Category: United Pentecostal Church | Page 37

When church betrays, pt 2

As I grew up, I became more and more hopeful that I could go somewhere else to church. Friends would invite me to their youth meetings occasionally. I begged Mom to let me go more often, or to change churches completely, but I wasn’t allowed. I started riding my bike in the evenings, straight to various churches within riding distance. I’d ride around and around their parking lots if there were cars, hoping someone would invite me in. If I was invited, I reasoned, I could call home and Mom would surely say it was OK to stay. I would have been invited, after all. But no one ever invited me.

When I started driving I said with relief “Now I’ll be able to drive to a different church!” Mom responded with clenched teeth that we were committed to going where we were, and we would keep going, as a family. And so I did all I could: I started watching Christian TV and listening to Christian music and imagining that I would fit better with the people who liked those things, imagining a place of belonging for myself. The shows and the music tended to be more Charismatic, and since I’d never been taught how to study the Bible, I swallowed all of it in starving gulps.

And so I looked forward to college, when I’d finally be able to go to a church with people my age, where people actually wanted to go to church, where maybe I’d learn something beyond the Bible stories. Since my parents insisted on a limited selection of colleges for me to seriously consider I ended up in a small town with only a Catholic, Methodist, Disciples, Baptist, and Pentecostal church. I wasn’t interested in Catholic or Methodist, the Disciples church was much like my parents’, and I didn’t know much about Baptist. I ran straight to the Pentecostal church and within a month had embraced it all wholeheartedly.

When the church betrays us, pt 7
When the church betrays us, pt 6
When the church betrays us, pt 5
When the church betrays us, pt 4
When the church betrays us, pt 3
When the church betrays us, pt 2
When the church betrays us, pt 1

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When church betrays us, pt 1

‘Jesus never fails,’ the old hymn goes. But his church definitely does. What happens when the church betrays us? How can this impact us?

I can’t speak for everyone. But here is my story.

I was raised in a nondenominational church. It was a tiny church. My sister and I were the only kids who were there every Sunday. Mom taught our Sunday School class. Many times it was just us and her. There were three other kids who came occasionally. Two were the pastor’s grandkids. They spent time during the week at the parsonage and several times stole the Sunday School materials (crayons, construction paper, and such I think) that mom had bought with her own money. We laughed at times if we left the car unlocked after church about what would happen if someone stole our Bibles. Mom would laughingly say “well, maybe they’ll read them!” But the pastor’s grandkids never stopped stealing the Sunday School supplies.

We didn’t learn much in that church. The pastor, at least to my memory, spent more time preaching against humanism than preaching about Jesus. Mom taught us basic Bible stories, but not what they might mean to us, and definitely not how to study the Bible. She only taught because no one else would. The previous teacher handed us each a scripture puzzle and told us to figure it out. It was too advanced for us, but he just kept giving it to us week after week. There had been no teaching, just that puzzle, all rectangles, a verse on one rectangle, the ‘address’ on another. My sister was probably in kindergarten or first grade. Even I, the older sister, didn’t know enough about the Bible to look the verses up.

We went to that church until I was 18. We went even when I begged Mom to let me go somewhere else. I needed friends my age, and there weren’t any people my age at that church to make friends with. Most people were 40-50 years older than me. Dad stopped going to church while I was still in elementary school, and we soon stopped going to anything but the first hour of Sunday School. So we went, had class with just me, my sister, and Mom, and came home. I’m not sure why we went, but Mom said we committed to go there and that, besides, they taught what she believed. This was probably the one thing that I learned very, very well. And I took that teaching straight into the churches I would attend after leaving home, unfortunately.

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A UPC Minister’s Sexual Fantasy

Part two of a series of articles.

The call from West Virginia came one evening after 11:00 PM back in late 1993, not long before I made my exodus out of the United Pentecostal Church. He was a minister, having held license for at least a couple decades in the UPC, and ordination since at least the mid 70s. He was 27 years older than me and about eight years younger than my father.

Earlier that year after resigning my position in the church operated daycare center at the end of their summer program, I made a trip to visit him, his wife and his mother. By then we had known one another several years. He and his wife had become kind of like my second set of parents as we met not long after my mother passed away in the mid 1980s. They had come in search of work as he was a carpenter by trade and employment in WV was poor, while in New Jersey it was booming. All of us spent many hours together through the years, along with some other church members.

