Calvinists need to just . . .
. . . shut the hell up!
But first, let's look at their 5 points:
Total Depravity - all of humanity, from beginning to end, is completely and "totally" depraved, morally corrupt, and wicked.
Limited Atonement - Jesus died for the "unconditionally elect" ONLY - He did not die for the sins of all of humanity.
Irresistible Grace - Those "believers" who are part of the "unconditionally elect" have no "choice" in the matter - if they are "elected" to be saved, they can not resist, refuse, or decline the call from God to be saved. The elect will always be saved and the non elect will never be saved. That is how God designed it.
Perseverance of the Saints - once saved, always saved - the person who is "elected by God WILL become a Christian and will stay a Christian - so - based on this final Calvinist point, there is absolutely no such thing as a "former Christian" like me. The staunch Calvinist believes that for the 25 years that I considered myself to be a Christian,
When it comes to the Calvinists, what's the difference between "Reformed" and "Presbyterian"? I think I read somewhere that all Presbyterians are "Reformed" but not all "Reformed" are Presbyterians, but both are of the Calvinist persuasion, or follow (some) tenants of Calvinistic theology.
But honestly, this post is not about what they believe - what it is about is:
See what you think . . .
May 2002 - A Dundalk minister has been arrested and charged with soliciting sexual intercourse from a Maryland State Police trooper posing as a 13-year-old named Jennifer in an Internet chat room. The Rev. Jonathan N. Gerstner, 44, is accused of sending instant messages to "Jennifer" from his Inverness Presbyterian Church computer beginning at 12:30 p.m. Tuesday and, within hours, arranging an afternoon sexual tryst with the girl at a park in Bowie, state police spokesman Lt. Bud Frank said.
"He truly believed he was talking to a 13-year-old the whole time," Frank said.
Using the screen name "baltimorecare," Gerstner wrote that he wanted to teach the girl about sex, according to a statement of probable cause filed in Howard County District Court.
His unsolicited messages to "Jennifer" asked her to engage in sexual intercourse and oral sex acts with him, the court document states.
The father of five, who lives in Perry Hall, became senior pastor at Inverness after serving as a professor at Knox Theological Seminary in Fort Lauderdale, according to the church's Web site. He has been minister at Inverness for about two years.
Police allege he befriended the elderly woman and used her credit card without her knowledge.
Stewart, who is a minister with the Kensington-New London pastoral charge, was first charged in April with fraud under $5,000, unauthorized use of a credit card, and possession of stolen property.
Court staff say those new charges are fraud over $5,000, obtained by false pretense over $5,000, uttering forged documents and possession of property obtained by crime.
Thomas Jonathan Chantry, 46, pastor of Christ Reformed Baptist Church in Wisconsin, faces five counts of molestation of a child, related to two minors, and three counts of aggravated assault on three separate minors as well.
One alleged victim, now an adult, came forward to Prescott Police and, according to a police report, when Chantry became a pastor at Miller Valley Baptist Church, Chantry told his parents that he wanted to tutor the victim, then “approximately 9 or 10 years old,” privately in his church office.
The parents consented, and the victim claims that, during his twice-weekly hourly meetings, Chantry would spank him, “grope him, rub him, and make him sit on his lap,” the report said.
The victim said that during a Christmas break during which he stayed at Chantry’s house, Chantry “began fondling him,” the report said, touching his private areas, and saying “he was making them feel better.”
This went on for a period of six to seven months, the report said, and Chantry allegedly told the boy not to tell anyone “about his special lessons because he would not be able to teach everyone.”
The man, now 32 years old, said that, even during the abuse he claims was happening when he was a child, he knew it was wasn’t right.
Deputies say that some of his coworkers were going to play a prank on him, but found pornographic material on his laptop. Robison was fired from the church and employees called authorities.
During an investigation, officials sorted through more than 3,000 videos and 350,000 pictures and found recorded videos from a video chat website of Robison engaged in inappropriate acts with young girls, including one who said she was 14 years old.
Detectives found several chat sessions from the website "Omegle" and Skype, which Robison recorded with screen capture software. The videos go back several years and include out of state victims.
Some of the chats involved the same 14-year-old girl, who said Robison had also expressed interest in meeting her in person.
"There was a tremendous amount of forethought and deception in this, which is all the more sad and just a sense of betrayal," said Rev. Jim Gilchrist, the church's senior pastor. The criminal complaint says the alleged scheme ended when the church's board tried to do a through audit of finances and were told over and over again by Reiter that the auditor was not available.
The church called the firm where the auditor worked, and were told no one by that name worked there. When the board called a number which supposedly belonged to that auditor, investigators determined Reiter answered the phone pretending to be the auditor.
Reiter, 50, and Connie Reiter, 44, of South Park, were arrested Tuesday and arraigned by District Judge Ron Arnoni, then taken to the Allegheny County Jail, a spokesman for the District Attorney's Office said.
Kimball was arrested and released on bond Monday. The next day he was sitting in a courtroom gallery appearing to pray. Kimball had been employed as a youth minister at Cornerstone Presbyterian Church in Cary since January 2016. The church's head of staff said he learned of the arrest on April 29; the church's governing body met later that night and accepted Kimball's resignation.
For his four charges of third-degree sexual exploitation of a minor, Kimball faces a maximum sentence of 13 years behind bars.
The Rev. Dr. William Weaver, the former minister of Linden Presbyterian Church for 39 years, is accused of sexual assault, aggravated assault, sexual battery, false imprisonment and intentional infliction of emotional distress, misrepresentation and gross negligence, in the 105-page lawsuit filed Tuesday by Toms River attorney Robert Fuggi in Middlesex County Superior Court.
Wood is a member of Port Cities Reformed Baptist Church of Lewiston, Idaho. PCRBC is one of only 21 churches now remaining in the corrupt Association of Reformed Baptist Churches of America (ARBCA). At its zenith, ARBCA consisted of approximately 80 churches. The Association has been decimated by resignations after it was revealed that leaders in the Association lied and covered-up the crimes of former ARBCA pastor Tom Chantry. Chantry, having been convicted of six felony counts (2 counts of assaulting a child and 4 counts of sexual molestation of a child) is currently serving a 23-year prison sentence.
