Assemblies of God churches shielded accused predators — and allowed them to keep abusing children

( NBC )

A children’s pastor was caught filming girls in a church bathroom in Arkansas. Elders suspended him for a few weeks.

In Illinois, a preacher was accused of sexually abusing children. Church leaders sent him to therapy rather than call police.

In California, a worship minister went to prison for molesting boys. His congregation threw him a party when he returned.

All of these men remained in ministry in the Assemblies of God, the world’s largest Pentecostal denomination. All went on to abuse more children.

Since the 1970s, Assemblies of God churches have repeatedly reinstated ministers and volunteer leaders accused of sexual misconduct, returning them to pulpits and youth groups, an NBC News investigation found. While some of the other largest Christian denominations now require safeguards such as background checks and mandatory reporting, national Assemblies of God leaders have resisted, arguing such rules would increase legal risk, undermine its commitment to local church autonomy and defy a core biblical command: to forgive.

The result is a patchwork system that has protected accused predators and left generations of children in danger.

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.

Survivors say they were violated in sanctuaries, at pastors’ homes and in tents on camping trips. 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.

Of the alleged abusers, 123 were ministers, and nearly half of those were youth pastors. Others were church employees, youth group leaders or Sunday school teachers. Dozens were accused of luring boys through the Royal Rangers, a Pentecostal version of the Boy Scouts.

In about 30 instances, church leaders placed alleged abusers into positions of authority after they had been accused, freeing them to strike again. Convicted sex offenders led youth groups. Accused ministers were reinstated or quietly moved to new congregations. As a result, according to lawsuits and police records, dozens more children were abused.

In nearly 40 other cases, leaders allegedly covered up or dismissed reports of misconduct — often by failing to alert police or pressuring victims to stay quiet. Melody Meza recalled a leader in her congregation praying for lying, demonic spirits to leave her after she reported abuse by a church elder.

“They made me feel like something was wrong with me and not the person abusing me,” said Meza, one of nearly 20 people suing an Assemblies of God church in California accused of concealing decades of abuse.

Others said preachers twisted scripture to silence them. “Touch not the Lord’s anointed,” pastors warned, citing a verse from Psalms that some interpret as a command to never question spiritual leaders.

Courtney Blackburn said she wishes her church’s former leaders had looked to another passage, one in which Jesus commanded followers to protect children. When she reported misconduct by her youth pastor in Arkansas, she said, they left him in place. He went on to sexually assault two children, criminal records show.

“They preach every single day about following the Bible,” Blackburn said. “So why aren’t they?”

NBC News has spent the past year investigating sex abuse in the Assemblies of God. In May, reporters revealed that church officials let children’s pastor Joe Campbell keep preaching for years despite repeated allegations. In August, NBC News uncovered how an Assemblies of God college ministry funneled hundreds of students to the home of Daniel Savala, a sex offender some pastors hailed as “the holiest man alive.” In both cases, leaders dismissed warnings, allowing the abuse to continue.

Other denominations have faced reckonings and made changes. After journalists exposed the Catholic Church’s practice of shuffling abusive priests between parishes, leaders adopted sweeping child safety rules in 2002, including mandatory reporting and zero tolerance for sexual misconduct. In 2019, after a newspaper investigation found widespread abuse in the Southern Baptist Convention, that denomination made it easier to expel churches that shield abusers.

The Assemblies of God has not taken these steps. Denomination leaders acknowledged in the 1990s that sex abuse in its churches was a serious problem and urged congregations to implement safety measures — background checks for staff and volunteers, reporting protocols, prevention training. But without consequences or meaningful oversight, the guidelines amounted to little more than suggestions.

For decades, survivors have pressed the Assemblies of God to do more. They’ve taken their stories to church leaders — only to see alleged abusers pop back up at other congregations. They’ve filed lawsuits and police reports, some ending in settlements or long prison terms, others fizzling out because statutes of limitations had expired. They’ve prayed, quoted scripture and pleaded for someone in power to act.

For many, the trauma has lasted a lifetime. Some attempted suicide or struggled with anxiety and addiction; others saw their faith fracture, marriages collapse and sense of safety crumble.

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.”

As a “voluntary cooperative fellowship,” the General Council said, it runs background checks and sets professional standards for credentialed clergy but leaves local congregations to govern themselves — a structure leaders describe as central to the denomination’s identity. “Affiliated churches share doctrinal beliefs, but are independent in virtually every other way, including their local bylaws, staffing, policies and practices.”

The Assemblies of God could make anti-abuse policies mandatory at its 13,000 U.S. churches. The General Council debated doing exactly that in recent years — then backed away after lawyers warned it could expose the national office to costly lawsuits.

The decision left survivors reeling. 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?

Time and again throughout its history, the Assemblies of God was warned about the danger of sexual abuse. And time and again, survivors say, it extended grace to abusers rather than pursue justice for victims.

The pattern began in the 1970s, when the denomination confronted a challenge: what to do with ministers who fell into scandal.

Leaders created rules to discipline and restore pastors for offenses ranging from false teaching to financial misconduct to sexual sin. The framework emphasized mercy, citing Galatians: “Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently.”

The policy reflected foundational beliefs. Born in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1914 amid a nationwide Pentecostal revival, the Assemblies of God spread quickly. At its core was a conviction that the Holy Spirit moves through believers in supernatural ways — speaking in tongues, prophecy, divine healing and other miracles.

Pastors who demonstrated such gifts of the spirit were treated as God’s anointed, their charisma viewed as proof of divine favor. The most gifted preachers transformed that aura into spiritual empires, drawing thousands to megachurches, filling television airwaves and sometimes amassing personal fortunes.

