SBC report highlights Plano’s Prestonwood Baptist as example of protecting sex abusers

North Texas figures prominently in a highly-anticipated report released on Sunday about allegations of sex abuse among Southern Baptist churches. In particular, Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano. The report says that when leaders of the Southern Baptist Convention learned of allegations of sexual abuse, rather than reporting the accusation to authorities or firing those responsible, they protected the abusers or stonewalled and denigrated the survivors. The report includes Prestonwood and its pastor, Jack Graham, as an example, as well as Paige Patterson, the former president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth. Prestonwood Baptist is one of the largest churches in the country, and Graham is a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, serving from 2002 to 2004. His congregation includes prominent elected leaders, such as Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano. Leach tweeted on Sunday that the report is “absolutely horrifying.”

“As the husband of a sexual assault survivor, I have lived the horrors associated with this awful crime. To know so many Pastors covered these heinous sins instead of exposing them is almost too much to bear. God, be near, convict and revive us,” he said. In 1989, according to the report, Prestonwood Baptist Pastor Graham allowed a music director who had been accused of abusing a young boy to be dismissed from his church quietly, and without police being notified. The former employee, John Langworthy, moved to Mississippi, where he confessed the abuse at Prestonwood to another church congregation. Langworthy was arrested and charged with sex crimes, the report says. He pleaded guilty but avoided jail time. In a statement on Sunday, Prestonwood’s executive pastor, Mike Buster, said the church “categorically denies the way the report characterizes the incident 33 years ago.” “Prestonwood has never protected or supported abusers, in 1989 or since,” Buster said in the statement.