Menlo Church is a local evangelical Presbyterian faith community that attracts about 6,000 weekly congregants across six Bay Area campuses, and is headquartered in Menlo Park.
Michael Bryce Jr., who led worship services at Menlo Church's Mountain View location, is alleged to have repeatedly solicited nude photos from a teenage boy online while working at a church in Oklahoma, according to a March 20 announcement authored by the church's Transitional Pastor John Crosby and Elder Board Chair David Kim. The alleged solicitations occurred several years before Bryce began work at Menlo Church and they said they have not received any reports indicating concerns with his actions while working at Menlo Church. Bryce was terminated from his position March 19.
Total Depravity - all of humanity, from beginning to end, is completely and "totally" depraved, morally corrupt, and wicked.
Unconditional Election - God chooses who will and who will not become Christians, and this choice has been made before every human has even been born.
Limited Atonement - Jesus died for the "unconditionally elect" ONLY - He did not die for the sins of all of humanity.
Irresistible Grace - Those "believers" who are part of the "unconditionally elect" have no "choice" in the matter - if they are "elected" to be saved, they can not resist, refuse, or decline the call from God to be saved. The elect will always be saved and the non elect will never be saved. That is how God designed it.
Perseverance of the Saints - once saved, always saved - the person who is "elected by God WILL become a Christian and will stay a Christian - so - based on this final Calvinist point, there is absolutely no such thing as a "former Christian" like me. The staunch Calvinist believes that for the 25 years that I considered myself to be a Christian,
I:
a) was not a Christian for those 25 years (I just thought I was).
~ or ~
b) am still a Christian now (but just don't know it).
b) am still a Christian now (but just don't know it).
When it comes to the Calvinists, what's the difference between "Reformed" and "Presbyterian"? I think I read somewhere that all Presbyterians are "Reformed" but not all "Reformed" are Presbyterians, but both are of the Calvinist persuasion, or follow (some) tenants of Calvinistic theology.
But honestly, this post is not about what they believe - what it is about is:
HOW THEY BEHAVE
How does a Calvinist (more specifically, a Calvinist minister) behave? - how they behave is actually not any different than the Baptists, (some of which are "reformed" Calvinistic in their beliefs), or the church(s) of Christ, or the Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses, or the Mormons for that matter.
See what you think . . .
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The Office of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) estimates that [in the PCUSA] there are about 50 clergy sexual misconduct cases every year. Although cases in the PCUSA tend to involve adult women and male pastors, there are sometimes cases reported that involve children and other men.
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Buckle up . . .
"He truly believed he was talking to a 13-year-old the whole time," Frank said.
Using the screen name "baltimorecare," Gerstner wrote that he wanted to teach the girl about sex, according to a statement of probable cause filed in Howard County District Court.
His unsolicited messages to "Jennifer" asked her to engage in sexual intercourse and oral sex acts with him, the court document states.
The father of five, who lives in Perry Hall, became senior pastor at Inverness after serving as a professor at Knox Theological Seminary in Fort Lauderdale, according to the church's Web site. He has been minister at Inverness for about two years.
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Dec 2002 - A former Presbyterian minister in Westchester County accused of having sexual contact with eight boys and young men said yesterday that some of the allegations had merit, and he apologized for some of his actions.
Jack S. Miller, 58, former pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Mount Kisco, who has been largely silent since the accusations were first aired last week, spoke in an extensive telephone interview from his home in Pound Ridge. He disputed some of the allegations but admitted to others, including sexual contact with at least two boys.
Whitney, 47, the former pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Auburndale, was arrested May 28 on charges he hit his wife with a 10-pound patio stone and choked her.
Whitney served as pastor of the 186-member church at 410 Pilaklakaha Ave. After the incident occurred, Whitney voluntarily submitted his resignation, said church spokesman Bob Stambaugh.
Robert D. Schmidtberger, 50, pastor of the Rose Point Reformed Presbyterian Church, was arrested last week by state police from Butler, who investigated his home computer practices and allegedly found child pornography images in e-mails and chatroom's.
When police checked the box number with the New Castle post office, they learned it was the address of the Rose Point church before the new 911 addressing. Through an Internet search, police then learned Schmidtberger was its pastor. They obtained a search warrant of his home on June 2 and seized various computers, computer media and hardware. According to police, they also confiscated CD-ROMs, 15 of which contained 161 images of child pornography and five images of bestiality -- humans engaged in sexual acts with animals. Police also found at least six e-mails on the CDs that contained attachments of child pornography.
Schmidtberger is charged with 194 counts of sexual abuse of children for possession of child pornography.
Jack S. Miller, 58, former pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Mount Kisco, who has been largely silent since the accusations were first aired last week, spoke in an extensive telephone interview from his home in Pound Ridge. He disputed some of the allegations but admitted to others, including sexual contact with at least two boys.
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July 2003 - BARTOW -- Prosecutors have upgraded charges against Auburndale minister Bruce Whitney from aggravated battery to attempted first-degree murder in an attack on his wife.Whitney, 47, the former pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Auburndale, was arrested May 28 on charges he hit his wife with a 10-pound patio stone and choked her.
Whitney served as pastor of the 186-member church at 410 Pilaklakaha Ave. After the incident occurred, Whitney voluntarily submitted his resignation, said church spokesman Bob Stambaugh.
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May 2006 (Updated Nov 2015) A Princeton area minister accused of collecting and sending child pornography over the Internet is facing 198 felony charges. Robert D. Schmidtberger, 50, pastor of the Rose Point Reformed Presbyterian Church, was arrested last week by state police from Butler, who investigated his home computer practices and allegedly found child pornography images in e-mails and chatroom's.
