Children have already paid enough for one preacher's sins

For two weeks, children are being barred from a Florida Baptist church while its pulpit is taken over by a registered sex offender.

In an Associated Baptist Press article published today, Bob Allen reported that Christ Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, "has had to make adjustments since opening its pulpit to Darrell Gilyard, who recently served three years in prison for sex crimes with two girls committed while he was senior pastor at Shiloh Metropolitan Baptist Church in Jacksonville. As a registered sex offender, Gilyard, 49, is not allowed to be around minors."

Allen went on to note that Gilyard had once "resigned from a church after admitting to several extramarital affairs. That was after allegations of sexual misconduct at three previous churches."

Gilyard later served 15 years as pastor of Shiloh Metropolitan until 2008, when "he resigned . . . after he was charged with lewd and lascivious conduct for sending inappropriate text messages to two underage girls."

As a Christian, I deeply believe in God's power and desire to redeem. I believe in God's grace, and my conviction is that we are to share God's grace and forgiveness.

But what is redemption, in the case of one who has repeatedly used his position to prey upon others sexually? It should not mean returning to the pulpit. For the rest of his life, this man should be the preachee, not the preacher; his was not a single isolated occurrence - it has been a repeated pattern for at least two decades. His concern should be getting himself right with God, and he should not be presuming to get others right with God. He is in no position to do so.

Now this church has chosen to make young people pay the price for this man's sin; they have barred them from church for 2 weeks.

Last week, I wrote a Texas Baptists Committed blog post about the decision of LifeWay Christian Resources to let Bibles intended for sale to benefit breast cancer victims instead sit in a warehouse, gathering dust, because of differences over certain policy decisions of a partner organization. My main concern in writing that post was that God's word was being held hostage to man's (and I do mean man's) theology.

These two situations are related. In one, we keep God's word in a warehouse, away from those who need it. In the other, we keep God's children away from the preaching and teaching of His Word.

Oh, I agree that the children shouldn't be in the same room with Darrell Gilyard. But he is the one who should be forced to get his preaching in isolation, not the children. They should be in church with their parents and their friends.

He may well be a spellbinding preacher, but his "spell" has already proven costly for many. Yes, all of us are sinners, including preachers. But we should be able to trust the man or woman in the pulpit. Darrell Gilyard has broken that trust - time and time again - and forfeited the benefit of any doubt. It is irresponsible of any church to ignore the character of the person entrusted with the preaching of God's Word.

And it is just plain wrong to tell children they can't go to church because the preacher is one who can't be trusted to be in the same room with them.