Religion · Myrtle Beach, SC Metro · August 14, 2026
SBC Named as Defendant in Lawsuit Over SC Church Sex-Offender Case
What Alinsky tactic is being used
2 of the thirteen rules are in play here — campaigns rarely run just one.
Rule 4
“Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.”
The complaint's leverage is the gap between what these institutions published about themselves and what they did: reporting on the 25-page filing says the parents allege the church and academy "held themselves out to parents as a place of safety," and the plaintiffs reach the SBC by arguing the church participated in and benefited from Baptist ministries, resources and programs. The same move works against the denomination's own abuse-reform record — messengers voted in 2022 for a Ministry Check database of credibly accused ministry workers, affirmed it again in 2024, and it still has not launched, with EC president Jeff Iorg telling reporters in February 2025 it was "not a focus." This tactic only bites because the gap is real.
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 house this month rather than waiting for a plaintiff to find it. Get your church's child-protection policy in writing, note the date the elders adopted it and the minute number, and check whether the written rule (background checks for every volunteer, renewal interval, two-adult rule, registry check by name) is what actually happens on Sunday. If the practice has drifted from the paper, say so to the board in writing and ask for a re-adoption vote with a recorded date.
Rule 11
“If you push a negative hard and deep enough, it will break through into its counterside.”
One congregation's alleged failure — five arrests, a volunteer custodian on a campus serving roughly 300 children — is being pushed hard enough to break through into a claim about a denomination of thousands of unrelated churches, even though the filing itself concedes Pawleys Island Community Church is "an independent, self-governing, elder-led congregation not subject to the control of a parent denomination." The headline the reader will see is "SBC Named as Defendant," which does the work of a verdict before any answer is filed. The mirror-image overclaim is equally available: treating the suit as nothing but an attack on Baptists.
Counter-Rule 11 · Proportional Truth
Refuse to overclaim, even where it would help. One exaggeration hands the other side the only weapon that works permanently.
Refuse both exaggerations out loud. When you discuss this, distinguish the three tiers precisely: what law enforcement has charged (obstruction, unlawful placing of a child at risk, conspiracy, July 2026), what a complaint merely alleges against the SBC and its Executive Committee, and what no one has yet proven. Read the docket before repeating a claim, and do not say the SBC "has been found" anything — one overstatement in a members' meeting costs you the hearing you will need for the policy questions that matter.
Chapter 3 sets out the rules; Chapter 15 answers each of them in turn. This is that pairing applied to this story.
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