"Please refrain from speculation..."

...about what led to Rev. Gary Aldridge's demise. -- Press release from Montgomery's Thorington Road Baptist Church.

Now, you know and I know that if a church puts out a press release asking the community to "please refrain from speculation" about what caused the demise of their pastor of 16 years, there's gonna be a lot of speculation.

Rev. Gary Aldridge is a graduate of Liberty University and a former employee of the late Rev. Jerry Falwell. For the past 16 years, Rev. Aldridge has been the pastor of Thorington Road Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.

Perhaps Rev. Aldridge was engaged in some sort of secret Baptist ritual when he met his untimely end and that's why the church want's to keep it quiet?

I wonder what we can learn from the autopsy report?

From page 2 of the autopsy report, we learn what Pastor Gary was wearing when his body was discovered. This sort of reminds me of one of Bill O'Reilly's phone fantasies.

At the bottom of page 4, we learn what the decedent was wearing when the body was received. Page 4 also lists two "personal effects." We know from page 2 that the decedent was "wearing" both of those personal effects. His wife, Jan, was visiting her family in North Carolina at the time of her husband's untimely death.

On page 1 we learn that the death was accidental. Apparently Pastor Gary was engaged in some sort of Baptist autoerotic ritual that got out of hand?

Note: The July 8, 2007 newsletter begins with a letter from the assistant pastor.

The church had been advertising a new Bible Study Group on the "Hazards of Being a Man," so perhaps it was "research" for this seminar that led to Bro. Gary's unfortunate demise?



P.S. -- I checked Liberty University's bulletin board (The Fighting Fundamental Forums) to see if there were any threads about Bro. Gary's passing and I did find a couple of them but it was only this one where someone posted a link to the autopsy report that actually included any "information." The previous threads didn't include any "details" at all and a couple of new members who actually did post such "details," were summarily banned and their posts edited. Hey, did you notice that their highest board rank is "Fundamental Pope."

While I was browsing through The Fighting Fundamental Forums, I learned that Liberty Theological Seminary is changing its name back to Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary. That change was approved by Chancellor Jerry Falwell, Jr. and announced Dec. 19, 2007. (posted on Wednesday, December, 19, 2007 by Mitzi Bible | in General News ) Do you think "Mitzi Bible" is a real name?

Looks like they dropped their scuba diving course.