Wife of Harvest Church International Pastor Says He's Mentally Unstable, He Accuses Her of Adultery
NEW YORK — Bishop Michael E. Turpin, senior pastor of Harvest Church International in Jamaica, New York, who also serves on the executive board of the Pilgrim Assemblies International Inc., claims his wife, Janelka, has been involved in an adulterous affair with one of his spiritual "sons" after she allegedly had him arrested and institutionalized briefly at a mental hospital.
Neither officials from Harvest Church International or Pilgrim Assemblies International, Inc. immediately responded to requests for comment on the public dispute between the pastor and his wife on Tuesday.
In her only public comment on the situation on Friday, Janelka said in a Facebook post that she has been struggling to help her husband for a while.
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"You are now seeing what I have gone through privately for years now publicly. I have spoken to those I believe that can help my husband. I have been seeking help for a while now and the system has failed me. Please I can't answer every call. Please pray for me and my children. This is not a game or a show!!" the mother of five wrote.
The couple, who have been married since 2002, have been in ministry together since April 2005.
In a video recorded on Oct. 3, and posted on YouTube on Saturday, Pastor Turpin accused his wife of having an affair with a spiritual son he named as Michael Young.
"Michael Young, you are going down. My wife is having an adulterous affair with my agitant, former son, Michael Young, who is the husband of Alika Thompson Young (phonetic spelling)," Turpin said.
The senior pastor who admits to taking Adderall and seeing a psychiatrist, insisted that he's mentally sound and has been struggling with his wife's infidelity for a while now.
"What's wrong with me? Nothing is wrong with me," Turpin declared in the video. "I've gone through hell and back. Nothing is wrong with me. I am mentally sound. I have my faculties."
Turpin alleges that his wife fabricated a story of physical abuse about him and reported him to the police.
"If I hit her, if I beat her, where are the pictures? Show the pictures," he said while speaking in tongues in parts of the video.
"If you can have your husband committed to a psychiatric institute and you know you lying. You can have your husband arrested to protect your lies, while you submit yourself to another man's spirit. I took care of you for all these years," he said, directing comments at his wife while driving in the video.
He explained that the same day he made the video, he also visited his psychiatrist. He also noted that he had been under a lot of stress since the death of Pilgrim Assemblies International, Inc., founder Archbishop Roy E. Brown, who died in June.
He suggested that if his wife truly cared about him she would have tried to protect his image publicly instead of having him committed and arrested.
While Turpin's wife has remained relatively quiet on social media, he has made multiple posts on Facebook decrying her decision to publicly paint him as mentally unbalanced.
"She has continued to defame me. If my wife says that I am crazy then you will believe her. What will that do to the Gospel? If I am crazy that calls into question everything I say and do. If my sanity is called into question like it was this week. What will that do to my ministry?" he asked on Monday.
"If a prophet has mental illness can he be trusted as the voice of God? All of my actions will be called into question. You will see mental illness in everything I do and say. I will no longer be effective because I have been declared crazy by the only person who is with me when I am not preaching. You will never respect a prophetic voice [if] you think it's coming from a crazy man," he added.
