I thought I would leave everything behind when I moved to another state. All the gossip and rumors would be left in my previous state. I could start again. And for a very short time, they seemed to be. Then things changed. A girl told the pastor I’d invited her to stay with me when I hadn’t. She moved in and then started rumors that I was overcharging her. She borrowed things in my name and didn’t return them. People said I’d stolen them, even though she was the one who took them from them.
Finally, the roommate arranged a group to go to the mall. Single people weren’t supposed to go out without chaperones. She arranged for five of us to go — a couple who the pastor had said shouldn’t be going out, her, a man who was interested in me, and me. I refused, the church office found out, and they got in trouble. I’d made enemies, and they were enemies who would not forget, and who quickly began discussing why I had come to their church. They were sure it wasn’t for good reason. I was “a cloud without water, a wandering star” just going from church to church. One of the worst possible accusations there… I was a move-in.
Then the pastor died, and the pastor who’d thrown me out showed up to the funeral. A new pastor came, one that was known for his hard preaching, and he invited an evangelist friend of the man who threw me out. That evangelist told several members to beware, that he felt there was something wrong with me. I tried to remain true to what I’d been told, not to tell anyone about being expelled, but in time there were too many questions. I told the new pastor what had happened.
Shortly after that I began being called into the pastor’s office, yelled at, accused, and questioned. I stayed. I stayed as people lied about me, as I was falsely accused without any opportunity to respond. As soon as the first lie was told, I was declared guilty. The Bible warns against leaders judging a person without first hearing them, but the church did that to me and others on more than one occasion. They condemned before they had real information and sometimes even on only a feeling or a thought that a leader said he had.
In doing so, the church betrayed us. It also betrayed itself.
After being expelled, I spent several weeks in a daze. I didn’t know what to do or where to go. I visited or called several churches, and found each troubling. Several refused to have me when I told them I was looking for a church after my pastor asked me not to return. Another said I could come, that they had a visiting minister who would lay hands on me and ‘feel my spirit’ to see if my former pastor had been correct or if I had been wounded. Depending on what he felt, I could stay or not. I declined the offer; I believed that if my pastor said things about me and what I’d thought or had in my heart, he must be right, and I didn’t really want another person “feeling my spirit” when my spirit was raw with grief. I felt very vulnerable.
In the end, I began driving to a town 50 miles away for church. They already knew me and would not turn me away. The pastor and his wife were kind, but the people wanted to know why I was there, what had happened, and so forth. The gossip was outrageously direct and rampant. The pastor told me not to talk about it. People guessed enough. Another couple in town were attempting to start their own church and they also tried to get me to talk about my former church, as well as trying to get me to join them in starting a new church. The men in the church tried to lay hands on me, touching my shoulders and back. I panicked, not wanting to be touched since I’d been accused of what I was.
Then the pastor’s wife was badly injured. They encouraged people to come see her at home, where she was bedridden. They asked me to come alone. I would have had to go, be let in by the pastor, and be led through their large house (which I’d never been in) alone by the pastor. They knew I’d been accused of lusting after my former pastor, but they still insisted. I refused… and I started looking for a different church.
In the United States, 25 percent of girls and 8 percent of boys are sexually abused before they turn 18. It’s incredible then that with a staggering number of victims, it often takes a critical mass—and time—before we’re willing to acknowledge that people we admire or trust are capable of sexually abusing children. People who abuse children often appear to be regular, normal folks, and we often don’t recognize that child sexual abuse is occurring because it is committed by people we know. – Elizabeth Letourneau, Ph.D.
(The statements in this article are what has been alleged by the survivors. There have been no convictions as the cases mentioned here were not reported to the police at the time and to my knowledge, the alleged perpetrators have not admitted guilt.)
11 year old Debbie
Debbie attended the church from 1978-1986. She was an eleven year old child and Steve was 29 or 30 when the sexual abuse started. It continued for about two years. He was married to his second wife and popular in the church. Debbie blamed herself, thinking she must have done something wrong to cause his actions.
When she found the courage to tell the pastor, he recorded their conversation and stated he would get back to her. The pastor, who was also the Wisconsin District Superintendent for many years, never did. Instead, the perpetrator may have left the state for a short time and Debbie received no counseling. Some church members avoided her or gave her evil looks.
Steve Dahl 11-23-22 Facebook post
Steve’s wife, Debra, filed for divorce in 1985. Steve had been caught in bed with her 15 year old sister, Alice, whom Steve later married. He remains married to her to this day.
