Guest Bios Show Transcript /*! elementor - v3.17.0 - 25-10-2023 */ .elementor-widget-video .elementor-widget-container{overflow:hidden;transform:translateZ(0)}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper{aspect-ratio:var(--video-aspect-ratio)}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper iframe,.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper video{height:100%;width:100%;display:flex;border:none;background-color:#000}@supports not (aspect-ratio:1/1){.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper{position:relative;overflow:hidden;height:0;padding-bottom:calc(100% / var(--video-aspect-ratio))}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper iframe,.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper video{position:absolute;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;left:0}}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-open-inline .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay{position:absolute;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;left:0;background-size:cover;background-position:50%}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay{cursor:pointer;text-align:center}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay:hover .elementor-custom-embed-play i{opacity:1}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay img{display:block;width:100%;aspect-ratio:var(--video-aspect-ratio);-o-object-fit:cover;object-fit:cover;-o-object-position:center center;object-position:center center}@supports not (aspect-ratio:1/1){.elementor-widget-video .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay{position:relative;overflow:hidden;height:0;padding-bottom:calc(100% / var(--video-aspect-ratio))}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay img{position:absolute;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;left:0}}.elementor-widget-video .e-hosted-video .elementor-video{-o-object-fit:cover;object-fit:cover}.e-con-inner.elementor-widget-video,.e-con.elementor-widget-video{width:var(--container-widget-width);--flex-grow:var(--container-widget-flex-grow)} /*! elementor - v3.17.0 - 25-10-2023 */ .elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-stacked .elementor-drop-cap{background-color:#69727d;color:#fff}.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-framed .elementor-drop-cap{color:#69727d;border:3px solid;background-color:transparent}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap{margin-top:8px}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap-letter{width:1em;height:1em}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap{float:left;text-align:center;line-height:1;font-size:50px}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap-letter{display:inline-block} As a Christian in Iran, Naghmeh Panahi was arrested numerous times—and once even had a gun pointed at her head.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript /*! elementor - v3.17.0 - 25-10-2023 */ .elementor-widget-video .elementor-widget-container{overflow:hidden;transform:translateZ(0)}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper{aspect-ratio:var(--video-aspect-ratio)}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper iframe,.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper video{height:100%;width:100%;display:flex;border:none;background-color:#000}@supports not (aspect-ratio:1/1){.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper{position:relative;overflow:hidden;height:0;padding-bottom:calc(100% / var(--video-aspect-ratio))}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper iframe,.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper video{position:absolute;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;left:0}}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-open-inline .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay{position:absolute;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;left:0;background-size:cover;background-position:50%}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay{cursor:pointer;text-align:center}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay:hover .elementor-custom-embed-play i{opacity:1}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay img{display:block;width:100%;aspect-ratio:var(--video-aspect-ratio);-o-object-fit:cover;object-fit:cover;-o-object-position:center center;object-position:center center}@supports not (aspect-ratio:1/1){.elementor-widget-video .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay{position:relative;overflow:hidden;height:0;padding-bottom:calc(100% / var(--video-aspect-ratio))}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay img{position:absolute;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;left:0}}.elementor-widget-video .e-hosted-video .elementor-video{-o-object-fit:cover;object-fit:cover}.e-con-inner.elementor-widget-video,.e-con.elementor-widget-video{width:var(--container-widget-width);--flex-grow:var(--container-widget-flex-grow)} /*! elementor - v3.17.0 - 25-10-2023 */ .elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-stacked .elementor-drop-cap{background-color:#69727d;color:#fff}.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-framed .elementor-drop-cap{color:#69727d;border:3px solid;background-color:transparent}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap{margin-top:8px}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap-letter{width:1em;height:1em}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap{float:left;text-align:center;line-height:1;font-size:50px}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap-letter{display:inline-block} Why can’t people get over talking about race?  

Guest Bios Show Transcript /*! elementor - v3.17.0 - 25-10-2023 */ .elementor-widget-video .elementor-widget-container{overflow:hidden;transform:translateZ(0)}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper{aspect-ratio:var(--video-aspect-ratio)}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper iframe,.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper video{height:100%;width:100%;display:flex;border:none;background-color:#000}@supports not (aspect-ratio:1/1){.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper{position:relative;overflow:hidden;height:0;padding-bottom:calc(100% / var(--video-aspect-ratio))}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper iframe,.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper video{position:absolute;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;left:0}}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-open-inline .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay{position:absolute;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;left:0;background-size:cover;background-position:50%}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay{cursor:pointer;text-align:center}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay:hover .elementor-custom-embed-play i{opacity:1}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay img{display:block;width:100%;aspect-ratio:var(--video-aspect-ratio);-o-object-fit:cover;object-fit:cover;-o-object-position:center center;object-position:center center}@supports not (aspect-ratio:1/1){.elementor-widget-video .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay{position:relative;overflow:hidden;height:0;padding-bottom:calc(100% / var(--video-aspect-ratio))}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay img{position:absolute;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;left:0}}.elementor-widget-video .e-hosted-video .elementor-video{-o-object-fit:cover;object-fit:cover}.e-con-inner.elementor-widget-video,.e-con.elementor-widget-video{width:var(--container-widget-width);--flex-grow:var(--container-widget-flex-grow)} /*! elementor - v3.17.0 - 25-10-2023 */ .elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-stacked .elementor-drop-cap{background-color:#69727d;color:#fff}.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-framed .elementor-drop-cap{color:#69727d;border:3px solid;background-color:transparent}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap{margin-top:8px}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap-letter{width:1em;height:1em}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap{float:left;text-align:center;line-height:1;font-size:50px}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap-letter{display:inline-block} Men need sex.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript /*! elementor - v3.17.0 - 25-10-2023 */ .elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-stacked .elementor-drop-cap{background-color:#69727d;color:#fff}.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-framed .elementor-drop-cap{color:#69727d;border:3px solid;background-color:transparent}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap{margin-top:8px}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap-letter{width:1em;height:1em}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap{float:left;text-align:center;line-height:1;font-size:50px}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap-letter{display:inline-block} America is experiencing the largest and fastest religious shift in its history—greater than the First and the Second Great Awakening and every revival in the U.S. combined. But instead of a massive shift into the church, what we’re seeing is a mass exodus. In this edition of The Roys Report, you’ll hear from Michael Graham, co-author of The Great DeChurching: Who’s Leaving, Why Are They Going, and What Will It Take to Bring Them Back.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript /*! elementor - v3.17.0 - 25-10-2023 */ .elementor-widget-video .elementor-widget-container{overflow:hidden;transform:translateZ(0)}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper{aspect-ratio:var(--video-aspect-ratio)}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper iframe,.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper video{height:100%;width:100%;display:flex;border:none;background-color:#000}@supports not (aspect-ratio:1/1){.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper{position:relative;overflow:hidden;height:0;padding-bottom:calc(100% / var(--video-aspect-ratio))}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper iframe,.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper video{position:absolute;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;left:0}}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-open-inline .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay{position:absolute;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;left:0;background-size:cover;background-position:50%}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay{cursor:pointer;text-align:center}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay:hover .elementor-custom-embed-play i{opacity:1}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay img{display:block;width:100%;aspect-ratio:var(--video-aspect-ratio);-o-object-fit:cover;object-fit:cover;-o-object-position:center center;object-position:center center}@supports not (aspect-ratio:1/1){.elementor-widget-video .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay{position:relative;overflow:hidden;height:0;padding-bottom:calc(100% / var(--video-aspect-ratio))}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay img{position:absolute;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;left:0}}.elementor-widget-video .e-hosted-video .elementor-video{-o-object-fit:cover;object-fit:cover}.e-con-inner.elementor-widget-video,.e-con.elementor-widget-video{width:var(--container-widget-width);--flex-grow:var(--container-widget-flex-grow)} /*! elementor - v3.17.0 - 25-10-2023 */ .elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-stacked .elementor-drop-cap{background-color:#69727d;color:#fff}.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-framed .elementor-drop-cap{color:#69727d;border:3px solid;background-color:transparent}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap{margin-top:8px}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap-letter{width:1em;height:1em}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap{float:left;text-align:center;line-height:1;font-size:50px}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap-letter{display:inline-block} Why is church after church succumbing to corruption and false doctrine?  

Guest Bios Show Transcript /*! elementor - v3.17.0 - 25-10-2023 */ .elementor-widget-video .elementor-widget-container{overflow:hidden;transform:translateZ(0)}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper{aspect-ratio:var(--video-aspect-ratio)}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper iframe,.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper video{height:100%;width:100%;display:flex;border:none;background-color:#000}@supports not (aspect-ratio:1/1){.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper{position:relative;overflow:hidden;height:0;padding-bottom:calc(100% / var(--video-aspect-ratio))}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper iframe,.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper video{position:absolute;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;left:0}}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-open-inline .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay{position:absolute;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;left:0;background-size:cover;background-position:50%}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay{cursor:pointer;text-align:center}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay:hover .elementor-custom-embed-play i{opacity:1}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay img{display:block;width:100%;aspect-ratio:var(--video-aspect-ratio);-o-object-fit:cover;object-fit:cover;-o-object-position:center center;object-position:center center}@supports not (aspect-ratio:1/1){.elementor-widget-video .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay{position:relative;overflow:hidden;height:0;padding-bottom:calc(100% / var(--video-aspect-ratio))}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay img{position:absolute;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;left:0}}.elementor-widget-video .e-hosted-video .elementor-video{-o-object-fit:cover;object-fit:cover}.e-con-inner.elementor-widget-video,.e-con.elementor-widget-video{width:var(--container-widget-width);--flex-grow:var(--container-widget-flex-grow)} /*! elementor - v3.17.0 - 25-10-2023 */ .elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-stacked .elementor-drop-cap{background-color:#69727d;color:#fff}.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-framed .elementor-drop-cap{color:#69727d;border:3px solid;background-color:transparent}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap{margin-top:8px}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap-letter{width:1em;height:1em}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap{float:left;text-align:center;line-height:1;font-size:50px}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap-letter{display:inline-block} When faced with a scandal, organizations have a choice.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript /*! elementor - v3.17.0 - 25-10-2023 */ .elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-stacked .elementor-drop-cap{background-color:#69727d;color:#fff}.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-framed .elementor-drop-cap{color:#69727d;border:3px solid;background-color:transparent}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap{margin-top:8px}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap-letter{width:1em;height:1em}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap{float:left;text-align:center;line-height:1;font-size:50px}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap-letter{display:inline-block} How did loving your enemies—a command of Jesus—suddenly become a sign that you’re “woke”? And why is “owning the libs” now the answer to “What would Jesus do?”  On this edition of The Roys Report, bestselling author and journalist Tim Alberta joins host Julie Roys to explore a disturbing phenomenon in American evangelicalism.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript /*! elementor - v3.17.0 - 25-10-2023 */ .elementor-widget-video .elementor-widget-container{overflow:hidden;transform:translateZ(0)}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper{aspect-ratio:var(--video-aspect-ratio)}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper iframe,.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper video{height:100%;width:100%;display:flex;border:none;background-color:#000}@supports not (aspect-ratio:1/1){.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper{position:relative;overflow:hidden;height:0;padding-bottom:calc(100% / var(--video-aspect-ratio))}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper iframe,.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper video{position:absolute;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;left:0}}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-open-inline .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay{position:absolute;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;left:0;background-size:cover;background-position:50%}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay{cursor:pointer;text-align:center}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay:hover .elementor-custom-embed-play i{opacity:1}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay img{display:block;width:100%;aspect-ratio:var(--video-aspect-ratio);-o-object-fit:cover;object-fit:cover;-o-object-position:center center;object-position:center center}@supports not (aspect-ratio:1/1){.elementor-widget-video .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay{position:relative;overflow:hidden;height:0;padding-bottom:calc(100% / var(--video-aspect-ratio))}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay img{position:absolute;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;left:0}}.elementor-widget-video .e-hosted-video .elementor-video{-o-object-fit:cover;object-fit:cover}.e-con-inner.elementor-widget-video,.e-con.elementor-widget-video{width:var(--container-widget-width);--flex-grow:var(--container-widget-flex-grow)} /*! elementor - v3.17.0 - 25-10-2023 */ .elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-stacked .elementor-drop-cap{background-color:#69727d;color:#fff}.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-framed .elementor-drop-cap{color:#69727d;border:3px solid;background-color:transparent}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap{margin-top:8px}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap-letter{width:1em;height:1em}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap{float:left;text-align:center;line-height:1;font-size:50px}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap-letter{display:inline-block} Exposing abuse and corruption can be a thankless job.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript /*! elementor - v3.17.0 - 25-10-2023 */ .elementor-widget-video .elementor-widget-container{overflow:hidden;transform:translateZ(0)}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper{aspect-ratio:var(--video-aspect-ratio)}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper iframe,.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper video{height:100%;width:100%;display:flex;border:none;background-color:#000}@supports not (aspect-ratio:1/1){.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper{position:relative;overflow:hidden;height:0;padding-bottom:calc(100% / var(--video-aspect-ratio))}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper iframe,.elementor-widget-video .elementor-wrapper video{position:absolute;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;left:0}}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-open-inline .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay{position:absolute;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;left:0;background-size:cover;background-position:50%}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay{cursor:pointer;text-align:center}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay:hover .elementor-custom-embed-play i{opacity:1}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay img{display:block;width:100%;aspect-ratio:var(--video-aspect-ratio);-o-object-fit:cover;object-fit:cover;-o-object-position:center center;object-position:center center}@supports not (aspect-ratio:1/1){.elementor-widget-video .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay{position:relative;overflow:hidden;height:0;padding-bottom:calc(100% / var(--video-aspect-ratio))}.elementor-widget-video .elementor-custom-embed-image-overlay img{position:absolute;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;left:0}}.elementor-widget-video .e-hosted-video .elementor-video{-o-object-fit:cover;object-fit:cover}.e-con-inner.elementor-widget-video,.e-con.elementor-widget-video{width:var(--container-widget-width);--flex-grow:var(--container-widget-flex-grow)} /*! elementor - v3.17.0 - 25-10-2023 */ .elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-stacked .elementor-drop-cap{background-color:#69727d;color:#fff}.elementor-widget-text-editor.elementor-drop-cap-view-framed .elementor-drop-cap{color:#69727d;border:3px solid;background-color:transparent}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap{margin-top:8px}.elementor-widget-text-editor:not(.elementor-drop-cap-view-default) .elementor-drop-cap-letter{width:1em;height:1em}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap{float:left;text-align:center;line-height:1;font-size:50px}.elementor-widget-text-editor .elementor-drop-cap-letter{display:inline-block} Clergy sexual abuse is one of the most devastating forms of abuse, impacting almost every area of life.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript Third-party investigations have become increasingly common as churches and Christian institutions continue to be rocked by scandal. But how can you tell if an investigation is truly independent—or just another attempt to cover up?   In this edition of The Roys Report, experts address the red flags and key features to look for in any so-called “independent” investigation. And they answer questions like: Can a third-party investigation by a law firm ever be truly independent? What advantages are there to hiring an investigative team that’s familiar with church culture to conduct investigations involving Christian institutions? And what are the hallmarks of a “trauma-informed” investigation? The answers to these questions are especially relevant due to the current controversy over the third-party investigation announced by the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, or IHOPKC. Mike Bickle, IHOPKC’s founder, has been accused of abusing multiple women and IHOPKC leaders have been accused of mishandling reports of abuse. After announcing it had hired a national law firm to conduct the investigation, IHOPKC changed course and dismissed the law firm. Then, it hired another law firm, but is refusing to divulge the name of the new firm.  Joining us on the podcast is a top American litigator and former GoDaddy general counsel, who’s also a Christian with a passion to protect victims. That litigator is Christine Jones, who also serves on the board of The Roys Report. She has considerable expertise in this area and her insights on this issue are incredibly helpful. Two other experts joining me, Pete Singer and Robert Peters, are known for the organization they lead—Godly Response to Abuse in a Christian Environment, or GRACE. GRACE has become the gold standard in the Christian survivor community because of the quality of its investigations and its commitment to protect survivor interests.  Listen now for a lively, and eye-opening discussion that will help you discern whether to trust a third-party investigation—or to cry foul. Guests Christine N. Jones Christine N. Jones is a top American litigator, business executive, and civic leader who has a passion to protect the vulnerable. Until 2012, she served as general counsel for GoDaddy. During her time there, she helped drive federal Internet-related legislation, including laws to keep the internet safe from child predators like the Protect Our Children Act and the Keeping the Internet Devoid of Sexual Predators Act. Christine also practiced law at Beus Gilbert, which has been ranked as one of the top law firms in the country. She also served several years as the COO of the Prostate Cancer Foundation. Christine recently launched her own firm, Newman Jones, a private law firm in Arizona, which specializes in representing victims of abuse in churches and Christian organizations. Pete Singer Pete Singer is Executive Director at GRACE, which focuses on abuse prevention and response in faith communities. He is a Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker with 30+ years’ experience across settings. He received his MSW and certificate in Trauma-Effective Leadership from the University of Minnesota. He trains and writes on trauma-informed practice and his counseling practice focuses on children and adults who have experienced trauma. He has published and contributed to a number of articles and book chapters including Wounded Souls: The Need for Child Protection Professionals and Faith Leaders to Recognize and Respond to the Spiritual Impact of Child Abuse and forthcoming work Toward a More Trauma-Informed Church: Equipping Faith Communities to Prevent and Respond to Abuse. Robert Peters Robert Peters has been with GRACE over 10 years and is currently the Director of Institutional Response, where he oversees all investigations and assessments. He served as an Assistant Prosecuting Attorney and Special Prosecutor in multiple West Virginia jurisdictions, where he specialized in the prosecution of sexual offenses, civil child abuse and neglect, and online child exploitation. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals. Visit netgrace.org Show Transcript Coming soon Read more

