Assemblies of God Sexual Abuse Cover-Ups: What Survivors Should Know About Reporting Failures

If you grew up in an Assemblies of God church, or if your child did, you may have been told that problems stay within the church family. That leaders handle things. That going outside the congregation with something this serious would only cause more harm. Maybe you believed it. Maybe you had no reason not to.

But what happens when “handling it internally” means a predator keeps his position, keeps his access to children, and keeps abusing? That question sits at the center of what survivors and investigators have spent decades trying to answer. If you or someone you love was sexually abused in an Assemblies of God church and the abuse was never properly reported, you need to understand what that failure means and what rights you still have. Our attorneys work directly with survivors navigating these situations, and you can learn more about your legal options as an Assemblies of God survivor in Arkansas before reading further.

What “Handling It Internally” Actually Looks Like

There’s a version of events that gets repeated in churches after abuse allegations surface. Someone reports. Leaders say they’ve addressed it. The accused is quietly counseled, suspended for a short period, or moved to another role. The congregation is told very little. Law enforcement is never contacted. And life goes on, for everyone except the person who was abused.

An NBC News investigation found that since the 1970s, Assemblies of God churches repeatedly reinstated ministers and volunteer leaders accused of sexual misconduct, returning them to pulpits and youth groups. This wasn’t an occasional oversight. In about 30 documented instances, church leaders placed alleged abusers into positions of authority after they had already been accused, freeing them to strike again. In nearly 40 other cases, leaders allegedly covered up or dismissed reports of misconduct, often by failing to alert police or pressuring victims to stay quiet.

One survivor described being told that “demonic spirits” had gotten hold of her after she reported abuse by a church elder. That whistleblower is now part of a lawsuit against her church accusing its leaders of concealing decades of abuse.

This is what internal handling can look like in practice. Not resolution. Erasure.

Are Church Leaders Actually Required to Report Abuse?

Yes, and in Arkansas, this is not a gray area.

Under Arkansas law, clergy members including ministers, priests, rabbis, and other functionaries of a religious organization are classified as mandated reporters. They are legally required to report suspected child maltreatment to authorities. 

Arkansas law also states that a person required to report who purposely fails to do so is civilly liable for damages proximately caused by that failure. In addition to civil liability, the deliberate failure to report suspected abuse constitutes a criminal offense, potentially leading to financial penalties or criminal charges contingent upon the specific context.

If a pastor learns of child sexual abuse in their church and chooses to handle it through prayer, counseling, or silence, instead of reporting it to the authorities, they are breaking the law. This is true regardless of the church’s need for confidentiality.

Have Assemblies of God Churches Actually Covered Up Abuse?

Lawsuits and investigations have alleged exactly that, and the documented scale of it is significant.

NBC News identified nearly 200 Assemblies of God pastors, church employees, and volunteer leaders accused of sexual abuse over the past half century, based on a nationwide search of lawsuits, criminal records, and news archives. Together, they allegedly abused more than 475 individuals, the overwhelming majority of them children.

Some of the cases involve Arkansas directly. A children’s pastor in Jonesboro, Arkansas, was accused of secretly recording girls in a church bathroom. He was suspended but was soon back at work. Years later, his wife discovered images of naked children on his computer and reported him to law enforcement. During the investigation, police found recordings, and two sisters reported that he had lured them into the woods or his church office and raped them. They said they were 10 or 11 years old when the abuse began. He eventually pleaded guilty to rape in 2016 and was sentenced to life in prison.

The question isn’t whether he was eventually convicted. He was. The question is what happened in the years between the first report and law enforcement’s involvement, and what happened to the children who were abused during that time.

Denomination leaders acknowledged as far back as the 1990s that sex abuse in their churches was a serious problem and urged congregations to implement safety measures including background checks, reporting protocols, and prevention training. Without consequences or meaningful oversight, those guidelines amounted to little more than suggestions. 

When other major denominations faced similar scrutiny, the Catholic Church in the early 2000s and the Southern Baptist Convention in 2019, they adopted more formal child safety requirements. The Assemblies of God has not taken those steps, with national leaders arguing that mandatory safeguards would increase legal risk and conflict with a core biblical command to forgive.

One survivor advocate put it directly: “When your guiding thought is, ‘We don’t want to implement this policy that will protect children because we don’t want to lose a lot of money in potential lawsuits,’ that to me is worshipping money.”

