Category: United Pentecostal Church

The United Pentecostal Church makes it quite clear in their yearly Manuals that if a person is guilty of committing immoral conduct regarding sexual matters, that they are not eligible to be licensed. If such happens while they hold license with them, their license is to be revoked and never reinstated. In addition, such people are not supposed to be ministering in any of their churches, whether or not they hold license. Yet despite what appears to be very clear directives, one discovers that for years there have been men holding license who have been immoral, as well as people preaching in their churches who have been immoral.

Let’s go straight to the 2019 UPCI Manual. These four rules have been in place since at least 1991, with most of it being in effect since at least 1965. In their 1952 to 1957 Manuals, they had a reinstatement procedure in place for ministers who they believed had repented of adultery or fornication. Other immoral acts were not noted. The repentant individual would be silenced for two years and then could apply for a one year probation of being permitted to preach, followed by them being able to apply only for a local license. They were never to be allowed more than a general license. [1952 UPCI Manual screenshot] By the 1965 Manual or prior, this reinstatement process was no longer in place. (For information on their three levels of licensing, read this.)

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Article VII Section 9. Immoral Conduct. [2019 UPCI Manual screenshot]
1. For the purpose of ministerial membership in the United Pentecostal Church International or for ministering in a United Pentecostal Church International church, immoral conduct shall be defined as adultery, fornication, homosexuality, incest, and/or any other sexual acts determined by the District Board to be perverted or immoral (Matthew 5:32; Matthew 19:9; I Corinthians 6:9; Romans 1:24-28). [Bold emphasis mine- This shows that even if one does not hold license, they should not be welcomed to preach in a UPC church.]

2. Any minister affiliated with our organization proven guilty of adultery or fornication, or committing any other immoral offense, shall forfeit his or her papers immediately. Immoral offense shall include sexual molestation of minors. [Note: The last sentence wasn’t added until the 2003 edition.]

3. In the event a minister confesses in writing to immoral conduct and surrenders his or her fellowship card, no trial shall be granted. In either case, such minister shall never be qualified for reinstatement into the ministry of the United Pentecostal Church International.

4. Any minister formerly affiliated with any other organization, (or any other minister) who has been proven guilty of committing the act of adultery or fornication, or committing any other immoral offense, either by confession or conviction, shall not be eligible for license or ordination in the United Pentecostal Church International.

Then under Section 10, Moral Obligations, it quotes two sets of Bible passages: I Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:6-9 without any commentary.

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Last October I wrote about one such case from Colorado, where a former youth leader received his UPCI license after having allegedly committed an immoral act. He obtained it in a different state and is yet licensed today. There is another case from Colorado which I will be writing about, where another youth minister from this same church was able to retain his license for years after allegedly assaulting several boys. In February I wrote about a case in Texas where a licensed minister allegedly committed immoral acts in the 1980s while a pastor. He either turned in or lost his license and was granted another in 2004 in a different state, where he is currently the pastor of an affiliated UPCI church.

I’ve written extensively about Steven J. Dahl who, while he never held license with the UPCI, he has been allowed to preach at their churches after repeatedly sexually abusing Debbie McNulty and also going after his wife’s younger sister. One of the pastors at Calvary Gospel Church in Madison, Wisconsin signed for a man to apply for his local license after they had been informed he sexually assaulted a minor. He was granted license in 2014 and had preached at the church prior to then. Another man from Calvary Gospel Church, who was an assistant pastor, was stripped of his license and made to confess to adultery in front of church members. He moved to Illinois and later ended up as a family pastor and has preached numerous times at an affiliated UPCI church. I have heard of cases where licensed UPCI ministers have covered for the sexual immorality of a son and they were later able to obtain license. How many stories of sexual immorality have we heard through the years of people attending one of their Bible colleges and yet were later afforded licenses?

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

Prior to writing this article, I asked people in a couple of groups if they knew of someone in the UPCI who was able to keep their license even though people knew they had done something immoral. I quoted from the Manual what was considered as immoral. It quickly became evident that this is, and has been, an ongoing problem in this organization and many people have known about or witnessed it. Almost 20 different people responded. Two claimed to know of 11 cases. Two others mentioned knowing three cases. Several responded without giving a number. One mentioned a well-known evangelist and another mentioned a legacy minister. Another shared they knew of multiple cases but those had their licenses revoked. Yet another brought up where both a pastor and his son had molested people, with the son going on to obtain license (though not now holding one). The pastor is still licensed. A minister in a southern state was mentioned who was caught with a teenage girl and later started an independent church, which at some point was welcomed into the UPCI with him as a bishop and his son as pastor. Though not involving immorality, another mentioned a man being previously turned down for license in Ohio due to multiple marriages but after he started his own church, he was later granted license while married to his third wife. [This is another area to be addressed as the UPCI Manual has rules regarding marriage and divorce among its ministers.] I’ve heard that the Ohio District has had a number of cases of sexual immorality through the years as well as other problems.