Years later, while in her late 40s, Debbie found her voice and the courage to speak up. Little did she know what would transpire as she started writing about her childhood. While feeling alone in what happened to her, others who left Calvary Gospel United Pentecostal Church in Madison, Wisconsin started contacting her. They also were sexually assaulted.
I know what the research says. I know that my grooming for sexual abuse was so effective that, many years later I still feel responsible for my own abuse. I understand the dynamics that produced this effect in me. And, yet, after all my knowledge, all my therapy, and all the years of praying, it still feels like my fault, like I was complicit in my own abuse. And, it still feels like I owe my abusers compassion, love, secrecy, and the denigration of myself for their aggrandizement.
This is how effective and destructive abusive grooming is. And this barely touches on the reality of all the feelings, trauma, PTSD symptoms, and other long-term effects caused by sex offenders. – Maureen Farrell Garcia
As Debbie has continued to blog, more women have come forward, sharing their past with her. In early February 2018, some who left Calvary Gospel started leaving negative reviews on the church Facebook page and commented on posts. Comments were deleted by the church and the review section was soon removed. [There is an unofficial Facebook Page for the church where there are some reviews available. 2024 note: The review section is no longer available.] Before that happened, current members were hurriedly leaving positive five star reviews in an effort to counter the negative ones.
I didn’t catch these when they first started, but I did save around twenty screenshots. What I witnessed was similar to that I have seen in the past, where people rally around the pastor, don’t allow themselves to consider what is being shared, and dismiss anything negative without looking to see if there is any validity to the claims. The person who brings up a problem becomes the problem. The person is labeled things like being bitter in an effort to dismiss and discount whatever they share. These are well-known signs of an unhealthy church.
It reminded me of a time in my former United Pentecostal Church in New Jersey. The pastor had discovered that two former members had done a radio broadcast about spiritual abuse. They mentioned no names. The pastor took an entire Thursday evening service to play the cassette tape of the broadcast to show what was being said.
This created a stir among the members, an us vs. them mindset, and they rallied around the church and pastor. How dare those former members say those untrue things! I was away when this happened, so I asked to borrow the tape from the pastor. When I returned it, I gave it to another woman. I can still picture her standing in the church hallway, holding the cassette by her fingertips and away from herself as if it were something disgusting.
Child sex abuse cases are a lot harder to try than a murder case. I would rather try a murder case than a child sexual abuse case because they’re so difficult. Juries do not want to believe that this happened. They do not want to believe that that guy sitting over there did something to a child. – Mary A. Jennings, Prosecutor, Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office
Debbie posted her one star review of Calvary Gospel and wrote, “This church is not a safe place for young girls/women. They do not report sexual abuse to the authorities.” Scott, a church member, soon replied, “Another lie…ridiculous!” It should be noted that Scott was not even in Wisconsin at the time of Debbie’s alleged assault.
Rachel posted a scripture and mentioned the name of Debbie’s blog. Scott replied, “I just read this ‘blog’. It is full of misconceptions and outright lies. This church does NOT at all teach what she claims…in fact, I am part of an organization within this church drawing attention to the fact that men are the source of many issues dating back to Adam in the book of Genesis. He was absent when Eve needed him and men today need to be aware of their responsibility to support and love their wives…not pull them down. That claim is ridiculous!”
Laura, a former member who didn’t know about the depth of abuse that happened with the other girls until last week, remembers the meeting with John Grant (the pastor at the time, now the Bishop, as his son took his place) concerning an adult man and a minor girl. The pastor allegedly said, “I’m required by law to report this. I’m not going to jail for any fornicator.”
Laura and her husband later discovered that it had never been reported. They were instructed by John Grant to see to Lisa’s emotional and spiritual healing and leave the rest of it to him to deal with. Laura later wrote that she knows “of several situations where adult men were inappropriate with minor girls and the church looked the other way. …These men MIGHT have received a pat on the hand for what they did, but the girls were labeled as though they were the ones at fault.”
