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 lengthy list of accused intercourse abusers — a number of of whom are in the Midwest — within the denomination.

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

The publication of the list comes after the release Sunday of a 300-page report by an independent investigator that described how leaders of the Southern Baptist denomination for many years have acquired stories of sexual abuse committed by church workers, pastors and others. But those stories were largely saved secret and, relatively than performing 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 is,” wrote former Southern Baptist Convention govt committee member and basic counsel D. August Boto in an inner e mail that was revealed in the report. “It’s a satanic scheme to completely distract us from evangelism.”

The crisis rocking the Southern Baptist denomination this week is comparable in many ways to what the Catholic church continues to face. Leaders in each faiths systematically hid details about sexual misconduct, appeared to show extra concern about their own authorized 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 personal denomination’s clergy intercourse abuse crisis, 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 intercourse abuse.

Doyle was told, “Southern Baptist leaders actually don't have any authority over native churches,” a response that Doyle considered dismissive, based on the investigative report. 

That very same 12 months, on the SBC conference in San Antonio, Oklahoma pastor Wade Burleson made a movement 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, according to the report, and witnesses at the conference recalled little about it besides to specific their opinion that it would “violate native church autonomy.”

Ultimately, a staffer for the SBC govt committee since 2007 had maintained an inventory of accused ministers and church workers, but it surely was stored hidden from the public and even SBC executive committee trustees, in line with the report.

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

“Every entry in this list reminds us of the devastation and destruction led to by sexual abuse,” stated a joint statement from Willie McLaurin and Rolland Slade, both SBC executive committee members. “Our prayer is that the survivors of these heinous acts discover hope and therapeutic, and that churches will make the most of this record proactively to guard and take care of the most weak among us.”

Lawyers for the SBC govt committee researched the list of accused abusers, taking steps to verify data it contained. It left unredacted entries about alleged abusers that could be confirmed, while redacting entries where somebody was acquitted or did not have a last disposition, in addition to info that could identify victims.

Missouri men characteristic prominently on the listing. They include:

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 extra in-depth news from Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, we invite you to observe us on Twitter.