When police checked the box number with the New Castle post office, they learned it was the address of the Rose Point church before the new 911 addressing. Through an Internet search, police then learned Schmidtberger was its pastor. They obtained a search warrant of his home on June 2 and seized various computers, computer media and hardware. According to police, they also confiscated CD-ROMs, 15 of which contained 161 images of child pornography and five images of bestiality -- humans engaged in sexual acts with animals. Police also found at least six e-mails on the CDs that contained attachments of child pornography.
Schmidtberger is charged with 194 counts of sexual abuse of children for possession of child pornography.
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Mar 2011 - Patrick Edouard, former Pastor of Pella, Iowa Covenant Reformed Church charged with rape and sexual exploitation. He has been charged with forcing three different women from Covenant Reformed into sex acts in 2006, 2007 and 2008. He is also charged with three counts of sexual exploitation, for two of the alleged rapes and for a sexual relationship with a fourth woman in his congregation that lasted from May 2008 to June 2010. The exploitation charges are made under a state law that prohibits counselors, therapists, teachers and clergy from having sex with their patients and clients.~ ~ ~
April 2011 - Pastor Peter James stood before his congregation at Vienna Presbyterian Church last Sunday and paused before giving one of the most difficult sermons of his life. Framed by the light coming through the sanctuary’s huge windows, James spoke of sexual abuse by youth director Eric DeVries. A row of young women sat in a back pew as James apologized for just recently learning that their ordeal was “far more devastating and horrific than we had imagined.”“We failed as leaders to extend the compassion and mercy that you needed,” James said, publicly acknowledging the church’s failings for the first time. “Some of you felt uncared for, neglected and even blamed for this abuse. I am sorry. The church is sorry.”
James’s sermon — and a letter detailing the situation for the congregation’s more than 2,500 members in Northern Virginia’s affluent suburbs — as many as a dozen teenage girls may have suffered sexual, emotional and spiritual abuse at the hands of a youth director who worked there from 2001 to 2005.
Lyzenga, 57, held his composure throughout the hearing and spoke with a stressed but steady tone as he pleaded guilty to all 10 counts, without the benefit of a plea agreement.
Pastors Joshua Harris and C.J. Mahaney left the leadership council of The Gospel Coalition, a central hub for the Reformed evangelical movement, after a trial involving child abuse at Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Md., which both men have overseen.
A criminal trial that concluded last week raised questions about what pastors at Covenant Life knew about the abuse and why steps weren’t taken to stop it.
Nathaniel Morales, 56, was convicted of sexually abusing three underage boys between 1983 and 1991 when he was a youth leader at Covenant Life.
During testimony, former Covenant Life pastor Grant Layman suggested that he withheld information from the police about the abuse allegations against Morales.
“Did you have an obligation to report the alleged abuse?” public defender Alan Drew, who represented Morales, asked during cross-examination. “I believe so,” Layman said. “And you didn’t,” Drew responded. “No,” Layman said.
Mahaney and Harris are among a coterie of evangelical leaders who are trying to push the movement toward an embrace of Reformed theology, which has traditionally been the domain of Presbyterians and other followers of John Calvin, the 16th-century French theologian.
Reformed theology differs from some evangelical teaching in key aspects, particularly on the question of salvation, and it has roiled life within the Southern Baptist Convention, where 30 percent of pastors now consider themselves Calvinists, or Reformed.
Mahaney founded Covenant Life in 1977 and now leads Sovereign Grace Church of Louisville, Ky., which is also the home of Sovereign Grace Ministries, a national association of 80 Reformed evangelical churches.
Rev. Kris Schondelmeyer has filed a civil lawsuit against the now-imprisoned Jack Wayne Rogers, formerly of Fulton, Missouri. Schondelmeyer says Rogers sexually violated him at a nationally sponsored youth conference in Maryland in 2000. At the time, Rogers was a Presbyterian Lay Pastor for the Missouri Union Presbytery serving at Bellflower Presbyterian Church.
Rogers is now behind bars in Florida for child pornography and other sexual crimes. He has been publicly named as a suspect in the disappearance of a northwest Missouri boy who went missing months after Rogers allegedly assaulted Schondelmeyer. According to the Associated Press, “authorities believe Rogers bragged in an online chat room that he abducted, raped and murdered a man (and) said police would never find the body because of how he disposed of it.”
However, Rogers has never been charged in connection with the man’s disappearance. He did, however, plead guilty a decade ago to first-degree assault and practicing medicine without a license after cutting off “a man's genitals in a makeshift gender reassignment surgery in a hotel room,” the Associated Press reported.
John Hays, 57, of Chicago, was ordered held on $150,000 bond Friday on a second charge of aggravated criminal sexual abuse, according to the Cook County State's Attorney's office.
The alleged incident happened in Oct. 2013, when Hays visited the boy after he had surgery, prosecutors said. Hays had jumped into the same bed with the boy and allegedly touched the child inappropriately as he was falling asleep, prosecutors said.
At the time, Hays was working as the director of congregational life at First Presbyterian Church of River Forest, and was also a board member at First Presbyterian Church for the last five years. The victim and his family attended worship services there. Hays was an ordained minister, but did not serve as a pastor at the Presbyterian church, according to Kevin Murphy, an elder at the church. He was dismissed May 26, Murphy said.
James’s sermon — and a letter detailing the situation for the congregation’s more than 2,500 members in Northern Virginia’s affluent suburbs — as many as a dozen teenage girls may have suffered sexual, emotional and spiritual abuse at the hands of a youth director who worked there from 2001 to 2005.
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May 2014 - Robert Lyzenga, former pastor of Sunrise Christian Reformed Church in Lafayette, admitted Thursday to secretly video-recording women and girls within two church restroom stalls over the course of several months more than two years ago.Lyzenga, 57, held his composure throughout the hearing and spoke with a stressed but steady tone as he pleaded guilty to all 10 counts, without the benefit of a plea agreement.
