(TX)
ChurchLeaders.com [Wheaton, IL]
August 1, 2024
By Dale Chamberlain
A Lubbock County prosecutor in Texas argued during a hearing on Monday (July 1) that former Southern Baptist youth pastor Luke Cunningham had a history of preying on teenage girls in different churches. The first allegations against him date back to 2013.
Editor’s note: This article contains information about child sex abuse and assault that some readers might find disturbing and/or triggering.
Cunningham, 41, was arrested at his home on June 20 and remains in custody at the Lubbock County Detention Center. He has been charged with two counts of sexual assault of a child and one count of aggravated sexual assault.
Cunningham’s bond is set at $500,000. While he has requested that his bond be reduced to $100,000 and that he be allowed unsupervised access to his own children, the judge has not yet ruled on the request.
In Monday’s hearing, Lubbock County Assistant District Attorney Cassie Graham reportedly argued that Cunningham had a long history of alleged abuse of teen girls and had been accused of acting violently, slapping and strangling victims to the point of losing consciousness.
Through the testimony of Detective Justin Wood of the Lubbock Police Department, the prosecution established a timeline of Cunningham’s alleged abuses, painting a picture of a minister who moved from church to church to avoid the consequences of his alleged misconduct.
In 2013, Cunningham worked at North Fort Worth Baptist Church, a congregation affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) in Fort Worth, Texas. An alleged victim in Dallas County is claiming that this is the year Cunningham began grooming her.
In 2015, Cunningham quit his job at North Fort Worth Baptist after expressing that he was unable to abide by a church policy prohibiting unsupervised contact with youth.
Wood told the court that leadership at North Fort Worth Baptist Church said that they had reported Cunningham to the police and that law enforcement confronted Cunningham. However, no charges were brought against him.
Cunningham then moved to Lubbock, Texas, which is roughly 300 miles northwest of Fort Worth. While there, he took a job at Church on the Rock, a nondenominational church. No reports of abuse from his time there have been made public.
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In 2016, Cunningham joined the staff of Turning Point Community Church, another nondenominational church in Lubbock. He has now been accused of sexually assaulting a teenager in January 2017 and raping a different teenager in October 2018. In the second instance, he is accused of using his hands as a deadly weapon.