Shell-shocked members of Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, are taking the first steps on a long road of recovery today as disgraced pastor, the Rev. Juan D. McFarland, finally left the church following a court order that he resign and cut all associations with the church. He cannot even attend services there.
The ruling earlier Thursday by Montgomery County Circuit Court Presiding Judge Charles Price brought some degree of closure to a dispute between McFarland and church leaders that erupted in late summer.
McFarland confessed that he not only had AIDS, but that he also had slept with several female church members without telling them he had the deadly disease. He also confessed to using illegal drugs and misappropriating church funds, according to a report on the Montgomery Advertiser newspaper’s website.
McFarland walked quietly out of the building Thursday after relinquishing his keys to the church, where he had ministered for 24 years.
“Who does this to people, and you are the leader? Who does this?” an unnamed church member asked rhetorically when the scandal first broke last month.
“I know a young lady who is a member of the church who says she has slept with him and that she didn’t want this to go public, and she is running out now trying to find out if there is anything wrong with her. And my heart goes out to her, because she’s been a wonderful church member, and then for something like this to happen. The fact that he didn’t tell them at all. That’s a crime in itself.”
Lee Sanford, chairman of the church’s board of trustees, said the meeting during which McFarland returned his keys was “tense” but not combative. Sanford said the church has always acted in a spirit of forgiveness toward McFarland.
“It was extremely reluctantly that we took the action that we did, but we have to look [out] for the spiritual welfare of the members of Shiloh Missionary Baptist in moving forward,” Sanford told the Advertiser.
Sanford said the church will move in “a studied fashion” to find a new pastor, but for now the Rev. Arthur Green, the church’s associate pastor, will lead services… Read More
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