Will McRaney and Joni Hannigan Weigh in on the Guidepost Report

Welcome to Conversations That Matter and Introductions to Will McCraney and Joni Hannigan

Welcome, everyone, to another edition of the Conversations That Matter podcast. I have two special guests with me today I'd like to introduce to you. One is Will McCraney, who actually has been on this podcast before.

He is now the president of the Bullock Institute, which is a seminary. By the way, I just have to say, a lot of people keep reaching out to me and asking me, where's a good seminary to go to? Well, you might want to check out bullockinstitute .com, where Will McCraney is the president, and then he's also the pastor of Island Chapel in Florida, former teaching professor.

We also have someone new, though, to the podcast. That's Joni Hannigan, and she actually has been involved in a lot of things. She's a former Navy veteran. She's a former managing editor for the Florida Baptist Witness.

She was also a correspondent with the Baptist Press and a former adjunct professor in journalism. You can find her work at the Truth is in Crisis blog. Will, Joni, thank you so much for joining me and being willing, because I know it takes some bravery to talk about your stories and what's happening in the SBC.

Thank you. Good to be with you, Joni. Thank you. I'd like to start, if possible, with you, Joni, because you have a story that I think is very, not just compelling, but important. I don't think a lot of people have probably heard about it, and many do know that there has been a report that came out recently from Guideposts on the SBC and sexual abuse specifically, but there's been a lot of discussion, we'll say, about it, and whether or not it goes far enough, whether or not it covers all the things that should be covered.

You're actually one of the people I thought of, because I've heard your story. I've heard you on another podcast talking about what you've been through. There seems to be a large number of people, I know of others who are anonymous right now, but who are left out of a report like this, but their stories are very important.

I was hoping maybe you could give us, Joni, your view of this report, and also share your story. However you want to do that, I just want to give you the floor.

Joni Hannigan’s Story of Sexual Assault, Abuse of Power, and Exclusion from the Guidepost Report

Okay. Well, my story is one of probably many that women have that have been very hurtful and disgraceful, something that I held in for years. It affected me as a young woman, and then as an older woman.

In 2018, before the Southern Baptist Convention, I decided that after a couple of years of therapy and counseling, I would go ahead, and just because I'm always a purveyor of the truth, and I'm always on quest for the truth, and I've always been a pretty transparent writer, even in my days of writing for Baptist Press in the first person, I decided to go ahead and publish on a new website that I had created, The Truth is in Crisis, based off of Jim Hefley's, James C. Hefley's The Truth in Crisis series, a website, a news website, and go ahead and release my story, my Me Too story of sexual assault when I was in the military as a teenager.

And I did that because it was not only important to know that that person was my supervisor, a naval officer, but that person was also a Baptist deacon, and I actually knew that person's wife and children.

And so at the time that that occurred, and in later years, it was, it was, as you can imagine, an unimaginable, as you can imagine, but an unimaginable source of pain and hurt for me. And as I began to define that in my life, and look at some of the things that had occurred and challenges that I faced, I was able to put that into a broader context and realize that the reluctance in which I even would contemplate it in my head was not helpful to the broader audience, to people who needed to know that this kind of thing took place, and that this kind of thing was often hidden, and women and men are abused in this manner.

And not receiving help for it, and it continues both in the military and both in churches. And at the time of the Me Too movement, this was very much in the news. And so it very much had the potential and did hurt me and hurt others as these things were talked about.

So I wrote a piece describing my experience, and then I was keenly interested in what would happen at the SBC annual meeting in Dallas. And so I went there. Now, I had been, I had covered every meeting since 1987 for Baptist Press, for Indiana Baptist, for the Florida Baptist Witness.

In some way or another, I was in that newsroom. Officially from 2002 to 2009, I was at the news desk for Baptist Press, which is part of the executive committee editing stories and being the news editor.

So I am very familiar with Baptist. I'm a Southern Baptist and very familiar with everything that's gone on in the newsroom and with the executive committee. So I was looking forward to this resolution on abuse, on sexual abuse that would come out.

