The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
At one time, Jordan Daniel “JD” Hall was a big name in Evangelical discernment ministry circles. Hall used his blog, Pulpit & Pen (now named Protestia), social media, and podcasts to maintain the Book of Life, “discerning who is in and who is out of God’s Kingdom.” Hall was fond of going after preachers he deemed heterodox or heretical. He was unafraid to name names. Now it is time for his name to be named. Hall has reaped what he sowed. While many Evangelicals considered Hall a defender of the faith, I always thought of him as a bully. I had several conversations with Hall over the years, but nothing substantial.
Hall was the pastor of Fellowship Baptist Church in Sidney, Montana. In 2022, Ministry Watch reported:
The founder of a controversial Christian website known for its criticism of evangelical leaders for being too liberal has resigned from his church for “serious sin.”
Montana pastor Jordan Daniel “J.D.” Hall is no longer listed as pastor of Fellowship Baptist Church in Sydney, Montana, and has been removed from the staff of Protestia, a website originally known as Pulpit&Pen.
While the church has not yet publicly acknowledged Hall’s departure, as of Sunday (June 26) the church’s leadership page can no longer be found. Also on Sunday, Protestia issued a statement saying Hall had resigned as pastor of Fellowship Baptist and is “disqualified from pastoral ministry.”
“Earlier this week, the team at Protestia received allegations of serious sin committed by our brother JD Hall,” the statement reads. “After correspondence with leadership at Fellowship Baptist Church, we learned that JD was determined by the church to have disqualified himself from pastoral ministry, had resigned from the pastorate, and submitted himself to a process of church discipline. Due to JD’s removal from pastoral ministry, we likewise have removed him from ministry with Protestia.”
Hall’s resignation is the latest bad news for the Montana pastor and blogger.
In February, Hall filed for bankruptcy after being sued for libel for a story the Montana Gazette, another of Hall’s publications, had run about Adrian Jawort, a Native American activist. Then in mid-May, he was arrested for driving under the influence and carrying a concealed weapon while intoxicated.
Hall later settled with Jawort, retracting the story that prompted the lawsuit and issuing an apology, saying he had fabricated the story. As part of the settlement, Jawort can make a $250,000 claim against Hall in bankruptcy court. Hall currently faces an additional lawsuit filed by the WhiteFish Credit Union, for stories published in the Montana Daily Gazette, according to the Sydney Herald.
In the past, Hall’s congregation—a self-described fundamentalist, independent Baptist Church—has stood by their pastor, despite his legal problems. The church issued a statement supporting Hall in February, saying he faced “trials and persecution” from liberal activists.
“We rejoice in our pastor’s persecution and suffering for the sake of our Lord, Christ. And we, as a congregation, we stand behind him 100%, as has already been established by the unanimous, united voice of our congregation,” the statement read.
After Hall’s arrest, the church also issued a statement of support, claiming Hall suffered from a vitamin deficiency that caused “poor coordination, slurred speech, word displacement.” The church also said at the time that Hall was overworked and would take several months off to rest. According to that statement, Hall could not return to work without his wife’s approval.
Hall has pled not guilty to the DUI and weapon charges. He also addressed the church following his arrest, according to the church’s statement in May.
“He cautioned us solemnly to be ready for what enemies of Christ would do with his situation and to brace themselves,” the statement read. “The congregation spoke openly to assure Pastor Hall he should not be ashamed, that we do not care what the world thinks, as we know the truth.”It is unclear whether Hall’s departure from the church is related to his previous arrest.
Hall is best known for his role as Pulpit&Pen founder, where he criticized what he saw as liberal and worldly influences affecting the evangelical church and especially the Southern Baptist Convention. Among the site’s regular targets were Bible teacher Beth Moore, former Southern Baptist ethicist Russell Moore (no relation), Religion News Service columnist Karen Swallow Prior, former SBC President J.D. Greear, and Tennessee preacher and Trump supporter Greg Locke.
After Facebook banned the Pulpit&Pen, the site was renamed “Protestia.” Hall also heads the Gideon Knox Group, which runs a church-based collection of media sites and other media ministries, including the Polemics Report, the Bible Thumping Wingnut podcast network, and an AM radio station.
