During a 20-minute press conference on Tuesday night, Josh Wester sounded almost like a football coach after a significant victory.
Moments earlier, Wester, who serves as chair of Southern Baptist Convention’s Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force, had seen the SBC messengers overwhelmingly approve recommendations presented by the task force.
“I’m thankful, filled with gratitude, for what we just saw from the messengers,” said Wester during the press conference. “The affirmation of the recommendations is really a sign that (the messengers) are resolved to see these reforms go forward in the SBC.”
The recommendations included the expansion of the Sexual Abuse Toolkit, efforts to complete the Ministry Check website and a move that opens the door for the SBC Executive Committee to complete the task force’s objectives. This would include finalizing a plan and securing the needed funds to implement and support the effort. The EC will report back to messengers during the 2025 SBC annual meeting.
Messengers ‘committed’
Wester said he was pleased, but not surprised, by Tuesday’s vote.
“(The messengers) are committed to this issue,” he said. “They are steadfast in their commitment to seeing our churches have the help that they need (in terms of being able to) protect people and care for them.”
Wester said he believes the vote could help usher in a new era for the SBC. He said he believes Jeff Iorg, who was recently elected as the EC’s president and chief executive officer, will work tirelessly and passionately on this front.
“After today’s vote, I am hopeful, incredibly hopeful, that Southern Baptists will continue to write a new and better story when it comes to abuse,” he said. “I am (also hopeful) that the recommendations that were just passed, as they go back to the executive committee — under new leadership — that the executive committee will take the blueprints that we have laid out … and that they will secure a permanent, long-term home for abuse prevention response.”
When asked if the task force was receiving full cooperation from SBC entities in regard to moving forward with a publicly accessible database of offenders, Wester said, “In the SBC, as we’ve discovered in the past year, you only have as much authority as you are provided. You only have the means to take the steps that you can pay for, get contracts for and that you can, essentially, get permission to take. It has been a real struggle for us this year in terms of trying to do all that.”
Wester noted that most any task force that the SBC launches is going to be housed under the EC, and he said the fact that the EC has been without a permanent leader since the fall of 2021 (prior to Iorg’s election) has created some hurdles. Those days are seemingly over now, he said.
“One of the most significant things that has happened has been that — toward the end of our process here (as a task force) — Dr. Iorg has come in as the leader of the Executive Committee and has been committed (to this) since Day 1,” Wester said. “He has tried to do everything he can do to bring parties together.”
Progress made despite roadblocks
Wester said when certain roadblocks have impeded the task force’s progress, Iorg has been able to “bring people together” and find new pathways to move forward.
When questioned about the progress of the database, Wester said he and his team were “incredibly frustrated, probably beyond frustrated” that the database has not yet “gone live.” There are names ready to be published, he said, and the task force is eager to “take this step.” He said it’s been a slow process, but that progress has been made.
“The thing that I think Southern Baptists deserve to know is that all of their leaders are as resolved and committed to this task as they are,” he said.
Ultimately, the database will not be housed inside the SBC, Wester said, but will be done through ARC. But the two will be working together, he said.
In a “technical sense,” he said, ARC doesn’t need the SBC’s permission to launch the database. However, he said “the posture” of the task force throughout the process “has been that we want to be good partners with the rest of the SBC and with all of our leaders. And they are telling us, hey, we need to get these insurance concerns figured out before we do that. So, we are acting in good faith to try to give them time and work with them to get those things done.”
Before messengers approved the recommendations on Tuesday, the task force accepted a friendly amendment noting in the first recommendation that the “convention does not require the use of any particular organization outside the convention entities or the missions to accomplish these objectives.”
In February, the ARITF announced plans to launch a “new independent nonprofit organization to help Southern Baptist churches and entities prevent and respond to sexual abuse.” Wester said at that time the creation of an independent organization would have “more credibility with survivors, more flexibility to help our churches and more success in accomplishing the mandate given to us by the messengers.”
To view more photos from this press conference, click here.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by David Dawson, communications specialist of the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board.
