Will McRaney and Joni Hannigan Weigh in on the Guidepost Report

Conversations That Matter

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:13

Welcome everyone to another edition of the Conversations That Matter podcast. I have two special guests with me today.

00:19

I'd like to introduce to you. One is Will McCraney, who actually has been on this podcast before.

00:25

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?

00:34

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.

00:45

We also have someone new though to the podcast. That's Joni Hannigan, and she actually has been involved in a lot of things.

00:53

She's a former Navy veteran. She's a former managing editor for the Florida Baptist Witness.

00:59

She was also a correspondent with the Baptist Press, and a former adjunct professor in journalism.

01:06

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

01:19

SBC. So thank you. You're welcome. Good to be with you, Joni. Thank you. Well, I'd like to start, if possible, with you,

01:27

Joni, because you have a story that I think is very, not just compelling, but important.

01:33

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

01:44

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.

01:59

And 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.

02:06

And 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.

02:18

And so I was hoping maybe you could give us, Joni, your view of this report and also share your story.

02:25

And however you want to do that, I just want to give you the floor. Okay. Well, you know, my story is one of probably, you know, many that women have that had been very hurtful and disgraceful, something that I held in for years and affected me as a young woman and then as an older woman.

03:03

And in 2018, before the Southern Baptist Convention, I decided that after a couple of years of therapy and counseling,

03:16

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,

03:34

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.

03:44

Hefley's, The Truth in Crisis series, a website, a news website, and go ahead and release my story, my

03:56

Me Too story of sexual assault when I was in the military as a teenager.

04:06

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

04:20

Baptist deacon. And I actually knew that person's wife and children.

04:28

And so at the time that that occurred and in later years, it was, as you can imagine, an unimaginable, as you can imagine, but an unimaginable source of pain and hurt for me.

04:48

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,

04:59

I was able to put that into a broader context and realize that the reluctance in which

05:08

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.

05:29

And women and men are abused in this manner and not receiving help for it.

05:37

And it continues both in the military and both in churches. And at the time of the

05:45

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.

05:58

So I wrote a piece describing my experience.

06:03

And then I was keenly interested in what would happen at the SBC annual meeting in Dallas.

06:10

And so I went there. Now, I had covered every meeting since 1987 for Baptist Press, for Indiana Baptist, for the

06:20

Florida Baptist Witness. In some way or another, I was in that newsroom. Officially, from 2002 to 2009,

06:28

I was at the news desk for Baptist Press, which is part of the executive committee editing stories and being the news editor.

06:37

So I'm very familiar with Baptist. I'm a Southern Baptist. I'm very familiar with everything that's gone on in the newsroom and with the executive committee.

06:46

So I was looking forward to this resolution on abuse, on sexual abuse that would come out.

06:53

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.

07:12

And so I asked Jason Duesing privately afterwards, after the press conference, what he thought of the clergy penitent privilege.

07:23

And the reason I asked that was I had in mind that I knew that other bloggers and news reports from the

07:32

Louisville Journal in Kentucky had said that Kevin Azzell, our very own

07:38

North American Mission Board president, had taken clergy penitent privilege in the case of a

07:46

Mr. Maggard, a member of his church, who had later been found guilty of child molestation.

07:53

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,

08:15

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.

08:25

And so Jason said, oh, no, ma 'am, that's not what we mean. We are fully behind all reporting.

08:34

And no, he said, that's not the intent of this resolution at all. So shortly after the convention,

08:41

I wrote a story. And my story basically talked about that I thought that the resolution on sexual abuse with the

08:55

Me Too emphasis was simply a Band -Aid on larger issues, that it didn't go far enough, that it was too general.

09:06

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.

09:16

And you backgrounded people. And I was familiar with that. All the way back to 2008 or 2009, we'd been talking about that.

09:24

Make sure your church is a safe place for children, for children, for children. Very rarely did we talk about adults.

09:32

And that was part of my concern, that even in that resolution in 2018, we merely hinted at adults.

09:43

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.

10:03

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.

10:35

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, this resolution is wonderful in 2018, had some questions that were still unanswered, like Kevin Azell, like Albert Mueller.

10:59

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

11:20

And so I did a very thorough, way too long, 3 ,000 -word news analysis of things that were already out there.

