Seventh-day Adventist CSA counts outnumber infamous SBC's CSA counts
Trigger warning: CSA. 2019 national US news: The Southern Baptist Convention had 700 CSA counts in twenty years. 2013: Adventists identified 523 CSA counts in nine years. Adventists: Did nothing.
The picture with this post is from Wikimedia Commons. Titled: “A modern kids' doll”. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:A_small_modern_kids%27_doll_lying_on_a_soft_surface.jpg
Terminology:
CSA means “child sexual assault”.
SBC means “Southern Baptist Convention”. It is the “second largest Christian body in the United States” per Wikipedia. (Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Baptist_Convention)
Seventh-day Adventists refer to themselves as “Adventist” and “SDA” for short. So do my writings.
Sources:
Houston Chronicle’s investigation of the Southern Baptist Convention’s CSA. “Abuse of Faith”. 2019. https://archive.is/RCOa0
Exvangelical blogger, raised Southern Baptist Convention, Roll To Disbelieve’s post about Southern Baptist Convention’s CSA. “SBC leaders are done pretending to care about sex abuse.” 3/2025. The SBC’s 700 CSA cases in 20 years is here. https://archive.is/WQNhp
Adventist Risk Management’s “Sex Offenders in the Church: A Legal Guide”. 2012. The “pedophile attending church” cartoon is here, last page. https://archive.is/0ccYy
Abuse Guardian “Attorney For Sexual Abuse in Seventh-Day Adventist Church”. This site has Adventist Risk Management’s study showing 523 Adventist CSA cases in 9 years. https://archive.ph/mh5HE
The Glory Whole on Instagram about Adventist Risk Management.
Too long didn't read: The Southern Baptist Convention had 700 CSA reports over 20 years, or 35 CSA reports per year. This hit national news in 2019.
The Houston Chronicle published a 6-part investigation. https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/investigations/abuse-of-faith/
In 2013, Seventh-day Adventist legal wing Adventist Risk Management reported they had 523 CSA reports over 9 years, or 58.1 CSA reports per year. That's 23.1 more CSA reports per year than the Southern Baptist Convention’s.
It didn't hit national news. Links to original study are deleted. https://archive.ph/mh5HE
Timeline with more details:
2010 (approximately): Adventist Risk Management (ARM) hires Dr. William Chunestudy as Education Resource Specialist. He is employed by ARM for at least three years. (Sources: Dr. Chunestudy listed as ARM employee here: https://archive.is/eOS3v Dr. Chunestudy worked for ARM for 3 years: https://archive.ph/mh5HE)
2012: Three Adventist Risk Management lawyers—Karnik Doukmetzian, Robert Burrow, Victor Elliot—publish a legal manual for Adventist pastors. It is titled “Sex Offenders in the Church: A Legal Guide”. This manual says:
“Churches simultaneously reach out to perpetrators and survivors of abuse” (pg 2).
Each Adventist church should make its own policies about convicted pedophiles attending church (pg 3).
A pastor “must” determine if a convicted pedophile is “truly repentant” by “speaking to probation officers, observation” (pg 4).
Six ways to manage a convicted pedophile member: Conditional membership, covenant (offender signs a written paper of restrictions), accountability partner, disclosure to church members (“how and to whom?” “be respectful”), contact with children (“the offender” is “responsible for enforcement”), flexibility (“allow discretion”).
On the last page of their manual, Adventist Risk Management publishes this cartoon:
Above: Screenshot from “Sex Offenders in the Church: A Legal Guide”, published by Adventist Risk Management, 2012. Yes, I've published this cartoon on my blog a few times. It shows Adventist Risk Management’s attitude towards pedophiles at SDA churches—they think it is funny.
Note that Adventist Risk Management recommends “education” of children’s volunteers and “helping children know good and bad touch”. These are good recommendations.
Placing the entire responsibility of managing convicted pedophiles upon individual churches, pastors, and the pedophile themselves is not a good idea. Purposely recruiting both CSA survivors and convicted pedophiles into the same church is horrific.
2013: Dr. Chunestudy completes study on 523 Adventist CSA claims over nine years. ARM pays $30 million to claimants. Study is published:
At this now-defunct website link: https://adventyouthmedia.org/seventh-day-adventist-church-studies-523-sexual-abuse-cases/
At sexual abuse lawyer website Abuse Guardian here (also archived in Sources section above): https://abuseguardian.com/seventh-day-adventist-sexual-abuse-lawyer/
2019: Southern Baptist Convention scandal hits US national news. Their CSA report count is 700 CSA cases in 20 years.
Details of Dr. Chunestudy’s study:
Dr. Chunestudy documented 523 CSA claims in 9 years, in Adventist schools and churches. (Source: https://archive.ph/mh5HE)
Dr. Chunestudy worked as the insurer's [Adventist Risk Management’s] Educational Resource Specialist for over 3 years and so, in 2013, he set out to understand the scope of insurance claims filed over incidents of sexual abuse. Over less than a decade, the insurance company had been made aware of over 500 sexual abuse cases, ultimately paying out around $30 million in compensation to survivors.
Dr. Chunestudy identified who was CSAing Adventist children:
Teacher / Principal - 94 [cases reported]
Pathfinder / Adventurer - 40
Member - 35
Leader - 24 (of a Sabbath school, youth group, music group)
Elder - 23
Volunteer - 14
Deacon - 9 cases
Only 2 of the case reports, Chunestudy says, had been filed in relation to abuse committed by strangers, people unconnected to the Seventh-day Adventist Church. In one incident, a young member of the Church met a sexual predator online using a school's computer. The vast majority of abusers, however, were affiliated in some way with the church.
In 2013, the very high Adventist CSA report didn't hit national news, even though it had higher counts in less time than national-news-scandal the Southern Baptist Convention.
Adventists self-identified a horrific rate of CSA, and did nothing about it.