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

The Southern Baptist Conference on Thursday launched a once-secret and lengthy listing of accused sex abusers — a number of of whom are in the Midwest — inside the denomination.

The 205-page list is a compilation of ministers and different church employees who've been credibly accused of sexual abuse. The list is described as a “fluid, working document” that was also incomplete but largely pulls information about abusers from published information reports.

The publication of the listing comes after the discharge Sunday of a 300-page report by an unbiased investigator that described how leaders of the Southern Baptist denomination for many years have received reports of sexual abuse committed by church workers, pastors and others. But these studies have been largely kept secret and, fairly than acting upon and investigating experiences 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 Conference executive committee member and basic counsel D. August Boto in an inner electronic mail that was revealed within the report. “It’s a satanic scheme to fully 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 show extra concern about their very own legal legal responsibility than the victims and at instances did not 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 management conveying his concern that Southern Baptist leaders were repeating the failures of the Catholic church in dealing with sex abuse.

Doyle was advised, “Southern Baptist leaders really don't have any authority over local church buildings,” a response that Doyle regarded as dismissive, in line with the investigative report. 

That very same 12 months, 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 stopping any future sexual abuse or harassment.”

The database proposal appeared to go nowhere, according to the report, and witnesses on the conference recalled little about it except to precise their opinion that it might “violate native church autonomy.”

In the end, a staffer for the SBC executive committee since 2007 had maintained a list of accused ministers and church staff, but it surely was stored hidden from the general public and even SBC executive committee trustees, according to the report.

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

“Each 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 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 guard and care for the most vulnerable among us.”

Attorneys for the SBC government committee researched the listing of accused abusers, taking steps to confirm information it contained. It left unredacted entries about alleged abusers that may very well be confirmed, whereas redacting entries the place someone was acquitted or did not have a closing disposition, as well as information that would identify victims.

Missouri males feature prominently on the record. They embody:

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 observe us on Twitter.