On May 22, 2022, the Guidepost report on sexual abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention was publicly released. My former church Prestonwood Baptist Church and lead pastor Jack Graham were featured in the report. Jack Graham refused to respond to Guidepost’s interview requests. The report highlights the case of convicted child sex offender John Langworthy whose confession was captured on video in August 2011. He confessed to sexually abusing boys at churches in Texas and Mississippi. His confession led to his arrest after victims came forward in Mississippi shortly after news reports circulated in Texas and Mississippi.
In Texas, he was on staff at Prestonwood Baptist Church as a youth music minister in the mid to late 1980s. He was my youth music minister while I was in high school and active in the youth group at Prestonwood. He lived with my family for a time while he was attending Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. He sexually abused several boys from Prestonwood Baptist that I have personally spoken to, one of which assisted the Hinds County, Mississippi prosecution. Prosecutors said Langworthy was involved with youth choirs at First Baptist Church of Jackson and Daniel Memorial Baptist Church in Jackson during the early 1980s while he was a student at Baptist-affiliated Mississippi College in Clinton, Mississippi. He met his victims through involvement with these churches.
Guidepost report page 7:
While stories of abuse were minimized, and survivors were ignored or even vilified, revelations came to light in recent years that some senior SBC leaders had protected or even supported abusers:
Former SBC President Jack Graham, when he was pastor at Prestonwood Baptist
Church, allegedly allowed an accused abuser of young boys to be dismissed
quietly in 1989 without reporting the abuse to police. The accused abuser, John
Langworthy, later was charged with abusing young boys in Mississippi in 2011.
We reached out to all SBC Presidents and key leadership who served from 2000 to the present. Three Presidents declined to speak with us: Dr. Bobby Welch, Dr. Jack Graham, and Dr. Paige Patterson. Dr. Welch cited health reasons. Dr. Graham offered access to his Presidential Papers in lieu of an interview; after we confirmed that we already had access to those papers, we received no response to our interview request. A key leader, Judge Paul Pressler, also declined to speak to us. Judge Pressler is a former SBC Vice President, a former EC member, and a long-time SBC influencer.
At the annual meeting in 2004, Jack Graham as SBC president thwarted efforts to establish a child abuse study committee.
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In June 1989 when allegations of child sexual abuse by Langworthy came to light at Prestonwood, church officials did not report this information to police as required by Texas mandatory reporting law. The church was made aware of several victims who were minors at the time of the sexual abuse. Within a week after the abuse was exposed, John Langworthy was fired. He and his wife immediately moved back to their home state of Mississippi.
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At that time in 1989, I was a college student and an intern on the Prestonwood youth ministry staff during the summer. It was shocking and devastating to me personally to find out someone I looked up to, like a family member, had done so much harm to kids. Some of the victims were my friends. I wrestled for many years with the way it was mishandled and swept under the rug. By 2010, I began to search for Langworthy online and found him working at Morrison Heights Baptist Church in Clinton, Mississippi and as a high school choir teacher at Clinton High School. I was immediately moved to action at the thought of a sexual abuser having had access to kids for over 20 years after Prestonwood officials had failed to report him to law enforcement. Through online searching for anyone who was addresing ”baptist pastor abuse,” I found Christa Brown and the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.
I first reached out to Neal Jeffrey at Prestonwood in the fall of 2010. Neal was my youth pastor at Prestonwood. Neal is now Associate Pastor of Pastoral and Preaching Ministries. I also sent an email to Mike Buster, executive pastor at Prestonwood. I urged them to help protect kids and report the allegations of abuse that they had been informed about in 1989. My efforts to receive help from Prestonwood were unsuccessful.
I also asked my parents to help. Neither my mom or dad would speak with me about Langworthy. I was also very concerned because I have 2 younger brothers and Langworthy had lived in our home for a time. My parents became very angry with me for working to get Langworthy reported and prosecuted. In 1989, my dad Allen Jordan was a deacon at Prestonwood Baptist Church. According to him, he was involved in helping Langworthy pack and leave Dallas. My dad also has told us that he knew that attorney Randy Addison “handled it for the church.”
A mom of a Langworthy survivor from Prestonwood recalled that my dad called and spoke with her and her husband in 1989 and discouraged them from reporting their son’s abuse to police.
My parents have since shunned me. They told me and my husband in 2012 that they do not want to see us again. They stated in an email that we needed to live our lives without them. We had requested that we meet with them and a counselor/mediator. They said no because this was all my fault, and I needed to issue written apologies to John Langworthy, Neal Jeffrey and Jack Graham.
