Eight Missouri ministers accused of sex abuse in Southern Baptist Conference report • Missouri Unbiased

The Southern Baptist Convention on Thursday released a once-secret and prolonged list of accused intercourse abusers — a number of of whom are in the Midwest — inside the denomination.

The 205-page record is a compilation of ministers and other church workers who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse. The list is described as a “fluid, working document” that was additionally incomplete but largely pulls details about abusers from published information reports.

The publication of the record comes after the release Sunday of a 300-page report by an impartial investigator that described how leaders of the Southern Baptist denomination for decades have obtained studies of sexual abuse committed by church staff, pastors and others. However those reports have been largely kept secret and, fairly than appearing upon and investigating studies of sexual abuse, denomination leaders sought to intimidate and vilify victims and their advocates.

“The whole thing should be seen for what it's,” wrote former Southern Baptist Convention executive committee member and normal counsel D. August Boto in an inside e-mail that was printed within the report. “It’s a satanic scheme to utterly distract us from evangelism.”

The disaster rocking the Southern Baptist denomination this week is similar in many ways to what the Catholic church continues to face. Leaders in both faiths systematically hid information about sexual misconduct, appeared to point out extra concern about their very own legal liability than the victims and at times did not expel accused abusers from positions of authority.

In 2007, Father Thomas Doyle, a Catholic priest credited as one of many first to warn of his own denomination’s clergy sex abuse disaster, wrote a letter to SBC leadership conveying his concern that Southern Baptist leaders had been repeating the failures of the Catholic church in coping with sex abuse.

Doyle was told, “Southern Baptist leaders actually have no authority over native church buildings,” a response that Doyle regarded as dismissive, based on the investigative report. 

That very same 12 months, at the SBC conference in San Antonio, Oklahoma pastor Wade Burleson made a motion to create a database of Southern Baptist clergy who had been convicted or credibly accused of, or had confessed to sexual abuse. The proposal was meant to “assist in preventing any future sexual abuse or harassment.”

The database proposal appeared to go nowhere, in line with the report, and witnesses on the conference recalled little about it except to express their opinion that it might “violate native church autonomy.”

In the end, a staffer for the SBC executive committee since 2007 had maintained an inventory of accused ministers and church workers, but it was saved hidden from the general public and even SBC govt committee trustees, according to the report.

Southern Baptist leaders stated publicizing the listing of credibly accused abusers represented “an initial, however vital, step towards addressing the scourge of sexual abuse and implementing reform within the Conference.”

“Each entry in this checklist reminds us of the devastation and destruction led to by sexual abuse,” said a joint statement from Willie McLaurin and Rolland Slade, each SBC govt committee members. “Our prayer is that the survivors of these heinous acts find hope and healing, and that church buildings will utilize this list proactively to guard and care for essentially the most vulnerable among us.”

Lawyers for the SBC govt committee researched the checklist of accused abusers, taking steps to verify info it contained. It left unredacted entries about alleged abusers that might be confirmed, whereas redacting entries where someone was acquitted or did not have a closing disposition, as well as data that could identify victims.

Missouri males feature prominently on the listing. They include:

This story comes from the Midwest Newsroom, an investigative journalism collaboration including IPR, KCUR 89.3, Nebraska Public Media News, St. Louis Public Radio and NPR. For more in-depth information from Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, we invite you to follow us on Twitter.