Besides all these situations alleged by those who responded to my question, for many years I have heard directly from people, and also read posts by others, who have known of men retaining or gaining their license after sexual immorality. I recall reading that a man in Michigan still retains license after allegedly committing more than one act of sexual immorality. I know of something disgusting an ordained minister in the NJ/DE District did to a female church member. He did not lose his license, though District officials were aware of it. It should have caused his license to be revoked.

What good are these rules if licensed ministers and District officials are allowed to break and circumvent them? In an organization that states they have the ‘whole Gospel’ and ‘the truth’ and claims to operate in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, how is it that these things happen and are allowed? Do Oneness Pentecostal pedigrees come into play? Is it because they give a nice amount of money to all the fundraisers in the organization? Is it because they have dirt on other ministers? Are they close friends with a District or General official? Are they married into the right family? I can find no excuse for allowing anyone in the United Pentecostal Church to hold license who has been immoral. I can find no excuse for allowing men to preach in their churches when they have been immoral. Their rules are clear. Either learn to abide by them with no wiggle room, or cut them out of your Manuals, because they are worthless if not followed. Instead, they give you and others a very false sense of security.

The United Pentecostal Church doesn’t appear to want to hear about these things, or from those who have survived sexual abuse in their churches. Last November, General Superintendent David Bernard deleted posts from and banned a woman on Facebook after having promised to look into a situation at one of their churches. He never got back to her. Just recently this month on the UPCI Facebook page, they removed the review section after some people were posting about these cases and how Calvary Gospel Church had hit the front page news of the Cap Times for unreported cases of child sexual abuse going back decades. Their Ladies Ministry Facebook page did the same thing after only one woman reached out to them in a review. At least they first made a response before shutting it down. Then there are people like UPCI Pastor J.R. Sellers of North Carolina, who wrote the following on August 23rd in a public Facebook post using his wife’s profile. This was his response to a quote from Jennifer Brewer’s book, Free: From Legalism to Grace Breaking Out of the United Pentecostal Church.

Hi Jereme. This is Sondra’s husband, J.R. Yes, I am a UPCI, Apostolic to the core pastor. I read the blurb in your wife’s best seller that the UPCI made her ashamed of her body and her curves and that she was never able to express herself. I thought I might warn you as her husband that now she is liberated to express herself with her body and her curves you better keep an eye on her next pastor because he might be enjoying her curvy expression a little too much and be like one of those pervo pastors that are being outed on your favorite spiritualabuse.org website. In this case my friend you may be out in the cold and she will have to write another best seller about a different kind of abuse. 😂– J.R. Sellers, Pastor of Spirit of Life UPC, Kinston, NC

It is extremely disturbing to see one of their ministers openly suggest and then laugh about the possibility of a woman being assaulted. Apparently, the United Pentecostal Church has quite a ways to go when it comes to getting rid of the thought that a female is responsible for any man sexually assaulting her. There is going to come a time when the United Pentecostal Church will be forced to openly address the multitude of sexual issues that have been present in their churches for decades.

Connie Baker, a licensed professional counselor in Oregon, shares her thoughts on sexual abuse cases in the Catholic Church and whether these assaults happen more there as compared to other churches. In June she released a new book, Traumatized by Religious Abuse: Courage, Hope and Freedom for Survivors.

EDIT: Since this article was written, at the 2019 UPCI General Conference, they passed a position paper on Abuse and Sexual Abuse.

You will find a complete list of articles in this series by clicking here.

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This is Part 23 of an ongoing series of articles pertaining to sexual abuse and the United Pentecostal Church. It is the eighth article addressing Calvary Gospel Church in Madison, Wisconsin and Steven J. Dahl of the Pentecostal Lighthouse Church in Oconto. As you read this article, keep in mind that I must call what I am sharing to be allegations because no one has [yet] been arrested, charged or convicted of a crime. It’s what happens when people fail to report child sexual abuse to police or CPS. It doesn’t mean I do not believe the reports of these survivors, of which there are many. I do believe them, stand firmly with them, and support them.

