Faithless “Pastors” and Racially-Motivated Liars

This is one of those stories that sticks in my gut and invokes real feelings of disgust and moral outrage.

First of all, our nation’s law enforcement officers deserve our thanks. They are putting themselves out there, every day, standing as a bulwark between the lawless and the average citizen in our communities.

Are there bad actors who make it through the screening process and into the ranks?

There absolutely are, but those are an exception, not the rule. Of this, I am convinced.

Thanks to former President Barack “They acted stupidly” Obama and his sneering disregard for the police, we’ve had a few years of really bad publicity for those in law enforcement. Some of it has been self-inflicted. Most of it has not.

Here’s another thing that happens that shouldn’t.

People of color are “profiled.” People of color have gotten a raw deal in this nation. There’s no sense in acting as if it’s all in their heads. History tells us it is not.

Now let’s consider this: Every time a police officer, in the course of doing his or her job interacts with a person of color, it is not an act of racism or profiling.

With all that in mind, I present to you the case of Jarrod Moultrie, the NAACP president for Timmonsville, South Carolina.

On the evening of April 13, Moultrie was pulled over for a traffic violation.

These things are annoyances, and most of us who drive have probably had that unfortunate experience.

What makes Moultrie’s experience different is that he made his way home, afterwards, and went straight to social media to tell his tale of racial profiling.

“TONIGHT I WAS RACIALLY PROFILED by Timmonsville Officer CAUSE I WAS DRIVING A MERCEDES BENZ AND GOING HOME IN A NICE NEIGHBORHOOD,” Jarrod Moultrie posted on Facebook April 13.

Timmonsville Police Officer Chris Miles was assisted by a South Carolina Highway state trooper during the stop for failure to signal a turn.

According to Moultrie, Miles asked him if he had any drugs in the car, where he worked, who was the owner of the car and why he was in the neighborhood.

“Me: sir I am a pastor and I live in the house on the left,” the post reads. “Officer: And I guess I am the bill gates.”

Back up. Catch that important part.

He (Moultrie) claims to be a pastor.

This is where it becomes of a particular interest to me. Were I to hear no more, even if I find the boastful nature of Moultrie’s Facebook post to be in poor taste, I would be inclined to give the word of a pastor – a man of God – more weight.

This man of God was racially profiled! Outrageous!

Thankfully, Officer Miles was wearing a bodycam, so everything that happened during the stop was on video. The case would be ironclad! His treachery would be made public, as it should be!

Indeed, Moultrie said in his post that the Timmonsville Police Department would be hearing from him the next day, and apparently, he made good on that.

Timmonsville Police Chief Billy Brown said that Moultrie did contact him, saying he’d been profiled and treated badly, so he reviewed the bodycam footage, to get the full story.

He was shocked by what he saw.

The “pastor” lied.

In the video, Miles identifies himself with Timmonsville police and asks for Moultrie’s license, registration and proof of insurance.

As Moultrie is unfolding paperwork, the officer asks, “Now you don’t own the motor vehicle?”

“Yes, sir, I just transferred,” Moultrie replied as he hands him what appears to be a receipt for the vehicle.

The officer repeats Moultrie’s statement about transferring tags and then asks for Moultrie’s name as he hands him the registration for the previous vehicle. Then the officer asks for Moultrie’s license and tells him why he stopped him.

“The reason I’m coming in contact with you is that whenever you took that left right here, you didn’t signal. Okay. That’s the only reason I’m coming in contact with you. Okay?”

The footage further shows Officer Miles returning to his own car to check Moultrie’s registration, and finding that it doesn’t belong to a Mercedes Benz, but to a 1992 GMC Sierra.

When the officer returns to Moultrie’s car, he tells him to try to not drive the car until he has the proper registration, the body camera footage shows.

When Moultrie tells Miles he bought the car recently and switched the tags, the officer interrupts him to say he needs to go to a DMV in South Carolina to ask why the tags are still registered to the truck.

