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

The Southern Baptist Convention on Thursday released a once-secret and lengthy checklist of accused intercourse abusers — several of whom are within the Midwest — inside the denomination.

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

The publication of the listing comes after the discharge 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 dedicated by church workers, pastors and others. However these stories were largely saved secret and, fairly than acting upon and investigating reports 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 govt committee member and basic counsel D. August Boto in an internal email that was published within the report. “It’s a satanic scheme to fully distract us from evangelism.”

The disaster rocking the Southern Baptist denomination this week is comparable in some ways to what the Catholic church continues to face. Leaders in both faiths systematically hid information about sexual misconduct, appeared to point out more concern about their own legal legal responsibility 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 intercourse abuse disaster, wrote a letter to SBC leadership conveying his concern that Southern Baptist leaders were repeating the failures of the Catholic church in coping with intercourse abuse.

Doyle was told, “Southern Baptist leaders actually have no authority over local churches,” a response that Doyle thought to be dismissive, in line with the investigative report. 

That very same year, 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 at the convention recalled little about it except to precise their opinion that it would “violate local church autonomy.”

In the end, a staffer for the SBC govt committee since 2007 had maintained an inventory of accused ministers and church employees, however it was kept hidden from the general public and even SBC govt committee trustees, in accordance with the report.

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

“Every entry on this listing reminds us of the devastation and destruction led to by sexual abuse,” said a joint assertion from Willie McLaurin and Rolland Slade, each SBC govt committee members. “Our prayer is that the survivors of those heinous acts find hope and therapeutic, and that churches will utilize this checklist proactively to guard and take care of the most weak amongst us.”

Legal professionals for the SBC executive committee researched the record of accused abusers, taking steps to confirm information it contained. It left unredacted entries about alleged abusers that could possibly be confirmed, whereas redacting entries where someone was acquitted or didn't have a ultimate disposition, in addition to information that would determine victims.

Missouri males feature 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 Information, St. Louis Public Radio and NPR. For more in-depth news from Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, we invite you to follow us on Twitter.