One would think that with all the cases that have come to light in recent years, where ministers have been caught failing to report instances of sexual abuse, that it wouldn’t be happening much today. Yet we still have ministers who think that such criminal activity should be handled behind church doors. While this series revolves around the United Pentecostal Church, I wanted to share that there is a Oneness Pentecostal church not affiliated with them that is presently in the news for two different cases of sexual abuse, with the pastor having been accused of failing to report both to police. In June 2018, Randy Allen Westmoreland, pastor of The Church of Jesus Christ, 791 Juniper Road in Valparaiso, Indiana, was hit with two misdemeanor charges of failure to report. One involves his son-in-law, Jeffrey Michael McGehee, who is accused of sexual misconduct with a male minor, vicarious sexual gratification, child solicitation and possession of child pornography. (It appears he goes by his middle name.) It was claimed that McGehee’s wife and father were aware and that similar incidents by McGehee occurred at a church in Tennessee.
The second case concerns Valerie Clabaugh, a member of Westmoreland’s church, who was charged with sexual misconduct with a minor. She had allegedly first been interested in the boy’s father, who attends a Michigan church, before becoming intimate with his son. It has been reported that not only did Westmoreland fail to report, but that some other church members knew about both situations and even advised Clabaugh not to speak with police. It was also said that a leader at the Michigan church was attempting to persuade the boy’s mother not to go to police. In doing a quick online search, there appears to be a network of Oneness Pentecostal churches called The Church of Jesus Christ, with ones readily found in Indiana, Michigan, Florida, and Tennessee. It is unknown if these cases will lead to any criminal charges in Michigan or Tennessee for failure to report.
Considering the seriousness of criminal sexual acts involving minors, I believe it should be more than a misdemeanor for a minister to fail to report and there should be no statute of limitations for it. If the person suffers additional abuse or if there are others who are harmed after they are aware of such, they should be charged with being partially responsible. Had they done what was right, the person may not have been able to continue assaulting people.
This brings me back to situations involving United Pentecostal Churches in Wisconsin. This article covers information about Steven Dahl, who allegedly molested two children in the 1980s, as well as allegations of failure to report instances of child sexual abuse by pastor John W. Grant, of Calvary Gospel United Pentecostal Church in Madison, Wisconsin. Please see prior blogs for additional details. (Some statements in this article are what have been alleged by a survivor. There have been no convictions as the case mentioned here was not reported to the police and to my knowledge, the alleged perpetrator has not admitted guilt.)
This is part 13 of an ongoing series.
To very briefly summarize: On December 15, 2017, Debbie McNulty started her blog and shared that in the early 1980’s, Steven J. Dahl had repeatedly sexually molested her when she was 11-12 years old. She reported this to her pastor, John W. Grant. It was never reported to police. Soon afterward, Dahl was caught in bed with his wife’s minor sister and then quickly moved (possibly out of state to Nevada). His wife eventually filed for divorce in March 1985 and when her sister Alice turned 18, he married her in April 1986 in Nevada. At some point afterward, he returned to Wisconsin, still involving himself in, and being welcomed with open arms by, United Pentecostal Churches. On April 11, 1995, Dahl started the Pentecostal Lighthouse Church [go here when the prior link doesn’t work] in Oconto.
In my previous article, I shared that Christian Life Center, located at 670 North Green Bay Road in Neenah, Wisconsin, while under the long-term pastorate of ordained minister John J. Bridges, supported Steven Dahl as the pastor of their daughter work in Oconto. (Christian Life Center years back was called Twin Cities United Pentecostal Church and is presently CrossPoint Church, with Philip Bridges being the pastor since 2011.)
Though there was undeniable evidence that the Pentecostal Lighthouse Church was considered a daughter work of the Neenah church in the 2000’s, it was unknown by me at that time how far back this affiliation went. Below you will find what one woman, who wishes to remain anonymous, remembers of her time in the Wisconsin District of the UPCI. From what she shares and what we previously reported, the affiliation between the Pentecostal Lighthouse Church and Christian Life Center went back to April 1995. There never should have been any affiliation as Dahl’s alleged sexual behavior disqualified him. How this ever was allowed to happen and continue is beyond belief. And UPCI ministers still speak at Dahl’s church in 2018.
