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Author: Lois
I was a member of the United Pentecostal Church for just under 13 years and was a licensed minister during a short part of that time. I am the owner of the SpiritualAbuse.org website, which was started four years after leaving. I am originally from southern New Jersey.
Then & Now: Changes to the United Pentecostal Articles of Faith- Public School Activities. Comparing 1952 to 2022.
1952 Articles of Faith Public School Activities
The United Pentecostal Church formed in 1945. Over the years they have increasingly added rules. Here we will examine what the Articles of Faith have stated about public school activities.
Please note all the added changes between 1952 and the current year. This section was not included in the initial UPCI Manual. It first appeared in 1948. In 1952 this section contained one sentence. Since then, four more have been added.
They remained as written in the 1952 version through 1981. In 1982, the second paragraph had been added and it stayed like this through the 1989 Manual. The next two paragraphs were added in the 1990 Manual and it has not changed since then.
2022 Articles of Faith Public School Activities
To read the entire 1952 UPCI Articles of Faith, go here.
This is infuriating. How does the United Pentecostal Church expect people to take them seriously when one of their pastors, who TWICE mishandled sexual abuse cases, gets elected as a presbyter of the Western District? Yes, Ron Earl Bohde is now the presbyter of Section 3.
David Bernard’s June 14, 2022 Facebook post
David Bernard, the General Superintendent of the UPCI, states that since September 2021 they’ve been working on the new section of their website called SafeChurch. They are supposed to be making reforms regarding sexual abuse and how it should be handled and prevented. When one of their Districts does something like this, it calls into question how serious they are about addressing the decades long issue of sexual abuse in their midst.
Remember Dylan Ritterman, who pleaded guilty to two counts each of attempted first degree sexual abuse and second degree sexual abuse of two boys at Bethel United Pentecostal Church in Oregon? Ron Bohde was the pastor. He failed to report the abuse to police when he heard of allegations. After that he was uncooperative with the police investigation at first.
Prosecutor Kevin Barton had this to say about Bohde, “This was a worst-case scenario when it comes to a church and a pastor not cooperating.” Let that sink in- A WORST-CASE SCENARIO.
Dylan Ritterman, Ron Bohde & Victor Becerra
Even SNAP released a statement saying, “This pastor [Bohde] should be harshly punished.” They were deeply disturbed by Ron Bohde’s actions.
After that Bohde headed south and took over as pastor of the Calvary Apostolic Church in Dinubi, California. Remember Victor Becerra, a former licensed United Pentecostal minister? He was found guilty of 19 counts of child molestation involving four minor girls.
It was reported that Bohde and some church members were supportive of Becerra. When people were protesting outside the church, Bohde was quoted as saying in a sermon, “Just to mess with their minds- I’m just praying that they get rain, cold and soaked wet, and miserably enjoy their protest.”
This is the type of man and pastor that the Western District voted in to become the presbyter of section three. This is so very wrong and sends a message quite opposite of what David Bernard is stating.
This District, in my opinion, has failed survivors of sexual abuse once again.
For additional information on Ron Bohde, see our prior article.
You will find a complete list of articles in this series by clicking here.
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Some things that happen in churches are absolutely mind boggling.
Michael Rodney Jones April 11, 2022 church website screen shot
If you knew that someone had twice broken into another man’s house in order to set up cameras in a bathroom, plus the bedroom of this man’s daughter, would you use them as part of a pastor’s team and have them be an altar ministry leader?
If you knew that this person held license when this occurred, and did this to a fellow associate pastor that he was working with, would you permit them to work on the church audio visual team?
If you knew that this person was arrested and plead guilty to two counts of burglary and two counts of taking nude video
Michael Rodney Jones April 11, 2022 church website screen shot
without the consent of the subject (as he captured nude images of the fellow minister’s wife and 19-year-old daughter), would you use them to work in any leadership role at your church?
If a church has home meetings, where this person could be going in and out of member’s homes, would it concern you?
If your church was just a half hour from the church where the perpetrator had previously helped, and that fellow associate pastor is still attending there, would you use this man in these roles? Wouldn’t that be a slap in the face to the other minister, his family and that church?
Do I have your attention? Incredible, is it not? This is seriously concerning. And yet it is, and for some time has been, happening at The Peninsula Pentecostals on Sharon Drive in Newport News, Virginia where Jared R. Arango is pastor. This is a United Pentecostal Church that touts itself as “a cutting-edge church.” Arango promotes himself as a “leader of leaders.”
The church where Michael Jones previously was an associate pastor is the Norfolk Apostolic Church, also a United Pentecostal Church, where for decades Michael Blankenship has been the pastor. The two churches are approximately 30 minutes from each other. Besides the things mentioned above, you will also see Jones singing on the platform at times. Jones has been involved at The Peninsula Pentecostals since at least 2019, as can be seen from looking through public Facebook posts.
