A United Pentecostal Church International (UPCI) minister has been named in a lawsuit regarding sexual misconduct reports the St. Louis Post Dispatch.
Rev. James Manning of Solid Rock Ministries is accused of sexually abusing a girl beginning at the age of 12.
Manning denies the claims and no criminal charges have been filed.
But the Pentecostal preacher has resigned from his position as district superintendent of the Missouri office of the UPCI.
Manning continues to pastor his church. And that church has also been named as a defendant in the suit.
This is the second sex scandal to rock the UPCI in less than a year.
The first hit when the denomination’s worldwide Sunday school Director Rev. Oree Nation, was arrested for sexual misconduct in a public park.
Nation plead guilty to a misdemeanor and was given probation. He was initially suspended without pay, but quickly opted for retirement.
The UPCI is known for its stringent code of “holiness” that mandates members must dress and groom in a certain conservative manner. For example, women usually wear no makeup and don’t cut their hair. Men are typically clean-shaven and wear short haircuts.
The denomination also believes that Christians who accept the trinity are in error and will be damned, unless they renounce that belief and accept the UPCI proscribed doctrinal formula for baptism.
Salvation is a fairly exclusive club according this Pentecostal group, but it looks like a few of its ministers need to worry about more than their haircuts.
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