11:30

But this news analysis was subheaded, and I brought it together. And I think I put four paragraphs of the

11:37

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 these situations.

11:54

Well, it took hours, simply mere hours afterwards.

12:02

After I posted the story, went to dinner with my family, got a text, looked at my phone, and Mike Ebert, North American Mission Board, now

12:17

Vice President for Communications, longtime colleague of mine, who

12:23

I'd communicated with about stories through the years, sent me this horrific,

12:31

I felt, because my heart went through the floor, message that basically threatened me with libel for including

12:40

Kevin Azell in that report. And all I had done was reference, with links, the stories that had already been reported years previously.

12:52

No elaboration, just simply said, this is what happened, according to these news reports.

13:05

For someone who's trying to get their life together, someone who's just gone through therapy, someone who is centered on,

13:15

Lord, I need to fix this. I need to just have a renewal.

13:22

I need your cleansing. I need to feel free from this.

13:29

I need to focus on the truth. I need to be able to write stories free of fear, no fear.

13:40

That's what ran in my mind all the time, after having to walk away from a paper where that was starting to happen.

13:53

That was, it was life -changing, it was curtailing, it was, it was as if my world had just fallen out from beneath me.

14:07

I loved, I loved reporting the good news.

14:13

I remember a state paper editor walked up to me at the newsroom, probably in Houston.

14:21

I remember who it was. He's still a state paper editor. And he said, you must really love your job, don't you?

14:30

Because I was sitting there bebopping to the music while I was editing stories. Because it was great, inspirational music.

14:38

Some group had the music out there. And I said, yes, I do. I love serving my

14:44

Lord in this way, telling the good news of God's work. It didn't matter whether it was the pastor's conference that I was covering, whether it was women's ministry, whether it was missions, or even investigative journalism.

14:59

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

15:16

Navy at 18, I had written my mother a note, a letter that I still have, saying that all

15:23

I want to do is go to the Southern Baptist Convention and tell the, tell the world about the good news, of the good stories that God's doing everywhere.

15:32

And the best way I could see to do that was to join the Navy first and get some skills. I have that letter.

15:38

It's in the Bible in back of me. I found it after my mother died.

15:46

And that was just the tip of what happened with the

15:52

North American Mission Board. Kevin Azzell finally threw

15:58

Mike Ebert, saying, I'm threatening you with libel.

16:04

And that didn't end. That didn't end. Shortly thereafter, he sent out an email to every one of my colleagues, 150

16:16

Baptist state paper editors and communicators, who had just a few years before that, awarded me

16:23

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.

16:39

That it's unethical, the way that this is being brought out. And then followed it up with another email to 150 more

16:49

Southern Baptist leaders. All of which I have the emails, the copies too.

16:59

It's a horrible feeling to know that you've been blackballed in this way, that you've been maligned in this way.

17:08

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.

17:22

And that some of the grandstanding,

17:29

I'll use that word, is more symbolic than it is substantive. Well, that's why

17:35

I have to say this. When, okay, when somebody fails, like when

17:41

Johnny Hunt fails, okay. Boy, that's tough. That's really tough.

17:46

My whole family, you know, tithes 20 % because of Johnny Hunt stories about his mom being a waitress.

17:55

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.

18:10

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.

18:27

Watching Kevin Ezell 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.

18:45

An example of how to handle a situation, take clergy penitent privilege or allow an attorney to let you say, to tell you that that's appropriate.

18:57

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

19:12

I did that then, but now I wouldn't do that. That's not a good example for all of these church planners, these student missionaries, and these other people that are out there.

19:21

This is not a good thing. I shouldn't have done that or I wouldn't do it now. Right. Right. Look at this.

19:27

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.

19:34

And we don't operate that way. As Southern Baptist. You know, even on my own pastor.

19:42

Okay. So my own pastor, Tim Maynard, my daughter pointed it out to me.

19:48

She said, mom, our pastor Tim Maynard wrote a very strong statement on the entire recommendation that just came out from the task force.

20:00

And I was really proud of him, except one thing. He only talks about children, how we protect our children.

20:10

How about all these other situations? How about our women and young men?

20:16

How about our adults? Yeah. My Bobby Lopez has said, even he's goes,

20:22

I'm left out of the me too movement. I'm a man. I want to bring you into this pastor will McCraney.