So much so that after the resolution was passed, I sat in on the resolutions committee meeting, press conference, and I was concerned that there was one thing that was not mentioned in all of this. And so I asked Jason Dusing privately afterwards, after the press conference, what he thought of the clergy penitent privilege.

And the reason I asked that was I had in mind that I knew that other bloggers and news reports from the Louisville Journal in Kentucky had said that Kevin Azell, our very own North American Mission Board president, had taken clergy penitent privilege in the of a Mr. Maggard, a member of his church who had later been found guilty of child molestation.

And so I was very curious about the resolution and whether or not that resolution, whether the intent was to still be reporters of child abuse or sexual abuse, given that clergy in some states could just say, oh, no, I'm taking clergy penitent privilege and I'm not going to be a reporter.

I'm not going to tell. So I knew that this was kind of a subject of discussion. And so Jason said, oh, no, ma 'am, that's not what we mean. We are fully behind all reporting. And no, he said, that's not the intent of this resolution at all.

So shortly after the convention, I wrote a story. And my story basically talked about that. I thought that the resolution on sexual abuse with the Me Too emphasis was simply a Band-Aid on larger issues, that it didn't go far enough, that it was too general.

It talked about things that we'd already talked about in 2013, for instance. There was another resolution on reporting sexual abuse and making sure that your church was safe and you backgrounded people.

And I was familiar with that all the way back to 2008 or 2009. We've been talking about that. Make sure your church is a safe place for children, for children, for children. Very rarely did we talk about adults.

And that was part of my concern, that even in that resolution in 2018, we merely hinted at adults. And yet in Me Too, the focus is adults, adults in the workplace, adults in the church, adults, young women, young men, spiritual abuse, abuse of power.

Abuse of power. And in cases where these abuses of power are being more identified as, well, this person had a consensual relationship, notwithstanding the fact that the person that they had this quote-unquote consensual relationship with was their pastor or their professor or somebody that was in power over them and who had groomed them or somebody that could determine the future of their career.

And so I felt like the resolution didn't go far enough and that a lot of our entity heads or SBC leaders who were all of a sudden posturing and saying, oh, yes, they just, this resolution is wonderful in 2018, had some questions that were still unanswered, like Kevin Azell, like Albert Mueller.

I named these people in this story. I named Albert Mueller and his relationship with C .J. Mahaney, who was later criticized by his own board for his handling of sex abuse cases in his church or his network of churches.

And so I did a very thorough, way too long, 3 ,000-word news analysis of things that were already out there. But this news analysis was subheaded and I brought it together and I think I put four paragraphs of the Kevin Azell situation in there, basically targeting clergy penitent privilege and bringing up the question of whether clergy penitent privilege should be something that pastors invoke in the case, in these situations.

Well, it took hours, simply mere hours afterwards. After I posted the story, went to dinner with my family, got a text, looked at my phone and Mikey Burt, North American Mission Board, now Vice President for Communications, longtime colleague of mine, who I'd communicated with about stories through the years, sent me this horrific, I felt because my heart went through the floor, message that basically threatened me with libel for including Kevin Azell in that report.

And all I had done was reference with links the stories that had already been reported years previously. No elaboration. Just simply said, this is what happened, according to these news reports. For someone who's trying to get their life together, someone who's just gone through therapy, someone who is centered on, Lord, I need to fix this.

I need to just have a renewal. I need your cleansing. I need to feel free from this. I need to focus on the truth. I need to be able to write stories free of fear. No fear. That's what ran in my mind all the time.

After having to walk away from a paper where that was starting to happen, that was, it was life changing. It was curtailing. It was, it was as if my, my world had just fallen out from beneath me. I loved, I loved reporting the good news.

I remember a state paper editor walked up to me at the newsroom, probably in Houston. I remember who it was. He's still a state paper editor. And he said, you must really love your job, don't you? Because I was sitting there bebopping to the music while I was editing stories.

