Jeffrey Smith, a 67-year-old pastor with the anti-LGBTQ+ Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC), has been charged for allegedly groping another man at a Walmart in Melbane, North Carolina. The EPC disapproves of homosexuality, same-sex marriages and transgender identities.
Smith allegedly approached the man in the retail store on Monday morning and touched him through his clothes. The pastor then reportedly fled, according to WXII, and was apprehended by police in the woods behind a Sheetz gas station.
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The pastor has been charged with one count of misdemeanor sexual battery and booked into the Alamance County Detention Center. He was released after posting his $3,000 bail.
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His church, the EPC New River Presbytery, said in a statement, that it was “very sad to hear about these allegations” and is praying for the pastor, his family, the church, and ” anyone else involved in the incident.”
The EPC denomination consists of over 600 churches with approximately 145,000 members, according to the EPC website.
“God helping us, we shall continue, within our churches and in the public arena, to teach against and to refuse to condone or participate in any sinful form of sexual practice,” the paper says. It then lists various sexual “sins” like “homosexual conduct,” “same-sex union” and “gender reassignment” alongside others like pornography, sexual abuse, divorce, remarriage and sexual lust.
The paper also seems to endorse conversion therapy in a section that reads, “Those in and out of the Church struggling with various forms of sexual disorientation or gender dysphoria should experience from God’s people a deep desire to identify with them in their struggles, to walk lovingly with them, and to invite them to join us in following the Lord. Together as a people, we must all seek healing for our own lives and for each other’s lives, discovering what it means to be godly men and women in the circumstances decreed by His providence.”
The bottom of the EPC’s position paper states, “A Position Paper is not to be regarded as binding on the conscience of churches or individuals.”
