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Tag: Southern Baptist Sex Abuse Scandal

Black Collar Crime: Southern Baptist Youth Pastor Keenan Hord Pleads Guilty, Sentenced to Sixty Years in Prison for Sex Crimes

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keenan hord

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.

Keenan Hord, a youth pastor at First Baptist Church in Bentonville, Arkansas, pleaded guilty to thirteen sex-related crimes involving children and was sentenced to sixty years in prison. First Baptist is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.

The Arkansas Democrat Gazette reports:

A former youth minister pleaded guilty Friday to 13 sex-related crimes involving children and was sentenced to 60 years in prison.

Keenan Hord, 33, of Centerton worked for First Baptist Church in Bentonville before he was arrested Aug. 24.

Hord accepted a plea deal. A jury trial in his case had been scheduled to begin March 7.

One of Hord’s victims gave a victim impact statement at Friday’s hearing. The mothers of four other victims also gave impact statements.

Benton County Circuit Judge Brad Karren ordered Hord to register as a sex offender and not to have contact with any of the victims or any children.

Hord will be eligible for parole in 15 years.

Bentonville police received a tip through the Arkansas State Police child abuse hotline Aug. 19, according to a news release from the Bentonville Police Department. James Boothman, a Bentonville detective, testified at Hord’s August bond hearing police served a search warrant and seized several electronic devices. Boothman said police had spoken to six victims and identified up to 30 possible victims with an examination of Hord’s cellphone.

Bentonville police Sgt. Josh Woodhams testified at the bond hearing he examined a cellphone belonging to one of the boys that revealed a romantic and sexual relationship between Hord and the boy. He said there were 5,000 conversations on the phone between Hord and the boy. Woodhams said police located a half-million text messages on the phone. As many as 30 boys had conversations with Hord, Woodhams said.

Hord has served on the staffs of at least two Southern Baptist churches, most recently First Baptist Bentonville, where he joined the staff in 2016 and became student pastor in 2018, according to Baptist Press, the news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.

In 2022, Baptist Press reported:

Keenan Hord, 32, was arrested Thursday (Aug. 25) for sexual indecency with a child. Hord has served on the staffs of at least two Southern Baptist churches, most recently First Baptist Bentonville, where he joined the staff in 2016 and became student pastor in 2018. The church said in a statement Friday (Aug. 26) that the allegations came after Hord’s employment there had ended.

A warrant for his arrest was issued Tuesday (Aug. 23) after First Baptist Bentonville made a report Aug. 19 to the Arkansas State Police child abuse hotline.

Investigators believe there could be up to 30 or more victims, according to KTHV-TV.

“We have been devastated to learn that a former employee of our church has been credibly accused of abusing adolescents during his tenure at our church.,” First Baptist Bentonville said in a statement to Baptist Press. “While these accusations did not come to light until after his employment ended, when we learned of them we immediately contacted our local authorities, made a report to the Arkansas Child Abuse Hotline, and continue to fully support the ongoing law enforcement investigation.”

40/29 added at the time:

A former youth pastor was arrested on a charge of sexual indecency with a child in a case related to his time as a youth pastor at a Bentonville church, according to Nathan Smith, Benton County prosecutor.

Keenan Hord was arrested Thursday night and has been booked into the Benton County Detention Center. He is facing charges that include sexual assault and possessing sexually explicit material involving a child.

A judge set a cash bond of $500,000 in the case.

During the bond hearing, county prosecutors said there are potentially more than thirty victims.

Hord worked as a youth pastor at First Baptist Church Bentonville, Smith said. The church contacted the child abuse hotline immediately upon learning of allegations against Hord.

A detective told a judge Hord had inappropriate contact with a 15-year-old. He said law enforcement found more than 5,000 text messages between Hord and one victim.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen 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.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Black Collar Crime: Southern Baptist Youth Leader Courtney Bingham Sentenced to Twelve Years in Prison for Rape

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courtney bingham

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.

In 2020, Courtney Bingham, a youth leader at Bethany Baptist Church in Loudon, Tennessee, pleaded guilty to four counts of aggravated statutory rape and one count of solicitation of a minor to commit statutory rape by an authority figure. She was sentenced to twelve years in prison.

