Editor’s note: This article contains sexually graphic descriptions some readers may find disturbing.
Megachurch Pastor John Gray has publicly apologized to his wife, Aventer, and thousands of followers for inappropriate relationships that almost ended his marriage and ministry, detailing his past sexual repression and childhood sexual abuse manipulated by demonic forces.
The couple says their marriage is in a better place thanks to God and therapy. And they are sharing their story as a testimony to help other couples who may be struggling.
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“I want to say to Aventer, I want to thank you for showing me what the love of Christ looks like because you loved a very unlovable man. And I want to tell you how very sorry I am for the pain I caused,” said Gray during a recent episode of Laterras R. Whitfield’s podcast “Dear Future Wifey,” recorded at Gray’s Love Story Church (formerly Relentless Church) in Greenville, South Carolina.
“I’ve never said this, but to the people who knew that God called me but saw the headlines of a failure and a failing and a brokenness that you didn’t know the origin of, for the people who were deeply disappointed, I want to say I’m sorry,” Gray added.
The nearly three-hour long episode of the podcast, which explores love, healing and faith, also featured husband and wife duo, actors KJ Smith and Skyh Black; rapper and record producer David Banner; evangelist Tiara Walton; venture capitalist Arian Simone; and Rick Applewhite, who shared insights on emotional resilience and mental health in relationships.
All the panelists shared powerful insights about the role of faith in their relationships. But it was Gray, who has been accused of having phone sex and sexting with multiple women over several years during his marriage to Aventer, whose narrative took center stage.
As he fended off some of the allegations in 2018, for example, Bishop T.D. Jakes, the founder of The Potter’s House in Dallas, Texas, publicly rebuked a spirit of suicide from him.
Months before that, he also admitted that voices, which his wife described as a “strange woman,” had lured him away from Aventer Gray, and they were on the brink of getting a divorce. Aventer Gray said she used Scripture on the strange woman.
She said during the podcast that she had asked God for permission to divorce her husband, but the Lord refused and she accepted God’s will.
“I decided to take inventory of myself and … asked God exactly what this was. And I asked Him for permission to leave. And He told me not to leave because He was going to do something that would save other marriages through what He’s doing here,” Aventer Gray said. “And I decided to take up the mantle and walk with it boldly. And I don’t care who cares or agrees or disagrees.”
In his heartfelt comments during the podcast, John Gray said his dysfunctional approach to marriage stemmed from sexual repression and childhood sexual abuse by two men.
“I was thrown away. I was spit on. I was maligned for the brokenness that was given to me on a grassy front yard at 4 years old when two men took my innocence. And that demon that entered me when they took my innocence sat dormant for years, waiting for me to get married to show up so I could fail,” he said. “And I’ve been in church my whole life. And everybody told me Jesus would fix it. Jesus would fix it. But there are some things the altar can’t do.”
Gray said he was raised as an only child by a Christian mother who couldn’t teach him about manhood. He recalled the trauma of having his first wet dream as a teenager and the advice his mother gave him.
“I had a wet dream, and I ran into my mother’s room crying because I didn’t know what had happened. And she said, ‘This is called a nocturnal emission.’… She said, ‘Go take a bath. Ask the Lord to forgive you and go back to sleep.'”
He said everything he learned about manhood he learned from a woman because all the men in his family had been failures before him, including his father.
“I’m not angry at my mother. She is only who she is because that’s what she was raised and taught. But what that tells me is that I didn’t do a bad thing. I am bad. So now I’m sexually repressed. That’s a teenager. We still haven’t unpacked the fact that I was spitting urine out of my mouth at 4 years old on a front lawn,” Gray said.
“And so a demon was introduced in [that] moment. And I don’t care what you believe; demons are assigned to families because some of you all have generations of people who have failed at the same thing, and then it comes to knock on your door. And I don’t know what your door is or what your demon is, but before you go sending me to Hell, you should probably check for the demons that’s knocking on your door.”
Gray, now 50, declared he was a virgin until he got married at 37, but engaged in “near sexual experiences,” including phone sex and masturbation, before then.
He explained that while some people might believe he wanted to hide his sins as they were being reported, he said he wanted it to become public with a distorted expectation that it would end his ministry.
“I was not blindsided by people going to blogs. I wanted it to happen because I was trying to die, and I was trying to be exed out, and I wanted her [Aventer] to leave because I never felt worthy of her,” Gray said, sharing that he constantly envisioned himself alone in a two-bedroom apartment with a brown table stacked with unpaid bills.
“Yep. No wife, no kids. And that’s how I thought my life would be for years. So the fact that she was there, she’s accomplished, she’s learned, and she loves the part of me that I hate; I didn’t trust her because how can you love me and I don’t love me.”
Gray also shared that though he now accepts his failures, he struggles with the lack of grace he experienced from the Church community. He said many Christians celebrate David of the Bible even though he was a “terrible husband and a terrible father.” He added that many of the popular preachers today have sinned much worse than he has but have silenced people with non-disclosure agreements.
“The truth is, if I ever start talking about what I know about your favorites, you won’t have any place to go. The reason why you know about whatever I walk through is because I ain’t paying nobody to be quiet for nothing. If I did it, you can tell the whole world. But some of your favorites make theirs sign NDAs. And I’m going to leave it right there. For them, it’s a business,'” Gray said.
Gray was also very upset about this comparison until he asked God about it, he said.
“I don’t mind getting hit from the front by demons. What I was not prepared for was the friendly fire from church folk. That’s why I fight for everybody. I have grace for everybody. I walk in backwards on people’s nakedness. That’s why you’ll never hear me talk about the things that I know. If God wants to expose them, He can,” Gray said.
“But this is what I learned. And maybe this is all I have to say. I was angry at God. I said, ‘God, there’s some dudes out here with whole families.’ And you all love them. Whole families. Why didn’t you expose them? God said, ‘When you go to the grocery store and see a kid that’s bad, do you whoop him?’ I said ‘No.’ He said, ‘Why?’ I said, ‘Cuz they not mine.’ He said, ‘Exactly.’
“God only corrects sons. If you’re not a son, He let you do what you want. But when you belong to Him, He will correct you. He will adjust you. He will whoop you because He’s not going to let you die not looking like Him. And until you get it right, He will whoop you until you look and conform to the image of the son,” Gray argued, noting that there are many preachers engaged in spiritual fraud.
“It’s a lot of preachers, but they not anointed, and they were never called, and they were never chosen. They’re just really articulate orators, but they are not called by God, and they don’t belong to God. That’s why the Scripture says they going to get up to Heaven, and He’s going to say, ‘Depart from me because I never even knew you.’ It’s called credit card fraud,” he said.
“There are preachers who swipe His name but didn’t get permission from the owner of the card. And even though the transaction went through and church was nice and folk got saved, the preacher never knew God. So you can swipe the card, and God still saves them while a preacher goes to Hell.”
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