How the Assemblies of God became a safe haven for sexual predators
A sweeping NBC investigation exposed decades of abuse, cover-ups, and indifference inside the world’s largest Pentecostal denomination
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The world’s largest Pentecostal denomination is the Assemblies of God, with 13,000 churches across the United States and roughly 90 million members globally. And as you’d expect from any large religious organization, they’re experts in covering up leaders who are sexual predators.
In a damning report from NBC News, reporters Mike Hixenbaugh and Elizabeth Chuck found that the rot is everywhere:
NBC News identified nearly 200 Assemblies of God pastors, church employees and volunteer leaders accused of sexual abuse over the past half century, based on a nationwide search of lawsuits, criminal records and news archives. Together, they allegedly abused more than 475 people — the overwhelming majority of them children. The allegations stretch into this year, when a 10-year-old girl said in a lawsuit that her pastor groped her during Bible study.
It’s not like the churches were unaware of these predators. Even when they knew of the allegations, they regularly reinstated them to positions of power. They avoided doing thorough background checks or reporting their own to local law enforcement, fearing it would expose them to legal liability and go against the biblical idea of forgiveness.
By refusing to do the bare minimum, they actively put children in harm’s way. The alleged assaults took place in churches, pastors’ homes, and even on camping trips that took place for the Pentecostal version of the Boy Scouts, the Royal Rangers.
Stories of abuse are always horrific but the details contained in this article will leave your jaw on the floor:
A California preacher was accused of holding knives to children’s chests while forcing them to perform sex acts on each other. In Louisiana, a youth leader confessed to drugging and assaulting three boys during a sleepover. A couple in New Mexico say their pastor used his spiritual authority to drive them apart, then coerced the wife into sex.
…
In interviews with NBC News, they described being molested in a church van. Stalked in a church nursery. Raped with a statue of Jesus plucked from a mantle. Told to repent.
How many more, they wondered, would have to suffer before the Assemblies of God decided that protecting children mattered more than protecting itself?
When one person reported pastoral abuse to a congregation leader, she was told “demonic spirits” had gotten ahold of her. As if she was the problem rather than the alleged abuser. That whistleblower is now part of a lawsuit against her church accusing its leaders of “concealing decades of abuse.”
The Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention—large denominations that have dealt with their own sexual abuse scandals—have taken some steps to decrease the problem (while actively pushing back against more serious steps). But the Assemblies of God haven’t taken any steps to show they take these concerns seriously. They might say churches should do background checks, but they’re not punishing or expelling the ones that don’t.
They claim this has everything to do with their coalition of independent churches; they don’t do a top-down approach like the Catholic Church. They don’t dictate anything to their affiliates outside of doctrine. But that’s also how the Southern Baptist Convention works and even they have been willing to kick out churches that harbor known predators.
The Assemblies of God responded to the NBC News article by denying the facts and pretending they’re doing everything in their power to protect victims:
The General Council of the Assemblies of God, the denomination’s governing body in the U.S., based in Springfield, Missouri, declined interview requests and did not answer questions about specific cases. In a statement, it said the church “grieves with anyone who has been hurt through the actions of an abuser” and described itself as “a leader in preventing and combating child sexual abuse.”
That’s a lie. The denomination gives its stamp of approval to ministers—they can’t lead a church without that. They could always refuse to give those credentials to people who have been accused of abuse… but that option is apparently not on the table.
That gap gives congregations wide latitude to hire and restore youth pastors, worship leaders and other associate ministers — including those with histories of misconduct.
According to NBC News, all of this was discussed nearly three decades ago at the 1997 biennial General Council meeting. There were proposals to ban anyone who had molested a child from getting ministerial credentials. Seemed like an obviously good idea. But there was pushback from people who wondered if ministers needed to be banned if they abused “16- and 17-year-olds without having intercourse” or committed the crime before finding Jesus. The delegates handed the question to lawyers to make sure they couldn’t be sued if they withheld credentials from accused predators, and the leaders of the denomination voted down the idea two years later, partly because they felt it would be unfair to predators who committed “relatively minor” acts of abuse before becoming born again.
