The U.S. Department of Justice’s investigation into how the Southern Baptist Convention handled allegations of sexual abuse in its individual churches and institutions may not be over.

Victims, advocacy groups and activists say they have been told the probe is still ongoing.

Earlier this week, The Tennessean reported that a statement from denomination’s executive body said the investigation had been completed.

“On February 29, 2024, counsel for the SBC Executive Committee was informed that the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York concluded its investigation into the EC (executive committee) with no further action to be taken,” SBC Executive Committee interim president/CEO Jonathan Howe said in statement following a request for comment.

Howe did not comment on whether other SBC-affiliated agencies, or entities, are still under investigation.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York declined to comment.

However, the Religious News Service is reporting that advocates and victims were told that the lead DOJ investigator had no more questions for the Executive Committee, and but that the investigation remains open.

Then, on Thursday, Baptist Press reported that legal counsel for the SBC confirmed that the investigation into the SBC as a whole remains open and ongoing,

The DOJ has never publicly commented on the case, as it was the convention itself that announced in August 2022 that federal investigators were looking into multiple Southern Baptist Convention entities.

The investigation began after a scathing 288-page investigative report issued in May 2022 showed convention’s leaders stonewalled and denigrated survivors of clergy sex abuse over almost two decades while seeking to protect their own reputations.

The report named 34 Alabama ministers.

The SBC’s Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force (ARITF) released a statement through its website:

“Southern Baptists initiated the work of sexual abuse reform not in response to criminal inquiries or threats of lawsuits but due to an increasing burden and awareness that vulnerable people were suffering harm in many of our churches and institutions, which were vastly underresourced to care for and protect them. In fact, Southern Baptists have recognized this need for significant and effective abuse reform as early as the 2018 SBC Annual Meeting, more than four years before the Department of Justice mounted its inquiry into the SBC’s handling of sexual abuse. For nearly two years, the ARITF has carried forward the work of abuse reform in the SBC driven by the urgent need to ensure churches have the help and resources required to prevent and respond to sexual abuse.

“Irrespective of any actions the Department of Justice may or may not take, the goal of abuse reform is to ensure SBC churches and entities are consistently able to protect and care for the vulnerable with the love and compassion of Jesus Christ. That is not only a worthy goal, but a gospel imperative.”

Several of the survivors who have spoken publicly about their experiences posted on social media about the news: