Black Panther Party Plans Protest Against Church's Decision

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. --  A Jacksonville pastor who confessed to sexual crimes against two young girls is once again preaching.

Former Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church pastor Darrell Gilyard was just released from prison in December.  He's now delivering sermons at Christ Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church on North Davis Street.

"All these people over here are trying to do is worship, which is what you all ought to be doing," said one church member when asked his opinion.

Gilyard is now a registered sex offender and is on sex offender probation until December of 2014 according to the Department of Corrections.

While serving as pastor of Shiloh in 2008, he surrendered to police in 2008 and admitted to committing sex crimes against two girls under the age of 16.

Despite that past, many members of the Christ Tabernacle congregation have welcomed him with open arms.

"He's preaching the Lord's word and he can be wherever he wants to," said Lindy Brown.

"He's done his time.  He's in counseling and we should give him another opportunity because God can use anybody at any given time," said Rebecca Smith.

Rebecca Smith, Gilyard's assistant, said she's been in communication with him over the past three years and he expressed interest in leading a weekly bible study.
 
"We've been in prayer and I shared with him that God didn't call you to lead bible study.  God called you to preach," said Smith.

So he's now preaching on Sundays at CTMB indefinitely.

"Until they tell him he can't come back again," said Smith.

Because of that and his legal requirements, children are sent to a separate building and service.  Smith says it's proof of how passionate the congregation is about Gilyard returning to leadership.

"I'm passionate about doing the right thing and the right thing is giving another person another chance," said Smith.
   
This chance also helps Christ Tabernacle out financially.  Attendance was down, but with Gilyard it has increased.
   
"I think it's a wonderful thing," said Brown.

Church members say it was the best decision, based on their beliefs.

"That's what God would have us do.  He would have us to appreciate everybody for who they are because none of us are without sin," said Brown.

Smith said Gilyard is not on the payroll at the church, so he's not being paid for his services.  She does say he will most likely get donations for his services.  Gilyard did not give any comments to First Coast News for this story.

First Coast News source:

Bishop Eddie Long, Why Do Pastors Get a Pass?

(ThyBlackMan.com) One of the top stories at my station this morning was the story of a Pastor, recently released from prison on sexual assault charges of two young girls, returning to the pulpit. The man is a registered sex offender. Children who attend his services are sent to another building as the pastor can not have any contact with them. Even with the precautions in place the story disgusted me. After watching and reading through it the first time, and then over and over again all morning, I just started to wonder why were people at the pastor’s new church taking up for him. They were belligerent that the reporter at my station was even doing the story. The nerve of us for wondering why a registered sex offender is allowed to preach from the good book.

I know. I know. I know. Let he without sin cast the first stone. I’m not trying to judge the pastor I’m just trying to understand why in a society where Jerry Sandusky’s name will be marred for the rest of his life how is it a small time Jacksonville, Florida pastor is able to escape his local public’s wrath unscathed. Even on a larger scale how is it preacher’s and pastors in the public eye — as pillars of their community — seem to never get dirty, never get messy, even though from the knee down their covered in the doo.

Just last week Georgia’s New Birth Missionary Baptist Church pastor Eddie Long was crowned a King. The man who settled out of court with four men who said they were assaulted by their spiritual father was wrapped in a tallis, lifted on high in his throne like chair and exalted as if he were Christ the Redeemer himself. I know Jesus got mad. He had a fit in the church. But never did he ever anywhere in the Bible come into questionable contact with any of his flock; young or old male or female (Davinci Code theorists let me have this.)

Someone please explain the above blasphemy to me.

Michael Jackson went to his grave with many believing in their heart of hearts the King of Pop was a boy booty toucher, yet a pastor whose influence is almost as pervasive as the man in mirror can settle out of court and be crowned King by another religious group. Is that what makes religious royalty these days: catching a case? Excuse me while I lose grip on my New King James.

And the local pastor in my area and Bishop Eddie Long are not alone in their exaltation and being fiercely defended.

The Catholic Church is still reeling from the sex abuse scandal that began being revealed in the 1980?s. While Pope John Paul II did little to address the scandal before his death in 2005, Pope Benedict XVI has been on an apology tour. But the amends stop at an apology. Instead the Catholic Church to which I was baptised and raised in has busied itself with the new translation of mass and the constant mysteries revealed or not in the Bible, Dan Brown Books, and the Vatican’s own hidden coves.

Yet church scandals go beyond sex abuse and sex assault.

Prophetess Juanita Bynum and her ex-husband preacher Thomas W. Weeks III got into a huge argument in 2007 during their divorce. Bynum was beat up. No charges were filed. Weeks re-married and Bynum went about doing God’s work. The domestic dispute was a hot topic for a few days before being dismissed as old God gossip. However, Chris Brown and Rihanna can’t even tweet each other without someone somewhere rolling their neck and popping their gun to the tune of ” She better not get back with him. She stupid if she does.” Where was all this self-righteous contempt toward the preacher who beat the prophetess?

No really. Where was it?

Going further still, Tammy Faye is more remembered for her false eyelashes and painful death than she is for her two marriages to a televangelist and his fixer. Faye’s first marriage ended after Jim Bakker was sent to prison after allegations his church and company paid off a woman accusing Bakker of sexual assault.  Tammy Faye’s second marriage ended after investigations into the fraud case stemming from Faye’s first marriage showed her second husband Roe Messner to be deeply involved in the fraudulent finances of Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker’s once gold mine of a Christian brand.

These scandals are just a few that have rocked mega churches and small churches in our country and around the world. While people get over the deeds of the people of the cloth, Wall Street financiers like Bernie Madoff are serving more than life sentences for cheating Americans out of a white picket dream. (word to Solange)

If Madoff, Sandusky and M.J. to an extent deserved to be demonized to the ninth layer center of hell than so do priests, preachers and pastors who abuse their power.

Why convict one in both the court of public opinion and sometimes in court and not the other? Why allow “God’s messengers” off the hook but continue to lynch those not called to the cloth? Do priests, preachers and pastors get a pass when waiting in line to ascend into heaven and sit at the right hand of the father? Are their sins weighed with lesser value than those of us common folks who just happen to live and work and sometimes make bad decisions? Is theirs a salvation we the regular people of God’s kingdom can’t come to know because we didn’t study hard enough to deliver the Blood.

Am I missing something in my walk with Christ? Am I not privy to the particular treatment of those that deliver the word in the eyes of the King of Jews?

What gives?

How is it man made in His image can’t see the crimson stain on the flesh of the anointed?

Or is the free pass, the pass go card, the quick forgiveness of all wrongdoings and eager mercy for future transgressions just another symbol of why it is better to hold fast to the trinity than it is to the pomp and circumstance of dogma? source:

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