Christian Hypocrisy News - The Preachers of Hate

Six antigay church leaders who have found themselves ensnared in sex scandals / Queerty

Sanctimony is commonly used as a cover. Who would believe that upright, married Christian pastor who weekly fulminates against homosexuals and calls down the wrath of God upon them, would be gay?

It's like the scandalised gossip who condemns others but who keeps her curtains tightly drawn and only opens her door a chink to callers lest they glimpse the squalor in her own home.

We are becoming inured to the daily scandals as yet another priest is caught abusing his position to abuse yet more children or procuring an abortion for his under-age victim while preaching the sanctity of life and a ban on abortions for others. We now almost take it for granted that behind public sanctimony there will be private hypocrisy and the louder the condemnation of others, the more likely is the attacker to be an abuser.

Here, by way of illustration is a very short select of Christian hypocrites whose actions contrast sharply with their preaching lectures on what constitutes decent behaviour and whose virulent messages of hate directed at homosexuals are intended to deflect from their own behaviour. The list comes from Queerty, an online magazine with an openly gay agenda.

1. 

   Jerry Falwell Jr

   Firstly, we have the curious case of very persistent rumours that Jerry Falwell Jr, son of the professional Christian bigot, Jerry Falwell, asked Michael Cohen to help stop the release of 'personal' photos of his bedroom activities involving him, his wife, and their young pool attendant (do people seriously employ a pool attendant?), shortly before he enthusiastically endorsed Donald Trump's election campaign.
   
   The rumour includes the allegation that the 'pool attendant' is using the photographs to blackmail Falwell to the tune of $1.8 million. While Falwell denies the existence of the photos and the pool boy denies blackmail, neither deny that $1.8 million changed hands and neither will say what it was for.
   
   The existence of sexually explicit photographs would serious jeopardise Falwell's job with fundamentalist Christian Liberty University, whose code of conduct states:
   
   

   Media or entertainment that is offensive to Liberty’s standards and traditions (i.e., lewd lyrics, anti-Christian message, sexual content, nudity, pornography, etc.) is not permitted.
   
   Involvement with pornographic, obscene, indecent, or other similarly offensive materials, expressions, or conduct is inconsistent with the Personal Code of Conduct and the Christian World View of the College and University. Use of the University’s computing network to obtain or distribute such materials constitutes a violation of the Code.
   

2. 

   Ernest Agley, "Didn't ejaculate"
   
   

   Next we have the case of Ernest Angley, the 97 year-old former head of Grace Cathedral Church in Akron, Ohio. Angley based his career on preaching homophobic hate, employing slave labour and cheating a dementia patients out of her savings.
   
   In a 1996 recording, recently leaked to the press, Agley admitted sharing a bed with another man and indulging in mutual masturbation. However, he denies that this was a homsexual act because 'neither of them ejaculated' (sic).
   
   In addition to having gay sex while potentially inflicting physical and mental harm on homosexuals, victimised as a result of his demonization and damnation of them, Agley has been accused of sexual abuse, employing slave labour and coercing a 76 year-old woman suffering from dementia to write him a cheque for $340,000.
   
   The recording of him talking about his gay sex was released to the Akron Beacon Journal by Pastor Bill Davis who recorded their conversation, because he was upset that the nice Mister Agley had called his wife 'vulgar'.

3. 

   Pastor Matthew Dennis Patterson

   Pastor Matthew Dennis Patterson of Nolensville Road Baptist Church in Nolensville, Tennessee, is another interesting case. 45 year-old Patterson, who boasted loudly about being a "vocal opponent" of LGBTQ rights, resigned from his position with the church when parents of children began to come forward with accounts of strange activities involving the children.
   
   According the The Tennessean:
   
   

   Children at the church told adult members that Patterson had asked them to sit on his face and stomach, sometimes in their underwear, according to a police statement.
   
   After interviewing multiple church and staff members, police said the detectives identified multiple victims, most of them boys, who were molested from 1998-2017. Police did not say how old the children were at the time of the alleged abuse.
   
   Patterson has been indicted on eight counts of aggravated sexual battery. Each count is linked to a different child, according to police.

   
   Pastor Patterson had been persuading them to strip to their underpants and sit on his face. After a six-month investigation Patterson was charged with eight counts of molesting children, mostly boys, over a period of 20 years.

