The Black Collar Crime Series relies on public news stories and publicly available information for its content. If any incorrect information is found, please contact Bruce Gerencser. Nothing in this post should be construed as an accusation of guilt. Those accused of crimes are innocent until proven guilty.
Several female members of Kitty Hawk United Methodist Church in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, have accused their pastor, Jonathan Mills, of sexually harassing them.
The North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church has confirmed that four women have made sexual harassment complaints about Pastor Jonathan Mills of Kitty Hawk Methodist.
Conference communications director Derek Leek says Pastor Mills is suspended for up to 90 days as part of the complaint process, effective December 19.
Kitty Hawk police say no one has filed any criminal complaints against Mills.
Mills has been pastor at Kitty Hawk United Methodist since July of 2016.
It’s unclear how many of the women who have complained are Kitty Hawk Methodist members, but Leek says he believes they do attend church there.
Church officials say the Bishop’s office in Raleigh is handling the investigation of the claims of sexual harassment, and is working toward “a just resolution with healing and accountability.”
Leek says they are currently trying to determine the nature of the alleged behavior and whether the allegations can be substantiated.
When we tried to reach Reverend Mills by his church email and phone to get his response to the claims, we got this response instead from the North Carolina Conference:
“Due to the complaint process, Reverend Mills is not allowed to talk to anyone at this time. This creates a time of safety for the complainants, for Reverend Mills and the church.”
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All this outing should result in better behavior
Carefully selecting his moments, Bruce picks another example of Clergy abuse. Of course Bruce has no issue what so ever with Secular abuse, so our above Pastor will simply get a government job as some type of social worker or counselor and continue. That’s OK though says Bruce. Bruce points out the abuses of “Christian School “Teachers but of course if the same actions occur at Public Schools Bruce just grins. A half truth is better than no truth isn’t it Bruce
When you read the sports page of your local newspaper do you expect to read wedding announcements and obituaries? When you read any subject-focused blog or periodical, do you expect to see articles that are not germane to subjects normally covered by that publisher? Of course not. The focus of this blog is Evangelicalism/Christianity, so that’s what I write about. If you want secular crimes covered, start a blog and have at it.
The greater issue, of course, is that Christianity purports to be a superior worldview, a superior moral and ethical way of life. Pointing out that this is not the case allows people to see the ugly underbelly of Christianity, especially Evangelical Christianity. If you don’t like me writing about such things, maybe your time would be better spent helping ministers learn that it is not okay to sexually harass women, have sex with church teens, and rape children. Instead, I suspect you are like most Christians who say little to nothing when so-called men of God use their place of power and authority to manipulate and abuse people.
Why don’t you dedicate your time to the other half of the truth Gerry?