There’s a huge difference between not being involved in the SBC hierarchy, and not being involved in any SBC church. And that’s where the SBC avoids paying out billions of dollars: “Gosh, we can’t help what our member churches do!” But this is a cynical, purposeful, planned incompetence: simply revoking credentials, or publishing a database would allow congregations to avoid those who have created a scandal. But they don’t do that, because as long as the infrastructure doesn’t exist, they can’t be legally be responsible for its failure.
And by the way, of all the Protestant denominations, I like the SBC the BEST, so I don’t mean to pick on them. But being the largest congregationalist church, their failures are the best documented.
2000 years ago, the Catholic Church made its bishops responsible for each and every congregation. This doesn’t make them virtuous; so many bishops followed the advice of therapists and lawyers instead of exorcists* and confessors who would have helped. But it means that when they are evil, they are subject to both God and Caesar powers for that evil.
* John Paul II and Benedict XVI became Pope and “Grand Inquisitor,” (head of the Confraternity of the Defense of the Faith) respectively, during the height of the sexual abuse crisis. Both were exorcists. By 1992, the incidence of sexual abuse in the U.S. had decreased 97%. Both of these incidents are decades old. Given that much of the abuse involved Satanic abuse, I’ve wondered how much of their intervention was relying on divine assistance.
The person I mentioned can never have anything to do with any SBC. His wife and kids forgave him for the affair. If they can, I do to. I really liked this person and his family. Anyone, under the right/wrong circumstances can make mistakes. It is what they do afterwards that matters. No one is perfect.