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

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

The 205-page checklist is a compilation of ministers and different church staff who've been credibly accused of sexual abuse. The list is described as a “fluid, working document” that was additionally incomplete however largely pulls details about abusers from published news reviews.

The publication of the list comes after the discharge Sunday of a 300-page report by an independent investigator that described how leaders of the Southern Baptist denomination for many years have received stories of sexual abuse committed by church staff, pastors and others. However these reports were largely saved secret and, quite than performing upon and investigating stories 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 common counsel D. August Boto in an inside email 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 more concern about their very own legal liability than the victims and at times 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 personal denomination’s clergy sex abuse disaster, wrote a letter to SBC leadership conveying his concern that Southern Baptist leaders had been repeating the failures of the Catholic church in dealing with sex abuse.

Doyle was informed, “Southern Baptist leaders really have no authority over native churches,” a response that Doyle considered dismissive, in keeping with the investigative report. 

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

The database proposal appeared to go nowhere, in response to the report, and witnesses on the conference recalled little about it besides to precise their opinion that it would “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 employees, but it was saved hidden from the general public and even SBC government committee trustees, according to the report.

Southern Baptist leaders mentioned publicizing the list of credibly accused abusers represented “an initial, however necessary, step towards addressing the scourge of sexual abuse and implementing reform within the Convention.”

“Every entry on this listing reminds us of the devastation and destruction brought about by sexual abuse,” stated a joint statement from Willie McLaurin and Rolland Slade, both SBC govt committee members. “Our prayer is that the survivors of these heinous acts discover hope and therapeutic, and that churches will utilize this listing proactively to protect and take care of the most susceptible among us.”

Attorneys for the SBC government committee researched the list of accused abusers, taking steps to confirm info it contained. It left unredacted entries about alleged abusers that might be confirmed, whereas redacting entries where somebody was acquitted or didn't have a last disposition, as well as data that could establish victims.

Missouri men function prominently on the listing. They embody:

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