An Indiana pastor by the name of John Lowe II recently informed his congregation that he committed adultery two decades ago, which led to a woman stepping forward and revealing to the entire church how she was his victim at 16 years of age.
“I committed adultery. It was nearly 20 years ago,” Pastor John Lowe II, 65, said at the end of services at New Life Christian Church and World Outreach in Warsaw, Fox News reported.
Indiana Pastor Admits Affair To Congregation, Woman Emerges From The Crowd As His 16-Year-Old Victim
“To say it plainly, I didn’t make a mistake, I didn’t have an issue, I didn’t have an affair, I didn’t make a misjudgment — I sinned. I need to say that, and you deserve to hear it,” he said. The pastor proceeded to ask the congregation to forgive him for the “deep wound” he said he caused, sharing how there was “no good reason” why it took him so long to admit fault.
“If I could go back and redo it all, I would. I can’t. All I can do is ask you to forgive me,” Lowe said from the podium. “To my wife and family, who I deeply hurt, I have confessed my sin, and they have graciously forgiven me and expressed their love to me,” he added.
He then announced that he was stepping down from the ministry — and received a round of applause from the congregation. But things turned much more awkward moments later when a woman stepped forward to the microphone along with a man who identified himself as her husband.
“For 27 years I lived in a prison. It was not 20 years … I was just 16 when you took my virginity on your office floor. Do you remember that? I know you do,” the woman, now in her 40s, told Lowe. “I lived in a prison of lies and pain. Lying to protect the Lowe family. I thought I was a horrible person having suicidal thoughts, not realizing what had truly been done to me,” she said.
“The church deserves to know the truth. This church has been built on lies, but no more. The lies need to stop,” she said. The woman went on to state how her older brother recently confronted her about witnessing her lying in bed with their pastor while wearing a T-shirt and underwear when she was a teenager.
“You did things to my teenage body that had never and should have never been done,” she said. “If you can’t admit to the truth, you have to answer to God. You are not the victim here. People knew but were too afraid to come forward.”
“I was a prisoner, and you kept me in your prison. I’m a prisoner no longer,” the woman added before turning to Lowe’s adult son and saying, “Your dad is not the victim here — a partial truth is not true.”
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And when one congregant mentioned the age at which the woman said Lowe began his relationship with her, the pastor mumbled, “Sixteen years old, OK. It was wrong.”
The woman’s husband then confronted Lowe head-on. “It’s not just adultery. It’s another level when it’s a teenager and I will not let this man talk about my wife like that. It happened for nine years … People have to be held accountable,” he said.
“They can’t just bamboozle people and say, ‘I just committed adultery.’ It was far beyond adultery,” he added. The exchange between the pastor and the congregation was captured in a shocking 14-minute video that was posted that morning on Facebook.
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