She continued in another post that further explained the same meeting, “…there were two elders present. One of them said, concerning the victim and the family, ‘Well, if the parents would live right…!’ The other one said, ‘You better be glad we aren’t in the Old Testament days when they stoned people for this.’ How comforting and supportive was this to a family whose world was turned upside down by a predator? After the situation, the young lady was shamed and labeled by many/most of the people in the church. It was heartbreaking. Now, look at the songs and the message at CGC this morning. They sang about the enemy, they talked about the enemy. They are subtly maneuvering people’s minds to believe that they are the innocent victims of an unwarranted attack by bad people. They are refusing to address this situation openly and honestly. They are hijacking the label of victim and placing it upon themselves. If you know anything about psychology or spiritual abuse, you will understand exactly what is going on there. If you have a blind loyalty to the royalty, you will not look into the mountains of facts and evidence.” (four typos have been corrected)
A woman I will call M shared this was her home church and she is loyal to it. Yet her and her son were sexually assaulted (she first used the term harassed). She wrote, “I’ve never reported it and I never will. I’m a warrior but I’m not stupid; I’d be shunned.” This is very sad.
Kim, another church member, posted a screen shot of something from Wisconsin’s laws about clergy members reporting abuse. While she didn’t want to “make light of the events that transpired,” she felt that those posting should follow Matthew 18 “rather than openly criticize a church organization.” She went on to share that “There are reasons why pastors and church leadership handle things the way that they do. They answer to a higher authority.”
Yes, all too often pastors make the decision to handle crimes ‘in house’ and not report them to police. Doing so in situations such as are being covering in this series of articles, enables pedophiles and other predators to continue harming others. In Debbie’s situation, the man went on to be a pastor, something that would never have happened had he been reported to the police, prosecuted and convicted.
If these allegations are true, something has been very wrong with this church. Will David Bernard, the current General Superintendent of the United Pentecostal Church, fully investigate events that transpired at Calvary Gospel Church? If these allegations prove to be true, will John Grant’s license be revoked as well as the license of anyone else who may have played a role in failing to report sexual assault to police?
[2024 Note: As a result of a complaint filed against Grant under the UPCI’s judicial procedure, in 2023 John Wesley Grant was placed on probation for a year, where he was not permitted to preach or teach. Grant was removed from the United Pentecostal Church’s Order of the Faith where he had been inducted in 2014. He was also removed as a Wisconsin District Honorary Presbyter as well as an Honorary General Presbyter, which had been granted him for being a District Superintendent for many years.]
I want to end with a quote from Laura that was made in the review section after comments from church members started going missing. I believe she sums it up well.
Concerning the posts that were removed telling people to move on: Moving on is what all these victims have had to do because they never received the help they deserved from the church. Instead they were labeled and pushed away from the community. There comes a time, though, when recovery has taken place and the hurt have regained their strength, that they come back and hope to see justice done. If not justice through the legal system, at least those who covered up crimes exposed, hopefully enough to prevent future victims. The problem is that there is a mentality there that says the victims are liars and their beloved leaders could do no wrong. Those who have poured salt on the wounds are those who called these survivors liars and refuse to believe what happened. There are MANY victims who are coming out and finally speaking up. They are courageous to take this stand and finally be heard. It’s a shame that those who are reading these are circling the wagons and declaring that it’s a spiritual attack. It’s not. It’s consequences for crimes that have been swept under the rug for decades. We were there. We saw what happened in many of these situations. And if there are…say 10 who are speaking up right now, you can be sure there are at least 10 who are not yet talking about it.
I moved with hopes that the next church would be better. I would be an adult there, surely. I would have friends my age. Nope.
The new church wanted me involved, which was great. But the story was the same. There were few people my age. I didn’t fit in, though this time because I saw things so much differently than everyone else. When the pastor started telling me my former pastor was wrong and that the standards, which had been very much a part of being Pentecostal to me, were not in the Bible, I started looking for another church. And I found one just 20 miles away.
I was warned that this new church had issues, but I didn’t listen. They preached The Truth. They had high standards. They welcomed me and were friendly. The pastor and his wife weren’t much older than I was, though the church was very small. I saw this as my opportunity to be on the ground floor of a new church, to stay and become part of the inner circle, one of those who was closest to the pastor’s family and was seen as most faithful because I’d been there before nearly anyone else. I threw myself into it, giving about 30% of my income and hours a week to various ministries. I played the piano and the tambourine, taught Sunday School, prepared and served pre-Sunday School snacks for kids that missed breakfast, went to nursing home visitation weekly, watched the pastor’s kids while he and his wife met with various members after church, and helped with bus ministry.
