ALABAMA
Christian Post
Ala. Pastor Responds to Critics Who Say He Was Wrong for Posting Video on YouTube of Teacher’s Apology for Sex Abuse of Student
BY MORGAN LEE , CHRISTIAN POST REPORTER
One week before she was set to report to prison as a convicted sex offender, Alicia Gray, a former school teacher, shared on-camera how her faith had helped her since she was arrested on sex abuse charges last year.
“I had pain in my own heart and a void that I thought I needed to fill through attention and all kinds of other things, and that void was just needing Jesus,” Gray said in the Jan. 10 video.
Alabama pastor Mark Wyatt filmed and uploaded the footage of Gray, who attends his church, reading her court statement to YouTube.
“The purpose of the video was simply to say to everybody, there is hope for you. If you have failed, if you have failed God, if you have fallen further than you ever thought you could, the love, grace and healing of God will be able to forgive you,” Wyatt, who leads Deeper Life Fellowship in Mobile, Ala., told The Christian Post on Wednesday. …
Last week, on Janet Mefferd’s radio show, Boz Tchividjian, the executive director GRACE, a Christian organization that assists sex abuse victims, called the video a “tragic picture” of what is wrong with the Church’s response to sex abuse.
Tchividjian went on to slam Wyatt’s use of the word “relationship” when describing the connection between Gray and the victim, and the fact that neither he nor the former high school teacher called her actions a “crime.”
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