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

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

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

The publication of the checklist 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 dedicated by church workers, pastors and others. However these reports had been largely stored secret and, somewhat than acting upon and investigating experiences 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 Conference executive committee member and general counsel D. August Boto in an inside electronic mail that was published in the report. “It’s a satanic scheme to fully 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 each faiths systematically hid details about sexual misconduct, appeared to point out extra concern about their own authorized legal responsibility than the victims and at times did not expel accused abusers from positions of authority.

In 2007, Father Thomas Doyle, a Catholic priest credited as one of many first to warn of his personal denomination’s clergy sex abuse disaster, 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 intercourse abuse.

Doyle was told, “Southern Baptist leaders truly haven't any authority over native churches,” a response that Doyle considered dismissive, in response to the investigative report. 

That very same yr, 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 “help in preventing any future sexual abuse or harassment.”

The database proposal appeared to go nowhere, in line with the report, and witnesses at the convention recalled little about it besides to express their opinion that it will “violate local church autonomy.”

Finally, a staffer for the SBC govt committee since 2007 had maintained a listing of accused ministers and church employees, but it was kept hidden from the public and even SBC govt committee trustees, in accordance with the report.

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

“Every entry in this listing reminds us of the devastation and destruction caused by sexual abuse,” said a joint assertion 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 churches will make the most of this list proactively to guard and look after essentially the most vulnerable amongst us.”

Lawyers for the SBC govt committee researched the list of accused abusers, taking steps to confirm data it contained. It left unredacted entries about alleged abusers that might be confirmed, while redacting entries where someone was acquitted or did not have a final disposition, in addition to information that could determine victims.

Missouri men characteristic prominently on the record. 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 follow us on Twitter.