The News-Herald reported at the time:

Courtney Michelle Bingham, 36, pleaded guilty in Loudon County Criminal Court to four counts of aggravated statutory rape and one count of solicitation of a minor to commit statutory rape by an authority figure stemming from her arrest in December 2018.

According to a news release from Russell Johnson, 9th Judicial District attorney general, Bingham will serve a 12-year sentence in Tennessee Department of Corrections custody at a minimum of 35 percent before she is eligible for parole. She will also be on the sex offender registry for life and subject to monitoring, including internet activities.

As part of the agreement, Bingham admitted having sex with the minor on at least four occasions. She said she knew he was a minor, and that she was at least 10 years older. In addition, she admitted she was in a “position of trust” as a youth leader when she “solicited him for sex via digital communication,” according to the release.

“This case has generated tremendous community interest because of the nature of the charges and the fact that it has caused considerable ‘disruption’ at the suspect’s and victim’s church,” Johnson said in a release. “We are glad to get this resolved with the defendant admitting her wrongdoing. Hopefully, this outcome will serve as a cautionary tale for others who are tempted to find themselves in similar situations. Part of the reason for pressing this case to trial, which resulted in what I consider to be a significant result for the state, was the difference in ages between the defendant and victim, the defendant’s position of trust in the church and her prior multiple felony criminal history.”

A report from then Loudon County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Jason Smith, who is now with Lenoir City Police Department, noted Bingham met the teen at church. The boy claimed they had sex at her residence.

The teen noted he had multiple pornographic images from Bingham on his phone that were sent from her. Most appeared to have been taken by Bingham, according to Smith’s report.

“It took some time to complete the investigation, the analysis of the victim’s phone, interviews, looking at church records relative to Bingham’s ‘supervisory’ position with any of the youth, etc.,” Russell said Monday morning. “Then she was indicted on 32 counts, some of which were alternative counts. We had tried, unsuccessfully, to resolve it at General Sessions Court on the single charge on which she was arrested. Therefore she was indicted on the 32 separate counts at grand jury. The case was finally resolved on five felony counts of the 32.”

Bingham was scheduled for trial Tuesday but accepted the plea before Criminal Court Judge Jeffrey Wicks.

After her conviction, Bingham was investigated for forgery. No outcome is available at this time.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen 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.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

UPDATED: Black Collar Crime: Evangelical Pastor Trent Holbert Pleads Guilty, Sentenced to a Minimum of Seven Years in Prison

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pastor trent holbert

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.

Trent Holbert, pastor of The Ridge Church in Black Mountain, North Carolina, was charged in October 2021 with one count of indecent liberties with a child and two counts of statutory sex offense. The Ridge Church is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.

Kentucky Today reported at the time:

Trent Holbert, 41, former pastor of The Ridge Church, was arrested last month and has been charged with one count of indecent liberties with a child and two counts of statutory sex offense, the Biblical Recorder reported. He was previously the pastor of Epoch Fellowship Church in Owenton, Ky., as late as 2017.

….

Both The Ridge Church and the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina have released statements condemning Holbert’s alleged actions.

“Trent Holbert has resigned from his position as the head pastor of the Ridge Church,” said a statement released Friday from church elder Drew Wheeler. “Our hearts and prayers go out to the family of our former head pastor and the families of all of those involved. The care and protection of children and minors is a biblical and moral mandate that is taken seriously by the Ridge Church. We do not condone such actions as the alleged, and our prayers are with the victims of any such abuse.”

The North Carolina convention’s statement, released Thursday, said leaders were “deeply grieved” by the charges.

“As a pastor, Trent has been a speaker at convention-related events for adults in the recent past,” the statement said. “He underwent background and reference checks prior to his participation in those events. We are not aware that he had any contact or dealings with minors as part of those events. The care and protection of children and minors is both a biblical and moral mandate that we take very seriously. We are praying for everyone who has been impacted by these alleged heinous crimes. N.C. Baptists are offering support to the local association and the church as they face these challenging times, as well. We stand with any and all victims of abuse and are committed to cooperating with authorities during their investigation. We encourage you to contact the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office if you have any relevant information.”