I’d been looking for a way to leave my church without it seeming obvious that I no longer wanted to be there and was considering the possibility of returning to West Virginia to help at his church in Mineral Wells. They were meeting in a trailer on the property at the time since the church was being built. In 1990 I had helped for several months at another small church in Vienna, so it wouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone if I returned to WV for a season. We discussed this possibility while I visited for a few weeks that fall, but no decision was made at the time.

Little did I know what was going to be disclosed when I answered that phone call. He shared with me that his wife wasn’t home and that she was not to know of our conversation. He proceeded to tell me that I had been a sexual fantasy of his and that it had been going on for awhile. He shared some things that he had fought in his mind. Needless to say, that conversation slammed the door shut to my returning to WV as we both decided that would not be a good idea.

The call ended and I never made another trip there. The beginning of the following year is when some things started to be said about the Lemons, that there was some type of problem. Sexual charges were filed against him, he was convicted and imprisoned and another minister, who was a trustee, took over Revival Tabernacle. In early May 1994, the Lemons deeded the property to the three church trustees, one being his mother.

I was in shock. He had never been inappropriate toward me. How do you process it when someone you saw as a father figure, tells you something like that? It is a creepy and disconcerting feeling. I didn’t share it with anyone at first. Because of that phone call, when the word came out he was in prison, I tended to believe he must have done something. If he had been fighting thoughts about me for awhile, he very well may have had them about others.

For years I never knew the exact charges and to this day still don’t know much. From the little that was discovered online, in May 1994 Clifford Lee Lemon was convicted of 12 counts of sexual abuse by a parent, guardian, custodian or other person in position of trust to a child. I later saw a mention that in 1998 he appealed the denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus in his underlying conviction. To my knowledge he died on November 7, 2011, before ever being released.

I had contact with his wife afterward, but not much, and that stopped. It was very awkward because I didn’t know if he had disclosed to her what he told me and it certainly wasn’t something I wanted to discuss with her. She switched to a non-UPC Oneness Pentecostal church at some point after leaving and passed away on January 25, 2016.

Prior to all of this happening, one of his sons was convicted in April of 1992 on three counts of 1st degree sexual assault where his victims were two minor female family members. Bernie (Bernard Eugene Lemon) spent more than ten years in prison. He would at times get to preach in different churches, but to my knowledge never held license. It was said by his parents that he did not commit the crime. I wrote Bernie for a little while after he was imprisoned but stopped when I became uncomfortable with something he wrote. I never saw him again after he was convicted.

I well remember that the father could be hard with people when it came to following the UPC standards. He shared that women shouldn’t wear shirts with writing or pictures on them as it drew attention to their chest area. Once when I was visiting in West Virginia, one of his adult sons came over and had some facial stubble. He harped on it until the son went into the bathroom and shaved. One that I have never forgotten is how he viewed a child who was born out of wedlock. While he was by no means like some I have heard, I have come to realize through the years that some people who are hard nosed on standards often have something in their own life that they are hiding.

I wrote in the first article that I personally knew four men from the United Pentecostal Church who were convicted of sexual related charges. In an upcoming article, I will cover the other two.

Bernie Lemon’s latest picture- screenshot taken Feb. 2024

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

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The United Pentecostal Church and Sexual Abuse

This is the first of a series.

It appears that one of the greatest temptations facing the ministry is sex. How does sexual purity relate to God’s requirements? Sexual immorality is clearly excluded by the requirements of ‘blameless, good report, good behaviour, just, holy, and husband of one wife.’ Again, a sexual sin is an obvious disqualification in light of all the Scriptures. ‘But whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding: he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul. A wound and dishonour shall he get; and his reproach shall not be wiped away’ (Proverbs 6:32-33). Even our sinful society acknowledges the truth in this verse to some degree, as exemplified by the public reaction to the Gary Hart and Jim Bakker scandals. Even people guilty of sexual sins often expect their leaders to uphold moral standards publicly, particularly religious leaders who claim to be morally pure. – David Bernard, January-March 1988 Forward (an exclusive publication for UPCI licensed ministers)

I am saddened once again as I continue to discover instances of wrongful sexual actions, committed against children and adults, by people in the United Pentecostal Church and elsewhere. My heart is grieved upon learning how some pastors failed to report cases to the police. In their attempts to handle these ‘in house’ and muzzle the victims, it has allowed people to continue molesting, causing untold damage and anguish to others. (One case in California, involving two UPC ministers who are still licensed, George Nobbs and Art Hodges, with the latter now serving as a General Executive Presbyter, prompted legislative changes.)

