The release of the 205-page list comes after the church’s executive committee earlier this week vowed to make it public in response to the results of a third-party investigation that found Southern Baptist Convention leaders had suppressed reports of child molestation and other forms of sexual abuse.
“This list is being made public for the first time as an initial, but important step towards addressing the scourge of sexual abuse and implementing reform in the convention,” Willie McLaurin, interim president and CEO of the church’s executive committee, and Rolland Slade, the executive committee’s chairman, said in a joint statement. “Each entry in this list reminds us of the devastation and destruction brought about by sexual abuse.”
The list, which was published on the church’s website and contains hundreds of entries mostly complied from news articles, states it is “a fluid, working document” that is “incomplete” and “has not been adequately researched.”
The church said the list was released in the exact form it was provided to Guidepost Solutions, which conducted the months-long investigation into the church, producing the 288-page report that was published earlier this month detailing how Southern Baptist leaders handled sexual abuse allegations.
McLaurin and Slade said there have been no additions to the list and counsel has redacted the names and identifying information of survivors as well as entries where preliminary research could not verify the claims.
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