Slog News & Arts

Line Out

Music & Nightlife

« Nightlife License Resurrected? | Me So Hornety »

Thursday, July 19, 2007

O They Will Know We Are Christians By Our…

posted by on July 19 at 19:48 PM

…youth pastor’s arrest on child solicitation charges.

A church community expressed shock Thursday night after learning the youth minister was charged with soliciting online to who he thought was a minor.

Pastor Jim Gysel of the Chapel Hill United Methodist Church said Troy Deal, the man facing the allegations, is not the man he and the community have known for the past five years.

RSS icon Comments

1

Somebody call Chris Hansen at Dateline NBC!

And they say homo's are the child molesters. Does the hypocrisy ever end?

Posted by Brandon H | July 19, 2007 8:50 PM
2

OMG not this again. RETIRED! Please!

Posted by Ryan | July 19, 2007 9:24 PM
3

Fun fact!!! Battle Creek is only forty miles from Jackson,MI,the birthplace of the Republican Party!

Posted by lawrence clark | July 19, 2007 9:58 PM
4

"Troy Deal"?

Posted by Fnarf | July 19, 2007 10:56 PM
5

Ooo - what a shocker! A child molesting Church leader. Lets save some time and taxpayer money, and lock em all up now.

Posted by Gillian Cantwell | July 20, 2007 2:43 AM
6

Keep em comin Dan, love these posts!

Posted by Wurm | July 20, 2007 6:24 AM
7

You must be some sort of sick person then Wurm.

Posted by Ryan | July 20, 2007 6:45 AM
8

I find all youth pastors kind of creepy. The ones I've met anyway...

Posted by JessB | July 20, 2007 7:07 AM
9

Nothing more disconcerting than logging on for your daily does of Savage Love and seeing local news...

and yes... all youth pastors I've met are creepy too... specially the ones that wanted to blow me.

Posted by Lucifyr | July 20, 2007 7:28 AM
10

Chris Hansen is fucking hot.

Posted by Mr. Poe | July 20, 2007 8:42 AM
11

I sense that the knee-jerk majority will call this hypocritical, but I think that, while this story is sensational, at least there's a clear moral to posting it - people who cloak themselves in religion aren't always who they profess to be. Blind faith is dangerous. I think exposing hypocrisy is subtly different than posting a story about child abuse for a political purpose that has no direct relationship to trying to prevent abuse like that from occurring.

Posted by vegetable lasagna | July 20, 2007 8:58 AM
12

@Mr. Poe: You think everyone is hot. ;)

Posted by Original Monique | July 20, 2007 9:19 AM
13

Here's an interesting conundrum: what effect do the frequent sex scandals involving religious figures have on the rest of the evangelical, hellfire-and-brimstone crowd? Particularly those hypocrites who just haven't been caught yet. Does this kind of thing give them pause? Do they feel guilt about their public mask and private transgressions? Or does it cause them to redouble their efforts at projecting the image of a moral crusader?

Posted by Greg | July 20, 2007 9:44 AM
14

@12

Nu uh!

Posted by Mr. Poe | July 20, 2007 10:24 AM
15

#13

The United Methodists are hardly "hellfire evangelicals". They are about as liberal a church as they come. Many of the Seattle United Methodist churches are mostly gay congregations. But to understand that basic and simple fucking fact, you would have to not be just another boring seattle psuedo-intellectual bigot. I should expect pigs to fly.

Posted by ecce homo | July 20, 2007 10:47 AM
16

I can tell you for certain that not all United Methodist churches are liberal, particularly in the south. I attended one as a lad in rural Texas and they were no different than the Southern Baptists. You don't know what you're talking about (again) Ecce Homo, but then I guess generalizations are just bad unless they come from you.

Posted by Justy | July 20, 2007 10:52 AM
17

justy,

So you are saying that a church that allows for gay congregation, and gay ministers (although they can't be "open") is also a church filled with child molesters? I don't believe it.

I also resent your stereotype that gays are pedophiles. I know, you didn't mean that. But it doesn't take much reading between the lines to see what you were saying.

Posted by ecce homo | July 20, 2007 11:34 AM
18

@7

if enjoying seeing the hypocrisy of religion being exposed makes me sick, then so be it!

Posted by Wurm | July 20, 2007 12:17 PM
19

Ecce homo, your whiny tirade is so much ignorant bullshit. While, yes, there are some nice United Methodist churches in Seattle (one of which lets the Seattle Men's Chorus practice in their building!), they are very much in the minority.

You want to know what United Methodism is like in the rest of America? Look at one of the church's most famous congregants, George W. Bush. The UM book of discipline - the authoritative document that guides church policy - states that 'the practice of homosexuality is inconsistent with Christian teaching.' You have probably never seen UM churches outside the Puget Sound area, have you?

And finally, your annoying habit of conflating anything said to you with bigotry and stereotyping does not make you a crusader for gay rights. It just makes you sound retarded.

Posted by Greg | July 20, 2007 3:23 PM
20

Dan, you need to let this shite go. I'll tell you why.

Here's why. Every time one of these paragons of perversion goes down (in the street-legal sense, yes I know what you're thinking) their flock just goes "Oobee goobee joobee, the Liberians or Liberals or what do you call them have gotten to another Good Man." And then their faith is redoubled.

But maybe you get some private fun out of it, I don't know. But at least stop acting like it's shocking, or has any kind of meaning.

Posted by croydonfacelift | July 20, 2007 10:11 PM
21

#20,

rather disagree there, an event such as this ,sadly, should still hold shock value and meaning to it,

the moment you ignore corruption is the minute which it becomes the norm, and eventually, accept it as it is,

it's exactly what the so called flock is doing, "oh, there's another perverted priest, it'll never happen at our church,"

sort of like saying, "oh, Bush just embarrassed the country globally, again, oh well."

it should be a big deal, and if you stop caring about it, things will only roll further down hill,

though I guess Dan could've presented this in a less "I told you so" sort of way,

Posted by Luke | July 20, 2007 11:37 PM
22

Dan exposes hypocrisy and he does it well. Thank you, keep up the good work.

Posted by clarity | July 21, 2007 11:18 PM

Comments Closed

In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 14 days old).