20:27

Cause what Joni's just shared is very powerful stuff. And I think it exposes something deep that I've suspected.

20:36

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.

20:48

It seems. And I want to hear you talk about first, what we ended with there as a pastor will.

20:55

And then I want to get into the broader issues you're challenging in the SBC, but this whole pastoral privilege issue.

21:06

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,

21:25

I'd like to maybe hear your reaction to what Joni just talked about. John, thank you for this opportunity.

21:32

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

21:46

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

21:54

States don't have the clergy penitent privilege exception, but the issue even before that is when a, when a pastor hears this before a potential investigation takes place and a criminal charge is filed, the pastor has the opportunity to go to authorities then.

22:12

And so why didn't the issue for Kevin Eazell, which I raised with him and I've raised with people all across SBC and Guide Post and Houston Chronicle is why, when it came to him about this, this

22:26

Bill Maggard that was convicted of molesting seven boys and 10 felonies, why didn't he go to authorities then?

22:33

He wasn't, he's minimized. I may actually publish some of those. I'm in possession of some of the documents that Joni referred to.

22:40

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 he was just one of 6 ,000 members, it's a little disingenuous.

22:52

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, what did

23:04

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.

23:15

They can go to the authorities then they don't have to wait till investigation and somebody start looking. But when they went to look to ask

23:21

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.

23:28

I've talked to the people that were on the case, the prosecutors, I researched all the details. I have it all down.

23:33

It's just a matter of when I released, you know, when, when I'm going to release that. But, uh, when, when Guidepost did not include this story and I had informed them of this story and when the

23:42

Houston Chronicle had this story, what Joni, it's been a couple of years back that the Houston Chronicle had this and Robert Dowden for all his, their writing on this, they didn't include it.

23:52

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.

23:58

And so the issue becomes who are they protecting? And so first as a pastor, yes, we should report.

24:05

Secondly, who is Kevin Easel? If he takes it the step to threaten Joni for writing five sentences of truth,

24:14

I believe that I believe that I have that right. Joni five sentences out of 3000 words, that seems to be a very extreme position.

24:21

So was he protecting himself? Was he protecting Al Mueller? What did Al Mueller know? When? What did

24:27

Danny Aiken know? What did, what did Russell Moore know? What did Jimmy Scroggins know?

24:33

What did Tom Rainer know? There's a lot of people in that church when this happened. And it's not, that story has not been told.

24:41

So. So you have, I think Joni alluded to this, but you have situations where like Al Mueller kind of after the

24:48

Houston Chronicle story throws CJ Mahaney kind of under the bus, no new information has come out about the case.

24:55

That's significant at all. It's just that the political winds have changed, it seems.

25:00

And now it's inconvenient. And this is the same Al Mueller who wrote a whole defense or signed his name to one of CJ Mahaney.

25:07

You have Danny Aiken just last week releasing a statement about how

25:12

Southeastern wants to respond to the Joni Hunt stuff. And it's basically, let's take down the name of Paige Patterson from the

25:20

Patterson building. They already took out his portraits and stuff. Let's let's, let's just wipe out

25:26

Joni Hunt's name as well. It's kind of the cancel culture thing. And that's why it just makes me think this stuff is so symbolic.

25:34

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.

25:43

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.

25:49

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.

26:00

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.

26:20

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 that's actually going before the

26:28

Supreme court right now? Yes. Well, I thank you for the opportunity to share that, Jon, really what happens in James chapter three, we pick up this idea of selfish ambition and what it says is all, it produces all manner of evil.

26:42

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.

26:57

I would not be surprised that we don't see more things come forward on some of these leaders. You've mentioned several of them,

27:03

Kevin Eazell, Joni 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,

27:21

Kevin through Mike Ebert, directed or either allowed a threat against a journalist to maintain some sense of control and power.

27:31

That's what that was about to me. That's immediate fireball offense for both of them. It's just inexcusable.

27:37

And so you see this kind of thing. So my particular story relates to the North American mission board, some of which

27:42

I can talk about. And some of it we're talking about all the way to the Supreme court, but actually what it is, it was, it's a design to, um, to, uh, to people to get what they want when they want it, how they want it.

27:52

And whoever gets in the way, uh, regardless of the facts that it's going to take it. And so that's really the story.

