Tag: restored

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Johnny Hunt Publicly Comments on Sex-Assault Scandal. Did He Fess Up?

Six months ago, First Baptist Church of Woodstock formally suspended Pastor Emeritus Johnny Hunt, 69, after being accused of sexually assaulting another pastor’s wife a decade earlier.

You can read more about the details here, but 12 years ago, while on vacation with another pastor and his wife, Hunt is accused of making inappropriate comments about her body, such as her tan lines. He then maneuvered himself into her room, where he is alleged to have pinned her to the couch, got on top of her, forcibly removed her clothes, groped her, and put his hands and mouth on her breasts and body.

She describes it as a sexual assault, and he says it was consensual. This is how he describes it:

The church was never told, and it was only revealed after a Guidepost Investigation.

Recently, his friends restored him back into ministry and he’s been making the preaching rounds since. He’s thoroughly rejected the notion that his actions have in any disqualified him from the ministry, all the while refusing to state plainly which parts were true and which parts false.

I’m trying to just not overthink this message. I’m trying not to come in prepared to say this or that. There’s parts I’ve just left to say, ‘God, wherever you lead.’ I don’t know why, but I am consumed with the thought (as) I’m laying in bed in my home here in Panama City Beach.

Some false allegations broke against me. They were some allegations that weren’t false. But the ones that were false were the damaging. The other would have been easier to survive.

I’m in bed and I‘m awakened by a cry, and my wife is weeping. And I wake up and I say, ‘Honey, I’m sorry. Are you okay?’ And she said. ‘They’ve ruined your life’. Just put a letter, they’ve ruined your life.

‘What are you trying to say?’ My soul was feigning. It was, I felt consumed. I was overwhelmed. I needed divine intervention. I found it even hard to pray.

Here’s what it means; the hour is urgent. The crisis is clear. God, don’t you see how great this is? It’s a great need. But yet- look at me, look at me- but not without hope….

h/t The Dissenter

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Matt Chandler Returns to the Pulpit, Receives Standing Ovation + His Critics Go Nuts

Three months ago, it was announced that Lead Pastor Matt Chandler would be taking an indefinite leave of absence from preaching and teaching at The Village Church after it was revealed he was engaged in an inappropriate texting conversation with a woman not his wife, (the conversation, while not romantic or sexual, was described as “overly familiar” and involved “coarse and foolish jesting.” 

Yesterday Chandler, who was earlier restored by the elder team, took to the stage and received an extended standing ovation, taking a few minutes to apologize to his congregants, telling them, “I’m sorry, I failed you…” while lamenting that his “foolishness” might have caused his congregants hardship and pain. 

Chandler also explained that he’d spent the last few months undergoing “intensives,” which are extended counseling sessions delving into his personality, thoughts and motivations, and even had a neurological exam on account of not being able to recognize his error and wondering whether or not his brain cancer a decade ago where he had his frontal lobe removed might have something to do with it (This is a stretch). He told them:

“Of course I’m sick like I’m just- a couple of things. I very much know that the Christian life is a marathon and there are times in that run where you’re uphill in the snow and not sure if you’re gonna make it, and then there are other times you’re running downhill in the sun and it feels like nothing could ever hinder your love for Jesus and your bold witness.

And if in my foolishness I created any more weight on you, or made this any more difficult on you, please forgive me.

I said on the 28th that really the situation disoriented me, it scared me. I’m a man who’s very serious about his life and doctrine and that I didn’t see what I didn’t see really was disorienting to me. And I said I needed to understand that, it revealed some unhealth in me. And so the elders care plan involved a couple of intensives and I actually went even got a neurological exam. I don’t know if you were around for that, but I actually don’t have a right frontal lobe. I had a tumour taken out 13 years ago and radiation and all that, so we needed like, ‘hey, is there something wrong with my brain?’

And that’s the work I’ve been doing over the last three months. Some intensives with some experts and then is my brain okay. And I don’t I don’t have like here the eight takeaways…

Matt did not offer more details on what caused him to be suspended, but we covered that previously here:

Prominent Friend of Matt Chandler Says Situation is Overblown, Explains Nature of the ‘Coarse Jesting’ + Reveals Reaction From Woman He Was DMing

In response to his restoration, social media is alight with criticism, with comments from survivor bloggers being emblematic of the greater whole.

We also got ridiculous videos , which are loaded with assumptions, conclusion jumping and gossipy innuendo.

We’ve had our share of issues with Chandler in the past. We’ve been on the record sayin that the leaky charismatic has been drifting for years, such as when he compared BLM leaders to prophets- saying that not participating in BLM Marches is ‘giving up our inheritance’, then denounced America as ‘demonic’, while saying that racism is theologically woven into our foundation and finally declared after January 6th that ‘everyone is complicit in the unrest and destruction of our nation’. These are all troubling and worthy of rebuke.

