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

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

The 205-page record 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 doc” that was additionally incomplete but largely pulls details about abusers from published information reports.

The publication of the list comes after the discharge Sunday of a 300-page report by an unbiased investigator that described how leaders of the Southern Baptist denomination for decades have acquired stories of sexual abuse dedicated by church workers, pastors and others. However those reviews were largely kept secret and, slightly than acting upon and investigating reviews of sexual abuse, denomination leaders sought to intimidate and vilify victims and their advocates.

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

The disaster rocking the Southern Baptist denomination this week is similar 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 more concern about their own legal liability 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 many first to warn of his own denomination’s clergy intercourse abuse crisis, wrote a letter to SBC leadership conveying his concern that Southern Baptist leaders were repeating the failures of the Catholic church in dealing with intercourse abuse.

Doyle was told, “Southern Baptist leaders actually don't have any authority over native churches,” a response that Doyle thought to be dismissive, in response to the investigative report. 

That same yr, on 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 response to the report, and witnesses on the conference recalled little about it besides to express their opinion that it would “violate native church autonomy.”

Ultimately, a staffer for the SBC government committee since 2007 had maintained a listing of accused ministers and church workers, but it was saved hidden from the public and even SBC government committee trustees, in line with the report.

Southern Baptist leaders said publicizing the listing of credibly accused abusers represented “an initial, but vital, step towards addressing the scourge of sexual abuse and implementing reform within the Conference.”

“Each entry on this record reminds us of the devastation and destruction caused by sexual abuse,” said a joint statement from Willie McLaurin and Rolland Slade, both SBC govt committee members. “Our prayer is that the survivors of those heinous acts discover hope and therapeutic, and that churches will make the most of this record proactively to guard and care for essentially the most vulnerable among us.”

Lawyers for the SBC executive committee researched the list of accused abusers, taking steps to confirm information it contained. It left unredacted entries about alleged abusers that could possibly be confirmed, whereas redacting entries the place someone was acquitted or did not have a last disposition, as well as info that might establish victims.

Missouri males feature prominently on the checklist. They embody:

This story comes from the Midwest Newsroom, an investigative journalism collaboration including IPR, KCUR 89.3, Nebraska Public Media Information, 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.