27:58

And so you have the North American mission board telling the telling district courts, the fifth circuit court and the

28:04

United States Supreme court that they have rights over state conventions and over their leaders.

28:10

And they can interfere literally their document says they can interfere and that they can commit live libel.

28:16

They can, they can slander 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.

28:24

And actually they said state conventions or SBC entities, which is absolutely false. So, um, so as, as crazy as it sounds, we went all the way to United States Supreme court with North American mission board and the

28:37

ERLC with Russ Moore making false claims to federal courts. And so they can speak as to why they did this.

28:43

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.

28:48

And that's what happened to Joni. It's what's happened to me. It's what happened to people like Bobby Gilstrat. Um, but when

28:54

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.

29:03

And, and what they did to Joni is just, is indefensible. What they've done to Bobby's indefensible. And I believe what they did in my situation is indefensible too.

29:10

And what they did to, well, 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.

29:20

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.

29:29

And, uh, I know there's some, uh, 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, uh, to consolidate more power at the top when in reality, it seems like, uh, just as your story,

29:47

Joni, uh, really revealed is it, the abuse like this is on a local level.

29:53

It's it's in churches. It's in, uh, for you, it was in the Navy. It's, um,

29:59

I, I'd be curious Joni first with you and then we'll, you know, what would you like to see happen on the local level?

30:05

What, what kinds of things could change and maybe how, how could the SBC as a whole, uh, encourage some of those changes to prevent abuse accountability, that kind of thing?

30:20

Well, that's a, that's a really good question. Um, number one, I think we have to be very cognizant of looking at from the, you know, we always say that that we're a convention from the bottom up and I, I appreciate that.

30:37

I recognize that, um, I actually grew up Catholic, so I can,

30:43

I really have a lot of appreciation for the autonomy of the local church. 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.

31:06

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.

31:23

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 where we're, we're, we're really confused.

31:38

We're teaching. I believe a very patriarchal elder led pastor led style of congregational, um, fellowship.

31:59

Polity. Yeah. Polity. Yes. Polity. I, my, my words aren't, aren't right here anymore, but my daughter reminded me of 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, um, leadership styles and polity.

32:28

There is that struggle over the place of the place of who actually leads the church.

32:43

Do the members lead the church? Does the pastor lead the church? Do the

32:49

SBC leaders lead the entities or do the trustees lead the entities who gets involved?

32:57

Does Kevin Azell have a free ride to do what he wants or free reign or do his trustees actually set policy?

33:09

The difference between the day -to -day operations and the policy do the, does the congregation really call the pastor or does his pastoral staff or elders call a pastor or another elder to lead?

33:27

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.

33:53

And if we are, then maybe we need to look like it more rather than leaders coming down and making decisions increasingly about, um, what we print in our newspapers.

34:10

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,

34:18

Al Mohler contributed to a book about the Baptist newspapers back in the nineties and predicted that if the

34:26

Baptist newspapers went away, the whole state conventions would take on a different tone and we would be much more centric.

34:36

I didn't know that. Wow. Yes, because he was the editor of a

34:42

Baptist state paper, the Georgia index, which is now part of the

34:48

Georgia Baptist convention. So it's no longer one of our historic papers per se, just like the

34:54

Florida Baptist witness became part of the Florida Baptist convention, uh, just a few years ago, right after we, two years after I left 2016.

35:05

So as you lose those autonomous voices, everything becomes more centralized.

35:14

You really have a different looking denomination. Now, how does this all play out into what I would like to see?

35:20

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.

35:31

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.

35:48

We right now endorse chaplains. Our North American mission board endorses chaplains for ministry.

36:00

Hmm. What does that endorsement entail? Right. Yeah. You do some of these things already.

36:11

Yeah. So do we endorse church planners? Well, some people would say, yes, the

36:18

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 Will McRaney.

36:30

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.

36:44

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?

36:59

What is sexual abuse? What is no, what is appropriate?

37:07

Are we teaching these things? Are we teaching our children, these things?

37:12

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.

37:19

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.

37:29

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

37:39

And we're talking about even, even in the case of Maggard, he apparently said, well, he got counseling for his issues.

37:49

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 were going to have as adults?

38:02

It doesn't mention that. Yeah. I mean, Johnny Hunt says he went through a time of repentance and restoration with his wife or whatever.

38:13

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

38:25

SBC leader? And he calls it a personal sin. Where, where is our biblical education on those things?

