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

The Southern Baptist Conference on Thursday launched a once-secret and prolonged listing of accused sex abusers — several of whom are in the Midwest — throughout the denomination.

The 205-page list is a compilation of ministers and different church staff who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse. The listing is described as a “fluid, working document” that was also incomplete but largely pulls details about abusers from revealed news 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 decades have received experiences of sexual abuse committed by church staff, pastors and others. However those stories had been largely stored secret and, somewhat than performing upon and investigating stories of sexual abuse, denomination leaders sought to intimidate and vilify victims and their advocates.

“The whole thing must be seen for what it is,” wrote former Southern Baptist Convention executive committee member and basic counsel D. August Boto in an inner electronic mail that was published within the report. “It’s a satanic scheme to fully distract us from evangelism.”

The crisis rocking the Southern Baptist denomination this week is analogous 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 very own legal legal responsibility than the victims and at instances 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 intercourse abuse crisis, 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 advised, “Southern Baptist leaders actually don't have any authority over native church buildings,” a response that Doyle regarded as dismissive, based on the investigative report. 

That very same 12 months, on the SBC convention 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 “help in preventing any future sexual abuse or harassment.”

The database proposal appeared to go nowhere, in response to the report, and witnesses at the conference recalled little about it besides to specific their opinion that it would “violate local church autonomy.”

Finally, a staffer for the SBC government committee since 2007 had maintained a listing of accused ministers and church workers, but it surely was kept hidden from the general public and even SBC govt committee trustees, in accordance with the report.

Southern Baptist leaders mentioned publicizing the list of credibly accused abusers represented “an preliminary, but necessary, step in the direction of addressing the scourge of sexual abuse and implementing reform in the Conference.”

“Every entry on this checklist reminds us of the devastation and destruction caused by sexual abuse,” said a joint statement from Willie McLaurin and Rolland Slade, each SBC executive committee members. “Our prayer is that the survivors of those heinous acts find hope and healing, and that church buildings will utilize this record proactively to guard and take care of essentially the most susceptible amongst us.”

Attorneys for the SBC government committee researched the checklist of accused abusers, taking steps to verify info it contained. It left unredacted entries about alleged abusers that could possibly be confirmed, while redacting entries the place somebody was acquitted or did not have a ultimate disposition, as well as info that would identify victims.

Missouri men feature prominently on the record. They embody:

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 information from Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, we invite you to follow us on Twitter.