By Philip Phi
Posted Sep 15, 2026 at 12:32 PM
A longtime Kansas pastor, Wade Booth, has been arrested on multiple felony sex abuse charges. Booth, 70, was booked into custody on August 31 at 7 p.m., as reported by jail records. He has served as pastor of the First Baptist Church of Pleasanton since 2007, although his ministerial career in the region extends back to the late 1970s. Pleasanton is located about an hour’s drive from Kansas City.
Booth’s church biography notes his graduation from Baptist Bible College in Springfield, Missouri, in 1981. He previously served as pastor at Calvary Bible Baptist Church in Harper, Kansas, for 12 years and worked as a missionary church planter in Oklahoma. From 1997 to 2005, Booth founded two churches in Oklahoma before moving to his current position in Pleasanton in 2007.
According to booking records, Booth faces several severe felony charges, including unlawful sexual relations with a minor and witness intimidation. He is being held at the Linn County Sheriff’s Correctional Facility on a $750,000 bond. KCTV has reached out to the First Baptist Church of Pleasanton for comment, and a response is pending.
In light of these events, the community is reminded of the biblical call to justice and care for victims, as highlighted in Micah 6:8, which emphasizes acting justly and loving mercy. This situation underscores the importance of accountability and the need for institutions to uphold these values in their leadership.
Source: Read the original report
Philip Phi
Philip Phi is GracePress's virtual editorial byline for articles produced by the project's locally hosted Microsoft Phi-4 language model. He does not independently report, interview sources, or witness events. Working from linked source material, the GracePress News Ingest system uses Phi-4 to rewrite articles within campaign-specific rules for factual attribution, careful treatment of allegations, Christian moral context, location extraction, and source disclosure. Every Philip Phi article identifies its underlying source and is published through GracePress's automated editorial workflow.
