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

The Southern Baptist Conference on Thursday released a once-secret and lengthy listing of accused sex abusers — several of whom are within the Midwest — within the denomination.

The 205-page listing is a compilation of ministers and different church staff who've 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 information studies.

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 obtained experiences of sexual abuse committed by church workers, pastors and others. However those reviews have been largely saved secret and, moderately than appearing upon and investigating reports of sexual abuse, denomination leaders sought to intimidate and vilify victims and their advocates.

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

The disaster rocking the Southern Baptist denomination this week is comparable in some ways to what the Catholic church continues to face. Leaders in each faiths systematically hid details about sexual misconduct, appeared to point out extra concern about their own authorized legal responsibility than the victims and at instances failed to 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 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 sex abuse.

Doyle was advised, “Southern Baptist leaders actually have no authority over local church buildings,” a response that Doyle thought to be dismissive, based on the investigative report. 

That very same year, at 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 keeping with the report, and witnesses on the convention recalled little about it besides to precise their opinion that it will “violate native church autonomy.”

In the end, a staffer for the SBC government committee since 2007 had maintained a listing of accused ministers and church staff, however it was stored hidden from the public and even SBC government committee trustees, based on the report.

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

“Each entry on this record reminds us of the devastation and destruction led to by sexual abuse,” said a joint assertion from Willie McLaurin and Rolland Slade, both SBC government committee members. “Our prayer is that the survivors of those heinous acts find hope and therapeutic, and that church buildings will utilize this list proactively to protect and care for essentially the most weak among us.”

Legal professionals for the SBC government committee researched the checklist of accused abusers, taking steps to confirm info it contained. It left unredacted entries about alleged abusers that could be confirmed, whereas redacting entries where someone was acquitted or did not have a final disposition, in addition to information that might determine victims.

Missouri men function prominently on the checklist. 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 information from Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, we invite you to follow us on Twitter.