Guest Bios Show Transcript https://youtu.be/kfW97erZjYA What do you do when the man you looked up to as your spiritual hero is exposed as a fraud? How do you recover from the disillusionment and betrayal? And how do you find hope when your world is turned upside down? On this edition of The Roys Report, you’re about to hear a highlight session from this year’s Restore Conference featuring Carson Weitnauer, a former director with Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. Ravi Zacharias had a huge impact on Carson when he was coming of age. When Carson was hired by Ravi’s ministry, he thought he had found his dream job. But then in 2020, the dream became a nightmare as more and more evidence showed that Ravi Zacharias was not the man he purported to be. He was not a model Christian leader and sterling apologist, but a serial sexual predator, who lied and manipulated to cover his tracks. The revelations rocked Carson’s world—and especially his faith. And in this incredibly raw and vulnerable talk, Carson doesn’t sugar-coat anything. He tells of his journey from believing the exposés about Ravi were just Satanic attacks—to realizing that his own leaders, people he looked up to, were lying to him. He tells of the excruciating betrayal, pain, and depression he experienced. He talks about almost losing his faith and feeling like God had abandoned him. But he also talks about hope and hanging on, even when life seems bleak. Guests Carson Weitnauer Carson Weitnauer is an author, speaker, and the founder of Uncommon Pursuit, a Christian apologetics ministry. He formerly served on-staff at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries and resigned to advocate for survivors. He has coauthored multiple books. Learn more at uncommonpursuit.net Show Transcript SPEAKERS CARSON WEITNAUER, JULIE ROYS JULIE ROYS 00:02 What do you do when the man you looked up to as your spiritual hero is exposed as a fraud? How do you recover from the disillusionment and betrayal? And how do you find hope when your world is turned upside down? Welcome to The Roys Report—a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And what you’re about to hear is the second of 11 talks from this year’s Restore Conference. Speaking is Carson Weitnauer, a former director with Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. And as you’ll hear, Ravi Zacharias had a huge impact on Carson when he coming of age—and internalizing his faith. So, in 2013, when Carson was hired by Ravi’s ministry, he thought he had found his dream job. But then in 2020, the dream became a nightmare as more and more evidence showed that Ravi was not the man he purported to be. He was not a model Christian leader and sterling apologist, but a serial sexual predator, who lied and manipulated to cover his tracks. The revelations rocked Carson’s world—and especially his faith. And in this incredibly raw and vulnerable talk, Carson doesn’t sugar-coat anything. He tells of his journey from believing the exposés about Ravi were just Satanic attacks—to realizing that his own leaders, people he looked up to—were lying to him. He tells of the excruciating betrayal, pain, and depression he experienced. He talks about almost losing his faith—and feeling like God had abandoned him. But he also talks about hope and hanging on, even when life seems bleak. If you’ve ever experienced betrayal trauma or church hurt, I think you’re going to resonate deeply with Carson’s journey.  Here’s Carson Weitnauer, a former director with Ravi Zacharias International Ministries—and someone I’ve come to know as a man of integrity and courage.     JULIE ROYS 04:02 Hi, I’m Julie Roys, founder of The Roys Report and the RESTORE conference, and you’re about to see a video from RESTORE 2023. Though a lot of conferences charge for videos like these, we’ve decided to make them available for free. We’ve done that because we don’t want anybody to miss out on this valuable content for lack of finances. But of course these do cost us money to shoot and to edit. So if you’re able we’d really appreciate it if you consider donating to The Roys Report, so we can continue this important service. To do so just go to JulieRoys.com/donate.  Also, I hope you’ll make plans to join us at the next RESTORE conference which we’ll be announcing soon. As great as these videos are they pale in comparison to being there in person. As one speaker commented, “this year RESTORE is more of a restorative community than it is a conference.” And every year that community just grows deeper and richer. And so I hope you’ll be able to join us at the next RESTORE. Be watching for that. And in the meantime, I hope you’re blessed and encouraged by this video.   CARSON WEITNAUER 05:11 Julie Roys is a liar. It was September 21st, 2020, and I felt nauseous and disoriented. As I thought about all of the crazy things she was saying. I was at the beach with my family. We were trying to recover COVID. But it had been a hard year because Ravi Zacharias had died. He had very suddenly and unexpectedly passed away from cancer, and I don’t cry, but in May at his funeral, I had wept that Ravi was no longer with us. And I was angry that God had taken him so soon. The Vice President (Mike Pence) was there. He said, “In Ravi Zacharias, God gave us the greatest Christian apologist of the century. He was the CS Lewis of our day.” And tributes in that spirit poured in from all around the world. Christian media, social media was flooded with praise for Ravi Zacharias. And our ministry was trying to figure out what we would do without our founder our inspiration or leader or guide. But at the beach a few months later, I felt tense and tight. And I was trying to get my bearings because I was scrolling on my phone through these articles Julie had written. Julie claimed to be an investigative journalist. But responsible leaders at RCIM had explained the truth. She was a clickbait journalist. She would dig up dirt on people so she could get her 15 minutes of fame by, you know, scandal mongering. And now she was stooping to a new low in the aftermath of Ravi’s funeral. She was claiming that Ravi Zacharias had taken advantage of Lori Anne Thompson.   07:49 And Julie had documented a lot of facts about the situation I had never heard. So I read her articles. And I tried to do a critical reading of them, I tried to ignore all of her negative biased commentary. I just wanted to pay attention to the facts that she had primary documentation for. And every evening, after I got my kids to bed, I would open up my computer and open up a Google spreadsheet, and I would put everything that Ravi and RZIM had told me in one column, and I would put everything that Julie was documenting in another column. And I got 287 rows of discrepancies. And I just kept comparing Julie’s articles with everything I had learned for three years since 2017 and 2018. I’d scoured the internet for information for three years to get information on Lori Anne Thompson. I had talked to many of RZIM’s leaders, I debated what was being claimed with my colleagues. For every good point that was raised, RZIM’s leaders had a good answer.Lori Anne had schemed with some friends to leak emails to embarrass Ravi. And they made it look like Ravi had done something really wrong. But our leaders had the whole context of the entire email chain. And they explained that the whole chain of emails had been selectively and manipulatively distorted and taken out of context to make Ravi look guilty when he wasn’t.   09:30 Ravi and a senior leader who were both Easterners explained how they read these emails from an Eastern point of view. And they said if you think Ravi is guilty of something, that’s because you’re reading this as a Westerner. We had earnestly prayed for God to protect our ministry in this time from satanic attacks. And it felt like God had put a veil of protection, a dome of protection over our headquarters, and our ministry and our events. And these satanic attacks had been thwarted by the power of prayer. And it hadn’t been my job to investigate these claims. But there were people of outstanding integrity and leadership, Christian leaders of major organizations. And it was their job to look into this. And so there were two independent external investigations. Ravi’s denomination was a highly respected denomination. And when claims like this came up, they did a proper investigation to ensure that none of their pastors did anything like this. And they had found that Ravi was innocent.   10:44 Ravi’s publisher would not publish a book by an author who did this kind of thing. They wanted all of their authors to not only have good teaching but good lives. The publisher had a responsibility to investigate. They investigated, they found that Ravi was innocent. RZIM was a multimillion nearly $40 million a year organization, in the 30s of millions, and our board was comprised of extremely qualified Christian leaders. And when a claim like this came up, the board had a responsibility. They investigated. Our senior leaders were best selling authors and powerful speakers and well educated. They had a responsibility. So our speakers our senior leaders had investigated. So I was looking at four separate investigations by Ravi’s denomination, his publisher, his board, and the senior leaders. And all four investigations concluded that Ravi was innocent, and that Lori Anne and her scheming husband had tried to extort Ravi out of $5 million dollars. It was a blackmail attempt.   12:03 So what made more sense? A self promoting journalist, desperate for clicks and attention was passing on lies because she always believed survivors? Or multiple investigations by the most trustworthy people had gotten it wrong? And so I wavered.   12:25 I had first met Ravi, when I was in high school. I was struggling with my Christian faith, do I believe this or not? And I’d read Ravi’s book can man live without God, and it really helped me. And so there were some connections, and I got to go to a dinner around Christmas time where Ravi was speaking. And afterwards, it was arranged for me and Ravi to talk with each other. And I could not believe it. Ravi spoke to world leaders. And now he was going to talk to me. And he explained, keep in touch Carson, I’d like to keep in touch with you. So on the way home, I told my mom, I would love to work for Ravi Zacharias one day.   13:03 I studied at Rhodes College in Memphis, studying philosophy. And so I asked Ravi, I wrote him a letter and asked him to give me some advice on my future career. I studied abroad at St. Catherine’s college at Oxford. And while I was there, I visited the RZIM offices. It was a chance to meet the people that Ravi had hired and trained and spoke with. I then went into campus ministry for 10 years, seven of those years, I had the joy of serving students at Harvard College. We faced difficult intellectual and cultural questions. And so we often went and said, What is Ravi say about this? What resources does RZIM have to help us navigate this conversation with gentleness with respect, with biblical fidelity with intellectual clarity? So in 2013, when I was hired to work for Ravi Zacharias, it was a dream job. I felt like God had orchestrated all the details of my life and worked it out for me to work for Ravi. During the seven years that I worked there, I got to start with the US speaking team, leading them. And then I transitioned to starting and growing an online community called RZIM Connect. And we had hundreds of thousands of people visit this community and learn how to have good conversations about faith and get answers to their questions. I had respected Ravi and RZIM for over 20 years. I’d worked at RZIM for seven and RZIM was not just a job, it was a joy. It was my identity, my community, my sense of purpose, my faith, my spirituality. So I was a real mess on the beach. And then came to more bombshells.   14:58 Both Christianity Today and World Magazine reported that massage therapists who worked at Ravi’s spa alleged that Ravi was guilty of awful, horrendous sexual misconduct. And as I read those articles, my heart sank as I thought about what those women had endured. World Magazine also reported that the tax documents Julie had were accurate and that the Thompson’s had given away nearly $200,000 one year to different Christian charities. And so I just asked myself, “Are the Thompsons greedy extortionists or exceptionally generous Christians?” “Are all of the journalists self promotional hacks, or courageous truth tellers?” And I was reluctantly but totally convinced. And I felt that I had a responsibility to take action. Because for years, I had shut down people who thought Lori Anne Thompson was telling the truth. And I had defended Ravi. And now I needed to speak up for his victims. And I had been helped by RZIM so much, I had to do whatever I could to help the ministry do what was right.   16:16 And I just trusted that Ravi Zacharias International Ministries was nothing like Ravi Zacharias. I mean, he was a fraud. He was abusive, a bully a liar. But my friends, my mentors, the people I worked with day in and day out, we’d been on road trips together, we’d done ministry together, these people were solid, they were people of integrity, I could count on them to be truth finders and truth tellers and advocates for the vulnerable. So it was October 1st, 2020. And RZIM’s board had already put out two statements, fake news, these are false. We’ve already looked into it, nothing to this. And they also said truth is the foundation of what we do. And I had to ask myself, is truth, the foundation of what we do? Are you just saying that so people will believe what you’re saying?   17:20 And then we had a global town hall meeting because the ministry launched a investigation and they knew staff had questions. And one of the ideas on official motto was no questions off limits. And so I had a few questions. And I wanted to know if we have this investigation going on, but Lori Anne and her family are subjected to a nondisclosure agreement, how can the investigation include them? They can’t disclose. And the family wasn’t willing to release them from that. So would RZIM provide cover to the Thompsons were they to violate this agreement? If there was financial penalties or legal costs, couldn’t we make sure that they could participate? And the response was wonderful. It sounded very gentle and respectful. “We’re totally committed to the truth here. We want them to participate. The NDA won’t be a problem. We’re definitely going to include them in this investigation.” It sounded awesome. And then I thought about it. And they hadn’t made any concrete promises of unwinding the NDA or providing a legal defense for the Thompson. So they were just empty promises. And then the hammer fell. There was a private follow-up conversation with our general counsel. And he explained that I had been out of line and inappropriate and should not have asked those questions. And I still have flashbacks to that conversation. And I will freeze up and just feel feel so helpless. And then I will remember that I don’t have to be afraid of him anymore. And I will take a deep breath and relax my muscles. And I will try and go back into my day. One day out of nowhere, the Chief Financial Officer sent me and my line manager an email. I guess she’d gotten wind of what I was doing, talking to staff about the situation, advocating for the women. And she wrote to me, “while I agree that we should remain transparent with the truth, I don’t think repeating potential lies, or passing on judgment, or qualities we want to embody at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, Carson.” She said she value transparency and truth. But her threat was not idle. Staff had been fired for asking questions that fall. I had thought Julie was a liar. And now one of RZIM’s senior leaders was saying that maybe I was a liar too. Throughout the fall of 2020, I heard many heartbreaking stories of my friends being bullied.   20:19 At one point, the human resources director sent out an email saying, “We want to make sure there’s someone to receive staff complaints. So we’ve appointed an ombudsperson.” And that sounded awesome! There’s going to be an ombudsperson to advocate for staff. And I was shocked to see the name. The new ombudsperson had a nickname:The Enforcer. She had a track record of bullying staff. So I wrote to the HR director and said, “This person has a track record of bullying staff. You can’t have her be the ombudsperson.” And they ignored my email. The ombudsperson stayed in her role. And I had to ask myself, why did they want a bully to receive complaints of bullying? If they cared about staff mistreatment, why did they appoint the Enforcer to this role?   21:09 And as information began to circulate around the ministry, I started to learn about some pretty big lies. Ravi had always said that for that nondisclosure agreement, no money changed hands. But in 2017, our senior leaders had read an email where they had learned that Ravi Zacharias had paid $250,000 for that NDA. And so for years they had known Ravi was lying. And they never corrected the record about a $250,000 payment. And the four investigations I had trusted, they consisted of asking Ravi if he did it, taking him at his word when he said he didn’t, and closing the investigation.   21:58 RZIM’s president asked us not to publicly comment on the investigation because they were so committed to the integrity of it and to finding the truth, they didn’t want anyone to comment about it, so it could run its course. But then, at the end of October, there was a major fundraising weekend called Founders. They would raise millions of dollars in one weekend. And all of the people speaking there, they basically said, “Ravi is a hero, and we want you to make a major gift this year in honor of his legacy.” In November, there was a global apologetics conference. Pastors and churches were trusting us to help them with the big questions of the day. And to a global audience, our speakers share their favorite memories of Ravi and how Ravi had mentored them. They encourage participants to imitate Ravi’s example. And I realized that our President’s request for silence wasn’t about the integrity of the investigation. It was about silencing anyone who believed that Ravi had abused women. It was about protecting Ravi’s reputation. And his reputation and our ministry’s reputation.   23:03 I had gone to prayer meetings four days a week, and the weekly chapel one day a week, for years. And at the prayer meetings, there were again prayers for God to protect our ministry from the satanic attacks. And I realized now that they were praying against me and what I was doing. And that really complicated my prayer life. By December, I was so discouraged and worn out and wrung out and exhausted. I talked to anyone I could about this issue and been pretty discouraged. When I showed up to our staff Christmas party, I was hoping, look, this is a classic, we laugh, we have fun, the spirit of Christmas. This could be a good moment of connection and recovery. And then came the Christmas Devotional. It came from our chief cultural officer who was a board member. It was Ravi’s widow. There’s a verse in the Bible that says, the apostle Paul says, “Follow me as I follow Christ.” And her Christmas Devotional was, “Everyone here, follow Ravi’s example, the way he followed Christ.” And it was a home run. People liked the message. They thought it was a great Christmas Devotional. And at that point, I knew RZIM was not interested in finding the truth. And they weren’t interested in the victims. They didn’t believe there were victims. It was about loyalty to Ravi over everything else. And I felt that darkness was closing in around me and I ran out of hope.   24:42 RZIM said they valued truth, and they kept telling lies. They said they valued respect, but they bullied us. They said they valued integrity, and they acted hypocritically. They use the name of Jesus to get money, and they didn’t use the money to follow Jesus. In September of 2020, I lost my confidence in Ravi. By December of 2020, I lost my confidence in RZIM. And in January of 2021, I resigned. And I had to wonder if I would lose my confidence in God.   24:42 I was a wreck. I was unemployed. I didn’t feel good. I found my family finances changed. I was directionless. What do I do with my life now? I was isolated. I lost all my friends from work pretty much. I was disillusioned. My childhood hero was a liar and a bully and a sexual predator. I was recovering. I was trying to find words to explain all the pain I was feeling. I was trying to understand what spiritual abuse was, how to respond to bullying. I didn’t know how to describe what I was experiencing. I was frustrated and angry. I poured my heart into this online community and it had to be shut down and then deleted. All gone. I was ashamed that I’d given seven years of my life to this ministry that would be always associated with scandal.   26:26 And I was so confused. Why would God bring me to work for a sexual predator and a corrupt ministry? I felt so rejected. And hopeless. I just felt like my whole body was covered in pain. One of my first attempts to recover didn’t go very well. I went on a retreat by myself. I got an Airbnb in the Great Smoky Mountains. It was beautiful. You know, since childhood my my Bible had been a source of life. But for three months it had been poisoned. And so I didn’t really want to read the Bible. And I’d usually loved praying to God. It just felt like dust in my mouth. I had graduated from seminary, but I had never had any training for this. I finally just opened up this journal I brought. And as I started to write, I wrote these incredibly bloody and raw and angry, just super intense prayers to God. Like some pages were just one word of anger at God. And I felt so troubled by what I had said to God, I threw the journal away.   28:01 Slowly, over time, I started to find a few things that helped. After I would drop off my kids at school, I would go to the gym. And instead of feeling weak, I would start to feel strong. And then I would go to the dry sauna. I would just sit in there as long as I could. And it just felt like the heat was taking all the pain out of my body. That’s a really good time. I kept talking with a counselor, and he helped give me language helped me express my emotions and start to understand what had happened. I shared my story with friends at church,. And I told them the same story 100 times and they listened and listened and listened and listened and listened to me. I got to know Lori Anne Thompson. I found she was a source of healing in my life. That she would be my friend and forgive me and give me wisdom and care to help me find my way forward. Ruth Malhotra is here. And she has been a steadfast friend and has helped me navigate so many complex things about this. My mom is here for this talk. And she’s been amazing. I leaned on my wife for support. I could not in any way have made the decisions I had made, except that she decided to be completely there for me. And it’s been years of her, offering me unconditional love and support as I figured things out again.   