“I was and remain very remorseful.”
Memphis, Tennessee, megachurch pastor Andy Savage received a standing ovation from the church’s congregation Sunday after he confessed and apologized for a “sexual incident” with a high school girl some 20 years ago.
Jules Woodson, who was 17 at the time, told The New York Times she watched the pastor’s apology and the applause that followed. She described the moment as “disgusting.”
In a statement of her own, which was originally shared on Facebook before she made her account private, Woodson said the assault happened when Savage — a youth pastor in Texas at the time — was driving her home, the Laredo Morning Times reported .
Woodson said Savage passed by the street that led to her house, and when she asked where they were going, he simply told her it was “a surprise.” The pastor, she said, turned down a dark road, where he parked the truck and turned off the headlights.
“Suddenly, Andy unzipped his jeans and pulled out his penis,” she recalled. “He asked me to suck it. I was scared and embarrassed, but I did it. I remember feeling that this must mean that Andy loved me. He then asked me to unbutton my shirt. I did. He started touching me over my bra and then lifted my bra up and began touching my breasts.”
The assault lasted about five minutes, Woodson said, before Savage allegedly got out of the truck, ran to the passenger side, and began to plead for the teenager’s forgiveness.
“Now I was terrified and ashamed,” Woodson wrote. “I remember him pleading, while he was on his knees with his hands up on his head, ‘Oh, my God, oh, my God. What have I done? Oh, my God, I’m so sorry. You can’t tell anyone, Jules, please. You have to take this to the grave with you.’”
Woodson said she took the issue to the church’s lead pastors but was not aware of any disciplinary action. So then she told her all-female discipleship group about what had unfolded. From there, rumors started to spread that the two exchanged an “’innocent’ kiss.”
The church’s leadership never released an official statement on the matter, Woodson claimed, but instead “held a going away reception for Andy at the church in which he was allowed to simply say that he had made a poor decision and that it was time for him to move on from our church.”
In his statement to the congregation of Highpoint Church, where he now serves as a teaching pastor, Savage said he “sought forgiveness from her, her parents, her discipleship group, the church staff, and the church leadership, who informed the congregation. In agreement with wise counsel, I took every step to respond in a biblical way.”
“I resigned from ministry and moved back home to Memphis,” he said. “I accepted full responsibility for my actions. I was and remain very remorseful for the incident and deeply regret the pain I caused her and her family, as well as the pain I caused the church and God’s Kingdom.”
Savage said there have since been no incidents “remotely similar” to what happened in Texas.
Highpoint Church’s lead pastor, Chris Conlee, wrote in an online statement that he was not caught off guard by the claims Woodson shared. He said the Memphis church remains “100 percent committed to Andy, Amanda, and their family and his continued ministry at Highpoint Church.”
News of this alleged assault comes as American society is facing a watershed moment of sorts surrounding sexual misconduct and abuse. What began in Hollywood, with disgraced film mogul Harvey Weinstein, has since spread to politics, the media, and elsewhere.
You can watch Savage’s apology in the video above, starting at the 16-minute mark.
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