Southern Baptist members detail alleged grooming, sexual misconduct among clergy in new report

They include top leaders at Prestonwood Baptist Church in suburban Dallas, one of the largest churches in the country, allegedly protecting a music director accused of abuse in the 1980s and failing to notify police.The music minister, John Langworthy, was “quietly fired” and moved to Mississippi, “where, in 2011, he confessed to his congregation at Morrison Heights Baptist Church in Clinton that he had committed ‘sexual indiscretions’ with teenage boys during his time at Prestonwood and before when he was in Mississippi,” according to the report.Langworthy could not immediately be reached for comment Monday.Langworthy pleaded guilty to five counts of gratification of lust related to incidents in Mississippi from 1980 to 1984 and was sentenced in 2013 to a total of 50 years but avoided prison under a plea deal.In a statement, Prestonwood Baptist denied how the Guidepost report characterized the situation and said the church has “never protected or supported abusers, in 1989 or since.”Throughout the report, churchgoers who say they were abused by clergy at various Southern Baptist churches across the country told investigators how they were repeatedly stonewalled in their efforts to be heard.Jennifer Lyell, a former executive at a Christian media publishing company who came forward publicly in 2019 about sexual abuse, was described in the report as saying she had later been subject to harassment by fellow churchgoers, with some calling her a “whore” and “bitter jealous woman.”Lyell said she was a student at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary when the abuse began, and she decided to speak out after learning the man she accused of abuse had returned to ministry.