Eight Missouri ministers accused of sex abuse in Southern Baptist Convention report • Missouri Unbiased

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

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

The publication of the list comes after the release Sunday of a 300-page report by an unbiased investigator that described how leaders of the Southern Baptist denomination for decades have received reviews of sexual abuse committed by church staff, pastors and others. However those studies were largely stored secret and, slightly than appearing 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's,” wrote former Southern Baptist Conference executive committee member and normal counsel D. August Boto in an internal electronic mail that was printed within the report. “It’s a satanic scheme to fully distract us from evangelism.”

The crisis rocking the Southern Baptist denomination this week is analogous in many ways to what the Catholic church continues to face. Leaders in both faiths systematically hid details about sexual misconduct, appeared to point out extra concern about their very own legal liability than the victims and at occasions 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 own 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 truly have no authority over local churches,” a response that Doyle regarded as dismissive, in response to the investigative report. 

That same year, on 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 stopping any future sexual abuse or harassment.”

The database proposal appeared to go nowhere, in response to the report, and witnesses on the conference recalled little about it except to express their opinion that it might “violate native church autonomy.”

Ultimately, a staffer for the SBC executive committee since 2007 had maintained a list of accused ministers and church staff, however it was kept hidden from the public and even SBC govt committee trustees, based on the report.

Southern Baptist leaders mentioned publicizing the checklist 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 in this checklist reminds us of the devastation and destruction led to by sexual abuse,” mentioned a joint statement from Willie McLaurin and Rolland Slade, both SBC govt committee members. “Our prayer is that the survivors of those heinous acts find hope and healing, and that church buildings will make the most of this list proactively to protect and look after essentially the most weak among us.”

Legal professionals for the SBC govt committee researched the listing of accused abusers, taking steps to confirm info it contained. It left unredacted entries about alleged abusers that may very well be confirmed, while redacting entries the place someone was acquitted or did not have a remaining disposition, in addition to information that could identify victims.

Missouri men function prominently on the listing. They embody:

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