Former Lynchburg mayor Carl Hutcherson Jr. finds renewed purpose as Baptist pastor

The Bible is filled with stories of men and women who fell from grace. The Rev. Carl Hutcherson Jr. has probably read all of them.

Four years ago, Hutcherson took a fall that was more bruising than most. At the time he was indicted (and, eventually, convicted) on seven federal charges of embezzlement, fraud and perjury, he was not only Lynchburg’s mayor and a city council member, but a respected business owner (Hutcherson Funeral Home) and the pastor of Trinity United Methodist Church.

Thus, he toppled not just from one pedestal, but three. And when he finished serving time on probation (including a six-month stretch of house arrest), Hutcherson saw his political career in shreds, his business in trouble and his marriage badly damaged.

“I didn’t know what to expect,” he said recently, “and I was touched by the support I received from the community. Not from everybody, but from most of the people I had known.”

Still, in his early 60s, Hutcherson suddenly faced a blank future.

Around the same time, First Baptist Church of South Lynchburg had reached a crossroads of its own. One of the more venerable black churches in Lynchburg, its congregation had just buried longtime pastor Winston R. Jones and was searching for a replacement. The sanctuary was too small and too old, and the same could be said of the congregation. The church’s location, on Tazewell Street off Campbell Avenue, was a bit out of the way.

“We needed something,” said Walter Fore, a lifetime member and, not coincidentally, a longtime friend and political associate of Carl Hutcherson.

Yet it wasn’t immediately obvious that Hutcherson was that “something.” His re-entry into public life was gradual and tenuous — a guest pulpit here, a funeral there.

“He had preached at First Baptist from time to time over the years,” said Joseph Christian, chairman of the First Baptist deacon board, “and pretty much everyone knew Carl, anyway, from his funeral business. It wasn’t like he was a stranger.”

“I grew up with Carl,” said the Rev. Swannie Thompson, the church’s Christian education director. “I remember when he used to play basketball as a young man.”

There were good candidates for the pastorship among the associate ministers at First Baptist, but also a feeling among church leaders that a lead minister from outside would add energy and interest.

“We just sort of came together,” Hutcherson said. “Because of my problems, I was cautious and so were they.”

Of course, there also was the fact that Hutcherson had always preached as a Methodist, not a Baptist.

“I had already joined another church, which was sort of an independent church,” Hutcherson said, “and really, the difference is mostly in the way the churches are set up, not what’s preached. With a Baptist church, you have a board of deacons to answer to. With the message, there isn’t that much difference.”

As for Hutcherson’s “problems,” Fore said, he was able to dip into a longstanding reservoir of good will in the black community.

“People really rallied around Carl,” said current city council member Ceasor Johnson. “A lot of them were influential people.”

Hutcherson’s father, Carl Hutcherson Sr., had been a community icon — the first black member of the Lynchburg School Board, a staunch but even-tempered advocate for civil rights, a businessman who was universally respected on both sides of the color line that then existed. His son, to some degree, adopted that persona.

“What a lot of people don’t know about Carl (Jr.) is all the little things he did,” Fore said. “He buried a lot of folks for next to nothing. People would come in off the street and borrow money from him.”

First elected to City Council as an at-large candidate in 1996, Hutcherson topped all vote-getters in ‘98 and was chosen by his council peers in 2002 to serve as mayor.

Eventually, the First Baptist pastorship came down to Hutcherson and another candidate, and the former mayor was anointed as the spiritual head of the roughly 300-member congregation in 2008.

“I like the work I’m doing now,” he said. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t miss politics, but I do offer advice and so on. When people ask me to see what I can do to get something done, I have to tell them ‘I don’t do that any more.’”

“He’s been invaluable to me,” said Johnson, also a minister, who moved to Lynchburg from Jackson, Miss. “I’m not from here, and Carl taught me a lot about the city and its history. He and I are going to graduate together this spring in the doctoral program at VUL (Virginia University of Lynchburg).”

Enough time has passed between Hutcherson and his legal troubles for him to be able to see them as a blessing in deep disguise.

“We were all worried about Carl,” Fore said, “because he had three full-time jobs. And being the mayor, he was expected to appear at things all over the city, all the time.”

Like another high-profile Lynchburg minister, Jerry Falwell, Hutcherson was overweight and overstressed, leading to heart bypass surgery in his late 50s.

“I feel a lot better now,” he said. “When you’re trying to do all that, it’s hard to do any of it well. I still need to drop some weight, though.”

He occasionally visits his former church now, he said, and serves as a consultant to L.A. Franklin, who took over the operation of his Fifth Street funeral home.

Because his crimes included dipping into a church charity fund and misusing money intended for two Social Security recipients, there are those who continue to feel betrayed by Hutcherson. His divorce notice appeared in the newspaper last week.

On a recent Sunday, however, he obviously basked in the affection of his congregation.

A woman who delivered the opening prayer thanked Hutcherson for conducting the service despite a bad cold. And although he looked tired as he walked to the podium on the wings of electric organ, drum and raised voices, he grew more energized as the service continued.

Before long, the easy style that Hutcherson always employed both in politics and preaching emerged again. He exchanged quips with members in mid-sermon, and left the podium to walk down among his flock — a better vantage point from which to talk about the need to expand or rebuild the church, and why some members seemed to oppose that.

He also drew on a passage from Acts that mentioned the metamorphosis of Paul from his previous identity as the Christian-baiting Saul.

“Anyone can change,” Hutcherson said.

At his sentencing in August of 2006, Hutcherson said, “I let my city down, I let my church down, I let my family down, but most of all I let my God down.”

Joseph Christian wouldn’t argue with that. At the same time, however, he noted: “Peter asked Jesus how many times someone should forgive a brother. ‘Seven times?’ he asked. Jesus said, ‘Seven times seven.’”