How the Chi Alpha college ministry failed to stop a sex offender from abusing students in Texas

Daniel Savala urged generations of Chi Alpha students to get naked in his Houston sauna. Now some say the Assemblies of God campus ministry didn’t do enough to stop him from abusing children.

This article is part of “Pastors and Prey,” a series investigating sex abuse allegations in the Assemblies of God.

HOUSTON — Daniel Savala leans back in a cloth armchair, raises his right hand and swears before God that what he’s about to say is the truth.

Looking into the camera, the Pentecostal missionary speaks in slow, measured sentences, describing how, for decades, he gained the trust of college students who came to his ivy-draped bungalow in search of spiritual guidance. Using scripture, he convinced them they could open up about uncomfortable topics like pornography and masturbation. Then he would strike, touching their penises and pressuring them to touch his, all under the guise of bringing them closer to Jesus.

“I knew that I was wrong,” Savala says in the video, filmed by a lawyer in 2023. “But I did it anyway.”

In a video recorded in April 2023, Daniel Savala said he used religion as "a cover" to sexually exploit students.Obtained by NBC NewsReligion, he says, was the tool of his deception. “People can just see that spiritual part of your life without seeing the whole of who you are.”