If you’re as deep into Christianity and theology as I am, some people stick out like a sore thumb as false teachers and hypocrites.
It’s a sad truth about Christianity, but it should come as no surprise that people like this are present within the Church because Jesus said that there would be.
More often, what really baffles me is when some of these false teachers get caught in something bad, sometimes a crime, and yet they’re allowed to continue on with their ministries as though nothing ever happened.
One example of this is Creflo Dollar, who is a popular preacher in the Atlanta area and is known worldwide. He ended up getting arrested for domestic abuse and the man still makes billions through deceiving his church.
Well, another Georgia pastor is in some serious trouble, but it’s worse than anything Creflo Dollar has ever done.
The pastor and his wife were arrested on eight counts of false imprisonment. What this really means though is that he and his wife had eight people illegally locked up in their basement! It’s not even that they were all kids either as I first suspected. They range in ages from 25-65 years old!
Curtis Keith Bankston and Sophia Simm-Bankston were running the unlicensed “group home” out of their rented Griffin house “under the guise of a church known as One Step of Faith 2nd Chance,” the Griffin Police Department said in a statement.
Griffin Fire last week responded to a call about someone having a seizure at the home and noticed a deadbolt on the basement door, according to police. Crews had to climb through a window to reach the patient.
Investigators determined the people in the basement, all with mental or physical disabilities, or both, were “essentially imprisoned against their will, which created an extreme hazard as the individuals could not exit the residence if there were an emergency,” police said.
The Bankstons controlled the finances, medications and public benefits of the people they were keeping in the basement and had sometimes denied them their medications and medical care, according to police.
This has to be one of the craziest things that I’ve heard in some time. There may be more to the story and maybe they really were helping, but right now I think it’s too early to tell.
Sources:
NBC News