After a Feb. 18 sermon in which he expressed brotherly love for embattled church leader Mike Bickle, Bethel’s Kris Vallotton posted an apology on Facebook. Vallotton, who said in his sermon that fallen pastors are “not entertainment,” added that he loves Mike Bickle, who’s “my brother” no matter what transpires.

Four days later, Vallotton, senior associate leader at California-based Bethel Church, asked for forgiveness for not expressing compassion for abuse victims or for emphasizing their need for protection. “Victims receiving healing and wholeness should be our priority,” he wrote on Feb. 22.

RELATED: Mike Bickle Agrees to Indefinite Ministry Leave As IHOPKC Releases New Statement

Last October, Bickle, founder of International House of Prayer Kansas City (IHOPKC), stepped away from ministry due to “credible and long-standing” allegations of sexual abuse. The church, calling the situation a “crisis,” cut ties with Bickle last December over “inappropriate behavior.”

Although Bickle has acknowledged “moral failures,” he hasn’t addressed allegations of abuse involving minors.

Kris Vallotton’s Sermon Calls for Reconciliation

During his sermon, Vallotton decried the fact that church leaders are unable to “tell someone they’re struggling” with sin. Business leaders who struggle don’t have to fear losing their jobs, he noted, while pastors are under threat of being “excommunicated.”

Church leaders who fall “aren’t entertainment to watch” but “a tragedy to intercede for,” Vallotton said, and the resulting drama is “not a movie where you get to know all the details.”

Bickle’s situation requires justice as well as reconciliation, Vallotton added. “My goal for Mike Bickle and IHOP and every else who’s struggling, including the Bethel struggles we have, is that we would reconcile and that we would see righteousness grow out of it, not another documentary.”

Pointing to Scripture, Vallotton noted that the other disciples treated Peter differently after he denied Jesus. In Mark 16, “Mary runs into the tomb and she sees the angel. You know the story,” Vallotton said. “And the angel says to her, ‘Go tell the disciples and Peter that Jesus rose from the dead’…Why did the angel say ‘and Peter’? Because the other disciples had already excommunicated him because he had a fall.”

A pastor who said he would let a rapist go free if the rape victim had been wearing shorts has gone viral for his remarks. Pastor Bobby Leonard of Bible Baptist Tabernacle in Monroe, North Carolina, has since apologized via a sign in front of his church.

“I used to say this,” Leonard said during a clip of one of his sermons. “I haven’t said this in a long time. You ready? I said, ‘If you dress like that and you get raped, and I’m on the jury, he’s gonna go free.’”

RELATED: Brian Houston Says His ‘Ladies and Girls Kissing’ Post Was Due to His Account Being Hacked

Even if people don’t like those words, said Leonard, “I’m right though. I can’t help if you don’t like it, I’m right. Cause, y’know, a man’s a man. A man’s a man.”

Pastor Bobby Leonard Draws Outrage, Protests

A bio on Bible Baptist Tabernacle’s website says that Pastor Bobby Leonard founded the church over 40 years ago. The sermon clip, which has generated shock and anger and gained millions of views online, is reportedly from a message he gave in August 2023. The church appears to have deactivated its Facebook and YouTube accounts. 

At the beginning of the clip, which was posted on X (formerly Twitter) by the account Bad Preacher Clips, Leonard said that if people pay attention when they are at Pigeon Forge (Tennessee), outlet malls, or “uptown,” they’ll see “more women gonna have shorts on than you will have pants and dresses put together.” One time, the pastor said, he sat in his car, “and I counted.”

“Try that,” he said. “You’ll find more women going in those places with shorts than you will women with pants and dresses put together. Try. If you got time, try.” The pastor then went on to say he would let a rapist go free if the victim had been wearing shorts because “a man’s a man.”

People have responded to Pastor Bobby Leonard’s words, calling them “shameful” and “horrifying.” 

Jason Puckett with WBTV News in Charlotte reported on the story Thursday, Feb. 22, and said, “The church didn’t want to talk to us.” He posted a photo of a sign in front of the church showing an apology from the pastor that says, “I am sorry for any hurt. I was wrong.” 

(RNS) — Matthew Slater, a wide receiver who was picked 158th in the National Football League’s 2008 draft but went on to win three Super Bowls with the New England Patriots, announced his retirement Tuesday (Feb. 20). In typical fashion, he led his announcement with an acknowledgment of his faith.

“I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith,” Slater said in his retirement announcement, quoting from the New Testament’s Second Letter of Paul to Timothy.

