Backlog: Shepherd fleeces flock, then writes a book

Many pastors have destroyed my vineyard, they have trodden my portion under foot, they have made my pleasant portion a desolate wilderness. Jeremiah 12:10

Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the Lord.
Therefore thus saith the Lord God of Israel against the pastors that feed my people; Ye have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them: behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith the Lord. Jeremiah 23:1-2

As reported Garance Burke of Associated Press, February 12, 2007:

RIPON, Calif. — For nearly a decade, members of Ripon's First Congregational Church bared their souls to Pastor Randall Radic. But there were certain things he wasn't telling them.

That became obvious a year ago, when Radic pleaded guilty to betraying his flock and secretly selling the church and its rectory out from under them. He used the money to buy himself a brand-new black BMW and a laptop — exploits he later chronicled in a cheeky, almost gleeful blog about his double life as a sinner.

"We didn't know anything until we got a call from the bank that he had bought a BMW," said David Prater, who led the church board during Radic's tenure. "He drove that car right down Main Street."

Irate parishioners had been rooting for a long prison term of up to 16 months at his sentencing, set for Thursday.

But Radic's lawyer said last week that the 54-year-old former pastor, who spent six months in jail awaiting trial, will not have to serve any more time behind bars because he agreed to testify about the alleged murder confession of a jailmate.

In the meantime, ownership of some of the church property is still tied up in lawsuits.

"Most of the congregation, being a good Christian congregation, has forgiven him. But there are still things happening to the church that we can't understand," said Judy Edwards, who took over as pastor last year. "If the parsonage was stolen, why isn't it being returned?"

Radic was a respected figure in Ripon, population 14,000, a quiet town of 1940s-era homes and tree-lined streets in California's San Joaquin Valley.

"The church was basically senior citizens, people in their 80s, 90s and close to 100," Prater said. "He was their favorite son."

Radic's pulpit was in a wooden, 90-year-old chapel, and he lived in a church-owned house a few blocks away. Parishioners said he favored literal interpretations of the Bible and emphasized love and grace in his Sunday sermons.

"This is a town with a lot of faith," said Navid Fardanesh, president of the Ripon Chamber of Commerce. "People had a lot of trust in him, and unfortunately he took advantage of the situation."

First, Radic faked documents giving him possession of the parsonage, and used the property to take out about $200,000 in personal loans, prosecutors said. Then he forged papers saying he had the power to sell the church, and sold it to a couple for $525,000.

After investigators began inquiring about the $102,000 BMW, Radic fled to Denver. Prosecutors coaxed him back, and he was arrested in 2005.

It was in jail that Radic met Roy Gerald Smith, a sex offender awaiting trial in the 2005 slaying of a woman in a death-penalty case. In Radic's blog on a now-defunct Internet site, the former pastor suggested that as he gained Smith's confidence, Smith confessed.

Radic soon struck a deal: He would plead guilty to embezzlement and be released from prison. And prosecutors would drop nine other felony charges in exchange for Radic's testimony.

Since Radic was not Smith's pastor, the inmate's incriminating statements are not protected by the usual confidentiality rules involving members of the clergy, Radic's lawyer Michael Babitzke said.

As he awaited sentencing at home, Radic started blogging about his personal life. He tried to solicit a literary agent for a tell-all book he called "Snitch" and spelled out the details of how he fleeced his flock.

Radic, who still lives in Ripon, did not find a buyer for "Snitch," but he did sign a deal last month to publish a book called "The Sound of Meat," billed as a "(fairly) truthful" memoir.

The church got its title back last year, and parishioners have been able to worship there throughout the ordeal. But the church is still out tens of thousands of dollars lost in transaction fees, and has yet to recover title to the parsonage.

Radic still faces a number of lawsuits, but criminal proceedings against him appear likely to end when he is sentenced.

"He's very remorseful and regretful about the situation," his lawyer said. "But in an imperfect world ... people behave imperfectly."

Two years later, Mr. Radic published his first book, A Priest in Hell, and was interviewed by Stephen Elliott for the internet publication The Rumpus; was published on February 28, 2009:

For nearly a decade the First Congregational Church in Ripon, a small town just outside of Modesto, California, put their trust in Pastor Randall Radic. Then he mortgaged the church house. Then he mortgaged the church. He was sentenced to nearly two years in prison but cut a deal to snitch on a murderer he met in the jail in exchange for early release. Now he’s written a book.

Rumpus: How did you end up in Modesto?

Randall Radic: I used to be a professional swim coach, but got tired of it. I was in Fresno coaching swimming. Then I was called to take the church in Ripon. They call it ‘calling’. When you accept the call you ‘take the church. So here I am. I should add that I don’t like it here.

Rumpus: Could you explain that a little bit?

Radic: My education was geared for the priesthood but I got sidetracked. When I tired of coaching I looked around for a church. The Church in Ripon was looking for a pastor. So they ‘called me, which means they hired me. I took the job.

A friend put on to the position. He was the pastor of the church at the time, and he left for another church in the midwest.

Rumpus: How long did things go OK for and then what happened?

Radic: Things went fine for about 7 years. Then I got tired of being poor and mortgaged the house that the church provided for me to live in. The house was not mine. When the initial money from the house ran out, I sold the church itself.

Rumpus: What did you want that money could buy?

Radic: I wanted a nice vacation, a BMW, nice clothes, fine wines, good cigars. In effect I wanted status, and in a way I wanted people to like me.

