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

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

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

The publication of the list comes after the discharge Sunday of a 300-page report by an impartial investigator that described how leaders of the Southern Baptist denomination for decades have acquired reviews of sexual abuse dedicated by church employees, pastors and others. But these studies had been largely kept secret and, moderately than performing upon and investigating reports of sexual abuse, denomination leaders sought to intimidate and vilify victims and their advocates.

“The entire thing ought to be seen for what it's,” wrote former Southern Baptist Convention executive committee member and normal counsel D. August Boto in an inside e-mail that was revealed within the report. “It’s a satanic scheme to fully 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 show more 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 many first to warn of his own denomination’s clergy sex abuse disaster, wrote a letter to SBC leadership conveying his concern that Southern Baptist leaders have been repeating the failures of the Catholic church in dealing with sex abuse.

Doyle was instructed, “Southern Baptist leaders really don't have any authority over local church buildings,” a response that Doyle considered dismissive, according to the investigative report. 

That very same year, at the SBC convention 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 response to the report, and witnesses at the convention recalled little about it except to specific their opinion that it will “violate native church autonomy.”

Ultimately, a staffer for the SBC government committee since 2007 had maintained a list of accused ministers and church workers, but it was stored hidden from the public and even SBC government committee trustees, in response to the report.

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

“Every entry in this list reminds us of the devastation and destruction brought about by sexual abuse,” said a joint statement from Willie McLaurin and Rolland Slade, both SBC executive committee members. “Our prayer is that the survivors of these heinous acts find hope and healing, and that churches will make the most of this list proactively to protect and look after the most weak among us.”

Lawyers for the SBC executive committee researched the list of accused abusers, taking steps to confirm info it contained. It left unredacted entries about alleged abusers that could possibly be confirmed, while redacting entries where somebody was acquitted or didn't have a closing disposition, in addition to information that could identify victims.

Missouri males feature prominently on the checklist. They embrace:

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