ST. LOUIS, Jan. 10 (UPI) -- The Rev. David Tolliver resigned as the Missouri Baptist Convention's executive director under a cloud of alleged immorality, church officials said.
The church organization issued a statement saying Tolliver's departure Friday was "due to immoral behavior with a woman" but offered no specifics, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. Tolliver did not comment on the situation, the newspaper said.
Jay Hughes, the convention's associate executive director of support services, was named acting interim executive director.
Tolliver is a fourth-generation Missouri Baptist pastor who led the 600,000 members of the state branch of the Southern Baptist Convention since 2007 when his predecessor, the Rev. David Clippard, was fired by the executive board for what an investigative committee called "rumors affecting (Clippard's) character," the newspaper said Sunday.
A lawyer for the Southern Baptist Convention said reasons given at the time for Clippard's firing "ran the gamut from morale in the Baptist building to comments and conduct and the perception of unprofessionalism to poor administration, management and judgment made over the last two to three years."
Clippard said at the time the committee found nothing "immoral, unethical, unbiblical, financially mismanaged or inappropriate" under his leadership.
