah. It’s a bunch of bullshit that’ll lead to nothing. I have a better suggestion and that is…stop.

Stop. Stop being a thing, Southern Baptists. Disband. Destroy yourself from within. Burn that motherfucker down and burn it to the ground. Just stop, Southern Baptists. Go away. Enough of your condescension and telling the rest of us how to live our lives while you’re covering up sex abuse. Enough with your mega-churches and TV preachers with private jets and mansions. Enough with you telling us how to vote while you don’t pay taxes. Enough of you preaching family values to us while you campaign for the orange shitgibbon pussy grabber. Enough of your empty thoughts and prayers. Go away, and while you’re at it, take the pedophile Catholics with you.

Just saying, you never hear this shit happening with the Church of Satan.

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