The 38-year-old Slater, whom longtime Patriots coach Bill Belichick once referred to as a “perfect player,” spent 16 seasons with the team, earning the respect of teammates and opponents alike for his excellence on special teams, doing the sometimes anonymous work of covering punts and kickoffs.

RELATED: CJ Stroud, Lamar Jackson Among Many Winners Who Honor God at NFL Honors

His excellence on the field led to predictions that he could one day join his father, Jackie Slater, in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Off the field, the younger Slater was praised by teammates, coaches and fans alike for his work as a good citizen in the locker room and in the community.

“I don’t want to make this about me,” he told teammates after his last game. “I just want to say thank you.”

Slater told Religion News Service that he learned as much from losing the Super Bowl in 2011 as from winning the big game three times.

“Our league and our culture put so much into winning and losing and being a champion,” said Slater, who grew up in a nondenominational church and now attends a Reformed-leaning evangelical church. “If you cling to things that are going to fade away ultimately, you’re going to be very, very disappointed. Losing that Super Bowl, yes, it was disappointing. But it allowed me to refocus myself on the things that matter in life.”

Slater, who hopes to attend seminary in the future, spoke to RNS in early February about his career, his faith and his plans for the future. At the time he had not yet announced his retirement. This interview was edited for length and clarity.

What are some of the ways that faith affected your approach to football? And on the flip side, how did football affect your faith?

Faith is the lens through which I see my life, the world, the relationships I’ve had, my profession. That is something that was rooted in me as a young person and something that I accepted and grew in as I got older. I always saw myself as a Christian who just happened to play football. I always tried to keep in front of me the principles of the gospel: love, peace, forgiveness and kindness.

The Bible tells us to do everything as unto the Lord, so I always worked as hard as I could play in football and anything else in life.

New England Patriots wide receiver Matthew Slater speaks with reporters during an NFL news conference, July 25, 2023, in Foxborough, Mass. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

In terms of how football has impacted my faith — I think football is a great life teacher. You experience the power of teamwork, the power of discipline, the power of relationships, the power of hard work. One of the greatest things I learned was how to deal with adversity. The Bible tells us that life will be filled with adversity. Football was a training ground for that for me.

(RNS) — After months of allegations that it lacks a credible process for disciplining its bishops, the Episcopal Church is taking steps to make it simpler to report misconduct, Presiding Bishop Michael Curry said in an announcement Thursday (Feb. 22).

“Given the current atmosphere, I have chosen to exercise my canonical discretion to adopt a general protocol for transparency in Title IV matters involving Bishops,” Curry wrote in a letter delivered to the Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops, referring to the denomination’s internal mechanism for holding clergy accountable.

The changes are intended to address a string of allegations against Episcopal bishops and come after lay and ordained Episcopalians have voiced their concerns about Title IV publicly.

RELATED: The Episcopal Church Reckons With Tangled Protocol on Clergy Abuse and Accountability

Last year, Julia Ayala Harris, who as president of the Episcopal House of Deputies is the second-highest ranking officer of the church, made public a letter detailing her concerns about her own experience after she filed a formal complaint against a retired bishop who, she said, had subjected her to “non-consensual physical contact” and “inappropriate verbal statements.” Rather than discipline the bishop, the church referred him to pastoral counseling.

That same year, a priest filed a Title IV complaint against Florida Bishop John Howard, alleging he discriminated against LGBTQ clergy and supporters. In December 2022, Michigan Bishop Prince Singh was accused by his sons and ex-wife of physical and emotional abuse, but no Title IV process was begun for six months.

In September 2023, 55 Episcopal bishops aired their concerns in an open letter about the “perception — or the reality — that bishops get a free pass on behavioral issues.” In response, Curry instructed the church’s Standing Commission on Structure, Governance, Constitution and Canons to “recommend to the General Convention (the church’s governing body) needed canonical and procedural changes in ecclesiastical discipline of bishops.”

The Standing Commission has collected feedback on the Title IV process and, according to a spokesperson from the Episcopal Church, will publish a report on this topic in anticipation of the General Convention this summer. It is yet to be seen whether the report will focus on bishops’ misconduct or Title IV as a whole.

Last year, the denomination tapped the Rev. Barbara Kempf, a priest and attorney, to be the Title IV intake officer for bishops, ensuring that a nonbishop is serving in that role. Curry’s letter also indicates that Kempf is in the “early stages” of assembling a pastoral response team for those impacted by Title IV processes involving bishops.