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May 2014 - Two pastors have left a Reformed evangelical group after a pastor from the Maryland megachurch they oversaw confessed to covering up sex abuse claims, the latest chapter in a public struggle over evangelicals coming to terms with abuse within their ranks.Pastors Joshua Harris and C.J. Mahaney left the leadership council of The Gospel Coalition, a central hub for the Reformed evangelical movement, after a trial involving child abuse at Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Md., which both men have overseen.
A criminal trial that concluded last week raised questions about what pastors at Covenant Life knew about the abuse and why steps weren’t taken to stop it.
Nathaniel Morales, 56, was convicted of sexually abusing three underage boys between 1983 and 1991 when he was a youth leader at Covenant Life.
During testimony, former Covenant Life pastor Grant Layman suggested that he withheld information from the police about the abuse allegations against Morales.
“Did you have an obligation to report the alleged abuse?” public defender Alan Drew, who represented Morales, asked during cross-examination. “I believe so,” Layman said. “And you didn’t,” Drew responded. “No,” Layman said.
Mahaney and Harris are among a coterie of evangelical leaders who are trying to push the movement toward an embrace of Reformed theology, which has traditionally been the domain of Presbyterians and other followers of John Calvin, the 16th-century French theologian.
Reformed theology differs from some evangelical teaching in key aspects, particularly on the question of salvation, and it has roiled life within the Southern Baptist Convention, where 30 percent of pastors now consider themselves Calvinists, or Reformed.
Mahaney founded Covenant Life in 1977 and now leads Sovereign Grace Church of Louisville, Ky., which is also the home of Sovereign Grace Ministries, a national association of 80 Reformed evangelical churches.
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July 2014 - A former Presbyterian minister who is a suspect in a missing person case, who pled guilty to sex crimes and who admitted severing a man's genitals in an illegal gender reassignment surgery is now being sued for allegedly sexually assaulting a boy who grew up to be a Presbyterian minister.Rev. Kris Schondelmeyer has filed a civil lawsuit against the now-imprisoned Jack Wayne Rogers, formerly of Fulton, Missouri. Schondelmeyer says Rogers sexually violated him at a nationally sponsored youth conference in Maryland in 2000. At the time, Rogers was a Presbyterian Lay Pastor for the Missouri Union Presbytery serving at Bellflower Presbyterian Church.
Rogers is now behind bars in Florida for child pornography and other sexual crimes. He has been publicly named as a suspect in the disappearance of a northwest Missouri boy who went missing months after Rogers allegedly assaulted Schondelmeyer. According to the Associated Press, “authorities believe Rogers bragged in an online chat room that he abducted, raped and murdered a man (and) said police would never find the body because of how he disposed of it.”
However, Rogers has never been charged in connection with the man’s disappearance. He did, however, plead guilty a decade ago to first-degree assault and practicing medicine without a license after cutting off “a man's genitals in a makeshift gender reassignment surgery in a hotel room,” the Associated Press reported.
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Oct 2014 - A former River Forest church official is again facing charges of sexually abusing a child — this time a 9-year-old boy from the church with whom he was watching a movie last year, authorities said.John Hays, 57, of Chicago, was ordered held on $150,000 bond Friday on a second charge of aggravated criminal sexual abuse, according to the Cook County State's Attorney's office.
The alleged incident happened in Oct. 2013, when Hays visited the boy after he had surgery, prosecutors said. Hays had jumped into the same bed with the boy and allegedly touched the child inappropriately as he was falling asleep, prosecutors said.
At the time, Hays was working as the director of congregational life at First Presbyterian Church of River Forest, and was also a board member at First Presbyterian Church for the last five years. The victim and his family attended worship services there. Hays was an ordained minister, but did not serve as a pastor at the Presbyterian church, according to Kevin Murphy, an elder at the church. He was dismissed May 26, Murphy said.
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Dec 2015 - Huntsville police have charged Director of youth ministery Cristopher Alfaro with transmitting obscene material to a child. They said 30-year-old Cristopher Alfaro allegedly used his position to help commit these crimes. Representatives with Covenant Presbyterian Church.~ ~ ~
June 2016 - More charges have been laid against a Presbyterian minister from P.E.I. by Durham Regional Police in Ontario. The charges are in connection with an 89-year old widow from Oshawa, Ont. who was defrauded of thousands of dollars. Harold Alan Stewart, 67, was first arrested on April 29 while on vacation in Ontario.Police allege he befriended the elderly woman and used her credit card without her knowledge.
Stewart, who is a minister with the Kensington-New London pastoral charge, was first charged in April with fraud under $5,000, unauthorized use of a credit card, and possession of stolen property.
Court staff say those new charges are fraud over $5,000, obtained by false pretense over $5,000, uttering forged documents and possession of property obtained by crime.
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Nov 2016 - A minister in the Baptist church, who left the area 10 years ago, has been indicted on multiple counts accusing him of sexually molesting children in 1995, 1996, and 1998 to 2001 while he was pastor of a church in Prescott.Thomas Jonathan Chantry, 46, pastor of Christ Reformed Baptist Church in Wisconsin, faces five counts of molestation of a child, related to two minors, and three counts of aggravated assault on three separate minors as well.
One alleged victim, now an adult, came forward to Prescott Police and, according to a police report, when Chantry became a pastor at Miller Valley Baptist Church, Chantry told his parents that he wanted to tutor the victim, then “approximately 9 or 10 years old,” privately in his church office.
The parents consented, and the victim claims that, during his twice-weekly hourly meetings, Chantry would spank him, “grope him, rub him, and make him sit on his lap,” the report said.
The victim said that during a Christmas break during which he stayed at Chantry’s house, Chantry “began fondling him,” the report said, touching his private areas, and saying “he was making them feel better.”
This went on for a period of six to seven months, the report said, and Chantry allegedly told the boy not to tell anyone “about his special lessons because he would not be able to teach everyone.”
The man, now 32 years old, said that, even during the abuse he claims was happening when he was a child, he knew it was wasn’t right.