“I switched the tags from the truck to the car,” Moultrie told the officer, while gesturing to the receipt of the Mercedes.

“They told me a DMV—the dealer put that on there, that showed the tags gonna be transferred. And all I need to do is keep this registration in there and this bill that’s here.”

“They told you wrong,” the officer responded. “You’ve got to have the proper documentation in your motor vehicle that actually matches the car that you’re operating on South Carolina highways.”

So far, everything sounds by the book.

Then, there’s that last, horrific twist:

Officer Miles hands Moultrie his license, tells him to wear his seatbelt and drive safely.

Hey, maybe it’s just me, but I missed the part about asking about drugs, or anything that would appear to be racially charged. Or even anything that would indicate that Moultrie was “treated badly,” as he told Chief Brown and those who read his Facebook post.

Now, let’s back up again. This is where I remind you that the man claims to be a pastor.

It would appear that he’s a “pastor” in the same vein as “Reverend” Al Sharpton or “Reverend” Jesse Jackson.

Both of those gentlemen (I’m being really freehearted with that word) have manipulated that term, “reverend,” in order to enrich themselves, through the years.

Moultrie is another misery pimp, using the office of pastor as a tool of influence over the black community.

As a president of the NAACP, his job is less about helping the black community and more about holding power by making people of color feel powerless.

He put his politics over the Word of God, but I would challenge Sharpton, Jackson, or Moultrie to square their actions with what the Word of God says.

Proverbs 19:9 AMP – “A false witness will not go unpunished, And he who breathes lies will perish.”

Psalm 101:7 NKJV – “He who works deceit shall not dwell within my house;
He who tells lies shall not continue in my presence.”

Exodus 20:16 AMP – “You shall not testify falsely [that is, lie, withhold, or manipulate the truth] against your neighbor (any person).”

That’s any person, Mr. Moultrie, including police officers that stop you for some minor traffic infraction.

Chief Brown expressed his dismay over Moultrie’s attempted deception.

“When I saw the video, I was shocked that someone who is supposed to be a community leader, a pastor, and head of the NAACP would just come out and tell a blatant lie,” Brown said to the news station.

“It bothered me. It really bothered me, thinking about the racial unrest it could’ve cost in the community and it’s just troubling to me that someone who held a position like that would come out and just tell a lie.”

It should bother you.

It should bother everybody, no matter their station in life or their race.

It should particularly bother people of faith, because this was a man claiming to be a leader and a teacher of the Word uttering a falsehood against another human being, and for the sole purpose of causing racial unrest.

“Pastors,” like Moultrie, Sharpton, and Jackson benefit when there is no peace or racial harmony. That they’re using God as a cover for their treachery is disgusting.

From Sharpton’s Tawana Brawley lies (and subsequent lawsuit loss for defamation) in the late 80s, to Jesse Jackson’s adulteries and shake-down tactics of companies around the nation, these men continue to prove there is no God in their lives, except for the gods of money and power.

They disgrace the cause of the cross, and damage the fellowship of grace that is for all God’s children, no matter their race or social standing, through their actions.

There is a certain, wicked element in the world today, passing itself off as legitimate theology. Without naming it outright, or the now-lost purveyor of this filth, it posits that God is not the God of all people. He is only the god of the “oppressed,” or He is no god, at all.

The true God of the Christian faith is the God of all who will come and accept Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. He is not concerned with our politics, but only our hearts. His joy is in seeing His children – no matter their outward appearance or lot in life – embrace each other in community.

We have all been given a path to walk, and we have been warned that there will be troubles in this world. What we experience won’t always be the same. None of that matters if we walk, in spite of the world, to meet at the cross.

And this is why what Moultrie did disgusts me, so thoroughly. He was proud to speak up and call himself “pastor,” but he did so during the course of a lie, meant to break people apart, not to draw people together.

Repent, Mr. Moultrie.