(RNS) Southern Baptist leaders in North Carolina have announced plans to proactively review their state convention’s response to the issue of sexual abuse.
The review, approved on Monday (Nov. 8) by the executive committee of the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina, will look at current policies and procedures for preventing abuse and responding when abuse occurs.
Todd Unzicker, the state convention’s executive director-treasurer, said leaders want to show churches they take abuse seriously.
“If our churches do not see us as a convention being proactive in this, mistrust will happen,” he said in a statement Monday.
North Carolina joins at least five other state conventions in addressing the issue of abuse at their annual meetings this fall. In recent weeks, state Baptist groups in Georgia, Kentucky, Arkansas, Florida and California have set up committees or task forces to address sexual abuse. Attempts to set up similar responses failed in Mississippi and Missouri.