According to WLOS news, on May 18, detectives with the Special Victims Unit of the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office executed a search warrant at Holbert’s residence. During the execution of the warrant, Holbert was arrested and charged with contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile, and electronic devices were seized from the home.

Holbert’s church bio page (which has been scrubbed from the church’s website) states:

Pastor Trent is a gifted communicator and a relational junkie. He loves people and gets his fix from being a positive part of their lives. His ministry mindset is holistic. He believes that God’s plan and design for humans doesn’t stop at spiritual needs. He holds a degree in theology, but as a certified personal trainer and holistic health coach, Trent teaches us how to know our Creator better through optimal physical, emotional, and spiritual health. You can hear him weekly on the Fit For the Kingdom Podcast.

Black Mountain News article on Holbert starting The Ridge Church.

In October 2021, ABC-13 reported:

Newly returned warrants allege Trent Holbert groomed the teen by first befriending her parents who joined The Ridge Church.

Investigators said, because the parents had limited means, Holbert offered their daughter a bedroom in his home and began buying her undergarments as the two started a relationship.

Warrants also allege Holbert asked the teen’s parents to sign a parental waiver so that he would be able to take care of her in case they died. Investigators said Holbert called DSS on the teen’s parents as well, accusing them of neglect. Warrants show a DSS worker found this claim to be unsubstantial.

On May 18, 2021, detectives with the Special Victims Unit of the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office executed a search warrant at a residence on Tucker Road in Black Mountain. During the execution of the search warrant, Holbert was arrested. He resigned from the church in June.

This week, Holbert pleaded guilty and will spend a minimum of seven years in prison.

The Citizen Times reports:

A former Black Mountain pastor has pleaded guilty to attempted statutory sexual offense, ensuring that he will spend at least the next seven years behind bars.

Judge Sharon Tracey sentenced Trent Brandon Holbert, 43, to serve between 94 and 173 months imprisoned, according to Buncombe County District Attorney Todd Williams’ office. The victim approved of the plea, according to Williams. Williams announced the plea in a Jan. 25 tweet.

In search warrants reported on by the Citizen Times in 2021, the Buncombe County Sheriff’s Office said that Holbert – former pastor at The Ridge Church – schemed against the victim’s parents.

The Sheriff’s Office began investigating after the parents contacted deputies about their child “engaging in a secret and sexual relationship with their former pastor,” one search warrant said. 

Holbert bought the victim gifts, including clothes, underwear and feminine hygiene products. A search warrant said that he also gave the child one of his T-shirts after she told him that she had a bad dream so “his smell would help (the child) sleep.”

When Holbert reported the child’s parents to the N.C. Division of Social Services with allegations of neglect, the claims were found to be unsubstantiated.

According to one of the search warrants, Holbert asked the parents to sign a waiver giving him parental rights if they died. They declined and said the request bothered them. 

According to a Google search, The Ridge Church has closed its doors.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen 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.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Black Collar Crime: Southern Baptist Youth Pastor Adam Lewis Arrested on Child Porn Charges

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adam lewis

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.

Adam Lewis, a youth pastor at Rock Mountain Lakes Baptist Church in McCalla, Alabama, a school teacher, and a wrestling coach, stands accused of possession of child pornography.

AL.com reports:

A Pelham middle school teacher and wrestling coach who also doubled as the youth director of a McCalla church was arrested and jailed Wednesday on child porn charge.

Adam Jeremy Lewis, an eighth grade teacher at Pelham Park Middle School and an assistant coach for the school’s wrestling team, was charged with possessing child pornography. He was released from the Shelby County Jail after posting $15,000 bond, jail records showed.

….

Lewis was also youth director at Rock Mountain Lakes Baptist Church in McCalla.

The church said Lewis is no longer working there and that Lewis and his family “need our prayers in a major way.”

“This is a devastating moment for our church family, but I know God is working,” the church said in a message to parishioners on its Facebook page.

