Stereotypes Against Singles Refuted Series: Married IFB Preacher Arrested for Being Serial Rapist

Stereotypes Against Singles Refuted Series: Married IFB Preacher Arrested for Being Serial Rapist

Before I post about the serial rapist preacher, I do want to point out that some churches may be turning their noses up at singles for positions of leadership not always out of an outright bias against singles or singlenes, but that many churches, especially of the IFB bent apparently, are cheapskates: they want a married pastor because they get two slave laborers for the price of one, a husband and his wife.

Apparently, a preacher’s wife is expected to fulfill unpaid roles at many churches and in many denominations, such as providing free church child care; running and organizing church activities; and playing the piano during church services.

Some people at one forum were copying “Pastor Wanted” ads into one thread, and a few of the advertisments specifically required that the pastor applying have a wife, and the wife’s duties were spelled out, as “she must be a piano player,” etc.

The thing I find sad and funny is that these are not biblical standards in the first place, and some of the churches adhering to these standards claim to be “KJV Only” or to care deeply about “biblical standards.” The Bible does not say all preachers/ teachers have to be married, or have to have children, or that a pastor must have a wife who plays musical instruments.

Note also that a lot of this abuse against women (and young girls) by Christians are in churches that have a low view of the female gender, which they call “traditional gender roles” or “biblical gender complementarianism.” They adhere to very strict gender role perspectives. These types of churches/ Christians typically believe a woman is suitable for only being barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen. The males have very sexist views of women and usually blame females for being raped -much like Islamic honor killing culture.

Now, the star attraction of this post, the biggest reason you clicked the link to read this post:

Ah yes, another married person, and a pastor no less, was revealed to be less than saintly. The guy was arrested for being a serial rapist. He worked as a preacher. He hanged himself while in jail.

Mr. Pervy Pastor had two or three children, so he was a father, too, not just a husband.

And we know that conservative Christians think that fatherhood (or motherhood) automatically make a Christian more responsible and godly. *Snicker*
(See previous post on this blog: (Link): “Fatherhood Not Quite the Producer of Manly, Mature, Godly Men Some Conservative Christians Make It Out To Be”)

News reports such as these do not fit in with the paradigm held by a lot of conservative Christians, particularly Baptists (IFB and SBC and others) and conservative evangelicals that married people are more sexually pure, more morally upright, or more mature than never-married adults (or the divorced) over the age of 25 – 30.

The truth is that married people are no more godly, mature, responsible, or sexually upright than singles.

Most “sexual purity” sermons, books, and blogs about sexual sin assume that all singles, or at least those under the age of 30, are “randy” all the time and having sex with hundreds of partners per week, even though that is not true for all singles, especially not all Christian singles. (Note the ageism, not just the single stereotype in play: most churches don’t even stop to consider that singles over 30, 40 have sexual desire, or they don’t care.)

Here are some links and excerpts about the pervy rapist IFB preacher (even in death, his pastor friends, who knew the truth about the guy – that he was reportedly a rapist – gave him a glowing eulogy in one of their publications. Link to that below):

(Link): “Spinning Scandals Redux” (Deceased Pervy Pastor Known To Be Pervy By All Gets Glowing Obit from IFB Church Publication) (via “Stuff Fundies Like” site)

(Link): Pastor’s arrest, suicide stun church

(Link – from a blog): Two Sides of Matthew Jarrell

(Link): Former York County pastor’s arrest, travels spark nationwide sex-assault search (story dates from 2011)

    By TED CZECH
    Daily Record/Sunday News

    York, PA – In May 2007, the Rev. Matthew Dwayne Jarrell picked up a woman in Texas. She said he flashed a gold badge at her and told her if she did not do what he wanted, he would arrest her.

    Instead, San Antonio Police arrested him and charged him with sexual assault. In his vehicle they found two knives, a stun gun, leather gloves, video equipment and a machete.

    Last week, Jarrell, 41 — who at one time served as pastor of Old Paths Baptist Church in North Codorus Township — was again arrested on a sexual assault charge, this time in West Virginia.

    Police there say he offered a woman a ride home, drove to a secluded area and raped her.

    Jarrell faced up to 25 years in prison, and his case in Texas had not yet gone to trial. But two days after his arrest, Jarrell used a bed sheet to hang himself inside his West Virginia jail cell.

