David Wood: I committed statutory rape

There is a significant UPDATE to this story. By Abdul Masih —

In an age of Christian leaders getting exposed for sin, David Wood, who wins Muslims to Christ, exposed himself on his YouTube livestream Nov. 9 for committing statutory rape twice before he converted to Christ.

The incidents occurred when he was 18, after he was released on bond and before his trial for attempting to kill his father. The girls were 13 and 15. Wood was imprisoned for the attempted murder but (presumably) never investigated for the statutory rape, which he says were both cases in which the girls offered themselves to him.

It is chilling to see Wood appear unremorseful, as the Roys Report noted, though during the confession he was disarming and defying would-be online detractors As a polemicist with a doctoral degree who debates Muslim advocates, he has enemies, but now the detractor is a fellow Christian, Sam Shamoun, another extraordinary debater. The former friends are embroiled in a regrettable feud.

“I don’t care (if Shamoun exposes me),” Wood says defiantly. He then proceeds to give the ammunition that his detractors — Muslim promoters called “Dawah guys” — long to dig up.

“The last two girls I had sex with before I went to jail, one was 13 and one was 15,” he says. He smirks, probably not because he is unrepentant but in the context of disarming his opponents by providing the smut they would love to have dug up himself. He then proceeds to described the incidents graphically.

Wood has said he was diagnosed as a sociopath at the time he hit his father in the head with a hammer. He doesn’t tell the details of why he picked his father as the target of his wrath, but he tells that at the time he believed he was superior to normal human beings and not subject to their moral codes and wanted to show it by breaking as many rules as possible.

Sociopaths are unable to feel human emotion and empathy, which is why they commit crimes and manipulate people narcissistically. He says he reconciled with his father after trying to murder him.

Wood found God in prison. After he emerged from jail, he pursued a college education and witnessed to Nabeel Qureshi, who became one of the early prominent converts to Christ who debated Muslims. After that success, Wood went on to make it his career, earning a doctoral degree from Fordham University in 2013.

He has debated the likes of London-based Mohammed Hijab, a formidable advocate for Islam (IMHO, Hijab won). His channels on YouTube expose the shaky foundations of Islam and are responsible for winning untold thousands to Christ. He now condemns Islam’s condoning of underage sex.

“I don’t defend (what I did). I shouldn’t have done it. It doesn’t matter if a 13-year-old girl flings herself at you… You don’t do that sort of thing,” Wood said. “I’ve done all sorts of messed up stuff in my life.”

Wood’s confession comes at time when pastors all over the country are being exposed, many via the church watchdog Roys Report, which brought down Newsboys singer Michael Tait for unwanted homosexual advances on guys who were hopeful to make it into the Christian music scene.

Mega church Pastor Robert Morris recently removed himself from ministry after it came out that he molested an underage girl when he was youth pastor.

Questions emerge. Did Wood feel that his skeletons in his closet would be eventually revealed and that it was preferable to confess the sins of his youth himself?

Will the victims of his statutory rape come forward and press charges or do statutes of limitations cause them to expire? Will a chill wind blow across his ministry or will he be embraced by grace, given the fact he committed these crimes before becoming a Christian?

“This was my criminal life before I became a Christian,” Wood said.

Read the UPDATE to this story.