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

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

The 205-page record is a compilation of ministers and different church staff who've been credibly accused of sexual abuse. The checklist is described as a “fluid, working doc” that was additionally incomplete but largely pulls details about abusers from published information reviews.

The publication of the checklist comes after the release Sunday of a 300-page report by an unbiased investigator that described how leaders of the Southern Baptist denomination for decades have obtained stories of sexual abuse dedicated by church employees, pastors and others. However those reviews were largely saved secret and, fairly than performing upon and investigating reviews of sexual abuse, denomination leaders sought to intimidate and vilify victims and their advocates.

“The entire thing ought to be seen for what it is,” wrote former Southern Baptist Convention executive committee member and general counsel D. August Boto in an internal email 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 some ways to what the Catholic church continues to face. Leaders in each faiths systematically hid information about sexual misconduct, appeared to point out more concern about their own legal liability than the victims and at occasions didn't expel accused abusers from positions of authority.

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

Doyle was told, “Southern Baptist leaders really haven't any authority over native church buildings,” a response that Doyle considered dismissive, based on the investigative report. 

That very same 12 months, at the SBC convention 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 keeping with the report, and witnesses on the conference recalled little about it except to express their opinion that it would “violate native church autonomy.”

Ultimately, a staffer for the SBC executive committee since 2007 had maintained an inventory of accused ministers and church staff, but it was stored hidden from the general public and even SBC government committee trustees, in response to the report.

Southern Baptist leaders said publicizing the record of credibly accused abusers represented “an preliminary, however vital, step towards addressing the scourge of sexual abuse and implementing reform within the Convention.”

“Each entry in this record reminds us of the devastation and destruction brought about by sexual abuse,” mentioned a joint assertion from Willie McLaurin and Rolland Slade, each SBC executive committee members. “Our prayer is that the survivors of those heinous acts find hope and therapeutic, and that churches will utilize this list proactively to guard and care for the most vulnerable among us.”

Legal professionals for the SBC executive committee researched the list of accused abusers, taking steps to verify info it contained. It left unredacted entries about alleged abusers that could be confirmed, while redacting entries the place someone was acquitted or didn't have a ultimate disposition, in addition to data that might identify victims.

Missouri males characteristic prominently on the record. They embrace:

This story comes from the Midwest Newsroom, an investigative journalism collaboration together with 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.