Hall’s church echoed his political views. Along with listing the church’s views about the Bible, the Trinity, baptism and other Christian doctrines, the Fellowship Baptist statement of faith includes a “repudiation of the Social Justice Movement, Critical Theory, Liberation Theology, and Marxism in all of its various forms.”
The Christian Post also reported:
A report from the Sidney Police Department cited by The Sidney Herald said Hall was arrested on May 11, 2022, at approximately 11 p.m. on suspicion of carrying a concealed weapon and multiple traffic violations while driving under the influence.
An incident report shows that when police approached Hall, he spoke slowly, his eyes were watery, closed slowly and deliberately, and his speech was slurred and mumbled.
He also stumbled, displayed poor balance, and performed poorly on a field sobriety test. No alcohol was found in his system when a blood alcohol test was administered. He also had a Smith & Wesson M&P 2.0 Shield handgun, which was found under his coat in an inside-the-waistband holster during his arrest, the report added.
Fellowship Baptist Church leaders say they were unaware of Hall’s addiction to Xanax when they defended him publicly and rejected his initial offer to resign.
As the scandal erupted, Hall was also accused of physically assaulting his wife, Mandy, and son, and embezzling $10,000 from his church.
It is now known that Hall was a Xanax addict. This, however, would not be Hall’s biggest problem. Earlier this month, Hall was convicted of felony embezzlement after he pleaded no contest. The judge ordered Hall to pay $15,000 restitution to Fellowship Baptist Church. That’s right, he stole money from the church. Not only that, but some people are alleging that Hall stole more than $100,000 from the church.
The Bozeman Daily Chronicle reports:
Jordan “J.D.” Hall, once a prominent religious and political figure in Montana right-wing circles, was ordered earlier this month to pay more than $15,000 to the Sidney church he once led after a Richland County District Court judge found him guilty of felony embezzlement.
As part of a deferred sentencing agreement filed Sept. 10, Hall, who was ousted from Fellowship Baptist Church in 2022 amid claims of drug abuse, domestic violence and embezzlement, must also report to a probation officer and abstain from drugs and alcohol. He also may not own any weapons or enter bars or casinos, among other restrictions. If Hall complies with the terms of his three-year sentence, he will not be considered a felon.
“It’s with my deepest regret and full admission of my own personal failures, and to be clear, sins, that I have deeply hurt the church I loved and formerly served for so long a time,” Hall wrote to his former church in a court-ordered apology. “I pray that resolution of this issue might bring healing and wholeness with your body. As I move forward to a different, better, and more quiet life, with these things behind me, I pray that you are able to move forward with your very important mission as well.”
According to court documents, Hall, who operated the now-defunct Montana Daily Gazette, routinely and improperly used the church’s funds for personal and political expenses. Documents filed by Richland County Attorney Charity McLarty alleged that Hall’s improper expenditures surpassed $100,000 over a five-year period.
These expenditures, according to court records, included payments on a gun safe, personal travel, cell phones for his family and payments to employees of Hall’s political blog. One witness, a former treasurer of the church, told Sidney police that when her husband was diagnosed with cancer in 2021, Hall took her copy of the church checkbook and said he would start paying the bills.
The treasurer “mentioned that she now suspected that Hall did this so she did not have the need to look at bank statements,” according to court documents.
The conclusion of the investigation into Hall’s embezzlement — allegations of which have floated since the firebrand pastor was forced from the church two years ago — was first reported by Montana 1st News, a right-wing blog operated by former Daily Gazette contributor Brenda Roskos. Hall could not be reached for comment through his attorney. A representative of the church did not return a request for comment.
….
Hall courted frequent controversy as he built a profile but avoided any real blowback until 2022 when he settled a libel lawsuit brought the previous year by a trans woman lobbyist he’d accused of intimidating a lawmaker in a story he wrote and published in the Montana Daily Gazette. Facing sanctions and mounting legal fees, Hall declared bankruptcy and even posted an apology to the lobbyist — authored by her attorneys and published out of legal necessity, he was quick to note — in the Daily Gazette.
