Eight Missouri ministers accused of sex abuse in Southern Baptist Conference report • Missouri Impartial

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

The 205-page listing is a compilation of ministers and other church employees who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse. The list is described as a “fluid, working doc” that was also incomplete but largely pulls details about abusers from revealed information studies.

The publication of the record 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 acquired experiences of sexual abuse committed by church staff, pastors and others. However those studies have been largely saved secret and, moderately than appearing upon and investigating studies of sexual abuse, denomination leaders sought to intimidate and vilify victims and their advocates.

“The whole thing must be seen for what it's,” wrote former Southern Baptist Convention govt committee member and common counsel D. August Boto in an inner e-mail that was printed in the report. “It’s a satanic scheme to completely distract us from evangelism.”

The crisis 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 details about sexual misconduct, appeared to indicate more concern about their own authorized legal responsibility 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 have been repeating the failures of the Catholic church in dealing with sex abuse.

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

That same year, 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, according to the report, and witnesses at the convention recalled little about it besides to precise their opinion that it could “violate native church autonomy.”

In the end, a staffer for the SBC govt committee since 2007 had maintained a list of accused ministers and church employees, nevertheless it was saved hidden from the general public and even SBC govt committee trustees, in line with the report.

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

“Each entry on this record reminds us of the devastation and destruction led to by sexual abuse,” stated a joint statement from Willie McLaurin and Rolland Slade, both SBC executive committee members. “Our prayer is that the survivors of these heinous acts discover hope and healing, and that church buildings will utilize this list proactively to protect and look after essentially the most susceptible among us.”

Attorneys for the SBC government committee researched the record of accused abusers, taking steps to verify data it contained. It left unredacted entries about alleged abusers that could be confirmed, whereas redacting entries the place somebody was acquitted or did not have a ultimate disposition, in addition to information that might determine victims.

Missouri men characteristic prominently on the record. They embrace:

This story comes from the Midwest Newsroom, an investigative journalism collaboration together with 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 comply with us on Twitter.