The brick background alone qualifies the website of Open Door Baptist Church for status as a FWOTW.
The links at the bottom to the urban legend about recordings of screams from hell seals the deal.
Tag Archives: Open Door Baptist Church
Woman suing church of deceased pastor Matthew Jarrell over alleged rape
Is a fundamentalist church responsible for the actions of the pastors they hire if they have not bothered to perform a background check on him? This is the question being raised by the alleged victim of Matthew Jarrell, the apparent serial rapist who committed suicide while being held in a West Virginia jail.
As Zac Taylor of the West Virginia Gazette-Mail reports
A woman is suing a Texas church, claiming that its leaders should have known that their head pastor had a history of sexual assault before allowing him to travel to West Virginia, where he allegedly raped her in his car before committing suicide in prison days later.
The woman, whom the lawsuit identifies only by her initials, is also suing the Open Door Baptist Church in Mesquite, Texas, for hiring Matthew Jarrell as its head pastor and apparently failing to perform an adequate background check that would have uncovered a history of criminal activity.
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The lawsuit states that Jarrell inflicted serious emotional and physical damages on the woman as a result of the assault, which could have been prevented had church officials properly screened Jarrell before his employment.
The woman is suing the church for compensatory and punitive damages, as well as attorney fees and court costs.
It will be interesting to see if the courts think this case has merit.
IFB Preacher Charged With Raping Woman in Texas (Update 1)
Another fundamentalist pastor has been arrested for sex crimes, this time in West Virgina. “Dr.” Mathew D. Jarrell is the pastor of the Open Door Baptist Church in Mesquite, Texas.
According to The Charleston Gazette:
[T]he woman was approached by Jarrell, whom she did not know. She needed a ride home [from a Charleston bar], and he said he would take her. Instead, he drove to an area off Martins Branch Road, where he held the woman’s face down on the seat of his truck, forcibly pulled her pants down and sodomized her, according to the complaint.
After the woman escaped, she contacted police and described Jarrell and his truck. When a sheriff’s deputy detained Jarrell, he originally denied having sex with the woman, but later admitted to it, according to the complaint.
“According to family members, Jarrell was supposed to be in Pennsylvania,” Lt. Sean Crosier of the Sheriff’s Department said in a news release.
The church website is allegedly “down for maintenance” but the cached site pages report the following facts about Jarrell:
Pastor Jarrell was born in Louisa, Kentucky. He was saved while serving in the Army with the 160th Special Operations Task Force stationed at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. While attending a church service, the preaching of Dr. Jack Hyles brought Holy Ghost conviction and Pastor Jarrell repented of his sins and received Jesus Christ as he heard the sermon entitled, “Judasitis.”
Pastor Jarrell joined Temple Baptist Church in Clarksburg, Tennessee, where God called him to preach. Pastor Jarrell attended Austin Peay State University, Hyles-Anderson College, Atlantic Baptist Bible College, and Calvary Baptist Seminary. In 2004, he accepted the pastorate at Open Door Baptist Church in Mesquite, Texas.
Jarrell has a wife and 4 children.
Update: Sources are now reporting that Matthew Jarrell has committed suicide while being detained facing these charges. A sad end to a sad story.
The church website now reads:
Thank you for visiting and we covet your prayers during this difficult time.
We will update this site as more information is available. However, during this time, we will continue to serve the Lord as we have for the past 46 years.
Hope to see you Sunday,
The Entire Church Membership