The Assemblies of God — one of the world’s largest Pentecostal denominations — has been thrust into a crisis of theology and failed accountability related to clergy sexual abuse.
An exhaustive investigation by NBC News found a five-decades-long pattern of reinstating or transferring ministers credibly accused of sexual abuse. The core conflict lies in the AG’s structural and spiritual identity: Local sovereignty is leveraged as a legal defense, and the call for redemption is prioritized over victims.
The AG describes itself as a “voluntary cooperative fellowship,” meaning its 13,000 churches are largely autonomous. This is similar to Baptist polity, and the Southern Baptist Convention similarly has claimed local church autonomy as a reason for not stopping serial abusers.
Autonomy has been employed as an institutional shield for the AG’s General Council (the national office in Springfield, Mo.), just as it has been by the SBC Executive Committee.
According to NBC, the AG has used local church “sovereignty” to resist popular abuse reform policies/
Unlike denominations with stricter hierarchical oversight (such as the Catholic Church or certain Methodist bodies) both the SBC and the AG General Council have limited formal disciplinary power over a local church’s staffing and volunteer policies for work with minors and vulnerable adults.
According to NBC, the AG has used local church “sovereignty” to resist popular abuse reform policies such as mandatory background checks, universal reporting and an abuser database. Much like the SBC, the stated reason for this resistance was the potential legal liability the denomination could face in the form of lawsuits from both victims and the accused.
Unlike the SBC, however, the AG is responsible for credentialing its clergy. But given that this exists alongside church sovereignty, AG national leadership claims it is only responsible for granting or revoking licenses and ordinations.
In the eyes of some reform advocates, the commitment to local sovereignty has been redefined as a practical legal and financial shield instead of a theological commitment.
This structural problem is compounded by a theological and cultural distinctive of Pentecostalism — the elevation of the “man of God.”
Pentecostalism’s emphasis on the inbreaking of the Holy Spirit, evidenced by spiritual gifts, prophecy and divine healing, creates charismatic leaders whose personal authority and spiritual anointing often are seen as sacred, beyond reproach, unquestionable. This aura transforms the preacher into an almost untouchable figure, creating a vacuum of oversight in the name of “Touch not the Lord’s anointed.”
This is where, according to the NBC investigation, the core Christian doctrine of forgiveness is dangerously misapplied, creating a culture that privileges the abuser’s restoration over the victim’s protection and justice.
The AG’s hands-off approach often created a path back to the pulpit for accused ministers, as seen in the case of Illinois minister Allen Lehmann, who was accused of molesting two girls in the 1970s. The AG district council suspended his credentials and placed him in a two-year “restoration” program rather than call the police. He was soon thereafter deemed “fully rehabilitated,” transferred to another church, and subsequently abused three more young relatives.
The AG’s hands-off approach often created a path back to the pulpit for accused ministers.
Victims also told NBC some pastors twisted Scripture to silence them. This theological abuse and clerical pressure made reporting abuse feel like fighting against divine authority.
In another example of misplaced grace, California worship minister Timothy Scarr was convicted of molesting two boys. Five days after his release from prison in 1988, his father — the senior pastor — threw him a party to welcome him back, restoring him as worship leader.
Scarr went on to abuse two more boys, one in the church sanctuary, under the direct protection of the church leadership who believed God had “miraculously cured his son’s attraction to children.” His family defended his reinstatement by arguing that failure to forgive him after his prison release was itself a “mortal sin.”
In Arkansas, children’s pastor Tony Waller was reported for filming girls in a church bathroom, with victims discovering a hidden camera pointed through a hole in the door. Church leaders initially suspended him for a few weeks and later, after a second report, told the victim’s mother God had told them “it was just a misunderstanding.”
Waller remained in ministry and was later convicted of raping two sisters he molested for years after the initial warnings were dismissed, illustrating the failure of church “sovereignty.”
The AG abuse crisis extends beyond local churches and into college campus ministries.
As BNG previously reported, Chi Alpha campus ministry leaders were indicted in Texas, where an Assemblies of God campus ministry, Chi Alpha, funneled students to the home of Daniel Savala, a convicted sex offender some pastors had hailed as “the holiest man alive.” Litigation in that case is currently ongoing, including a recent development where the AG’s General Council sought to shield its general superintendent, Doug Clay, from being deposed.
The Assemblies of God has not undergone the sweeping, systemic reckoning seen in other denominations, such as the Catholic Church and the Southern Baptist Convention.
Instead, however, the AG repeatedly has backed away from mandatory change. When child safety was brought before the General Council, debates were fraught with theological appeals, legal anxiety and outright resistance in the name of financial and legal consequences. In 2021, General Secretary Donna Barrett and longtime counsel Richard Hammar successfully recommended rejecting reform plans, citing legal risks that “outweighed the benefit.”
For survivors, the message is clear, according to the NBC report. As one survivor lamented, the ultimate question is: “How many more … would have to suffer before the Assemblies of God decided that protecting children mattered more than protecting itself?”
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