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

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

The 205-page checklist is a compilation of ministers and different church employees who have 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 printed news experiences.

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 acquired stories of sexual abuse dedicated by church workers, pastors and others. But these stories had been largely kept secret and, rather than performing upon and investigating reviews 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 Convention govt committee member and common counsel D. August Boto in an inside e mail that was printed within the report. “It’s a satanic scheme to fully 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 show 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 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 had been repeating the failures of the Catholic church in dealing with sex abuse.

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

That very same year, 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 “assist 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 besides to express their opinion that it could “violate local church autonomy.”

In the end, a staffer for the SBC executive committee since 2007 had maintained a list of accused ministers and church staff, however it was saved hidden from the public and even SBC govt committee trustees, in line with the report.

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

“Every entry in this list reminds us of the devastation and destruction caused 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 these heinous acts find hope and healing, and that churches will make the most of this list proactively to protect and take care of the most vulnerable among us.”

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

Missouri males function prominently on the list. They include:

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 news from Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, we invite you to comply with us on Twitter.