Through the years I have also heard stories of children of preachers never facing the consequences of sexual sins as their parent(s) covered it up and some were even later awarded ministerial license in the United Pentecostal Church. There have been ministers who have had affairs, leaving their spouse and children in their wake, trying to pick up the pieces of their once normal lives. There have been men and women who have suffered agonizing horror and shame as it is discovered that a spouse is a pedophile. Church members have had their faith shaken when light is shone upon a pastor’s sexual crimes, while others refuse to believe what they did. There have been victims of sexual violence who have been shamed, avoided, blamed and even kicked out of their church by fellow UPC members. They are told to forgive and to keep their mouths shut. Should they muster the courage to speak out, they are sometimes disbelieved and their character assassinated. It is all so very heartbreaking.

According to I Corinthians 6:15-18, sexual sins are against one’s own body. God has ordained that husband and wife become one flesh. Marriage is a holy institution and a type of Christ and the church. Sexual infidelity is a violation of the most basic, sacred, and intimate covenant that two people can make. Far from being a temporary lapse or indiscretion, it signals a fundamental breakdown of spirituality, character, and integrity- in relation to God, one’s closest loved ones, and oneself. The offender has broken faith and trust in the most important stewardship he has. This is doubly true when this sin has been committed repeatedly, as it often is. – David Bernard, January-March 1988 Forward

Before someone shouts that the United Pentecostal Church isn’t the only religious group where sexual abuse occurs or is covered up, I would have to have my head in the sand to be unaware of this. I also realize that their offenses are less in number than the Catholic church. I know that there are some ministers and churches that properly handle instances of sexual abuse. These facts, however, should never preclude the matter from being exposed and addressed. These facts can never diminish the devastation and life-long effects that the victims endure.

There is a focus on this particular organization as it is the one in which I used to belong. I personally know four men from the United Pentecostal Church, two of whom were licensed ministers, who were convicted of sexual related charges. In addition, there hasn’t been as much written about this group, or other Oneness Pentecostals, as has been with some other groups when it comes to sexual abuse. When some cases do hit the news, it isn’t always shown or openly known that someone in the UPCI is involved, even though their Manual stipulates any of their churches are to be clearly marked as such. (Article XVIII, Section 4:1 Identification “Each church that is either affiliated with the United Pentecostal Church International or is pastored by a minister who holds license or credentials with the United Pentecostal Church International shall identify by sign or otherwise on the outside of its church building that it is associated with the United Pentecostal Church International.” 2018 UPCI Manual)

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. As an analogy, God will forgive a church treasurer who embezzles, but it may never be wise for him to fill that office again, for his sake and for others’ sake. The same is true of a Boy Scout leader who falls into homosexuality or a youth teacher who divorces his wife and marries one of his students. 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

You may be surprised to realize that there is a very good chance that there are people in your church who have been molested at some point in their lives. Your closest friend, a co-worker, even your spouse or child may have never shared and could be suffering in silence. Some have been told by pastors to never speak about it and they feel they must be obedient. One must protect the church’s reputation. Some remain silent as they have seen how mistreated another was when they disclosed what happened. Due to how they were raised and/or what they were taught in church, they may at least partially blame themselves. They may have relationship, marital or sexual issues. And all this time they fight, struggle and suffer alone, right beside others, while most are oblivious to their pain. Sometimes they push through and openly share what happened. To me, that takes strength and courage, especially since there will always be those who dismiss or attempt to discredit the accounts, make excuses for the perpetrators, or make ignorant statements, such as questioning why they took so long to speak up.