29:40 I had to rethink all of my beliefs. I read books on theology and church history trying to evaluate if this still made sense to me. And I got really, really honest with God. And I stopped having any pious prayers. It was unfiltered, direct expression of how I felt with God, exactly how I felt about him. I told him, what was on my heart. And even though I was yelling at God, I continued to sense that God was with me, and that God loved me. And I started to pray the Psalms, and I would tweak them as needed. And it was amazing to me that the Psalms were so visceral and real. They blame God for a lot of things. And God heard those prayers and said, I’m going to put these in my Bible. So people can pray them for the rest of time. And I realized that Jesus and the prophets had already spoken the words I needed to say to the leaders at RZIM. And to Ravi Zacharias. I had tested Ravi. He was a disappointment. I had tested RZIM. They were a disappointment. And then I tested God with my very worst. And I found that he could handle it.   31:16 One thing I didn’t know is that the road to recovery goes up and down a lot. Sometimes you cannot make progress. Sometimes you don’t know if you are making progress. Sometimes you thought you have made progress and you have not–you have regressed. At one point in the spring of 2021 My family went back to the beach for another chance to recover. And I got an email from RZIM saying they wanted to give me severance, which sounded like a real moment of repentance and hope. But I read the separation agreement and my heart sank. It was a nondisclosure agreement. I sent it to four lawyers to make sure I understood this correctly. All four said that’s a nondisclosure agreement.   32:05 Boz Tchividjian helped me fight it. And for two months, we were dealing with RZIM’s corporate attorney. I lost sleep. And I felt stressed out. And I could hardly think straight, that an organization with millions of dollars in the bank was trying to take the one thing I had left: my voice.   32:28 And if you think that’s an unfair characterization, consider that RZIM has never done anything to help Lori Anne Thompson with her NDA. To this day. It’s embarrassing. And I got hit from other angles that really confused me and threw me for a loop. I reached out to my whole network and people reached out to me. Mentors, respected Christian leaders, people who wrote books and talked about integrity and Christian leadership. And they had heard my heart ache. They had cared for me. They had prayed with me. They had told me they hoped I would get better. They were there for me. And then they endorsed the books of RZIM’s leaders. They did events with RZIM’s leaders. And I couldn’t understand why they would help relaunch the ministry of people who had bullied me. I reached out I said, “Can I update you? They have not done anything to get right with me or a lot of other people. They don’t have the Christian character and integrity you’re always saying is so essential.” They said, “Why haven’t you forgiven them?”   33:45 Some of them just refused to talk to me. They just never responded to the message. And again and again, I realized that for many Christian leaders, accountability is for anyone who gets in my way. It’s never for my friend who’s done something wrong.   34:09 And I didn’t know that I would have flashbacks. I thought the past was the past. I didn’t know that I would be at my desk trying to do work and be unable to do anything for hours because I couldn’t stop thinking about a conversation I’d had with someone at RZIM. I didn’t know it would keep taking days of my life.   34:29 I would log into Facebook. And Facebook would be like, here’s a happy memory of you and Ravi Zacharias. I would hear a new story about RZIM’s corruption. And there are so many stories that are not public. So up and down, up and down, up and down. There were times I was in so much pain, I didn’t know if I would ever get better. I didn’t know if it was possible to get better. I could not see a light at the end of my tunnel. And then I wouldn’t get a little bit better. But something would happen. And I would go back down into that pain again. So then, when I was better, I didn’t know if I would stay better. It felt so fragile. How long does this last for? When will something catch me off guard and knock me back down into the pit.   35:34 And if you feel like there is no light at the end of your tunnel, and if you wonder if you will never get better, I just wanted to say, I hear you. And then it’s okay to not be okay. That was one of the main things I just kept saying to myself, it is okay, in light of what I’ve been through, to not be okay.   36:03 And over time, I had to accept that Ravi and RZIM had damaged me. And for a long time, I just denied that and resisted that and hated that. It felt so unfair and wrong, that they had changed who I was. And I didn’t like what they had done to me. And the kind of person that they had shaped me to be through their hurt. And I felt so helpless. I mean, how do you change the past? How do you undo all the horrible things they did? You can’t. I didn’t know what to do with that. I didn’t want to face that reality.   36:50 But at some point, I gained the strength to choose who I want it to be. I will never justify what happened. I’ll never spiritualize it. All of the lies and bullying and spiritual abuse were totally wrong. But that doesn’t mean I can’t choose a better future for myself.   37:13 So I’m now awakened to the pain of survivors. I’m excited about that. That’s a good thing God’s done in me. When I see evangelical corruption, I’m not afraid to challenge it. Sometimes people say to me, Carson, are you worried that if you keep calling out all of these big name leaders for corruption is going to limit your future. And I say if it limits my future, that’s not a future I want to be a part of.   37:51 I once thought Julie was a liar. And now I can call her a friend. I hit rock bottom. I might go there again sometime in the future. But I’m here today sharing with you a story of hope. I enrolled in the Doctorate of ministry programs so I can learn how to build a healthy Christian culture. Some Christian leaders decided to investigate what happened. And they published a report holding RZIM’s leaders accountable. It’s sad how many ignore their report. But it’s great that they did that.   38:30 My former line manager at RCM reached out to make amends and over and over again, he made really sacrificial choices for my benefit. And that rebuild trust that he kept doing sacrificial things to repair our relationship. I started Uncommon Pursuit. And we’re creating resources to help people grow in their Christian faith. And I read the Bible with more sensitivity to God’s heart for many years, thanks to some good mentors, I had always had known for many years that God cares about the vulnerable. The orphan, the widow, the immigrant and the poor. God hates injustice. God hates racism. God hates sexism. God hates all forms of oppression. But it had shifted from being something that I could do exegetically to something I felt in my gut as I turned the pages of Scripture.   39:34 And I have developed a way more honest relationship with God. I don’t pray pious prayers anymore. What I feel that’s what I tell God about. And I know he can handle it. When the truth becomes a lie, when a good reputation is used to lure people in and abuse them, when the minister turns out to be a monster, it’s okay not be okay.   40:05 I am not here today with any answers or advice. All I have is the story of how God has been able to handle all of my pain and helped me to start to heal. And how with God’s help, this pain has helped me to choose a better version of myself. I am convinced that if we can maintain the courage to be honest with God, and with each other, about all of our reasonable and righteous disillusionment, that we will also find our way to hope. Thank you guys for the chance to share with you today.   JULIE ROYS:  41:02 Well again, that was Carson Weitnauer, speaking at Restore 2023. And what a very special and moving talk that was. And I hope if you’re in a place of disillusionment or discouragement today, that this talk encouraged you. Next week, we’ll be releasing a fitting sequel to Carson’s talk. That’s a talk by Lori Anne Thompson on trauma recovery and empowerment. And this was the most raw and real talk I think I’ve ever heard. My husband cried during this talk. And he’s a math teacher, so he’s not really given to shows of emotion. But wow, Lori’s talk is just so powerful—and helpful for anyone who’s experienced severe trauma. So, you’ll definitely want to be watching for that. Also, I want to mention that the videos of these talks are all available at my YouTube channel. A lot of conferences charge for their videos. But we’ve decided to make ours available for free because we don’t want anyone to miss out on this valuable content because of lack of finances. But as you can imagine, these videos do cost us to shoot and edit. So, if you appreciate this content and you’re able to pitch in, would you please donate to The Roys Report so we can continue this important service? To do so, just go to JulieRoys.com/Donate.  And when you give a gift of $30 or more this month, we’ll send you a copy of Scot McKnight and Laura Barringer’s latest book: Pivot: The Priorities, Practices, and Powers that Can Transform Your Church into a Tov Culture. So again, just go to JulieRoys.comDonate. Also, just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. That way, you’ll never miss an episode! And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. 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Guest Bios Show Transcript How can you transform a toxic church culture into a healthy one? And what’s the best way to initiate change? In this podcast, theologian Scot McKnight and his daughter, Laura Barringer, join me to discuss their latest book, Pivot, a sequel to their earlier best-selling book, A Church Called Tov. While their first book explained the characteristics of a “tov,” or good, culture, Pivot tackles the next challenge—transforming ingrained toxic cultures into tov ones. As Scot and Laura discuss, transformation can be a grueling and painful process. And their research shows transformation takes an average of seven years! But it is possible. And cultures led by narcissist leaders that create consumers can transform into ones led by servant-leaders that make disciples.  In their characteristic relatable and warm style, Scot and Laura explain the practical steps required to do that. Specifically, they discuss the priorities, practices, and powers necessary to pivot, or transform, toxic cultures. And they give real-life examples of churches that have undergone this transformation and lived to tell about it! Scot and Laura draw from their own experiences in churches, conversations with leaders seeing transformation happen, and a deep well of research to provide actionable insights for churches and ministries. Guests Scot McKnight Scot McKnight is a professor of New Testament and has been teaching for more than four decades. His specialty is in the fields of Gospels and Jesus studies, but his passions are in the intersection of New Testament in its context as it speaks to the church today. Along with his daughter, Laura Barringer, they have published A Church Called Tov and a follow-up book, Pivot, which discusses what churches can do to help transform themselves from toxic cultures into tov (goodness) cultures. Laura Barringer Laura Barringer is coauthor of A Church Called Tov as well as Pivot: The Priorities, Practices and Powers That Can Transform Your Church Into a Tov Culture. She previously co-authored the children's version of The Jesus Creed and wrote a teacher's guide to accompany the book. A graduate of Wheaton College, Laura resides in the suburbs of Chicago with her husband Mark and their three beagles.  Show Transcript SPEAKERSSCOT McKNIGHT, LAURA BARRINGER, JULIE ROYS JULIE ROYS  00:00So how can you transform a toxic church culture into a healthy one? And what’s the best way to initiate change? Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And joining me today are theologian Scot McKnight and his daughter, Laura Barringer. They’re the authors of the bestselling book A Church Called TOV. TOV is the Hebrew word for good or goodness. And the book explained how to create a church culture that’s truly good–one that resists abuse promotes healing and spiritual growth. But what if your church or Christian workplace already has an ingrained toxic culture? Well, that’s what Scot and Laura’s new book PIVOT is all about. It explains the priorities, practices and powers that can help you pivot or transform your toxic culture into a TOV culture. But it’s not easy and it’s not for the faint of heart, but it is God honoring and it is possible. So I’m very excited to delve into this topic was gotten Laura But first, I’d like to thank the sponsors of this podcast, Judson University, and Marquardt of Barrington. If you’re looking for a top ranked Christian University, providing a caring community and an excellent college experience. Judson University is for you. Judson is located on 90 acres just 40 miles west of Chicago in Elgin, Illinois. The school offers more than 60 majors, great leadership opportunities and strong financial aid. Plus you can take classes online as well as in person. Judson University is shaping lives that shape the world. For more information, just go to JudsonU.edu. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity and transparency. That’s because the owners there, Dan and Kurt Marquardt, are men of integrity. To check them out. Just go to BUYACAR123.com.  Well again, joining me is New Testament scholar Scot McKnight, who has authored more than 50 books. He’s currently professor of New Testament at Northern Baptist Theological Seminary in Lisle, Illinois. And he’s an ordained Anglican and maintains a blog with Christianity today called Jesus Creed. So Scott, welcome. It’s a pleasure to have you join me.   SCOT McKNIGHT  02:25 Thanks, Julie. Good to be with you again.   JULIE ROYS  02:27 Yeah, second time. So I always like when I have a repeat guest. It means it must have gone okay the first time.   SCOT McKNIGHT  02:33 I used to be with you sometimes on the radio, in the old days.   JULIE ROYS  02:37 On Moody. Yeah. Yes, old days. Well, thank you so much for joining us. This is going to be fun. I love the book. And Laura, thank you also for joining me again, Scot’s daughter Laura Barringer, who’s co authored Scott’s last two books, A Church Called TOV and PIVOT. Laura also is a children’s ministry curriculum writer for Grow Kids. And her day job is teaching kindergarteners in suburban Chicago and Laura, I know you’ve had a full day teaching them today. So thank you so much for for joining us and for being willing to come on.   LAURA BARRINGER  03:09 Yeah, thank you for having me again. It’s nice to be with you guys.   JULIE ROYS  03:13 And you were just with us at RESTORE, and did a phenomenal job. And we’ve been rolling out the videos on that and yours will be rolling out in the next few weeks. But that was just delightful to have you. So thank you for joining us at that.   LAURA BARRINGER  03:27 I had a great time. It was such an honor to speak at the event and meet so many of the people that I’ve interacted with online over the last few times. I was just blown away by how special. I was anticipating it. But I was blown away by how special that was to see actual faces. And I came away just realizing this is so much more. It’s not just a conference. It’s so much more than that.   SCOT McKNIGHT  03:51 That’s what we experienced the year before.   LAURA BARRINGER  03:53 Yeah.   SCOT McKNIGHT  03:54 Same thing like these are the people.   LAURA BARRINGER  03:56 Yeah.   SCOT McKNIGHT  03:56 These are the people. Yeah, that’s good.   JULIE ROYS  03:58 Yeah, I think you called it a restorative community.   LAURA BARRINGER  03:58 That’s what it is.   JULIE ROYS  04:00 I love that. I was like, yes, that’s exactly what RESTORE is. And Scot, you joined us last year for the RESTORE conference. And your video is up on our YouTube site as well. And I believe it was on How To Be TOV, Not Toxic. So a lot of that stuff that we’re talking about today, although today, we’re talking more about your second book, which is kind of making that pivot when you realize you already are toxic, right? And you’ve got this culture ingrained that’s not so good. And Laura, I loved in the book where you said, at one point you’re like, I teach kindergarteners and now I’m doing all these interviews on how to make a church culture TOV and how to make it good and you’re like, how did I get here? And then a pastor said to you, “you know what you nurture little people all day you children all day long, and that skill, even though it’s often not valued by pastors is probably more appropriate than a lot of them realize.” And I just I love that. And I’m sure you’re finding that as you’re speaking to people.   LAURA BARRINGER  05:05 Yeah, that was very meaningful interview that was Jared McKenna. He has a podcast that he had invited me on. And for whatever reason, my dad wasn’t there. I don’t know, usually, they want my dad, and then I tag along. And so initially, those interviews could feel really uncomfortable, because every now and then I would stop and think, do these people, you know, they’d asked me about, like, the church abuse crisis. And I’d think, “do these people not realize that I was making kindergarten ready for school confetti earlier today?” How have I landed in this spot? But that was a very encouraging conversation for me when Jared said, you know, you have some of the qualities as a teacher that we want to see in our pastors. And I stopped, I thought, I suppose that’s what we do all day long as teachers we nurture and encourage and shepherd. So yeah, that meant a lot to me, as you read in the book,   JULIE ROYS  06:05 And Scott, you teach at a seminary, but a lot of seminaries aren’t teaching about this kind of stuff. Like you’re you learn a lot of Bible knowledge. But as far as how to create cultures and how to nurture goodness within churches? I mean, are we teaching this in enough seminaries? Or are we maybe a little heavy on the head knowledge and not enough on the cultivating of the heart?   SCOT McKNIGHT  06:30 The answer to that is no. There are really no seminaries that are focused on spiritual formation or character development,   LAURA BARRINGER  06:41 Really?   SCOT McKNIGHT  06:42 None. The curriculum for all the courses is Bible theology, church history, and skill development. And skill development is what is measured, as a general rule for what constitutes a good pastor. In other words, they can preach they can lead, you know, we talked about leadership, I don’t, but the evangelical world does. And we read books and from the business world, and we read, what is it, Jack Welch? We read all these people. And these are the people that are formational, for people’s perception of what is success, and what constitutes a pastor. One of the curricular changes that took place in seminaries about 15 years ago, 10 years ago, was to bring spiritual formation into every class, rather than located in one class, a class on spiritual formation. And so we do it that way. But Julie, I think character formation for church leaders, is caught more than taught, it’s embodied more than it’s instructed. And it requires time with someone who has that kind of character. So if you can be an assistant, in a church with Mr. Rogers, for five years, you’ll never be the same. If you are in a church with, we won’t name any names don’t need to in this context, for five years, you will be harmed in character formation.   JULIE ROYS  08:12 And that’s what’s so sad is that so much of my reporting is on churches where that’s happening, where you have pastors who can preach the Bible, and can teach it–sometimes with really good doctrine–and yet, the life does not match the teaching. And so that is so much of the problem. So I’m so glad that you that both of you have done these two books, which go hand in hand, and I loved your first book, A Church Called TOV, and I love this book PIVOT, because it’s, it really is sort of the sequel, and I think helps an awful lot. And we’ve been using this phrase church culture. Scott, let me just start there. What is a church culture? Because this is something we often don’t think about yet we often swim in it, and we’re shaped by it. But what is it exactly? And how is it formed?   SCOT McKNIGHT  09:00 A culture is a living agent that conforms people, whether they understand it, or not, unconsciously, unintentionally, to become people who fit in that culture. Now, that’s the impact understanding, but culture is a living agent. That is the result of people decisions, policies, over time, that result in a given set of assumptions that are mostly invisible, that shape what’s going on in a given institution, or church, whatever, without even being aware of it. That’s the culture.   JULIE ROYS  09:44 And so often what we see I know when I report on a church or a leader, and in several circumstances that’s led to the leader being removed, and then they bring in a new leader, and you think, oh, everything’s different now.   SCOT McKNIGHT  09:58 Yeah.   JULIE ROYS  09:59 But it’s really not. Right? Because  Nothing. You’ve got a culture that’s ingrained, you have people that have been formed by this culture. And they don’t know any different than how to run a toxic church, because that’s how they’ve been discipled. That’s the culture that they’re familiar with. So you use this metaphor in your book of a peach tree, to help us understand culture. So Laura, let me throw that to you. What is this peach tree metaphor? And how does it apply to helping us understand the church?   SCOT McKNIGHT  10:01 Nothing,   LAURA BARRINGER  10:30 So the peach tree metaphor, it’s, it is a cute, if you will metaphor, but it actually is research based and we based it on the research of Edgar Schein, he’s one of the, to my knowledge, most important researchers on organizational culture. And also to our knowledge, we were not able to find research or books on church culture or Christian organization culture. So we took what we learned from him and adapted it and made our model a peach tree, mostly because I have a peach tree in my backyard. Mark, and I planted it when we moved in our home about 10 years ago. And it ended up being perfect for this metaphor, because it’s very unhealthy. We’ve never even eaten one peach off the tree. So like, Oh, that’s perfect, because it was a very small because I called her tree. But at any rate, so we talked about peaches as the visible elements of your culture. And it’s what people see and experience when they walk in the door. So they might feel like, Oh, those graders were friendly, or who’s singing on stage or, when the Anglican tradition, they pass the peace, that’s part of the culture. And when they leave, they can probably explain what they felt, what they saw. So what we have learned, and again, this is research based, is that what is underneath the soil is what feeds the living elements of the tree. And most of that is like what my dad was saying that you can’t see it, you don’t even know it’s there. And like our peach tree in our backyard, the fact that it’s not growing peaches is not the problem. The problem is that is probably the soil or that we’re not caring for the tree, we’re supposed to add nutrients every year–we never do. So that’s how we develop the model is that the soil and what’s underneath the soil, what goes into the roots is what feeds the culture of your organization. And so you really need to look at, we learned, is “what’s feeding the soil?” If the tree is being fed by the fruits of the Spirit are by spiritual formation practices, the culture is likely healthy and thriving. If it’s being fed by ambition, or power abuse, then the culture is going to be toxic. And so you might get some healthy, like looking peaches, but underneath that’s very sick.   SCOT McKNIGHT  13:04 This is a good question. And Laura’s got a good answer there. But I was in a conversation the other day was a seminary professor who talked about the last three presidents of that institution. And the seminary professor said they were all narcissists. And I said, I think we have to look at why narcissists rose to the top in that organization. There’s a culture that gives rise to “that’s the kind of person that seems to fit the job description.” Why is that the case?   JULIE ROYS  13:39 And that is an important point to make. Because I think so often we do point at the narcissist, and oh, this horrible person that was there and did such horrible things. And we don’t look at what’s our responsibility for putting that person in and for following that person for not noticing the characteristics that we should have. And you’ve named some of the toxins that go into these soils of these toxic churches. You give, and I love this because you don’t hear the stories very often. And I’d love to report on a lot more of them. I wish there were a lot to report on. But it’s of a church that discovers that it’s toxic, and goes through this transformation process. And one of them that you talked about is is Oak Hills church in Folsom, California. Explain why Oak Hills felt like it had to transform and then how it began to do so.   