4. 

   Gary and Gay Evans of the Rushville Baptist Temple, Rushville, Indiana

   Gary and Gay Evans are devout Christians.
   
   72-year-old Gary was pastor of the Rushville Baptist Temple in Rushville, Indiana, and regularly preached against the 'evils' of homosexuality. He has now been arrested after several girls, all aged under 10, told their parents about how he had lured them into his office with candy where he proceeded to show his Christian love by feeling their genitalia.
   
   Gary Evans has now been charged with three counts of child molestation, four counts of sexual battery, and five counts of child solicitation in October 2017.
   
   During his arrest, Gay also demonstrated her devotion to Jesus by verbally and physically attacking the arresting police officers, for which she was also arrested. She has since added to her criminal career by allegedly threatening to shoot her daughter-in-law for ratting on her husband.

5. 

   Caption

   Donnie Romero, pastor at the Stedfast Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas, who regularly celebrated the murder of homosexuals such as in the Pulse massacre in his sermons, resigned suddenly last January.
   
   In his farewell sermon he explained, “I haven’t been ruling my house well. I’ve been a terrible husband and father. I’m very sorry for the hurt this may cause people.”
   
   Pastor Steven Anderson, who initially ordained Romero in 2014, later explained that Romero had committed the 'grievous sins' of smoking marijuana, gambling and using prostitutes.

6. 

   Pastor Timothy Lee Reddin, Turner Street Baptist Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas.

   Next up is Timothy Lee Reddin, pastor at the Turner Street Baptist Church in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Reddin is a married man with four children and seven grandchildren.
   
   This viciously anti-homosexual preacher was arrested in August last year after a sting operation by the police. He had been sexting what he believed was a 14 year-old boy whom he thought he had been grooming but who turned out to be an undercover police officer. He was arrested after turning up for what he thought was a sex session with a child.
   
   He has now been charged with attempted coercion and enticement of a minor.
   
   Pastor Reddin is no stranger to charges of this nature. 18 years ago he received a 27-month prison sentence for possession of child pornography. This was not considered sufficient reason not to give him a post in the Turner Street Baptist Church where he would have trusted access to children.
7. Lastly but by no means leastly, we have Pastor Paul Edward Acton Bowen, founder of Acton Bowen Outreach Ministries and self-proclaimed speaker, visionary and best-selling author from Alabama. Bowen is notorious for his anti-gay preaching and his vicious demonisation of homosexuals.
   
   In April 2018 Bowen was charged with second-degree sodomy, enticing a child to enter a vehicle or house for immoral purposes, and second-degree sex abuse of a minor. Police did not release the age of his victim other than to say he was over 12 but under 16. In other words, he was aged 13-15 years.
   
   Hoover Police Capt.Gregg Rector, of the Special Victim's Unit, said:
   
   

   This is certainly one of the more disturbing cases that we’ve investigated in quite some time. Mr. Bowen is in a highly-respected position of influence and he is trusted by many. We believe he betrayed that trust in the worst kind of way.
   

This is of course a very small, random sample of the many examples of the hypocrisy to be found in the Christian churches, not just in the USA but throughout the world. Clerics of all kinds, male or female, of all denominations, regularly abuse their positions of trust and exploit the still common perception of 'men and women of God' to be beyond reproach, to sexually, mentally and physically abuse people over whom they have authority or influence.

Frequently, the abusers are the loudest in their condemnation of the very acts they themselves are guilty of, as though they believe this will throw people off the scent and turn them into those least likely to offend. Maybe it's an attempt to come to terms with their own guilt or to fool God into believing that person raping a child or turning a nun into a sex slave wasn't the real person; the one condemning the act is the real person. That criminal was 'possessed' and not in control of his actions.

But one really can't help thinking that there is no real belief in a god who forbade those things. There is no perception of a judgmental god watching and reading minds who will one day bring them to account.

In fact, one can't help wondering whether these people are acting out what they accuse Atheists of being - without a moral framework - having realised that there is not a god, so feeling free to indulge themselves with impunity, free from the phobia that had been controlling them as believers. Is this why they submerged themselves into religion in the first place?

Maybe the real hypocrisy here is in believers accusing Atheists of harbouring their own concealed contempt for vulnerable people. Tweet

I could of course fill very many similar blog posts with these such list of Christian hypocrites.

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