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Jason Stalnaker comes from a church background. He was raised in an Independent Baptist Church, one that was extremely strict. After graduating IFB college, he decided to work as a schoolteacher. He went to Capitol Baptist School in Dover, DE, and found a 15 year old girl that he raped and molested repeatedly.

During his sentencing, both he and his father asked the court for leniency, going so far as to quote Scripture, which apparently upset the judge a little bit, as he then threw the book at Jason. Jason Stalnaker now has 17 years to contemplate the evil of his actions. Hopefully during this time, he will repent and accept Christ as his Saviour, and will then proceed to show a contrite spirit towards those he has hurt. In the meantime, he is receiving his just desserts.

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As a Southern Baptist, it disappoints me that Southern Baptist leadership has rejected the idea of creating a database of sex offenders that are known to work or to have worked in Southern Baptist churches. It is understandable that Southern Baptists would be hesitant to get too involved in the affairs of a local church, considering that Baptists believe in church autonomy. However, Southern Baptists should not simply stand idly by and allow sexual abuse to occur in churches and do nothing. If local church leadership is remiss to dismiss a sexual predator from the pulpit, or from paid or volunteer staff, then something should be done by somebody.

Currently, the SBC has a policy of quietly removing the names of pastors known to be sexual abusers from their online pastoral database. Personally, I reject this idea, and call for a new way of doing things. Any pastor known to be a sex offender operating within the SBC should have his picture kept within the database, but it should be clearly marked with “Sex Offender,” and have a link to the news report of his crime or to the police report of his crime. Instead of leaving them in peace, the SBC should make it clear that these individuals are not welcome within the Southern Baptist community. Churches within the convention that harbor Sex Offenders on their staff should be given notice that they will be dropped from the convention as long as they have a Sex Offender working in their church. This is not to say that such an individual may not attend their church, but that the person may not work as either paid or volunteer staff.

This plan would not affect the autonomy of the local church in the least bit. If the church does not desire to have a Sexual Predator on staff, then they will fire him. If they don’t care that their pastor is a Sexual Predator, then they can leave the Convention and work on their own, totally independent. Let the database prominently feature Sex Offenders, keeping them from staying in the shadows. By dropping them from the databse, the SBC allows such persons to remain in the shadows, hidden from the light that the SBC proclaims must be shined on such persons. Build the database.