In summer 2008, Morris Chapman stood before a gathering of thousands of Southern Baptists in Indianapolis for their annual meeting and denounced the evil of sexual abuse. Then Chapman, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s executive committee at the time, told his fellow Baptists the SBC would not set up a database to track abusive pastors citing local church autonomy.
The new president of the Southern Baptist Convention said Wednesday he will accelerate sex abuse reforms in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.