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I verify that the following statements are true to the best of my knowledge and memory. My goal in sharing them is to inform others of what I feel is important for them to know, as it was important to me. If I had the choice to have been informed of similar testimony at an earlier time, I would have appreciated it. I feel I need to speak out as I feel strongly that the survivors have a right and a responsibility to tell their stories, to prevent future occurrence, as well as to inform people of the truth behind those who they may not be aware committed these acts. I state clearly though, this is my own story, and my own opinions.
Around August of 1995, I had recently turned 18 and had gotten married. I had a son at the age of 15, and was still with his father. Prior to that, at a younger age, I had heard of the Holy Ghost in bits and pieces from evangelic based believers, and then through a few church services I attended with a friend, whose older sister attended a small United Pentecostal International church in Monroe, WI. The main and only thing I really knew was that speaking in tongues was a sign of the Holy Ghost and not much else. I stopped going to that church after a youth group meeting one evening because they played a kind of trivia game where you had to know a lot of bible verses, and I did not. I was embarrassed and didn’t want to go after that. When I think back, I completely see now how I was in fact targeted for not being raised in the church, but that’s a different story. However, I would say I do not feel that I was abused in any way there, nor did I see anyone abused. It was no different than ways I had been targeted by teachers in the public school I attended.
Anyway, back to 1995. One day a neighbor knocked on my door and asked if I knew of the Holy Ghost and I said yes. Eventually that lead to starting a Bible study with that same neighbor, his wife, and my husband. Then we went to a different UPCI church in Madison, WI named Calvary Gospel Church, which at that time was run by Pastor John Grant Sr. who was also the District Superintendent of all UPCI churches in WI. I received the Holy Ghost there, and I began to change my life into more of a “Christian” lifestyle. I was considered a new convert, my husband occasionally attended, my son who was still very young attended one Thursday evening service as well, and two Sunday services every week. I also continued attending Bible studies at my home or other homes. The UPCI churches in WI also have many other meetings of various sorts. For instance, youth service, family camps, music ministry, church picnics, etc. One thing they did at that time was have a prayer conference in Milwaukee, WI that was up to three days long, and one night I decided to attend with the same neighbors who introduced me to the church.
Now by that time I had learned quite a bit from them and others. I had a pretty good knowledge of what the church counted as holiness standards. This included such things as woman dressing “modestly” by wearing skirts below the knees, nothing too form fitting, sleeves no shorter than a few inches above the elbow, not cutting your hair, no low-cut tops where you could see cleavage, etc. I did have a good time at the prayer conference, but one thing that stood out to me very obviously was that the humongous choir that sang had several women who had makeup and low-cut tops, and other slight differences in appearance compared to what I was told was allowed on stage in the UPCI. So, on the trip home I asked my trusted neighbors this. It was a common occurrence for me to ask them questions riding to and from church and they always answered me.
Please understand that this conversation took place long ago, and I do not recall all the details. What I do recall is them answering me that the choir that sang was from a church that wasn’t still in the UPCI and that their holiness standards were a bit different. What I do recall that they never bothered to say, was that one of the main leaders (Brother Dahl) at that time involved heavily in leadership in that church, had previously attended the Madison church and was a leader in a lot of the involvement with youth. Now, I do not know if they knew what he had done that got him removed, but I do feel that they should have made that clear to me right away if they even had suspicion of him, and that they knew to do so which I will explain a bit later.
Now I am going to skip ahead a bit. I stayed involved and as an active member of that same church for four to five years. When I decided to leave it was for several reasons but the main one being, I was very active in the choir, and I started to feel very hypocritical because at home my marriage was falling apart. I know that the church is against divorce, so I knew I wouldn’t be accepted the same way by my church family there if I decided to leave my husband. I separated from my husband and just stopped going to church. I still carried a sincere love for the people there and counted Pastor Grant as the most honest Christian man I knew. I felt heavy guilt all on my own about leaving the church, but for many years I still refused to say it was any sort of cult, and that they did nothing but preach from the oldest English copy of the Bible, and just counted myself “backslidden”. My then ex-husband continued to attend off and on with my then three children, and I fully trusted everyone that I knew there with them. I still felt it was a place where they could be safe.
