Reverend Johnny Hunt has filed a lawsuit against his former church that sounds like an episode of the Jerry Springer Show.
The background of the story is that Hunt admitted to sexually assaulting another pastor's wife:
In a complaint filed in the federal court for the Middle District of Tennessee, lawyers for the Rev. Johnny Hunt, a longtime Georgia megachurch pastor, admit Hunt “had a brief, inappropriate, extramarital encounter with a married woman” in 2010, but claims the incident was consensual and that it was a private matter that should not have been made public in a major 2022 report.
“Some of the precise details are disputed, but at most, the encounter lasted only a few minutes, and it involved only kissing and some awkward fondling,” according to the complaint.
Subsequently, when the Southern Baptist Church hired an outside investigative firm to look into the sexual abuse problems they were having, Hunt's assault on the woman was included. He said that this was libelous and hurt future earnings from books and speaking engagements.
But there's more. There's always more.
Hunt goes further to blame the church for the crime he committed by not stopping him beforehand:
“By focusing on the allegation against Pastor Johnny — an allegation by an adult woman that involved noncriminal conduct — and by then taking aggressive action against Pastor Johnny, the Defendants sought to create the appearance that the SBC has learned from its previous mistakes and is now working to protect victims of sex crimes,” the complaint claims.
The complaint accused current SBC leaders and Guidepost of intentionally causing him “personal anguish and harm.”
“Defendants’ decision to feature the allegation against Pastor Johnny in their public report was a strategic decision to deflect attention from the SBC’s historical failure to take aggressive steps to respond to reports of child sex abuse and other sex crimes in its past,” the complaint claims.
Any bets that his next sermon will be about taking personal responsibility for one's sins and confessing them before God?
