Florida church members split after black 'registered sex offender' returns to preach

[Leroy N. Soetoro]

https://www.foxnews.com/us/florida-pastor-church-sex-offender

A Florida pastor with a history of sexual misconduct allegations is once
again preaching in the pulpit, upsetting members who point to his three-
year prison sentence in 2009 for sexually molesting two girls.

The Rev. Darrell Gilyard, a registered sex offender in the Sunshine State,
just became the new pastor of Mount Ararat Baptist Church in Jacksonville,
according to the local news.

At one time a rising star, the protege of former Southern Baptist
Convention President Paige Patterson is now riddled with a history of
sexual misconduct allegations from hundreds of women from previous
churches he's led in Texas and Oklahoma, dating back to the 90s, Christian
Post reports.

"God doesn’t need predators in the pulpit, no matter how great a speaker
or the truth of God’s word being spoken," Tiffany Thigpen Kilgannon, who
said she was a victim, wrote on the church's Facebook page.

"Please keep your young girls and ladies safe. It is a painful thing to
recover from, give them the gift of safety," she added.

But some members support Gilyard, despite the history of repeated
allegations going back decades.

"I was certainly disappointed, but I prayed about it like I try to do
about everything, and I forgave him,” James Andrews told News4Jax.

Prior to his arrest, Gilyard was forced to resign from a Dallas-area
church after he confessed to some allegations in 1991, and Gilyard
defended himself against multiple civil suits, including one that he
eventually settled -- a grieving widow who accused him of raping and
impregnating her during counseling sessions, according to Florida and
federal court records.

Gilyard, in video obtained by an investigation by the Houston Chronicle,
said he saw himself as "vindicated" but he did apologize for misconduct.

“I stand before you tonight a broken man to confess that in the past I
have sinned against God, against my family and before you,” he said.

The controversial pastor, who is able to work at the church as a
registered sex offender because he is not on probation, according to the
Florida Department of Law Enforcement, believes he has changed.

"Of course I believe I have changed. But time will tell everyone if I have
changed,” Gilyard told First Coast News in 2014. “I'm a believer in when
you do something wrong, you pay the price. But do you pay the price
forever?"



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