TN Youth Minister Arrested for Raping Young Boys
Just when you thought keeping your children away from Catholic priests and clergy would prevent them from being molested by Christian authority figures, a protestant youth minister gets arrested for raping young boys in Murfreesboro, TN.
Matthew M. Jernigan
A Rutherford County, TN man is accused of raping two boys he met while volunteering at a local church, according to arrest warrants on file at the Rutherford County Judicial Building.
Matthew M. Jernigan, 23, faces two counts of child rape, two counts of aggravated sexual battery and two counts of aggravated sexual battery by an authority figure following an investigation by Rutherford County Sheriff’s Detective Jim Tramel.
According to warrants taken out by the detective, Jernigan performed oral sex and other lewd acts on at least two boys who were less than 13 years old. He met the boys while performing his duties as a youth ministry volunteer at Heartland Baptist Church, located on East Jefferson Pike.
Read the full article here.
What is it about Christian leaders being unable to keep their hands off children? This incident happened at a baptist church probably similar to the one I grew up in. Maybe I missed the service where they explained how the bible says to get into heaven one must bugger little kids. But seriously, this is a major problem throughout all denominations not just Catholicism and something needs to be done to stop this epidemic.
Already Christians here in Tennessee are trying to spin the fact that he was a church youth minister. I just read this in a comment on the above article,
Make no mistake, he is no Christian. Apparently he believes, as you, there is no God. Otherwise, he never would have done this despicable act. He is a flaming homosexual who used the church to get what he wanted, boys to fulfil his lustful, unnatural desires.
Of course, a despicable person like the child molester must be an atheist according to this Christian. Also, he intentionally targeted a Christian church to prey on their young to punish them for their love of Jesus. Nothing but typical Christian banter, similar to many other occults, claiming they are being persecuted and people are out to get them because they don’t want Christians doing god’s work.
It is truly sad sad how Christians are in denial that, statistically, they are no different, if not worse, than the rest of society when it comes to committing crimes. They even try to use tragedies like this as an example of why homosexuals are evil and as an excuse to deny them equal marriage rights under the law because it will destroy the institution of marriage. With a divorce rate of over sixty percent and such a large portion of the population being Christian it is clear how these people believe in the sanctity of marriage.
Instead of passing the blame to another group with different beliefs Christians should just accept the facts and try to learn why so many children are being abused by church members. I’m sure it’s embarrassing for Christians but they need to face the fact that this is a widespread problem in all denominations and do something to protect the children instead trying to pass the fault.
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That wasn always the case, but more often than not there were more girls who came to our youth ministry activities than boys.
You should at least do half an attempt to get some facts before you start relaying untruths. I realize you’re just cutting and pasting the article and then adding your two sense worth of whimsical BS into it but damn, try some fact checking once in awhile. The guy wasn’t a “youth minister”. He was a volunteer and would help watch kids during Sunday school. You act as if the church as it fault when in all actuality the pastor is the one who pulled the trigger on this POS and helped set up the sting to bust him. The church absolutely did not tolerate it. Trying to blame this on the church and being Christian is like blaming all Schools and all teachers for being molesters. Fucking idiot.
@Your Funeral
Perhaps you should spend more time reading the “whimsical BS” and get your own facts straight. I never said it was this particular church’s fault nor the pastor’s or christianity for that matter. I could see from the news video how he was shaken to the core by the whole situation. Rather I stated how this is a clear epidemic that is affecting christianity across the country and the world. To many clergy and church authority figures are taking advantage of innocent children. Perhaps you should look up the definition of minister, it doesn’t imply he was an employee of the church, but he was clearly put in charge of attending to the needs of the youth of the church as an authority figure. By you own account of what he did at the church he ministered to the youth by definition. Instead of lashing out at those pointing out a clear trend of child abuse by christians in our society, how about trying to understand why this is happening so much in christian churches?
@The TN Atheist
Oh really? Hmm lets have a look here-
min⋅is⋅ter
/ˈmɪnəstər/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [min-uh-ster] Show IPA
–noun
1. a person authorized to conduct religious worship; member of the clergy; pastor.
Hmm, the guy was not authorized to conduct worship, wasn’t a clergymen, nor was he a pastor. Therefore he was also not by definition a minister.
Now that you stand corrected on that point lets move on.
The article may state that he was this or that but it is wrong. The pastor would tell you himself that the guy is merely a volunteer who more or less babysat. Period. I know.
The thing is, is that you’re trying to conjure up some BS idea that somehow molestations are concentrated in churches. Why is the fact that it happened in a church supposed to make it any worse? B/c you’re an atheist? Aren’t you supposed to be open minded? Here’s an idea why don’t you try to figure out why the epidemic of child molestations occur EVERYWHERE? Per capita the percentages are the same across the board including atheists. But do you see people jumping at the chance to ridicule them b/c they’re atheists? NO. They’re just concerned that a poor child has been victimized. You idiots try to sensationalize it to further your dumb ass agenda.
