REVISED JANUARY 14 TO ADD A PARENTHETICAL NOTE IN THE THIRD PARAGRAPH.
By Will Hall, Baptist Message executive editor
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (LBM) – Just prior to the Christmas holiday, religious news outlets reported that the jury trial in the lawsuit by Johnny Hunt against the Southern Baptist Convention, the SBC Executive Committee and Guidepost Solutions was scheduled for June 17, 2025, in the U.S. District Court located in Nashville.
RECAP
Hunt was named in the controversial “Report of the Independent Investigation” about alleged sexual abuse and claims of mishandled cases in the SBC. Released in May 2022 by Guidepost Solutions for the SBC and SBC EC, the report accused him of having groomed a pastor’s wife, 20 years younger than him, (which included time while he served as SBC president, 2008-2010); and having sexually assaulted her in a Florida condo (July 2010) just weeks after his tenure as SBC president ended with the closing of the SBC annual meeting.
In an April 2024 deposition, Hunt said that he kissed and fondled the woman’s body for “a couple of minutes” after she had lowered her top and that he pulled down the woman’s shorts before he was convicted to stop and leave. However, his lawsuit is based largely on his claim that he did not groom her, and that the encounter was consensual, not abuse, alleging that the woman had stalked him. Likewise, he claims that he should not have been included in the sexual abuse report because the incident occurred when he was no longer a member of the SBC EC (because his term as SBC president had expired) and so the incident was “outside the letter of engagement” which set limits to the investigation that should have excluded him from the report.
At the time of the incident (July 2010), Hunt was pastor of Woodstock Baptist Church in Georgia. He did not inform the congregation at that time, but he wrote a letter of explanation to them after the report was published (May 2022). Regardless, the church removed his pastor emeritus status. Just prior to the release of the report, he resigned as senior vice president for evangelism and leadership with the SBC’s North American Mission Board, a post he had held since August 2018.
Hunt said he was “seeking first and foremost truth from Guidepost.” However, in Exhibit 9 submitted for him by his lawyers, Hunt, who is 71, listed compensatory damages for 11 years of lost salary and employment benefits, book sales, speaking engagements and other lost income totaling $15.4 million. Additionally, he offered that his reputational harm was valued between $30 million to $45 million, and that the cost of his emotional distress amounted to another $30 million to $45 million. He also indicated he would seek “a punitive damage award in an amount to be determined by the jury” and “reasonable” attorneys’ fees and costs.
Notably, he listed his lost salary and benefits as $610,000 per year.
Moreover, when pressed about the possibility that Cooperative Program dollars would have to be used to compensate him for his alleged damages, Hunt said he was “absolutely” okay with that because “they have done a lot of damages.”
Finally, Hunt appeared to reject the notion that his inappropriate behavior was the cause of his financial and reputational harm. When asked “What would it have cost you if it had come to light 12 years before when you committed the sin?” Hunt replied, “Probably some speaking engagements with the Southern Baptist Convention, but I really don’t think it would have cost me my church. I think I could have led them through that.” Conversely, at other times during his testimony he repeatedly blamed the Guidepost Solutions “narrative” that framed his actions as “sexual abuse” as the reason for his downfall.