This theology has helped make the Assemblies of God one of the most dynamic forces in global Christianity, with 3 million members in the U.S. and nearly 90 million worldwide. But it also meant that when spiritual leaders strayed, churches large and small often prioritized redemption over accountability.

One early case: Illinois minister Allen Lehmann.

In 1979, Lehmann was accused of molesting two girls in his family, according to internal Assemblies of God documents filed in a lawsuit. Rather than call police, the denomination’s state district council suspended his ministerial credentials and placed him in a two-year restoration program, which included meetings with a psychologist.

Although the girls Lehmann allegedly abused were elementary school-age, records show, his ministerial file described his misconduct as “indiscretions with a young woman.”

The denomination’s national office received regular updates. In July 1980, a district official noted Lehmann’s restoration was “progressing slow.” One year later — four months ahead of schedule — the same official reported Lehmann had been “fully rehabilitated.”

With that stamp of approval, he transferred to another Assemblies of God church in Louisville, Kentucky. Soon, more allegations followed.

From 1993 to 2000, Lehmann sexually abused three other young relatives who visited his home on church mission trips, according to criminal records. Each girl said the abuse began when she was 6; one said it continued into her teens. She told police Lehmann raped her with a baseball bat, beat her with a leather strap and choked her, telling her “love has to hurt.”

Years later, Lehmann’s adult son — also an Assemblies of God pastor — reported him to police. He told investigators he discovered that the denomination had “covered up” his father’s earlier offenses, records show.

Lehmann pleaded guilty to child rape in 2018. He was given a 15-year suspended prison sentence and set free on probation. Survivors sued the Assemblies of God national office and its Illinois and Kentucky district councils, settling in 2022.

Reached by phone, Lehmann said, “Not interested,” and hung up.

The danger of restoring offenders has played out in less formal ways. The Assemblies of God enforces a national credentialing system for ministers, giving the General Council power to discipline, restore or expel those who fail to meet its theological and moral standards. But it only requires a church’s lead pastor to be credentialed. That gap gives congregations wide latitude to hire and restore youth pastors, worship leaders and other associate ministers — including those with histories of misconduct.

At Landmark Christian Center in Downey, California, the senior pastor chose his son, Timothy Scarr, to lead music. He was forced to find a replacement in 1985 after Scarr pleaded guilty to molesting two boys from the church — but his departure was temporary.

Five days after Scarr’s release from prison in 1988, his father threw him a party to welcome him back as worship leader.

The Bible says when sins are confessed, they are cast into the sea and remembered no more. It also warns that wolves often come draped in sheep’s clothing.

Over the next decade, Scarr sexually abused two more boys, according to criminal records. One teen said Scarr routinely pressured him for oral sex, including in the sanctuary, and threatened to kill himself if the boy refused. The other said Scarr took him to nearby Disneyland and invited him to sleep at his home, where late at night Scarr undressed and climbed on top of him.

After the teens went to police and filed lawsuits, Scarr’s father, who has since died, defended restoring him. He said he believed God had miraculously cured his son’s attraction to children, according to court records, so he saw it as his duty to reinstate him. “So powerful is the command to forgive under those circumstances,” the father’s lawyer wrote in a filing, “that failure to do so is itself a mortal sin which can bar one’s eternal soul from Heaven.”

Scarr was convicted of child sex abuse in 1998 and given 30 years in prison. At sentencing, one of his victims rebuked him: “You used the church as a hunting ground,” he said. “You hurt those who were innocent and called evil goodness.”

Released several years ago, Scarr didn’t respond to messages.

Landmark Christian Center, which has since closed, settled the teens’ lawsuits for $3.5 million, but not before a judge dismissed the Assemblies of God from the case.

Scarr’s victims argued the denomination was negligent because it lacked policies to bar a sex offender from ministry. The judge disagreed, saying courts could not force the Assemblies of God to police its churches.

Doing so, the judge wrote, would violate religious freedoms enshrined in the First Amendment.

By the late 1990s, the scourge of sexual abuse in churches had grown too public to ignore, and the Assemblies of God faced pressure to do more than simply encourage safeguards. Reports from Catholic and evangelical congregations were beginning to make national headlines, raising questions about how religious institutions protected children.

Those questions came to the fore at the Assemblies of God’s 1997 biennial General Council meeting in Indianapolis, where thousands of ministers considered a resolution barring anyone convicted of child sex abuse from holding ministerial credentials.

Proponents invoked a Bible verse declaring anyone who harms a child is better off having a millstone hung around their neck and “drowned in the depth of the sea.”

But some ministers pushed back. What about pastors who abused children before becoming Christians? Others debated whether the ban should extend to pastors who molested 16- and 17-year-olds without having intercourse.

In the end, delegates voted to shelve the measure for two years so lawyers could study it.

When ministers reconvened in 1999, the Executive Presbytery — 21 senior ministers who act as a board of directors — urged against adoption. Requiring background checks of every minister, they said, would be expensive, wouldn’t reduce legal liability and could unjustly punish those convicted of “relatively minor” offenses before finding Jesus.

“Should such a person be forever barred from qualifying for ministerial credentials?” the presbyters asked.

Delegates let the proposal die.

Three years later, after The Boston Globe’s bombshell investigation exposed sexual abuse and cover-ups in the Catholic Church, the Assemblies of God released a statement saying it had long maintained a “zero tolerance” policy barring ministers found guilty of sexually abusing children from being credentialed. “This is not a new position but one the church has always held,” the statement said — seemingly at odds with the factious debate just a few years earlier.

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