Child Sexual Abuse in the Churches of God

With sickening frequency, former church members share stories on various private ex-COG Facebook pages about being victims of sexual abuse in the church over the past decades.  From being abused as small children or as teenagers, the stories are horrific.

Adding to the filth are the things that the ministry did to cover up the abuse. They regularly dismissed the stories of the children and teenagers and embraced the abusers as the victims.  Some even made the children and teenagers apologize to the abuser because he was a prominent member or was the child of an elder or the minister himself.  One minister had the abuser write a letter to the parents of the girl he abused apologizing for the them for the abuse and never said anything to the child.  The parents, stupidly like expected, did nothing.  Members were not to sue members or turn them in to the police.

There have been a few instances over the years when ministers and members of the Church of God have been sent to prison.  Those stories have been covered here in the past, though they are minuscule compared to the number of people sexually abused.

There has never been any accountability in the church to its members for abuse that has taken place, not then and certainly not now, as it is STILL going on in the Churches of God. The excuse some make is to let God take care of it in his own time. Others are afraid of being kicked out of the church and losing their salvation.

Why has the Church of God, who claims 1st century true Christianity, cared so little about is children and members?

Speaking of Paul: Using the WCG Experience to Understand The Problem of Paul in the New Testament

In this “compulsively readable exploration of the tangled world of Christian origins” (Publishers Weekly), religious historian James Tabor illuminates the earliest years of Jesus’ teachings before Paul shaped them into the religion we know today.

This fascinating examination of the earliest years of Christianity reveals how the man we call St. Paul shaped Christianity as we know it today.


Historians know almost nothing about the two decades following the crucifixion of Jesus, when his followers regrouped and began to spread his message. During this time Paul joined the movement and began to preach to the gentiles. Using the oldest Christian documents that we have—the letters of Paul—as well as other early Chris­tian sources, historian and scholar James Tabor reconstructs the origins of Christianity. Tabor shows how Paul separated himself from Peter and James to introduce his own version of Christianity, which would continue to develop independently of the message that Jesus, James, and Peter preached.


Paul and Jesus illuminates the fascinating period of history when Christianity was born out of Judaism.

Tabor was born in Texas but lived all over the world as the son of an Air Force officer. He was raised in the Churches of Christ and attended Abilene Christian University, where he earned his B.A. degree in Koine Greek and Bible. While earning his M.A. from Pepperdine University he taught Greek and Hebrew part-time at Ambassador College, founded by Herbert W. Armstrong, founder and president of the Worldwide Church of God.
Tabor earned his PhD at the University of Chicago in 1981 in New Testament and Early Christian literature, with an emphasis on the origins of Christianity and ancient Judaism, including the Dead Sea Scrolls, John the Baptist, Jesus, James the Just, and Paul the Apostle. The author of six books and over 50 articles, Tabor is frequently consulted by the media on these topics and has appeared on numerous television and radio programs.
During the Branch Davidian siege in Waco in 1993, Tabor and fellow religion scholar J. Phillip Arnold "realized that in order to deal with David Koresh, and to have any chance for a peaceful resolution of the Waco situation, one would have to understand and make use of these biblical texts.” After contacting the FBI, they sent Koresh an alternative interpretation of the Book of Revelation which persuaded Koresh to leave the compound, though it was stormed by Federal forces first. 

Major publications and research

His first book was a study of the mysticism of the apostle Paul titled Things Unutterable (1986), based on his University of Chicago dissertation. The Journal of Religion named it one of the ten best scholarly studies on Paul of the 1980s.

In 1992 Tabor turned to an analysis of attitudes toward religious suicide and martyrdom in the ancient world, the results of which appeared as A Noble Death, published by HarperSanFrancisco in 1992 (co-authored with Arthur Droge). Tabor's book has been used as a standard by ethicists, lawyers, and physicians who are participating in the current debate. Tabor has also published a wide variety of scholarly and more popular articles in books, journals, and magazines.
In 1995, he published Why Waco? Cults and the Battle for Religious Freedom in America (University of California Press), which he co-authored with Eugene Gallagher, and which was one of the first books to explore what had actually happened during the Waco siege. In 1995 he testified before Congress as an expert witness on the siege.

Things Paul Never Said