Welcome back to the Preach Boys podcast. If it's your first time listening, my name is Eric Skrzynski,

and as a former member of an independent Fundamental Baptist Church, I spent the last five years

shedding light on the dark side of the church, from the pulpits to the pews. Be sure to hit

the subscribe button on this channel and check out the other videos that I've done, including

interviews with authors, experts, and survivors who are exposing

abuse in fundamentalist religious groups. Today, I'm breaking down eight stories of criminal

activity connected to Baptist churches throughout May 2025. At the end of the episode, I'll be

sharing one story involving a new age leader of an ayahuasca church in Florida that directly

connects to one of my previous interviews.

This episode is obviously going to be heavy and contain a lot of information, but we need

to be honest about the sheer volume of these cases and discuss the commonality between them.

The reality is that when I share news stories and interview survivors on this show,

it's never about just one scandal.

It's about the patterns surrounding them. On May 1st, Casey Ashton Phillips, a former youth

group volunteer at Northwest Baptist Church in Gainesville, Florida, was charged with sexually

abusing a girl when she was just 14 or 15. The survivor came forward in January of 2025 and was able to get Phillips

to admit to the abuse through a series of Facebook messages. In these messages, he apologized

and said he took advantage of her. He's currently being held on bond and the case is ongoing.

And less than a week later, another arrest, this time in Raleigh, North Carolina.

On May 6, Aaron Bradley, a children's pastor at Living Hope Raleigh was arrested in charge with

possessing child sexual abuse material. Living Hope Raleigh is an English-speaking ministry

of First Korean Baptist Church of Raleigh. The church is affiliated with the Korean Southern

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