CLEVELAND (OH)
Plain Dealer
Friday, January 07, 2005
Kaye Spector
Plain Dealer Reporter
The Affinity Missionary Baptist Church executive board voted Thursday to fire its pastor, Ronald E. Maxwell.
The recommendation will be brought to the congregation for a vote Feb. 2.
Maxwell and some members of the executive board have been locked in a struggle for control of the church for months following revelations that the pastor had an affair with a congregation member he had been counseling.
The relationship between Maxwell and the board had so deteriorated that after voting to fire Maxwell, the board agreed to bar him from the church building, change the church locks, seize church records, its copier and computer codes and suspend the office staff.
When executive board members arrived for the 7:30 p.m. meeting, they were greeted by Maxwell and two sheriff's deputies, who had been summoned to keep out the media.
The board quickly voted 16-7 to allow the media into the meeting, said board member Pauline Tarver, a Cleveland Municipal Court judge.
Posted by kshaw at January 8, 2005 04:55 AM