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Nov. 7, 2025, 5:00 AM ESTBy Mike HixenbaughThis article is part of “Pastors and Prey,” a series investigating sex abuse allegations in the Assemblies of God.The Assemblies of God is facing calls for reform and repentance after an NBC News investigation revealed decades of sexual abuse allegations and alleged cover-ups within the world’s largest Pentecostal denomination.The report last week identified nearly 200 ministers, church employees and volunteer leaders accused of sexually abusing more than 475 people, most of them children, over the past half-century. In dozens of cases, the investigation found, Assemblies of God churches returned accused offenders to ministry — freeing them to abuse again.In response, several Assemblies of God pastors said they were praying for a reckoning within their ranks. One urged the denomination to enter a season of repentance; another announced he was leaving in protest.“I cannot in good conscience remain credentialed with the Assemblies of God,” the minister, Trevor Walker, wrote in an email Wednesday to denomination leaders. “I pray that greater light and humility will one day prevail in addressing abuse within the church.”Walker was one of 10 current and former Assemblies of God ministers who shared their views with NBC News. Reporters also heard from several alleged victims and longtime congregants. Their reactions ranged from outrage and grief to deep disappointment. Some said they hoped the reporting would prompt change.The Children’s Pastor: The 40-year mission to stop a preacher accused of raping children42:24“Maybe this will be the thing that turns the corner,” said Krystopher Scroggins, an Assemblies of God minister who leads a college ministry in San Angelo, Texas. “You can’t have this amount of light shining in your dark corners and not want to clean your house.”The General Council of the Assemblies of God, the denomination’s U.S. governing body, released a video statement last week taking issue with the NBC News report and asserting its commitment to child protection.“The Assemblies of God grieves with anyone who has been hurt by the actions of an abuser,” said General Superintendent Doug Clay, the denomination’s top national leader. “The General Council of the Assemblies of God is committed to child safety and has an established track record of leadership in this area.”Standing beside him, General Secretary Donna Barrett defended the denomination’s policies, reiterating that it requires background checks of credentialed ministers and screens out any found to have sexually abused children.‘Pastors and Prey’: NBC News investigates sex abuse in Assemblies of God churchesAssemblies of God churches shielded accused predators — and allowed them to keep abusing children.A revered missionary who was also a convicted sex offender urged generations of Chi Alpha members to get naked in his Houston sauna.Assemblies of God church leaders allowed a children’s pastor to continue preaching for years after he was accused of sexually abusing girls.An NBC News documentary traces the 40-year fight to stop a preacher accused of raping children.Some pastors praised the Assemblies of God for vetting credentialed ministers but were troubled by a significant gap noted in NBC News’ report: Under denominational policy, only a church’s lead pastor is required to hold ministerial credentials — meaning other staff, such as youth pastors or music ministers, can be hired without national oversight or background checks.Jim Line, who leads a small church in St. Marys, Pennsylvania, said he’s concerned that this lack of supervision can allow individuals with troubling histories to return to ministry roles.“If you bring in somebody who’s a minister of music or youth pastor and they’re not credentialed, I don’t know what your background is,” said Line, who added that he otherwise thought the Assemblies of God’s policies are strong. “I do have a problem with that.”NBC News contacted each elected member of the denomination’s Executive Presbytery, which serves as a national board of directors, but none agreed to comment.At least a few of the Assemblies of God’s 66 district councils, which oversee church affairs on a state or regional level, sent emails to ministers responding to the reporting. One district office implored every pastor in the region to voluntarily adopt child safety policies; another called the reporting “heartbreaking” and encouraged ministers to watch the General Council’s response.For some inside the denomination, the video statement fell short, confirming fears that leadership is unwilling to confront what they see as systemic failures.California pastor Anthony Scoma called on Assemblies of God leaders to repent for failures that allowed alleged abusers to remain in ministry.Courtesy Anthony ScomaAnthony Scoma, an Assemblies of God pastor in San Francisco who previously served as a district leader in north Texas, said failures that allowed sex offenders to return to ministry can’t be fixed with policy changes alone. He called for “churchwide, denominationalwide repentance” in response to the NBC News report.