Moving on, it has been over 15 years since I left that church and rarely went back. I have been a user of social platform finding people I knew, and meeting new people as well for about 10 years now. Some of the people on my contact lists are people who do still attend Calvary Gospel Church in Madison, and some even just attend a UPCI church. The neighbors that I said brought me in, the husband is one of them. I also notice that Steve Dahl is on one of the social platforms and he is a friend of my same neighbor that brought me in, in fact they even talk on the news feed regularly and joke around. So, this is not the relationship of someone that my friend doesn’t know. It is VERY apparent they knew and know him well.
To keep others in confidence, I will only say that I began finding in the last couple of years, serious, personal, criminal, stories beginning to emerge about religious groups, and then later specifically about the UPCI worldwide, and then specifically about Calvary Gospel Church, and then about Steve Dahl. This became more and more personal very quickly. Now, let me be frank here, I am quite aware that nearly every church organization, and even just individual human beings, have flaws. I am not blind to the evils of the world. I am however also very firm about justice being served, protecting my children, and honesty. One thing is for sure, I used to think that the UPCI church organization always would preach that to lie is a sin, that even hiding the truth is a sin. One reason I know this, and trusted Pastor Grant, was because when anything would happen that was simply too non-biblical to ignore, such as adultery, there would be consequences and you would be held accountable for it. During my time there, one licensed minister lost his license and was persuaded to confess to the entire church (adults only) that he had committed adultery. In summary, I trusted his decisions.
So, after learning that the main leader of the church I attended, as well as the church that my children attended, had allegedly mishandled allegations of child molestation (a girl under the age of 13) and not reported the accusation to authorities, or possibly even neglected to inform the entire church or leaders, I was worried, upset, and very angry. From that, I also learned that not just one but many girls in the church, some of whom I even knew or know, had been sexually harassed, and emotionally abused. Even now, there is a strong possibility that these were only a few of the many who experienced these things. I immediately contacted those I did have as contacts whom I knew had or even still attended the UPCI church, telling them specifically of what I had heard about Dahl, with the main intent of informing them. My ex-husband contacted me, and my children also did and they know nothing about it, and have no bad experience which I am thankful for. I am happy for that, but very unhappy that the unknown risk was there in the first place.
As for the rest, not even one of them answered outside of the original source and those who already knew. They answered me many other times on various other things completely unrelated to this. So, the question remains, why wouldn’t they answer if there’s nothing to hide? Not even a simple, “I am sorry, but I don’t know anything about this”. If I say, “Happy Easter” they say it back, when I asked quite recently about a woman who passed away they responded with no issue. If I was still in the church, and I heard this, I would at least respond that I don’t know. I don’t know why the church or its members have decided not to respond. I do know that a few have responded negatively elsewhere and there is evidence of such that I have seen. Though this is not my entire story about my experience with the UPCI, I felt it vital to relay this specific information. I have hopes that it encourages people, specifically the abused, to stand up and tell their story no matter who it implicates. I hope that they know there are people like me who do believe them even if we weren’t there, people who do feel punishment is due to those who committed the acts, and people who are willing to stand with you and tell the truth of what they do know. No, I’m not encouraging playing a victim, I am not encouraging reliving the experiences, but I am encouraging sharing knowledge, lifelong healing, prevention, and standing for justice. Thank you for reading.
You will find a complete list of articles in this series by clicking here.
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For most of us, coming out of a cult or religious “high control” group can be a frightening and traumatic ideal. We can feel overwhelmed with questions and doubt, and it’s not uncommon to experience intense mistrust of others and fear. We have chosen freedom over mental enslavement, but it comes at a high cost. However, it is the only road to true happiness.
