Silver Spire

Nineteen

About six months after the trial in which Lloyd Morgan received a life sentence, Barnabas Bay stepped down as head of the Tabernacle of the Silver Spire. The Gazette story on his resignation of course had a rehash of Meade’s murder and Morgan’s conviction, but the paper’s religion editor apparently could not get Bay to make any connection between that and what was termed his “unexpected departure.” The minister’s only quote in the story was: “This is a time of spiritual renewal and rededication for me and for my family. We leave with the comforting knowledge that the Spire ministry is in able hands.” The Times story carried exactly the same quote and nothing more from him. The last I heard, Bay was somewhere in Florida writing another book on his religious beliefs and philosophy.

Both stories also said that a thirty-five-year-old minister named Foster from California was the new head man at the Silver Spire, and that Gillis, Wilkenson, and Reese had been asked to remain on the staff. The Gazette’s religion editor, while questioning Foster’s experience as an administrator, described him as “stirring and dynamic in the pulpit, biblically knowledgeable and a true spellbinder who will be a worthy preaching successor to Barnabas Bay, both at the big church itself and in its powerful and far-reaching television ministry.”

I’ll take his word for it.