38:36

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?

39:18

It's a good question. And what you're saying with everything that you just said, just in my mind,

39:23

I keep thinking, wow, this is a mess. The simple thing is it's hard to put back together a town after a tornado goes through it.

39:31

And we have a situation. I'll just chime in real quick because I did go to an SBC seminary.

39:37

And I remember in the seminary we were taught about church polity.

39:43

And I, my professor happened to be more of a congregational guy. I go to a church that's more elder led, but here's the, here's the thing though that transcends that issue in my mind.

39:51

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.

40:00

But I remember in preaching class, the professor said, you know, basically who are your favorite preachers?

40:09

And every, and there was probably three preachers in the whole class of whatever, 20 people, 25 people, there were like three preachers.

40:17

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,

40:22

I think all of them have been disqualified now, if I'm not mistaken. Probably Driscoll, Patrick and somebody else.

40:30

I think Driscoll is one. Yeah. And I think actually Tulian Tavidian might've been one. And I forget who the other one was.

40:37

But anyway, after that, the professor said basically, well, if you want to preach good, go and copy the preacher that you like, copy their style.

40:46

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.

40:55

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, serve as 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.

41:28

And we have an extra hierarchy. And that's who seems to be in that hierarchy are those kinds of people who are very aggressive and want that kind of power.

41:39

And it's beyond the local church, but for some reason, pastors and those sometimes in churches are looking to them for leadership.

41:47

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.

41:55

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.

42:04

And so, so we'll, I'd like you to, Oh, go ahead. That will trust the trustees.

42:09

I mean, and the whole idea that, you know, trustees feel so enamored of themselves.

42:16

We're 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.

42:33

Yeah. You know, it's, it's mind boggling that we've let it become a celebrity driven denomination.

42:40

You know, we had Platt, we had Driscoll, we had all of these celebrities and, and that is not the way we grew as a denomination.

42:51

Well, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on this. What we've just been talking about. You're a pastor, but you've seen how the sausage is made, so to speak.

43:04

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 a party loyal people loyal to the party, that kind of thing?

43:23

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

43:31

I've called for, let me talk about that. Then I'm gonna come back to the Bullock Institute, talk about a difference in terms of training, but what

43:37

I've called for the North American mission board and other places is for a full investigation now, not just around Johnny, but the entirety of the

43:45

North American mission board. Let's get rid of the NDAs. If they want to do something, the trustees today wipe out all the

43:53

NDAs, unless there's some particular specific reason in a given case and let the people talk and let them come forward.

44:00

We have to want to get cleaned up and not just posture. The NDAs can go away.

44:06

They need to do a full investigation there, and they need to do a full investigation in terms of forensic audit of the

44:11

North American mission board, because money and sex continue to go together. It has throughout history.

44:17

So did Johnny Hunt, was there a payoff out of NAMS money,

44:24

Southern Baptist money, or other monies to this victim, this person? Is there been self -enrichment?

44:31

Is there conflict of interest? And I have absolute proof that all these things are taking place. And so there needs to be, the

44:38

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.

44:45

And then also on the sexual abuse side. So let me address something you and Johnny were talking about.

44:51

I believe most of us, I was a, got a master's and a PhD from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

44:58

I taught there as a professional evangelist with church planting for 11 years. But the reality is we used a West in the, in the

45:04

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.

45:14

We're dealing with knowledge only. And what the Bullock Institute is through our partnership, it has a fully accredited master's degree.

45:22

What we want to do with competency and not in, in character, knowledge, and skill, but in a classroom, you cannot deal with character.

45:31

What tends to happen in a denomination, 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.

45:44

That's how this works. And so the, so we have to go back and actually, I know the senators are trying, but they're not designed to deal with a person's character.

45:53

They just are not, and actually not much on skills. And so there's ways to do this. We've got to retrain guys in the field, under pressure in knowledge and skill and watch their character.

46:06

Literally in my degree that we offer, there's a degree on right. There's a competency on righteousness. And how about this one?

46:12

A second one, just on the master of art side, there's one on humility. And so we're not doing this.

46:20

I'm not opposed to our approach. It's just, I started saying in 2005, this isn't getting it done.

46:27

And so on, we need to do a better job on the preparation side. Johnny can certainly speak best to the, at the local level, because of her experience.

