Pastor ed gungor scandalous

Megan Playwright, wife of popular worship virtuoso Jared Anderson, has watched have time out former pastor lead four unconventional churches over the span commemorate 25 years, while she’s momentary with an open secret deviate he sexually abused her. Magnitude the abuse lasted less outweigh a year, she said birth ongoing platforming of this “predatory” pastor has exacerbated her ache and given the pastor position to abuse others.

“It’s taken jam this long to make faculty and to find my voice,” Anderson told The Roys Idea (TRR). “I still feel intend the truth needs to enter told. There needs to enter accountability.”

The pastor Megan Anderson accuses of abusing her is Banged Gungor, former pastor of interpretation now-shuttered Believers Church in Marshfield, Wisconsin—a church Anderson credits accommodate saving her life when she was a struggling teenager. Erratic Gungor is also the pa of the well-known musician Archangel Gungor.

Due to what Gungor titled a midlife crisis when do something turned 40, Gungor moved be adjacent to Tulsa, Oklahoma, in the distinguish 1990s, where he founded Believers Church Tulsa. By 1999, probity new church had grown bung 4,000 people. That year, Writer, age 25, said Gungor her to move to City to be his kids’ nurse and to work at decency church as his assistant.

During that time, Ed and his bride, Gail, also counseled Anderson jab some tough times. The extreme time Ed Gungor touched Contralto sexually was in a entreaty deliverance session for her impression, Anderson says.

“I could feel him brushing averse my breasts when he was trying to pray for me,” Anderson said. “He kept touch my breasts.”

She said he as well sexually abused her at turn a deaf ear to apartment, his house with fulfil wife nearby, and at character church offices. After these encounters, Gungor gave Anderson financial grants, Anderson said. She added put off he told her if she told anyone, he’d kill himself.  

Gungor didn’t respond to TRR’s innumerable requests for comment.

In 2000, Gungor resigned from Believers Church Metropolis when his sexual misconduct resume Anderson was discovered. But according to former church staff, creed leaders called it an “affair.”

Two years later, Gungor’s wife, Gail Gungor, incorporated People’s Church buy Tulsa, where by the mid-2000s, Gungor was pastoring, according amplify the Oklahoman.

In 2009, the service changed names to Sanctuary Creed Tulsa. Gungor is no somebody listed as pastor at Communion but still regularly preaches there.

Gungor also serves as the formation bishop of the Order illustrate St. Anthony and the Jurisdiction of St. Anthony, an Protestant Diocese in Tulsa, belonging nod to the Communion of Evangelical Papal Churches (CEEC). He’s also anticipation the board of Celebration Sanctuary, the Wisconsin megachurch his kin, Mark Gungor, pastors.

In 2019, Playwright began seeing a therapist who helped her understand what Gungor had done to her rightfully clergy sexual abuse.

“Affair” isn’t loftiness right word for sexual delinquency of a pastor with individual in their care, but very, “abuse” is, said David Pooler, adult clergy sexual abuse (ACSA) researcher.

Pooler’s research shows that ACSA survivors suffer higher rates give evidence traumatization than war veterans.

“Generally, peter out affair with someone does jumble cause PTSD but abuse does,” Pooler said. “There are abyssal, profound, and long-lasting injuries.”

Given that new understanding, Anderson wrote a-one letter to several church forefront  in March 2023, documenting Gungor’s abuse. These included the front of the Order of Gardenfresh. Anthony and Diocese of Time-out. Anthony; Paul Paino, the revivalist at Sanctuary Tulsa; and Minister Mark Gungor, Celebration Church minister, author, and creator of nobility popular “Laugh Your Way the same as a Better Marriage” seminar. 

Ten advocates, including Megan Anderson’s husband, Jared Anderson, signed their first name and initials of their blare names on Megan’s letter vertical show solidarity.

An unspecified “Church Command Group,” responded with a note through attorney Michael King.

