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	Another Baptist Minister Arrested, Charged with Child Sex Exploitation By Greg Warner Associated Baptist Press February 26, 2007 http://www.abpnews.com/1780.article Camden, S.C. (ABP) — Another Southern Baptist minister has been arrested on child sex-abuse charges, this time for sending pornographic photos of himself to what he thought was a 14-year-old girl. Kevin Ogle, 42, pastor of Northgate Colonial Baptist Church in Camden, S.C., had an on-line relationship for three months with an undercover police officer in the Internet predator unit of the Loganville (Ga.) Police Department, a small town 200 miles west, police say. "We knew he was a pastor and that he was from South Carolina, but he was very smart about being elusive and we had difficulty tracking him down," Sgt. Mike Westbrooks of the Logansville Police Department, told the Loganville Tribune. "We eventually solicited the help of the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division through the Georgia Bureau of Investigations, and that's how we identified him." Ogle was arrested Feb. 20 and charged with 11 counts of sexual exploitation of a child. Police cited 13 on-line sexually explicit encounters between Ogle and the undercover officer. Police said he has chosen not to fight extradition to Georgia. "We got really lucky on this one," Westbrooks said. "And we believe he has probably been doing this for some time. In one of the conversations he had with us over the Internet, he disclosed that he had been a youth pastor at a church some time back and had been in love with a 12-year-old girl. He never would say why, but he did confess that he had to leave that church." The Southern Baptist Convention has been under pressure in recent months to stop sexual predators in the 16 million-member denomination. Victims advocates are calling for a nationwide investigation, particularly into allegations that church officials perpetuate abuse by covering up sex offenses of ministers. SBC leaders have expressed sympathy but insist enforcement efforts, such as a national registry of offenders, is impractical given the autonomy of local congregations and the lack of a denominational hierarchy. Recent sex-abuse scandals in Tennessee, Missouri, Oklahoma and Kentucky have revealed a number of Baptist churches led by ministers accused of abuse. In the largest case of its kind ever in Missouri, a music minister was sentenced to 20 years in prison for many counts of sexual abuse against children in churches spread across Missouri and Kentucky. At the 25,000-member Bellevue Baptist Church in Cordova, Tenn., a longtime assistant pastor was dismissed after admitting to sexually molesting his young son. Last year, an SBC Executive Committee leader was arrested in Oklahoma City for offering to have sex with a male undercover police officer. Police arrested Lonnie Latham, pastor of South Tulsa Baptist Church in Tulsa, Okla., on a charge of offering to engage in a lewd act. Latham, who supported SBC efforts to get gays to renounce their sexual attractions, resigned from the church and the powerful Executive Committee. Ogle, who is married and has two sons, attended Fruitland Baptist Bible Institute, a conservative Bible school in Hendersonville, N.C., whose most famous graduate is Atlanta megachurch pastor Charles Stanley. Ogle's Camden congregation held an emergency meeting after the pastor's arrest, later announcing its members were united in their determination not to let the situation destroy the 106-member church. Church members and neighbors expressed shock at Ogle's arrest but said they will forgive the pastor if he is indeed guilty. "He is just like a brother," said Mike Clifton, chairman of deacons. "He loves his church, and he loves his family."
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