SiubhanDuinne sends this gem to start your day:
A 46-year-old minister pleaded guilty Wednesday in federal court in Savannah to a wire fraud scheme in which he stole at least $200,000 from the church where he was the pastor.
[…]At the same time, Terrell also is awaiting trial on charges that he molested a young Effingham County boy who attended New Harvest with his family, according to the Savannah Morning News.The Savannah newspaper also reported that Terrell has been accused of molesting another child and he has been charged with multiple counts of drunken driving, drug offenses, burglary, forgery, criminal trespass, obstruction and disorderly conduct.
I have to be away from a computer this morning and the shakes are already starting, so you’re on your own. Consider this an open thread.
billgerat
Which church? The Church of Satan?
Ash Can
This boy has a future in GOP politics. Anyone who can convince his followers to keep him on as their pastor through all of that has some serious bullshitting talent.
kerFuFFler
Pretty much what you could expect in effing Effingham…
Mark-NC
Ditto Ash Can. Sounds like a perfect guy for the Repukes to recruit. He has all of their morals, values, and integrity – NONE!
p.a.
Let us now all predict his line of defense at trial.
A shame it’s not on DVD, but does anyone remember Frank’s Place and Rev. Deal’s confession to his church members?
“I have (insert crime/sin here) but Jesus loves me!”
“I have…but Jesus loves me!”
“I have…But Jesus loves me!“
ppcli
He’ll remain a viable Republican presidential candidate, as long as he remembers to tell people that he was driven to the theft of church money, child molestation, drunken driving, drug offenses, burglary, forgery, criminal trespass, obstruction and disorderly conduct because he just loves America so much.
Ken
A man of the cloth, indeed. I’m sure that he did it all for their good.
Ken
A man of the cloth, indeed. I’m sure that he did it all for their good.
Gina
@ppcli: Plus, he’s a white guy.
alwhite
There is a case just this week of a Lutheran Pastor in MN that is charged with embezzling $500k from his church. He also had the church install bullet-proof glass in his house & buy him a gun! He did say he forgives his parish though so there is that.
1800 years – that has to be the longest con ever run.
LGRooney
Before I pass judgment, I will have to hear what Jesus told the 10 y.o. boy. Higher authority and all that…
hells littlest angel
There’s a reason some people go for a religion that explicitly promises to forgive their
sinscrimes. Its leaders are the real grifters — they want forgiveness and a paycheck.c u n d gulag
Wow!
How could a guy like this not have his own church TV show?
Jamey: Bike Commuter of the Gods
In man-of-the-cloth parlance, what Terrell did is known as “batting for the cycle.”
lonesomerobot
He must have been going with the old ‘you can’t learn about sin from someone who never lived it themselves’ schtick. Just goes to show that the church is a great place to go to turn over a new leaf, especially when you don’t have any intention of actually doing so.
ruleoflaw
Poor guy apparently doesn’t have a powerful hierarchy of bishops, archbishops and cardinals to make all those nasty charges go away and get him a new gig in another state.
Francis of Assisi is spinning in his venerated casket.
BerkeleyMom
It’s clear all this minister needs is to be moved to another church.
LGRooney
@lonesomerobot: Unless there’s a child trapped under said leaf.
Anyone reminded of Emo Phillips and the stolen bike?
lonesomerobot
@LGRooney: I thought that was Pee Wee’s Big Adventure…
Tonybrown74
Well, there you have it. If you want to protect your children, Ladies and Gentlemen, keep them away from church.
Winston Smith
Is “Effingham” a polite way of saying “Fuckingham”?
Odie Hugh Manatee
Religion is just a cover for grifters to fleece their flocks and make an easy living off of them by telling them what they want to hear and not what they need to hear. I don’t care what good the devout claim they represent, they are enablers of the worst sort. They justify what they believe because some sky guy told them it was good and the suckers suck it up while shoveling the cash out.
I woke up to the reality of religion when I was 14 and said goodbye to the Catholic church. All I saw was lying and hypocrisy all around me. Sin all week and ask for forgiveness on the weekend and BAM!, all is good for the next week.
Jeebus squeezers are just nuts in an apocalyptic death cult.
piratedan
one of the comments on the Cats of War segment had this nugget that I just had to share
I know, right? First the birth certificate, now this. You know why they’re not releasing the bin Laden pics? Their Adobe licence expired and Congress won’t raise the debt ceiling so it can be renewed. Commies!
Muley Graves
It’s not gay if you’re on top.
Aside from the kid fucking, this guy sounds like he would be a LOT of fun to party with.
LGRooney
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Not much argument from me but I left the Presby fold around the same time and wandered through the Pentecostal, Catholic, AoG, Episcopalian halls until I figured out a few years later, by the time HS had ended, that it was all BS or, as I have said diplomatically for years, “Not for me.”
I had friends who tried to turn me on to other forms of BS but having read multiple varieties of the words of god, the philosophies, the superstitions, etc., I found I was just looking for something that was never lost but had been merely shoveled into my head from my first days.
The visceral nature of my aversion to religion leads many to believe that something bad must have happened and that’s why I am so angry but I can honestly say that I am a much happier person without the attachment and there is nothing more to my ostensible anger than embarrassment at whom I once claimed to be and the gullibility of my child self.
As for the sin all week, forgive on the weekend attitude, that is exactly what I meant in my Emo Phillips reference.
Joseph Nobles
Yes! My quest to make What Would Joseph Nobles Do a meme has taken a giant leap forward!
Odie Hugh Manatee
@LGRooney:
Same here, nothing bad happened to me either, I just eventually saw my religion for what it really is ; a way to justify biases, to enable horrible behavior and then excuse it.
For profit. Maybe there was a problem in translating the old languages and that “prophet” was really spelled “profit”.
David Moyes
I always find it humorous to read the comments of people who, claiming to espouse a politics of justice and compassion, tar all Christians in precisely the same way that teatards do Muslims. Are you not aware that there are millions of Christians who actually try to live according to the Sermon on the Mount and who don’t vote GOP? Do you think people like Obama and Biden are just straight up lying about their faith?
But what is especially galling is the kind of hubristic, confrontational atheism that is only understandable (but still not acceptable) when it comes from 14-year-olds. If you think that all believers are ipso facto stupid, then you clearly just have no understanding of what they actually believe. Do you really think you’re smarter than professional theologians? Maybe you just don’t understand the distinction between religion and superstition. I imagine that many of you, failing to grasp the distinction, will just baldly assert that there is none. That would be a move straight out of the movement conservative playbook.
And the Catholic-bashing is just ridiculous. Where would the Democratic Party be without Catholics? Where will the Democratic Party be if it insists on alienating good Catholics like Bob Casey, Jr. and basically forces Catholics to choose between a party that completely rejects the Church’s Social Doctrine and a party that refuses to even let pro-life voices join the conversation? Do you really think the Democrats won’t eventually lose a big portion of the Latino vote?
But I gather that some of you just enjoy feeling like you’re part of some select, enlightened minority. I used to think it was strange when teatards bashed “elitists” who are anything but elite, and offered the explanation that “elitism” was more about an attitude than about actual success. But now it doesn’t seem so strange to me. It is wild to witness smugness and a sense of intellectual superiority from people who are every bit as intellectually rigid as Palin and only slightly less illiterate. Having your life changed by having read some poorly argued pop-philosophy that mocks a caricature of religious belief is just as absurd as having your life changed by reading Rand.
Grow up.