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

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

The 205-page record is a compilation of ministers and other church workers who have been credibly accused of sexual abuse. The checklist is described as a “fluid, working doc” that was additionally incomplete however largely pulls information about abusers from published information studies.

The publication of the checklist 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 experiences of sexual abuse committed by church staff, pastors and others. But those reports had been largely stored secret and, reasonably than acting upon and investigating reviews 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 government committee member and general counsel D. August Boto in an inner e-mail that was published in the report. “It’s a satanic scheme to fully distract us from evangelism.”

The crisis rocking the Southern Baptist denomination this week is comparable in some ways to what the Catholic church continues to face. Leaders in each faiths systematically hid information about sexual misconduct, appeared to point out extra concern about their own legal liability than the victims and at instances 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 intercourse abuse crisis, wrote a letter to SBC management conveying his concern that Southern Baptist leaders have been repeating the failures of the Catholic church in coping with sex abuse.

Doyle was told, “Southern Baptist leaders actually have no authority over local church buildings,” a response that Doyle regarded as dismissive, in line with the investigative report. 

That very same yr, on the SBC convention 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 at the convention recalled little about it except to precise their opinion that it will “violate native church autonomy.”

In the end, a staffer for the SBC government committee since 2007 had maintained an inventory of accused ministers and church staff, but it was saved hidden from the general public and even SBC government committee trustees, in accordance with the report.

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

“Every entry on this record reminds us of the devastation and destruction caused by sexual abuse,” stated a joint assertion from Willie McLaurin and Rolland Slade, both SBC government committee members. “Our prayer is that the survivors of these heinous acts find hope and therapeutic, and that churches will make the most of this listing proactively to guard and take care of the most vulnerable amongst us.”

Legal professionals for the SBC executive committee researched the record of accused abusers, taking steps to confirm information it contained. It left unredacted entries about alleged abusers that could possibly be confirmed, while redacting entries where somebody was acquitted or did not have a final disposition, as well as info that could identify victims.

Missouri men function prominently on the list. They include:

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