A Vancouver minister who said he was “divinely ordained to chastise children” is accused of physically abusing a 6-year-old child at church for “disrespectful behavior,” police said.
Gabriel Hardy, a 42-year-old minister at a church operating in a Hazel Dell neighborhood home, allegedly whipped the child with a belt repeatedly on Sunday, according to the Clark County Sheriff’s Office.
The alleged incident occurred when the child’s mother asked a friend to bring the child to church because she was unable to attend. Once there, the friend asked the minister — at the mother’s request — to talk to the child “about recent disrespectful behavior,” officials said in a press release.
After the child returned home from the Army of the Lord — Ministry of Defense church, the mother noticed bruising and welts across their lower back, hips and buttocks, police said.
She notified authorities Monday, who discovered that Hardy “openly preached about corporal punishment of young children and professed that he was divinely ordained to chastise children.”
Police searched Hardy’s home Thursday and found evidence of the alleged crime, officials said. Later that day, police said, he told detectives that he had struck the child with a belt. He was arrested and booked into the Clark County Jail on allegations of assault of a child.
Hardy was scheduled to appear in court Friday at 1:30 p.m. He could not be reached for comment.
©2025 Advance Local Media LLC. Visit oregonlive.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
