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Southern Baptists vote on a motion during the 2022 SBC Annual Meeting on Wednesday, June 15, 2022, at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim.

In this photo released by the Baptist Press, Johnny Hunt, a native American from Woodstock, Ga, was elected new president of the Southern Baptist Convention on Tuesday, June 10, 2008 in Indianapolis. Hunt, 55, prevailed in a crowded field of six, winning 53 percent of the vote on the first ballot and will seek to reverse troubling trends, including a decline in membership. (AP Photo/Baptist Press, Matt Miller)

Federal investigators are probing the Southern Baptist Convention over its handling of sexual abuse following the publication of an explosive report that found top officials had for two decades silenced abuse survivors and fought reforms out of fears of lawsuits, leaders of the nation’s second-largest faith group said on Friday.

In a statement, the SBC’s top leadership body, the Executive Committee, confirmed that the Department of Justice is looking into “multiple” Southern Baptist entities. 

The statement was signed by all of the leaders of the SBC’s seminaries and main entities. They said they will cooperate fully with the criminal investigation and “continue to grieve and lament past mistakes.”

Leaders also noted that the faith group has taken numerous steps towards rectifying the abuse problem in the wake of a 2019 investigation by the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News. 

“Individually and collectively, each SBC entity is resolved to fully and completely cooperate with the investigation,” the SBC’s Nashville-based Executive Committee said in a statement.

The Executive Committee received a federal subpoena from the Justice Department, but no individuals have yet been subpoenaed. Justice Department officials couldn’t be reached for comment.

Albert Mohler, the longtime president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky, told the Chronicle Friday afternoon that he was awaiting specifics of the inquiry, but like other leaders vowed that his school would cooperate with law enforcement.

“I don't know anything specific about the investigation other than what's been relayed to me by the Executive Committee’s counsel,” Mohler said in an interview before the investigation was made public. “But as far as we are concerned, we believe in the rule of law. We respect law enforcement and we will be fully cooperative with federal authorities.”

The federal investigation introduces an unprecedented level of scrutiny on the 47,000-church coalition. The SBC is the world's largest Baptist group.

ABUSE OF FAITH: 20 years, 700 victims: Sexual abuse spreads as leaders resist reforms

The SBC’s handling of abuse has been in the public spotlight since 2019, when the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News published the first of an ongoing series, Abuse of Faith, that found hundreds of church leaders and volunteers had been convicted of sex crimes. 

They left behind at least 700 victims, nearly all of them children. 

The newspapers’ reporting prompted Southern Baptist church members to request a third-party review last year of the SBC’s Executive Committee’s handling of abuse reports dating back to 2000.

FALLOUT: As ex-Southern Baptist figure alleges ‘criminal conspiracy,’ prominent leader defends abuse response

SBC church representatives also demanded that the Executive Committee grant the firm, Guidepost Solutions, unprecedented access to confidential, attorney-client records for its review. 

Guidepost spokesman Montieth Illingworth declined to say Friday whether the firm had been subpoenaed or answer other questions about the federal investigation. Per the firm’s agreement with the SBC, Guidepost is required to alert Southern Baptist officials when it receives law enforcement requests for documents.

“Guidepost shall notify the SBC of any effort ... either by subpoena or otherwise to gain access to information, documents, materials, or work product, or information of any kind in the possession of Guidepost that has been generated, obtained, or learned as a result of the work performed by Guidepost,” the agreement says.

FROM MAY: Bombshell 400-page report finds Southern Baptist leaders routinely silenced sexual abuse survivors

In May, Guidepost revealed that a handful of longtime Southern Baptist leaders and attorneys had mishandled sexual abuse complaints, disparaged victims and rejected proposed reforms that could have protected children from predators.

Among the revelations was that a longtime SBC lawyer, August “Augie” Boto, had secretly maintained a list of accused sexual abusers in Southern Baptist churches. The Chronicle identified 75 ministers on the list who had worked in Texas churches.

SURVIVORS SPEAK: Christa Brown spent decades warning Southern Baptists about abuse. Recent revelations brought her ‘no joy.’

Meanwhile, Boto said a public version of such a database wasn’t feasible and dismissed efforts by advocates to create one as a backgrounding tool for churches to weed out problematic employees and volunteers.

Guidepost also uncovered sexual assault allegations against a former SBC president, Johnny Hunt, that allegedly occurred just after he left office because of term limits in 2010. Hunt has admitted to an impropriety, but maintains it was consensual. He resigned from a top leadership position at an SBC entity ahead of the Guidepost report, and numerous SBC organizations have since cut ties with him. 

RELATED: Explosive report alleged sex abuse by SBC leader Johnny Hunt. His accuser still waits for justice.

Response to the Guidepost report was swift. One former SBC official, prominent evangelical leader Russell Moore, called it the “Southern Baptist apocalypse” and said the findings amounted to a “criminal conspiracy.”

As fallout from the report continued this summer, SBC church representatives overwhelmingly approved safeguards at their June meeting, including a database of accused ministers that churches could consult when making hiring decisions. 

The SBC also elected new leaders that have been particularly outspoken on the need for abuse reforms, including Texas pastor Bart Barber, who vowed to turn the SBC’s 47,000 churches into places where predators were “hunted.”

Robert Downen covers nonprofits and other business news for the Houston Chronicle. He's also covered religion, City Hall and COVID-19.

After joining the newspaper as a Hearst Fellow in 2017, Downen was part of the investigative team behind "Abuse of Faith," a joint investigation by the Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News that detailed hundreds of sexual abuses by Southern Baptist church leaders and volunteers. The series won or placed in numerous awards contests, prompted new disclosure laws and continues to dominate the agenda of the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's second-largest faith group.

Prior to that, he worked as a business reporter in Albany, New York, and as the managing editor of a group of six newspapers in Illinois. He is a 2014 graduate of Eastern Illinois University. 

You can follow him on Twitter at @RobDownenChron. 

John Tedesco joined the Houston Chronicle's investigations team in January 2019 after spending 20 years digging up stories in Texas as an investigative reporter.

John previously worked at the Chronicle's sister paper, the San Antonio Express-News, where he wrote about the worst hot-air balloon crash in U.S. history near Lockhart, Texas, and the environmental toll of widespread natural-gas flares in the Eagle Ford Shale.

John was one of the reporters in a joint investigation by the Chronicle and the Express-News that revealed how 700 people - most of them children - had been sexually abused by pastors, employees and volunteers in Southern Baptist churches. The newspapers' series, Abuse of Faith, sparked nationwide calls for reform.

Some of John's best stories started with a basic news tip from someone like you who had important information to share. Every method to get in touch with him can be found on this page or John's website.