46:38

And then with these entities, the way to do this is have full transparency and anyone who's not for, for an investigation,

46:44

North American mission board into the finances and the sexual abuse is taking place there. You're on the wrong side.

46:50

Anyone who cares actually accountability, John, one more point, accountability and transparency.

46:55

It is good for the giver. It is good for the leader to have the accountability and it's good for the institution.

47:03

The only person it's not good for is those that need to be caught in what they're doing. Yeah. I could not agree more.

47:10

I want to ask where people can go to support you and what you're doing. Cause I know you need to raise some money for you.

47:16

You're trying to keep some bad guys accountable, so to speak. And Nam, where can people go to support you financially?

47:23

Cause I know, I know you got a big need coming up. Right? Well, we've got to hire expert witnesses.

47:29

The North American mission board basically has unlimited resources. They've taken everyone knows it's Baptist knows they've taken false statements to United States courts and all the way to the

47:39

Supreme court. And so they have unlimited resources. So I had some friends that had kept courage me to start a

47:45

GoFundMe. So we have a GoFundMe that people can give that way. If they need to give anonymously or they can give, they can give that direction to either in a known or anonymous way, or they can give to the

47:58

Bullock Institute. That will be helpful to me in an indirect way. So they can go to Bullock Institute as well and do that or just contact me.

48:04

You'll send me the link then so I can put it in the info section and I'll put it there. So people can go down below. They can look at the info section.

48:11

There'll be a link for the, was it GoFundMe you said? And then, and also the Bullock Institute.

48:17

Joni, where can people go to check out what you're doing? You're, you're writing. Still. I know you just had an article

48:24

I read and posted from last week. Well, I mean, I'm just every once in a while,

48:31

I'll publish something on that blog. The truth is in crisis. I don't regularly post to it and don't see myself doing that.

48:41

I it's too, it takes too much of a toll on me. I, I, I have not been in good shape this week trying to review and just look at things.

48:55

It's too much. It's, it's not good for me. Let me say one thing here about Joni's story.

49:02

Let me just mention one more thing is people need to understand. They don't need to say that Joni just got threatened.

49:08

What happened is Kevin Ezell through Mike Ebert used the trust and the power and the position and the weight of the entire

49:18

North American mission board to place it right on Joni Hannigan for telling the truth. If that's not fireable,

49:24

I don't know what is. I mean, like before the sun goes down, I've said this publicly,

49:30

I've written about this. I know the details. I know the, I know the situations and it just cannot be tolerated.

49:37

If, if every sexual abuse victim is not screaming and yelling about a journalist being threatened for writing truth,

49:44

I don't know what else they want. It's insane. There's no doubt about it. And the fact that this story is kind of covered up when you were talking about all these other things, it's just nuts to me.

49:57

And it's one of the things that actually caused me to start thinking down this road of like, maybe, you know, they're really not that serious about the sexual abuse stuff.

50:05

Maybe this is some, there's something else going on. And so, um, yeah, go ahead.

50:12

And, and John, my challenge, my challenge is, and it has always been, um, to Mike Ebert, to Kevin Azzell, to that entire trustee board, many of whom

50:25

I know, I mean, to the EC, to Ronnie Floyd, when

50:31

I sent a note to him, to Jonathan, how, um, they all know me.

50:36

I wrote the story on 40 days of fasting for SBC life on Ronnie Floyd, way back when we're talking in the nineties here.

50:44

Okay. That's how long my relationship goes with, with Baptist press. Um, my challenge would be then take every story

50:55

I've ever written for you, North American mission board off your website, because it's no good then.

51:02

If I don't have ethics, if I don't have credibility, take all those stories down and tell

51:08

Baptist press to do the same. Take the thousands of stories I've written down about the good news of God's work everywhere.

51:16

The trustee meetings that I've covered the, the Terry Shivo case, the hurricanes, the preaching, the pastors conferences, the convention messages, the motions, take all those stories down there.

51:31

If I'm that terrible, if I'm unethical, if I'm just out to get you as you said in that email, then take those stories down.

51:41

But you know what? Not even Al Mohler believed that because I never got a word from him. Instead last year before the

51:49

SBC, he agreed to an interview and I actually interviewed him with, um, with Bobby, uh, uh,

52:00

Gilstrap or yeah. We interviewed him. He answered every single question I asked.

