As police arrest a pastor for an alleged murder in a lurid crime of passion, young people question how they can trust the church.
When 19-year-old Giona Melo heard that police had arrested the pastor of the largest Baptist church in the Philippine island of Mindanao for allegedly murdering his romantic rival, a male beauty pageant contestant, all she could do was laugh.
“I used to get really angry, but now I laugh because it’s just absurd,” said Melo, who grew up in Cagayan de Oro, a city in northern Mindanao, and is now a student at North Park University in Chicago. “I have peace because I trust in God more than the church.”
Dimver Andales, the 51-year-old head pastor of Lapasan Baptist Church in Cagayan de Oro, was accused of masterminding the murder of 24-year-old Adriane Rovic Fornillos, a candidate for Mister Cagayan de Oro. The police have called the case a crime of passion because Andales, a married man, was allegedly in a romantic relationship with Fornillos’s girlfriend. He was arrested along with his associate pastor, who is said to be an accomplice of the crime.
Around the time the news broke, another pastor, Jennifer Cobarrubias of Dream Life Church in Quezon City, went viral for a TikTok video in which she and her church members mocked former congregants who had left her church. She quickly faced backlash on social media: “This is why I stopped going [to church],” read one tweet. “Religious people are the most judgmental ones.” Another read: “These types of people are using religion to control people’s lives. … Shouldn’t you be praying for them instead of mocking them [on] TikTok?”
“It is sad to see Christian leaders fail to be good representatives of Christ,” said Micah Bacani, a recent graduate of the University of the Philippines in Diliman, …
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