PASTOR'S GONE WILD: Case 013 - A Wild West Show-Down at the Slippery-Suds

A new series highlighting the odd, bizarre, funny, or perhaps even heretical behavior of those who claim the title "pastor".
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Thanks to Eric H. in Minnesota, who drew my attention to this story.

Case #013 - The Case of the Wild West show-down at the Slippery Suds Carwash

I've always loved Westerns. Louis L'amour books (and if desperate, perhaps Zane Grey) were a common staple growing up, and John Wayne is my personal hero. I still find my self slipping into "Western-mode" every once in a while. A while back a congregant asked me out for lunch and I told him to meet me at "high noon". Sadly, I didn't have a buckskin horse to ride to the saloon in (ok, it was just a cafe), but as I rode in my air conditioned conversion van I thought cowboyish thoughts. Occasionally, I find myself imagining I lived 100 years ago in Texas. I swagger into the house and order up some grub from Miss Kitty (my wife), though in my version Miss Kitty isn't nearly as accommodating.

It seems I am not the only pastor who is a fan of gun-slinging cowboy fantasy stories, though perhaps the pastor we will discuss takes things a little too far. Johnny Coleman, pastor of Christ Baptist Church was arrested after police found him at 12:30 p.m. with a loaded Glock 9mm handgun and a loaded .25 caliber handgun in a briefcase at the Mr. Spotless Car Wash in Cold Spring [a]. Allegedly, Pastor Coleman told an officer he was in line for a car wash when he was cut off by another person. According the report, "Mr. Coleman stated he told the victim someone could get shot over this." The person who allegedly cut Coleman off told police he saw him loading the hand gun.

Seriously, nobody ever cut off John Wayne, Wyatt Earp, or Clint Eastwood [b]. If you did, it was at the risk of getting buried belly-up at boot-hill with a chest full of lead to hold you down. Can't we just get back to more simple times when disputes were settled without the need of "the law"? The wild West had a nobility all its own. You didn't steal anyone's horse (or else you would be shoot), or his woman (or else shoot), or his whiskey (or else shoot, after the shot, of course. You were allowed to finish). You never called anyone 'yella' (or else shoot, immediately) and you certainly would never cut off a gunslinging cowboy who was hosing down his horse after a long ride rustling cattle. Perhaps Coleman considers himself the last true cowboy.

Things are getting strange for men who attend church nowadays. Attend a pentecostal church and you might get scammed. Attend a Methodist or Episcopalian church and the male pastor might ask you out on a date. Attend an evangelical church and he might ask your wife out on a date. But attend a Baptist church and you might get into a shoot-out in the foyer. House churches anyone?

[a] Seriously, the name really is "Mr Spotless". Biblical imagery abounds! You simply can't make the good stuff up.
[b] My apologies to true Western aficionados for the inclusion of Clint Eastwood in the same sentence as John Wayne.
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