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July 2017 - A church employee was arrested Thursday morning on multiple charges involving inappropriate video chats with underage girls. Chad Robison, 36, was the worship leader at Seven Rivers Presbyterian Church in Lecanto.Deputies say that some of his coworkers were going to play a prank on him, but found pornographic material on his laptop. Robison was fired from the church and employees called authorities.
During an investigation, officials sorted through more than 3,000 videos and 350,000 pictures and found recorded videos from a video chat website of Robison engaged in inappropriate acts with young girls, including one who said she was 14 years old.
Detectives found several chat sessions from the website "Omegle" and Skype, which Robison recorded with screen capture software. The videos go back several years and include out of state victims.
Some of the chats involved the same 14-year-old girl, who said Robison had also expressed interest in meeting her in person.
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Feb 2019 - A longtime church administrator is facing felony charges, along with his wife, in connection with the alleged theft of more than $1.2 million from Westminster Presbyterian Church in Upper St. Clair, authorities said Tuesday. David Reiter was the business manager at the church. He allegedly made additional payments to himself, totaling between $1,700 and $2,000 up to six times a month for nearly seven years. That, along with other payroll transfers totaled nearly $970,000 in that time. An additional $220,000 was spent for personal gain using the church's credit card, according to investigators with the Allegheny County District Attorney's office."There was a tremendous amount of forethought and deception in this, which is all the more sad and just a sense of betrayal," said Rev. Jim Gilchrist, the church's senior pastor. The criminal complaint says the alleged scheme ended when the church's board tried to do a through audit of finances and were told over and over again by Reiter that the auditor was not available.
The church called the firm where the auditor worked, and were told no one by that name worked there. When the board called a number which supposedly belonged to that auditor, investigators determined Reiter answered the phone pretending to be the auditor.
Reiter, 50, and Connie Reiter, 44, of South Park, were arrested Tuesday and arraigned by District Judge Ron Arnoni, then taken to the Allegheny County Jail, a spokesman for the District Attorney's Office said.
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Apr 2019 - Cary Police Department said David Kimball, 34, had multiple explicit pictures of children in his possession. Investigators believe the children were between the ages of 4 and 15.Kimball was arrested and released on bond Monday. The next day he was sitting in a courtroom gallery appearing to pray. Kimball had been employed as a youth minister at Cornerstone Presbyterian Church in Cary since January 2016. The church's head of staff said he learned of the arrest on April 29; the church's governing body met later that night and accepted Kimball's resignation.
For his four charges of third-degree sexual exploitation of a minor, Kimball faces a maximum sentence of 13 years behind bars.
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June 2019 - Four people, three men and one woman, have filed a lawsuit against a longtime Presbyterian minister, claiming he indulged in sexual behavior to exorcise evil spirits from them.The Rev. Dr. William Weaver, the former minister of Linden Presbyterian Church for 39 years, is accused of sexual assault, aggravated assault, sexual battery, false imprisonment and intentional infliction of emotional distress, misrepresentation and gross negligence, in the 105-page lawsuit filed Tuesday by Toms River attorney Robert Fuggi in Middlesex County Superior Court.
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Dec 2019 - 70-year-old David L. Wood was arrested on Monday, December 4, 2019, and charged with three counts of first-degree child molestation, which are Class A felonies in the state of Washington.Wood is a member of Port Cities Reformed Baptist Church of Lewiston, Idaho. PCRBC is one of only 21 churches now remaining in the corrupt Association of Reformed Baptist Churches of America (ARBCA). At its zenith, ARBCA consisted of approximately 80 churches. The Association has been decimated by resignations after it was revealed that leaders in the Association lied and covered-up the crimes of former ARBCA pastor Tom Chantry. Chantry, having been convicted of six felony counts (2 counts of assaulting a child and 4 counts of sexual molestation of a child) is currently serving a 23-year prison sentence.
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Jan 2020 - A former Presbyterian minister who served for decades at a city church and was accused of using exorcism rituals to sexually abuse several people has declined to dispute the claims made against him in court.
William Weaver, a prominent minister who served as pastor at the Linden Presbyterian Church for 39 years, is being sued by five people in two separate cases playing out in Middlesex and Union counties.
"He's not disputing the claims, he's not disputing the case," said Toms River attorney Robert Fuggi, who is representing the plaintiffs in both lawsuits. "We'll be able to go forward and get a judgment against him."
The lawsuit also names the Linden Presbyterian Church, Presbyterian Church (USA) and the Plainfield-based Elizabeth Presbytery, which oversees 41 Presbyterian churches in Hunterdon, Middlesex, Somerset and Union counties.
The men claimed that during individual counseling sessions with Weaver, the minister allegedly made them lie down naked on a bed, lit candles around the room, placed gemstones on various parts of their bodies and used a feather and magnetic strips to scan their bodies.
The interactions became sexual, the three men claimed, eventually leading Weaver to allegedly engage in oral sex.
Linden Presbyterian Church on Orchard Terrace, which is where the Rev. William Weaver served as the minister for decades.
The allegations date back to 1999. All the men said they were at extremely vulnerable periods in their lives when they sought counseling from Weaver.
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Feb 2021 - Reverend Hugh Graham, who had previously served at the St Andrews’ United Reformed Church in Hampstead, was messaging with at least two children on the Grindr dating app before caught by a police officer posing as a 13-year-old boy. In one message to a victim, Graham referred to himself as “an open-minded perv”, but said he was “not really interested in toddlers”. In another message he advised on how to find videos and pictures on the dark web. Graham also wrote: “I’m hoping you aren’t a gang of blokes trying to trap me. I could get into trouble for chatting to you lol.”
The 60-year-old was arrested at his home in Kentish Town in December 2019. Police seized two laptops, an iPhone, memory cards and a USB stick. All of which were found to contain illegal images.~ ~ ~
Apr 2021 - A worship leader at Menlo Church's Mountain View location was fired after allegations emerged that he solicited nude photos online from a teen boy while working at a church in Oklahoma several years before joining the staff of Menlo Church, according to statements from church leaders.Menlo Church is a local evangelical Presbyterian faith community that attracts about 6,000 weekly congregants across six Bay Area campuses, and is headquartered in Menlo Park.
