Eight Missouri ministers accused of intercourse abuse in Southern Baptist Conference report • Missouri Unbiased

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

The 205-page list is a compilation of ministers and different church workers who've been credibly accused of sexual abuse. The record is described as a “fluid, working doc” that was also incomplete but largely pulls information about abusers from published news experiences.

The publication of the checklist 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 received studies of sexual abuse dedicated by church staff, pastors and others. But those studies were largely kept secret and, slightly than performing upon and investigating experiences of sexual abuse, denomination leaders sought to intimidate and vilify victims and their advocates.

“The entire thing must 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 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 similar in many ways to what the Catholic church continues to face. Leaders in each faiths systematically hid details about sexual misconduct, appeared to indicate extra concern about their own legal legal responsibility than the victims and at instances failed to 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 sex abuse crisis, wrote a letter to SBC management conveying his concern that Southern Baptist leaders had been repeating the failures of the Catholic church in dealing with intercourse abuse.

Doyle was informed, “Southern Baptist leaders really don't have any authority over local churches,” a response that Doyle thought to be dismissive, in line with the investigative report. 

That very same 12 months, at 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 accordance with the report, and witnesses on the convention recalled little about it besides to precise their opinion that it might “violate native church autonomy.”

Ultimately, a staffer for the SBC government committee since 2007 had maintained a list of accused ministers and church staff, nevertheless it was kept hidden from the general public and even SBC executive committee trustees, in line with the report.

Southern Baptist leaders mentioned publicizing the checklist of credibly accused abusers represented “an preliminary, but necessary, step towards addressing the scourge of sexual abuse and implementing reform in the Convention.”

“Each entry on this record reminds us of the devastation and destruction brought about by sexual abuse,” said a joint statement from Willie McLaurin and Rolland Slade, each SBC executive committee members. “Our prayer is that the survivors of those heinous acts find hope and therapeutic, and that church buildings will utilize this listing proactively to protect and take care of probably the most susceptible amongst us.”

Lawyers for the SBC govt committee researched the checklist 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 the place somebody was acquitted or didn't have a closing disposition, in addition to data that might determine victims.

Missouri males characteristic 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 news from Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, we invite you to comply with us on Twitter.