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Jonathan Elwing

Southern Baptist Pastor Arrested On Child Pornography

The bad publicity of the Southern Baptist Convention is not going away. After a disastrous annual meeting where the messengers voted against banning female pastors. Now a pastor has been arrested on four counts of possession of child pornography. Jonathan Elwing, the (now former) pastor of Palm View Baptist Church has been arrested.

According to Newsweek:

The Manatee County Sheriff’s Office said that Jonathan Edward Elwing, a 43-year old senior pastor of Palm View Baptist Church in Palmetto, Florida, was charged with four counts of possession of child sexual abuse images.

The arrest comes after detectives with the sheriff’s office received information on Thursday that Elwing used cryptocurrency to make an online purchase of the images.

According to the sheriff’s office’s press release, when authorities executed a search warrant on Friday at Elwing’s home and church, deputies said they found four “sexually explicit photos of children” on his cellphone.

Before Elwing was arrested, he resigned from his job, the sheriff’s office’s press release said. Elwing is now being held at the Manatee County Jail without bond.

Palm View Baptist Church has not yet released a statement, although they have publicly acknowledged the arrest.

Elwing was a leader in the Conservative Baptist Network’s Florida chapter.

“Upon learning of this news, he was immediately removed from the Network,” Timothy Pigg, the network director, said in an announcement.

What’s notable is how he thought that it wasn’t an obvious sting operation because he allegedly purchased it with cryptocurrency.

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