Rock Mountain Lakes Baptist released a statement yesterday, asking prayer for Lewis and his family. No mention was made of children portrayed in the alleged pornographic images.

rock mountain lakes baptist church

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen 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.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Black Collar Crime: Southern Baptist Student Pastor Timothy Jeltema Sentenced to Five Years in Prison for Online Child Abuse

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timothy jeltema

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.

Timothy Jeltema, a student pastor at Champion Forest Baptist Church in Houston, Texas, pleaded guilty to four charges of online sexual abuse of a minor, including one charge of indecency with a child, one charge of sexual performance by a child, and two counts of online solicitation of a minor. Jeltema was sentenced to five years in prison. Champion Forest is a multisite Southern Baptist megachurch.

The Christian Post reports:

A Texas man who used to be a student minister at a Southern Baptist church has been sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to online sexual abuse of a child.

Timothy Jason Jeltema, 31, pled guilty on Nov. 17 to four charges of online sexual abuse of a minor, including one charge of indecency with a child, one charge of sexual performance by a child and two counts of online solicitation of a minor, reported the Baptist Press.

The charges were initially filed in 2018, one month after Jeltema was fired from Champion Forest Baptist Church in Harris County for an unrelated issue regarding communication with an 18 year old.

“Jeltema, a former minister to students at the North Klein campus of Champion Forest Baptist Church was terminated on May 15, 2018, the same day he was accused of and admitted to improper contact via social media with an 18-year-old member of our church,” stated the church, as reported by BP.

“Though no laws were known to have been broken, he was immediately dismissed for a clear violation of the church’s written code of conduct and his admission that he did not follow long-established Champion Forest regulations that pastors of students and adult volunteers must never communicate electronically one-on-one with students.”

In 2018, authorities arrested Jeltema after an unnamed minor accused him of sending her nude photos of himself over a period of several months and asked her to send him sexually explicit photos in return.

Authorities at the time believed that Jeltema had asked for photographs from around 20 to 25 minors between the ages of 14 and 17, reported ABC News 13 at the time of his arrest.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen 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.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Dear Southern Baptist Pastors, Please Stop Saying “We Didn’t Know”

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see hear speak

We now know that Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) leaders hid, covered up, and ignored hundreds and hundreds of cases of sexual misconduct by SBC pastors, worship leaders, teachers, evangelists, youth leaders, missionaries, deacons, and college professors. The published list of the offenders is but the tip of the iceberg. It is likely that thousands of allegations of sexual assault, sexual abuse, rape, and other sex crimes were not investigated or taken seriously. Add to this number stories about preachers who used their position of authority and power to take sexual advantage of (primarily) women or were garden variety adulterers and fornicators, and it’s hard not to conclude that the SBC is many things, but it is definitely not Christian. We are not talking about a few bad apples here.

Several years ago, my wife and I, along with our children and grandchildren picked four thirty-gallon trash cans of apples from our trees. Due to Polly having serious bowel problems that resulted in her having major surgery and spending several weeks in the hospital, one of the cans of apples remained unprocessed. The apples sat in the can for weeks, and as they rotted, we could smell their sweet, alcohol-like aroma in the kitchen as the fall air wafted through the windows. Eventually, I dumped the apples on our compost pile. I view the current state of the SBC much like I do that rotting garbage can of apples. Sure, there were some unrotted apples in the can, but the decaying apples around the “good” apples made them unusable. I have no doubt that many SBC pastors are good men with character and high moral standards. However, in the midst of these good men are violent predators who used their positions of authority to prey on vulnerable children, teenagers, and women (and yes, boys and men too).

It is these “good” preachers I want to address. It has been fashionable of late for “good” Southern Baptist preachers to express outrage over the current sexual abuse scandal, often saying WE DIDN’T KNOW! It is to these preachers I say BULLSHIT! Don’t tell me you didn’t know. I know better. I was an Evangelical pastor for twenty-five years. I knew a number of Baptist pastors, missionaries, and evangelists. I attended numerous pastor’s fellowships and conferences where preachers would get together for preaching, food, and fellowship. And what else did we do? We talked about rumors. We were the gossips we preached about on Sundays. I heard countless stories about preachers committing crimes, having affairs, and all sorts of immoral behavior. We knew, yet, for the most part, we did nothing.

