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

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

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

The publication of the listing comes after the discharge Sunday of a 300-page report by an independent investigator that described how leaders of the Southern Baptist denomination for decades have received stories of sexual abuse dedicated by church employees, pastors and others. But those reviews had been largely stored secret and, relatively than appearing upon and investigating reports of sexual abuse, denomination leaders sought to intimidate and vilify victims and their advocates.

“The whole thing must be seen for what it's,” wrote former Southern Baptist Conference government committee member and general counsel D. August Boto in an internal email that was printed in the report. “It’s a satanic scheme to utterly distract us from evangelism.”

The disaster rocking the Southern Baptist denomination this week is analogous in many ways to what the Catholic church continues to face. Leaders in each faiths systematically hid information about sexual misconduct, appeared to show extra concern about their own authorized liability than the victims and at times failed to 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 had been repeating the failures of the Catholic church in coping with intercourse abuse.

Doyle was informed, “Southern Baptist leaders truly don't have any authority over native church buildings,” a response that Doyle regarded as dismissive, in keeping with the investigative report. 

That 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 “help in stopping 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.”

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

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

“Every entry in this listing reminds us of the devastation and destruction caused by sexual abuse,” said a joint statement from Willie McLaurin and Rolland Slade, both SBC government committee members. “Our prayer is that the survivors of those heinous acts find hope and healing, and that church buildings will make the most of this listing proactively to protect and look after the most weak among us.”

Legal professionals for the SBC government committee researched the record of accused abusers, taking steps to confirm information 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 ultimate disposition, as well as info that might determine 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 News, St. Louis Public Radio and NPR. For extra in-depth news from Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, we invite you to follow us on Twitter.