    At least one law-enforcement officer believes those two cases might not have been isolated incidents. Jarrell’s itinerant nature — he would often guest-preach across the country — and those sexual assault charges have led investigators to examine his movements during the past few years.

    …Interviews with Dietz, along with allegations in court records and conversations with people who knew Jarrell, help paint a picture of a man leading two lives. …Members of Jarrell’s church in Texas, the Open Door Baptist Church in Mesquite, thought he was in Pennsylvania attending a Baptist convention.

    ..While at a bar in Charleston, W.Va., on May 19, Jarrell approached a woman who was waiting for a cab. He offered to drive her home. Later that day, she told deputies that Jarrell had driven her to a secluded area and attacked her.

    “She stated he held her face down on the seat of the truck” and raped her, according to the complaint. She escaped when Jarrell’s truck became stuck in mud. She told police about Jarrell and his truck, and when they went to the area she described, they found Jarrell still there, still stuck in the mud.

    …Court documents, police reports and interviews with Herbert, of the district attorney’s office, recount a case in Texas in which Jarrell is believed to have raped a woman.

    Soon after she climbed into the truck, he “flashed a wallet with a badge” and told her that “he was an undercover officer and that if (she) would perform oral sex on (him) he would not take her in,” a police report states. He told her he had a gun and said he would use it.

    …On Dec. 19, 2007, a grand jury in Bexar County indicted Jarrell on a charge of sexual assault in the May 24 arrest.

    2003: On April 15, Matthew Jarrell was arrested in Baltimore and charged with possessing a handgun in a vehicle, possessing a handgun on his person and prostitution— general. Details on the prostitution charge and the overall case were not available.

    2007: Jarrell was arrested May 24 in San Antonio, Texas. On Dec. 19, 2007, a grand jury indicted him on one felony count of second-degree sexual assault. He was awaiting trial when he died.

    2011: Jarrell was arrested May 18 in Kanawha County, W.Va., and charged with one count of sexual assault.

(Link): Mesquite pastor accused of rape led double life

    By SCOTT K. PARKS and SHERRY JACOBSON Staff Writers
    Published: 28 May 2011 11:31 PM

    …In 2003, Jarrell traveled to Baltimore, where he was arrested for soliciting a prostitute and illegal handgun possession.

    In 2007, San Antonio police arrested him for sexual assault after a woman accused him of forcing her to perform oral sex.

    Last weekend, Jarrell’s final trip ended tragically in a jail cell in Charleston, W.Va. Two days after his arrest on a rape charge, he hanged himself in jail. At age 41, the double life he had been leading was over.

    … His family and the congregation at his small fundamentalist church on Belt Line Road were left to ponder what demons could have led a man of God to such a sad end.

    … Baptist churches are independent of one another. But Jarrell and his church were loosely affiliated with the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist movement.

    … Unlike charismatic Christian sects such as Pentecostals, Fundamentalist Baptists don’t believe in faith healing, speaking in tongues or playing music with a rock beat. It’s all about the Bible.

    … Like other Baptist sects, the fundamentalist churches don’t allow women in leadership positions. While Open Door Baptist Church has no dress code, most church women wear long dresses or skirts and tops with high necks — no sleeveless tops.

    Woodson [who attended Jarrell’s church], 57, said Jarrell was respectful of women.

    … Jarrell’s first brush with the law, as far as The Dallas Morning News can determine, came at 11:40 p.m. on April 15, 2003, in Baltimore, about 60 miles south of York.

    Court records and police reports say he solicited a prostitute who turned out to be an undercover police officer running a “john sting.” Police found two handguns in Jarrell’s white Chevrolet truck — a .44-magnum Taurus with a laser sight and a .45-caliber pistol with one round in the chamber and five in the magazine.

    …. Jarrell’s next brush with the law came in San Antonio on May 24, 2007, when he was arrested after a woman complained that he threatened her with “force and violence” unless she performed oral sex on him. She told police she believed he had “the ability to execute the threat” because he was so big, according to court records.

    … The details surrounding Jarrell’s arrest in West Virginia now seem almost irrelevant. But, for the record, the criminal complaint against him alleges that he met a woman in a bar. She needed a ride home and he offered to help. Instead, he took her to a remote area and sexually abused her in his Toyota Tundra pickup