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

There are questions in all of this that cry out to be addressed. If what David Bernard wrote is the official position of the United Pentecostal Church (and it should be as he has since become their General Superintendent), then why have certain things happened in some of their churches and ministers have obtained or retained their licenses?

How has anyone convicted of sexual crimes been allowed to participate in certain church activities and leadership has not informed the church members?

Why would any church that operates a school or daycare not tell the parents when one of their workers, past or present, has been arrested on charges of having thousands of images and videos of child pornography?

Why have pastors made the decision to handle any of these ‘in house,’ failed to report them to police, told church members not to go to the police, or covered them up?

Why have some pastors and District Superintendents not taken proper action when informed of such things? Shouldn’t a minister who fails to report sexual abuse lose their license as their actions allow a perpetrator to continue- are they not complicit in future assaults?

When a church has an atmosphere where some of the men had inappropriate interest in much younger female children, such as at Calvary Gospel Church in Madison, Wisconsin, how could this have continued for years and why have these children who were sexually assaulted received no justice?

Some may argue argue that Bernard didn’t say anything about taking church matters to the police or the courts. There is a mindset with many of these churches/ministers that believes these matters should be handled ‘in house’ – we don’t want to make the church look bad and we need to protect ‘the truth.’ The mission of the United Pentecostal Church in part is to carry “the whole gospel to the whole world.” They truly believe they have ‘the truth’ and that the vast majority of Christians do not have it and are not saved.

So I pose this thought: Shouldn’t an organization that believes they have the ‘whole gospel’ and ‘the truth’ conduct themselves better than other church groups? Shouldn’t they hold themselves to a higher standard than others? Shouldn’t they do whatever they can to protect and bring justice to those who have been sexually assaulted?

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

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Toilet Training Your Emotions

Weird as that title might sound, we all have a load of emotions to deal with. Especially if you’ve been in a spiritually abusive environment, sometimes the feelings can be very overwhelming. he thing is, you were probably taught that some of those feelings were sins. I know I was.

For me, since the pastor was also at home as my father, and the pastor’s wife was naturally my mother, there was no escaping church or rhetoric. While I love my parents and I feel they did whatever they did as a sincere attempt to instill in me their values, they were wrong about some things. For example, I was raised to think that showing any anger was a sin–for females at least. There was always that double standard. I saw my dad slam doors and spew anger when people crossed him, but it was certainly not something a “shamefaced” woman should do.

I remember several times where I was told as a child and teen “you need to go pray through” because I was angry about something. This shamed me and made me feel that every time I felt anger I had sinned. It follows, naturally, that I would be very attractive to a dominant male with an abusive nature. My marriage was full of abuse, while I prayed for God to help me be more submissive and to learn to pray for my husband. My parents saw what was going on, and they were very upset. My dad had always treated my mother with utmost respect and kindness. Little did they understand the groundwork that was laid when they raised me to be submissive.

I remember crying in relief when I realized the Bible never said not to be angry. (Eph. 4:26, ESV “Be angry and do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger.”) It was okay to feel angry, as long as I didn’t sin in that anger. What a freeing concept!

All of these years later, I work in mental health. I find all sorts of dysfunctional ideas about emotions, but the most telling issue is when I discover a family is uncomfortable with a certain emotion. For my family, it was female anger. For another family it is sadness. Everyone yells and slams doors, but if you cry, that is weak and effeminate. If you feel depressed, suck it up “buttercup”, because life is full of tough breaks.

Some emotions are just messy.

The following story is an example of how I work with kids to teach them about emotions. Please note the character is fictional, although this scenario has played out in my work with children many times.

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Little Damion comes into my office with his red hair standing up in every direction. With a streak of dirt across the knee of his pants, and the sheen of sweat on his face, I gather he just came from recess. As I ask about his day and settle in for the intervention necessary to his treatment plan, I am reminded of his family.

Damion’s dad is a gruff farmer with no patience for nonsense. He has always worn his cowboy boots in for family sessions, his piercing blue eyes steely above his untrimmed beard. Mom is plump and friendly, with large dark eyes and a vivacious nature, but she is all business too. Old fashioned and unlikely to change, they have a real challenge in Damion. My goal in family sessions is to help them find other ways of disciplining Damion besides just using a belt and yelling at him, but change is not going to come quickly or easily.