Because it was great inspirational music. Some group had the music out there. And I said, yes, I do. I love serving my Lord in this way, telling the good news of God's work. It didn't matter whether it was the pastors conference that I was covering, whether it was women's ministry, whether it was missions, or even investigative journalism.

That was what I felt like, what I felt called to, since I was, before I even went to Florida, before I even went into the Navy at 18, I had written my mother a note, a letter that I still have, saying that all I want to do is go to the Southern Baptist Convention and tell the, tell the world about the good news.

It's a good stories that God's doing everywhere. And the best way I could see to do that was to join the Navy first and get some skills. I have that letter. It's in the Bible in back of me. I found it after my mother died.

And that was just the tip of what happened with the North American Mission Corps. Kevin Azell, finally, through Mike Ebert saying, I'm threatening you with libel. And that didn't end. That didn't end.

Shortly thereafter, he sent out an email to every one of my colleague, 150 Baptist state paper editors and communicators, who had just a few years before that, awarded me News Writer of the Year. I have the award sitting on my shelf up there.

And said that this blog, these stories are just, they lack, they lack credibility. That it's unethical the way that this is being brought out and then followed it up with another email to 150 more Southern Baptist leaders.

All of which I have the emails of the copies to it's a horrible feeling to know that you've been blackballed in this way that you've been maligned in this way.

It sounds to me like it's a motivation. Their whole modus operandi is to destroy you or the person who's bringing real accountability to some of these entity heads and that some of the grandstanding. I'll use that word is more symbolic than it is substantive.

Well, that's that's why I have to say this when okay, when somebody fails like when Johnny Hunt fails, okay? Boy, that's tough. That's really tough. My whole family, you know, tithes 20 because of Johnny Hunt stories about his mom being a waitress.

I mean, those are tough. I know Johnny Hunt. I've reported about Johnny Hunt. I've reported on every single important figure in Southern Baptist life for the last 30 some years. But to see Johnny Hunt come out with a statement throwing oil on the fire saying that this was a personal sin.

And calling the woman an adulterer, an adulteress. Watching Kevin Azzell sign a statement from the North American Mission Board saying that well, the initial email saying that this is nothing but a good example of how to handle a church situation with Maggard at Highview way back then.

An example of how to handle a situation, take clergy penitent privilege or allow an attorney to let you sit to tell you that that's appropriate. Okay, if that happened and you did that and that was what happened at that time, could you not now see that times have changed and you should change your stance on that and use that as an example to tell a broader story that yes, maybe I did that then but now I wouldn't do that.

That's not a good example for all of these church planters, these student missionaries and these other people that are out there. This is not a good thing. I shouldn't have done that or I wouldn't do it now.

Right, right. Look at this. Let's look at this clergy penitent privilege and see what it really means. See that it's rooted in the Catholic Church and it's rooted in the confessional and we don't operate that way as Southern Baptists.

You know, even on my own pastor. Okay, so my own pastor Tim Maynard, my daughter pointed it out to me. She said mom, our pastor Tim Maynard wrote a very strong statement on the entire recommendation that just came out from the task force and I was really proud of him except one thing.

He only talks about children, how we protect our children. How about all these other situations? How about our women and young men? How about our adults?

Yeah, Bobby Lopez just said even he goes I'm left out of the Me Too movement. I'm a man. I want to bring you into this pastor Will McCraney because what Joni's just shared is very powerful stuff. And I think it exposes something deep that I've suspected there's cases out there that I know about that that don't that I've been let's just say brushed aside because they don't seem to fit a political agenda.

It seems and I want to hear you talk about first what we ended with there as a pastor will and then I want to get into the broader issues. You're challenging in the SBC, but this whole pastoral privilege issue.

What do you think about about that? Has that been weaponized or used in inappropriate ways to cover for people who should not be covered for are there circumstances where maybe a pastor does need to keep things under wraps maybe in a counseling situation or something, but since you're a pastor, I'd like to maybe hear your reaction to the Joni just talked about John.

