Baptist Pastor Plea Bargains Away 50 of 54 Sexual Abuse Charges

I am relentless on the hypocrisy of the Roman Catholic Church for the hypocrisy with which it has tried to shrug off the sex abuse scandal and shielded members of the hierarchy from being held accountable for their misdeeds, cover ups, and enabling of sexual predator priests. The Catholic Church, is not alone in such hypocrisy and crocodile tears as evidenced by this story involving a Baptist pastor, Greg Kirksey, who previously headed up the Arkansas Baptist State Convention and urged leniency on a repeat sexual abuser. The man Kirksey defended is David Pierce (pictured above), the music minister at First Baptist Church in Benton, Arkansas. Benton was on trial for multiple cases of sexually abusing boys. Here is some commentary from Stop Baptist Predators:

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Last week in Arkansas, the longtime music minister at a prominent Southern Baptist church pled guilty to 4 counts of sexual indecency with children. It was a plea bargain deal. He had been charged on 54 counts.

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David Pierce was the music minister at First Baptist of Benton for 29 years, and he preyed on trust-filled boys during much of that time. The prosecutor said there were “many” who claimed to have been victimized by Pierce “during the past two decades,” but that the statute of limitations had run on many of the claims.So, the four charges on which Pierce pled guilty are just the tip of the iceberg. Even the 54 counts on which he was criminally charged are just the tip of the iceberg.

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Then there’s the clincher -- the part that really gets me. Pierce says, “It was never my intention to hurt anyone.”Yeah. I believe that. Pierce’s intent was focused solely on himself. On his own sexual gratification and on the perverse satisfaction he got from controlling others through religious manipulation. But the boys themselves -- those other human beings who were in front of him -- they were irrelevant to Pierce.For Pierce, those boys weren’t soul-filled human beings at all. He didn’t respect their humanity. He simply used their bodies to serve his own ends.

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But of course, Pierce isn’t alone in his denial. The denial of Pierce the perpetrator is supported by the denial of other leaders in the faith community. The church’s former pastor, Greg Kirksey, who was also a 2-term president of the Arkansas Baptist State Convention, wrote a letter to the judge, asking for “leniency” and essentially telling the judge that Pierce should “not be sentenced to prison.”

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You have to wonder whether Kirksey would ever make the same request for a non-clergy child molester. “Please, Judge, no prison time for this admitted child molester.” How many times do you think Kirksey has done that? Did he do it this time because Pierce was a fellow Baptist minister?

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And here’s what Rick Grant, the church’s current pastor, told the press, “It is hard to see someone you’ve known for years as a friend, mentor and colleague end up in this kind of circumstance.”There it is again -- that minimizing word -- “circumstance.” . . . Pastor Grant still doesn’t get it, does he? That’s what all those boys were trying to do. They were striving to follow God’s will, as it was maliciously brainwashed into them by one of pastor Grant’s staff ministers.

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In my view, it looks like Richard Land and similar homophobes at the Southern Baptist Convention need to focus on cleaning their own house before waisting time trying to keep law abiding gays second class citizens.