Pastor Sherman Allen portrayed his marriage to first wife Edwina Cunningham as a sort of fairytale, with his wife in the role of a needy Cinderella and he as the prince who rescued her from material and emotional poverty. When Edwina died in 2003 of complications from scleroderma, a skin…
Sherman Allen sure is … um … interesting. The rumors floated around for years in the local Pentecostal church scene (and, on Unfair Park, for that matter). But Your Bible Girl’s got the inside story: Pastor Sherman Allen’s strange affinities for crystal balls, voodoo and butt-whuppings. In this week’s cover…
That stench—horribly foul, like excrement sprinkled with cheap, rosy perfume. It had been 24 years since she smelled it last, but the odor was unmistakable. Someone had spread powder all over Joy’s front porch. That’s where the odor was coming from. She refused to touch it. Rain would wash the…
Is Church of God in Christ Presiding Bishop Charles E. Blake soft on homosexuality and too cozy with loose-living celebrities? Is he taking his denomination — the biggest Pentecostal body in the United States — far away from its roots as a “holiness” church? Or is he ushering in much-needed…
At the risk of sounding sappy — and oh, Bible Girl hates sounding sappy; must be a consequence of my crime reporter days — let me tell you something that is going to sound kinda sappy. When I prayed for a friend’s physical healing a few weeks ago and saw…
What a racket. Two years ago, my son tossed a ping pong ball in a glass bowl at his school carnival, and he was awarded — ha ha, awarded — a tiny goldfish in a plastic bag. A brown goldfish, no less. Evidently a certain pet store was cleaning out…
Have you prayed for Osama today?If you want to know what defines an evangelical Christian, look no further than Brother Andrew, the 79-year-old Dutchman who called himself “God’s smuggler.” He is a revered figure among evangelicals because of his single-minded devotion to spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ — one…
What’s a nice Jewish girl like Dawn Eden doing in a place like this? Dawn Eden manages to make chastity funny. Not ha-ha funny, but way funnier than I thought. Now that’s quite an accomplishment, don’t you think? I know it never got a belly laugh out of me before…
Is Sherman Allen back on the job? So we hear … Pastor Sherman Allen has left the Church of God in Christ and is back in the pulpit preaching, according to several sources. Allen, founder and pastor of Shiloh Institutional Church of God in Christ — the name of the…
In 1991 — “eight years before my conversion,” she says — Dawn Eden was 23 and, ahem, sharing a bed with Buzzcocks Pete Shelley and Steve Diggle. Dawn Eden is taking the train to Washington, D.C., and we are talking about masturbation. Just before the connection goes bad, she suggests…
A few Neiman Marcus-related items this morning, chief among them the news released this a.m. that August revenues are up, from $264 million last year to $283 mil this annum — and, like, whew. And lookit what sells: “designer handbags, shoes, designer jewelry, women’s fine apparel and men’s.” Hunh. Never…
Hey, hey, Paula — Bible Girl’s losing faith in you. I learned everything I need to know about living a sexually pure life in the ghetto. You heard me right. I came to a tough neighborhood — to a black Pentecostal church in the heart of South Dallas — with…
This week, Bible Girl turns to Jared Binder, a graduate student at Dallas Theological Seminary and a Dallas Observer intern, for thoughts on the “deadly sin” no one ever talks about in church. Bible Girl posts from Bible Girl will be sparse in the next few weeks; I’m working on…
Janice Mixon — prophetess and, get this, former Dallas Police Department Officer of the Year. Which makes sense, when you think about it. Life is complicated. That’s all I can say for certain after hearing one of Pastor Sherman Allen’s prized “daughters” in ministry, Prophetess Janice Mixon, preach last Thursday…
For Pastor Sherman Allen, things just got a little bit worse. A Christian credit union has filed a motion in bankruptcy court asking permission to foreclose on the building that houses Pastor Sherman Allen’s Shiloh Institutional Church of God in Christ, at 1270 Woodhaven Blvd. in Fort Worth. The Evangelical…
If I’ve seen a motif in the numerous interviews I’ve done for the Sherman Allen story, it is human wreckage. A trail of broken marriages. Shattered parental bonds. Severe emotional distress; even claims that folks have gone crazy. And, most of all among the people who’ve tangled with Allen in…
This week: The breadth and depth of the Sherman Allen case; and the blind prophetess Just how big is the Sherman Allen case? Well, here’s the tally of alleged victims who’ve come forward to date: 35. Many emerged after the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and The Dallas Morning News (which had…
Pastor Sherman Allen of Shiloh Institutional Church of God in Christ has been suspended from his pastoral duties. And not a moment too soon? The Church of God in Christ has suspended Fort Worth Pastor Sherman Allen “from all national and local pastoral roles and activities” within the denomination. The…
My son is white. Which makes sense, since his parents are white. But see, my son is really white. His skin is virtually translucent, to the point where you can see the web of green, pink and purple veins between skin and skull. Now my son was the sole white…
Pastor Sherman Allen of Shiloh Institutional Church of God in Christ is accused of assaulting at least eight women. Fort Worth Star-Telegram reporter Melody McDonald had an excellent piece yesterday on the sexual allegations against Pastor Sherman Allen of Shiloh Institutional Church of God in Christ, in Fort Worth’s Woodhaven…
Bishop T.D. Jakes has a straightforward method for maintaining integrity in his ministry: He practices his faith. Bishop T.D. Jakes, the most revered and influential Pentecostal clergyman in the world, talked to me recently about how he keeps his ministry scandal-free. It’s pretty simple. First of all, the ministry’s books…
I will never forget the first major crime story I covered. The images never go away, and maybe they aren’t supposed to. They snap me back to realities about my world. A Seattle-area man had murdered his wife and kids, then traveled south to Tacoma, where he gunned down his…