Michael Bryce Jr., who led worship services at Menlo Church's Mountain View location, is alleged to have repeatedly solicited nude photos from a teenage boy online while working at a church in Oklahoma, according to a March 20 announcement authored by the church's Transitional Pastor John Crosby and Elder Board Chair David Kim. The alleged solicitations occurred several years before Bryce began work at Menlo Church and they said they have not received any reports indicating concerns with his actions while working at Menlo Church. Bryce was terminated from his position March 19.
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Nov 2021 - The case against a Charlottesville church deacon will proceed to a circuit court grand jury following a recent preliminary hearing. Richard “Trey” Coe, a deacon at Trinity Presbyterian Church, was initially charged in Charlottesville Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court with four counts of rape, two counts of aggravated sexual battery and one count of strangulation, according to court records. The charges are all felonies and are related to incidents that occurred between 2013 and 2015, according to court records.
Following a preliminary hearing Wednesday in Charlottesville’s Juvenile and Domestic court, five charges were certified: two counts of rape, two counts of aggravated sexual battery and one count of strangulation. The certified charges arise from incidents on May 10, 2015 and April 18, 2013, per court records.
The remaining two rape-related charges were dismissed and and stemmed from incidents on February 9, 2014 and November 16, 2014.
At the time, he was minister of Orritor and Claggan in Cookstown.
Ronnie Lee Barron, 44, was charged with third-degree sexual exploitation of a minor and sexual battery with a 17-year-old student from Loris High School, records show. Barron joined Loris First Presbyterian Church as a youth pastor in 2017 after moving from Conyers, Georgia.
According to an arrest warrant, Barron had sexual intercourse with the minor victim between March and June 2021. The incidents occurred at Barron’s house, the warrant said. A search warrant showed Barron's phone contained multiple nude photographs of the victim, and a video of the victim having sexual intercourse, the arrest warrant said.
The director of music at the church, William Broyles, has been charged with fatally shooting his 57-year-old wife, 27-year-old daughter and 28-year-old son at their home in Callahan.
The elder, Keith Magill, recently resigned from Immanuel Reformed Presbyterian Church in West Lafayette, Indiana. The resignation follows allegations that Magill, other elders, and Pastor Jared Olivetti mishandled the sex abuse of up to 15 children at the church. Magill, Olivetti, and the other elders face ecclesiastical charges from the Reformed Presbyterian Church (RPC) regarding the alleged cover-up.
Now a former member of the church Keith Magill pastored from 1980 until 2002 — Southside RPC in Indianapolis — says Magill covered up the abuse she reported to him more than 20 years ago.
The alleged victim told TRR that her father had sexually abused her for years. She said she reported the abuse to Magill in 1999, while he was her pastor. But Magill failed to report the abuse either to law enforcement or to church authorities, she said.
The Rev. Wayne Peck, 70, of Highland Park, is charged with theft and receiving stolen property. He turned himself in to detectives from the Allegheny County District Attorney’s office on Tuesday.
According to the criminal complaint, Peck was hired by Community House Presbyterian Church, which currently has about 50 members, in 1977 and served in that role until his retirement in March 2017.
However, investigators with the DA’s office were contacted by representatives of the Pittsburgh Presbytery and Community House Presbyterian Church after financial irregularities were discovered in the fall of 2019.
According to the complaint, on the day before Peck’s retirement, he changed the authorized signers on a bank signature card for the church and its Community House organization to include only himself, his wife and another member of the board, preventing access to anyone else at the church.
An analysis of bank records showed that, even after Peck’s retirement, large checks payable to him were issued monthly from the Community House bank account. They totaled more than $357,000, with many of the memo lines showing they were reimbursement for expenses.
The checks were deposited into accounts owned by Peck and his wife, Molly, and the money was used for their living expenses, including their mortgage, utilities, shopping, travel and vehicles, officials said.
Chantry’s church was affiliated with the Association of Reformed Baptist Churches of America, which reports 13 member churches nationally. It is not part of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Chantry’s father was a founding member of the association and was involved in covering up a report on his son’s actions produced in 2000 by church elders, prosecutors said. The report, which said Chantry was disqualified from holding any pastoral positions, angered his father. A second, more neutral report was created, prosecutors said. No one contacted police.
Although the victims’ parents were told Chantry wouldn’t be a pastor again, he began preaching less than a year later in Washington. Two years later, he’d taken a position in Illinois. By 2005, he began preaching at the Hales Corners church — which closed after he was criminally charged.
U.S. District Judge Marc. T. Treadwell sentenced Eric Tuininga, 45, of Milledgeville last week. He was ordered to pay $20,000 in restitution and spend a lifetime on supervised release as a registered sex offender after getting out of prison.
Tuininga previously working as a minister at Immanuel’s Reformed Church in Salem.
Prosecutors have said that an American citizen had contacted the U.S. embassy in Kampala, Uganda, in June 2019 to tell officials that Tuininga was having sex with Ugandan girls as young as 14 who were under the care of the U.S.-based Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Mbale, Uganda.
The victim told the Pipestone County Sheriff’s Office that Vanessen sexually assaulted her in February of 2015 while at a church youth group meeting at Pipestone Christian Reformed Church, according to court documents.
Vanessen sexually assaulted the victim at the victim’s home in Pipestone in March of 2015, according to court documents.
In an opinion made public Friday, the Tennessee Court of Appeals has overturned a lower court ruling that dismissed the lawsuit the men filed against Woodland Presbyterian Church and its two ruling authorities, the Presbyterian of the Mid-South Inc. and the Synod of Living Waters Presbyterian Church, in 2020.
The men, now in their 30s, were among several boys alleged to have been raped by then-Woodland pastor James B. “Jim” Stanford during “sleepovers” at his church-owned home in the 1990s, according to court records. They sought help from the church back then, but Stanford branded them liars and the church hierarchy backed him, records show.