Just as the church has authority to examine and approve ministerial candidates, so it has authority to remove someone from a ministerial position if he no longer meets God’s requirements. Actually the person disqualifies himself by his actions, and the church simply recognizes this fact. Solomon permanently removed Abiathar from the high priesthood, a hereditary role explicitly ordained by God, because of his rebellion (I Kings 2:26-27). – David Bernard, January-March 1988 Forward

Today is a day of reckoning, a time for light to shine into the darkness found within Calvary Gospel Church. No more can certain alleged crimes, sins and the mishandling of child sexual abuse be kept from its members. While the leadership of John Wesley Grant and his son, Roy Grant, have controlled what information has been shared with members, they cannot control what is happening today because it has reached outside their walls and gone public for the world to see. While they may be able to manipulate and pull the wool over the heads of some who enter their church doors, they will not be able to do so as the public learns of decades of horror that some members have suffered.

They have had more than a year to come clean, to admit they failed to protect children and to report crimes against them, but instead of reaching out in humility to those harmed, they have attempted to create an us versus them mentality among its members, crying out how they are not a cult, and going so far as to read Scriptures just last Wednesday and proclaim that the survivors who have come forward have brought damnation upon themselves. More than a year ago their response was similar when they further victimized survivors by claiming this was a spiritual attack, saying they [the survivors] needed to ask themselves what part they played in why their sexual abuse happened (as if young children play a role in their sexual assault), and have claimed that they always report these cases to the police and that parents didn’t want to report them when police were contacted. This is simply not true. When Debbie McNulty, one of the survivors, went to report her case last year, she discovered that the church had not reported any cases of sexual abuse to police.

We know that Calvary Gospel Church and its leadership have been aware of the articles and blogs written about them. They shut down the review section of their church Facebook Page last year after some former members started leaving negative reviews there. They have deleted comments that some have left on their posts. The same happened with Steven Dahl and he even removed the Facebook Page for his church, changed what was written on his profile, and made it so only friends could comment. The website for his church disappeared as well. He also did not reach out to his alleged victim, Debbie McNulty. He has previously claimed that this was a spiritual attack on him and that he was praying that God “Avenge me of my adversaries.” [scroll down for this comment] He periodically posts about people needing to forgive others, as early as yesterday.

It has come to the place where Katelyn Ferral, a reporter from Capital Newspapers, has heard the voices of the survivors crying out, saying there is something very wrong at this church. She initiated an investigation and her article was released today. Police Chief Mike Koval is now involved in this situation as well. Later today at 11:15 am, at the State Capitol, Senate Parlor, “Wisconsin Senator Lena Taylor, Representatives Chris Taylor and Melissa Sargent will be joined by survivors of childhood sexual assault, the Wisconsin Coalition Against Sexual Assault, (WCASA), the Wisconsin Chapter of The National Association of Social Workers (WI-NASW), and the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) to introduce two major victim rights and child protection bills.” [link] These bills “would significantly reform Wisconsin’s mandated reporting law on child sex abuse and eliminate the civil statute of limitations on child sex crimes.” One would close the current loophole that allows clergy to claim clergy privilege and not report cases of child sexual abuse. The bills need your support and they need to be passed. Debbie McNulty and Rebecca Martin Byrd spoke boldly at this event and afterward they were interviewed by more than one news source. This is just the beginning.

I have been up all night in anticipation of today’s events. My heart goes out to all the courageous people who have stepped forward to shine a light where darkness has prevailed for far too long. May your voices prevail and be heard and may the lies of others be exposed.

I call on David Bernard, the General Superintendent of the United Pentecostal Church, as well as James D. Booker, the Wisconsin District Superintendent, to fully investigate this church and its leadership. Let’s see actions to go along with what you wrote in the 1988 Forward article. I also call on David Bernard to review how United Pentecostal Churches are handling, and mishandling, sexual abuse cases. Introduce a resolution for the organization to take a strong stand against sexual abuse, take action against ministers who fail to report or who cover up these crimes and revoke their ministerial license, and create a policy that clearly states that all your licensed ministers are required to report any suspected case of child sexual abuse regardless of what the law in their state stipulates. There is nothing in your Manual that addresses the need of your ministers and pastors to report abuse.