Clergy-Penitent Privilege, Reporting Abuse, and the Limits of Pastoral Confidentiality

Thank you for this opportunity and and I want you to know and all your viewers to know that Joni is my friend and walk with with she and her family through this in terms of a person that's takes great offense at what actually happened to her.

And so this is the reason I got very engaged with this issue and I'll talk about that in just a minute, but to answer your questions more specifically most states don't have the clergy penitent privilege exception, but the issue even before that is when a pastor hears this before a potential investigation takes place and a criminal charges filed the pastor has the opportunity to go to authorities then and so why didn't the issue for Kevin Ezell, which I raised with him and I've raised with people all across SBC and Guidepost and Houston Chronicle is why when it came to him about this Bill Maggard that was convicted of molesting seven boys and 10 felonies.

Why didn't he go to authorities then? He wasn't he's minimized. I may actually publish some of those. I'm in possession with some of the documents that Joni referred to and so when you refer to someone who's been the principal for 14 years as a school when you try to write a defense that says that it was just one of 6 ,000 members.

It's a little disingenuous. So the issue for me on this in addition to the great hurt they did to my friend and to a survivor herself and a phenomenal journalist in Joni is what did Kevin know? When did he know it?

And why did he go to it? Why any pastor that gets this information can go to authority until that that person that's guilty or committed that share that they can go to the talk authorities. Then they don't have to wait till investigation and somebody start looking but when they went to look to ask Kevin to help he didn't provide the help.

And so the issue is what did he know? When I know enough of the details. I've talked to the people that were on the case the prosecutors. I researched all the details. I have it all down. It's just a matter of when I released, you know, when I'm going to release that but when when Guidepost did not include this story and I had informed of this story and when the Houston Chronicle had this story, what Joni it's been a couple years back that the Houston Chronicle had this and Robert Dowden for all his they're writing on this.

They didn't include it. He might say that he didn't know maybe it was just the researcher that we had conversation with but but they knew about this. And so the issue becomes who are they protecting? And so first as a pastor, yes, we should report.

Secondly, who is Kevin Ezell? If he takes it the step to threaten Joni. For writing five sentences of truth. I believe I believe that have that right Joni five sentences out of 3 ,000 words that seems to be a very extreme position.

So was he protecting himself? Was he protecting Al Muller? What did Al Muller know? When? Yeah, what did Danny Akin know? What did what did Russell Moore know? What did Jimmy Scroggins know? What did Tom Rainer know?

There's a lot of people in that church when this happened. And it's not that story's not been told.

Symbolic Abuse Responses, Centralization, and the Need for Local-Church Accountability

So so you have I think Joni alluded to this but you have situations where like Al Muller kind of after the Houston Chronicle story throws CJ Mahaney kind of under the bus. No new information has come out about the case.

That's significant at all. It's just that the political winds have changed it seems and now it's inconvenient. This is the same Al Muller who wrote a whole defense or signed his name to one of CJ Mahaney.

You have Danny Akin just last week releasing a statement about how Southeastern wants to respond to the Johnny Hunt stuff. And it's basically let's take down the name of Paige Patterson from the Patterson building.

They already took out his portraits and stuff. Let's let's let's just wipe out Johnny Hunt's name as well. It's kind of the cancel culture thing and and that's why it just makes me think this stuff is so symbolic.

There's a lot of press about it. There's a lot. They want to get a loud microphone and tell everyone about what they're doing to combat sexual abuse. But at the same time you have situations like the one we're talking about here that just don't even see the light of day.

It's weird at the very least it's strange and it causes a lot of people to have questions. Will you've you've been on your own pursuit of truth just like Joni has here and I know your situation is not related to sexual abuse, but it is related to a mismanagement would be the light to the the probably nice term to use but it's it's really more of a bullying that you've undergone and I know most people have heard your story.