“As long as the Assemblies of God, led by our leaders, refuses to repent over a culture of abuse, the media, the courts, public opinion will continue to expose all these things,” Scoma said. “Because it’s not actually them that’s exposing it — it’s God. It’s the spirit of truth that is bringing these things to light.”Among the most forceful reactions came from Walker, the minister who resigned his credentials after two decades in the Assemblies of God. Walker said he had already left his church in Midlothian, Virginia, in 2023 over its handling of a family member’s abuse allegations but had maintained his credentials and hoped to one day return to ministry.The NBC News report and the denomination’s response — which Walker described as “sterile,” “impersonal” and “devoid of accountability or compassion” — finally convinced him to step away for good.“If they would have said, ‘Many people have been hurt over the years under our watch, and we regret that, but we’re working toward making it better,’ that would have been enough for me,” Walker said.Other ministers criticized a 2021 decision by the General Council to reject a resolution that would have added language to the bylaws stating that a credentialed minister or church could be expelled or disciplined for failing to enforce safeguards like background checks and mandatory reporting of abuse. Ministers declined to adopt the policy after lawyers for the denomination warned that it could expose the General Council to costly lawsuits.One senior official said at the time that the legal risk “outweighed the benefit.”That remark brought to mind a passage from the Book of Matthew, said Scroggins, in which Jesus warned that a person cannot serve both God and mammon — or money.“When your guiding thought is, ‘We don’t want to implement this policy that will protect children because we don’t want to lose a lot of money in potential lawsuits,’ that to me is, you’re worshipping money,” Scroggins said. “And that’s heartbreaking.”Barrett, the Assemblies of God’s general secretary, defended the 2021 decision in the video response last week. She said the denomination’s structure gives churches broad autonomy to govern themselves, which she said “makes it impossible” for the General Council to “give oversight” to local congregations. “It is absurd to think that anyone at 2021 General Council was opposed to child safety,” Barrett said.Former Assemblies of God pastor Dan Matlock called that explanation hypocritical and “frankly, pardon me, bulls—.”Former pastor Dan Matlock criticized the Assemblies of God for saying it can’t force local churches to adopt policies to protect children.Courtesy Dan MatlockIn 2020, Matlock’s church in Kyle, Texas, announced it would affirm LGBTQ members and perform same-sex weddings. Within days, Assemblies of God district officials moved to revoke his ministerial credential and expel the church for adopting views “contradictory to historical Christian beliefs and our AG doctrinal positions,” according to a letter reviewed by NBC News.Matlock said the episode showed that the Assemblies of God can exercise control over local church policies — when it’s important to them.“I am not convinced in the least that what they are most concerned about is congregants’ safety,” he said.Among rank-and-file Assemblies of God congregants, reactions to the NBC News report ranged from heartbreak to hope.Charity True, a longtime Assemblies of God member in Illinois, said “Jesus would be flipping tables” at the Assemblies of God’s national office.“If my local church didn’t have their act already together, then last Sunday would have been my last Sunday inside of an Assemblies of God church,” True said in an email, referring to her congregation’s stringent child safety policies. “I just pray this will bring change at a national level.”For survivors, the revelations were deeply personal, reviving painful memories and exposing a pattern of abuse, silence and cover-ups.Cheryl Almond, who says her pastor molested her in the late 1970s, said she was “shocked” by NBC News’ report.September Dawn Bottoms for NBC NewsCheryl Almond spent decades attending Assemblies of God churches in Oklahoma — even after she says her pastor, Joe Campbell, sexually abused her as a teen in the late 1970s. After other children came forward in the 1980s to allege abuse, Campbell was allowed to keep preaching for years before the denomination finally removed him in 1989, NBC News reported in May.Almond said she was devastated by the latest report, which she said confirmed a long-held fear: What happened at her childhood church wasn’t isolated. “This has been allowed to happen to far too many kids, and for far too long,” she said.In calling for change at the national level, Almond pointed to Jesus’ parable of the shepherd who leaves 99 sheep to rescue one that has gone astray — a lesson about valuing every life.“The Assemblies of God isn’t doing that,” she said. “They’re saying that safeguarding the 99 is more important than protecting the one. ‘That vulnerable child can fend for themselves. We’ve got a church to protect from lawsuits.’”“It’s wrong,” she added. “It’s not biblical, and it’s disgusting.”Mike HixenbaughMike Hixenbaugh is a senior investigative reporter for NBC News, based in Maryland, and author of “They Came for the Schools.” Elizabeth Chuck contributed.

