LE††UCE PREY
AKRON, Ohio — The Rev. Ernest W. Angley, a faith-healing Pentecostal televangelist who claimed a lifetime of personal visits from God, died Friday at age 99, according to an announcement on the website of his Cuyahoga Falls-based ministry.
The preacher rose over the decades from tent revivalist to running a world-wide ministry with his namesake from what would be a vast home base in suburban Akron. Delivering his sermons in his distinctive drawl, Angley was one of the most influential modern-day faith healers and televangelists, though not as flashy as some of his contemporaries.
“Pastor, evangelist and author Rev. Ernest Angley has gone to Heaven to be with his Lord and Master at 99,” a message posted on the Ernest Angley Ministries website read. “He touched multitudes of souls worldwide with the pure Word of God confirmed with signs, wonders, miracles and healings. He truly pleased God in all things.”
In 2014 the Beacon Journal ran an investigative series on Angley.
They claimed the church is a dangerous cult where pregnant women are encouraged to have abortions, childless men are encouraged to have vasectomies and Angley — who preached vehemently against the “sin” of homosexuality — was himself a gay man who personally examined the genitals of the male parishioners before and after their surgeries. They also said he turned a blind eye to sexual abuse by other members of his church.
Four years later, one of the people mentioned in the series, former Assistant Pastor Brock Miller, filed a lawsuit against Angley and the church, claiming that Angley had sexually abused him off and on for nine years. Miller said he finally quit his job in 2014 because he could no longer handle the abuse.
And in early 2019, a former church member gave the Beacon Journal a 1996 tape-recording of a telephone conversation in which Angley admitted to having sexual relations with a male employee. The person on the other end of the call, the Rev. Bill Davis, a former longtime Angley associate, confirmed the tape was genuine.