While I did my best to deal with such misconduct within the churches I pastored (and deplatforming preachers I heard rumors about), when it came to these things happening in other churches, I did what many SBC pastors do now, I said “that’s a local church problem.” I hid behind my ecclesiology, saying that it was up to an offending pastor’s church to deal with his misconduct. When such things happened in the churches I pastored, I didn’t hesitate to call law enforcement or child protective services. Sadly, when I heard about similar behavior by preachers, deacons, and leaders in other churches, I took a “not my church, not my problem” approach. Oh, I might distance myself from an offending preacher, but I never went the extra mile by reporting these so-called men of God to the authorities or passing on what I had heard to their churches. I was taught at Bible college that a preacher should never meddle in another church’s problems. While that is generally good advice, when it comes to knowing that a preacher is engaging in criminal or harmful behavior, it is always right to say something. Of course, doing so could cause all sorts of problems and loss of friendships. Sadly, some churches don’t want to know if their pastor is engaging in immoral and unethical behavior. In their minds, protecting the church’s “testimony” is more important than rooting out predatory preachers.

So, to the SBC preachers saying “we didn’t know,” I say, yes you did. You heard the rumors; you heard the gossip; you saw and heard things that troubled you; you had suspicions. You had enough knowledge that you should have demanded the SBC executive committee do something. You knew enough to demand that your state convention or area missionary get rid of the rotting apples in your midst. While you can’t do much about the past, you can, going forward, stand with and protect victims. You can, and you must, demand that predators be removed from their churches, local church autonomy be damned. When asked to choose between theological beliefs and vulnerable people, you must choose the latter.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen 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.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Black Collar Crime: Southern Baptist Leader Joe Knott Terrified Over What Will Happen if Convention Tries to Stop Sexual Abuse in Their Churches

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joe knotts

Southern Baptist executive member Joe Knotts recently stated:

I am terrified that we are breaching our long-standing position of being a voluntary association of independent churches, when we start telling churches that they should do this or do that to protect children or women.

I guarantee you women and children are going to be victimized no matter how much — and that is going to make us potentially targets of great class-action lawsuits, which could be the end of the Southern Baptist Convention.

The Roy’s Report, June 2, 2022

I am speechless. Until the Joe Knotts of the world are run out of the Southern Baptist Convention, no real and lasting change will take place. He is part of the problem, not the solution. For Knotts and others like him, ecclesiology is more important than protecting children and women (and men too) from sexual predators who freely roam the halls of Southern Baptist churches. Why, if the SBC does anything to protect children and women from abuse, it could open the Convention to lawsuits. Your point, Joe? The executive committee, along with countless churches, pastors, and other leaders should be held accountable for the abuse that has happened on their watch. That’s the price that must be paid for decades of concealment and inaction.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen 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.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Dear Pastor Greg Davidson, You Might Want to Ask Outsiders What They Think About the Southern Baptist Convention

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southern baptist child abuse
Cartoon by Clay Jones. Please check out his awesome work at Claytoonz.

Greg Davidson, pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Vacaville, California, has a sheltered, out-of-touch view of his beloved Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).

Writing for SBC Voices, Davidson stated:

I love Southern Baptists. They are some of the most compassionate, forgiving, and understanding people on the face of the earth. I love the fact that there are so many that hate injustice. I like others have felt the cruel tentacles of injustice.

….

I believe it is encouraging that an overwhelming number of messengers stood against discrimination and abuse in our convention.

What does that mean going forward?

We need to unite around the fact, that whether we are supporters of Randy Adams, Al Mohler, Ed Litton, or Mike Stone, the overwhelming number of us agree on the major issues expressed by a total disdain for abuse, discrimination, and injustice as the Bible demands.

We also need to realize that we all can bring different significant contributions to this conversation that will help us to develop better solutions.

The overwhelming number of us agreed that we do not want fine, godly, and good people to be divided by godless worldly philosophies that are designed to divide us, but to be united instead around the truth of the inerrancy and sufficiency of the Word of God.