I have posted links below to my emails with Prestonwood staff. In a November 2010 email, pastor Neal Jeffrey told me that he had contacted church attorneys who were involved with the Langworthy abuse allegations in 1989. Neal said the attorneys had saved their notes from the time. I was told by one of the Prestonwood survivors that several abuse victims met with church lawyers and gave statements, but this information was not reported to law enforcement.
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By January 2011, I was in touch with a few of Langworthy’s victims who were willing to help bring exposure to what had long been covered up. They were also very concerned that kids were still at risk. We were not just going to go away as church officials in Texas and Mississippi, as well as Clinton public school officials, had hoped. By May 2011, Langworthy was allowed to resign for “mental and emotional reasons,” or something to that effect. His resignation only garnered more questions. On August 7, 2011, Langworthy confessed from the pulpit in the Sunday morning church service at Morrison Heights Baptist Church. See lead pastor Greg Belser’s emails to me and a survivor in the links below this post. Later that day, after Langworthy’s confession, I posted a comment on the New BBC Open Forum blog asking if anyone present in the church service would be willing to confirm to a news reporter what had been said. I got an even better response. Overnight someone anonymously sent me video of Langworthy’s confession.
I sent the video to investigative news reporter Brett Shipp at WFAA Channel 8 News in Dallas. That day I went on camera and told my story. It aired as the top story at the 10 pm newscast on August 8, 2011. News spread to Jackson and Clinton, Mississippi. Other stations requested the video and ran the story. A few days after news spread in Mississippi, victims began to come forward to police and report their sexual abuse as children from 1980-84. I sent the video confession to Hinds County prosecutors at their request. Langworthy was arrested and indicted a few weeks later.
Langworthy was accused of molesting 5 boys between the ages of 6 and 13 between 1980 and 1984. The incidents happened while Langworthy was babysitting each of the children at his sister’s home in Jackson and at his dorm room at Mississippi College, according to the indictments. Langworthy was sentenced to 10 years on each of the five counts, but under the plea agreement, he did not go to prison. Hinds County Circuit Court Judge Bill Gowan suspended the 50-year sentence. He served 5 years of probation and had to remain a registered sex offender for the remainder of his life. He passed away in 2019.
During my time of advocacy trying to get the truth about Langworthy made public, I encountered Philip Gunn, then serving in 2011 as an elder and lawyer for Morrison Heights Baptist Church as the Langworthy case unfolded. He was a Republican member of the Mississippi House of Representatives at the time. He is currently House Speaker. He called and left me a message in the spring of 2011 to speak with me to “discuss a resolution.” I said no.
Mississippi House Speaker Philip Gunn was closely involved in one of the harrowing stories featured in an explosive investigation into the mishandling of sexual abuse within Southern Baptist Convention churches.
Mississippi Today: Philip Gunn’s connection to the Southern Baptist Convention sexual abuse scandal
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Links to my related documents on Scribd:
State of Mississippi vs. John Langworthy: https://www.scribd.com/document/117329773/Langworthy-State-s-Response
Neal Jeffrey (Prestonwood Baptist Church pastor) emails: https://www.scribd.com/document/141672431/Emails-from-Neal-Jeffrey-associate-pastor-at-Prestonwood-Baptist-Church
Mike Buster (Prestonwood Baptist Church executive pastor) email: https://www.scribd.com/doc/141668494/Email-from-Mike-Buster
Greg Belser (pastor at Morrison Heights Baptist Church in Clinton, Mississippi) emails:
1) https://www.scribd.com/doc/249657189/email-from-pastor-greg-belser-about-langworthy
2) https://www.scribd.com/doc/249655667/pastor-greg-belser-email-to-langworthy-victim
Transcript of my husband’s call with my dad, Allen Jordan, former Prestonwood deacon- my husband recorded so I could hear it and then my dad put together the transcript upon finding out we recorded it: https://www.scribd.com/document/135223354/Transcript-of-Matt-s-Call-August-20-2011
WFAA story: August 8, 2011 https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/investigates/disturbing-revelations-about-former-prestonwood-minister/287-410553430
Clarion Ledger Part 1: https://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2013/01_02/2013_02_08_Ingram_AmySmiths.htm
Clarion Ledger Part 2: https://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2013/01_02/2013_02_08_Ingram_JusticeQuest.htm
An Advocate for the Sexually Abused Demands Answers from Prestonwood Baptist Church
