Being branded a liar used to be the end of ones credibility in civil society. But it is not so these days. You can lie for years and then ask god for forgiveness and go right back to leading a church as if nothing happened. That’s what pastor Jim Moats did. He lied for years by claiming he was a Navy SEAL. His big mouth (or ego) finally caught up to him when a reporter interviewed him after Osama Bin Laden’s death and readers quickly discovered the fraud.
The follow-up post in the paper was pathetic.
After Osama bin Laden was killed, The Patriot-News reached out to find former Navy SEALs living in the midstate to tell our readers about life in that elite fighting force. Reporter Dan Miller, an Army veteran himself, was told the Rev. Jim Moats was a former SEAL, interviewed him and wrote the story for Saturday’s paper. It didn’t take long for some readers to label Moats a fraud.
Moats was no SEAL, he just claimed to be one so that his congregation would look up to him.
I love stories like this. Nobody gets hurt here. There are no victims and no trials. I don’t even have to follow the case. Pastor Moats is a liar. He’s admitted it. It is what happens next that will determine if Pastor Jim Moats is a man of honor or, as I suspect, not. If Pastor Moats is a “True Christian” he will do the right thing and resign from the Christian Bible Fellowship Church in Newville, Pa (Cache).
Why am I asking for his resignation? It’s simple really. I believe in holding pastors to the biblical standard for leadership as specified in 1 Timothy 3.
3:1 The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. 2 Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, 3 not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. 4 He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, 5 for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? 6 He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. 7 Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.
Pastors and bible believing Christians throw the bible around as if it were the literal word of god, yet when they fall, they tend to forget the parts of the bible that hold church leadership accountable. Jim Moats has brought shame to himself, his church, and his god. The Bible says he is no longer qualified to lead. What’s taking so long?
This is no simple lie. The article that started off the whole escapade goes into detail about how becoming a SEAL shaped his life.
“I had almost no discipline. I was as wild as they came. That was my nemesis,” Moats said. “They weren’t looking for a guy who brags to everyone he is a SEAL. They wanted somebody who was ready but had an inner confidence and didn’t have a braggadocio attitude.”
It was lies built on lies. He claimed all this happened during the Vietnam War, only he never saw action in the war, not one little bit. And his whole decision to become a pastor instead of staying in to serve his country as a SEAL, that was a lie too. It’s all lies. How is that what a pastor should be? How is a man like this leading a church? He has no honor.
Pastor Jim Moats – I hereby call on you to resign as a pastor. What say you?
