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

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

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

The publication of the list 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 committed by church workers, pastors and others. However these stories were largely stored secret and, rather than performing upon and investigating experiences of sexual abuse, denomination leaders sought to intimidate and vilify victims and their advocates.

“The whole thing must be seen for what it's,” wrote former Southern Baptist Convention government committee member and general 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 analogous in many ways to what the Catholic church continues to face. Leaders in each faiths systematically hid details about sexual misconduct, appeared to show 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 management conveying his concern that Southern Baptist leaders had been repeating the failures of the Catholic church in dealing with sex abuse.

Doyle was advised, “Southern Baptist leaders actually have no authority over native church buildings,” a response that Doyle considered dismissive, in line with the investigative report. 

That same 12 months, on 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, based on the report, and witnesses on the conference recalled little about it except to precise their opinion that it will “violate local church autonomy.”

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

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

“Each 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, both SBC government committee members. “Our prayer is that the survivors of these heinous acts discover hope and healing, and that church buildings will utilize this list proactively to protect and care for the most weak among us.”

Legal professionals for the SBC government committee researched the list of accused abusers, taking steps to confirm info it contained. It left unredacted entries about alleged abusers that could be confirmed, while redacting entries where somebody was acquitted or didn't have a last disposition, as well as data that could establish victims.

Missouri men feature 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 Information, St. Louis Public Radio and NPR. For more in-depth information from Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska, we invite you to observe us on Twitter.