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 list of accused sex abusers — a number of of whom are within the Midwest — within 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 document” that was additionally incomplete however largely pulls information about abusers from published information reviews.

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 many years have received experiences of sexual abuse committed by church workers, pastors and others. But those stories have been largely kept secret and, rather than acting upon and investigating experiences of sexual abuse, denomination leaders sought to intimidate and vilify victims and their advocates.

“The whole thing should be seen for what it is,” wrote former Southern Baptist Conference government committee member and normal counsel D. August Boto in an inside e mail that was revealed in 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 some ways to what the Catholic church continues to face. Leaders in each faiths systematically hid information about sexual misconduct, appeared to indicate extra concern about their very 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 disaster, wrote a letter to SBC management conveying his concern that Southern Baptist leaders were 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 considered dismissive, in line with the investigative report. 

That very same 12 months, on the SBC conference 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 preventing 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 precise their opinion that it would “violate native church autonomy.”

In the end, a staffer for the SBC executive committee since 2007 had maintained a list of accused ministers and church employees, nevertheless it was kept hidden from the general public and even SBC government committee trustees, according to the report.

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

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

Lawyers for the SBC govt committee researched the record of accused abusers, taking steps to verify information it contained. It left unredacted entries about alleged abusers that may very well be confirmed, whereas redacting entries where somebody was acquitted or didn't have a final disposition, as well as data that would identify victims.

Missouri men function prominently on the checklist. They include:

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.