LAURA BARRINGER  14:33 Yeah, this is one of my favorite parts of our work on PIVOT, I think. I had never heard of Oak Hills. Just one day a book arrived on my doorstep, sent by Scot McKnight. And he said you need to read about this, and then write about it as a case study for PIVOT. It’s such a beautiful story, but essentially, the pastors Mike Lueken and Ken Carlson founded a church in California called Oak Hills. And they had come out here to Willow Creek to learn as much as they could about doing church. And they don’t criticize Willow at all. They said, in fact, everything that we tried worked. Their attendance exploded, they became a mega church. But they started to feel I would describe it just like an unease like in their soul. And they felt like the exact quote is so striking. It says, “the way that we were doing church was actually working against the invitation of Christ to experience his transformation.” And they had been reading Eugene Peterson, and Dallas Willard and more. And they felt like our attractional model is working against transformation. And so they took the whole church through a very tumultuous process. Their attendance declined, like it was cut in half or more. But they ended up transforming their church from an attractional model to a spiritual formation model. They said the people in the church had become consumers. So like, they would sit there and want a really good show. And then the next week, they would come back and they wanted an even better show. And they said, it felt like we were feeding a monster, and they were drained. They were worn out. And they just felt that stirring in the spirit that they had to transform it.   JULIE ROYS  16:28 Yeah, somebody asked me once, whether I thought a mega church could ever be healthy. And my answer was, perhaps, but it just seems to me that all the pressures are in the wrong direction. And it’s awful hard to withstand the pressures that keep pushing you in that direction. And I’m curious, Scot, have you ever seen a mega church that, really, you’re seeing a real emphasis on spiritual formation? And it seems really healthy?   SCOT McKNIGHT  16:59 This is a really interesting question because it feeds into what we researched in this book. And Edgar Schein, I’ve seen a lot of them, because I’ve only been there for a day or two. Okay, so this is what they are masters of, is the weekend service is extremely impressive and they have talented, charismatic, winsome, affable people that welcome you at the airport, take you to nice hotels, feed you nice meals, provide a green room in the back with all the amenities that you need, and a wonderful platform where they stand up and even clap for you. Great music. So here’s the point, I do believe there are mega churches that are healthy. But the only way to know this is to have someone investigate them, not for the purpose of exposing anything, but for the sole purpose of finding out what’s really going on. And it would take three to six months of someone who’s skilled at knowing how to find a culture. This is what Edgar Schein does, he’ll go to places like let’s just say IBM, and work there for nine months. And it takes that long to find what is actually in the soil feeding the place. So there’s no megachurch pastor, or leaders, or any church is going to tell you that what’s driving them is ambition, and competition. They want to win the battle of the best church in the neighborhood or in the city or in the state or in the United States. They will never say that, but that is one of the drivers. And it takes a long time to figure out that that’s what’s actually at work when fundamental decisions are made in the church. So I would say I’ve never had the opportunity to actually examine a mega church at that level. I do know, a mega church model that the theory is that it’s small groups that meet on Sunday. That’s the kind of mega church model has the capacity to be working at character formation. But I can’t say that I looked at the people I’ve met there have been very impressive, but that’s what a famous pastor in Canada that was his model as well.   JULIE ROYS  19:26 Bruxy Cavey.   SCOT McKNIGHT  19:27 Yeah, that’s a lot of problems.   JULIE ROYS  19:29 Yeah. And he comes from Brethren In Christ Anabaptist background which is my background. I grew up in that so at that was very sad for me to see that happen.   SCOT McKNIGHT  19:39 Well, I endorsed a lot of his books so not that long before this story. Yeah, I’ve known Bruxy a long time. Sad story.   JULIE ROYS  19:47 Yeah, it is and Brethren in Christ churches from my at least from my growing up, I haven’t been in one for many years because we don’t really have them in the Midwest, but I felt like they were phenomenal at character formation, spiritual formation. You talk about three pivotal priorities–and one you’ve touched on–but I want to do a little bit of a deep dive because we’re talking about emphasis on character, not ability. I mean, that seems like one of those like, Duh, this is basic, right? I mean, we should be all about character. But why is it that this is such a misplaced priority? Like we really are not looking at character in our churches, and we find, pastor after pastor after pastor falling into scandal and into disrepute, because of character flaws? Why is this?   SCOT McKNIGHT  20:39 I think, let’s say the pastor on the platform is a different beast altogether than ordinary people in the church. But those aren’t the same things. The character issues, you’re expecting people to hire a pastor to be able to perform on that platform every Sunday, and put butts in the seats and bills in the plate, and baptisms in the pool. And buildings on the campus. That’s what they hire him for. But I would say there’s a couple things. Number one is our church is, let’s say, measurement devices, or success measurements are not shaped by that at all. A second thing is, it’s extremely difficult to measure spiritual growth in a true character formation. And I think I said two, but I got a third one. And it takes a lot of pastors. A lot. You can’t have one pastor working with the transformation of 50 people. They can’t do that. They don’t have that kind of time. That’s why the small group model has the capacity. If you don’t have pinheads running the small group. If you have people who are Mr. Rogers, like who get to work with people in that small group. We just have a lot of things distorted in the wrong direction. And they start in the wrong location.   JULIE ROYS  22:06 And this is the challenge, isn’t it? Like you said in the book, if you’re going to transform from a toxic culture to a TOV one, what you’ve seen is that it takes minimum seven years, probably three years before you see this change start to happen. And often the church will shrink. In Oak Hills, they lost what 1000 people?   LAURA BARRINGER  22:28 Yeah.   JULIE ROYS  22:28 Yeah. And I said this at the beginning of the RESTORE conference, to the pastors who were there, because we talked about, you know, a lot of church hurt at these conferences. And I did hear from one pastor who came and this was at the previous year, and he said, “Yeah, it was really, really powerful conference, but I kind of got the feeling as a pastor that maybe we’re the bad guys.” And so I wanted to make sure this one to say, “No, we love you. We’re so glad you’re here. And the fact that you as a pastor, invested in coming to hear from wounded souls, about the way that they’ve been hurting the Church says something about you and your character and why you’re here. And you’re exactly the kind of pastors that we need in our churches.” Yet. I think if I were doing a conference on how you can grow your church overnight, I wouldn’t have enough seats, if I had a proven method of making your church double overnight. But what you’re talking about here is, here’s a path to making your church maybe smaller, maybe less successful in the world’s eyes, and trying to get people to buy into this model. But in the end, there’s greater fulfillment isn’t there in knowing that you’re actually producing people who are furthering the kingdom of God? Because you’re actually modeling Christ to people. It’s a powerful thing. But how do you get people to buy into that?   SCOT McKNIGHT  23:48 Well, when you were talking, I’m sitting here thinking of Dietrich Bonhoeffer with his renegade subversive hideout seminaries in northern Germany and Prussia, and the impact of Dallas Willard on someone like James Smith, where it was over time, with one person working with another person. And that’s a different calling. And it’s not like that’s what we hire people in churches to do. You know, the last Barna book I read by David Kinnaman, was on pastors. And I think the number was 12% of pastors enjoy discipleship.   LAURA BARRINGER  24:34 That low?   SCOT McKNIGHT  24:35 Yeah, it may be lower than that, but I think it was in the book, Pastor Paul. But that is not what they see themselves doing. They see themselves preaching and leading and administrating and organizing. And some of them writing books, and traveling around speaking at conferences. That’s what they see themselves doing. But if you work in Navigators or you work in Campus Crusade or InterVarsity on a campus and colleges, which are some of the most effective TOV institutions in the world. They are all about working with young college students and helping them deal with the fact that they got drunk last night, and we got to find out what’s going on. And they disciple people. And it takes a lot of time. And in four years, those students, a lot of them want to come back and do the same to other college students. That’s the multiplication principle of Navigators. And Navigators is all about one on one,   JULIE ROYS  25:37 And what virtues should we be looking for? And should we be cultivating?   LAURA BARRINGER  25:42 Theologian.   SCOT McKNIGHT  25:43 (laughter) There’s a couple of ways to look at this. And I think we need to take the major virtue passages in the Bible. So look at the 10 commandments. Alright, look at the book of Psalms, pick a couple of prophets and say, What are they trying to inculcate in people? And how they should live? Then look at the Sermon on the Mount. Look at Paul’s list of the fruit of the Spirit. Look at what Paul says about love in First Corinthians 13. Look at First John’s teachings. Avoid Jude because he’s too hot, a little angry all the time. So and just realize that there are different ways to package this over time to frame what virtues we want to talk about. Now, there’s ways of summarizing, let’s say, we want to be followers of Jesus. That’s a summary statement. Or we want to be characterized by love. Or if you’re in the Puritan movement, you want to be characterized by godliness. And that means you read the Puritans, and you subscribe to Banner of Truth  Trust, and all this, and these become your heroes. Jonathan Edwards is the guy. But all these terms are summary statements that need to be unfolded. And so the virtues, the character that forms these virtues, so that they become sort of instincts can be framed in different ways. But all those passages can help us shape the kinds of virtues we’re looking for.   JULIE ROYS  27:23 So we have character is one of our priorities. Another one is TOV power. And I have to say, when you hear that word power, and you’ve experienced abuse of power, just that word power, can be scary. So how can we tell if power is being harnessed and used in a good way, as opposed to a toxic way?   LAURA BARRINGER  27:49 Yeah, this is a big one for us. After A Church Called TOV was published, we received letter after letter after letter, we wrote a lot about sexual abuse, we heard mostly from victims of power abuse, we would get these letters every week, my dad would get some I would get some. And it was story after story of people who had been wounded, mostly by pastors who had misused their power. And the people had tried to stand up for themselves or those who found the courage to maybe try to talk to elders. It was like they didn’t get very far because people didn’t believe them, or it was done behind closed doors. So people say, Well, I haven’t seen him do that. That’s not how he is. That’s not my experience. And that was so painful, because it discounts the reality of what another person endured. So this was a really big one for us when we went to write PIVOT. All of us have power, right? Like, I have power, I’m a teacher, so I have the power to influence those under me and how people use their power is a measure of their character of who they are as a person.   SCOT McKNIGHT  29:09 People have power. And anybody who exercises a decision, who is a leader, has a right to make those decisions. And people underneath them, I guess, have a right to bellyache about them as well. I mean, that’s part of the complaint culture that workplaces develop. But to me, one of the signs of power desire is when someone who is your leader makes a decision that you don’t like how do you respond? Do you manipulate? Do you gossip? Do you attack? Do you get other people in your corner so that you can eventually destroy that person’s reputation and character? That’s a very important element of power, in institutions, is a complaint culture that forms. All narcissists have no self awareness of the power that they have, and what they are doing to people around them. They have lack of self awareness. So they think what they’re doing is right all the time. And when they’re criticized, they DARVO. “That’s not what I was doing.” Well, yes, you did. That’s the impact you made on it. So they lacked that awareness.  So it needs to be revealed by people being able to have a safe place to be able to express what they’ve experienced from a person. I’ve been in institutions where presidents were removed. I’m at one right now. And the former president, there were too many people who were released, and then stories were released about that person. And The Roys Report reported about it.   JULIE ROYS  30:53 Yes we did.   SCOT McKNIGHT  30:54 Not very good news for our seminary. But those were symptoms, signs that something’s going on. And it was not a safe place for people to be able to register their complaints. And it didn’t seem to be achieving anything, I think power is going to happen. People get to do this, who are leaders. They have power. So they exercise their power, and not everybody’s going to agree with it, and people get to interpret it. And they can be dead wrong, and be very convincing, even though they’re wrong. But at the same time, there has to be some sort of device mechanism, TOV tool, that gives people some indications of how that person is using power. And I think it’s possible to reveal some of this stuff. But I think it’s impossible to change a narcissist.   JULIE ROYS  31:52 So you have to have somebody in positions of leadership, who obviously have the character and wants to use their power in a right way. And one of the things that that you do in this book, which I think is really helpful, is you not only have questions at the end of each chapter, but you do have assessment tools, where you can begin to assess some of these things to say, Okay, this is a toxic culture, this is a TOV culture, this is a good way of using power. And maybe not so good way of using power. It’s a beautiful thing, when you see somebody in power, use that power to protect others to draw out someone who’s quiet, who wouldn’t normally speak, to be able to notice the weak and the vulnerable and to use the power to protect and to help.   SCOT McKNIGHT  32:39 I think people who use power well, are not recognized as using power. Because something happens and you go, Oh, that was really nice. And you didn’t realize that that leader decided to elevate somebody in a way that empowered them. So when they’re empowering others, you usually don’t recognize that they’re using power. It’s when they violate the power. A good umpire in a baseball game is unrecognized. And when you’re talking about the umpires, it’s because they screwed up. They messed up stuff. You notice it. “That was terrible!” And I think that’s the same way with leaders. If you don’t recognize their leadership, and things are functioning pretty well, you probably got a pretty good leader.   JULIE ROYS  33:33 That’s good. Yeah, I would say the number one problem of most of the bad leaders that I report on, obviously, the character issues there and everything, but the way it often comes out is in hypocrisy. They’re just not living, what they say they believe. And you make a big point of one of the priorities is you got to model. You got to be the example of what you want your culture to be. And I love this, one of the people that you talk about modeling this goodness is, as you said, Mr. Rogers. Explain how Mr. Rogers is modeling exactly what he’s teaching.   LAURA BARRINGER  34:14 Well, when we went to write A Church Called TOV, I kept sending my dad examples like, what about this pastor or this one? And he kept saying, no, no, no. And he said, We need somebody that’s dead. (laguhter) Because–that’s exactly what he said–they have to be dead. Because there’s too many scandals that erupt. And sure enough, we have a story in A Church Called TOV, that when it went to the next printing, we had to remove because the pastor, allegations etc. So we use Mr. Rogers as our example. Mr. Rogers, from everything we have read about him, the man that you saw on TV was the man that everybody knew. He was patient. He was gentle. He was just as kind in person as he was on the television screen. He would get distracted by children, he would tell Oprah, I’ll come on your show, but you can’t have children in the audience because I will be distracted, I will be I know that I will be, all of my attention will go to them the vulnerable. That’s what my heart and soul is, is for. And so when you said hypocrisy, that’s the opposite of Mr. Rogers, there are some beautiful stories that we recited in the book about him that he is as good a man as he appeared to be.   JULIE ROYS  35:35 Hmm. And there was one in the book, I thought was so touching about a man whose wife . . . was the wife, the employee, I believe, or was   LAURA BARRINGER  35:44 The wife was the employee.   JULIE ROYS  35:46 Yeah. So the wife was the employee, and she died. It sounds like young, got cancer and, and Mr. Rogers would show up and visit, you know, visited on a regular basis. And the day she died, he he knocked on the door and said, I just had a sense that, that you needed me today, or you needed to be visited today. And here, she was dying. And he came in and cried with him, you know, as his wife was dying and prayed with him. And the husband said, he never talked about it. Nobody ever heard that story about Mr. Rogers.   LAURA BARRINGER  36:21 He didn’t get up and talk about the ways that he volunteered or helped people. I also love the story about the reporter who maybe this is in A Church Called TOV. No. I remember I don’t remember no. He said, “Do you know, who is the most important person in the world to me right now?” And the reporter was like, Who who is the most important person? Mr. Rogers said, “You, I’m talking to you, you have my full attention. You’re the most important person in the world to me right now.” And the reporter was, like, stunned that a celebrity would spend that much time and give him that much attention for I think he said an hour which was unheard of with celebrities, interviews.   JULIE ROYS  37:05 Well, and as a reporter, you’re just happy when somebody wants to talk to you because most of the people I talk to, they don’t want to talk to me.   SCOT McKNIGHT  37:13 But Julie, you know the issues of the people that that we want to find out more about, that have become celebrities that Katelyn Beaty has written about. They’re there. And you just think they’re just amazing because of the platform persona, that they’ve presented in their pastoral sermons. You just go, “I want to be like that person.” Okay, so the tendency is to make those the examples. And all you see about them is the presentation on the platform. And that’s why I said to Laura, we can’t take living examples now. I mean, yes, I understood what she was doing. And she had some wonderful stories, and they they truly are probably good people. But because I’m older, you know, I think when when I wrote when we wrote TOV I was probably 65.   JULIE ROYS  38:10 A whippersnapper.   SCOT McKNIGHT  38:11 Yeah, I was young compared to the day.  here were people that we wanted, you know, that I could easily say they were fantastic people that in the last five years, I would say, Well, maybe that’s not so true. So it was important for me I finally said, Laura, we got to find dead people whose whose stories are unimpeachable. But I have found stories of people that I have exalted in my years as a professor. I’ve written I’ve used their names. And I discovered later that they were horrific people. And nobody knew. Nobody was talking. Because even in those days, you didn’t talk about things like that. We, I mean, when Kennedy was a president, we didn’t talk about what was going on in the White House, behind closed doors. Now we know these things. So that’s why we went with dead people. But but nobody questions Mr. Rogers. And so we used him in both books.   LAURA BARRINGER  39:09 I remember that–my dad’s texts, “Nope, only dead people.”   JULIE ROYS  39:13 Problem is even dead people, Ravi Zacharias that didn’t come out, you know, until after he was dead. But I mean, obviously, a little better if they’ve had a little bit of time, between their life and some study of the kind of person they were,   SCOT McKNIGHT  39:30 I would also say that nobody’s perfect. Not many people are like Mr. Rogers. So people with warts and all is not the worst thing. David is hardly a beautiful character in all the pages of the Bible. The apostle Paul can lash out at people. I don’t know about Peter. Mary seems to be a good person, other than the fact that she’s trying to tell Jesus what to do and how to be a messiah. So we just we can’t expect perfection but we expect a certain level of maturity that we can count on. And we may find out that Pastor got really mad one day and said something he shouldn’t have, but he admitted it.   JULIE ROYS  40:11 That’s a big one to me is Do you hear the pastor admitting wrong, asking for forgiveness, because that needs to be a regular practice. Let’s talk about some of these practices of transforming cultures. And you talk about there being a transformational agent. Normally, when you see these kinds of transformations happening, and as well, a transformational coalition.   SCOT McKNIGHT  40:35 Julie, let’s just say you realize your church has got some stuff in the soil that needs to be healed. Alright. And you go through a process of discovery. And you come up with five things that we need to work on in the next five years. All right, I think that’s a pretty normal process. I don’t believe that the pastor should be in charge of all this. Now, in most churches, I believe the pastor will be in charge of this because the pastor is in charge of everything. But I think it should be handed off to a transformation agent, who is independent, and can get more honest responses from people than the pastor can, unless the transformation agent is just a flying monkey, as the as the words are used, or a mole for the pastor. If it’s a person of character, they’re going to be trusted, and the pastor is going to have to listen to the results. But I think it’s good to have a transformation agent whose responsibility it is to organize administrate, to evaluate, and to pass the information on so that it can be implemented in a really good way to the leadership of the church. But it can’t just be one person or two people. And it’s not based on it’s not a bunch of sermons,   LAURA BARRINGER  41:52 I don’t want to skip over something really important that we learned from Edgar Schein, again, the major researcher on this topic of transforming culture, is he said, You can’t transform anything until your problem is clearly defined and crystal clear. That’s what led us to write the TOV tool so that it can help groups or whomever is taking it churches, groups, teams, clearly identify areas of strength, and then areas where growth is important. And Edgar Schein said, that’s like the most important step of all is listening. And that might take a lot of conversation and a lot of authenticity and hearing maybe things about yourself, you don’t want to hear. But that’s like one of the most important steps is identifying, “we are not putting people above the reputation of our institution.” Or, “it seems like we’re really good at truth telling, but we’re not offering a lot of justice to the wounded.” So every organization is different. But those conversations where you unearth, what are the strengths, and where do we need to grow in these areas of like that we created the TOV tool out of our circle of TOV from the first book. It just cannot be skipped over. And then that can be used by the transformation agent and the coalition to have some data and listening as they move forward or attempt to move forward.   