if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. For an overseer, as God's steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. He must hold firm to the trustworthy word as taught, so that he may be able to give instruction in sound doctrine and also to rebuke those who contradict it. - Titus 1:6-9 (ESV)
Pastor Accused of Rape Returns to Preaching at S.C. Megachurch
I never heard of Pastor Micahn Carter. Just another cult of personality pastor accused of rape, I guess. I am not going to belabor this but there are comparable problems within the story linked above, from the fantastic Julie Roys website, with all of the similar stories across the apostate church landscape. Specifically from the reporting:
"In 2021, Carter's former assistant publicly accused him of raping her in her office when he pastored a megachurch in Washington in 2019. Carter then resigned from COTH, an Association of Related Churches (ARC) megachurch that had been tasked with restoring him." - Julie Roys
Tasked with restoring him. To clarify, Carter admitted to having an affair with Mary Jones, his assistant in 2019 and stepped down. The concern from the apostate church system was not about the victim. It was about the predator and how to get him back to work as fast as possible. This sort of thing is now normalized within the American church. It completely ignores the key verses above that lay out the qualifications one must meet to be a pastor in God's church. Not a husband of one wife? DISQUALIFIED. Is he open to a charge of debauchery? DISQUALIFIED. Not above reproach? DISQUALIFIED. Should we always be concerned about restoring someone's walk with Christ, assuming they were saved? Absolutely. That is not what restoration means anymore in the church. So, COTH issued a statement regarding the resignation of Carter.:
In 2019, Micahn Carter's Pastoral Overseers from Washington state asked Church of the Highlands to assist them in directing a ministerial restoration process for him," the statement said. "Highlands agreed to do so, and since then we have been working with Micahn and his family. Recently, Highlands received correspondence raising new allegations about events that occurred over two years ago in Washington state. When we shared this information with the Carters, they resigned from their positions on staff to work through these issues themselves. Highlands is no longer involved in the restoration process."
Resigned from their positions on staff? So, the "restoration process" was paid? How in the world is a disgraced pastor given any staff position at any church? The coy vagueness is of course that the new allegations were that the "affair" was actually rape. The rape allegedly occurred in the office of the assistant, while other people were on the other side of the door, including her family. Highlands is no longer involved in the restoration process? Should they have been to begin with? Did they do any due diligence before taking on this process and giving the man a staff position? Did they interview Ms. Jones? Just utterly disgusting. It does not end there because as Julie Roys reports:
