BENTON, Ark. (ABP) – The Arkansas Parole Board is reportedly postponing a decision about whether to release a convicted sex offender after two years of a 10-year prison term for sexual abuse of multiple boys while a longtime music minister at a prominent Baptist church.
David Pierce
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Local media report that a decision on a Nov. 15 parole hearing for David Pierce, former music minister at First Baptist Church in Benton, Ark., will be delayed until 2012 so authorities can consider “additional information.” The board was expected to decide Nov. 30 whether to release Pierce from the Randall L. Williams Correctional Facility in Pine Bluff, Ark.
Pierce pleaded guilty in August 2009 to four counts of sexual indecency with a child involving three young men who said Pierce convinced them as teenagers to expose their genitals as part of a “Four S” accountability exercise to chart their spiritual, social, scholastic and sexual development. (This news link contains graphic details of alleged acts.)
Pierce was originally charged with 54 counts of sexual indecency with multiple boys involved in youth choirs during his 29 years as music minister at the 2,500-member congregation affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, but he accepted a plea bargain rather than stand trial.
While he was awaiting sentencing, an inch-thick stack of letters flooded into the Saline County prosecutor’s office urging leniency for the beloved and trusted church staff member.
One of Pierce’s victims, who blogs at Descent From Darkness, said his senior pastor was “in over his head” when confronted with the allegations.
“He didn't know how to deal with the situation, and the Southern Baptist Convention is completely inadequate in providing churches with the means to properly address accusations of this magnitude,” the blogger said.
The SBC Executive Committee studied the feasibility of establishing a database of ministers confessed, convicted or credibly accused of sexual abuse in 2007-2008 but rejected the idea saying the denomination lacked authority to require reporting by churches.
The recent arrest of a longtime minister at a Southern Baptist church in Mississippi decades after abuse allegations against him went unreported to police and an abuse scandal in the Penn State athletics department have prompted some SBC leaders to issue a “wake up call” about safeguarding children in Baptist churches.
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Bob Allen is managing editor of Associated Baptist Press.
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