Church leader says sexual abuse incident could have been avoided had the SBC put in place a sex offender registry
Southern Baptist youth pastors, a children's director, and a pastor were recently arrested in Texas, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Florida.
Sexual assault accusations in Southern Baptist churches continue to make news after the convention dissolved the Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force (ARITF) at its 2024 annual meeting and failed to launch a “ministry check” website that identifies offenders.
No additional action was taken at the annual meeting and the task of implementing a database of pastors, denominational leaders, ministry employees, and volunteers accused of sexual abuse was passed to the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) Executive Committee for further attention.
SBC messengers at the 2022 annual meeting overwhelmingly voted to establish a database of those who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse. Since that time Southern Baptists have debated what constitutes “credibly accused,” and the process has stalled. Funding for the volunteer ARITF group responsible for overseeing the creation of a sexual abuse database was discontinued at this year’s annual meeting.
Churchleaders.com posted a story June 21 about Luke Cunningham, 41, a youth pastor at Lakeside Baptist Church, Granbury, Texas, who was arrested and charged on multiple sexual assault charges resulting from accusations from his previous employment at Turning Point Community Church in Lubbock, Texas. Turning Point is not to be affiliated with the SBC. According to Lakeside Baptist’s website, Malcolm Yarnell, a professor of theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, is a teaching pastor at the church.
A local TV station, KCBD, obtained a statement from leaders of Lakeside Baptist Church where Cunningham previously served saying they had “received information from outside our church that Mr. Cunningham had been accused of inappropriate conduct with a minor in another church.”
In the statement, Turning Point was contacted by the pastor of Lakeside Baptist that Cunningham was being investigated by local police and Child Protective Services on allegations of inappropriate conduct and alleged sexual abuse with minors.
Lakeside Baptist said in the statement “Lakeside Baptist Church stands firmly against clerical sexual abuse. We believe that, if the Southern Baptist Convention had a working database for offenders, we would likely have never been exposed to Mr. Cunningham. We plan to do everything possible to encourage national leaders to exercise their spiritual responsibility, identify perpetrators in the churches, and stop this from happening again. Until then, we plan to re-evaluate and institute our own even more rigorous processes.”
Mississippi Youth Pastor Arrested
Baptist Press, the SBC’s public relations and news organization, reported June 21 that a former youth pastor was arrested after an investigation that began in 2022. John Douglas Jones was a youth pastor at First Baptist Church in Long Beach, Miss., but has not been employed there since the investigation began.
Jones was indicted by a grand jury and arrested earlier this month, Baptist Press reported. He is charged with two counts of sexual battery and one count of touching a child for lustful purposes.
Former Children’s Director Arrested on New Charges
The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported June 21 that a former employee of Immanuel Baptist Church in Little Rock who was charged more than five years ago in the sexual abuse of a young girl at the church was arrested on new charges stemming from a second accuser's allegations.
Patrick Stephen Miller, who served as the congregation's assistant director of children’s ministry from May 2014 to January 2016, turned himself in and was arrested on charges of second-degree sexual assault and kidnapping, the Democrat-Gazette reported.
Steven Smith, the pastor of Immanuel Baptist, resigned in April after failing to tell the church about another sexual abuse case involving a teenage boy and an adult volunteer.
Florida Pastor Arrested for Child Pornography
Jonathan Edward Elwing, senior pastor of Palm View First Baptist Church, Palmetto, Fla., was arrested June 21 for four counts of possession of child pornography by the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office Internet Crimes Against Children, WWSB reported.
Detectives received information that Elwing used cryptocurrency to make an online purchase of child sexual abuse material. During a search of Elwing’s home detectives found four sexually explicit images of children on his cell phone.
Elwing resigned from his position as pastor of the church before being arrested, WWSB-TV reported.