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

The Southern Baptist Convention on Thursday released a once-secret and prolonged list of accused sex abusers — a number of of whom are in the Midwest — inside 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 document” that was also incomplete but largely pulls information about abusers from revealed information stories.

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 decades have acquired studies of sexual abuse committed by church employees, pastors and others. However those reviews were largely saved secret and, fairly than appearing 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 government committee member and general counsel D. August Boto in an inside electronic mail that was published within the report. “It’s a satanic scheme to utterly distract us from evangelism.”

The disaster rocking the Southern Baptist denomination this week is similar in many 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 own legal legal responsibility than the victims and at occasions 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 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 told, “Southern Baptist leaders really haven't any authority over native churches,” a response that Doyle regarded as dismissive, in keeping with the investigative report. 

That very same year, 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 “assist in preventing any future sexual abuse or harassment.”

The database proposal appeared to go nowhere, in response to the report, and witnesses at the convention recalled little about it besides to precise their opinion that it will “violate local church autonomy.”

Ultimately, a staffer for the SBC govt committee since 2007 had maintained a list of accused ministers and church employees, however it was kept hidden from the general public and even SBC executive committee trustees, in keeping with the report.

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

“Each entry on this record reminds us of the devastation and destruction brought about 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 discover hope and therapeutic, and that church buildings will make the most of this checklist proactively to protect and take care of the most vulnerable amongst us.”

Lawyers for the SBC government committee researched the list of accused abusers, taking steps to confirm data it contained. It left unredacted entries about alleged abusers that may very well be confirmed, whereas redacting entries where someone was acquitted or didn't have a final disposition, in addition to data that would identify victims.

Missouri men characteristic prominently on the list. They embody:

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 extra in-depth news from Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, we invite you to follow us on Twitter.