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

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 list is a compilation of ministers and other church staff who've been credibly accused of sexual abuse. The checklist is described as a “fluid, working doc” that was also incomplete however largely pulls information about abusers from revealed news 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 decades have received reviews of sexual abuse committed by church employees, pastors and others. However those reviews were largely kept secret and, reasonably than performing upon and investigating studies of sexual abuse, denomination leaders sought to intimidate and vilify victims and their advocates.

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

The disaster rocking the Southern Baptist denomination this week is analogous in some 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 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 the first to warn of his personal denomination’s clergy sex abuse crisis, wrote a letter to SBC leadership conveying his concern that Southern Baptist leaders had been repeating the failures of the Catholic church in dealing with sex abuse.

Doyle was instructed, “Southern Baptist leaders truly have no authority over native church buildings,” a response that Doyle regarded as dismissive, according to the investigative report. 

That very same 12 months, 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 “help in stopping any future sexual abuse or harassment.”

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

Ultimately, a staffer for the SBC government committee since 2007 had maintained an inventory of accused ministers and church employees, nevertheless it was saved hidden from the general public and even SBC govt committee trustees, according to the report.

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

“Each entry on this checklist reminds us of the devastation and destruction led to by sexual abuse,” mentioned a joint statement from Willie McLaurin and Rolland Slade, each SBC government committee members. “Our prayer is that the survivors of these heinous acts discover hope and healing, and that churches will make the most of this record proactively to protect and care for probably the most weak amongst us.”

Lawyers for the SBC govt committee researched the listing of accused abusers, taking steps to confirm data it contained. It left unredacted entries about alleged abusers that could be confirmed, while redacting entries where somebody was acquitted or didn't have a last disposition, as well as information that could identify victims.

Missouri males characteristic 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 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.