Dozens of boys say they were abused in a Christian scouting program that vowed to raise godly men
The boys had been taught to obey their elders, and how to pitch tents and build campfires along the creek-lined woods of western Oregon. They could dutifully recite the motto for the Royal Rangers, a Pentecostal version of the Boy Scouts. “Ready for anything,” they chanted in unison.
But no one had prepared them for this: Adults sometimes do bad things to children. And when people in power find out, they don’t always act.
Travis Reger learned that hard lesson around 1984, at age 10. That’s when, he says, a Royal Rangers commander from his Assemblies of God church in Albany, Oregon, fondled him and another boy at a sleepover.
What haunts Reger most is what he says happened after his father confronted the pastor: practically nothing. By the time the Royal Rangers leader was convicted in 1988 of abusing two other children, at least 18 boys said they had been molested by him and a fellow troop leader, according to lawsuits and police records.
“That’s what gets me choked up every time,” Reger said. “The church never did anything.”
The program draws participants as young as kindergartners with a promise to mold them into Christlike men through Bible study and backpacking.
But the Royal Rangers have also shattered childhoods, a danger the organization’s national leaders have known about for decades, an NBC News investigation found. Reporters have spent a year examining sexual abuse allegations within the Assemblies of God, which has 13,000 churches across the United States. Despite dozens of lawsuits and pleas from survivors, the denomination has resisted making child safety policies mandatory — including for the Royal Rangers.
At least 29 Royal Rangers leaders have been accused of sexually abusing boys in their care over the past half century, according to a review of lawsuits, police reports and news clips. The volunteers were often well-regarded: men with master’s degrees, sons of pastors or aspiring preachers themselves. One was a judge in Pennsylvania who pleaded guilty in 2021 to the corruption of minors. They lured their alleged victims under the guise of woodworking projects, rides home from school and games of Dungeons & Dragons.
The men were accused of sexually abusing at least 83 boys in the Royal Rangers and dozens more outside the ministry — though the true total is almost certainly higher. Like other scouting programs, the Royal Rangers have attracted serial predators whose full victim counts may never be known.
Some abuses surfaced only by chance. In Florida, a longtime Royal Rangers leader was arrested in 2000 after his abandoned storage unit was auctioned off. The buyer called police after discovering a photo book of nude children titled “Boys Will Be Boys!” along with Polaroids of a naked child. Confronted by authorities, the man handed over hundreds more pictures and confessed to molesting Royal Rangers over three decades, photographing each victim as a keepsake, according to police records and news reports.
Church officials allowed men convicted of molesting boys to lead Royal Rangers troops, enabling them to harm again, criminal records show. Some Assemblies of God ministers sent suspected abusers to counseling or put them on probation rather than calling police. Others were accused of pressuring children into silence.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/roy...rcna247409
The boys had been taught to obey their elders, and how to pitch tents and build campfires along the creek-lined woods of western Oregon. They could dutifully recite the motto for the Royal Rangers, a Pentecostal version of the Boy Scouts. “Ready for anything,” they chanted in unison.
But no one had prepared them for this: Adults sometimes do bad things to children. And when people in power find out, they don’t always act.
Travis Reger learned that hard lesson around 1984, at age 10. That’s when, he says, a Royal Rangers commander from his Assemblies of God church in Albany, Oregon, fondled him and another boy at a sleepover.
What haunts Reger most is what he says happened after his father confronted the pastor: practically nothing. By the time the Royal Rangers leader was convicted in 1988 of abusing two other children, at least 18 boys said they had been molested by him and a fellow troop leader, according to lawsuits and police records.
“That’s what gets me choked up every time,” Reger said. “The church never did anything.”
The program draws participants as young as kindergartners with a promise to mold them into Christlike men through Bible study and backpacking.
But the Royal Rangers have also shattered childhoods, a danger the organization’s national leaders have known about for decades, an NBC News investigation found. Reporters have spent a year examining sexual abuse allegations within the Assemblies of God, which has 13,000 churches across the United States. Despite dozens of lawsuits and pleas from survivors, the denomination has resisted making child safety policies mandatory — including for the Royal Rangers.
At least 29 Royal Rangers leaders have been accused of sexually abusing boys in their care over the past half century, according to a review of lawsuits, police reports and news clips. The volunteers were often well-regarded: men with master’s degrees, sons of pastors or aspiring preachers themselves. One was a judge in Pennsylvania who pleaded guilty in 2021 to the corruption of minors. They lured their alleged victims under the guise of woodworking projects, rides home from school and games of Dungeons & Dragons.
The men were accused of sexually abusing at least 83 boys in the Royal Rangers and dozens more outside the ministry — though the true total is almost certainly higher. Like other scouting programs, the Royal Rangers have attracted serial predators whose full victim counts may never be known.
Some abuses surfaced only by chance. In Florida, a longtime Royal Rangers leader was arrested in 2000 after his abandoned storage unit was auctioned off. The buyer called police after discovering a photo book of nude children titled “Boys Will Be Boys!” along with Polaroids of a naked child. Confronted by authorities, the man handed over hundreds more pictures and confessed to molesting Royal Rangers over three decades, photographing each victim as a keepsake, according to police records and news reports.
Church officials allowed men convicted of molesting boys to lead Royal Rangers troops, enabling them to harm again, criminal records show. Some Assemblies of God ministers sent suspected abusers to counseling or put them on probation rather than calling police. Others were accused of pressuring children into silence.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/roy...rcna247409
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
