Eight Missouri ministers accused of intercourse abuse in Southern Baptist Conference report • Missouri Independent

The Southern Baptist Convention on Thursday released a once-secret and prolonged listing of accused intercourse abusers — a number of of whom are in the Midwest — throughout the denomination.

The 205-page checklist is a compilation of ministers and other church staff who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse. The listing is described as a “fluid, working doc” 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 impartial investigator that described how leaders of the Southern Baptist denomination for decades have received stories of sexual abuse committed by church employees, pastors and others. But those reports had been largely saved secret and, slightly than acting upon and investigating stories of sexual abuse, denomination leaders sought to intimidate and vilify victims and their advocates.

“The whole thing should be seen for what it is,” wrote former Southern Baptist Convention government committee member and common counsel D. August Boto in an inside electronic mail that was printed in the report. “It’s a satanic scheme to utterly distract us from evangelism.”

The disaster rocking the Southern Baptist denomination this week is comparable in many ways to what the Catholic church continues to face. Leaders in both faiths systematically hid information about sexual misconduct, appeared to indicate more concern about their 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 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 dealing with intercourse abuse.

Doyle was told, “Southern Baptist leaders really haven't any authority over local church buildings,” a response that Doyle thought to be dismissive, in keeping with the investigative report. 

That 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 “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 might “violate local church autonomy.”

Finally, a staffer for the SBC government committee since 2007 had maintained a list of accused ministers and church employees, but it was saved hidden from the public and even SBC executive committee trustees, according to the report.

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

“Each entry on this listing reminds us of the devastation and destruction brought about by sexual abuse,” mentioned a joint statement from Willie McLaurin and Rolland Slade, each SBC executive committee members. “Our prayer is that the survivors of these heinous acts discover hope and healing, and that churches will utilize this record proactively to guard and take care of probably the most weak amongst us.”

Legal professionals for the SBC government committee researched the list of accused abusers, taking steps to verify information it contained. It left unredacted entries about alleged abusers that might be confirmed, whereas redacting entries the place someone was acquitted or didn't have a last disposition, in addition to data that could establish victims.

Missouri males function prominently on the checklist. 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 extra in-depth news from Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, we invite you to observe us on Twitter.