The Pulpit Protected Him: Identify The Problem, Notice The Pattern, Change It

Timothy Price III pleaded guilty in 2007 and 2008 to sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl. Decades later he was pastoring First Baptist Church City of St. Louis, and this month he was one signature away from becoming Missouri's state overseer for a national Black Baptist fellowship — authority over other pastors, other congregations, other children. Nobody inside the structure stopped it. Independent abuse-survivor advocates did. The method for a story like this is always the same three steps: identify the problem, notice the pattern, change it. We are Source. Notice the pattern. Interrupt it. Ashay.

Identify The Problem, Notice The Pattern, Change It — The Structure That Protected Him

Surface story: Episode 30 covers how a registered sex offender rose to pastor one of the country's most historic Black churches and nearly got promoted again to a state overseer role. Deeper pattern: this isn't one bad man who fooled good people — it's a structure with no standardized background-check requirement at every promotion, where redemption theology gets used as a bypass instead of sitting alongside real accountability. The method for a story like this is always the same three steps. Identify the problem: name plainly what happened, without softening it — Timothy Price III pleaded guilty in 2007 and 2008 to sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl, and decades later he was one signature away from becoming Missouri's state overseer for a national Black Baptist fellowship, with authority over other pastors, other congregations, other children. Notice the pattern: the structure had no standardized background-check requirement at every promotion (not just initial ordination), and redemption theology was used as a bypass instead of sitting alongside real accountability. Nobody inside the structure stopped it — independent abuse-survivor advocates did. Change it: mandatory background checks at every promotion (not just initial ordination), survivor-centered reporting channels independent of church leadership, and redemption that doesn't erase consequence — a person can be forgiven and still permanently barred from unsupervised authority. None of it happens on its own. It happens when members ask their own churches, plainly, whether these policies exist, and refuse to accept 'we trust our leadership' as a full answer.

These questions are meant to be sat with, not answered quickly. The method for a story like this is always the same three steps: identify the problem, notice the pattern, change it. We are Source. Notice the pattern. Interrupt it. Ashay.

1. Timothy Price III pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a 12-year-old girl, and decades later was one signature away from authority over other pastors, other congregations, other children. What does it mean that nobody inside the structure stopped it?
2. This isn't one bad man who fooled good people — it's a structure with no standardized background-check requirement at every promotion, where redemption theology gets used as a bypass. What structures in your own institutions rely on trust instead of verification?
3. A person can be forgiven and still permanently barred from unsupervised authority. What would it mean for your community to hold both of those things at once — redemption that doesn't erase consequence?

Community voices gathering.

Pathways being curated.

Ask the Question Out Loud — Identify, Notice, Change

This is the practice itself, distilled from Episode 30. The method is always the same three steps: identify the problem, notice the pattern, change it. We are Source. Notice the pattern. Interrupt it. Ashay.

The campaign for this episode is concrete: ask your own church, plainly, whether mandatory background checks at every promotion and survivor-centered reporting channels independent of church leadership exist; refuse to accept 'we trust our leadership' as a full answer; and support independent abuse-survivor advocacy organizations, since they are the ones who stopped this when the structure did not. Notice the pattern. Interrupt it. Ashay.

Four pathways forward. Which one calls to you?