Photo: Jon Shapley, Houston Chronicle / Staff Photographer Photo: Jon Shapley, Houston Chronicle / Staff Photographer Photo: Jon Shapley, Houston Chronicle / Staff Photographer Photo: Jon Shapley, Houston Chronicle / Staff Photographer Photo: Mark Humphrey, STF / Associated Press

A Texas church pastored by a man who sexually abused two pre-teen girls is the first to be removed from the Southern Baptist Convention under new sex abuse reforms.

Ranchland Heights Baptist Church in Midland has for years been pastored by Phillip Rutledge, who was convicted of sexual assaulting 11 and 12-year-old girls in 2003, according to court records and the Texas Department of Public Safety.

On Tuesday, the church was ousted from the SBC at the recommendation of a newly-formed committee that scrutinizes churches’ handling of sexual abuse.

Ranchland’s removal comes almost exactly one year after the publication of Abuse of Faith, an ongoing Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News investigation that found hundreds of Southern Baptist church leaders and volunteers have been convicted of sex crimes in the last two decades.

The newspapers also found that at least 700 people had been victimized over the same period, and that, absent any wide-reaching policies in the faith group, dozens of abusers were able to find new jobs at some of the SBC’s 47,000 autonomous and self-governing congregations.

The inquiry into Ranchland appears to have been prompted by the Chronicle, which included Rutledge’s name in a June report on predators who have remained in SBC pulpits. After a reporter inquired about the church, an SBC official said that the case would be passed along to the credentials committee, which had been created a few weeks prior.

The church has previously faced media scrutiny: In 2016, after a local CBS affiliate inquired about his involvement there, church officials reportedly said that they and a “vast majority” of churchgoers were aware of Rutledge’s history before he was hired, and that he was not allowed to be alone with children.

“We believe that God can change people, and we believe that God has forgiven Brother Phillip as well,” a church deacon told the television station.

Church officials on Tuesday could not be immediately reached for comment. The congregation can appeal the decision. Even so, it will have made history as the first congregation that’s ever been removed from the SBC by its national body for its handling of sexual abuse.

The SBC, the nation’s second-largest faith group, has previously ousted churches for racism, or because they had gay or female pastors, both of which are explicitly banned from ministry by the denomination.

But while the SBC had previously passed resolutions denouncing sexual abuse, and acknowledged that its churches are not immune to predators and passed resolutions denouncing sexual abuse, the organization had, until recently, declined to implement any wide-reaching safeguards or reforms.

In June, the SBC moved forward an amendment to its governing documents that explicitly bars churches that mishandle or conceal abuse, saying they are no longer fit for SBC membership.

Leaders have also repeatedly said that those who’ve concealed or committed abuses should never be allowed to return to SBC ministry, and multiple churches named in the Chronicle’s investigation have since voluntarily left the SBC. Among them: a Houston church that was pastored by a convicted sex offender and an SBC church near Dallas that was profiled extensively in the series.

The SBC also empowered a committee to make “inquiries” into how churches handle abuse. The committee does not have any investigative powers because all SBC churches are autonomous, but it can refer its findings to the SBC’s Executive Committee, which then decides whether to remove a congregation.

Activists and survivors have raised concerns about that process, which they say lacks transparency. Some were similarly dismayed by the committee’s first report on Tuesday because it only included one church.

Jules Woodson, who was abused by the youth pastor of an SBC church near Houston in the 1990s, said the lone recommendation “absurd and quite disturbing.”Woodson’s abuser, Andy Savage, has since confessed to the assault and resigned from the Tennessee church he was pastoring when she came forward. Others who were involved in the handling of Woodson’s abuse disclosure have also stepped down and said they failed to call police.

Yet Steve Bradley is still the lead pastor of StoneBridge Church in the Woodlands, the church that Woodson attended at the time of her abuse. She said she filed a complaint against Bradley and the church with the credentials committee, and was disappointed that no recommendation was made on Tuesday.

In an interview, Stacy Bramlett, the chair of the credentials committee, urged those such as Woodson not to be discouraged by the committee’s first report. Since unveiling its tipline late last year, Bramlett said, the committee has been inundated with complaints. But as of this week, she said, only Ranchland Baptist had gone through enough of the inquiry process to merit a referral.

Bramlett also noted that her committee, which is only a few months old, is continuing to fine-tune its processes and to ensure they’re both victim-sensitive and efficient.

“We’re building a process not just for my committee today, but for the years ahead,” she said. “And so our foundation has to be correct, stable and secure. We want to walk carefully.”

robert.downen@chron.com