Conservative Babylon

Claims to fame: “Prosperity Gospel” Pentecostal senior pastor, Shiloh Institutional Church of God in Christ, Fort Worth, Texas; voodoo priest; accused rapist and abuser

Moral apex: There’s just so much to choose from… but if pressed, we’d have to say anally raping a church member with a wooden club — although the constant beatings of this woman, and more than 20 other members of his flock (according to the alleged victims) over the course of more than two decades run a very close second.

(You realize we have to say “alleged,” right, until he’s actually been convicted of something? Not that that means we don’t believe it’s all true; we just don’t want to get sued for libel.)

Julie Lyons of The Dallas Observer has, so far, covered the whole revolting and downright weird story better than anyone. Among the lowlights:

The preacher was a nobody in May 1983, when Joy told Fort Worth police that he’d drugged or hypnotized her, beaten her with a paddle and raped her anally with a wooden club. Then, she claims, he sodomized her, slapping his hand over her mouth and cursing at her when she tried to cry out to God. When he was finished, Joy says, the preacher propped her up in front of a bathroom mirror, pried her eyes open so she was forced to look at herself and called her a bitch, a whore, a prostitute, a cokehead.

. . .

…[A]nother alleged victim and former Shiloh member, Carrie Drake, filed suit against Allen, accusing him of “severely beating her with a paddle and physically assaulting her.” The beatings began with her mother’s permission when she was 13, Drake told the Observer, and she was frequently forced to undress. Drake says she miscarried after one such attack.

. . .

While pastor of a morally strict Pentecostal church, [Allen]:

• Lived “in sin” with a young female church member for years.

• Engaged in voodoo, which is abhorrent to Pentecostals, but managed to launder his past in the voodoo-influenced “Spiritualist” church when he joined the Church of God in Christ in the early 1980s.

• Solicited permission slips from parents to paddle minor girls and young female members of his church. Some of the paddlings caused severe bruising and even broken bones.

• Paddled dozens of girls and young women — and even some men — under the guise of spiritual counseling.

• Threatened several of the women he paddled and sexually abused, including Joy, who stopped cooperating with prosecutors.

• Punched in the face a woman who’d questioned him.

• Threatened to expose misdeeds among his leaders in the Church of God in Christ if they disciplined him.

What’s worse: Over more than two decades, writes Lyons:

…numerous women and men informed local leaders in the Church of God in Christ about Allen’s behavior. These complaints — which many local COGIC pastors heard firsthand from the women in secret meetings — accomplished nothing. Allen’s bishop in the Church of God in Christ, J. Neaul Haynes of Dallas, knew about the paddling allegations for at least 17 years but did little or nothing to stop it. He implored two alleged victims simply to “forgive” Allen, according to a former Shiloh member who was present at one of the meetings with Haynes.

Why did the paddlings, beatings and alleged sexual abuse go on unchecked for so many years when so many people knew about it? To answer that question, one has to delve into the black Pentecostal subculture, where churchgoers are continually warned to “keep your mouth off the man of God,” regardless of what kind of life he lives. God will rebuke him, the teaching goes; all you should do is pray.

One victim explained why she put up with Allen’s abuse:

“I really felt like he was doing what God told him,” she says. “He was so spiritual, so he was really deep. The way he prophesies — God speaks to him and tells him things.

“I just trusted him,” she says. “I never seriously stopped to question. I just believed him. I kind of went along with what he said.”

Where things stand now:

The preacher no longer hobnobs with national COGIC leaders. The new presiding bishop, Charles E. Blake, suspended him from all pastoral duties last year shortly after taking office. Allen didn’t put up with the suspension for long; according to Charisma magazine, he produced documents showing that his church had never been officially chartered as a COGIC congregation. Therefore, he informed Blake, he is not subject to COGIC discipline.

Allen is dealing with two lawsuits, Kelly’s and Drake’s, as well as Shiloh’s bankruptcy. Both suits are in the discovery stage.

What does Allen have to say about the allegations against him? Of course, he denies everything. He won’t talk to the press, and his lawyers consistently decline to comment. Reports Lyons: “In a three-hour deposition in December, Allen ‘pleaded the Fifth to everything [he was] asked’ and declined to answer.”

Memorable observation:

Allen “holds himself out as being a deliverer of punishment from God” — a spiritual father. “It’s always someone that he develops some sort of authority relationship with.”

— Matthew Bobo
attorney for one of the victims

Suggested Bible reading for Mr. Allen:

But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.

— 2 Peter 2:1