After two years, the church started having problems. They lost the building they rented. New people weren’t coming (or staying if they did come). The pastor started believing someone was ‘hindering revival’ and calling special prayer meetings for people in the church he said had problems. I was pulled off the piano and out of Sunday School, even though there was no one to replace me, with no explanation. The pastor told the men that he would be leaving for a time, and I found out right before church one morning. I was told that there was no reason to tell the women, that they should ask their husbands at home. Since I didn’t have a husband, I was simply left out. And then he asked me to stay after church. He told me I was a hindrance to revival, he didn’t know if I could be saved, that I was lusting after him and that he wouldn’t let me destroy his ministry. He was preaching out of town, and I could “get right” before he and his family returned or leave permanently.
I spent the next week fasting, praying, and ‘repenting,’ begging God to forgive me for whatever my pastor knew was in my heart that I didn’t, and calling everyone in church, asking them to forgive me for whatever they might think I’d done too. When one man asked what I would do if I had to leave, I responded that I’d rather die than leave God… which was a typical Pentecostal response. Later I learned he called the pastor and said I was threatening suicide. I had thought I would fast until the pastor returned, but when he and his family didn’t come back after a week, I tried to call them. He hung up on me, telling me not to bother them or to call again.
While the pastor and his family were still away, his dad came to preach and invited everyone out to eat after church, and I was afraid to go, having been taught “with such an one not to eat” and believing that meant that if I was as bad as the pastor said (which surely I must be, because he was the pastor) that I’d be making people sin if I were to sit down to a meal with them.
I sat through their first service back having heard nothing about their thoughts on my status. He preached how someone would be leaving and would immediately cut her hair and wear pants, how we’d be surprised who it was who left. I never dreamed he was talking about me. I stayed after church in case he wanted to talk to me, but heard nothing. After I got home, I got a phone call: I was never to return to their church. I had been permanently expelled with a phone call.
I spent seven years in the first Pentecostal church I was in. The first was great. And then I went home for the summer. I didn’t like the Pentecostal churches in my parents’ area, but they were better than my parents’ church. Besides, I was committed and they believed closer to what I did, which was exactly the reason my Mom gave for us staying in a church I disliked and was alone at growing up. She didn’t argue, though she and Dad did argue about plenty.
After 18 years of church that taught nothing but the basic stories, my parents joined wholeheartedly in arguments about why I shouldn’t attend a Pentecostal church. They tried to force me to wear pants or shorts, which were against the rules for women at my new church. I had dreams that Mom would sneak in and cut my hair or insist that it be cut. She’d done that when I was younger. Their pressure made me more determined to stay Pentecostal. It gave me not one reason to leave.
I went to camp that summer excited that I would be seeing everyone from my church again, and found them totally disinterested in me. They were there to relax, shop, play, and to see their friends from other churches. And so for the first time since beginning to attend, I felt once more left out. I doubt I would have thought quite so much of it except that the pastor spent a lot of time with one young woman who was a newlywed. It was her first week apart from him, and he was very concerned about her well-being, having been separated from her new husband for a few days. I stood there watching, wondering “seriously? I’m away from my new church family for two months and no one cares, but she’s away from her husband for three days and you’re very concerned?” It was the first indication that something wasn’t right. It wouldn’t be the last.
I went back to college that fall and back to church. The first service I realized just how much had happened since I left. I felt like I was starting all over again. I wasn’t a part of them, and I wasn’t a new convert either. So this time no one cared. I looked forward to the day I’d graduate and be in one place. Three years later when I did, I moved to an apartment in town. And realized nothing had changed. I was still considered a youth. I wasn’t included in the women’s outings because I was younger than them and unmarried, but I didn’t relate to the high school youth group. After three more years of that and of struggling to make ends meet on a low paying job, I finally left, moving to a larger city, a different (hopefully better) job, and a church the pastor repeatedly invited me to join.
Rachel posted a scripture and mentioned the name of Debbie’s blog. Scott replied, “I just read this ‘blog’. It is full of misconceptions and outright lies. This church does NOT at all teach what she claims…in fact, I am part of an organization within this church drawing attention to the fact that men are the source of many issues dating back to Adam in the book of Genesis. He was absent when Eve needed him and men today need to be aware of their responsibility to support and love their wives…not pull them down. That claim is ridiculous!”
Laura, a former member who 
Laura and her husband later discovered that it had never been reported. 
Kim, another church member, posted a screen shot of something from Wisconsin’s laws about clergy members reporting abuse. While she didn’t want to “make light of the events that transpired,” she felt that those posting should follow Matthew 18 “rather than openly criticize a church organization.” She went on to share that “There are reasons why pastors and church leadership handle things the way that they do. They answer to a higher authority.”