Rumpus: So after three years you mortgaged the church. You had the authority to do that?

Radic: I had the authority, but not the legal right. What I did was totally wrong. And I did it for the wrong reasons.

Rumpus: How did you get caught?

Radic: I made a large deposit into my personal checking account. The bank got suspicious and contacted the church. From there things got worse. Then they went to hell.

Rumpus: There’s no way you were going to be able to pay off those mortgages. Didn’t you know you were going to get caught? Did you want to get caught?

Radic: At first, I actually thought I could get away with it. Total arrogance. After a while, though, I knew it was inevitable. But there was nothing to do about it, except turn myself in and confess. And I was too scared to do that. In the end, perhaps, I wanted to get caught. I mean I didn’t want to go to jail and face all the humiliation. But I didn’t want to keep living the way I was living either. For I was overwhelmed by guilt — couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. And fear! The fear factor was like factor twelve on a scale of five. In hindsight, getting caught was the best thing that ever happened to me. It made me face up to myself, what I had done, where I was going, who I was, who I wanted to be. So I would say that in my case getting caught was a second chance.

Rumpus: What finally happened? You surrendered to the police?

Radic: Yeah, in the end. First I got scared and ran. Then my family and friends talked me into myself up. I came back and surrendered. I was released on my own recognizance. Then they found out about the church sale and I was arrested.

I went to San Jose County Jail for six months. During that time I was attending hearing after hearing. I was sentenced to sixteen months in prison but because I agreed to testify in a murder case they released me.

Rumpus: So you never actually went to prison?

Radic: No. But jail is worse than prison in many ways. The food is worse. I was in PC (protective custody) so I was locked down most of the time. In prison the food is better, and if you’re mainline you get out most of the time. Especially in minimum-security, which is where I would have been. Instead I was in jail with child molesters, murderers, rapists, and bank robbers.

Rumpus: If you hadn’t testified how long would you have been placed in prison?

Radic: If I hadn’t agreed to testify they would have sent me to prison probably after about five months in jail. I would have received credit for that time in jail. In reality I would have spent another three months in prison then I would have been paroled.

Rumpus: How did you end up involved in a murder trial?

Radic: A murderer in jail confessed his crime to me and another inmate (not in religious sense). I admit I wanted to get out of jail but I also felt compelled to testify against this guy. He was a stone-cold killer.

Rumpus: Were you worried about him seeking retribution?

Radic: Yes and no. Yes because he would have killed me without a second thought. No because he had no gang affiliation. If he had been gang affiliated I would not have testified. Someone would have gotten to me.

Rumpus: When did you decide to write a book about your experiences?

Radic: While I was in jail. The corrections officers often told me, “You should write a book when you get out.” They thought my story was bizarre.

Rumpus: How’d you find your publisher?

Radic: ECW is a publisher in Toronto, Canada. I sent the manuscript to them and a number of other publishers. Jack David, who is the publisher, liked it and offered me a contract. Then he offered me a contract for a second book.

The book is not your usual boring rise, fall, and redemption kind of thing. It’s voyeuristic. Like a bad porno movie. When you finish it you say to yourself, “I don’t think I wanna do that or go there.” When you read about jail and the kind of people who are in jail it scares the living daylights out of you.

Rumpus: So why did you write the book? What did you hope to get out of it?

Radic: I wrote the book for peace of mind. For me, jail was horrifying and surreal, like taking a trip to Dante’s Inferno without a guidebook or finding myself in the biblical Great Gulf Fixed. So I wrote the book to put everything I had experienced into perspective. A kind of handle on reality that I could use to pick it up and walk around with it. Like most Americans I had no idea what jail was like, what kind of people went to jail — the mentally ill, the brutal — hollow, violent people. Naive and innocent, I walked into “the belly of the beast.” When I came out I wasn’t naive or innocent anymore. I came out wary, with no more illusions. I guess I wanted someone else to know what it’s like.

Mr. Radic's Author Page at Amazon reads:
Randall Radic, Th.D., S.T.D. is a former Old Catholic priest. He is a graduate of the University of Arizona. He holds a Master of Theology, from Trinity Seminary, a Doctorate of Theology from Trinity Seminary,Th.D., and a Doctorate of Sacred Theology, S.T.D. from Agape Seminary.

After a midlife crisis, he spent time behind bars. Today, he has emerged a changed man. He is the author of Gone To Hell: True Crimes of America’s Clergy (ECW Press/ Oct 2009), and A Priest in Hell: Gangs, Murderers and Snitching in a California Jail.

Mr. Radic is also the co-author, with Ralph Fontana, of Terminal Disaster: Inside the Money Machine (2012).

The fact that First Congregational Church of Ripon, California would call a man with an Old Catholic background as pastor and then replace him with a woman indicates to this blogger that what is being practiced there is churchianity rather than Christianity. The following calendar item, apparently from 2014, provides further evidence of the church's liberal direction:

FRIDAY JUNE 20th “Mathew Sheppard Story”
First Congregational Church of Ripon, 100 N. Acacia Ave, Ripon, CA (209) 599-3361

This apostasy is nothing new (a frequent point of this blog). Richard S. Wheeler, best known as an author of Western novels, was a member of the Congregational Church when he wrote the non-fiction book Pagans in the Pulpit (1974), a critique of the social gospel of liberal "Christianity." The book is worth reading, and is still relevant.