‘The devil is smart,’ says minister working to protect churches from child predators: Pennsylvania preacher Jimmy Hinton says the stories he’s heard have ‘taken an emotional toll on me.’
By Bobby Ross Jr. | The Christian Chronicle
The sex, lies and videotapes don’t surprise Jimmy Hinton anymore.
“No surprise at all,” the Pennsylvania preacher said of the latest case to make headlines — this one involving an Oklahoma youth minister.
“The devil is smart,” said Hinton, minister for the Somerset Church of Christ and co-founder of the nonprofit Church Protect Inc. “We assume that the church is safe, that nobody could fathom abusing a child if they are a Christian. Child predators know this and take advantage of this false assumption.”
The Christian Chronicle first profiled Hinton in a January 2015 story headlined “A child molester’s son shines a light.”
That story detailed how Hinton learned that his preacher father, John Hinton, was a longtime child molester who had sexually abused young girls and escaped discovery for decades. The younger Hinton reported his father to police, and John Hinton is now serving a 30- to 60-year prison sentence.
This story appears in the online edition of The Christian Chronicle.
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