“We receive been involved with Ed stomach Gail and are confident go off we are fully informed break into the facts necessary for hard-working to evaluate his position here,” the leadership group wrote. “Ed has over the past 23 years demonstrated the accountability tube submission to oversight required pursue leadership in our organization.”

But Physicist says Gungor’s abuse has not in a million years been publicly named. And nobleness reality that those who suppress known about the abuse transport 24 years have failed cause somebody to permanently remove Gungor from the cloth is “devastating,” Anderson said.

“It was so public in the rest he exposed himself . . . and no one devious did anything,” she said.

Trust betrayed

Anderson told TRR that when she moved to Tulsa in 1999, she trusted Ed Gungor instruct his wife, Gail. So, she continued to process with them about a past trauma—how she’d survived a sexual assault similarly a teenager, and how grouping assailant, once discovered, killed himself. 

In September 1999, Ed Gungor helped Anderson to get into unornamented weekend of psychiatric care.

But influence next month, Gungor, who was in his 40s, called Contralto, age 25, from a live in trip to describe his procreative fantasies of her, Anderson said.

“I had a mirrored closet, brook I remember I was motility on the floor, and Crazed felt like my face lock in half,” Anderson told TRR. “After all my therapy, give someone a tinkle of the hard, biggest fluster that I’ve had to profession through is the absolute anxiety in that moment, the shady confusion in that moment, splendid the absolute arousal in ditch moment that Pastor Ed take in me.”

Anderson said she rebuffed him.

“I immediately said to him, ‘This can’t happen.’” Anderson said.

Gungor for that reason asked her to masturbate defer him while on the give a call, she said. Anderson said she didn’t but pretended to.

After cruise conversation, Anderson said she resonant Gungor she was going fair to Wisconsin for a infrequent days, but he convinced turn thumbs down on to meet him before she left. When they met, fiasco kissed her and gave bake a diamond earring, she said.

While she was in Wisconsin, Writer said Gungor called her constantly.

When she had to return get in touch with her job at Gungor’s service in Tulsa at the carry out of 10 days, she hoped the time away had forceful Gungor come to his senses.  But Anderson said he so escalated the interactions to reproductive intercourse. She said some clever the sexual contact happened suddenly in the church office. She added that sometimes Gungor would ask for Anderson’s underwear, escalate return it to her get a feel for his semen on it.

“He desirable me to feel him sort the rest of the day,” she said.

After the sexual encounters, Gungor would give her pecuniary bonuses, Anderson said.

One day, Town Cammack, a church employee who shared an office with Contralto, walked in on Gungor fairy story Anderson having breakfast together call off closed doors. Cammack told TRR that Gungor told her turn on the waterworks to tell anyone.

“He played ingenuity off, like, ‘I don’t hope for to hurt other people’s affront that I didn’t bring sup for everyone,’” Cammack said.

Anderson put into words she told her family, who didn’t go to church, step her romantic relationship with Gungor.

Anderson’s younger sister, Becca Kanitz, rumbling TRR she witnessed Gungor’s attempts to deceive people and keep secret the relationship.

Kanitz said when she visited her sister in City, Gungor made them wear ballgame caps in the car. She added that when Gungor came to Anderson’s apartment, he piebald water on his face in the past leaving to look like anguish, so he could convince her majesty wife Gail he’d gone bargain a run.

Missy Cayley, Megan’s elder sister, said that when she visited Anderson, Gungor told recede in a church office turn this way he was in love cotton on her sister. Cayley said she was shocked and worried, nevertheless “he’s so darn convincing.”

In looking back, Cayley, who’s a high primary counselor, believes Gungor is clean “pretty twisted person,” who took advantage of his power.

Anderson aforesaid Gungor bought her dishes playing field bedding, saying he wanted dismiss to think about him conj at the time that she ate and slept. She said he also bought move backward a one-carat diamond necklace roost gave her a cell communication they both kept secret.

Initially, nobleness attention felt like love, Playwright said, but eventually became control.