To realize that since the convention overwhelmingly voted for the truth to be discovered concerning the Executive Committee’s actions on abuse, it can logically be concluded that all sides want the truth to be known. Yet knowing that the vote for president was separated by less than 600 votes, there is clearly a difference of opinion about what the truth is. For the sake of unity let us not jump to conclusions and let the process work.

This is a moment when the best that is within can emerge, and we as Christian statesmen can rise above the bickering partisanship, and instead be used of God to heal the wounds and fractures in our convention with kindness, grace, and understanding. God bless us as we experience, by His grace, our finest hour as the people of God known as Southern Baptists.

Speaking of Southern Baptists as a whole, Davidson glowingly and effusively says:

They are some of the most compassionate, forgiving, and understanding people on the face of the earth. I love the fact that there are so many that hate injustice. I like others have felt the cruel tentacles of injustice.

While Davidson may sincerely believe this (I don’t personally know him), to those of us outside of the SBC, Southern Baptists are anything but “compassionate, forgiving, and understanding people [who] hate injustice.” Take the latest national convention, a time when Southern Baptists get together to argue, pass resolutions, and pretend that their denomination is not in numerical and moral free fall. What did we learn from the latest convention?

  • Southern Baptist love talking about sexual abuse, but don’t plan on doing anything meaningful to put an end to predators roaming the halls, sanctuaries, restrooms, and offices of their churches. Resolutions accomplish nothing. How about a national searchable database of pastors and other church leaders accused/convicted of sex crimes? How about excommunicating churches that hire or continue to employ pastors who have been accused/convicted of sex crimes? How about requiring annual comprehensive background checks on all pastors, church workers, and anyone who will come in contact with children? How about firing the executive board members who have protected criminals and covered up sex crimes? Nope, nope, nope on all of these things, yet we are expected to believe that Southern Baptists are really, really, really serious about sexual abuse THIS time.
  • Southern Baptists made it clear that they are opposed to teaching critical race theory (CRT). In doing so, it is hard to not conclude that Southern Baptists remain true to their racist roots.
  • Women will continue to be treated as second-class citizens.

Let me share with Pastor Davidson how Southern Baptists are viewed by outsiders:

  • Southern Baptists are anti-science
  • Southern Baptists are anti-abortion
  • Southern Baptists are anti-LGBTQ, anti-same-sex marriage
  • Southern Baptists are exclusivists, believing their sect’s doctrinal beliefs are the faith once delivered to the saints
  • Southern Baptists are culture warriors
  • Southern Baptists overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump, a godless, immoral man who caused great harm to our country
  • Southern Baptists hate atheists, humanists, and secularists (and Muslims, Catholics, Buddhists, and LGBTQ people)
  • Southern Baptists promote social policies that impede progress
  • Southern Baptists pine for the 1950s, the golden era of American life (gays were closeted, women stayed in the kitchen, and blacks knew their place)
  • Southern Baptists view their unbelieving neighbors strictly as targets for evangelization

Evangelicalism, of which the Southern Baptist Convention is a part, is the most hated sect in America. I have deliberately painted with a broad brush in this post. I know (so you don’t need to tell me) that what I write above doesn’t apply to all Southern Baptists everywhere. That said, the picture I painted accurately portrays how Outsiders view Southern Baptists (and Baptists in general). If Southern Baptists want to change how outsiders view them, they must change their beliefs and practices — and that ain’t going to happen. Fundamentalists control the denomination. It’s improbable that the Baptist Faith and Message will be revised, nor is there a chance in Heaven that conservatives will willingly relinquish their stranglehold on SBC boards, colleges, and institutions.

Davidson presents himself as a voice of reason, but he gives away his hand when he says:

The overwhelming number of us agreed that we do not want fine, godly, and good people to be divided by godless worldly philosophies that are designed to divide us, but to be united instead around the truth of the inerrancy and sufficiency of the Word of God.

Am I the only one who smells a Fundamentalist? Godless worldly philosophies? United around the truth of the inerrancy of the Bible? Davidson sounds like a Fundamentalist culture warrior. What next? Telling us that the earth is 6,023 years old? Believing that Bible is in any way “inerrant” ( an indefensible, irrational belief) allows Southern Baptists to continue to live in the dark ages. For all I know, Davidson may be a great guy, but his view of the SBC is out of touch with how things really are.

