Documentary record Bound by Fear
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Conviction Christian institutions & contexts Lutheran Marshall, Texas, USA · 2003

ELCA pastor Gerald P. Thomas Jr. convicted of sex crimes against children from his congregation

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

ordained Lutheran (ELCA) pastor

Organization

Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Marshall, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

Spiritual nexus

The victims were children connected to Thomas's Lutheran congregation, where he held pastoral authority and the access it conferred as their ordained minister.

  • Pastoral or clerical authority

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 2003-01-01 · convictions and sentence; related civil settlement

    United States federal court and Texas state court. Gerald P. Thomas Jr., pastor of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church (ELCA) from 1997–2001, was federally convicted of child-pornography possession and subsequently sentenced in a state trial to a lengthy term for multiple sex crimes against children. The ELCA national office, a seminary, and a candidacy committee settled a related civil suit brought by fourteen victims in 2004.

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • pastoral access to children of his congregation

Primary record

Sources

institutional reporting civil settlement 'Lutherans settle in Texas sex abuse case', The Christian Century, May 2004.

Reports the ELCA-related civil settlement with fourteen victims and the underlying criminal convictions of the pastor.

Related record

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