Alabama Pastor Confesses to Having Sex with Church Members And Having AIDS – Juan Demetrius McFarland

Piercing the Darkness

By: Susan Deborah Schiller

Straight out front, I don't normally post about pastors who abuse women and children in their congregation, even though a large part of why I'm here at Team Family Online is to rescue and restore those who have been spiritually hurt in their churches, especially by predators in the pulpit. 

I'm sharing this news event, because I believe it highlights the number one reason why sociopathic abuse continues to grow in epidemic proportions – because we simply don't understand this level of evil and the effect of our "grace-full" responses. Good people project their niceness onto predators and miss confronting evil face-to-face. 

I believe God's heart is bleeding for the victims of abuse within places of worship. I feel it. We can stop the bleeding of God's sheep. Passion for God demands we face evil and stop the predators. Instead, we blame the victims. It's a case of Ezekiel 34 and I know God wants to do something in this ongoing situation that is replicated throughout the world.

Today, at WFSA – a local news site in Alabama, I read two distinct perspectives on exposing darkness and healing the wounded in the Church:

"Our moves are going to come directly from counsel. We want peace and we want to do things right, legally," Williams said. "We are not looking to hurt him. We are looking to get the church back. That's our theme: Get the church back. We want the church back. That's it."

But some members say they want justice.

"I believe that he should be put on trial," another unnamed church member said. "Go to court and let the judge decide if he should go to jail or not. We tend to sweep things under the rug, especially if they're the leader. It's like oh, no, please let's not get this out but I think after this that they will have more discussions on HIV and AIDS."

These types of discussions are what local pastors like Jackie Slaughter of Metropolitan United Methodist Church say need to happen in all churches.

"If we are all sisters and brothers, when one person is hurting, we all should feel that hurt. And if we think about the statistics, specifically for our ethnic group, we are bearing the brunt of it," Slaughter said. "So I think it behooves us to try to really want to try to be involved because we are all connected, we are all connected and that makes a difference when we are thinking about issues like this."

The two distinct perspectives I'm hearing, are:

1. We just want to move forward and have our church back. Let's put our focus on healing, not on blaming or bringing the perpetrator to justice.
2. We want justice. We should prosecute the perpectrator and allow the court system to decide what to do with a man who knowingly uses his position as shepherd of a flock to infect families with HIV, and probably a whole lot more. (He confessed to misuse of finances, drug use, etc.)

Deacon Williams says, in the 70 years he's been part of the church this is the worst scandal it's experienced. At this time, no charges have been filed against McFarland and the governing body that he is also a part of, which oversees 34 churches, has also taken no steps to remove McFarland from that position. 

At "Godfather Politics," I read:

Whenever we see a member of clergy fall from grace like McFarland, it usually causes us to wonder how they could let themselves get into that kind of situation. But we have to realize that pastors are sinners too and some of them cave into temptation just like others do. In the eyes of God, there’s no difference between a pastor committing adultery and a husband cheating on his wife or a wife fooling around with someone at work.

I’m not condoning what McFarland did, but warning all of you that none of us are immune to Satan’s temptations and we all need to be constantly on our guard to prevent us from falling into sin.

I respectfully disagree, having spent years studying the behavior and effects of predators in the pulpit. Yes, there are some pastors who stumble into sin. There are some pastors who repent and get help. But there is also a whole different category of predators that intentionlly seeks a position of trust and authority for the purpose of perpetrating abuse on the trusting parishioners. 

Most of us are nice, good people and we would never imagine this type of scenario. We project our niceness onto predatorial pastors. That's why it's so easy for this type of evil to creep into the church. Most certainly, we are all capable of falling into sin. But this advice – the "grace-ful" advice – of looking to ourselves instead of focusing on the predator, is lethal when it comes to sociopaths. 

This is the same type of advice I received, which appeared so godly, that it persuaded me to keep giving grace to my sociopath preacher husband. It led to an escalation of abuse.

Abuse doesn't stop unless it's confronted and held to God's standard of Love.

When grace becomes evil's accomplice, we invite hell on earth. We create chaos.

I have an archive here at Team Family Online that documents multiple facets of this type of abuse. It's more common than most people are aware of.

I'd like to ask: What about the known and unknown victims in this particular church? Who will cry out for justice, on their behalf? Victims need to get angry, to tell their story, to know that it's not their fault.

Can we live naked and unashamed??? Or are we still running for the nearest fig leaf to cover our shame?

It's not about race or gender or denomination. Upper class, middle class, lower class, red and yellow, black and white… sociopathic abuse is found in all our places of worship. While I'm not calling McFarland a sociopath, his behavior is typical of one. It's not just a one-time fall from grace, it's ongoing sin with what appears to be non-contrite spirit. The fact that he refused to leave the church, after being voted out, demonstrates an arrogance and total disregard for justice, mercy, and righteousness.

Will someone please speak up for these victims, without worrying about how the perpetrator is feeling about it? 

What does Jesus want to do in this church? Maybe this time of exposure is about to initiate a chain reaction of events that loosens the chains of shame and blame and sets people free that hadn't even been noticed before.

Perhaps, instead of "moving foward" God may want to stop right here and allow leadership to figure out what led them to keep a pastor in leadership who had already admitted to grave sins. Perhaps the leadership needs to examine their grace habit. Twenty-three years of increasing, escalating abuse! The church has not experienced scandal, because it was so well cloaked! It was experiencing one, continuous, undercover scandal for 23-years!

What is it about the position of pastor that we so quickly cover the predator with grace while pushing the victims to "move on," "get over it," and other such trash talk?

What would Jesus do? Would he rush to get a new pastor? Or would he simply let people share their stories and love on each other for awhile. Would he be in a hurry to get their church back??? Or would he sit quietly and hold their hands and let them know it's going to be all right. 

What would His face look like when he stood in front of McFarland? What would you see in His eyes, if you were a victim of McFarland? What would see in His eyes if you were a deacon at this church? What would you do?

I've been in a church like this one before, where there's so much pressure to move on, to get back to normal. You believe with a new pastor in place that you can find that peaceful place again, but wherever reality is swept under the carpet in the rush to save face, there is only a bigger gap for hell to slip in. I've seen this over and over again.

What would Jesus do, do you think? What would move the church forward in creating an abuse-free zone? I believe one answer begins with discovering the heart of Jesus and really knowing the true Gospel of Peace. I believe Truth and Love are a Person, God himself. I believe Jesus wants to bring Light (Truth and Love) into the dark places and go right to the root of what caused the church to accept this abuser for 23-years. 

What was really going on, that they didn't see their pastor's predatorial nature? How is it that victims were suffering such shame, even for more than two decades, without it coming to Light? The answers to these questions, and more, I believe, is what Jesus wants to reveal – and that, to me, is what "moving on" looks like. Will it happen? I pray it be so.

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With all my love,

Sue

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