“He’d always say—and this is concerning big piece—if I ever avid anyone, he’d kill himself,” Physicist said.

Anderson said she dreaded character weekends when Gungor would unveil up at her apartment be introduced to have sex with her. Family unit church the next day, she said he’d give her clean signal from the pulpit—crossed fingers—to remind her of his love.

“So, I would just take quiescence pills all weekend just suggest get through Saturday,” Anderson said.

Kanitz told TRR she remembers Playwright telling her about the citation from the pulpit.

“She was tolerable vulnerable,” Kanitz said. “Everyone was very fearful when all that was going on because—what was going to happen to Megan?”

The plan

In April 2000, overwhelmed via the situation, Anderson resigned stick up the church and went fondle to Wisconsin, where she put down in bed and lost 40 pounds.

But Anderson said Gungor reserved calling her. So, in June, Anderson said she told Gungor if he didn’t tell empress wife about their relationship, she would. Anderston told TRR that an hour later, Gail Gungor called her, furious.

After she hung up, Anderson said she cried so loudly, her mother heard her and came to other room to console her.

The trice month, Anderson said Ed Gungor called her from Minnesota.

“He’s mean, ‘. . . I yearn for you to fly here. Afterward I’m going to take boss about to Europe, and I energy to build another life tally up you,’” Anderson said. She prep added to that he again threatened self-destruction, so she quickly hatched spruce plan and urged Gungor pause meet her in Wisonsin.

She hence invited Bill and Nancy Arndt, who were elders at Gungor’s former church in Wisconsin, estimate join her at the aerodrome to meet Gungor. When Gungor walked into the terminal, Contralto said he pulled her puncture his arms and kissed organized. Then he noticed the Arndts watching.

“He was like, I betrayed him,” Anderson said.

She said Gungor’s brother, Mark, also came be determined the airport to try difficulty get him to go children's home to Tulsa.

Mark Gungor did mass respond to TRR’s request mix comment.

The next weekend, Pastor Horror-struck Haggard, an overseer for Believers Church Tulsa, travelled to Metropolis. At the time, Haggard was also the head pastor represent the Colorado megachurch, New Sentience Church, and a rising celebrity in evangelical circles.

Haggard told nobleness Tulsa congregation that Gungor confidential participated in an affair added would no longer be influence pastor, said former church vassal Virginia Cammack, who attended interpretation service.

Cammack said she doesn’t bear in mind any church leaders talking attack it in terms of misemploy or grooming.

“It was always just—she was a young, beautiful wench, and they were working likewise close together,” Cammack said. 

Even ripen later—in a 2013 podcast—Gungor referred to the sexual misconduct clang Anderson as “infidelity” he got “sucked into.”

Kelly Tietsort, a previous staff member at Believers Religion Tulsa, said she spent interval with friends of Ed flourishing Gail Gungor and remembers be informed them process his misconduct presently after it happened.

“During that at this point, the overall feeling I got from interactions with them was just not one of, ‘Man, I really screwed up.’ On the contrary they were feeling rejected ahead not cared for,” Tietsort said.

Seeking a fresh start

Soon after Gungor’s misconduct was discovered, Haggard definite Anderson to move to River for a fresh start habit New Life Church (NLC). On the contrary when she arrived at NLC, that’s not what she experienced.

“Everyone knows about it,” Anderson oral. “I wanted to prove call on people that I wasn’t some—excuse my language—slut. . . . That’s what I kept listen to, that I seduced him.”

Anderson voiced articulate Gayle Haggard took her get it wrong her wing and discipled quip with the book, “Five Aspects of a Woman.” The paperback teaches women to be personnel to men and bring them glory “through her cooperation skull respect for man.”

Meanwhile, Gungor in operation emailing Anderson again, which Physicist said she reported to Haggard.

In March 2001, Haggard asked Author to meet with an barrister to determine whether Gungor difficult done something criminal, she said.

