Religion · Myrtle Beach, SC Metro · August 11, 2026
Federal lawsuit names Southern Baptist Convention in Pawleys Island church scandal
What Alinsky tactic is being used
One of the thirteen rules is in play here.
Rule 4
“Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
The suit's leverage is the SBC's own published book of rules: messengers adopted abuse reforms — including a "Ministry Check" database of credibly accused ministers and pressure on churches to run real background checks — and the complaint now points at a convicted, registered sex offender working around children at an affiliated church and school. The complaint even states it does not ask the court to resolve any question of religious doctrine, which keeps the fight on the denomination's stated safeguarding commitments rather than its theology. The gap is real and documented: in February 2025 Executive Committee president Jeff Iorg said the Ministry Check database was "not a focus for us," years after messengers voted for it.
Counter-Rule 4 · Radical Integrity
Close the gap between stated values and actual practice before anyone else finds it. This tactic only works where the gap is real.
Close the gap in your own congregation before a lawyer or a reporter finds it. This month, get the actual child-protection policy in hand with its revision date, check that every children's and youth worker has a background check on file dated within the policy's own interval, and get the review put on a dated board agenda with a recorded vote. Refuse the comfortable answer that "we've always done it" — ask for the paper, and if the paper does not exist, say so plainly in the minutes rather than papering over it.
Chapter 3 sets out the rules; Chapter 15 answers each of them in turn. This is that pairing applied to this story.
Know where you stand
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Facing this yourself? Ask. Describe what is happening and get what the book, Scripture, and the law of your state say, with the exact words to use. Your first one is free.