Results tagged “pastor”

After fending off a legal battle from dissenting congregants who sought to block his installation, Riverside Church pastor Dr. Brad Braxton has decided to step down after all. His critics had objected to what they perceived as an extravagant $600,000 compensation package and worried that Braxton was moving the church away from its traditionally progressive agenda to a more conservative religious attitude. Braxton, a Baptist minister and former Rhodes scholar, had sought to style himself as "progressive evangelical," but in the end seemed unable to unite the congregation. In his resignation letter, obtained by the Times, he wrote that "the congregation has struggled publicly for decades about the kind of church that it should be and the kind of pastor who should be its voice. In recent months, these struggles have created a level of antagonism within the congregation that undermines the community’s efforts to embody harmony in the name of Jesus Christ. The consistent discord has made it virtually impossible to establish a fruitful covenant between the congregation and me."

An Episcopal pastor on Staten Island is accused of turning the other cheek to a plastic surgeon and paying for the procedures with church money. According to SI Live, Rev. William Blasingame, 66, the now-resigned pastor of St. Paul's Memorial Episcopal Church in Stapleton, is accused of stealing over $80,000 during a three-year period starting in January 2005. Authorities say Blasingame used the money to pay for botox injections and face lifts (see his picture), as well as a club membership, car insurance, fancy clothes, and unspecified drugs. The larceny was discovered after church elders began double-checking church finances and noticed suspicious withdraws from two funds: one that was supposed to cover the maintenance and beautification of the church's grounds, and the other to provide small amounts of cash to parishioners in need. But don't parishioners also need a good-looking pastor? The D.A. doesn't think so; Blasingame's been charged with felonies punishable by up to 15 years in prison.