Rising Rockstar Pastor Accused of Having Secret Second Marriage, Practicing Polygamy
A rising rockstar pastor and seminary professor has been accused of having a secret second family, according to a pair of local pastors who form his accountability group.
Vance Bantu is the pastor of Beloved Community Church in St Louis, and the assistant professor of Black church studies at Fuller Theological Seminary, where he can always be counted on to give a quip or a quote about circumstances affecting African American churches, especially in relation to the Jude 3 org. According to his Fuller bio:
Bantu is the author of numerous articles on global Christianity, including studies of Syriac and Nubian Christianity, apologetics, justice, evangelism, and African American theology. He is currently working on two projects: Gospel Theology: A Constructive Theology and Critical Reflection on African-American Christianity and No Further Burden: Exploring the Multiethnic Roots of Christianity.
A recent Christianity Today article has blown up his life, however, accusing him of practicing polygamy and exposing creepy circumstances that saw him expelled from a previous seminary.
The article recounts that Darren Young and Thurman William, the latter who pastors New City Fellowship West Church in St Louis (PCA) and leads the homiletics program at Covenant Theological Seminary, formed an accountability group with Bantu, where they would discuss life, ministry, and personal struggles.
In late 2023, Bantu allegedly started to argue that a good way for him to avoid sexual temptation was to marry multiple women, something he insists the bible allows. The two pastors were shocked by the remarks and counseled him otherwise, but Bantu kept kept gnawing on that bone, texting them pro-polygamy articles. Furthermore, he revealed that he had begun to talk to his wife about the possibility of taking on more women, even having two different potential wives in mind.
A month later, when they met again, Bantu dropped the news:
As they started to talk over breakfast at Ari’s, the two men recall, Bantu announced that he already had a second wife. He said he was secretly practicing polygamy with a woman who attended his church and was also one of his students.
“I never saw it coming,” said Young, a Young Life area director. “I just never would have thought that. He said he married himself and her ‘unto the Lord.’ That was the phrase he used, ‘unto the Lord.’”
Bantu has denied the allegagtions, telling CT:
My brothers in Christ have fallen into the snare of jealousy and have made false allegations about me. I cannot fully comprehend the motivation for these accusations.”
The woman, who is alleged to have married the pastor, has denied the claims. However, the Bishop overseeing his church, Paulea Mooney-McCoy, says the claims are consistent with her conversations with him.
She revealed that she struggled to get clear or complete answers from him about his alleged second marriage, which is an answer in and of of itself.
These allegations do not exist in a vacuum, however. CT notes that “(Bantu) was forced to resign from one church and one seminary in 2018 for an inappropriate relationship with a student. The student came forward, prompting a Title IX investigation, and Bantu confessed and stepped down.’ The article reveals the circumstances of this incident, at one point quoting the student:
“He told me he believes you can have romantic relationships outside of marriage, and it’s biblical to be romantic outside the confines of marriage….He would never commit adultery, but he was really hoping I would agree to be in an extramarital romantic relationship with him.”
For more wokeness from Bantu:
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Well, seeing we live in apostate times and ‘Christians’ (so-called) are accepting women pastors, why not polygamists, too?