SCOT McKNIGHT  43:28 And I would add to the coalition is you can’t transform a culture because you’re a persuasive speaker, with a couple of friends in your church that are all doing this. It takes a culture’s ownership to get there. So our theory is okay, we got a transformation agent and a couple people, they studied the Bible, I won’t get into all that, then it grows to a group of five. And then it grows to a group of 10. And then it splits into a couple more groups that grow to a group of 30 or 40. And you’re starting to build a critical mass of people who are committed to this idea and working it out. But they’re contributing to the idea. So it’s not like I got a great idea. Now we’re gonna go implement it. It is, I have an idea. Let’s work on this together. And before long once you get 50 to 75 people involved in it, there’s ownership but the idea has now grown into something that is healthier, stronger, deeper, wider. It starts to get ownership, if you have a fairly sizable church, before you go to the church.   JULIE ROYS  44:36 And I think what’s to me exciting about listening about some churches that did this. And even hearing you talk about it, this is a very organic thing that happens as people are discussing this and something starts to grow. I mean, basically, this culture begins to reform as people are reforming. Right? And they’re beginning to model it, and they’re beginning to change, and so then you begin to see this transformation happen. And then hopefully you’re moving into a different culture. Right? And the congregation becomes a different kind of culture.  And those who quite frankly, don’t buy into it, leave. I mean, I remember the power of that when we did youth ministry, like we just said, from the beginning, we don’t do entertainment, the world does that better than us. But if you want to come and worship and pray, like, we’re really going to be a part of that, and studying the Bible, and the ones that weren’t interested in that would just fall off. And then we would gather a group of people who really wanted to do that, and it became our culture. But it takes that kind of time. But you talk about then the last part of your book about the powers and the congregational culture powers, I thought it was really interesting, especially Laura, when you were talking about kind of the practices that led to a culture at Willow Creek when you were there. And then you contrasted that with these practices that led to a culture at this Quaker church that was completely different. Talk about that, because I thought, it’s such a great example and a contrast, because we often don’t think about what we’re doing when we’re doing it, and how this is creating a culture. But I think, as I was reading it, it made me think about things that I’m doing, and what kind of culture does that create? So yeah, talk about that.   LAURA BARRINGER  46:29 So I didn’t really realize what the culture of Willow Creek was, until I left Willow Creek. And being out of it allowed me to see and I’m not criticizing it, I’m just saying like, factually, there are a lot of people that attend, they put people up on stage, that walk through the campus with bodyguards. And there’s sort of a feel of like haves have nots, or the whole service leads up to what the speaker is going to say. And you know, weeks ahead of time, who’s going to be speaking and like Mark, and I’d be the first to tell you, like, we got into a terrible rut at Willow, we were like, Oh, we don’t really like that speaker. So we’re not going to go this week, you know, our neighbors would be like, come for a bike ride. Okay, we’ll do that instead, like, we were just consumers of a show. So we left Willow Creek and experienced the Anglican tradition, which is very different. But then what I wrote about in the book, I tried to get into less Twitter fights or whatever X fights?   JULIE ROYS  47:37 It’s weird. It’s just weird.   LAURA BARRINGER  47:39 I know. One day, I just wandered into this, like delightful conversation with a Quaker pastor. And I remember his name, because we have a family friend of the same name, Scott Wagner, and he posted pictures, and I don’t know anything about the Quakers other than what I’ve read, you know, just a little bit. So I’m not I don’t know where they stand theologically at all. But his pictures were so startling to me. They were getting ready for a meeting. And the chairs were set up in a circle. And it was just in this like, small room with wooden floors. And after coming out of the Willow Creek tradition was like, well, where’s the speaker gonna stand? But that wasn’t what the goal was at all. It was like a meeting where everybody was seen as equals. And I don’t know, it seems like is that how the early church was? That’s how I picture people in my head, like, sitting in a circle together. Not like all of us staring at a person on stage.   JULIE ROYS  48:44 I have to say, being in a house church now and experiencing meeting in homes, and we haven’t had a sermon. You know, in the past 18 months since I’ve been going to our house church. There’s no sermon. We’re opening the Bible. And there’s a facilitator and we dig in together, and we study the Bible together. And I just love it. I mean, I come away every Sunday, it’s like, wow, that was rich, that was really good. And I’ve gone to a church too where we were in the round, in fact, is one of your colleagues there, Dave Fitch, his church that we attended, where we would have the chairs all in a circle, I love that, I think in the Anglican tradition, instead of the sermon being the highlight, really, the table is. Eucharist. That’s the highlight, and that communicates a value. So I think looking at what are we doing in the service, and I have wondered about this. And to me, the fact that we make a man on stage preaching, which is very heavy head knowledge. And I’m not saying that’s wrong, but I’m, I often wonder if that’s sort of a post enlightenment way of thinking that the pinnacle of the service is the sermon?   SCOT McKNIGHT  49:56 It happened at the reformation that turned the sermon into a major, the major focus. The early church didn’t have sermons.   LAURA BARRINGER  50:04 They had letters, right? They would hear, read letters?   JULIE ROYS  50:07 And at that one sermon where, what is it Eutychus?  Fell out the window and died. You know,   SCOT McKNIGHT  50:12 Paul was talking, he was talking. But I mean, it was a it was a house church, you’re talking about a normal sized living room with maybe an atrium with some water in the middle. And people around it talking and someone instructors instruction. There’d be the reading of a letter. There’d be the exposition of a psalm or something. And eventually, they would read scriptures and then preach about or teach about it. But it was a fellowship, where there was instruction, there was prayer, there was worship, there was caring for one another. And that’s where the church got started. Jesus didn’t preach sermons in the houses, he told stories, parables, it’s where the parables came from.   JULIE ROYS  50:59 Well, obviously, there’s a lot of things that we can do to sort of jumpstart transformation. We’ve talked about some of those. But I love that you kind of land this book with where the power really comes from. And it’s from the Holy Spirit, and it’s from God’s grace. So talk about the importance of relying on the Spirit, and grace, so that we’re not manufacturing something but we’re actually being led by God.   SCOT McKNIGHT  51:31 When we were writing this book, I told Laura, probably 10 times, every chapter could be the first chapter. They were all interlocking.   LAURA BARRINGER  51:39 We had trouble ordering the chapters.   SCOT McKNIGHT  51:42 And theologically, I wanted to begin with that theological ending, but I know that just sounds like I’m a seminary professor. And we’ve got to get people interested in the topic first. So the neuralgics is what it’s called sometimes. So yeah, I think the example of Christ, the significance of the Holy Spirit being open to the Spirit, the power of God’s grace, which is operative, in the example of Christ, and in the power of the Spirit, all those things are what ultimately is responsible for transformation of an individual person, and of a community, a church. If we think it’s just mechanics, and structure, and system and program, it’s gonna go dry. But when it is the dynamic of the Spirit of God, leading us, prompting us, directing us, making us change, making us think of new things, we’re in the right place.   LAURA BARRINGER  52:39 That’s what I love about the story of Oak Hills is that they say we felt this sense of dis equilibrium in our soul. And they surrendered to what they felt the Spirit was telling them and leading them. And they followed. And I think they would say, the transformation was worth it. Rather than having consumers, they were discipling people to grow in Christ. And they were like, we just steadily pushed against the culture, and taught people how to live like Jesus. That was it.   JULIE ROYS  53:12 And I believe that Jesus said, his last words were not to go and make big churches or converts. But yeah, to make disciples, that is, what the church should be doing. And so I just really appreciate what you guys have put together here in this book, and that you’re really moving people, I think, towards something beautiful and something good. Any last thoughts or final encouragement for those who might be thinking of embarking on this journey of trying to transform or are in the midst of it. And I mean, as I said, at the beginning, it’s not for the faint of heart, it’s not going to be easy. It could be a seven year or even longer process, any encouragement for them right now.   SCOT McKNIGHT  54:00 I would say go with it. There’s going to be many times when you’d like to return back to where you started and say, we’ll just go back to where it was working. Roll with it. Because it’s going to be different for every group. But it’s worth it to pursue this direction, to see what God can do in your church and in your institution, over time, as you begin to focus on, let’s say, the power of God’s grace to transform us into being people who are like Jesus Christ.   JULIE ROYS  54:34 And that’s pretty exciting.   LAURA BARRINGER  54:36 Amen.   JULIE ROYS  54:37 Well, again, thank you so much. I really appreciate both of you and appreciate the ministry that you’re having and the impact that you’re having. This has been extremely helpful. So thank you.   SCOT McKNIGHT  54:48 Thank you, Julie.   LAURA BARRINGER  54:49 Thank you for having us.   SCOT McKNIGHT  54:51 Thanks, Laura.   LAURA BARRINGER  54:52 Thanks, Dad.   JULIE ROYS  54:54 Scot and Laura, thank you so much for the gift of this book—and the gift of your time today. This has been so helpful . . . And if you’d like a copy of Scot & Laura’s new book, Pivot, we would be happy to send you one for a gift of $30 or more to The Roys Report. Again, we don’t have any large donors or advertising. We simply have you—the people who care about exposing toxic churches and leaders, and then encouraging them to transform into TOV ones. So, if you’d like to support our work and get the book Pivot, just go to JulieRoys.com/donate. Also, I want to let you know that next week, I’ll be releasing another talk from Restore by Carson Weitnauer on Disillusionment and Hope. This is an extremely vulnerable and moving talk where Carson tells his profound disillusionment when he discovered the truth about Ravi Zacharias. At the time, Carson was a director at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries—and Ravi had been his hero. This is such a painfully honest, yet hopeful, talk—and one you won’t want to miss. So, be watching for that. We’ll release the talk as both an audio podcast and a video at my YouTube channel. Also, just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. That way, you won’t miss any of these episodes! And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then, please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks for joining me today! Hope you were blessed and encouraged!   Read more

Guest Bios Show Transcript https://youtu.be/xfqTi7vFjhwWhat are the telltale signs of spiritual abuse? And once you’ve been subjected to it, how do you heal? On this edition of The Roys Report, we’re rolling out the first of 11 talks from this year’s Restore Conference. This was an amazing gathering of survivors of church hurt and abuse—as well as pastors and Christian leaders wanting to better minister to these survivors. The gathering featured some incredibly powerful and eye-opening talks. One of those talks is on recognizing and healing from spiritual abuse, from Pastor Ken Garrett—one who knows about spiritual abuse firsthand. Ken and his family were members of an abusive church in Oregon, which turned out to be a cult. But after escaping the cult in the mid-1990s, Ken went on to complete graduate research on spiritual abuse. And he created the Spiritual Abuse Forum for Education, or SAFE. This is a bi-monthly meetup for survivors of spiritual abuse connect and support each other—where people of any faith or no faith are invited to participate. Ken also is the pastor of Grace Church in Portland, Oregon—and he’s the author of In the House of Friends: Understanding and Healing from Spiritual Abuse in Christian Churches. This talk deals with narcissism, control, and breaking free. Ken, who is such a warm and gentle soul, guides us through these difficult issues with a father’s heart. Guests Ken Garrett Dr. Ken Garrett is the pastor of Grace Church, Portland, a diverse, historic downtown church, and author of In the House of Friends: Understanding and Healing from Spiritual Abuse in Christian Churches. Ken has spoken and written for the International Cultic Studies Association, and provides support and encouragement to many survivors of abusive churches, cults, and high-demand groups in the Portland area. He founded the Spiritual Abuse Forum for Education, an informal gathering for mutual encouragement and education that welcomes and supports survivors of religious abuse from all faiths. Show Transcript SPEAKERSKEN GARRETT, JULIE ROYS JULIE ROYS  00:04What are the telltale signs of spiritual abuse? And once you’ve been subjected to it, how do you heal? Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys, and on this podcast we’re rolling out the first of 11 talks from this year’s RESTORE Conference. This was an amazing gathering of survivors of church hurt and abuse as well as pastors and Christian leaders, wanting to better minister to the survivors. As one speaker commented, RESTORE is more like a restorative community than a conference. And there’s really nothing that quite compares to being there in person. That said, we had some incredibly powerful and eye-opening talks. And one of those talks you’re going to hear today, the talk is on recognizing and healing from spiritual abuse, and the person speaking is Ken Garrett, someone who knows about spiritual abuse firsthand.   Ken and his family were members of an abusive church in Oregon, which turned out to be a cult. After escaping the cult in the mid-1990s. Ken went on to complete graduate research on spiritual abuse, and he created the Spiritual Abuse Forum for Education or SAFE. This is a bimonthly meet up with Christian and non-Christian survivors of spiritual abuse to connect and support each other. Ken also is the pastor of Grace Church in Portland, and he’s the author of In the House of Friends: Understanding and Healing From Spiritual Abuse in  Christian Churches. Ken also is a warm and gentle soul who I’m proud to call a friend, and I’m so excited to share his talk with you.   But first, I’d like to thank the sponsors of this podcast, Judson University, and Marquardt of Barrington. If you’re looking for a top ranked Christian University, providing a caring community and an excellent college experience, Judson University is for you. Judson is located on 90 acres just 40 miles west of Chicago in Elgin, Illinois. The school offers more than 60 majors, great leadership opportunities, and strong financial aid. Plus, you can take classes online as well as in person. Judson University is shaping lives that shaped the world. For more information, just go to JUDSONU.EDU. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity, and transparency. That’s because the owners there Dan and Kurt Marquardt are men of integrity. To check them out, just go to BUYACAR123.COM. Well, again, this is the first of 11 talks from the RESTORE Conference, which concluded on October 14. This talk on recognizing and healing from spiritual abuse is by Ken Garrett, a pastor and author of In the House of Friends: Understanding and Healing From Spiritual Abuse in  Christian Churches. Here’s Ken Garrett.   KEN GARRETT  03:00 Sometimes in the process of recovery from spiritual abuse, it’s easy to think in terms of the long haul; Will I ever be okay? Will my marriage be okay? Will my kids get over it? And will I ever go back to church? Or will I ever be able to listen to another loud pastor guy standing behind a pulpit? I mean, all kinds of long-term questions. But really, the recovery is a step-by-step endeavor. And that step by step for me sometimes meant not even getting out of my car when I would drive into the parking lot of a church after I left because guess what? God’s will for my life changed when I drove into that parking lot. I couldn’t handle it. So, I drive on down the road or drop my kids off at the church and then go get breakfast or something. That’s what happened to me, and I want to talk a little bit about it. And Julie kind of covered what I’m up to now is I’m a pastor in Portland, Oregon, had been a pastor of a church there for 20 years in the middle of downtown Portland. And before that, ironically, I served as a paramedic in that district of downtown Portland. In fact, one of the first times I ever preached there, I took care of a gentleman having a hypoglycemic reaction, and then preached and I thought that was so cool as the kind of things you would write about if you were doing that, but that’s what happened.   And so that’s what I do now. I’m a pastor there, and Julie referred to my experience as having been in a Christian cult which is spot on. And I want to assure you today that I know you’re in all phases of figuring out what happened to you. I did not refer to my experience or the church I was in as a cult for, I don’t know, boy maybe 10 years or so, seven years before I could really think of it that way. And before it occurred to me that I had so much in common really, with my friends that had escaped Scientology, or yoga cults or Hindu cults or white supremacist cults are all of the polygamous, all of those cults. I had so much in common with them. And it was when I started learning about them, I realized I’m certainly, certainly just like them, I’ve survived a cult. And I was able to start calling it that. I realized, as I’m speaking to you today, that not everybody is comfortable. You’re not there, maybe you’ll never get there. Spiritual abuse is kind of on a spectrum. And I’m going to share with you some red flags of spiritual abuse in churches that I see and that I believe; not all of those red flags will relate to your situation. But I’m going to be so general about it really, that I think a few bells will go off for you. But it’s a process. And wherever you put yourself in that process, I’m delighted that you’re here today. That part of it is for you to take a step to cross through the door.   Most of you probably know what it’s like to walk through the doors of a church after you’ve had a particularly terrible experience in churches. And that really represents something if you’re able to do that. And it represents something today that you did that this morning, you got up knowing, having an idea of the things you were going to hear having an idea of the things we were going to talk about, but you came anyway. And I thank you for that.   Yeah, I grew up in Portland, Oregon, and grew up pretty normal. I like to think a normal guy. I  grew up in the Lutheran church, and I live in the neighborhood now that I grew up in. And my parents were Christians and went to church and raised us in the church. I joined the military when I was 20. And during that time, also, I got married. Sharon and I were married and lived in North Carolina for a while. And something that was true about us, and I don’t think it’s just because she’s a Baptist preacher’s daughter, I don’t I don’t think that’s the only reason. But we were fiercely devout to our age, you know? We had a little bit of Keith Green, gonna, you know, we’re gonna save the world. I mean, good grief, no stopping us. And we were very open to finding ministries that were a little Avant Garde, a little  different, a little edgier. You know, we didn’t want our mom and dad’s churches, neither one of us did. And so, I was then at work, one day, a fellow paramedic invited me to her church. And she said, Well, Ken, what are you looking for in a church? And I said, discipleship and Bible study. Man, that’s candy to a recruiter from a cult, right? I mean, it’s just like bing! Guess what we do? And as if that wasn’t enough, I actually said, you know, I’d also wouldn’t mind joining a church that meets in a home or something like that too Something a little different. She said, we meet in a living room, and thus began in 1984., my journey into a church that began to unravel and fall apart.   I’m still thinking through the reasons why it unraveled. I know we talk about abusive churches a lot,  if this was a church, and it was abusive. As if all of you had some malignant designs on each other because you were all bad, you were in an abusive church, you are all abusers or something. That’s not true at all. I’m still circling around this issue after many years of studying it. I find a narcissistic personality behind every abusive church I ever find. There’s somebody calling the shots and that person has some very distinct attributes about him. And I’m not going to say a whole lot about those attributes, but I’ll just say, our guy had those attributes. And he really, we studied the Bible like crazy. I mean, we were studying Greek and Hebrew and church history and giving. Oh, my goodness, like Monday evening, Wednesday morning, Saturday morning evangelism, Sunday morning worship, and then Sunday afternoon fellowship. And that didn’t even count meeting during the week with my discipler, mentor, the person who was supposedly going to help me grow spiritually.   So, it really kind of ended up eating up our life. which really, when we first went there, we wanted that, we were looking for a big commitment. We did in that sense want to save the world; we wouldn’t have admitted that. But sure, why not? Over the years, the whole thing really went off the cliff. And this gentleman who is leading our church, really through all kinds of issues in his life that were simply undealt with, that he really should have gotten, you know, real therapy for and help he didn’t. And the church was the low hanging-ist fruit of finding a social group that could be controlled and could become what is called a narcissistic supply for him. And all of those things working together, ended with us moving in together, and living communally with several large homes in a beautiful neighborhood of Portland. And did you know you can get like 24 people into one large home? It was pretty crazy. It was really communal, is what it was, although for some reason, while we were living that way, we and we were with our kids, too, we ended up having three kids in this group. For some reason, it was important that we qualified our communal living that it was semi communal. I don’t know what semi meant, because I wasn’t in charge of the thermostat or what cable channels we got or anything like that. And I was told when I would eat and what our family was going to do. So yeah, I’m glad it wasn’t communal then I guess because semi communal was really bad enough.   Well, everything really fall apart, it fell apart. And we really followed him off the cliff. And it’s important to note people in my church hate it when I note this. But it’s important to note that I was a card carrying fully supportive, on the bus disciple in this group. I progressed to being a kind of a Junior Leader, a deacon in the group, I was teaching, and I spoke a little bit and I supported the whole thing. And that’s the way it was for all of us too. That’s something that survivors of spiritual abuse, sometimes we have a tough time owning the fact that we really supported it. I mean, we were on target for it. We did alienate friends, we did ruin every Thanksgiving we went to with mom and dad, at least I did.   We have trouble sometimes seeing that, because we do carry vestiges of shame about us, don’t we? Shame as a husband as a father, I mean, just so that’s difficult to look at. And I realize, coming in here today that you probably carry the vestiges of those really hurtful and harmful feelings and things and thoughts about yourself that I’m still picking through 26 I think 20 I don’t know 26 years later, so. So, I get it about that.   