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Sept. 23, 2025, 2:00 PM EDTBy Max GaoCanadian comic Mae Martin knows their new Netflix limited series — which blends light-hearted comedic elements with the anxiety-inducing horror and thriller genres — may feel like a dramatic departure for anyone who is familiar with their stand-up routines and their semi-autobiographical show, “Feel Good.”“It’s funny because it doesn’t feel like a departure for me,” Martin, who identifies as nonbinary and uses they/them pronouns, told NBC News. “It feels thematically in the same universe as everything I do. It’s introspective, and there’s themes about processing adolescence and identity.”“Wayward,” which premieres Thursday, stars Martin as Alex Dempsey, a police officer who has just moved to the seemingly picturesque small town of Tall Pines with his pregnant wife, Laura (Sarah Gadon). During one of his first days in the city, where his wife grew up, Alex crosses paths with two students from the local academy for “troubled teens” who are desperately trying to plot their escape. As he begins investigating a series of unusual incidents, Alex suspects that Evelyn Wade (Toni Collette) — the school’s enigmatic leader who shares a troubling personal connection with Laura — might be at the center of all the town’s problems.“Alex is sort of the eyes of the audience and trying to piece it all together. It’s so seductive to be in a town that is so accepting and progressive on the surface and is offering him everything he’s always dreamed of,” Martin explained. But over the course of eight episodes, Alex, who is a transgender man, “is grappling with his moral compass and also his intense yearning to have that nuclear family and mainstream acceptance that he’s always wanted.”After Martin rose to fame internationally during the Covid-19 pandemic for co-creating the romantic dramedy series “Feel Good,” in which they played a fictionalized version of themselves, some viewers may have expected the writer to create a new project that would feel similarly autobiographical. But Martin said they have been wanting to make a show for decades set against the backdrop of the “troubled teen industry,” a term used for the broad range of controversial youth residential programs aimed at struggling teenagers.“My best friend Nicole got sent to a troubled teen institute in the States, and she was gone for about two years,” said Martin, who grew up in Toronto. “That sparked my interest in some of the shadier practices and the really strange origins of that industry, which all trace back to self-help cults in the 1970s and this really theatrical behavioral modification.”At first, Martin thought the series would be more of a classic, coming-of-age story in the vein of “Stand By Me” or “Holes.” But after hearing about their best friend’s harrowing experiences at one of those unregulated schools — where she recalled being starved, sleep deprived and forced to dig and stand in her own grave overnight — Martin could tell that a tale about troubled teens being held against their will would be much more in line with classic horror and thriller films such as “Fargo,” “Get Out” and “Rosemary’s Baby.”Over time, Martin said, they became more interested in looking “directly at how many young people are pathologized at such a young age, just for having a pretty normal reaction to a sick society.” “When you take kids who are in crisis and your reaction is punitive, you take away their opportunity to go through all the normal milestones of development, and you ascribe labels to them that really affect how they see their own potential,” they said. Mae Martin and Toni Collette in “Wayward.”Michael Gibson / NetflixMartin said they have found themselves increasingly thinking about “the state of the world that we’re passing down to young people, and about intergenerational conflict.”“As we get older, we suppress so much of our sensitivity and our critical thinking and even our empathy just in order to survive in the world,” Martin said. “So we can’t help but kind of gaslight young people out of their very correct observation that the world is insane, and that there’s a lot of hypocrisy out there.”From the outset, Martin said, they knew they wanted to play Alex. While his gender identity is only explored in passing, “a lot of his inner yearning is connected to that and how he sees himself and wants to be seen in the world,” especially as a husband and an expectant father, Martin explained.“The show’s set in 2003, and I think there wasn’t a lot of fluency around nonbinary identity then and not a lot of they/thems,” Martin noted, adding that playing a man “just made sense” to them. “Who knows where I’ll end up on that spectrum? But it felt pretty natural to me as an actor — more natural than it would’ve been to play a woman.”As the creator and co-showrunner of “Wayward,” Martin is one of the few LGBTQ writers in Hollywood who are shepherding their own mainstream projects. While they said they try not to think too much about their public profile when creating their projects, Martin said it is “scary” to be a queer creative at a time when President Donald Trump and conservatives have been actively targeting and rolling back legal protections for the queer community, especially trans and nonbinary people.Toni Collette and Joshua Close in “Wayward.”Netflix“What makes things difficult is when things are charged politically, like they are now, it makes it seem like even having a trans character or a gay character is a political statement and immediately puts your project in a niche category,” said Martin. “It’s crazy that your career can be affected by political swings like that.”Martin said they see their visibility as a prominent nonbinary comedian in the current climate as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they want to tell stories that will reach the widest audience possible and, hopefully, in turn, create more empathy for the LGBTQ community. But at the same time, Martin said, they know that their mere existence can be seen as a kind of political statement.They said they would welcome an environment where an LGBTQ character’s identity was “just incidental,” rather than a defining feature of the project, “and the focus is actually on these hugely universal themes and storylines.”In “Wayward,” for instance, “there are nuances that are specific to the queer experience that I think queer people will pick up on and relate to, but those things are pretty relatable to anyone who’s experienced any kind of otherness,” Martin said.Martin speculated that the heightened backlash against the trans community is connected to depictions of trans people that have disproportionately focused on transphobia, bigotry and trauma. “It is a part of the trans experience, but it’s just one small part of a human experience,” they said. “The more we can have diverse characters who are flawed, funny, weird and relatable, who make mistakes, who have relationships — I think that would be more helpful.”Martin acknowledged there’s been a contraction in the output of diverse stories, but they plan to keep “sneaking subversive things” into more mainstream projects.“I’ll just keep my head down, keep inundating people with scripts, and hope to ride it out and do my part,” Martin said.Max GaoMax Gao is a freelance entertainment and sports journalist based in Toronto. He has written for NBC News, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Sports Illustrated, The Daily Beast, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, Men’s Health, Teen Vogue and W Magazine.

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