People cite this Bible verse when pressing Southern Baptists to address sexual abuse

The Tennessean

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — When Christians talk about sexual abuse in the church, there is a particular biblical analogy that tends to come up.

"If anyone causes one of these little ones — those who believe in me — to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea," Matthew 18:6.

The analogy, which appears in multiple places in the New Testament, has popped up this week in Birmingham, Alabama, as Southern Baptists grapple with their own sexual abuse crisis.

Thousands of representatives from the network of evangelical churches are here at the Birmingham-Jefferson Convention Complex for their annual meeting. Sexual abuse in Southern Baptist churches is a major focus of the big denominational event, which wraps up Wednesday.

Inside the convention center, Pastor J.D. Greear, the president of the Nashville-based Southern Baptist Convention, referenced the millstone analogy when he addressed the Monday meeting of the convention's executive committee, explaining why now is the time for Southern Baptists to act.

"Well then, how did Jesus feel about leaders who just don't do anything when it's happening in front of them?" Greear said.

"We know that the cost and the difficulty of some of this will be challenging. But we also know that the cost and the difficulty of doing nothing will be much more challenging, not to mention the tragedy that it leaves in the wake in the lives of people who are affected, the victims."

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He brought it up again when addressing the convention midday Tuesday.

J.D. Greear, from left, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Ronnie Floyd, president and CEO of the SBC executive committee, and Mike Stone, chairman of the executive committee, pray during an executive committee plenary meeting at the Southern Baptist Convention on Monday, June 10, 2019, in Birmingham, Ala.

So did Pastor Mike Stone, chairman of the executive committee, when answering questions during the debate on whether to approve amending the convention's constitution to make it clear that addressing sexual abuse is a part of what it means to be a Southern Baptist church.

At the close of the first day of the meeting, delegates voted Tuesday in favor of the changes by an overwhelming margin.

Outside the convention complex Tuesday, protesters calling for Southern Baptists to do a better job of addressing sexual abuse in the church rallied by a millstone — or at least a large prop resembling the one referenced in the Bible. Millstones are circular stones used to grind grain.

Carolyn Deevers, of St. Louis, leads a prayer during a rally outside the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting Tuesday, June 11, 2019, in Birmingham, Ala.

"I think it's important that these are the words of Jesus. It directly speaks to and talks about what happens when you do things against and or in violation of children, and I think we could also include vulnerable adults as well," said Will Easter, who made the millstone out of structural foam board.

"It's a fantastic visual because you can picture a millstone, which a real millstone is thousands of pounds, and just sort of the desperation, hopelessness and sort of finality of if someone were to abuse and have one of those attached to them and thrown into the sea, that's it."

The Tuesday evening event marked the second consecutive year that the "For Such a Time as This Rally" has demonstrated outside the annual Southern Baptist meeting. The group wants changes like the establishment of a clergy sex offender database in the Southern Baptist Convention.

Will Easter made a millstone prop out of structural foam board for the "For Such a Time as This" rally held Tuesday outside the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting.

It makes sense for Southern Baptists to turn to Scripture when speaking to an issue affecting the church given their understanding of the Bible's authority, said James Hudnut-Beumler, a professor of American religious history at Vanderbilt University.

And it makes sense for the protesters to be using it, too.

"What the protesters are doing is to flip it and to say the whole convention is implicated in not protecting the little ones, causing them to stumble. Their abuse is on you because you won’t act," Hudnut-Beumler said. "This is how you yank the chain of a Baptist."

Jennifer Weed, left, and Nisha Virani demonstrate outside the Southern Baptist Convention's annual meeting Tuesday, June 11, 2019, during a rally in Birmingham, Ala. The "For Such a Time as This" protest called for a change in the way the SBC views and treats women and demanded action to combat sexual abuse within the establishment.

It's not just the current Southern Baptist sexual abuse crisis in which the millstone analogy is being quoted.

It comes up quite a bit when people talk about the ongoing Roman Catholic clergy sex abuse crisis, too.

In 2010, the editors of America magazine, a Jesuit publication, wrote a piece called "The Millstone," noting how the Catholic sex abuse crisis is like a millstone around Catholics' necks.

And nearly a decade later, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI reflected on the millstone verse in Mark 9:42 in a recently published essay on the sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church, the Catholic News Agency reported in April.

Katherine Burgess contributed to this report.

Reach Holly Meyer at hmeyer@tennessean.com or 615-259-8241 and on Twitter @HollyAMeyer.