In charging documents accusing a former seminary official of obstructing a federal investigation, the U.S. Department of Justice signaled that it has been engaged since around 2022 in a broader inquiry into alleged sexual abuse cover-ups in the Southern Baptist Convention.
The convention’s Tennessee-based denominational leaders have said the problem is not widespread in the state, but the large Protestant denomination has faced close scrutiny in recent years as several reports found its leaders systematically mishandled sex abuse allegations in its churches and other affiliated institutions.
The denomination announced in 2022 that it was facing a federal investigation. But the case against the former seminary administrator, unsealed this week in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York, is a clear sign from the Department of Justice itself that it has been probing the religious group — even as public court documents redacted the identity of the denomination and seminary.
Since around 2022, according to a Department of Justice news release, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and the FBI “have been investigating allegations of sexual abuse and misconduct related to a national religious denomination (the ‘Denomination’) and its affiliated entities, and the alleged cover-up of such allegations by individuals and entities associated with the Denomination.”
In a statement Tuesday, the Fort Worth-based Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary said the incident in question stemmed from the actions of the defendant, the North Carolina pastor Matt Queen, when he was an administrator at the school.