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

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

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

The publication of the record comes after the release Sunday of a 300-page report by an unbiased investigator that described how leaders of the Southern Baptist denomination for many years have received stories of sexual abuse dedicated by church employees, pastors and others. However those reviews had been largely saved secret and, slightly than performing 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 is,” wrote former Southern Baptist Conference executive committee member and basic counsel D. August Boto in an internal e mail that was published in the report. “It’s a satanic scheme to fully 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 both faiths systematically hid information about sexual misconduct, appeared to point out extra concern about their very own legal legal responsibility 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 personal denomination’s clergy sex 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 sex abuse.

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

That very same yr, at the SBC conference 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 “assist in preventing any future sexual abuse or harassment.”

The database proposal appeared to go nowhere, in accordance with the report, and witnesses on the convention recalled little about it besides to specific their opinion that it would “violate local church autonomy.”

In the end, a staffer for the SBC govt committee since 2007 had maintained an inventory of accused ministers and church employees, but it was kept hidden from the public and even SBC executive committee trustees, in line with the report.

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

“Every entry in this checklist reminds us of the devastation and destruction brought about by sexual abuse,” mentioned a joint assertion from Willie McLaurin and Rolland Slade, each SBC govt committee members. “Our prayer is that the survivors of those heinous acts find hope and healing, and that churches will make the most of this record proactively to protect and care for probably the most susceptible amongst us.”

Lawyers 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 may very well be confirmed, while redacting entries where someone was acquitted or did not have a final disposition, as well as info that might identify victims.

Missouri males feature prominently on the record. They include:

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