Denomination
Baptist
The Baptist tradition encompasses a broad range of congregational and theological positions across multiple denominations, conventions, associations, and independent congregations. The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), founded in 1845, is the largest Protestant denomination in the United States. The American Baptist Churches USA, the National Baptist Convention, the Baptist World Alliance, and the broader landscape of independent and Reformed Baptist congregations make up the rest of the tradition.
Baptist entries currently in this archive concern the Southern Baptist Convention abuse crisis — the 2022 Guidepost Solutions independent investigation and the subsequent disclosure of a previously-secret internal list of more than 700 credibly accused ministers. The COINTELPRO targeting of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference — the Black Baptist civil-rights infrastructure under Dr Martin Luther King Jr — is treated in the COINTELPRO entry. Further Baptist-specific entries, including potential treatment of the Independent Fundamental Baptist (IFB) institutional pattern, are pending writeup.
Filed
3 entriesThe Southern Baptist Convention Abuse Crisis
A 2022 independent investigation commissioned by the Southern Baptist Convention itself established that senior denominational leaders had for two decades systematically ignored, belittled, and intimidated survivors of sexual abuse while maintaining a secret internal list of credibly accused ministers.
FILED · 1956–1971 · BAPTIST · INFILTRATIONCOINTELPRO Surveillance of Black Churches and the SCLC
The FBI's *Counter Intelligence Program* conducted extensive surveillance and disruption operations targeting the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jr personally, and the broader American Black church network from 1956 to 1971; the Church Committee Final Report of 1976 established the institutional record on the public side of US government.
FILED · 1819–1969 · CATHOLIC · INSTITUTIONALUS Federal Indian Boarding Schools
United States Department of the Interior investigative reports released in 2022 and 2024 established that the federal government had operated, or funded religious institutions to operate, 408 Indian boarding schools across 37 states between 1819 and 1969, with at least 973 documented child deaths confirmed across both volumes of the investigation.
