Posted on 06/10/2012 11:09:12 AM PDT by CHRISTIAN DIARIST
If there are certain sins so egregious they disqualify a pastor from continuing his ministry, Creflo Dollar committed such a sin this past Friday.
The founder and senior pastor of World Changers Church International, based in College Park,Ga., the front man for a national television ministry, Dollar was arrested and thrown in jail after going went medieval on his 15-year-old daughter.
According to his arrest record, Dollar choked his youngest daughter with both his hands, punched her, pushed her to the floor and beat her with a shoe. He was charged with battery, cruelty to children and family violence.
Yet, the pastor, already controversial for espousing the so-called “prosperity Gospel,” denies that the verbal argument he had with his teen-aged daughter, over a party she wanted to attend, ever escalated to domestic violence.
But the denial hasn’t come directly from Dollar himself, but from surrogates he has deployed to do damage control on his behalf.
Like Randi Garrett, a long time member of World Changers Church International.
She insisted that Dollar’s arrest is “just something that’s been blown out of proportion” and maintained that the pastor’s daughter is mistaken if she thought her father tried to do her bodily harm.
“Kids misconstrue things,” Garrett explained, “and they take them out of context.”
Meanwhile, Dollar’s attorney issued a statement in his name in which the pastor professed that he loves his kids, that he has their best interests at heart and that he would never raise his hand against them.
As to those of us who’ve previously borne no ill will toward the pastor, but would like him to explain what happened at his family home this past Friday, Dollar’s statement ruled that out. “The facts of this case will be handled privately,” it read.
Why so?
Well, the statement suggests, it’s not to spare the pastor further public embarrassment. Nor to avoid hard questions as to why he got so violent with his 15-year-old daughter that his 19-year-old daughter called the sheriff on him.
No, the father of five ain’t saying nothing, according to his statement, “to further protect his children.”
Well, I have no problem with Pastor Dollar taking that position with the godless media, with those outside the Body of Christ and even with those of us who are Christians, but are not members of his World Changers Church.
But the pastor absolutely owes a full explanation to faithful members of his megachurch, which boasts a congregation of 30,000, and to faithful followers of his “Changing Your World” television ministry. For the Scripture declares that “An overseer must be above reproach.”
Ultimately, of course, the fallen pastor needs to get right with God, Who first called Dollar to the pulpit, but Whose Spirit has obviously departed from the pastor.
For as Dollar himself has no doubt preached, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
I would have to really disagree with that. I have twin daughters who are now in their late 20's. (I also had 2 teenage boys at the same time.) The girls were great as teenagers - but they were also walking with the Lord. Many of their friends spent more time at our house than their own because they knew they were loved here and God's Truth dominated in our house. Many of these girls were not Christians at the time, but now a few of them are - to the praise and glory of God!
Go in peace.
Yes. He was named after his father, Creflo A. Dollar Sr.
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