The Rev. Arthur Allen’s name still hangs on the shingle outside the House of Prayer, the embattled church Allen founded.
The church is within walking distance from the burned apartment where Allen died Monday. Several men and women of various ages were milling around the property. A woman standing in the driveway of the multi-level tenement-style dwelling in the 1100 block of Lookout Avenue, said no media interviews would be given.
Allen was thrust into the national media in 2001 for paddling children in his church and defying anyone to try and stop him. He ultimately served time in prison for cruelty to children.
A fire that engulfed part of the multi-family residence in northwest Atlanta where he lived is being investigated by Atlanta fire officials. As of Tuesday morning, Allen’s body was still at the Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office, and an exam was underway.
Allen came under fire after two boys went to school with welts and bruises. Social workers took the boys from their parents and soon seized 47 other House of Prayer children and put them in foster care and group homes. Police arrested Allen and other church members.
Within a week, he went from being the pastor of a tiny, nondenominational church in a poor part of Atlanta to a controversial figure in the national news. He appeared in People magazine, on Dateline NBC, and on the Sally Jesse Raphael show.
Allen served two years in prison before his release in 2005. Prior to his incarceration, he was on the run for five months before he was caught in Cobb County in August 2003.
And corporal punishment wasn’t the only controversial stand he took. Allen also advocated marriage for 14-year-old girls to protect them from becoming unwed mothers, living in sin and going on welfare.
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