Courts have been paying attention too. A Texas judge rebuked the Assemblies of God national office for being “flagrant” in its failure to comply with court orders to produce records in a lawsuit accusing the denomination of mishandling sex abuse allegations. Abuse survivors and whistleblowers have called on the denomination to commission an independent review of its handling of sex abuse allegations nationwide.

How Common Are These Cover-Ups in Churches Generally?

The Assemblies of God is not the only religious institution where allegations of cover-up have surfaced. The Catholic Church’s pattern of moving abusive priests between parishes became one of the most widely documented institutional failures in modern history. The Southern Baptist Convention has faced its own investigations into how abuse reports were handled at the denominational level.

What investigators and attorneys who work with survivors consistently see is that institutional self-protection tends to follow a recognizable pattern regardless of denomination: minimize the report, manage the reporter, avoid outside authorities, and preserve the institution’s reputation. Melody Meza recalled a leader in her congregation praying for lying, demonic spirits to leave her after she reported abuse by a church elder. “Touch not the Lord’s anointed,” pastors warned, citing a verse from Psalms that some interpret as a command never to question spiritual leaders.

For survivors, this pattern compounds the original harm. The abuse itself is devastating. Being told you are lying, confused, or spiritually compromised creates a layer of trauma that can take years to even name.

Abuse within religious settings can also happen across many different church environments. Our firm has worked with survivors from a wide range of religious institution sexual abuse cases, and the dynamics of cover-up and reporting failure are often strikingly similar across denominations.

What Actually Happens to Survivors When Abuse Isn’t Reported

When a report doesn’t go to law enforcement, several things follow.

The alleged abuser often remains in a position of access. Without a police investigation, there is no record. Without a record, background checks fail. Other churches, youth organizations, and institutions have no way of knowing what allegations exist. Lawsuits have alleged that in multiple Assemblies of God cases, accused individuals were reinstated or quietly moved to new congregations, where, according to lawsuits and police records, dozens more children were abused.

For the survivor, the silence carries its own weight. When no one calls the police, when the church leadership moves on, when the accused keeps preaching, the message received is that what happened to you didn’t matter enough to be taken seriously. That message is wrong. It is also deeply damaging, and many survivors carry it for decades before they speak to anyone outside the church.

There is also the legal dimension. Evidence grows harder to preserve over time. Witnesses’ memories fade. Physical evidence disappears. The longer a report is delayed or suppressed, the harder it becomes to pursue accountability through the courts.

That said, Arkansas law does provide meaningful protection for survivors who were abused as children. The state’s civil statute of limitations has been extended, giving adult survivors significantly more time to pursue a claim than they once had. If you were abused in an Assemblies of God church and the abuse was never reported, or was reported internally but never reached law enforcement, that does not disqualify you from seeking legal recourse. An attorney can help you assess where you stand.

What You Should Do If Abuse Was Not Reported

If you are a survivor reading this, or a parent whose child was abused in an Assemblies of God church, here is what matters most right now.

You do not need a police report to speak with an attorney. You do not need documentation, records, or proof that the church mishandled anything. What you need is to talk to someone who understands how these cases work and what options exist for you.

Reporting failures by church leaders are not just a moral failure. Under Arkansas law, a mandatory reporter who fails to report abuse can be held civilly liable for the harm caused by that failure. That means the church’s decision to stay quiet may itself be part of a legal claim.

Civil cases also operate differently from criminal cases. The burden of proof is lower. Your account matters. Other survivors coming forward with similar experiences matters. An attorney experienced in sexual abuse litigation can help you understand how the facts of your situation fit together and what a case might look like.

You have carried this long enough. The law exists to give you a path forward, and you don’t have to find it alone. If you’re ready to talk to someone who will listen without judgment and help you understand your options, reach out to our legal team today.

What Survivors Need to Know, Simply Put

Churches are not above the law. Clergy in Arkansas are legally required to report suspected child sexual abuse. When they don’t, they may face both criminal and civil consequences. The Assemblies of God has faced decades of publicly documented allegations that abuse was concealed, minimized, and mishandled at both the local and denominational level. Survivors who were failed by that system still have rights, and in many cases, still have time to pursue them.

What happened to you was not your fault. The silence that followed was not your doing. And the failure to report was not the end of the road.