@Your Funeral
Another example of you failing to continue reading after you hear what you want to hear
min·is·ter (mn-str)
n. Abbr. Min.
4. A person serving as an agent for another by carrying out specified orders or functions.
v.intr.
1. To attend to the wants and needs of others.
oh I guess ministry
min·is·try (mĭn’ĭ-strē)
1. The act of serving; ministration.
Arguing semantics gets us nowhere, no matter the label given he was an authority figure in a church put in charge of kids and abused them. I agree this is an epidemic, but it is clearly concentrated in christian churches. Just like the FBI statistics showing christians far out number other religions per capita incarcerated in prison while the number of atheists/agnostics/nonbelievers incarcerated proportionately is far far lower that any religion. Besides, if he was an atheist this would have been national news.
I’m pretty tolerant of people and their problems, but I keep hearing of men stidcking their shovel in little boys’ arses and cannot, for the life of me, understand the gratification angle. Wouldn’t it be more fun to just bring them over to watch a really nasty horror film, then cut off the electricity at the house, go out the front dor and preted to fight off an escaped mass-murderer and come back in covered in ketcheup and ask the boys to give a dying message to the pastor. Thern drop on the floor, wait for their hysterical reaction, and laugh yourself silly. It’s sick, but preferable to ruining little boys’ rectums, not to mention their minds. Oh, well.
wow you people are sick! you are sitting at home reading some artical on the internet and just making assumptions and being completely judgmental. You have no clue about anything you are even talking about. How do you even know any of that is true. so you think that just because some little boys say something thats its true? To think you have the nerve to write your sick comments on here and stick your noses where they dot belong. this is none of your business.and before you go and gossip some more you mite want to know the facts. there was not a single piece of evidence on him doing this. if you knew my side of the story you would understand how innocent he is and how guilty those little boys are. yes jury is supposed to go by facts but gess what this is the real world and they dont they go all by emotion and its wrong. now an innocent man has to live a large portion of him life in jailand misses out on so much life when all he was trying to do is whats rite. this world is takin a turn for the worst.so stop sticking your nose in places where you dont belong. at least read the facts next time and think of the possibilities before you judge and think if this was your life and how you would like to get online and see the aweful things people have to say about someone in your life. this is my life now and i have to live it along with the rest of my brokenhearted family. i wish people would think of that instead of those “poor young boys” haha. well i hope matthew is rite about all the time he tells me and my family how God has a big plan for this and that all things wiil work out for the best, God has a plan. I dont know how anyone could say things so horrible about a man that thinks about that kind of stuff in the situation he is in. he is truely a Godly man and he has made the best of him time in prison by serving God and doing whats right you wouldnt beleive the great differences he has made. I love him and will always believe him!
@cowgirl
That sure was a well written response there, cowgirl. I can tell by your anger that he must have been your brother/father/husband, most likely all rolled into one. lmao
On a serious note, I should be legally allowed to put people this dumb down so that they can’t spread their ignorance or breed…
If my brother did wrong I certainly wouldn’t defend or condone what he did. I have a real good idea exactly who cowgirl is. Matt didn’t have a wife because he was attracted to little boys. He did have a sister that would defend him to the death and honey I know who you are!
If I didn’t do something and knew there was no evidence to prove I did, I wouldn’t agree to spend time in prison because of it. Your brother my dear did in fact do what he was accused of doing. Mychildren didn’t even go the the church there but was forever changed by the actions of this nasty perverted individual. He is guilty! I think its a disgrace that a man in or out of church can not just touch but can have oral, anal, and every other kind of sexual activity with little boys and get off as easy as this bastard did. Matt has come up to my car and talked to me face to face knowing that he was brutally abusing boys. I always said that I didn’t trust him and thought there was something bad wrong with a grown man playing w/ little boys all the time. I hate to say it but I was right! I hope Matt gets raped over and over again while he is in prison. I think this nasty bastard deserves to have his little penis cut off and jammed down his throat. I hope to God he doesn’t make it through his prison stay!
Another thing I feel like I need to add here in response to Matt’s little sister. I personally know the boys Matt hurt. None of them were ever exposed to porn or sexual acts before your brother got ahold of them. A question for you ma dear, if these boys were making this stuff up please tell me how they could describe, in detail the dimensions of your brotherss dick? How would they know his favorite porn to watch while he was raping them? How would they have detailed stories that match almost word for word with one another? Let me guess… some young boys got together and corroborated stories to tell about your brother and all told the same exact story over and over. Hmmm…. why is it when one boy called him and told him another boy was going to tell his parents what Matt was doing to them why did Matt say to just keep him calm and he would take care of it. Why is it that one little boy took the punishment from Matt over and over again to protect his brother because Matt told him that he would “get his brother if he didn’t do what he (Matt) wanted to do”. What kind of sick and demented people are you all?? As far as I’m concerned by you defending this sick person you are just as bad as him! You should have been videoing the rapes for him or better yet maybe you should have laid down with your ass in the air and let him go at it! Oh…yeah…Matt likes little boys! My bad!