Would you just maybe briefly tell people kind of what you're going through and then the situation and that's actually going before the Supreme Court right now.

Yes. Well, thank you for the opportunity to share that Jon really what happens in James chapter 3 we pick up this idea of selfish ambition and what it says is all it produces all manner of evil what it typically produces when people have selfish ambition.

It typically produces something in the area of sexual misconduct and financial mismanagement in some type of way with this hunger for thirst for power and control. I would not be surprised that we don't see more things come forward on some of these leaders.

You've mentioned several them Kevin easel Johnny Hunt and others because these things just fit together. It doesn't mean that automatically do but when you when you have an selfish ambition to gain more power more control and if you are willing to do that even hurt people while you're doing it or to maintain control that's really what it was with Joni situation Kevin through Mike Ebert directed or either allowed a threat against a journalist to maintain some sense of control and power.

That's what that was about to me. That's immediate fireball defense for both of them. It's just inexcusable. And so you see this kind of thing. So my particular story relates to the North American Mission Board some of which I could talk about and some of it we're talking about all the way to Supreme Court, but actually what it is.

It was it's a design to to people to get what they want when they want it how they want it and whoever gets in the way regardless of the facts that it's going to take it and so that's really the story and so you have the North American Mission Board telling the telling District Courts the Fifth Circuit Court in the United States Supreme Court that they have rights over state conventions and over their leaders and they can interfere literally their document says they can interfere and that they can commit live liable they can they can slay a person and do it in writing it which is liable they can defame a person and there's no defense that they have every right and authority to do so actually said state conventions or SPC entities, which is absolutely false.

So so it's crazy as it sounds we went all the way to United States Supreme Court with North American Mission Board and the ERLC with Russ Moore making false claims to federal courts and so they can speak as to why they did this that's really not I think I have some ideas of why they did this but in the end it's about control and power and that's what happened to Joni is what's happened to me is what happened to people like Bobby Gilstrat, but when Kevin easel chooses to interfere with a person's employment and capacity to make a living that's immoral and it's illegal and it must be pursued and and what they did to Joni's just is indefensible what they've done to Bobby's indefensible and I believe what they did my situation is indefensible to and.

Autonomy of the Local Church, Seminary Training, and the Problem of Centralized Power

What they did to will you can go back. We did a whole podcast on it, but they basically slandered you will and try to prevent you from gainful employment and this consolidating tendency that I see where these big entities are trying to usurp more power from state conventions over local churches is a concern and I know there's some speculation that well there's some analysis I should say about whether or not that's part of even the push now with the sexual abuse stuff is to put to consolidate more power at the top when in reality it seems like just as your story Joni really revealed is it the abuse like this is on the local level.

It's it's in churches. It's in for you. It was in the Navy. It's I'd be curious Joni first with you and then will you what would you like to see happen on the local level? What what kinds of things could change and maybe how could the SPC as a whole encourage some of those changes to prevent abuse accountability that kind of thing?

Well, that's a that's a really good question. Number one. I think we have to be very cognizant of looking at from the you know, we always say that that we're convention from the bottom up and I I appreciate that I recognize that I actually grew up Catholic so I can I really have a lot of Appreciation for the autonomy of the local church.

Yeah, but I will say this that even though we say that with our words our actions show that we give a lot of credence to our leaders. Our leaders we we let our leaders have a lot of that control that really our local church should have and not only control but responsibility a lot of the responsibility now, how could we be better at that?

Well, number one we could teach that. Okay, right now we have a situation in our seminaries were were were really confused. We're teaching. I believe a very patriarchal elder-led pastor-led style of Congregational Fellowship.

Polity. Yeah. Polity. Yes. Polity. I like my words aren't are you good right here anymore? But my daughter reminded me this the other day. She said mom. This is going to be very tough because as as Southern Baptists are still struggling over the difference between leadership styles and polity.