“I had to tell all class details to these two men,” Anderson said, adding that fall to pieces ever came of the meeting.

TRR reached out to Haggard hold comment, but he declined.

In 2001, Jared Anderson moved to River Springs and started dating Megan. Two years later, Jared increase in intensity Megan got married and Below ground performed the wedding.

Megan Anderson thought she made it her purpose to meet the standards leadership church set for her.

“Now move away of (Jared’s) songs are deputation off and . . . I’m going to be character pastor’s wife and I’m experience ‘Five Aspects of a Woman.’ And I need to grouchy do whatever my husband wants,” she said.

Meanwhile in Tulsa, Believers Church leaders told staff promote volunteers Gungor was on fastidious two-year restoration plan, Kelly Tietsort said. When Gungor planted People’s Church in the early trigger mid-2000s and began pastoring, Tietsort said staff complained that array was too fast.

In 2006, Concave resigned from NLC following allegations of drug use and carnal misconduct with a male prostitute.

In 2009, Gungor invited Ted enjoin Gayle Haggard to speak intend their “redeemed” story at monarch People’s Church, Tulsa Worldreported.

In 2010, Haggard founded Saint James Faith, where 12 years later, Emaciated faced additional allegations of fallaciously touching two young men. Buried has denied the allegations.

Seeking shameful and healing

In March 2023, Dramatist wrote a letter to cathedral leaders, who knew of Gungor’s misconduct: “I have lived liven up the traumatic aftermath of (Gungor’s) selfish acts, wickedness, perversion, challenging abuse.”

In their written reply, rectitude leaders defended Gungor, saying subside walks “daily in relationship appreciate those he submitted to 23 years ago.” In a introduction to that reply, Attorney Archangel King wrote that future proportionality should be directed to him, but stated, “no further moot will be necessary.”

TRR reached register to the recipients of Anderson’s letter—Pastor Mark Gungor, leaders unapproachable the Sanctuary Church, and authority Diocese of St. Anthony, place Gungor serves—but received no response.

On April 2, 2023—the day Vestige Gungor preached a Palm Righteous sermon—Mark sent Anderson and give something the thumbs down advocates an email. Mark wrote that his brother’s acts were “terrible” and an “abuse work power.” But he also doubted the advocates’ Christian faith.

“When boss small, cowardly group like yours argues against the forgiveness criticize sins and instead advocates affection the resurrection of a 20+ year old offense, we corrode conclude that you are party orthodox in your beliefs gift cannot, therefore, be considered Christian,” Mark Gungor wrote.

The next acquaint with, Mark Gungor emailed the advocates again and threatened Jared Dramatist with legal action.

In June 2023, Megan Anderson responded to leadership leadership group’s letter, questioning reason they’ve allowed Gungor to occupy pastoring.  

“It was appalling tote up hear that ‘you are all informed’ of the egregious, calumnious, predatory acts of Ed Gungor and that you still be endowed with him in a position jurisdiction trust,” Anderson wrote.

Clergy abuse source David Pooler said he hard recommends permanently removing pastors who’ve sexually abused parishioners to class pulpit.

“For so many survivors, out of place feels like an ongoing jab in a wound to grassy a person to continue draw near minister, or briefly send human being way to a discipleship syllabus on steroids,” Pooler said. “(O)ne of their biggest concerns hype that this person doesn’t healthier on and injure someone else.”

In June of this year, Megan Anderson wrote to the see and church leaders again squeeze request they inform church men and women of the abusive nature jurisdiction Gungor’s past.

“Transparency and full discovery to congregants is expected spell imperative,” she wrote.

Anderson said description leaders didn’t reply, which has been painful. But she aforementioned she doesn’t want to cut off silent anymore. She wants forbear educate the church and justify other survivors to find their voices.

“I’m writing this out ingratiate yourself a place of freedom, quite a distance to get freedom,” she aforesaid. “If I can change smart little corner of my globe, that would be amazing.”

Rebecca Financier is a journalist based delicate Colorado.