Pastor Who Denounced Godless Immorality Arrested for Grooming Underage Girl

Almost exactly a month ago, Joseph Krol, a pastor at Rochester First Baptist Church in Rochester, Illinois, delivered a sermon about how “ungodly” people suffer from an “absence of moral restraint.” You can see in the clip below that he also says ungodly people “defile the flesh.”

The message was clear: If you’re truly devout, you should have nothing to worry about. And Krol appeared to be very devout. In addition to working as a pastor in Rochester, after a stint as pastor of Galilee Baptist Church in Decatur, he was also a Christian radio host at WLUJ in central Illinois.

This guy absolutely loves Jesus.

Almost as much, it turns out, as he loves sexting with 15-year-old girls.

According to an affidavit, Krol reached out to a minor via Snapchat earlier this month… but after things took a sexual turn, the victim alerted her parents, who alerted law enforcement, who soon took over the girl’s account.

“(She) allowed me to take over her Snapchat account and act as her while conversing with Krol,” said [Macon County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Roger] Pope in the affidavit. “During our conversations, Krol requested photos of (the girl) in her underwear. Unsolicited, he sent her Snapchat a video (showing the outline of his genitalia). He also asked her sexually explicit questions about … her fantasies to include her interest in older men.”

Pope said Krol tried to be careful and, believing he was speaking to the girl, would ask her to pan the room with her phone camera so that he could be sure no one else was present. He would then send her sexually explicit content.

Krol was arrested on Friday on a charge of grooming. He remained in jail as of Monday.

Not helping his case? The fact that, when officers knocked on his door on Friday, they saw him through the window quickly trying to reset his phone to factory settings — perhaps hoping to delete all the information on there — though that was useless since the police already had all the evidence they needed.

His church issued a brief statement on the home page of their website over the weekend:

We as a church are grieved to learn of this allegation involving Dr. Krol. Because we take this seriously, we have immediately suspended Dr. Krol from all responsibilities.

We have great concern and are in prayer for all affected by the situation and will cooperate with any law enforcement investigation.

Krol was hired over the summer, so it’s entirely possible no one there knew him all that well. Still, this should make for an interesting sermon illustration: The guy who surrounded himself with Jesus was, in fact, covering up for his own immorality while trashing people who openly rejected his God.

As the rest of us have been saying forever, godliness and goodness aren’t necessarily connected.

(via The Roys Report)