(RNS) — A prominent Southern Baptist church led by a former denominational president is the subject of a lawsuit that highlights how ignoring “red flags” of manipulative behavior could lead to sexual abuse.
On Sunday (July 12), Steve Gaines, senior pastor of Bellevue Baptist Church in the Memphis suburb of Cordova, Tennessee, announced at the start of the worship service that a complaint had been filed against the megachurch.
The lawsuit claims that a former teenage volunteer in the church’s child-care program was groomed and later abused by a church staffer.
“In May of 2019, a former part-time employee of Bellevue was arrested when police discovered him in a car with a minor off-campus,” reads a statement provided by the church to Religion News Service on Tuesday. “The former employee resigned from his position at Bellevue in March of 2019, two months before his arrest and the discovery of this illegal relationship. He pled guilty to criminal conduct in February 2020.”
Bellevue has been prominent in the Southern Baptist Convention for decades. Gaines, who read a similar statement to his congregation, was president of the Southern Baptist Convention from 2016 to 2018. Adrian Rogers, his predecessor at the church and a well-known religious broadcaster who died in 2005, was also an SBC president and led the church for 33 years.
In the 24-page complaint filed in April,…
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