Elders of Cape Town church expel alleged abuser John Smyth
by Tim Wyatt, Christian Today:
JOHN SMYTH, the man accused of savagely beating young men at Evangelical Christian camps during the 1970s and ’80s (News, 13 April), has been formally expelled from his church in South Africa, where he now lives.
In a lengthy statement, the elders of Church-on-Main, Cape Town, where Mr Smyth and his wife, Anne, have worshipped since 2013, announced that the Smyths would be “excommunicated, with all its scriptural implications”, because of Mr Smyth’s refusal to engage with the church leadership about the allegations.
The statement explains that the church was aware that some had criticised Mr Smyth’s holiday-camp ministry in Zimbabwe when he first joined Church-on-Main, four years ago, but had been assured that this was nothing more than jealousy at the ministry’s success.
Last September, however, the church elders found out that Mr Smyth was regularly meeting young men from Church-on-Main at a sports club, playing squash before showering together and then questioning them about “pornography, masturbation, and other sexual matters”.
They then discovered that Mr Smyth’s Zimbabwe camps had been involved in a court case. The elders’ statement said, however, that whenever they attempted to discuss the matter with Mr Smyth, he became defensive, and attacked the elders’ leadership of the church.
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