Church letter of support for pastor-predator

[Joanne98]

In Indiana, a Southern Baptist pastor pled guilty to child sex crimes and his sentencing hearing is set for April 8th.

Daniel Moore, shown in the photo, was the pastor of New Whiteland Baptist Church in Franklin, Indiana. He was arrested about a year ago, but to this day, the church website still lists him as “pastor.”

However, since his arrest, he has actually been attending Calvary Baptist Church, which is in nearby Greenwood, Indiana.

The two churches are both affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.

Now, in anticipation of Moore’s April 8th hearing, the pastor, ministers and deacons of Calvary Baptist have written a letter to the judge, apparently in the hope that it might influence the judge to impose a lesser sentence on Moore.

The letter is signed by Dr. Ernest E. James (senior pastor), Rev. Andy Rardin (minister of students), Rev. David Tripp (minister of music), an interim ministerial staff-person, and eight other men who are apparently deacons.

The letter in its entirety is set out below, and you can see the original of it on church letterhead with the court’s file-stamp here.

When Moore was first arrested, a woman in Franklin was quoted in the news report as saying, “I think it’s really scary to live across the street from a church with a reverend there that’s doing anything like that.”

Scary, indeed.

But I imagine it might also be “scary” for the people of Greenwood if they realized that, despite the serious charges against Daniel Moore in Franklin and despite his guilty plea on March 4th, he was nevertheless allowed to move among them “anonymously.”

Yet, this is what the leaders of Calvary Baptist Church clearly state in their letter to the judge. They declare that, at their invitation, Daniel Moore worshipped among them “quietly, humbly and essentially anonymously.”

Continued>>>>
http://stopbaptistpredators.blogspot.com/2010/04/church-letter-of-support-for-pastor.html