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

The Southern Baptist Convention on Thursday released a once-secret and lengthy record of accused sex abusers — several of whom are in the Midwest — inside the denomination.

The 205-page checklist is a compilation of ministers and other church workers who've been credibly accused of sexual abuse. The record is described as a “fluid, working document” that was additionally incomplete but largely pulls details about abusers from revealed news studies.

The publication of the listing 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 reports of sexual abuse committed by church staff, pastors and others. But those experiences have been largely kept secret and, rather than performing upon and investigating reviews of sexual abuse, denomination leaders sought to intimidate and vilify victims and their advocates.

“The whole thing needs to be seen for what it's,” wrote former Southern Baptist Conference govt committee member and common counsel D. August Boto in an internal email that was published within 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 each faiths systematically hid details about sexual misconduct, appeared to point out more concern about their very own legal legal responsibility than the victims and at instances didn't 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 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 sex abuse.

Doyle was told, “Southern Baptist leaders really have no authority over native churches,” a response that Doyle considered dismissive, in keeping with the investigative report. 

That very same year, on the SBC conference 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 except to express their opinion that it would “violate native church autonomy.”

Ultimately, a staffer for the SBC govt committee since 2007 had maintained a list of accused ministers and church workers, but it was kept hidden from the general public and even SBC executive committee trustees, based on the report.

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

“Each entry in this record reminds us of the devastation and destruction led to by sexual abuse,” mentioned a joint assertion from Willie McLaurin and Rolland Slade, both SBC govt committee members. “Our prayer is that the survivors of these heinous acts discover hope and therapeutic, and that churches will utilize this listing proactively to protect and care for the most vulnerable amongst us.”

Attorneys for the SBC executive committee researched the listing of accused abusers, taking steps to verify data it contained. It left unredacted entries about alleged abusers that could be confirmed, while redacting entries where someone was acquitted or did not have a last disposition, as well as information that could establish victims.

Missouri men function prominently on the listing. They include:

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.