It was only in 2019 that the men learned the church hierarchy had already known by the time of their abuse that Stanford was suspected of raping other boys at these “sleepovers” but did not tell them about those other claims, did nothing to stop the abuse and kept all the abuse claims hidden from its members and the public, according to court records.
Shelby County Circuit Court Judge Rhynette Hurd dismissed the lawsuit last year, ruling the men had no legal right to file suit decades after the abuse.
“These (men) are now in their 30s, and the court finds that the statute of limitations has run on their claims,” Hurd ruled. “They knew what happened then … so, once they turned 18, within a year they should have asserted those claims (by filing a lawsuit). What happened to them is horrible. There is no doubt about that. It happens all too often.”
The remaining two rape-related charges were dismissed and and stemmed from incidents on February 9, 2014 and November 16, 2014.
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Dec 2021 - A former Presbyterian minister has avoided jail after pleading guilty to possessing and distributing child abuse images. Matthew Simpson, 59, from Fernisky Road, Antrim, admitted six charges relating to five indecent images of children found on his computer between October 2015 and May 2017.At the time, he was minister of Orritor and Claggan in Cookstown.
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Dec 2021 - The former Loris High School volunteer baseball coach who was charged with sex crimes against a minor was also a youth pastor at a Loris-area church.Ronnie Lee Barron, 44, was charged with third-degree sexual exploitation of a minor and sexual battery with a 17-year-old student from Loris High School, records show. Barron joined Loris First Presbyterian Church as a youth pastor in 2017 after moving from Conyers, Georgia.
According to an arrest warrant, Barron had sexual intercourse with the minor victim between March and June 2021. The incidents occurred at Barron’s house, the warrant said. A search warrant showed Barron's phone contained multiple nude photographs of the victim, and a video of the victim having sexual intercourse, the arrest warrant said.
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Dec 2021 - A day after a tragedy rocked the members of Hodges Boulevard Presbyterian Church, a message of mourning was posted on the church’s website.The director of music at the church, William Broyles, has been charged with fatally shooting his 57-year-old wife, 27-year-old daughter and 28-year-old son at their home in Callahan.
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Jan 2022 - An elder facing charges of covering up child sexual abuse at an Indiana church also covered up similar abuse decades ago at a different church, an alleged victim recently told The Roys Report.The elder, Keith Magill, recently resigned from Immanuel Reformed Presbyterian Church in West Lafayette, Indiana. The resignation follows allegations that Magill, other elders, and Pastor Jared Olivetti mishandled the sex abuse of up to 15 children at the church. Magill, Olivetti, and the other elders face ecclesiastical charges from the Reformed Presbyterian Church (RPC) regarding the alleged cover-up.
Now a former member of the church Keith Magill pastored from 1980 until 2002 — Southside RPC in Indianapolis — says Magill covered up the abuse she reported to him more than 20 years ago.
The alleged victim told TRR that her father had sexually abused her for years. She said she reported the abuse to Magill in 1999, while he was her pastor. But Magill failed to report the abuse either to law enforcement or to church authorities, she said.
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May 2022 - The retired pastor from a North Side Presbyterian church is accused of stealing more than $357,000 from it.The Rev. Wayne Peck, 70, of Highland Park, is charged with theft and receiving stolen property. He turned himself in to detectives from the Allegheny County District Attorney’s office on Tuesday.
According to the criminal complaint, Peck was hired by Community House Presbyterian Church, which currently has about 50 members, in 1977 and served in that role until his retirement in March 2017.
However, investigators with the DA’s office were contacted by representatives of the Pittsburgh Presbytery and Community House Presbyterian Church after financial irregularities were discovered in the fall of 2019.
According to the complaint, on the day before Peck’s retirement, he changed the authorized signers on a bank signature card for the church and its Community House organization to include only himself, his wife and another member of the board, preventing access to anyone else at the church.
An analysis of bank records showed that, even after Peck’s retirement, large checks payable to him were issued monthly from the Community House bank account. They totaled more than $357,000, with many of the memo lines showing they were reimbursement for expenses.
The checks were deposited into accounts owned by Peck and his wife, Molly, and the money was used for their living expenses, including their mortgage, utilities, shopping, travel and vehicles, officials said.
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June 2022 - Rev. Thomas Chantry, 51, was a pastor at Christ Reformed Baptist Church in Hales Corners from 2005 until 2016, when he was indicted in Yavapai County, Arizona. From 1995 to 2001, Chantry led an Arizona church where prosecutors say he routinely spanked and groped several children during tutoring sessions. He continued to seek out victims “even after being caught and narrowly escaping punishment or arrest on several occasions,” prosecutors said in court documents.Chantry’s church was affiliated with the Association of Reformed Baptist Churches of America, which reports 13 member churches nationally. It is not part of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Chantry’s father was a founding member of the association and was involved in covering up a report on his son’s actions produced in 2000 by church elders, prosecutors said. The report, which said Chantry was disqualified from holding any pastoral positions, angered his father. A second, more neutral report was created, prosecutors said. No one contacted police.
Although the victims’ parents were told Chantry wouldn’t be a pastor again, he began preaching less than a year later in Washington. Two years later, he’d taken a position in Illinois. By 2005, he began preaching at the Hales Corners church — which closed after he was criminally charged.
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July 2022 - A Georgia man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty in February to sexually assaulting a girl while a missionary in Uganda.U.S. District Judge Marc. T. Treadwell sentenced Eric Tuininga, 45, of Milledgeville last week. He was ordered to pay $20,000 in restitution and spend a lifetime on supervised release as a registered sex offender after getting out of prison.
Tuininga previously working as a minister at Immanuel’s Reformed Church in Salem.
Prosecutors have said that an American citizen had contacted the U.S. embassy in Kampala, Uganda, in June 2019 to tell officials that Tuininga was having sex with Ugandan girls as young as 14 who were under the care of the U.S.-based Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Mbale, Uganda.