I am sure SBC faithful will view me as an ill-informed atheist. But marginalizing and dismissing people who are critical of the denomination only further serves to hasten their demise. Unless Southern Baptists recognize how out of touch they are with our culture and make the necessary course corrections, numerical and financial decline is sure to continue. While the SBC says it has 14 million members, over half of those card-carrying Southern Baptists are nowhere to be found on Sunday mornings. Baptismals are empty, used to store Christmas decorations. Older members are dying off and younger adults are fleeing in droves. These are facts, and thirty years from now, Fundamentalists will still be passing resolutions at the national convention, wondering what happened to their denomination. It’s too bad I won’t be around to tell Southern Baptists I told you so.

For the record: I attended several Southern Baptist churches as a child. I pastored a Southern Baptist church in Michigan, candidated at several Southern Baptist churches in West Virginia, and visited with my family a goodly number of Southern Baptist churches in Ohio, Michigan, Arizona, and California. Since deconverting in 2008, I have interacted with scores of ex-Southern Baptists (including pastors, evangelists, missionaries, and youth directors).

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen 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.

Your comments are welcome and appreciated. All first-time comments are moderated. Please read the commenting rules before commenting.

You can email Bruce via the Contact Form.

Dear “Concerned” Evangelicals Who Are Alarmed by Christian Nationalism

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christian nationalism

It seems that some Evangelical sects, pastors, and parachurch leaders are now aware of the fact that Evangelical churches are pastored by and filled with members holding racist, nationalist, white supremacist beliefs. Recent weeks have brought countless articles detailing Evangelicalism’s white supremacist and Christian nationalism problem. Shocker, right? While I appreciate high-profile exposure of these problems, I do chuckle a bit when Evangelical and secular authors alike express outrage over something they have just become aware of, acting like a pig who just found a truffle. They seem clueless of the fact that the alarming problems they see in Evangelicalism are not new, that racism, Christian nationalism, and white supremacist beliefs have been core Evangelical dogma for decades. I saw similar behavior when these same people expressed alarm and outrage over sexual abuse and coverup in Evangelical churches and colleges. I wanted to ask, “where the hell have you been?” This stuff has been going on in Evangelical and Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) churches my entire life. And for new readers who may not know my age, I am sixty-three years old. I have been around Jesus hanging on the cross a time or two.

On the same day I read several news stories about Evangelicals and their affinity for Christian nationalism, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) expelled two congregations for “affirming homosexual behavior” and two other churches for employing convicted sex offenders. Homophobia and pedophiles pastoring SBC churches? Who woulda thunk? The SBC is dying on the vine, a result ot its continued move to the right theologically, politically, and socially. Racism, misogyny, white supremacism, and Christian nationalism are common among Southern Baptists — the largest Evangelical sect in the United States. The same can be said of IFB churches and thousands and thousands of Evangelical congregations.

Long before I left the ministry, I was speaking out about these issues. By 2000, I made it clear to the people I pastored that politics had no place in the church. We were no longer going to be culture war warriors. Instead, we would focus on loving God and loving others, trying to present to the world a Christianity worth having. After I left the ministry in 2005, I continued to focus on the rot within Evangelicalism and continue to do so today.

Well-meaning Evangelicals think that they can “fix” Evangelicalism; if they work to root out bad actors that Jesus will once again bless Evangelical churches, people will get saved, and congregations will start growing again. This, however, is wishful thinking. The problems facing Evangelicalism are systemic. Unless Evangelicals are willing to rewrite the Bible or jettison many of their beliefs, I can’t imagine they will ever return to the glory days of the 1960s-1980s.

Evangelicals are one of the most hated religions in America for good reason. Thanks to the Internet and sites such as this one, Americans now know what goes on behind closed church doors. Evangelical churches and pastors can no longer hide their abhorrent beliefs and practices. The facade has been ripped away, exposing structural racism, misogyny, and homophobia — to name a few. I have published 800+ stories about Evangelical clergy sexual misconduct (and other criminal behavior) in the Black Collar Crime series. Former insiders are now telling their stories, revealing where the proverbial dead bodies are buried. From blogs to podcasts to social media, Evangelicalism is being assaulted on all sides. Their response? Whining, complaining, doubling down, and attacking their critics; anything but making systematic changes to their beliefs and practices.

I get it, Evangelicals believe the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, infallible word of God. They also tend to believe the Bible is a timeless text meant to be read and interpreted literally. To make systemic changes would mean abandoning these beliefs and admitting fallibility. Imagine Evangelicals ever admitting that the Bible is wrong, that its teachings cause psychological and physical harm, that the Bible — a man-made book — is in desperate need of an update. This is not going to happen, of course. Evangelicals, as they like to say, shall not be moved.

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As alarmed reporters and Evangelical leaders belatedly see the light, I hope they will take a hard look at core Evangelical beliefs and practices. I hope they will come to see that Evangelicalism is rotting from within and is in the advanced stages of decomposition. I hope they will see that the Christian nationalism they just stumbled upon was there all the time, that the events of January 6, 2021, were just the culmination of beliefs put into place by men such as Jerry Falwell forty years ago. Most of all, I hope they will see that racism and white nationalism have always been part and parcel of Evangelical Christianity. My God, read the history of the Southern Baptist Convention.

As a critic of Evangelicalism, I hope that increased scrutiny and exposure to the light will bring the sect to an ignoble end. Thoughtful, kind, loving Evangelicals will hopefully abandon the sect, taking their money with them. That alone will starve and kill the beast. We shall always have Fundamentalists among us. The best we can hope for is that they will once again be forced to the margins of life, that the power they have over our culture and political life will be broken. By all means, let them rage against sodomites, abortion, and libs from their clapboard church houses. We just won’t care. Until that day comes, we must do everything in our power to marginalize Evangelical beliefs. We must love Evangelicals but hate their beliefs. We are in a no-holds-barred battle for the future of our country. We owe it to our children and grandchildren to fight for a better tomorrow, one where Evangelicalism is little more than a toothless, lazy porch dog — all bark, no bite.

Bruce Gerencser, 67, lives in rural Northwest Ohio with his wife of 46 years. He and his wife have six grown children and sixteen 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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Black Collar Crime: Southern Baptist Teacher Brian Reed Accused of Sex Crimes

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brian reed old plank christian academy

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.

Brian Reed, a teacher at Old Plank Christian Academy in Jacksonville, Florida, was arrested last week and charged with lewd molestation, soliciting a minor via computer, and transmission of harmful materials to a minor. The alleged crimes occured in 2017 and 2018.

The school is a ministry of Old Plank Baptist Church — a Southern Baptist institution. Reed was fired a year ago after these allegations first came to light.

Channel 4-JAX reports:

According to a JSO arrest report, Reed is accused of initiating several video chats with the girl [age 13] in which he showed her he was masturbating. Reed also made lewd suggestions to the girl and asked her for nude photos via Facebook messenger, according to the report. He sent her a photo of himself with his private parts exposed, according to the report. Investigators noted in the report the photo appeared to be taken at the school where Reed worked.

Reed, 36, is also accused of groping the teen inside a locked gym at the school, according to JSO.

Old Plank Road Baptist Church pastor Larry McGinley issued the following statement (PDF file):

To The Old Plank Ministries Family And The Community,

The ministries of Old Plank Road Baptist Church are deeply saddened by the circumstances surrounding Brian Reed.

We are deeply concerned for the well-being, recovery and safety of the victim and her family.  We are in prayer for this precious family that the Lord will bring healing and help in this very difficult time.

We are praying for wisdom for the authorities that are handling this case.  From the moment this situation was brought to our attention, immediate and appropriate actions were taken by the ministries of Old Plank.  Utmost care and discretion have been practiced to protect the victim, her family, the students in our ministries, and the family of the accused. The ministries of Old Plank have and are currently fully cooperating with the agencies involved in this investigation.

Thank you and may God bless you.

Sincerely,

Larry McGinley, Pastor

Old Plank  Road Baptist Church

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