There is that struggle. Over. The place of the place of who actually leads the church do the members lead the church. Does the pastor lead the church. Do the SBC leaders lead the entities or do the trustees lead the entities who gets involved does Kevin Ezell have a free ride to do what he wants or free reign or do his trustees actually set policy the difference between the day-to-day operations and the policy do the does the congregation really call the pastor or does the pastoral staff or elders call a pastor or another elder to lead?

It's it's getting very confusing and I think that at the seminary level that some of this stuff needs to be talked about and sorted out because there seems to be a lot of confusion. Over whether we still are a convention that believes in the autonomy of the local church.

And if we are then maybe we need to look like it more rather than leaders coming down and making decisions increasingly about what we print in our newspapers. For example, if you just look at the state of the newspapers and this is a whole nother blog and a whole nother area of research.

Al Mohler contributed to a book about the Baptist newspapers back in the 90s and predicted that if the Baptist newspapers went away. The whole state conventions would take on a different tone and we would be much more centric.

I didn't know that. Wow. Yes, because he was the editor of a Baptist state paper, the Georgia Index, which is now part of the Georgia Baptist Convention. So it's no longer one of our historic papers per se just like the Florida Baptist Witness became part of the Florida Baptist Convention.

Just a few years ago right after we two years after I left 2016. So as you lose those autonomous voices. Everything becomes more centralized. You really have a different looking denomination. Now, how does this all play out into what I would like to see?

It's interesting because as you see this more central approach to things, it is going to be a question of who then is in charge. Is there a database? Is it a database that's for informational purposes that people?

Look at for information rather than qualification. But consider this we right now endorse chaplains are North American Mission Board endorses chaplains for ministry. What is that endorsement entail? Right?

Yeah. Some of these things already. Yeah, do we endorse church planners? Well, some people would say yes, the North American Mission Board does because and they would say maybe perhaps because they have brought more of that into their own lap leaving the state conventions out in the case of Wilma granny.

I think they said yes, they do that. But then on the other hand, if churches do that and churches are autonomous, then there's that question of liability. So I think you know, it's very hard to say. What do I want to see?

I want to see educated people people who know what the differences are people who know what the difference number one. They're educated as far as what is sexual harassment? What is sexual abuse? What is no?

What is appropriate? Are we teaching these things? Are we teaching our children these things? Are we teaching our teenagers these things or are we teaching them the good old boy? Oh, everybody's got to sow their wild oats.

So, you know, and then nobody talks about it and then the youth pastor gets transferred to a different church because that's what we're talking about here.

And I've heard those stories of the transfers and not actually dealing with some of these problems.

At the root and we're talking about even even in the case of Maggard. He apparently said, well, he got counseling for his issues. And those were years ago. Well, how about all the children that he left in his wake?

Did they get counseling? For the issues that they had or we're going to have as adults. It doesn't mention that. Yeah. I mean Johnny had says he went through a time of repentance and restoration with his wife or whatever.

Well, how how about the people now who are learning about what their beloved pastor did and have those images in their mind? Or their beloved SPC leader? Yeah, and he calls it a personal sin. Where is our biblical education on those things?

And why why in the report are they allowing? Our legal system all of a sudden one of the recommendations is that if this if the let's see if criminal charges or civil liability in the jurisdiction where it occurred.

Is the criteria for putting somebody on a database? How many of these things that we're talking about? Would have been a civil case or criminal case. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. It's a good question. And what you're saying with everything that you just said just in my mind. I keep thinking well, this is a mess. This whole thing is a it's hard to put back together a team of people in town after a tornado goes through it and we have a situation.

I'll just chime in real quick because I did go to an SPC seminary and I remember in the seminary. We were taught about Church polity and I my professor happened to be more of a congregational guy. I go to a church that's more elder-led but the here's the here's the thing though that transcends that issue in my mind and just and it shows that there's something else in the water.

It's more caught than Todd. It's more just the way that people are wired right now for some reason, but I remember in preaching class and professor said, you know, basically who are your favorite preachers and every and there was probably three preachers in the whole class of whatever 20 people 25 people there were like three preachers.

