Sexting is a crime; especially if you are 26-year-old married youth pastor. Considering the 15-year old age of the victim, I think it is a lucky that the youth pastor was not arrested with his thumbs broken. What a creep. That's right. I'm calling former youth pastor Matthew C. Davis a creep. If the stories are true, the Matthew was living a fantasy in which a young vulnerable teen would become his replacement wife. He was allegedly texting his love and desires to run away with the young congregant. These fools ever learn?
According to charging documents, Davis began sending romantic email to the girl early in 2012 and ultimately offered to leave his wife to start a new life with the girl. He is alleged to have said he would quit his job at Boeing and follow her to college.
Writing the court, King County Detective Chris Knudsen said Davis's messages had turned sexual by May, when Davis's wife discovered them. Davis then confessed the "inappropriate relationship" to his church supervisor, the detective continued, who went to police.
Source Charge: Seattle youth pastor sought sex from teen by Levi Pulkkinen
I love the part of the narrative that suggests that Davis' supervisor took the matter right to the police, and then church fired him. It is exactly what should be done. Good job Grace Church of Seattle! The next step is to post information on your blog or on your website acknowledging the event and talking about what is happening now. It's the right thing to do.
Hat tip to Anne. Thanks!
Technorati Tags: Clergy Sexual Abuse, Hypocrisy
A note on the above (as occasionally people still write things about the incident that are innacurate, and considering your blog is the number one feed on a google search). Matt Davis was not a Pastor, he was not employed by the church and never had been. He was a person who grew up in the church and at age 26 was asked to join a youth retreat as a volunteer. He volunteered on and off for 3 months. It was discovered by his wife that he had been writing one of the teens on FB messenger. He immediately confessed to me. I and the actual youth pastor at the time immediately made him confess to the teen’s family and then turned him into the police and removed him from the church. This was in May 2012. When the Judicial system finally released the information to the public, Seattle PI published a story based on inaccurate information calling him a youth pastor. It was a sensational story. I called the Seattle PI and they have since written a retraction. I would ask that you do the same as your article boarders on the slanderous toward our church. Since the incident, Matt has been seeing various counselors, he has not been allowed to come back to our church, and I have put him in touch with another group for help to restore he and his wife. He has been completely transformed. Having faced severe consequences of losing his community through church discipline (Matthew 18:15-17; see also 1 Corinthians 5), he is rebuilding his life. I am still in contact with him and this is a true redemption story.
ReplyDeleteAnd per your note, our church website did have a statement correcting the misinformation from Seattle PI and this above blog posted Sept. 5, 2012.
Thank you for seeking truth. This is not a story of hupocrisy among clergy as your tag suggests. Raher, it is a story of protection of children. If the Catholic Church had done what we did, they never would have had the incidents they have had. And, by the way, we caught this before it ever became a physical relationship. If there would have been we would have advocated for maximum penalty in the judicial system for Matt Davis; as any wise and competent institution would.
GODSPEED