The church pulled its support for Hall when he was arrested on drug and firearms charges following a traffic stop later in the year. From that point, Hall’s world unraveled. Church leadership removed Hall as pastor, explaining that he had shown up to Sunday service while high on Xanax, and that many in the congregation had suspected Hall’s drug use but kept quiet for fear of stirring conflict. The church also said that Hall’s wife had come to them with allegations of domestic violence against her husband. The church filed two police reports, one related to the claims of violence and another alleging that Hall had embezzled funds from the church.
When Montana Free Press reported these allegations in 2022, the police reports were heavily redacted and the state had only brought charges against Hall for drug possession, driving under the influence and possession of a concealed weapon while under the influence. (Prosecutors ultimately dropped all but the second charge, and Hall was found guilty last year).
In July 2022, the church’s newly elected treasurer, Deedra Erickson, told Sidney police that she suspected Hall had stolen funds from the church, according to court records. The last suspicious use of church funds, she noted, was in June of that year — just before Hall left the church.
“When asked what brought this matter to the attention of the church and herself, Erickson stated Hall had begun to behave erratically. Erickson said they began looking into the first month of purchases and saw several suspicious transactions,” court records said.
It’s one thing for Hall to use his church debit card to cover travel, gas and other expenses related to his ministry, Erickson told police, but Hall seemed to be using church funds to cover all manner of other costs: trips to Helena, Great Falls and Mexico, and a buy-now-pay-later loan Hall obtained to purchase a gun safe. He was also using church funds to pay contributors to his various publications, she contended.
When a police lieutenant showed the church’s former treasurer, Joyce Nesper, an “excel printout of all Hall’s expenses all over the United States … she made the statement that those were political trips that should have not been paid for by the Church,” according to court documents.
Nesper told police that Hall had taken over responsibilities related to financial transparency, like reviewing bank statements and submitting financial reports to church leadership.
But the more than $100,000 in expenditures that Hall’s accusers questioned is not reflected in the relatively meager restitution Hall paid the church.
In a memo to the court, Hall contested the prosecution’s accounting of his expenditures. Had the case gone to trial, he argued, he would have shown that all but 55 of the 1,186 transactions the church presented to police as fraudulent or unauthorized were proper or made without his knowledge. He asserted these 55 charges amounted to $15,454.44, the amount the court ultimately ordered him to pay as part of his plea agreement.
Many of the travel expenses the church questioned, Hall argued, were legitimate. It was Hall’s duty as pastor, he said in court documents, to “proclaim the Gospel” through “personal evangelism” and “any other means,” including representing the church in “civic matters.” This often meant travel out of state or even the country.
And he said his schedule was public, his travel destinations known to his congregants and church leaders. He said that in 2010, for example, he attended a Tea Party event.
“He was given a warm reception and he continued to ‘proclaim the Gospel’ at many subsequent events,” Hall’s memo said. “His sermons were published on YouTube and elsewhere and the FBC congregation knew about them, watched them, encouraged them, and often met to send him off to the next one with prayer and hope those who listened would be persuaded to love God in the way the FBC did.”
He blamed several expenditures identified as improper on mistakes by church treasurers or his secretary. And to the extent that the church’s money was going to, for example, his podcast, it was in service of his evangelical aim, he argued in the memo.
“In these podcasts, Mr. Hall discussed his evangelical strategy: Instead of bringing politics to religion, he would bring religion to politics and invade political events with religion,” according to the memo.
Since his forced departure from Fellowship, Hall has almost entirely avoided the public eye. In October of 2023, he appeared in an interview for the Christian polemics website Protestia. In the interview, he claimed he became accidentally addicted to Xanax because of medical negligence.
Hall doesn’t seem repentant, grudgingly admitting some financial improprieties, but denying the rest or blaming the church treasurer or his secretary for improperly accounting for his expenditures. It remains to be seen what the future holds for Hall and his family.
Protestia claims that Hall is INNOCENT. They, too, are high on Xanax, if this is the conclusion David Morrill and his merry band of Pharisees have come to.
Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and thirteen grandchildren. Bruce pastored Evangelical churches for twenty-five years in Ohio, Texas, and Michigan. Bruce left the ministry in 2005, and in 2008 he left Christianity. Bruce is now a humanist and an atheist.
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