My objective today is to help Damion understand that the sadness in his brown eyes is okay to express in words. He has issues expressing any other emotion besides anger, and it is causing a lot of problems in school. He hits playmates and throws terrible tantrums in school, climbing under the desks and screaming at anyone who comes close. I know that if he ever could learn to express the underlying emotions he feels, then it would release this pressure valve and he could get through a whole week of school without his parents being called.

I start out with something most every little boy finds amusing. “Did you know that feelings are like pooping and peeing?”

His eyes crinkle slightly and he half smiles as he shakes his head no.

“Well, they are. Would you say pooping and peeing are good or bad?”

He looks confused. “I dunno.”

“Well, they can be kind of gross and stinky, but they are good. Pooping helps our body get rid of things that our stomach cannot digest so that we don’t have old food in there rotting. And pee? Well, pee helps clean our blood and get any poisons out of our body. What do you think would happen if we couldn’t poop or pee?”

Damion scratches his cheek with a grubby finger. “We’d die?”

“That’s right. If we can’t poop, it can make us very sick because of all that rotten stuff inside of us. Eventually we could even die if we weren’t able to poop it out. The same is true for pee. If we can’t pee…even just for a whole day…we start getting sick. We’d have to go to the hospital and get a machine to help clean our blood because if we didn’t, we would die. Just like that, our feelings are super important because they give us important information about our safety and our health. Just like pee and poop are good because they help us, all feelings are good. Some of them, like poop, might be kind of gross or we might not like them that much, but all feelings are important to help us.”

He nods that he understands. “It even hurts real bad in my tummy when I need to poop.”

“That’s right. It can hurt us in our heart if we can’t get our feelings out. But I have a question for you. Would it be okay for me to go poop right on the principal’s desk?”

He looks shocked. “NO!” He exclaims, “that would be awful!”

“Right, it would be. Would it be okay if I climb up on a table in the cafeteria and just pee all over the table?”

He chuckles. “No. That would gross us all out.”

Smiling with him, I continue making my point. “Well, would it be okay then if I went into the bathroom and put my pee and poop in the toilet?”

“YES!” he shouts.

“Okay. What I want you to understand is that when you were a baby it was okay for you to poop and pee in your diaper. But mom taught you to put your poop and pee in the toilet. Just like that, I want you to know that our feelings are all okay, but we have to learn when and how to show them. It is like toilet training our feelings. Would it be okay for me to go into the principal’s office and scream in her face?”

“No.” he says, frowning.

“What about if I went in the cafeteria and started yelling at all the kids, stomping my feet and calling them names?”

“That would be very bad.”

I nod. “So, ALL feelings are okay. Sad, mad, happy, glad, grumpy, frustrated, scared…and all the others. They are all important to show. What we are going to do today is learn how to show our feelings in a polite and healthy way.”

I pull out my “I messages” game and continue the intervention with him.

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So what we have to realize is that every single one of our emotions are okay. We can give ourselves permission to feel. After all, God is the one who created emotions in the first place. In our journey to healing, it is of utmost importance that we do not allow that old guilt and shame from the spiritually abusive environment to keep us from feeling. Some of our feelings will be very infuriating. At times we may feel like screaming. At other times, we may cry until we feel we have no tears left. Sometimes we might laugh at the ridiculousness of what we were told. It is okay. As long as we can feel emotion we are healthy, we are alive, and we are moving forward.

My therapist explained to me that depression is often caused by stuffing one’s emotions inside and not allowing oneself to feel and to be okay with those feelings–whatever they are. He told me to keep a journal and write down every day a list of feelings that I felt. He explained that new research is showing that simply doing an inventory of our feelings can create new patterns in our brains and can help us begin to feel better over time.

I was so used to rationalizing all my feelings that I didn’t even know what I felt. I googled “emotion wheel” and got a nice graphic that I use to help me figure out what it is I’m feeling when I’m not sure.

The important thing is that we do not stop having those emotions. They are messy and we have to learn what to do with them, but toilet training our feelings is certainly better than the alternative of mental death and stagnation.

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