So, in 1996, I had repented of a lot of personal sins in my life. Biggie, Biggie, Biggie things. I mean, the police watched us and the FBI for a while. So, we were kind of serious criminals, I think. And I repented of a lot of sins. And Sharon and I, our marriage, of course had fallen apart in the group and which is kind of what these groups do. And we got together again, although we’ve known each other since we were kids, we just started piecing together. And this sounds really strange. But the first encouraging thing about my marriage that we pieced together is establishing the fact that if I left the church, Sharon would go with me. Isn’t that sad? It’s not because she was so bad or, or I was so good. It’s because in these kinds of groups, that’s how it can be for a marriage. So yeah, and that was like, wow, she’s going with me. I can do anything. And here’s something interesting. I haven’t even touched my notes yet. And I’m glad I didn’t write a lot of notes. Here’s something interesting. When I first told God I wanted to leave this church, I felt guilty about it. And I felt that I was scared somebody would find out and overhear my prayer or something, even though I was on a mountain in Portland. But when I first told him I wanted to leave this church, the terms that I expressed that to him were this, I’ll give up ministry. I’ll give up my dreams of being a pastor. And I will put all of these ridiculous books away that I’ve been poring over for years, I’ll walk away from all of those aspirations I had. And I will live on top of a garage somewhere. Man, I’ll live in a packing box, a shipping box, I’ll live anywhere, if you’ll just let me keep my wife and my children. And if you’ll do that, God, I won’t bother you anymore with these aspirations of Ken being a pastor or anything like that.   That says a lot about me and how I viewed God. It really says a lot about what I felt was a transaction happening that I was failing in the contract. I was going  break my contract with God. And I found that that’s very, it’s actually consistent with Christians and other cults too. Scientologists, when they leave it, they break what for some of them is a 16-million-year contract that they’ve signed over to follow it. I know that sounds totally wacky. But the first time you hear it, you kind of what, but yeah, and they decided to break that contract. I lived as if I had a contract with God. And as I left the church with Sharon and our children and the few things that we still had to us. And as we walked out the door, on August 28, at about 3pm 1996, and got in our little car and drove away with the associate pastor yelling at me and the elders all angry, and all of that. We went to a hotel because I was too embarrassed to tell my parents, ugh you were right. I’d alienated them so much. I just couldn’t take that too. So, we went to a hotel. And the big question, of course, that I carried, and that took a long time to get around was simply the question, what just happened? I was 24 years old, fresh out of the military, great job as a paramedic, buying a house settling into life having babies and here I am, I’m 36, and I’m checking into a little hotel and afraid to call my parents and I’m really freaked out that they’ll find out where I’m at. And, wow, what happened?   Well, it’s really easy to say now what happened, spiritual abuse happened. My religion, spiritual abuse I’ve written down as the infliction of an emotional, psychological, and spiritual wounding, that is inflicted on a person within the context of that person’s religion. Spiritual abuse is not simply located or limited to Christian churches. Spiritual abuse is the use of a person’s ideological, metaphysical, or spiritual beliefs, their religion. It’s jumping into that world, and then beginning to corrupt the person’s thinking, and the person’s reasoning. And in many ways, they develop what’s called a false self. And that’s spiritual abuse when that happens.   Now, along with spiritual abuse, are equally terrible abuses and even more terrible that we’re not really here to deal with at this event, but sexual abuse, physical abuse, violence, marital abuse, child abuse, economic abuse, professional abuse, I mean, there are so many ways that this abuse happens, and spiritual abuse simply says that these abuses as terrible as they were happened in the context of my religion. The thing that was supposed to help me avoid that abuse. So that’s what happened to me.   Okay, so let me give you some red flags of spiritual abuse. And I don’t expect as I said that these will, you know, make sense to everybody but I’m going to run through them and I got rid of all of my little explanatory notes of my main notes because I thought you know, Ken, you’re saying some details here. But as I understand our group here, and what we’re doing here today, you guys have the details, you have it down. I’m just stating this out as a general idea about spiritual abuse and how it looks and how it can look. But as I see looking at the schedule of events and speakers, we’re gonna get detailed and you’re gonna get more details but I’m going to speak kind of generally. I’ve got 10 things that I think are that I found to be red flags of spiritual abuse. The first thing I should clear up is who joins an abusive church? Who joins an abusive church? I’m not just being facetious about it, but I’ll tell you the answer. Nobody. Nobody, nobody joins a church that’s going to wreck their marriage, alienate them from their children, take all their money, take them out of professional advancement and educational advancement that they would like to do, like everybody else wants to. Nobody willingly joins that kind of a group. Of course not. We join groups that promise to meet our deepest needs, that promise to give us the community, the quality relationships we want. When we’re young families and young parents, they promised to give us other young families and young parents that share our values so we can grow up together in it. This group promises to give us the things we so desperately want. So that’s the group we join. And it’s the same thing in the world. You know, wherever you’re at with it, people don’t join a cult, nobody goes out and says, You know what? I like the simplicity of an all-orange wardrobe. And I especially love the simplicity of a vegetarian diet, and the standing on the corner, yelling at people and trying to get their money. That’s just icing on the cake baby. That’s for me. Of course, nobody does that. They join a group that communicates to them that those deepest needs and desires of their life are going to be met there. And I suspect that’s how you guys either joined., or, if you grew up in one of these abusive churches, what you discovered. Okay, so the red flags, the first one is deceit, deceit. Every cultic group, or abusive group, or abusive church is founded when it begins abusing its members.   And again, I got to tell you, even though I’m saying members plural, and church plural, in my head, I got a picture of a guy. And that’s a bad guy. He’s finishing out a 20-year sentence at Oregon State Penitentiary, as we sit here today, for his badness of felony child sexual assault, finally got caught after like three trials. So, I’m thinking of a guy. And I don’t know what you might be thinking of, but it’s based in deceit. It’s based in deceit. The environment of a hurtful church is purposely unclear. The motives are veiled. The atmosphere is controlled. When I say atmosphere, what I mean is the milieu it’s the control of the milieu, what you look at what you see who you’re with, what kind of music you hear, where the pastor is, how the pastor stands, what does his pulpit look like? What kind of behaviors do you observe, are allowed and what kinds of ones are not? This is the whole cultural milieu, the context and it’s based in deceit, because it’s presenting to you a picture of the church that is simply not true. And this is important to note, because this is the aspect of an abusive church that destroys your trust, okay? It’s the very beginning, realizing, and I hate to put it this way, but realizing you were tricked. And that is a violation of your trust, which, wow, hits you hard. Lose trust in God, lose trust in religion, lose trust in your Bible, lose trust in your friends, your spouse, your religion. And worst of all, you lose trust in God, and you’re not sure if you got tricked into the whole ball of wax. So, the first thing I find is deceit with these groups.   The second thing and this is not a progressive order, it’s just kind of a 10 as they occurred to me. The second thing is isolation. Abusive churches and toxic groups depend on isolating their members from the other’s. Moms and dads, brothers and sisters, best buddies from high school, kids you grew up with, other Christians. I mean, the support that could be a support network for you, the abusive church moves toward isolating you away from that and diminishing the importance and the significance of those relationships, to where maybe You’ll spend Thanksgiving with your church family, those folks that really love you. And you’ll tell your mom and your dad, I’m not going to be able to make it home. Maybe you won’t go to the normal Christmas gathering that you’ve been to all of these years, because you know what? Pastor’s teaching of complete study through the book of Mark over Christmas break. That’s not something I want to miss. That isolation serves a much deeper purpose than simply showing the power of leadership. The reward and punishments as a system that take place in an abusive church can only take place if you have no outside influences. The abusive leader does not want you to be able to go have a cup of coffee with your high school buddy, and say, well, you’d never believe it. Actually, I’m tithing 30%, which was pretty tough for a new guy and a new paramedic, and with kids and everything, but I don’t know, what do you think of that? Well, after my friend got done slapping me he would, he would say something like Ken, wake up, wake up. This is not right. How can this be right? They’re rich, and they’re making you poor. That kind of discussion and reaction is poison to the leaders and the leader of an abusive church. So, the isolation has to happen. The reason it’s important is because you do not become completely pliable until you are effectively isolated, okay? And the way it happens is not through deriding and discouraging you from your present or your relationships or things important to you. It’s also through loving you within the group into such a way that you can say, well, maybe my needs will be met here. And it becomes emotionally very important to you that those needs are met and that you’re okay with everybody in that group. And you begin making decisions based on the underlying commitment you have to stay good with the group. Isolation is important to these to these groups.   Another one – elitism. Elitism. Just the idea of compared to other Christians compared to other churches, compared to other groups, this is a place where it’s done right. You might hear the translation of their Bibles criticize; you might hear their pastors criticize. You know, well, what kind of church do you think that must be? They got a woman pastor, right? Don’t throw anything at me. I was just using that as an example. So, this elitism begins to happen within these groups. You’re actually told, while you’re experiencing the worst life you can imagine you’re actually told that you’re a Green Beret for Jesus. I mean, you’re actually in the best group, and you are better and you’re going to be better, and you probably are going to save the world. Elitism.   Fourth, I see that the independence the freedom of thought begins to be controlled by the group. Nobody likes the word brainwashing, and it’s not a good word at all to use in the academic world. It’s called thought reform. That is through a system of manipulations and emotional controls, the very way that you as a member think, is changed. That happens partially through being told you’re more special than everyone else. And you’re elite. Your pastors the best pastor. He’s the most like King David. Isn’t that something? We really did say that. Yeah. Which if I would have really thought about it, I would have gone, oh man head for the hills. That is not exactly the best person to be like, bless him. But yeah, okay. So, the elitism hits and the independence your ability to think independently gets goofed up. That’s why it’s hard when you leave a group to think straight. It’s hard to think straight. It’s hard to pick up a book. I went to the store and stared at the section of Levi’s because I needed a new pair of jeans. And it was just months after leaving. I stared at those things. Man, there’s like a million different kinds anyway, right? And just trying to make a decision about it. And I walked out after an hour, couldn’t decide. It didn’t quite take an hour but I also walked out of the supermarket. I could not decide between white and brown eggs. And of course, that wasn’t a thing from my cult. It’s just my decision making and my trust in myself had gotten so out of shape that at moments I couldn’t even control I would be paralyzed and couldn’t not think straight. That’s generally not a good quality in a paramedic. But there it was, and I managed to survive. So yeah, the independence of thought is hid. And I call that really a freedom of conscience. The idea of being able to believe what I believe and know what I believe and own what I believe in these churches, of course, gets violated.   Fifth, I see that the member’s private life is violated. Okay, violated, it can take place through simply giving reports to those over you. How are you doing this week? How’s your time with God going? How are those memory verses going for you? Can I review you? Are you planning on making it to this? How is this going? Your private life begins to be dismantled. How’s your marriage, Kne? How’s your marriage? Well, don’t just say fine. I mean, how are you doing? When was the last fight you had and, that’s stuff that you, you bring up for help and assistance with somebody you trust. It’s not something that the bosses ask you. That’s your marriage. So, there’s a violation. And then of course, confession, the very demand that you as a member, confess your sin a lot, often. And that sin ends up making its way up the chain. And in some churches, they actually write them down. I think the Bible says something about that somewhere, keeping a list, you know. But the confession is a very important part of it, because it involves a public shaming, and an admission of your unworthiness and of your failure. When I went to court, which, you know, 19 years or so, after leaving my cult, I was on the witness stand. And it was very important to the defense attorney to discredit me as a witness, probably because I’m a pastor, because my daughters had been some of the children that this man had abused. But also, I had studied cultic dynamics and whatnot. And so, he thought to himself, well, I don’t really want Ken up there. And it was amazing. They remembered sins that I had confessed in 1984. Yeah, and now I’m a 54-year-old man who’s, you know, Grace of God moved on from a lot of things in my life. And now I’m faced with 24-year-old Ken with his totally goofed up compromises. And since they remembered it, they told their lawyer, and he nailed me on it in the courtroom, everything from well, I just won’t get into it here, but just everything they really it down. And it didn’t work. Because when you’ve left a group like this and faced things, who cares who knows whatever? They thought they were going to make my church maybe fire me or something like, Oh, if they knew what we know about him. That wasn’t exactly the case at all.   Another red flag is family. How the church treats family relationships. The two that I’ll just mention is, first of all, the marital relationship. I’ve said a couple of things about that already. But also, the relationship of children in the family unit. False teachers and abusive leaders get right to work in fusing marriages, especially young marriages, with issues of dominance, with fake communication with the concept of husbands discipling their wives, or maybe wives discipling their husbands. I mean, I’ve been to weddings where the pastor, in giving his wedding speech, reminded the young groom that he was now the authority in his bride’s life, and he would need the answers. She needed to come to Him for wisdom, no longer her father. Isn’t that weird? And I’m thinking to myself, good grief. This is a kid. And he’s being told that I mean, I know, he’s not even taking responsibility for his own life, because he’s 20 years old or whatever. And he also now is responsible for the life of the most precious human being in his life, his wife, and he’s set up for failure. Abusive churches hurt marriages, in many, many different ways. And they also hurt the relationships between children and their parents. The healthy connecting, and bonding that should be happening between a child and his mom, especially his mom, but a child and his mom and their dad, in the earliest years of life, often are disrupted in the abusive church, and it hurts because you can’t get those years back. The reason this happens is because narcissistic leaders hate dyadic relationships. Strange word: what I mean, there is this, they are jealous of any other two people in their world, having a relationship that is outside of their control, criticism, ability to step right into and mess with anytime they want. They resent these relationships, and they resent the relationships often between parents and their children. That’s how it was in my church. You know, he was just jealous. He was just jealous. There’s a distinct fear of displeasing leaders in abusive churches. Members end up living their lives with the consideration before they do anything of you know, anything, go out to a movie or whatever. They think, how would pastor so and so feel about this? And would I be in trouble or not? Is this okay or not? And they make decisions based on that. A terrible fear of leadership because of what they can do to you once you’ve been isolated by them.   Then the issue of grace, this is where I could talk for like 10 hours. And I probably wouldn’t even touch the bottom of it. The violation of grace that happens in abusive groups and churches is absolutely criminal. If grace is even spoken of, it is relegated to the theology pages of a book to explain the disposition of God, when He graciously and nicely presented Christ in such a way that you and I can believe and escape judgment and sin and, you know, be saved. And that’s it. But the issue of graciousness in the church, man that is not just twisted or perverted, it’s absent. Grace is absent. That’s the number one kind of theology that I find people when they leave these churches and begin to put their lives together  and heal the number one thing that blows them away, if they’re in that space, is grace. It’s the missing theological point of all of these abusive groups.   And finally, leaving the group is traumatic, it’s hard to leave. It’s not just hard to leave, it’s traumatic on you to leave. Long before you leave the group, the message is made clear to you, what will happen to you if you leave the group, what will be said about you by your best friends if you leave the group, how you will be thought of if you leave the group, how you will fail in life if you leave the group. Long before you walk out the door, you see it lived out before your very eyes and how your friends are treated when they leave. And you think to yourself, I don’t want that to happen to me. So, the trauma begins before you even leave it. But once you leave it, oh my goodness, oh my goodness, the anxiety attacks, the fear of crowds, the fear of people, the inability to keep commitments you make to meet somebody or to do something, the showing up late for an event or a church or something so that you don’t have to talk and then the leaving early, so that you don’t have to talk, all of those behaviors,  those all come about because of the trauma that you experienced of your soul being mashed up in a meat grinder by a church.   Okay, I’ve got just a few minutes to say just a few things. How do we begin to heal from this? What does healing look like? How do we begin the healing process? I’ve got just a few things to say. And the first thing is that the healing process absolutely involves a renewal of trust. It might take a year; it might take 10 years. I suppose I’m 26 years out and I’m still kind of working through it. But trust has been violated. Something that needs to be earned was violated. And you don’t trust churches, you don’t trust people. You struggle with trusting God. You struggle with opening the Bible, it triggers so much. I mean, so much of what happened to you is centered around somebody tapping a Bible while they were doing it to you. And worst of all, you don’t trust yourself. I couldn’t trust myself to buy a pair of pants. And I’m raising kids. And I’m giving life support to patients; couldn’t trust myself to just make a decision about buying a stupid dozen eggs in Safeway and going home. Your trust in yourself. And if your trust is violated on even those small things, imagine the big things. How do I know how to lead my family? How would I ever know a church that’s good or not? How am I ever going to trust another pastor? I trusted that when I trusted that church I trusted that doctrine. I trusted those things and I failed. I should be here and I’m not. I should have this much retirement I don’t. I should have this kind of house, I don’t, I should have this education, I don’t, my wife and I should be experiencing this life we’re not. So, trust is violated. And so, the first thing in recovery is to begin to consider the need for trust and make some small choices to restore trust. I’m a very literal guy. When I say small choices, I mean, like, get out of bed. So far, so good. I made it. And that’s what I mean is to begin to make good choices, and to establish trust. And of course, that involves people.   And that’s really the second thing of building back trust is kindhearted people. You need a relationship with people who get it. It’s best if those people are people that were in your group with you, they get it, and you can stay up all night telling stories. And that’s good. But you need people in some manner. And it can be a handshake and a hello. And that’s it for now, no problem, you’ve done something. But we need human beings to restore trust in human beings. If you’re trying to help people recover from these things, this is the most important aspect, that you are a person of integrity and kindness and you stick your neck out for the person that you’re wanting to help. And you understand that they don’t trust you. And they might not for a long, long time.   Okay. And then finally, you need information. You need solid information. I went back to seminary, and I was working on a doctorate, it was on some boring, boring subject that nobody has a right to really take anybody’s time. But I switched halfway into studying cults and abusive churches. And all I could find was basically other than a couple of good books, all I could find was devotional materials, or telling me why I needed to be nicer to King Saul when he throws a spear at me. You know what I mean? So, you need, you need education. You need to learn the dynamics of thought reform, of cults, of how psychologically things happen that hurt you. And I had to go into the kind of the secular academic realm to start researching and putting that together, and you need that information.   And finally, I got like a couple of seconds. Finally, if you achieve a bit of an education with people, you’ll develop the vocabulary to explain what I started out saying what happened to me? You will develop a common language so that you can show up here and get to telling your stories and sharing your heart a lot quicker and you can be understood and empathized with a lot better because you learn a common vocabulary. And over time, you develop the words, and you understand them and you’re able to share and to listen to your fellow survivors as you heal.   Please bow your heads if you would let me and grant me the respect of letting me pray for you. Gracious King. dear King, Shepherd. Every human being in this room is broken. And every human being everywhere is broken. We’re here admitting it. So, we ask you to carry us don’t just help us along don’t just help things get a little better. Absolutely 100%, save and deliver us. Even now, we want to have a good weekend. But God even now, wherever we’re at with this horrible issue, meet us, deliver us, give us trust. Give us good people and teach us father teach us for we are here to learn. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.   JULIE ROYS  44:25 Well, again, that’s Ken Garrett speaking at RESTORE 2023 which just concluded on October 14. Next week, I’ll be publishing my podcast with theologian Scot McKnight and his daughter, Laura Behringer, on their new book, Pivot: The Priorities, Practices and Powers That Can Transform Your Church Into a Tov Culture. That’s an awesome book and it’s sure to be an awesome podcast, so be looking for that next week. Then on November 8, I’ll be releasing a talk from RESTORE by Carson Weitnauer on disillusionment and hope. This is an extremely vulnerable and moving talk where Carsten recounts his profound disillusionment when he discovered that someone he thought was a hero of the faith turned out to be a fraud. That hero was Ravi Zacharias. And when Carson discovered the truth about Ravi, he was a director at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. This is such a painfully honest yet hopeful talk, and one you won’t want to miss. I also want to mention that the videos of these talks are all available at my YouTube channel. A lot of conferences charge for their videos, but we’ve decided to make ours available for free because we don’t want anyone to miss out on this valuable content because of lack of finances. But these videos do cost us to shoot and edit. So, if you appreciate this content and you’re able to pitch in, would you please donate to The Roys Report so we can continue this important service. To do so just go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. Also, just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcast, Google podcast, Spotify, or YouTube. That way you’ll never miss an episode. And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks so much for joining me today. Hope you were blessed and encouraged. Read more