2021 The Peninsula Pentecostals Pastor’s Team Leaders. Behind the pastor on the right is Michael Jones.
What Michael Rodney Jones did for months to his fellow associate pastor and his family was devastating and one of the worst kind of betrayals. I cannot fathom how another pastor could use Michael Jones in the ways he is being used at The Peninsula Pentecostals in Newport News. His acts were planned and calculated. He even used a computer, that the church gave him when he became an associate pastor, for his evil deeds. Are other victims out there? How safe are the members of this church and have they been told about his crimes? [The video below is from WKTR News 3 on May 6, 2015.]
This was a horrible invasion of someone’s privacy. What would have been his next act, had he not been caught after breaking in a second time to install another camera? Something like this isn’t a spur of the moment event. It took careful planning and he did it twice. Admitting guilt and receiving a minimal sentence and probation, Jones goes on his merry way, walks right back into leadership roles at a different church, as it’s as if nothing much happened.
2021 Jared Arango & Michael Rodney Jones
Jared “JR” Arango should know better than to use Jones in such leadership roles in the church. Arango has been quite involved in the United Pentecostal Church for many years. According to the church website, he has served in the Virginia District as a Youth President for eight years, Home Missions Director for eight years, Global Impact Director for two years and the Strategic Growth Coordinator. He has also served as the National Pentecost Sunday Coordinator for the UPCI.
Perpetrators can’t be given access to potential victims
in the future. As an analogy, when church treasurers embezzle money, they can be forgiven of their sin, restored to salvation, and restored to some form of church involvement. However, they have forfeited their access to such a position because they have broken trust. We would never appoint them to be a church treasurer again because they’ve shown susceptibility to this form of temptation and because others wouldn’t trust them or the church. Even more so, we can’t restore abusive leaders to positions of authority in which they could abuse people again. Doing so can result in great spiritual damage as well as legal liability. – David Bernard, Summer 2022 Forward
Michael Rodney Jones 2/23/24
Some will proclaim that crimes like this, if repented of, are in the past and should be forgiven and that the individual should be permitted to be active in church. Yet there are some sins and crimes that should preclude a person from being active in certain ways. If someone has embezzled funds or in any other way stolen money, then they should not be the church treasurer or an usher that helps to collect offerings. If they have exposed themselves to, or assaulted a child, you certainly don’t have them working with minors. If someone installed hidden cameras in an effort to obtain nude videos of people, they should not work on the church audio visual team. If they broke into a person’s home to do this and the church has home meetings that this individual is participating in, then everyone present should be made fully aware of their past crimes. If anyone has committed any type of sexual crime, including obtaining videos/pictures of people naked, then that person should never be placed in a leadership position again.
In a forthcoming article, you will see what happened after Michael Orten, another United Pentecostal pastor, trusted and believed it was fine to actively use a convicted and registered sex offender in the church. Orten is the pastor of Truth Apostolic Church in Madisonville, Kentucky.
A preacher may fall into sin, be forgiven by God, be restored to the church, and even be restored to many areas of service, but this does not automatically entitle him to his former position of leadership. He must once again meet the qualifications of being blameless, having a good report, and so on. This takes much time, and in some cases total restoration may never be possible. …Moreover, some sins-such as child molestation, incest, and rape-may indicate deep personality problems that would permanently disqualify someone from many leadership positions. – David Bernard, January-March 1988 Forward
This giveaway is a drawing and not a first come, first served giveaway. To enter, just leave a comment to show you wish to be included. The drawing will close on June 4, 2022 at 6pm (eastern time), after which I will draw a winner. Be sure to check back to see if you have won as in the past some people have not responded after winning and so a new winner had to be drawn. You will then need to email me your mailing address if I do not already have it, so be sure to watch your email and check the spam folder. There is absolutely no cost to enter. Don’t be alarmed if your comment does not immediately show. We also have entries being made in our Facebook support group.
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Some might be interested in a series of lectures by Thomas Fudge on the history of Christianity from the Roman Empire until the Reformation. https://youtu.be/WgTDplQabRk
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Due to how this series of articles on sexual abuse in the United Pentecostal Church has grown, I have created this page so readers may more easily find past and future articles. It is now too time consuming to update each article when new ones are released. Instead of them all being listed at the end of each article, this will be the only one that is updated as new ones are released.
Allegation Against Stanley Vickery: Boisy Pitre shared about a 1986 childhood encounter with former UPC minister Stanley Glenn Vickery.
He held license for 15+ years & is a registered sex offender. Pitre
shared how T.F. Tenney had looked into an allegation against him years prior.
