Category Archives: Books

THE BIG BOOK OF BAD BAPTIST PREACHERS

For years Jeri Massi has been cataloging the abusers and criminals who have plagued Baptist fundamentalism. She pulls no punches and takes no prisoners either on her blog on in her numerous books.

Her latest book, The Big Book of Bad Baptist Preachers: 100 Cases of Sex Abuse of Children and Exploitation of the Innocent, is a sort of rogues gallery of the worst of offenders from Ralph Lee Aaron to Franklin Wray.

Each entry is a couple pages long starting with a grid like this one:

grid

It’s worth pointing out that Jeri not only keeps tabs on the legal sentence but also catalogs whether the accused was disciplined by his church and whether a public warning was put out to other churches about their crimes This chart is then followed by a narrative with background and details about their particular case.

I’d recommend that any Baptist church out there grab a copy of this and compare the names to the people who may be attending their conferences, running camps their kids attend, or (God forbid) teaching or preaching at their own church. If you’re an abuser, you can run across state lines to a new church but Jeri is trying hard to make sure that you won’t be able to hide the truth for long.

I did get a free copy of this book from Jeri for promotional purposes but the review is my own — so back off, FTC.