The changes announced Thursday include clearer instructions for reporting bishop misconduct on the denomination’s website, public updates on Title IV processes involving bishops and a new annual statistical report on Title IV cases involving bishops.

A blue “Report Misconduct” button now appears in the top right corner of the Episcopal Church’s homepage. The button leads to an informational page on Title IV with a step-by-step breakdown of Title IV processes involving bishops and a link to report bishops.

The website also includes a new list of public Title IV cases involving bishops. In his letter, Curry explained that the list will be updated at his discretion and will include the status of each complaint.

“In the canons we see a balancing of the benefits of transparency against the benefits of some measure of privacy,” Curry wrote. “Striking the right balance may help us get closer to the lofty goals set out in Canon I of Title IV — ‘healing, repentance, forgiveness, restitution, justice, amendment of life and, reconciliation among all involved or affected.’”

Nivedhan Singh, Bishop Singh’s elder son, said the new Title IV updates feel like too little, too late. “Transparency without accountability is useless to us,” Nivedhan told Religion News Service. An improved website, he said, doesn’t help if the Title IV process itself is mishandled or causes additional harm to abuse survivors.

Prince Singh, who resigned in September, is facing two Title IV investigations — the second involves allegations of improper behavior from his time as bishop of Rochester, New York. Curry and Bishop Todd Ousley, the former intake officer for Title IV complaints involving bishops, are also the subjects of ongoing Title IV complaints related to their response to the Singhs’ abuse allegations.

Nivedhan Singh said the updates function as an “admission of guilt” that reveals the denomination’s awareness that something in the Title IV process is broken, but he said the denomination failed to apologize to those the process has already harmed.

Nivedhan Singh continues to call for an independent, third-party investigation into the actions of the presiding bishop and Ousley, and for pastoral care for his family, an element of the Title IV process he claims has not been fulfilled.

Curry, who has been receiving medical treatment for internal bleeding and heart conditions, is in the last year of his nine-year term.

This article originally appeared here. 

WASHINGTON (RNS) — Sitting under the imposing columns of Washington National Cathedral, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox turned to longtime political strategist Donna Brazile and shared his change of heart about her.

“I grew up as a Republican; I grew up watching you on TV, as a Democrat, and there were so many times that I thought: I would love to just argue with her,” he said during a Wednesday (Feb. 21) forum on civility attended by more than 750 people.

“And I finally get up here on stage and I finally get to meet you and I just — I love you and I’m so impressed by you.”

The two were among the speakers at a forum at the cathedral called “With Malice Toward None, With Charity for All: Reclaiming Civility in American Politics.” The event, timed to the start of an already contentious election season, was held in partnership with Wesley Theological Seminary, along with the Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University and Deseret Magazine, two institutions affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

“As we head deeper into this election year, I can think of few topics more important than
civility and the need for civil discourse in order for our democracy to thrive,” cathedral Dean Randy Hollerith said as the forum began.

He said the cathedral’s programming focus this year on promoting humility, compassion, love and forgiveness should “remind people that even our worst enemies, political or otherwise, are the beloved children of God and should be treated as such.”

Cox is chair of the National Governors Association and, since last year, has spearheaded a “Disagree Better” initiative that includes “interventions,” such as encouraging governors to publish an op-ed with a politician of a different party or colleges hosting a debate on campus that demonstrates ways to handle conflict in a healthy manner.

Cox and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore interviewed each other about their participation in the project and noted their efforts to seek bipartisan solutions in their states despite their party being able to pass legislation without the votes of the minority party.

“I believe in the idea that we don’t have to come all to the same conclusion but everyone just wants to be heard, everyone wants to feel like they were part of a larger process,” said Moore, a Democrat who is the grandson and great-grandson of ministers.

“You can’t claim to love the country if you hate half of the people in it.”

Cox, a member of the LDS church, said his interest in starting the initiative lay in a desire to model behavior that would aim to foster depolarization as he watched a deepening of political divides over the last dozen years.

“Politics was becoming religion for many people and then politics infiltrated their religion, and you started to see that more and more, and I just hated that that’s how we were seeing each other,” he said.

The conversation between Cox and Moore at the cathedral was followed by a panel discussion, facilitated by the Utah governor. Participants included political and legal panelists, such as Brazile, who spoke of the bipartisan work that went into establishing Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday, as well as in sending aid to the survivors of Hurricane Katrina.