How Institutions Can Take the Lord’s Name in Vain

When I read the May report of the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee's decades-long complicity in covering up sexual abuse, along with patterns of intimidation and retaliation against survivors and whistleblowers, I heard myself say, "Oh my God." That might have been the first time I'd said that, precisely due to my Baptist upbringing. My grandmother, a pastor's widow, would wash my mouth out with soap if I said anything like "Good Lord!" or "I swear!" She would point to number three on her framed Ten Commandments, hanging on her wall just as they were in my Sunday school classroom: "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain."