Megachurch Baptist Minister Drives 200 Miles to Have Sex With 13-Year-Old Girl
Sunday church news:
Joe Barron, minister for one of the largest Baptist churches in America, has resigned after being charged with online solicitation of a minor. Undercover officers posing as a 13-year-old girl communicated with the 52-year-old minister for about two weeks. The online conversations were sexual in nature, police said.
The minister had condoms and a webcam with him when arrested. The Dallas area Prestonwood Baptist Church has a membership of 26,000. He is at least the second minister to resign from this church because of a sex scandal.
Actually, I believe he was one of many ministers in this church–the church has dozens. He was not the lead pastor of the church.
Not that this excuses him of course. This is a church’s worst nightmare. This is a parent’s worst nightmare.
Prestonwood should at least be given credit for doing the right thing. They demanded Barron’s resignation, and then spoke openly and honestly about the scandal to the congregation. They didn’t run and hide from it, or try to cover it up. They cooperated with law enforcement. They didn’t make excuses for Barron, and they initiated some new hiring policies in the hopes of avoiding another situation like this in the future.
Church staff are susceptible to the same failings that are prevalent in society as a whole. The scandal of the Catholic Church’s clergy abuse cases were the cover-ups, the failure to take action against pedophile priests and instead moving them to a new parish, where they were sure to abuse again.
It seems the lead pastor of Prestonwood Baptist has learned that lesson and shown leadership to his congregation.
i would bet my last dollar this guy was a republican.
JTF,
You’re probably right, no Democrat would do crap like this.
Yep. Democrats never do this sort of thing.
Here you go William. Pick out yours.
Can anybody else guess which one William is guilty of, in just about every single post he puts up having to do with religious people?
I don’t know, but I know which one you are guilty of, because William did not present a conclusion.
No Bernie Ward?
Oh, that’s right. He was a liberal priest and popular radio talker in San Francisco. Easy to see how this escaped William’s all-seeing eye all the way back from earlier this month.
I think this site may have an inherent trait that the very origins of every article are written for a specific reason, as this is not a journalism blog, but more debate/opinion.
I don’t know William, but Glen’s assumption, while possibly wrong, is not an absurd or outlandish step to take, especially when considering some of the writings William has authored on this site.
Mr. Keats seems to be fond of pointing out what is said and not said, although there are many good assumptions to be made about intent/content through deductive reasoning. If one’s deductive reasoning has failed them, it is not necessarily the responsibility of the author to clarify, it’s just good manners or good spite to prove someone else wrong on their assumptions.
If one proclaims and laments the assumptions that have been made, but offers little or no clarification, there is also solid deductive reasoning to be done as to why….and the author will usually not like the conclusion, albeit their fault.
Does William care to explain his post and why Glen is wrong, or is Glen’s good deductive reasoning right on? I think most of us already know the answer.
William is William. End of story.
HB Keats, give me an effing break. You might be stupid, but you aren’t that stupid. Why would somebody, anybody search for an obscure story like this and post about it on this blog on a Sunday? Tell me why. This isn’t a national story. It isn’t even a local story. The damn thing happened in Dallas Texas. It has no other purpose than to create a false syllogism.
It really takes a sick person to sit around and scan the Internet for stories about fallen Baptist preachers.
Hypothetically, (since you are making me guess what the hell you are talking about) it could serve as an example that religious belief is not an indicator of moral integrity, without necessarily implying that all religious people are evil.