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

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

The 205-page checklist is a compilation of ministers and other church workers who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse. The checklist is described as a “fluid, working doc” that was also incomplete but largely pulls details about abusers from printed information reports.

The publication of the checklist 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 reviews of sexual abuse dedicated by church workers, pastors and others. But those reviews had been largely stored secret and, quite than acting 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 Convention government 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 utterly distract us from evangelism.”

The crisis 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 indicate extra concern about their very own authorized liability 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 management conveying his concern that Southern Baptist leaders had been repeating the failures of the Catholic church in coping with intercourse abuse.

Doyle was told, “Southern Baptist leaders actually don't have any authority over local churches,” a response that Doyle considered dismissive, in keeping with the investigative report. 

That very same yr, on the SBC convention 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, in keeping with the report, and witnesses on the conference recalled little about it except to express their opinion that it will “violate local church autonomy.”

In the end, a staffer for the SBC government committee since 2007 had maintained a listing of accused ministers and church workers, nevertheless it was stored hidden from the public and even SBC executive committee trustees, according to the report.

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

“Every entry in this list reminds us of the devastation and destruction brought about by sexual abuse,” mentioned a joint statement from Willie McLaurin and Rolland Slade, each SBC govt 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 guard and care for essentially the most weak amongst us.”

Attorneys 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 may very well be confirmed, while redacting entries where somebody was acquitted or didn't have a remaining disposition, in addition to information that could identify victims.

Missouri males function prominently on the checklist. They embrace:

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.