They all mentioned that these are their favorite preachers. And so you see there's a few guys that are getting a lot of respect. I think I think all of them have been disqualified if I'm not mistaken.

Probably Driscoll Patrick and somebody else.

I think Driscoll is one. Yeah, and I think actually Tulian Tavitian might have been a one. Yeah, okay, and I forget who the other one would but anyway after that the professor said basically if you want to preach good go and copy the preacher that you like copy their style and and so at the time it didn't really occur to me how significant that was now.

I'm looking back and I'm realizing here's something that's big that's going on that. We're not really talking about and that is there is an extra hierarchy beyond the local church. So if the SBC is supposed to be local church driven led that means you have strong healthy vibrant theologically grounded local churches with strong pastors who are able to then provide accountability service trustees on these boards without that health at the bottom.

You're going to have opportunists bullies people that should not have power rising to the top because there's a vacuum left and we have an extra hierarchy and that's who seems to be in that hierarchy or those kinds of people who are very aggressive and want that kind of power and it's beyond the local church, but for some reason pastors and those sometimes in churches are looking to them for leadership and I've said this even about this podcast here.

Don't listen to this podcast my podcast and think that you're getting that. This is all the spiritual advice you need or something like you have a local church. That's where you should be going this hopefully helps but it's not meant to usurp that at all.

And so so well, I'd like you to go ahead.

That will trust the trustees. I mean and the whole idea that you know trustees feel so enamored of themselves were so thankful that they're on a trustee board. They look to the president of the board the president of the entity for leadership rather than it being the other way around which is supposed to be.

They're supposed to have vision for him. Yeah, you know, it's it's mind-boggling that we've let it become a celebrity driven denomination, you know, we had plat we had Driscoll we had all of these celebrities and and that is not the way we grew as a denomination, right?

Well, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on this what we've just been talking about when you're a pastor, but you've seen how the the sausage is made so to speak. I mean, do you think this is a fair analysis that a lot of these issues are stemming from this kind of unspoken new hierarchy that seems to be emerging with with more and more power attracting party loyal people loyal to the party that kind of thing.

Yeah, certainly. I mean, it's a it's a human nature kind of thing and it just has to be put into check and if you don't have systems where there's where there's accountability what I've called for let me talk about that then I'm gonna come back to the Bulletin Street talk about a difference in terms of training, but what I've called for the North American Mission Board in other places is for a full investigation now, not just around Johnny, but the entirety of the North American Mission Board.

Let's get rid of the NDAs. If they want to do something the trustees today wipe out all the NDAs unless there's some particular specific reason in a given case and let the people talk and let them come forward.

We have to want to get cleaned up and not just posture the NDAs can be go away. They need to do a full investigation there and they need to do a full investigation in terms of forensic audit of the North American Mission Board because money and sex continue to go together.

It has throughout history. So did Johnny Hunt was there a payoff? Out of NAMS money Southern Baptist money or other monies to this victim this person is there been self-enrichment is there conflict of interest and I have absolute proof that all these things are taking place.

And so there needs to be the Southern Baptist can call for a full investigation into the finances of North American Mission Board because you chase the money you're going to find the problems and then also on the sexual abuse side.

So let me address something you and Johnny were talking about. I believe most of our I was a got a master's and a PhD from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. I taught there as a profession of angels with church planting for 11 years.

But the reality is we used a West in the in the West. We use a Western approach to educate people. We're credentialing ministers by their ability to write papers read books write papers and take tests.

We're dealing with knowledge only and what the Bullock's Institute is through our partnership and has a fully accredited master's degree what we want to do with competency and not in in character knowledge and skill but in a classroom, you cannot deal with character.

What tends to happen in a domination what you described John? Well, is that the one with the most charisma? And the one that has the most selfish ambition? Gets to the top. That's how this works. And so the so we have to go back and actually I know senators are trying but they're not designed to deal with a person's character.