Unsettling new reporting from Religion News Service now reveals that one former Southern Baptist president and pastor has now lodged a lawsuit against his former church, after damning allegations went public, accusing the minister of sexually assaulting another pastor’s wife, claiming that the allegations destroyed his religious reputation.
According to the official complaint reported on by RNS, attorneys representing Rev. Johnny Hunt, the now-former head of a prestigious Georgia megachurch, admitted to engaging in a “brief, inappropriate, extramarital encounter with a married woman” back in 2010. However, the lawyers assert that the extramarital affair was consensual in nature and never should have gone public. To make matters more disgusting and disturbing still, the complaint on Rev. Hunt’s behalf further claims, “Some of the precise details are disputed, but at most, the encounter lasted only a few minutes, and it involved only kissing and some awkward fondling.”
Guidepost Solutions firm launched an official investigation into the matter in May 2022 and ultimately found that Hunt was guilty of sexually assaulting the woman in question. Hunt has now launched a lawsuit against Guidepost Solutions for defamation, libel, and invasion of privacy.
“The decision to smear Pastor Johnny’s reputation with these accusations has led him to suffer substantial economic and other damages,” the complaint alleges. “He has lost (his) job and income; he has lost current and future book deals; and he has lost the opportunity to generate income through speaking engagements.”
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The complaint further claims, “By focusing on the allegation against Pastor Johnny — an allegation by an adult woman that involved noncriminal conduct — and by then taking aggressive action against Pastor Johnny, the Defendants sought to create the appearance that the SBC has learned from its previous mistakes and is now working to protect victims of sex crimes.”
“Defendants’ decision to feature the allegation against Pastor Johnny in their public report was a strategic decision to deflect attention from the SBC’s historical failure to take aggressive steps to respond to reports of child sex abuse and other sex crimes in its past,” the document continues.
Rev. Hunt addressed the scandal during a March 19th sermon at New Season Church in Hiram, Georgia, telling the congregation that his legal representation had advised him to “allow the case to play out.”
“However, if I had done what that report says I’ve done, there is no way I could have preached today,” Hunt told the audience.
Read the full report from Religion News Service here.
Featured image via Wikimedia Commons/ToBeDaniel, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license
