Pastor renews call for database of clergy sex abuse

ENID, Okla. (ABP) – An Oklahoma pastor says the Southern Baptist Convention should reconsider a database to help safeguard churches from clergy who are sexual predators.

Wade Burleson, pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Enid, Okla., made a motion at the SBC annual meeting in 2007 calling for a database of Southern Baptist ministers who have been “credibly accused of, personally confessed to, or legally been convicted of sexual harassment or abuse.”

After study, leaders ruled the idea unfeasible, saying the convention lacked authority to investigate local churches, which are free to call their own ministers. Time Magazine ranked the decision as one of the top 10 under-reported news stories in 2008.