Guest Bios Show Transcript Part 2 of our eye-opening podcast on bullying, featuring the woman who blew the whistle on author and pastor, Dane Ortlund, is out! If you missed part one, you can find it here. In this podcast, Ortlund whistleblower, Emily Hyland, describes what she wishes she knew when she was being bullied that she knows now. And anti-bullying expert, Paul Coughlin, offers keen insights from his decades of experience, as well.  Coughlin, author of the best-selling, No More Christian Nice-Guy, and founder of The Protectors, reveals how bullies identify their targets. He also gives steps every person can take to stand up to them.  Meanwhile, Hyland explains how to educate yourself on bullies, but warns against trying to become an expert before taking action. She also shares important developments in her case against Ortlund, author of Gentle and Lowly. For anyone who has experienced bullying, or wants accountability for a bully, don’t miss this podcast. You may even want to take notes! Guests Emily Hyland Emily Hyland earned her bachelors in Molecular Genetics and Biotechnology before working for the Office of Naval Research in Washington, DC. While there she received a MHSA in Management & Leadership from The George Washington University. She has worked with the US Army and the Office of the Surgeon General, Accenture, GE, and across finance, manufacturing, health services, and information technology. Recently, she was the Director of Operations at Naperville Presbyterian Church in suburban Illinois. She is married and has three children.  Paul Coughlin Paul Coughlin is an author, an international speaker and the founder and president of The Protectors, which is dedicated to helping schools, organizations and communities combat bullying. His books include No More Christian Nice Guy, Raising Bully-Proof Kids and 5 Secrets Great Dads Know. Paul and his wife, Sandy, reside in central Oregon and have three teenage children. Learn more about Paul and his organization at www.theprotectors.org. Show Transcript JULIE ROYS, PAUL COUGHLIN, EMILY HYLAND JULIE ROYS 00:03 How do you deal with bullying by a pastor or Christian employer? Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And this is part two of a two-part podcast with bullying expert Paul Coughlin and whistleblower Emily Hyland. If you missed part one, I’d encourage you to go back now and listen to that. It was a fascinating discussion in which Emily gave new details about the alleged bullying and retaliation she received at the hands of Dane Ortlund. Dane is the pastor of Naperville Presbyterian Church in Naperville, Illinois. He’s also the author of the bestselling book, Gentle and Lonely. But according to Emily, Dane is a bully. In Emily’s case alleging retaliation by Dane and his church because she blew the whistle on Dane’s bullying is now going to trial. And you’ll hear about important developments in that case in this podcast. You’ll also hear important insights on how to deal with bullies in a Christian workplace. And Emily will share what she wishes she knew back when she was being bullied that she knows now. I’m so looking forward to diving into the rest of my discussion with Emily and Paul Coughlin. But first I’d like to thank the sponsors of this podcast, Judson University and Marquardt of Barrington if you’re looking for a top ranked Christian University, providing a caring community and an excellent college experience, Judson University is for you. Judson is located on 90 acres just 40 miles west of Chicago in Elgin, Illinois. The school offers more than 60 majors, great leadership opportunities and strong financial aid. Plus, you can take classes online as well as in person. Judson University is shaping lives that shaped the world. For more information, just go to JUDSONU.EDU. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity, and transparency. That’s because the owners there Dan and Kurt Marquardt, are men of integrity. To check them out, just go to BUYACAR123.COM. We now return to part two of my discussion with Paul Coughlin and Emily Hyland. Specifically, Emily explains more of what she wishes she knew back when she was being bullied that she knows now. And one thing I’ve learned about Emily is that she doesn’t do anything halfway. So, when she realized something wasn’t right, she quickly devoured resources like author and advocate Wade Mullins’ book by that title. But Emily urges that while it’s important to find resources, victims shouldn’t go overboard and get a PhD. We’ve kind of touched on this, you said find resources, but don’t get a PhD on the subject. I’m guessing, just knowing a little bit about you, Emily, you like to master something before you move forward with it. And I’m guessing you couldn’t do that. But you did a great job of informing yourself; talk about that process. EMILY HYLAND 03:08 There are so many more resources that are available in this moment than there were two and a half years ago. Coming right out of it, that book by Wade Mullen was the first I read because of the title, Something’s Not Right. Like you’re right, that is exactly describing it. I have to read that. And I went through, and I read Diane Langberg and Scot McKnight and Laura Behringer’s book. I read Chuck DeGroote, I went through an entire podcast called Power Corrupts and have been increasingly able to articulate accurately what happened and that makes me feel more safe, that I am not speculating. I can say, in the fewest words possible, here’s what happened, and the impacts and why it was wrong. That has helped in the legal sense is that I don’t waste my time on the nebulous side of just thinking, well, what might have those pastors been thinking? I mean, I don’t know what they were thinking, I don’t know their hearts. A psychiatrist maybe could get at some of these things. I don’t need to know those things. I just need to accurately know what was going on in my own mind, in my own heart. I think one resource that I value now is that I wish I’d had then was there was no ChatGPT two years ago, and I wasted a lot of words trying to get my point across. And people don’t realize that when you’re making an accusation about a pastor, you’re making it against a professional communicator, somebody who is possibly way better with words than their victim. That was really hard. I had just too many words. And now ChatGPT has made a big difference just for me personally, to feel more confident in describing the situation. But I really don’t think that you need to be 100% certain and able to write a dissertation on it to step forward and say, I’ve seen bullying behaviors. We need to tackle it now. But you’ve got to stand up and say something, whether it’s on your behalf or the behalf of somebody else. Bullies need to be confronted to their face. You can’t shove a book at them and say, read this; does it sound like you? You have to speak it out to people to say, this is an individual interpersonal matter. Books help to get you the right words, but you can’t get around the fact that somebody, at some point, needs to bring it up to their face. JULIE ROYS 05:26 Hmm. And one thing if I could add to that, is give yourself some grace. Because I heard you say, like my own motives and my own. It’s so hard when you’re in the midst of this and you’re angry, and you have a right to be angry, and you’re hurt, and you have a right to be hurt. And in all that to be absolutely pristine in every attitude and thought, of course, you’re not going to be. And I think people need to have some grace with themselves when they’re walking through this. I remember once we were leaving a church and I said to somebody, oh, I just want to make sure that we don’t sin. And he’s like, No, you will, but try to minimize that. Just hearing that gave me I don’t know, just kind of a relief that Okay, right. I’m human in this and don’t have to be perfect. PAUL COUGHLIN 06:15 Julie, if I did add to that there’s a great line by Shakespeare. And he says that some people are more sinned against than sinner. And that is how it is when it comes to bullying in the workplace in faith-centric organizations. What’s interesting is that many people who are targets of bullying are nice people. And nice people will spend so much more time worrying about their behaviors than the person who is abusing them, harming them and their family. We really need to move away from that thinking. I also think that thinking is baked into the system as well, in the rhetoric used by many of our leaders for decades, into make us think that there is something fundamentally wrong with us, when we recognize this behavior in other people. We really need to move away from that, we need to stop being so nice, which is often a knee jerk reaction to people pleasing, it has nothing to do with the fruit of the spirit of kindness. Niceness is never mentioned in the Bible, for example, as an attribute of the Father, Son, or the Holy Spirit, it’s not a fruit of the Spirit, and bullies in the workplace, particularly within the church faith-centric organizations, they use our niceness against us. It’s one of the reasons why we’re targeted. We don’t use the word victim at the protectors very often, we prefer the word target, and here’s why. You have been selected the bully in the workplace. The bully pastor has picked on some people but not other people. Why is that? Because a bully is not looking for a fight, they want to overwhelm another person. So, they look for the nice person, they look for the person for example, who lives by turning the other cheek. There is no more tortured scripture in the theater of bullying, then turn the other cheek. When you put it in context. It has to do with having a generous spirit. It has nothing to do with accepting abuse from another person. So, we really need to have these distinctions. Niceness is really not a virtue, it’s actually a vice in disguise. It’s often the sin of cowardice, Revelation 21:8, we need to get tougher and stronger. We need to speak the truth in love. We still need to be gracious. But we also need to be truthful. I love what Emily said, in that someone needs to speak to the bullies face that is so important. If I give one piece of advice. The sooner you stand up to a bully in the workplace in the church, the better your life is going to be. The sooner you do it, the better. JULIE ROYS 08:44 So good. And in that some of the weapons that are used commonly against the person who speaks up is the word gossip. And you’re labeled gossip. I’m guessing, Emily, that happened to you? I don’t know. But did you find that parsing out what gossip is and understanding and distinguishing between that and what you were doing, was that an important step for you? EMILY HYLAND 09:10 The verbiage was because I wasn’t talking to people about what was going on. And I regret caring about somebody’s reputation more than the harm they were causing people. Gossip is a hard concept in the church because a church is like a proxy for family not having family in the area. And so, I want people to know what’s going on in my life. I want to know what other people’s is going on, how can I care for somebody or support somebody if I’m really not knowing what’s going on? But then there’s that sinful gossip of self-serving prideful nitpicking rumor spreading,. Those things can really be meshed together. And for my experience is that this came all that this gossip part came to like this moment, the single experience where I’ve talked to two elders, and they should know what they’re doing. And there was this pivot as soon as they told Dane and the associate about what I had said. And now the elders are saying, Oh, we made a mistake. We should be modeling Matthew 18. Let’s go backwards. You go meet with him privately. And I was like, what? JULIE ROYS 10:19 Matthew 18, just to interject for anybody who doesn’t know this, if turn the other cheek is the most abused, this has to be second, right? Yeah. It’s Matthew 18, which instructs, and again, this is with personal offenses. It says, with a personal offense to first take your offense to your brother one on one, then if he doesn’t listen to you to take one or two people with you, then if he doesn’t listen, then speak it to the entire church. Again, Matthew 18 is not a prescription for bully pastors. I would say ITimothy 5:20, is the prescription for bully pastors, which is when there’s an elder who’s sending that you should publicly expose him so that others may stand in fear. Good grief, somebody who’s being bullied, does not need to go through a Matthew 18. They go to people who are supposed to be advocates who are supposed to hold the pastor accountable. And when they don’t, then to me, you’re completely in a ITimothy 5:20 situation where it’s time to publicly expose the sinning pastor. So rarely hear that passage. Instead, we always hear Matthew 18. And it’s used as a club. It’s used abusively, and it’s a misapplication. PAUL COUGHLIN 11:31 Julie let’s say that a person has gone under a sexual assault. Do we really think that we would require that person to meet one on one? No one but your most ardent fundamentalist would say yes to that. Most people would say, okay, that’s an exception. I’ll give you that exception. How is that the only exception? And this is used in Christian schools, by the way with kids who are being bullied, I argue it absolutely doesn’t apply, in fact, you’re retraumatizing that poor kid whose been the target of bullying to sit in the same room. So, we really need more than knowledge of Matthew 18. We need wisdom. And wisdom is doesn’t apply to all situations at all times. EMILY HYLAND 12:10 And that’s what made this so difficult is that I’ve just told two elders about the bullying and intimidation in those words. And their response is, I think we need to go do this again. And you need to go meet with him privately. And I can’t say no, he’s my boss. So that’s what we do. And it’s a closed-door private meeting, no witnesses. What was said in that meeting? But what really stood out to me was his line, have you told anyone else about this? It sounded like it was delivered, like straight out of a horror story to the character whose body is never found, because what the answer is, is that if I had said, Yes, I was guilty of gossip about a pastor, my church elder. If I said, no, there are no witnesses in the control of the narrative still possible, as long as I’m not around to contradict anything. And that’s what happened. Forty-eight hours later, that’s what I told him. I said, No, I haven’t said anything, because what I believe is that gossip hinders reconciliation efforts. And I wanted this to be reconciled. I had no premonition that this was unrecoverable. I know better now. But what I thought then is that, yeah, there was no need to gossip, because it’s like I saw a problem. I’m like, let’s get these elders involved. Let’s get this back on the rails moving on. And what it actually was, is, I did myself a disservice by not gossiping more. I don’t want to gossip. But I wish I had talked to people who were safe and outside of that church. JULIE ROYS 13:40 And that’s not gossip. No, that is getting the help that you need in certain situations. And so important for us to understand, distinguish between those. What about the family impact? Because you have children. And I’ve heard this from numerous people where I would do this, I would speak up, but I’ve got children in the church. Sometimes it’s the spouse, there’s all these connections and leverage that, quite frankly, the leader or the organization has over the person that’s being bullied. Talk about that and how you navigated that. EMILY HYLAND 14:21 For me, I kept this all under wraps. Nobody knew, nobody knew what I was feeling. So, they probably noticed there was something wrong. And I remember when my mom asked me, she’s like, how’s it going working for Dane? And I had no answer. I couldn’t just say fine, I held back. But then when this all came crashing down, she didn’t know how to help me. My husband didn’t know how to help me. Everybody knew I had worked for church. And then one moment I wasn’t, they really did not know why they were at this church one Sunday, and nobody from that church ever spoke to them again. I mean, I’m shouldering my own mountain of grief, and then I’ve got this, you know, layer of they’re grief. My oldest son, he’s like, I was happy at MPC. And they were until it was over. And I think that processing the grief with them has been valuable. I trust that God will use this in their faith walk for their good. But I wish I’d spoken up earlier, and I wish I had prepared my family for the consequences of speaking up. What happens when you tell the truth is that you might experience hardship and pain, it’s worth it. But I wish I had prepared myself to give them a little bit more solace as to how to navigate, and why their world changed so much so quickly. JULIE ROYS 15:42 I mean, listening as a mother, my heart just goes out to you and to your family, for what you’ve been through. And it’s hard enough for adults, but for children to process how this happens, and to distinguish between the people that hurt them who are symbols of the Church of God. It’s just so painful to see that and it just requires so much prayer, so much care. But I mean, none of us on this call, and I’m guessing, Paul, you included, my kids have not been spared any of the effects of what I’ve gone through. They shoulder it with me whether or not they deserve to because they really don’t deserve any of it. And yet, there’s no way to insulate them from it. PAUL COUGHLIN 16:30 And a job, in a supposed Christian environment, it certainly wasn’t. And I have three kids, and they were younger. And I would drive home from that job. And you just undergo stuff that is just horrendous. And I had a mantra that I would tell myself in the car – our old blue Volvo. I would say this is not my future, this is not my future, this is not the Lord’s will for my life. And it helped and it helps to highlight something fundamental for targets; hope is more important than love for a beleaguered individual, and a beleaguered community. We see this often in the writings and speeches of Martin Luther King. Why did he talk about hope so much? Because if you don’t have a functioning hope, that today, tomorrow, the next day year, could be better – love doesn’t land well. Without hope we can’t digest love very well. So, one thing that we need to do is to inculcate more hope in our spirit is to realize this is not your future. This is temporary, it’s not permanent. It’s one of the reasons why we recommend that people start looking for another job, because we’re talking about bullying within faith centric organizations. Looking for another job has a way of bolstering your hope. And with that hope we tend to think more clearly and more proactively. JULIE ROYS 18:01 Hmm. For some reason, I’m thinking of the movie Back to the Future. I don’t know if you remember that. But there’s a main bully. Yeah, and the two different scenarios that the entire family experiences because the father is bullied in front of his son. In the first scenario, that impacts the son’s view his father and the culture of the family, and how it changes when somebody stands up to the bully. And I think one of the things that we don’t think about enough is what it communicates to our children when we don’t say anything, and we allow this kind of harm to continue. I talked to somebody recently, and I have to sort of laugh because I asked her how your kids process what happened? And she sort of laughed, and she said, at first it was really difficult. She said that they kind of think their mom’s badass. I was like, okay, but I mean, in the very best sense of that word, if there is, is that they see that you’re worth standing up for and that there are things worth standing up for. There’s things worth paying a price for. And I think it’s important as Christians that we start modeling that in the way that we respond. PAUL COUGHLIN 19:19 We’re told as parents, not to exasperate our children, right in Scripture? One way to exasperate your children is to show cowardice and for them to witness that. That can make them feel incredibly uncomfortable and unstable. JULIE ROYS 19:32 Good point. EMILY HYLAND 19:33 I think it too is that you know, like that parable Jesus told about a man who finds a treasure in the field, and he sells everything to get the treasure. It’s almost the counter like the inverse is that what would I not give to keep my kids from being discipled in gracelessness and fear and corruption? I mean, to not have my kids in that I’m like, I will pay that price. My kids will not be breathing that air and under that thumb of oppression and hurting other people. I don’t want them to grow up thinking that that’s okay at church. You can, I think, latch on to the teeniest tiniest nugget of courage to say, I can do this, because other people might benefit. JULIE ROYS 20:22 In a way, you had no idea when you spoke to the elders, how that was going to play out and what the consequences were going to be. But you say that we should understand the risks but take the gamble anyway. Why do you say that? EMILY HYLAND 20:37 When I look back, I think, like you said about the matrix. I mean, there was a period, I was like, please just plug me back into the matrix. I just wanted to go back. And then there was the period where I was like, please just let me have a lobotomy so I cannot have these memories, and not know, have these relationships that you know, now are nothing. And now I think that outcome was the right outcome. To be violently removed, was how God needed to do it. He did it on my behalf, he did it on behalf of my children, I needed it. But on the behalf of other people in that congregation who had the similar experience. I think that knowing the risks, that you could be fired and disfellowshipped, and the House of Cards will come crumbling down. If you know those risks, you still stand up, and you still speak the truth. Because the speaking of the truth is important to Christians. And if you’re being abused by a Christian leader, whatever the outcome is of speaking the truth, is the best possible outcome. The other consequences coming from either tolerating sin or silencing your conscience; those may seem like a preferable outcome in the short term. But they are so costly to your soul and to your spirit that to be out of an abusive and coercive church is always better than being in one. So, to know those risks, and it’s painful, it could be awful, it could be the worst thing you ever go through in your whole life. But do it anyway, because you were meant to be on the outside of an abusive church. JULIE ROYS 20:42 Paul, one of the things I should say, a person and a characteristic that I didn’t even know about when I started reporting is the narcissist. And yet, I have learned about the narcissist in spades right now. But I think a lot of times, we don’t know that that is what we are dealing with, in these situations, because this person has a title. And this person can speak so lovingly from the stage. Talk about the narcissist, and what we need to know as the person who is on the receiving end of what they’re dishing out in our dealings with them. PAUL COUGHLIN 22:58 Yeah, so the narcissistic personality or antisocial personality can be depending on the study, 10, 12, 15 percent of a given population. