Eight Missouri ministers accused of intercourse abuse in Southern Baptist Convention report • Missouri Unbiased

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

The 205-page listing is a compilation of ministers and different church employees who've been credibly accused of sexual abuse. The record is described as a “fluid, working document” that was also incomplete but largely pulls information about abusers from published news stories.

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 received reviews of sexual abuse committed by church employees, pastors and others. However those reports were largely kept secret and, fairly than acting upon and investigating stories of sexual abuse, denomination leaders sought to intimidate and vilify victims and their advocates.

“The entire thing must be seen for what it is,” wrote former Southern Baptist Conference govt committee member and basic counsel D. August Boto in an inside e-mail that was revealed in the report. “It’s a satanic scheme to completely 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 both faiths systematically hid details about sexual misconduct, appeared to point out more concern about their own authorized 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 personal denomination’s clergy sex abuse crisis, wrote a letter to SBC leadership conveying his concern that Southern Baptist leaders were repeating the failures of the Catholic church in coping with sex abuse.

Doyle was instructed, “Southern Baptist leaders really don't have any authority over native churches,” a response that Doyle thought to be dismissive, in accordance with the investigative report. 

That 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 “help in preventing any future sexual abuse or harassment.”

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

Finally, a staffer for the SBC govt committee since 2007 had maintained an inventory of accused ministers and church workers, nevertheless it was saved hidden from the general public and even SBC govt committee trustees, in accordance with the report.

Southern Baptist leaders mentioned publicizing the checklist of credibly accused abusers represented “an initial, but essential, step in direction of addressing the scourge of sexual abuse and implementing reform in the Convention.”

“Each entry on this list reminds us of the devastation and destruction brought about by sexual abuse,” stated a joint statement from Willie McLaurin and Rolland Slade, each SBC government committee members. “Our prayer is that the survivors of those heinous acts discover hope and healing, and that church buildings will make the most of this checklist proactively to guard and take care of probably the most susceptible amongst us.”

Legal professionals for the SBC executive committee researched the record of accused abusers, taking steps to confirm info it contained. It left unredacted entries about alleged abusers that might be confirmed, while redacting entries where somebody was acquitted or did not have a final disposition, as well as data that would establish victims.

Missouri males feature prominently on the record. They embrace:

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