The leader of the Southern Baptist Convention has resigned after denomination’s executive committee voted to waive attorney client privilege during an investigation.
A third party group is investigating claims that the church’s executive committee mishandled allegations of sexual abuse for more than two decades.
Ronnie Floyd released a letter Thursday night, saying that as the president and CEO of the executive committee, he has certain fiduciary duties that were complicated after a vote in favor of waiving attorney client privilege.
“The decisions made on Tuesday afternoon, October 5, in response to the 2021 Convention now place our missionary enterprise as Southern Baptists into uncertain, unknown, unprecedented and uncharted waters,” he writes.
Floyd, who has been the Nashville-based denomination’s day-to-day leader since 2019, says he thinks that a transparent investigation could have been completed without creating potential risks to the convention’s liability.
At least ten executive committee members resigned either immediately before or just after the vote this month. Floyd blames the transparency decision for putting their private careers in jeopardy.
“Sadly, even some of our laypeople who are serving as our trustees had to submit their resignation because their profession will not permit them to serve any longer due to these risks that now exist. Others will have to do the same also,” Floyd writes. “This is unacceptable and should concern every Baptist layperson.”
Floyd says he will serve through the end of October. He has held several leadership positions in the denomination, including the role of president from 2014 to 2016. When he was selected to lead the executive committee, he resigned as a full-time minister at the church in Arkansas he led for decades.
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