Women in Perry Stone’s Ministry Allege Sexual Misconduct, Say FBI is Investigating Televangelist
This is so weird. I used to watch Stone’s show on a regular basis from around the early 2000s.
It seems like most every figure I used to watch regularly on TBN later went on to be accused of child molesting or adultery.
Is there anyone out there who professes Christ who actually LIVES OUT a Christian lifestyle, ie., if you’re a married Christian guy, you are NOT molesting children, viewing porn, or sexually harassing women or having affairs?
(Link): Women in Perry Stone’s ministry allege sexual misconduct, say FBI is investigating televangelist – behind a pay wall or you must register to continue reading
I have more comments below this long excerpt:
(Link): Televangelist Perry Stone slams secular media after report alleges sexual misconduct
by Leonardo Blair
Longtime Tennessee-based televangelist and Bible teacher Perry Stone warned his followers against trusting secular media Monday, days after a local publication accused him of sexual misconduct.
“Over 32 years I have been involved with television. … I’m involved with media, I know how media works,” Stone said in a YouTube video titled “The Truth Behind Today’s Media.”
“It’s not always about what’s true or not, it’s about the advertising dollars,” he continued, explaining the relationship between the media and advertising and the need to make money.
….Citing multiple sources connected to Stone and his Perry Stone Ministries, a report published in the Chattanooga Times Free Press on Christmas Day said the Federal Bureau of Investigation began looking into sexual misconduct claims against the minister last month, but the agency has not confirmed this.
Perry Stone Ministries also did not immediately respond when contacted by The Christian Post on Monday morning.
More than a dozen people connected or formerly connected to Stone’s ministry told the Chattanooga publication that they were worried about what appears to be a lack of accountability in the ministry a year-and-a-half after claims of inappropriate conduct involving women were first made.
Some expressed outrage that the board of directors at Voice of Evangelism, Stone’s international evangelistic outreach, did not involve law enforcement or fully investigate claims of misconduct against the televangelist. These allegations included “groping, unwanted kissing and showing women he was aroused,” the Chattanooga Times Free Press reported.
…During a special service on Nov. 30, when he tried to explain why some people were no longer with his ministry, an unidentified woman interrupted his address to suggest it was because he is a “nasty perv.”
“Why don’t you tell them the real reason why they left? Because you kept touching them,” she said before she was removed by security.
Stone later explained that the allegations against him were misinterpreted social behavior that is seen as normal in Italian culture.
“I am not a perfect man,” he said. “People have taken me hugging and kissing them on the cheek wrong. I quit that. I’m Italian. My whole family holds hands, rubs backs. I didn’t know you can look at somebody and say, ‘Hey, how you doing?’ and they can take it wrong.”
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Where Stone makes comments such as,
“I am not a perfect man,” he said. “People have taken me hugging and kissing them on the cheek wrong. I quit that. I’m Italian. My whole family holds hands, rubs backs. I didn’t know you can look at somebody and say, ‘Hey, how you doing?’ and they can take it wrong.”
— end —
That sounds like an Andrew Cuomo type defense – “Hey people mistake my touchy feely personality and mannerisms as being sexual harassment, but I’m just being friendly!”
Sorry, not buying.
This is also like the Harvey Weinstein defense: “I can’t help it if I rape women and force myself on them sexually, I’m from a different generation – I had no idea that women in the 1990s and later would not want to be raped! Times have changed, what can I say?”
Update, April 5, 2023:
(Link): Tennessee Evangelist Perry Stone Won’t Face Charges in Sexual Misconduct Case
Related:
(Link): Ex Preacher Bob Coy Accused of Molesting Toddler And Abuse Lasted Until Kid Was A Teen
(Link): Mega Church Preacher Bob Coy Caught In What Some Sources Saying Case of Adultery and Porn Addiction
(Link): Hillsong Church Rife with ‘Inappropriate’ Sex, Members Claimed
Christian Pundit 