But this restoration? Nothing about the situation would indicate that it is not appropriate.

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An Open Letter to the Members of Hiland Park Baptist Church: You Should be Ashamed

To the Members of Hiland Park Baptist Church,

(Pulpit & Pen) It has come to my attention that a group of four pastors, including your own pastor, Steven Kyle, has declared that Johnny Marshall Hunt is “restored” and is once again fit for vocational Christian ministry.  To that end, they produced a 14-minute video explaining their decision.  Being familiar with the details of Hunt’s situation and having seen this video, I must frankly say to you:

You should be ashamed.

A pastor should, according to scripture, be above reproach, be a “one woman man”, be a good manager of his household, and have a good reputation with outsiders.  Let me ask you this: Do you think a married pastor who invited himself over to a woman’s condo when she was all alone and then went to second base with her is above reproach?  Do you think that a pastor who told that same woman, another man’s wife, that he would have sex with her “three times a day” is fit to be a leader in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ?  I sure don’t.  I further believe that a God who can raise up rocks to cry out and worship him if people refuse to do so can raise up new leaders for His church if its old ones disqualify themselves.  Why in the world did your pastor find it necessary to restore Johnny Hunt?  Why do you allow the name of your church and, ultimately, the name of Christ to be besmirched by the deliberations of a kangaroo court of Johnny Hunt’s friends who have, without biblical warrant or authority, declared Johnny Hunt “restored”.

Johnny Hunt was the pastor of First Baptist Church of Woodstock for over a quarter century.  He was the “pastor emeritus” and still a member there when news of his trip to second base on another’s man’s wife came out; why do you think he wasn’t restored there?  I have to think it was because the supposedly repentant Hunt didn’t inform the church at large of his disqualifying sin when he first committed it.  Where other pastoral staff were fired from Woodstock for similar behavior, Hunt was merely counseled by his staff subordinate Roy Blankenship (who has since left the faith and entered into a homosexual “marriage” with another man) and given a sabbatical.  Hunt kept his six-figure salary where other men would have been fired.  Hunt got a rest period where other men would have been looking for new employment.  What does God’s word say about such partiality in the church?  The people of FBC Woodstock were told that Hunt needed a sabbatical because he was exhausted (ostensibly from doing the Lord’s work of leading his church and the Southern Baptist Convention).  But was this the truth? 

Single Adult Pastor Bill Kelly – fired. Senior Adult Pastor Ken Smith – fired. Youth Pastor Eric Fuller – fired. Johnny Hunt – Sabbatical. Seems fair.

After comfortably retiring from Woodstock years later, Hunt went on to take another six-figure job with the North American Mission Board.  He was, of course, forced to resign from that job when news of his adulterous actions came to light.  

So what are the consequences for Johnny Hunt?  He leaves his church of three decades to be restored in his favorite vacation spot, Panama City.  Boy, I bet that was hard on him.  If any of you think this “restoration” business has anything to do with grace and forgiveness, you’re dreaming.  It’s about money.  Johnny Hunt has been a ministry gold mine over the years for his friends and family.  Entire publishing companies and travel companies have been built around his ministry activities.  His cabal of megapastor friends are, of course, all too ready to restore him and get him back on the preaching circuit.  There are men’s conference speaking fees for them to share.

And it’s the reputation of your church which suffers for it.

Rarely do I agree with top Southern Baptist leadership and rarely does top Southern Baptist leadership speak out against millionaire celebrity pastors like Johnny Hunt.  However, today I find myself in agreement with these words from SBC President Bart Barber:

“I would permanently “defrock” Johnny Hunt if I had the authority to do so. In a fellowship of autonomous churches, I do not have the authority to do so. Yet it must be said that neither do these four pastors have the authority to declare Johnny Hunt to be “restored.” They do not speak for the Southern Baptist Convention. Indeed, it is not clear that they even speak for their own churches. For those Southern Baptist churches who practice ordination to ministry, the authority to ordain is generally considered to arise from the congregation, but no indication has been given that any of these four congregations have consented to or given their authority to this process.”

Bart Barber

I’ve never considered Bart Barber to be a particularly intelligent man but even he isn’t fooled by the crocodile tears and twisting of the story of Good Samaritan that Johnny Hunt’s big-time friends put in this video.

Here’s the truth about Johnny Hunt. He’s made a career out of “restoring” disqualified pastors (Google Ergun Caner) to the ministry.  He called it “City of Refuge”.  These men were restored on the back of Hunt’s sterling reputation, one hindsight tells us he never deserved.  So, not only has Johnny Hunt endorsed other men who needed only to find Christ’s forgiveness and secular jobs back into the pastorate, he has used a you-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours culture to “restore” himself.  

God isn’t fooled.  Are you?

All the Best,

Seth Dunn
ChristianCommute.com

Editor’s Note. This article was written by Seth Dunn and published at Pulpit & Pen