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Former Minnesota Pastor Charged with Sexual Misconduct Against 2 Parishioners

By Sarah Einselen
bruce konold
Bruce Konold, former lead pastor of Eagan Hills Church in Eagan, Minnesota. (Photo via Facebook)

The longtime pastor of a Minnesota church retired in February. Now, he’s charged with criminal sexual conduct against two women in his former church, a criminal complaint shows.

Bruce Douglas Konold pastored Eagan Hills Church, a Christian & Missionary Alliance (C&MA) congregation in the Twin Cities area, from 1997 until this past February. Authorities allege in the criminal complaint, first reported by the St. Paul Pioneer-Press, that Konold had numerous sexual encounters with two congregants.

Konold’s attorney, Kevin DeVore, didn’t immediately respond when The Roys Report reached out. He told local TV station KSTP that he intends to fight the charges “vigorously.”

An attorney speaking on the church’s behalf said Eagan Hills Church condemns abuse and is cooperating with the authorities.

Criminal complaint details job offers, pressure for sex

One of the alleged victims told police that Konold offered her a job as his personal assistant, the complaint states. Then, Konold reportedly started pushing the woman to have sex with him—and begging her not to tell his elders.

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Police allege in the complaint that Konold manipulated the woman into sex by threatening suicide when she rejected him. He also told her “she was selfish because he had been meeting her emotional needs, but she was refusing to meet his needs,” police state in the complaint.

The complaint states Konold fondled the woman in June 2020 and had sex with her in November that year. He promised to leave her alone after that, according to the complaint.

But police allege Konold went on to have numerous sexual encounters with the woman, while simultaneously providing spiritual counseling to her.

In the complaint, police quote Konold as saying the church shouldn’t keep supporting the woman’s ministry work because “it was not right that they continue to support an adulteress.”

eagan hills church konold
Eagan Hills Church in Eagan, MN (Courtesy Photo)

Another woman told police she was in college when she began seeing Konold for spiritual counseling, according to the complaint. Police say Konold told the college student he knew she needed a father figure and offered to fill that role. Then the next month, police say, Konold gave alcohol to the college student, groped her, and tried to remove her clothes. She was not legally old enough to drink, the complaint states.

Authorities allege in the complaint that Konold started sending the college student sexually explicit messages after that, and got her a job at the church.  Police say he had sexual encounters with the college student from May through December 2021.

Konold also started telling the student “that if she ever came forward about what was happening, that it would be because she hated him or wanted to destroy him,” the complaint states. Police also allege in the complaint that Konold began “regularly harassing” the college student after she spoke to law enforcement.

Konold told police that his interactions with the student were “adulterous,” according to the complaint.

Any sexualized behavior that happens in a church context where one person has more power than the other is abuse, according to experts in clergy sexual abuse. In Minnesota, clergy are prohibited from having sexual contact with people they are counseling.

The complaint shows Konold is charged with a dozen counts of criminal sexual conduct and one count of harassment.

Ten of those counts are third-degree felonies, each punishable by up to 15 years in prison and up to $30,000 in fines. KSTP reports Konold is scheduled for a court hearing on October 26.

Accused had been in ministry for decades

An attorney for Eagan Hills Church, Eric Nystrom, told TRR that Konold resigned and retired from ministry in February. The allegations against him came to light in March, Nystrom said.

“Leadership continues to fully cooperate with the legal authorities, and we are doing all we can to support those negatively impacted,” Nystrom wrote in an email. “It is our commitment to provide a safe environment for this community, providing extensive specialized training for paid and volunteer leaders, rewriting policies and procedures, and establishing layers of accountability where abuse cannot happen.

“Eagan Hills Alliance Church strongly condemns abuse and harassment of any kind, and we consider such a violation of trust to be a very serious issue.”

The church is also hosting an all-church training next month presented by leading victim advocacy group Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment (GRACE). Nystrom didn’t answer whether the four-hour training was scheduled before or after the church found out about the allegations against its former pastor.

Konold had been a pastor since at least 1992, when he was sent out as a church planter from the Southern Baptist church where he was assistant pastor at the time. A couple years later, his church plant merged with another church plant linked to Willow Creek Community Church, an archived history of Eagan Hills Church states.

Both the Southern Baptist Convention and Willow Creek Community Church have since been embroiled in scandals involving clergy sexual abuse.

Konold pastored the merged church for a few years before another merger with a local C&MA church in 1997. The church that formed from that merger, Eagan Hills Church, stayed in the C&MA and dropped its Southern Baptist affiliation.

The C&MA, too, has faced criticism for how it handled reports of abuse by disgraced apologist Ravi Zacharias, who was ordained in the denomination until after his death. An investigation released by Ravi Zacharias International Ministries acknowledged Zacharias had raped at least one woman and sexually molested several others, TRR reported last year.

Konold’s PhD thesis for The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary states he also taught for 12 years as an adjunct at Crown College, a C&MA university in the Twin Cities area. He isn’t in Crown’s current academic catalog but was listed among adjunct faculty in the 2021-2022 academic catalog.

An earlier version of this article misstated the number of sexual encounters police accuse Konold of having with one of the alleged victims. The article has been updated and we regret the error.

Sarah Einselen is an award-winning writer and editor based in Texas.

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5 Responses

  1. Why wasn’t the congregation of this church able to discern this pastor’s behavior? Weren’t they listening to the Holy Spirit? A prayerful spiritual community would certainly have heard clearly from the Lord about this so called pastor.

    1. I disagree. These abusers are really, really good at grooming their victims AND the people around them (in this case the congregation). Jimmy Hinton’s father was a beloved father and pastor while molesting children. Please read his blog for more info outlining this grooming behavior.

      1. The Holy Spirit is fully capable to speak to anyone willing to take the time and energy to listen. Few rarely do, and if they break the cycle and hear something nobody believes them. This is the way that it works.

    2. I’m not sure you’ll see this answer, Barney, or if you even wanted an actual answer to your questions. But as a member of the congregation who wasn’t able to discern Bruce’s behavior, I wish I could help you see your utter lack of compassion and urge you to reconsider your attitude towards those who are affected — actually, utterly devastated would be a better description — by clergy abuse. (Or any abuse, for that matter.)

      If we’d met face-to-face, perhaps at a prayer conference, and you’d realized who my pastor had been, would you have asked me these same questions?!? Or did you feel comfortable, did you feel right, in asking them only because you forgot that this community that you believe to be neither prayerful nor spiritual is actually composed of hundreds of your brothers and sisters in Christ who are wise and loving and humble and and and…

      We are heartbroken. We are so confused as to how this could have happened right under our noses. We are learning what we can do differently in the future. But we are still heartbroken. And you are not helping, Barney.

      (Sandra, thanks for making me aware of Jimmy Hinton’s blog!)

  2. After reading so many reports about clergy abuse, the conclusion I have come to is that these men over time cease to believe in the Bible and what they preach on Sundays. This is how they are able to allow themselves to abuse others – if they really belived in God and in the Bible, there is no way they would abuse others.

    The problem many Pastors face is that once they no longer believe in the Bible, they are stuck in their position – what else would they do to make a living? So many continue to serve as a Pastor and earn a living this way even though they are no longer believers. This is similiar to many sales people who don’t believe in the product they are selling but continue to do so because they need the income to support themselves. They say the right things and project the right image so that they can continue to make a living as a Pastor.

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