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June 2022 - An Edgerton man is charged with sexually assaulting a teenager while he was a church youth group leader, according to charges filed in Pipestone County, Minnesota. Corey John Vanessen, 38, is charge with two counts of criminal sexual conduct in the second degree and actor in position of authority, and one count of possession of machine guns and short-barreled shotguns.The victim told the Pipestone County Sheriff’s Office that Vanessen sexually assaulted her in February of 2015 while at a church youth group meeting at Pipestone Christian Reformed Church, according to court documents.
Vanessen sexually assaulted the victim at the victim’s home in Pipestone in March of 2015, according to court documents.
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June 2022 - A Tennessee appellate court is allowing three men allegedly raped as children by a Presbyterian pastor in Memphis more than two decades ago to sue the church and its governing body for allegedly covering up the crimes with a “whitewash” investigation kept hidden for years.In an opinion made public Friday, the Tennessee Court of Appeals has overturned a lower court ruling that dismissed the lawsuit the men filed against Woodland Presbyterian Church and its two ruling authorities, the Presbyterian of the Mid-South Inc. and the Synod of Living Waters Presbyterian Church, in 2020.
The men, now in their 30s, were among several boys alleged to have been raped by then-Woodland pastor James B. “Jim” Stanford during “sleepovers” at his church-owned home in the 1990s, according to court records. They sought help from the church back then, but Stanford branded them liars and the church hierarchy backed him, records show.
It was only in 2019 that the men learned the church hierarchy had already known by the time of their abuse that Stanford was suspected of raping other boys at these “sleepovers” but did not tell them about those other claims, did nothing to stop the abuse and kept all the abuse claims hidden from its members and the public, according to court records.
Shelby County Circuit Court Judge Rhynette Hurd dismissed the lawsuit last year, ruling the men had no legal right to file suit decades after the abuse.
“These (men) are now in their 30s, and the court finds that the statute of limitations has run on their claims,” Hurd ruled. “They knew what happened then … so, once they turned 18, within a year they should have asserted those claims (by filing a lawsuit). What happened to them is horrible. There is no doubt about that. It happens all too often.”
But in its Friday opinion, the appellate court disagreed and struck down Hurd’s ruling as legally flawed.
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(I will continue to update this post as church leaders just can't seem to behave)
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July 2023 - Retired minister in East Cobb charged in 1975 Pa. slaying.
A retired minister who has been living in East Cobb has been charged with abducting and killing an eight-year-old girl who was attending Bible school at his church in Pennsylvania nearly 50 years ago.
The district attorney in Delaware County, Pa., west of Philadelphia, said Monday that David George Zandstra, 83, has been charged with murder and kidnapping of a minor and the possession of an instrument of crime.
Gretchen Harrington went missing on August 15, 1975, as she was walking in Marple Township, Pa., to Bible school at Trinity Church Chapel Christian Reform Church, where Zandstra was a pastor. The girl’s father was a pastor at The Reformed Presbyterian Church nearby, which also served as a venue for the Bible school.
Gretchen Harrington’s skeletal remains were identified at a state park several miles away on Oct. 14, 1975. But the case into finding her killer went cold after some early leads fizzled, according to a release on Monday from Jack Stollsteimer, the district attorney in Delaware County.
The case was revived when Delaware County investigators earlier this year talked to an individual who said she was best friends with Zandstra’s daughter, and who would stay at the minister’s home for sleepovers when she was a girl. The witness said that when she was 10, she was awakened by Zandstra groping her, and another friend told her that he “did that sometimes,” according to the Delaware County DA. That was right before Gretchen Harrington went missing. The same witness also told authorities a child in her class was almost kidnapped twice, and noted in her diary that she thought Zandstra might have been behind those attempts, the DA’s office said in the release.
Zandstra initially denied any involvement in Gretchen’s disappearance and killing, then was told of the witness’ allegations of his sexual misconduct.
Zandstra said he saw Gretchen Harrington walking by herself along a road as he drove in a green station wagon on the day she disappeared. He offered to drive her to the Bible school and she accepted.
Instead, he drove to a wooded area, parked the car, and asked her to remove her clothing, the DA’s office said.
Stollsteimer said Zandstra then told his investigators that after she refused to comply, he struck her in the head with his fist, causing her to bleed, and he tried to bury her body before leaving the area.
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December 2023 - Liam Goligher, influential PCA pastor, resigns after past arrest made public
The pastor of Philadelphia’s Tenth Presbyterian Church — an influential Presbyterian Church in America congregation — resigned after a past arrest for improper conduct along with another church leader was made public.
Liam Goligher, who had been pastor of Tenth since 2011, resigned on Dec. 1, according to a statement from the church. His resignation was first reported by Ministry Watch, a nonprofit evangelical watchdog group.
Goligher was arrested in 2014, along with a female church leader, and was cited for “personal conduct” in a public park in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The term “personal conduct,” Lancaster police told Ministry Watch, can refer to “lewd or sexual behavior.” The pastor’s arrest was made public recently by Anglican Watch, an abuse watchdog website.
A native of Scotland, Goligher was pastor of Duke Street Church in London before coming to Tenth Presbyterian in 2011. He previously led churches in Canada, Ireland and Scotland and had a television and radio ministry in the U.K., according to a bio prepared by the committee that recommended him as Tenth’s pastor.
His resignation came as Tenth is dealing with the fallout from the arrest and conviction of former church elder Bruce Garner. Garner was sentenced this past summer to 21 to 48 months in prison after pleading guilty to taking more than 100 “upskirt” photos of girls while working as a school bus driver.
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My Reformed Christian friend . . .
Remind me as to what makes your Christian beliefs so special.
Remind me why holding to the 5 points of Calvinism makes any beneficial difference.
Remind me how believing anything with regard to your particular brand of Christianity is something that I should desire or need.
Honestly, as to the 5 points of Calvinism - I get the impression that Total Depravity is really the only one that your ministers should be reminding their congregants of. That way they won't be surprised when yet another of your ministers are charged with a crime.
"Well, there goes Pastor Jones, proving once again that we are all totally depraved".
bob
r.u.reasonable@gmail.com
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