Jon Eckenrod, a former ordained minister in the UPCI and former associate pastor at Calvary Gospel Church, now says he was aware of instances where older men pursued young girls while he taught at the church and school. He heard rumors of other sexual improprieties with members, but said he always deferred to [John] Grant on how best to handle them and never sought details. – From the article, Stolen childhoods: Women allege they were sexually abused as kids at Calvary Gospel Church in Madison

Katelyn Ferral later released an article about the statute of limitations in Wisconsin, with a picture of Calvary Gospel Church and the notation, “Calvary Gospel Church at 5301 Commercial Ave. in Madison. Numerous former members have said they were abused there as children. They say finances are the only thing holding them back from filing a civil suit against the church and would pursue that route if it is within the state’s statute of limitations for such cases.”

On August 15, a second article was released where another survivor has come forward to tell her story: Another woman comes forward to allege sexual abuse at Madison’s Calvary Gospel Church

“What I didn’t realize is that in addition, they were going to tell all my friends … never to speak to me,” she said. “I don’t even know how to put it into words. We were never allowed to have friends outside of the church or associate with people outside of the church and all of a sudden all of my friends are gone.” – Lisa Kum, child sexual assault survivor, from the article: Another woman comes forward to allege sexual abuse at Madison’s Calvary Gospel Church

On August 19, 2019, Dee from The Wartburg Watch started blogging about this church and the survivors. The second article posted on August 21.

Since this article was released, Calvary Gospel Church has removed their Twitter account. They had previously blocked me some time back when they discovered I was tagging them in some tweets. But on August 8, I discovered after tagging them in things related to this story, that their account is no longer available. It was @CGCMadison.

Note: I have updated this article as events transpired through August 31.

Related articles:
Proposal for clergy to report accusations gets support from alleged Madison child victims – August 7, 2019 (with video)
Group alleges ministers at Madison church sexually abused them as children: ‘I still don’t sleep’ – August 7, 2019 (with video)
Proposal would make it easier for victims of child sexual abuse to seek justice – August 7, 2019 (with video)
Democrats look to end lawsuit limits, force clergy reports – August 7, 2019 (with video)
What are the statutes of limitations for child sex abuse crimes in Wisconsin? – August 7, 2019
Lawmakers push bills to end statute of limitations on lawsuits for childhood sex assaults, close loophole for clergy to report abuse – August 7, 2019
Democrats look to end lawsuit limits, force clergy reports – August 7, 2109
Democrats look to end lawsuit limits, force clergy reports – August 7, 2019 (Washington Times picked up part of the story)
Democratic State Lawmakers Renew Push For Child Victims Act – August 7, 2019
Democrats look to end lawsuit limits, force clergy reports – August 8, 2019
Democrats look to end lawsuit limits, force clergy reports – August 8, 2019
A Pentecostal Church in WI Has Covered Up Sexual Assault Allegations for Decades – August 8, 2019
Wisconsin bill would force clergy to report child sex abuse – August 8, 2019
Wisconsin Lawmakers Propose Legislation To Combat Sexual Abuse By Clergy – August 8, 2019 (with audio)
Wisconsin Democrats look to force clergy reports of sexual abuse learned in confession – August 8, 2019
Editorial: State laws must protect victims of child sexual abuse – August 14, 2019
Pentecostal Church Allegedly Covered Up Sexual Abuse for 30 Years – August 14, 2019
Calvary Gospel Church in Madison, Wisconsin Covered Up Child Sex Abuse Cases Since 1980s – August 14, 2019
Rape Culture: What the pedophilia cover-up at Calvary Gospel Church has in common with the Jeffrey Epstein case – August 14, 2019
Another woman comes forward to allege sexual abuse at Madison’s Calvary Gospel Church – August 15, 2019
Randy B. Christianson: Calvary Gospel Church’s actions unsettling – August 19, 2019
Child Sex Abuse Allegations Raised Against United Pentecostal’s Calvary Gospel Church, Wisconsin – August 19, 2019
Debbie McNulty Was 11 Years Old When She Was Assaulted by Steve Dahl at Calvary Gospel Church, WI. She Was Called a *Hussy* and the Church Did Nothing – August 21, 2019
Rebecca’s Story: Calvary Gospel Church, WI, Encouraged Her to Date and Marry Her Alleged Pedophile Molester – August 23, 2019
As a Child, Rachel Was Taught to Fear Hell and to Date Older Men: The UPCI ‘s Calvary Gospel Church and a Fractured Gospel – August 30, 2019
Fabu: After a tough August, Labor Day offers a chance to honor all workers’ contributions – August 31, 2019 brief mention
Clergy required to report child sexual abuse told in confession under bill (YouTube)

You will find a complete list of articles in this series by clicking here.

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