52:05

There was no animosity between us. I mean, so there's no reason for his

52:11

L to have done that. And, and other things that I didn't talk about. I didn't talk about other things, but there were other things leading up to that, that he'd already done to let it be known that he did not want me reporting on NDAs.

52:28

He didn't want me reporting on a single thing that reflected NAM in any kind of a con, any pastor who had or director of missions or state convention exec who had anything to say that brought up any question about the direction of NAM.

52:49

Mm. I heard loud and clear that I must've chosen sides and I was like, no,

52:59

I'm just reporting. Yeah. Well, you know, um, there are, you, with that said, and I, I hear you and I mean, it's credibly disturbing and, um, it's hard.

53:12

It's just, uh, emotionally devastating to go through this. And, and then you're second guessing yourself.

53:18

I have, I mean, what you're feeling I'm sure is way beyond anything I felt, but I felt sometimes a little bit like, why did

53:25

I go to an SPC seminary? You know, what was the point of that? I wanted to be involved in the

53:31

SBC, but you know, look at, look at this organization and all the bad things that are happening. I do want to remind people that this

53:37

God is working. God is good. And a lot of things even you wrote about Joni, they're true.

53:43

There are good things. There's, there's people. I mean, I can recall talking to IMB missionaries that are, um, you know, good, decent people that just love the

53:53

Lord, want to spread the gospel, want to disciple people there they're in Christ. And the, it's almost like I want to take the chains off if I could, if I had that authority, because they're going through situations where, uh, and I'm saying just generically because I've had conversations with many

54:10

IMB missionaries, but, uh, and this goes for NAM, this goes for so many of the entities they they're going through situations sometimes where they're constrained, they're bullied.

54:20

Um, there's one, I wrote about it actually recently. I'm going to, uh, I'm, I'm going to probably publish this before the convention, but I'm trying to kind of take a bird's eye view of like, what happened to the

54:30

SBC? And there was a story of someone from the IMB and it matches the stories that I've heard that are not in the public domain.

54:39

And this one happened to be, because this person decided to go and talk about it. But he said, look, we, we were in a situation where I was told,

54:47

Hey, uh, let, let us know if your daughter was in between these years and these months, it was in a certain premises because there was a predator that she might have been in contact with.

55:02

We can't give you the, any details. We can't give you the name. We can't, we can't say anything except that you just might want to have a conversation with your kids.

55:11

Then this person leaves the IMB and guess what? The first thing they're supposed to do is sign the

55:16

NDA and the NDA would basically mean that they can't talk about any of the things like that, that would maybe make the

55:23

IMB look unfavorable. This is the kind of thing that's happening. And I I've heard a lot of these kinds of stories and, and I'm not willing to talk about stuff that's not in the public domain, but this particular one did come out in the public domain and it matched other things that I've heard.

55:37

And there's a problem on a, on a big level here. And so for you, Joni, and for you, uh, will to be willing to talk about it, be willing to challenge it more importantly is precious and important to me.

55:50

And I think it, it's also, uh, it means something to the Lord. So I appreciate you guys coming on and sharing, you know,

55:56

I, I brought up stuff, John, on my website that I didn't talk about here today, but I brought up stuff in relation to the, to the

56:05

Florida Baptist witness and, and some of the things there. And, um, and I had signed an

56:11

NDA, but you know what, that NDA wasn't worth the paper it was written on because the entity dissolved and my lawyer at the time that I was forced to get, because they said, make sure your lawyer looks this over, told me it wasn't worth the paper it was written up.

56:27

So, I mean, right then, that what it, what a tactic. I remember crying when

56:33

I read that agreement and I was told, well, this is only business journey.

56:38

This is only business standard. And I said, well, I didn't take this job as business.

56:44

I took this as a ministry position. And I said, how could you, how could you do this?

56:55

I had voluntarily resigned and they terminated me.

57:02

So very few people know that because everything that I wrote every month that I served at that position afterwards,

57:11

I did my work as unto the Lord. Well, thank, thank you for, for sharing that here.

57:20

Joni means a lot and I'd just like to say to my audience, uh, if you would, just go, go to Joni's website, send her a note, send will support a note.

57:30

They're exposing some of these evil beads of darkness. And, um, you know, once again, thank you.