WTF: Church Bans Children to Keep Pedophile Pastor?
Photo via Miami New Times
A church in Jacksonville, Florida is coming under fire for its controversial decision to ban children from its church services.
According to a local Jacksonville news affilate, Christ Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church has banned children from attending Sunday services because their new pastor, Darrell Gilyard, is a registered sex offender and cannot have contact with children.
In 2009 Gilyard plead guilty to lewd conduct and lewd molestation of two underage girls. While he was the pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church Gilyard molested a 15-year-old girl and sent a lewd text message to another. Under the conditions of his plea agreement, Gilyard cannot have “unsupervised contact with children under 18 years old,” and his new church has taken extraordinary steps to help Gilyard stick to the terms of his deal.
Despite the seriousness of his offense, Gilyard’s return to the pulpit was swift. After being released from jail on December 28, he resumed preaching in January, and told reporters he hopes he can move past this incident and continue with his work.
“Somehow I will prove that life isn’t over when one has committed a crime for which he receives this heinous label,” Gilyard told a reporter, ironically through text message. “You don’t have to languish on the fringes of society.”
While I believe in forgiveness, banning children from church in order to welcome a pedofile into the fold is not only creepy, but it’s downright shameful.
What do you think? What kind of message is Gilyard’s church sending to its youth?
Up is down, down is up. This is perverse, it really is.
After seeing so many people defend RKelly on a previous post I am totally not surprised by this. It seems that many people will protect and defend a pedophile before they will defend children.
EXTREMELY sad.
Val, I couldn’t agree with you more. Our community does not do a very good job protecting our children. Have we so much trauma being Black in America that we will sacrifice our children so that a pedophile can continue to preach in the pulpit? This man sexually assaulted children, and that church removes children, denying them the chance to worship, just to make run for a sexual abuser? I love my Black people, we we are in need of some serious therapy.
Stupid is just stupid – whether it’s in a church or anywhere else. The decision that the congregation made to allow this pedophile in their pulpit – to lead their people – is stupid. R. Kelly performing at Whitney Houston’s funeral doesn’t have any relevance because the family made the decision to have him sing at their daughter/mother/sister’s funeral – they didn’t ask him to become New Hope’s music pastor or to be a leader or role model in the church. Whether we agree or disagree, that’s the family’s choice.
A pastor, a so-called man of God, who cannot be around children because of his lewd conduct with little girls, leading a church is foolishness at its worst. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” Anyone who supports banning children to keep the pedophile pastor is not acting as Christ would. They are just serving man, not God.
Exactly, urbanista.
There is no comparison.
One is a (secular) singer tributing his friend at her funeral. They reportedly had a close relationship and he was picked to sing a song in her honor. Though the funeral was held at church it has no bearing on the participants of the funeral.
The other is supposed to be a pastoral leader to the church flock. Pastors are held to a high standard. That is not to say that they are not privy to sin. They are humans but this is one big sin. Though some people subscribe to the philosophy that all sins are the same, I disagree. Killing someone is different from stealing a cookie from the cookie jar. Taking advantage of a person sexually is different from lying about why you were late for work. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand the concept of “gravity of the situation”. Anyway, though we should forgive the pastor, he should not be given his position back at least not right away and certainly not after rigorous counseling. For me time is essential. He needs probation. I wonder if there is a church council or other accountability group involved here. Most importantly, no group of people should be barred from church – definitely not children. Why would you ban children from church? The man should be removed.
People want to claim there is a difference between this man and R Kelly but there really isn’t. The fact that people will continue to SUPPORT people like this is appalling. I can’t help but think of the children…..
Devil’s adovocate: Im not too sure how this is so different from R. Kelly being invited to a funeral (although I am sure someone will).
There is no comparison.
One is a (secular) singer tributing his friend at her funeral. They reportedly had a close relationship and he was picked to sing a song in her honor. Though the funeral was held at church it has no bearing on the participants of the funeral.
The other is supposed to be a pastoral leader to the church flock. Pastors are held to a high standard. That is not to say that they are not privy to sin. They are humans but this is one big sin. Though some people subscribe to the philosophy that all sins are the same, I disagree. Killing someone is different from stealing a cookie from the cookie jar. Taking advantage of a person sexually is different from lying about why you were late for work. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand the concept of “gravity of the situation”. Anyway, though we should forgive the pastor, he should not be given his position back at least not right away and certainly not after rigorous counseling. For me time is essential. He needs probation. I wonder if there is a church council or other accountability group involved here. Most importantly, no group of people should be barred from church – definitely not children. Why would you ban children from church? The man should be removed.
Listen.
I do not care if you did it once 20 years ago or 20 minutes ago. I do not care if you are secular or the Pope. I do not care if the child participated willfully, resistant, or was ignorant. A child is a child.
Yes, I can forgive, but I can not forget, and I will not and would not take that chance with my future kids.