In response to the Catholic Church’s sex abuse scandal, the Assemblies of God insisted they had a “zero tolerance” policy when it came to abusers and that they had “always held” that position… but good luck finding proof of that. (In that same statement, they equated ministers who sexually abused children with ministers who were in consensual same-sex relationships.) Even in that statement, though, the implication was that the punishments would only apply to credentialed ministers, not lower-ranking religious leaders.
And what happens if a minister loses his credentials? Well, he just has to go through Christian rehab. It’s a bandage that gives accused abusers a pathway back into the fold.
Advocates tried to get the denomination to pass stronger policies against allegers abusers more recently, but once again, legal liability was the barrier. If they created a policy to ban abusers but failed to enforce the rules, the lawyers said, they could be sued by victims. Better to not have any kind of policy at all. (The alternative, of course, was to actually enforce the damn rules by taking them seriously.)
The end result? Lots of unchecked trauma and “Dozens of pending lawsuits accuse churches of shielding predators, silencing victims and allowing abuse to fester unchecked.”
In response to NBC News’ findings, [one survivor] has joined a chorus of survivors demanding action. They want the Assemblies of God to repent for past failures and commission an independent review of its handling of abuse. They also want the General Council to create a system to warn churches when a minister or volunteer has been credibly accused and to mandate basic protections in every congregation.
[The survivor] offered a simple first step: “Stop giving the lawyers a vote.”
It’s clear that the denomination is more concerned about its bottom line than the people who make up their congregations. If you’re worried about getting sued for protecting predators, the solution should involve making sure those predators are never allowed to be religious leaders in any capacity, not trying to avoid the lawsuits altogether.
By the way, you know the problem is bad when a news organization creates an entire vertical called “Pastors and Prey” to document the abuses specifically within the Assemblies of God denomination.
After the NBC News article came out, two Assemblies of God leaders, General Superintendent Doug Clay and General Secretary Donna Barrett, released a short video claiming the piece was “peppered with misleading information.” They insisted they went above and beyond what they needed to do by law to protect children.
But the woman in that video, Barrett, was one of the very people who urged the denomination to listen to lawyers and reject a policy targeting ministers who “neglected to follow child abuse prevention recommendation steps.” She said adopting that policy would play “right into the hands of plaintiffs’ attorneys.”
The takeaway from all of this is that the Assemblies of God has had every opportunity to act. Yet at every turn, they have chosen self-preservation over repentance and action. This is not a church that protects its flock. It’s a haven for predators who know there won’t be proper oversight.
The facts are beyond dispute and the numbers speak for themselves. Hundreds of leaders. Thousands of victims. A leadership structure that knowingly allows the cycle to continue. At what point will those leaders decide this is a problem too big to ignore? How many violations of their supposed “zero tolerance” policy must there be before they admit what they’re doing isn’t working? These people have no moral authority.
Their refusal to confront this problem isn’t just negligence; it’s complicity. Every day that the Assemblies of God delays reform, it signals to predators that there will always be a second chance for them. Meanwhile, the children whose lives they destroy are being denied ever having a first chance. The moral bankruptcy here isn’t even a secret; it’s baked right into the governance. That makes every local congregation a potential danger zone. I wouldn’t feel safe taking my family to any of these churches.
Attending an Assemblies of God church today means placing your trust in an institution that has repeatedly demonstrated it’s not worthy of it. Without mandatory oversight and independent overseers, no member is safe, and no parent should believe their children are either.
Not a single drag queen involved. No LGBTQs, either.
Why, you'd think that child grooming was an exclusively xtian practice.
If xtians are the purveyors of ultimate morality, then we should see a mass exodus from the AoG.
Bet we don't. Those who still attend services are just as guilty as those who physically committed the abuse. The devout are aiding and abetting criminals.