Some former members believe Angley has an ulterior motive in trying to prevent his parishioners from having children. Among them is Greg Mulkey of Barberton….“He doesn’t want people to have kids because it would take their time and money away from [the church],” he said.  “He really forced people into abortions through scare tactics, as if he were a medical doctor. It turns my stomach.” Mulkey says vasectomies were force-fed as well.

Depending whom you ask, one of two things is happening at the big Cuyahoga Falls church run by legendary television evangelist Ernest Angley:

•  The devil himself has infiltrated the church, and Angley, who is a prophet of God, has been working tirelessly to fight him off.
•  Angley’s church is a dangerous cult where pregnant women are encouraged to have abortions, childless men are encouraged to have vasectomies and Angley — who preaches vehemently against the “sin” of homosexuality — is himself a gay man who personally examines the genitals of the male parishioners before and after their surgeries. They also say he turns a blind eye to sexual abuse by other members of his church.

During the past few months, a tear has ripped through the 3,000-seat auditorium known as Grace Cathedral. One longtime associate pastor resigned, telling friends and family he felt he had been inappropriately touched by Angley for seven years.

The dispute exploded on July 13, when Angley and two others in his camp addressed the situation in a 2½-hour open service. The service was recorded by one of the attendees and shared with the Beacon Journal.

In response to swirling accusations that he is a homosexual who has abused both his associates and members of the congregation, Angley, 93, had this to say to a large Sunday gathering.

“I’m not a homosexual. God wouldn’t use a homosexual like he uses me. He calls me his prophet, and indeed I am. …

“They called Jesus a homosexual, did you know that? And still do. Because he was with men. Oh, Mary Magdalene and a few women. But you can’t stop the people’s lies.”

Then he addressed his history of urging the males in his congregation to submit to vasectomies.

“I’ve helped so many of the boys down through the years,” he said in his slow, singsong cadence. “They had their misgivings. Sure, I’d have them uncover themselves, but I did not handle them at all.

“And I would tell them how that would work. And they’d have to watch it. I’d have some of them come back to me that I felt needed to. And I would tell them, I would look at them, their privates — I, so I could tell how they were swelling.

“One young man, he decided to put in a garden [doctors advise against physical exertion after a vasectomy]. And he’d like to died. If he’d just told me — ask me. …

“Another one was constipated. It was awful. And he was just dying deaths.

“And another one, one of his testicles fell out, absolutely fell out. ‘It’s dangerous, you should have a nurse.’ But I knew they wouldn’t get one.

“And men’s — I was a farm boy. We thought nothing about undressing. We didn’t know about homosexuals. We talked about women.

“And some of these turned against me.”

They certainly did. In droves.

Many speak out

The Beacon Journal spoke individually with 21 former members of the church who insist that Angley has been running a cult, not a church, and say he consistently threatens and intimidates his flock into following his instructions, bullying them into life-changing decisions that often split up families.

These folks say Angley controls virtually every aspect of their lives, from deciding what they read and watch on TV to whom they will marry and when. The sheer amount of time they are urged to spend at the church — three- to five-hour services, multiple times per week, plus a host of other activities — enables him to limit outside interference, they say.

Angley and other top church officials say the wave of members who left the church this summer was part of a conspiracy to take control of the ministry, and that the former members are “lying” about virtually everything.

But a parade of ex-members — some who departed 25 years ago, some who departed only a few months ago — scoff at those assertions.

“This man is a monster,” said Pam Cable of Akron, who left the church in 1988. “He’s a monster. And I can’t understand why all these years have gone by and nobody’s ever really been able to do anything about him.

“The people in Akron, Ohio, have a Jim Jones sitting in their backyard. … These people in his congregation would drink the Kool-Aid if he told them to. They would.”

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