Eric Tuininga, 44, of Milledgeville, Georgia, pleaded guilty to engaging in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places before Chief U.S. District Judge Marc T. Treadwell. Upon entry of his guilty plea, Tuininga was taken into custody pending his sentencing. Tuininga faces a maximum 30 years in prison to be followed by a term of supervised release up to life and a maximum $250,000 fine.

MACON, Ga. – A former pastor from Georgia who was conducting missionary work in Uganda when he sexually assaulted a girl under the care of his church has pleaded guilty to his crime in federal court today [2/2/22].
Eric Tuininga, 44, of Milledgeville, Georgia, pleaded guilty to engaging in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places before Chief U.S. District Judge Marc T. Treadwell. Upon entry of his guilty plea, Tuininga was taken into custody pending his sentencing. Tuininga faces a maximum 30 years in prison to be followed by a term of supervised release up to life and a maximum $250,000 fine. In addition, Tuininga will have to register as a sex offender upon his release from federal prison. There is no parole in the federal system. Sentencing has been scheduled for May 3, 2022.
“Eric Tuininga used his trusted position as a pastor to sexually assault a young Ugandan girl in his care. This was a challenging case, but law enforcement worked diligently to ensure that Tuininga did not escape justice for his crime overseas,” said U.S. Attorney Peter D. Leary. “The U.S. Attorney’s Office, along with our national and international law enforcement partners, will do everything in our power to catch child predators and hold them accountable for their crimes.”
“Tuininga was supposed to be someone that could be trusted, but instead he abused that trust and victimized a child,” said Special Agent in Charge Katrina W. Berger, who oversees Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) operations in Georgia and Alabama. “HSI and its law enforcement partners will continue to utilize every resource available to identify, arrest and prosecute those who prey upon children.”
According to court documents, a U.S. citizen affiliated with the U.S.-based Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) operating in Mbale, Uganda, contacted U.S. Embassy Kampala American Citizen Services (ACS) in June 2019, to report that Tuininga, who was working as one of the group’s ministers, was having sex with Ugandan female minors as young as 14-years-old who were under the care of the organization. U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Diplomatic Security (DSS) agents in Kampala, Uganda, opened an investigation into the allegations. Finding Tuininga had already returned to his home in the Middle District of Georgia, the Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Child Exploitation Unit, Atlanta, continued the investigation.
Federal agents identified a Ugandan minor who was 14-years-old in March 2019 when Tuininga had sex with her as he was working as a pastor with the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC). Tuininga now admits that he came to know the victim in his capacity as a religious leader and that the victim would often visit the OPC church, including a religious compound, overseen by Tuininga. Tuininga also now admits that he engaged in illicit sexual conduct with the child.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse, launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the DOJ’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children, as well as identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.
The case was investigated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, HSI-Child Exploitation Unit with special assistance from U.S. Department of State, DSS agents in Kampala, Uganda.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Alex Kalim and Katelyn Semales are prosecuting the case.
Source

Errors are only compelling to the degree that they contain some vital truth, now heavily distorted. The truth is that both extemporaneity and some form of intense spiritual experience are part of true, living Christianity. The problem is when the experience of intensity is sought for its own sake, and when the method of extemporaneity becomes a tool to manipulate the Spirit.

A polarised debate goes on between different stripes of Christians over the place of experience in Christianity. One side asserts that experiential faith (what the Puritans used to call “experimental religion”) is fundamental to a living, supernaturally-empowered relationship with Christ. The other side asserts that experiential religion is of passing interest, for spiritual experiences range from the genuinely God-given to the wildly false and even demonic, and vary widely among different personality-types. Ultimately, say these Christians, what matters is allegiance to truth, both in belief and behaviour.
In moments of clarity, we agree with both sides, because we are aware of what each side is against: dead formalism (“a straight as a gun barrel theologically, and as empty as one spiritually”, said one) and untethered spiritual adventures (“glandular religion”, as coined by another). Pentecostalism’s strongest selling point has been the supposed vividness of its promised supernatural experiences, both in corporate and private worship. The idea of direct revelation, ecstatic utterances, and marvellous deliverances present a kind of Christianity that appears enviably immediate, sensorily overpowering, and almost irrefutably persuasive. Particularly for Christians coming from a religious background of set forms, liturgical routines, and even unregenerate leadership, the contrast appears to be one of old and false versus new and true.
Sadly, many true believers within Pentecostalism find out within a short space that the promise of overwhelming spiritual experiences begins to lack lustre after a time, and the corporate worship in pursuit of spontaneous spiritual highs can become as tedious and predictable as a service read verbatim from a prayer book. Pentecostalism’s pursuit of intensity and spontaneity in worship turns out to be an idol that both cheats and forsakes its worshippers.
Deeply embedded in the Pentecostal psyche is the idea that the Spirit of God is wedded to spontaneity and freedom of form. It is the very “openness” to His movements, unrestricted by an order of service or set forms of prayer, that supposedly invites His unpredictable arrival, manifested in intense, even ecstatic, spiritual experience. Being spontaneous and extemporaneous demonstrates “openness” and “receptivity”, whereas insisting upon our own forms quenches what the Spirit may wish to do.
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Sin is the reason the horrors of sickness exist. This truth does not mean that if someone is sick, it is because of some specific sin in their life, but when Adam fell, all manner of distress was unleashed upon this world—even death. But for those of us whose sins are forgiven, even if disease takes our life, we will one day be healed when these mortal bodies are raised immortal. In heaven, where there is no sin, there will also be no sickness.

If a Christian is facing an illness that will not go away and needs encouragement, the Lord healing the paralytic who was lowered through the roof in Mark 2:1-12 can touch our deepest wounds but not in the way many might think. When the man who could not move of his own volition was lowered to Jesus in the crowded room, Jesus did not immediately heal him. Instead, he forgave his sins. The forgiveness of sins is where we find our ultimate reassurance. Only later, when the Pharisees complained that Jesus did not have the power to forgive sins, did he heal the man. The healing was secondary and served the express purpose of letting everyone know he had the power to blot out our transgressions.
We need the forgiveness of sin much more than we need physical healing. When we think of the horrible diseases that wreak havoc on our bodies and the lives of those we love, such as cancer, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and many others, we know the devastation they can unleash. The Christian does not make light of the horrors of disease to make sin seem worse. Instead, we look at infirmity with all its bodily indignity and pain and then remember that sin is even more devastating because it destroys our souls. Considering the horrors of illness while understanding that sin is worse only sheds light on how much we desperately need forgiveness.
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