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but sometimes that’s one out of every eight people can have this characteristic. That’s pretty big, particularly when you look at a congregation, right? Most bullies bully, not because they have low self-esteem. They abuse others because they have excessive self-esteem. They think they’re wonderful. And then you add on top of that this component that they are somehow especially circled by God. So, you already have this overinflated ego. And now it’s uber inflated, because now they are a special person in a special world putting out special information that other people have not discerned until they were born, which is pretty stunning. We need to realize that most narcissists see people in two ways, people who are either below them or a threat. And this is how they look at the world. They are constantly measuring things in order to keep themselves at the top of the hierarchy. And again, to keep themselves at the top of the hierarchy isn’t for them to necessarily usher in the kingdom of heaven to play their part, it’s for their kingdom. They’ll talk a lot about the kingdom of heaven, but it’s really about their kingdom. And I’m reminded of that, I had a dinner with Mark Driscoll and very interesting dinner. And he kept talking about how it was all about Jesus. And he kept saying it over and over. But yet, if you look at the guy’s actions, it’s not all about Jesus. So, they often speak one way, but they really behave in a very different way. One thing that narcissists have in common is that they have three things in common and I mentioned one of them, an inflated self-regard. They really believe they’re more important than other people. They don’t believe the Bible. The Bible says we’re equal, they don’t really, they’ll say we’re equal. But that’s not how they truly think. They really think they’re above the herd. And because of that, it makes them tremendously dangerous. They also have a great sense of entitlement; things are owed to them again, because they’re wonderful. But then they have a third component. And this third component is antagonism. And I’ve often explained to people who have been the target of bullying, but in faith centric organizations, the best bullies harm you, but they smile on their face and a lilt in their voice. They’re the most damaging ones, because they hide their antagonism. Their words are designed to humiliate, and really destroy you. But they do it in such a way that it almost seems like okay for them to do that. It goes back to that cognitive dissonance that we talked about earlier. The look on the face is kind, but the words are poison. That’s all on purpose. They have been practicing that dark skill for a long time, and most of them have gotten away with it for a long time, as well. So, to the best of our abilities, know who you’re really dealing with, because it’s a very different response than how you would deal with someone, for example, there’s conflict. There’s miscommunication, there’s misunderstanding. When you have those behaviors that’s often mistaken for bullying behaviors. It’s not, those behaviors are answered in a much different way. Like an interpersonal. Oh, I didn’t know what you were saying that okay. I’m sorry. Yeah, I’m glad we’re okay. Let’s move on. Bullying is a whole other category of behavior. JULIE ROYS 26:40 Hmm. Well, Emily, I am so glad that you stuck up for yourself. I’m so glad that you kept receipts. I always tell people, please keep receipts, because in my business, you don’t have receipts, it’s a he said, she said. It’s really very difficult to make a case. But you were able to make a case. Since this ruling by the Department of Human Rights last December, I know there was another major ruling in July. Would you get us up to speed with what’s going on? What happened in July with that ruling, and also, as you’re looking to the future, what’s coming up? EMILY HYLAND 27:18 I didn’t go into this wanting to go to court. And so, I’ve made choices that I’ve allowed this to be much longer but allowed for much greater investigation by outside agencies. So going and taking my case to the Illinois Department of Human Rights; that’s similar to the federal EEOC. And the Illinois Department of Rights did an investigation, they looked at the material, we had a long conversation between me and the pastors where they asked us all these questions. And then they came up with this report. So there was 10 charges. And back in December, they found that retaliation had substantial evidence. And so that charge was forwarded up to the higher agency, the Human Rights Commission. Well, the other dismissed charges, of which there were nine, I went back, looked at some of the evidence, had more evidence, put it on there, and resubmitted it through, it’s similar to an appeals process, but you can get them to look at it again. And so the higher agency looked at these other nine dismissed charges, and they said, alright, we’ll keep six of them stay dismissed. And some of them were just because of timing. But two additional charges were, in essence, overturned. So, they were originally dismissed, they are now considered substantially off to more going to trial. So those two are unequal pay and termination, the discharge. So, they joined up with retaliation, and it will be going to trial coming up in the next hopefully few months, maybe who knows, it just could drag on. But there’s also an Illinois Department of Labor claim that took two full years to get through the review system. And that one is going to be going in front of a judge in the next three weeks, where they’ll hear my evidence and then that of the churches and to look at unpaid wages. How much time was I being asked to do work outside of the hours I was ever going to get paid for? Which I think is one of those strange ways that bullying is normalized in churches, which is how we are asked to spend our time. That’s our time. And I loved my church, and I wanted to do a lot for my church. But when it became a I don’t get to have dinner with my family because I need to respond to an email that Dane needs turned around this very second. Looking at that evidence and saying how often that was happening with regularity is what we’re going into which is that yeah, I think that was a really hard one because you want to have your church go well, but you also need those boundaries to say, Why are you asking me for work to be done on a Saturday or while I’m on vacation or on a holiday? That was one of those, I think, very covert ways of controlling and coercing me. That is so normalized because it can just be passed off as Oh, it was just off the top of his head. And you don’t didn’t need to do that then. I mean, of course, you could have waited until Monday. Oh, we’ll see. JULIE ROYS 30:33 So, I understand the regular trial system. But I don’t understand the system going through government agencies like this. What does the trial look like? And what are you hoping to get out of it? EMILY HYLAND 30:45 Well compared to say a trial in a circuit court, the Human Rights Commission have their own set of administrative judges. Just as the Department of Labor has their own administrative judges. But there’s still a discovery process, there’s still witnesses and depositions. And then it all goes in front of her as a trial. JULIE ROYS 31:03 So, the judge will then be making the decision, and then damages and so forth would be determined by the judge? EMILY HYLAND 31:10 Right, and the church should be saying thank you, because actually, this is by far the cheapest route, even if you’re found guilty, there’s no punitive damages. So, they can’t slap the church and say, you should have done this, and here’s a giant fine. There’s no punitive damages. It’s all pretty much easy calculus as to how much you were making how much of interest how much of you know, and there’s limits on how much even of other damages. This was never about money. And this was about the fact that they broke the law, and they are unrepentant. And don’t think they’ve done moments wrong for two and a half years. So, I’m excited that there’s people who can read this and see like, oh, yeah, this was definitely wrong. And it’s not hard to identify it. It’s shocking that the people who are in the organization cannot see what is well visible to people who are reading the narrative, and also even people who are getting the highlights of it. JULIE ROYS 32:10 Well, it speaks to your character, that you’ve gone through this process, that you haven’t sought to be punitive when you certainly could have, and instead are waiting for justice. And so, we join you in praying for truth and praying for justice. And we do pray that all of that will become clear as this moves through the system. So, Emily, and Paul, thank you so much. This has been a rich discussion. And I know it’s been bought with a lot of blood, sweat and tears from you. And so, we acknowledge that. But thank you for the insights that you’ve gained through a very, very painful process. PAUL COUGHLIN 32:48 Thank you, Julie. Appreciate that. EMILY HYLAND 32:50 Yeah, and thank you so much for bringing attention to this because a lot of people are under the same burdens. And they can be in the same massively confused state that I was and feeling very isolated. Because that is how bullying works. It is so about isolating you from a reality that you’re in and keeping you from speaking up and pushing back and being happy. JULIE ROYS 33:16 Again, thanks so much for listening to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And if you’re a survivor of church hurt or abuse or you’re a Christian leader who wants to learn how to protect against abuse and help survivors, I want to invite you to join me at our upcoming Restore conference. This two-day event October 13 and 14, at Judson University in Elgin, Illinois, is a very special time of healing and equipping. Joining me will be author Wade Molen, whose book we referenced in this podcast, along with Lori Anne Thompson, Sheila Wray Gregoire, Mary Demuth, and more. For more information, go to RESTORE2023.COM. Also, just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts or Spotify. That way, you’ll never miss an episode. 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Guest Bios Show Transcript What do you do when you’re being bullied by your Christian employer? Do you take it and simply turn the other cheek? Or, do you confront it, hoping for repentance and justice? Unfortunately, workplace bullying has become a major issue—not just in secular contexts, but in the church. In this podcast, Julie explores this issue with the whistleblower who exposed Dane Ortlund, Emily Hyland, and anti-bullying expert, Paul Coughlin. Ortlund is a Chicago-area pastor and author of the best-selling book, Gentle and Lowly. But, according to Emily, he’s not very gentle or lowly; he’s a bully—and a misogynist. And she says, when she complained about Ortlund’s behavior to the elders of Naperville Presbyterian Church, where Emily worked, they fired her. Since then, Emily has filed a complaint with the Illinois Department of Human Rights, claiming retaliation. Last December, the Department of Human Rights ruled in Emily’s favor and found “substantial evidence” of retaliation by Dane and Naperville Presbyterian. In this podcast, Emily tells her story and updates us on her case. She also shares insights about responding to bullying she gained from her firsthand experience. Anti-bullying expert Paul Coughlin also contributes to the podcast, sharing advice he’s gained over decades of dealing with bullies. Paul met Emily at last year’s Restore Conference. And Paul has been a source of support and wisdom for Emily throughout her whistleblowing process. If you’ve ever had to deal with a bully—or are dealing with one now—you’ll find this podcast invaluable.  Guests Emily Hyland Emily Hyland earned her bachelors in Molecular Genetics and Biotechnology before working for the Office of Naval Research in Washington, DC. While there she received a MHSA in Management & Leadership from The George Washington University. She has worked with the US Army and the Office of the Surgeon General, Accenture, GE, and across finance, manufacturing, health services, and information technology. Recently, she was the Director of Operations at Naperville Presbyterian Church in suburban Illinois. She is married and has three children.  Paul Coughlin Paul Coughlin is an author, an international speaker and the founder and president of The Protectors, which is dedicated to helping schools, organizations and communities combat bullying. His books include No More Christian Nice Guy, Raising Bully-Proof Kids and 5 Secrets Great Dads Know. Paul and his wife, Sandy, reside in central Oregon and have three teenage children. Learn more about Paul and his organization at www.theprotectors.org. Show Transcript SPEAKERS JULIE ROYS, EMILY HYLAND, PAUL COUGHLIN JULIE ROYS 00:04 What do you do when you’re being bullied by your Christian employer? Do you take it and simply turn the other cheek? Or do you confront it, hoping for repentance and justice? Welcome to the Roys report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys and joining me on this episode are Emily Hyland and Paul Coughlin. As you may remember, Emily is the whistleblower who filed a complaint with the Illinois Department of Human Rights concerning a well-known Chicago area pastor, Dane Ortlund. Ortlund is the author of the best-selling book, Gentle and Lowly. But according to Emily, he’s not very gentle or lowly. He’s a bully and a misogynist. And she says when she complained about Ortlund’s behavior to the elders of Naperville Presbyterian Church, where Ortlund pastors, they fired her. But last December, the Department of Human Rights ruled in Emily’s favor. It found substantial evidence of retaliation by Dane and Naperville Presbyterian Church in Emily’s firing. And now that case is going to trial. Plus, there have been some additional charges added to that case. So, stay tuned, and you’ll hear all about that. But also joining me on this podcast is Paul Coughlin. Paul is an expert on bullying and a repeat guest here on The Roys Report. He also was a speaker at last year’s Restore conference. And I know from talking to Emily that she took pages of notes from Paul’s talk, which was super eye opening. And it’s out of that relationship and collaboration between Paul and Emily, that started at Restore, that this podcast was envisioned. I know many of you have experienced bullying in a Christian workplace. I get emails about this all the time. It’s bad enough to be bullied in any workplace. But when it happens at a church or an organization that’s supposed to be Christian, it’s especially painful. So, I’m really looking forward to our podcast today. But before we dive in, I want to thank our sponsors, Judson University, and Marquardt of Barrington if you’re looking for a top ranked Christian University, providing a caring community and an excellent college experience, Judson University is for you. Judson is located on 90 acres just 40 miles west of Chicago in Elgin, Illinois. The school offers more than 60 majors, great leadership opportunities and strong financial aid. Plus, you can take classes online as well as in person. Judson University is shaping lives that shaped the world. For more information, just go to JUDSONU.EDU. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity, and transparency. That’s because the owners there Dan and Kurt Marquardt, are men of integrity. To check them out, just go to BUYACAR123.com. Well, again, joining me is the whistleblower in the Dane Ortlund discrimination and retaliation case, Emily Hyland. Emily was the Operations Director at Naperville Presbyterian Church in Naperville, Illinois. But in March 2021, just nine days after complaining of discrimination and bullying to church elders, Emily was abruptly fired. And she has two cases pending right now, one before the Illinois Department of Human Rights, and another with the Illinois Department of Labor. So, Emily, welcome. I’m so glad you could join us. EMILY HYLAND 03:30 Thank you, Julie. And thank you for your continued support and drawing attention to these important issues that men and women face when they’re in a church and employed by one. JULIE ROYS 03:40 Well, it’s my pleasure to do so. And again, also joining us is Paul Coughlin, founder of the anti-bullying group, The Protectors. He’s also the author of a number of best-selling books, including No More Christian Nice Guy and Raising Bullyproof Kids. He’s also worked with the Baltimore Ravens and is an expert witness. So, Paul, welcome back. It’s just so great to be with you again. PAUL COUGHLIN 04:02 Great to be back. It’s always wonderful. And Emily, good to hear your voice. JULIE ROYS 04:07 Well, it’s so cool that the both of you actually met at the Restore conference. And I know that was before any of this became public. It’s before the Illinois Department of Human Rights found substantial evidence of retaliation by the church and Dane Ortlund. But Paul, let me just start with you and ask when you first met Emily, what was your impression of her case and just what she had been through? PAUL COUGHLIN 04:33 Well, you know, you hear a lot of the same things when it comes to people who have been abused either adolescent bullying but then also bullying in the workplace, particularly faith centric areas. And honestly, what you often hear is a good amount of confusion at first. Many times, people who have this confusion going in their minds, they often may take it out on themselves as opposed to really seeing it more clearly, and in seeing it more clearly, it’s not the fault of the target. It is the fault of the bully, and in many cases, the serial bully. JULIE ROYS 05:09 I hear a lot of these stories. And it’s usually Wow, this is so awful. But I’m not expecting justice with the Illinois Department of Human Rights. You hardly ever get a ruling in your favor. Were you surprised when you heard that she had gotten this ruling? PAUL COUGHLIN 05:24 Very much so. I mean, Emily had a substantial case, substantial amount of evidence. And you know that evidence comes from people who, you know, obviously are willing to talk. Do you know how many people are not willing to talk? They know the score, but for a few fundamental reasons, they remain quiet, probably because they’re worried that they’ll be next. So, we have a substantial case, where chances are few people really spoke up. JULIE ROYS 05:50 And again, that case is pending. And towards the end of this podcast, Emily, I’m going to have you update us on the latest developments, because there are some really important ones there. But let’s back up to your story, and what happened to you, Emily, for those who haven’t read the news reports. I mean, it came out in December, even if you did read the report, you might be a little bit rusty on what happened. Would you give us the cliff notes of what happened to you, that led you to file this claim with the Illinois Department of Human Rights? EMILY HYLAND 06:21 Well, in some ways, it starts back before 2020 to my time at the church. I had been there since 2006, and Dane joined in 2007. So, for over a decade, we existed as two members of the same church, running into each other, same classes, same age kids. And so, when the former senior pastor left, a search committee was put together, Dane was on it. Two years go by and no senior pastor candidate. Well, then it’s announced, Dane is going to be the senior pastor candidate. And by that time, I was on staff and the director of operations. And I was surprised because he hadn’t been a pastor before. And I knew that the requirements for the job had been five years of pastoring experience. But I was since I knew him, I mean, he wasn’t a stranger. I had no inclinations that this was something that was going to be so catastrophic. But when he started, things just weren’t right. And they continued to get more wrong as the months went on. And as I started really telling myself, this isn’t what you think, it’s not right. I mean, maybe you’re off, maybe you’re just being a little petty. I had this mindset that was getting progressively more confused. And I was just talking circles to myself. And then finally, I happen to read in that February of 2021, when the Ravi Zacharias report came out. And in addition to obviously, the terrible accounts of sexual predation was the organizational aspect and how staff who raised questions who were having legitimate concerns, they weren’t buying some of the early propaganda that was being put out, that those staff were being bullied. And I read those reports, and I looked at this, and I’m like, Oh, my gosh, that is what is going on here. And I was shocked, because I finally had words and labels to what I was feeling, what I was experiencing. And so, I take the next maybe month, I read up a little bit more about the differences between bullying, harassment, rudeness, inconsiderateness, to really make sure that I’m linguistically precise in this matter. And it comes to a head when I call up two of the elders, and I tell them privately, I think I’m being bullied. I think it’s because I’m a woman. I myself had a hard time getting those words out, because I didn’t want to be bullied. And I didn’t want it to be because of my gender. So, the two elders sat on this for a little bit, because Dane was out of town. And when they brought it to Dane, that next Monday, it started the floor falling out of everything, where it was very swiftly after that, then maybe 12 hours, that I was going to be fired. And it took a few days. And in the meantime, I didn’t know what was happening. I just knew that this couldn’t continue. This was not the right behavior. I wanted the elders to help me navigate this and to be safe in it. But that’s not at all what happened. That at the end of the week, Dane fired me, and they had no elder walk me out the door. And then I was done. They follow that up by Dane telling the staff that I had been fired for cause and to not reach out to me. JULIE ROYS 09:53 In a day. Right. You lost your church of how many years? EMILY HYLAND 09:58 I had been there almost 15 years by that point. JULIE ROYS 10:02 You lost your job. You lost your church family. And you were ostracized at this point. People weren’t even talking to you, correct? EMILY HYLAND 10:12 Oh, right. Yeah, it was full on disfellowshipping. I mean, I didn’t know what that word was until somebody told me I was like, Ooh, yeah, that is exactly what it is. I had people who wouldn’t even look at me in public. These were people I had served with for 15 years. And I didn’t believe it could happen. I still I mean, my husband still cannot process that element of it, which is that he cannot believe that people who I’ve been with for that long would turn because I didn’t do anything to them. I didn’t even say anything publicly about Dane. I mean, this was two conversations with elders. And now people won’t speak to me. And that really continues now. JULIE ROYS 10:50 Really, to this day? Yeah. And I want you to comment on this, Paul. But first, I’d like to read a statement by Dave Veerman, who was an elder at the time. So, he participated in the firing. A few months after it happened, clearly had a change of heart, and he resigned himself. And his statement really played a pivotal role in the Illinois Department of Human Rights in their ruling. So, I’d like to read it. I can’t read the whole thing just because of the length. But some portions I think would be really instructive as to what happened and even corroborating what you’re saying. So, this is what he writes. The 2021 version of the Personnel Committee met a couple of times via zoom to discuss a few relatively minor issues. Then we got word that Dane wanted to have us deal with a serious issue with a staff member. At this Zoom meeting on March 16, he said he wanted to let Emily go and made vague references about her performance and relationships with other staff. He also said that he had met with her a couple of times, so we thought she had a pretty good idea of where this was heading. Let me just pause there. Did you have any idea you were going to be fired? EMILY HYLAND 10:51 None. It was so shocking. And this was two days before Palm Sunday. I mean, it is going into the biggest week of the Church year, and to just be like, Oh, we don’t need a director of operations. And we certainly don’t need her to do any turnover. We don’t need her to give us any of the information that she has been using in her job for eight years. I was completely surprised. JULIE ROYS 12:18 Well, and apparently Dave shared your sentiments there. He writes, this news was a shock to us because we had always been impressed with Emily and what she had done for the church. In addition, we had just had a session meeting on March 15, in which nothing had been said about her and her performance. Dane also said that Emily had gone to two elders that she felt close to, and thought would listen empathically and give wise counsel. Later, I learned that she had shared how she had been mistreated recently by Dane and was asking advice on how she should respond. And then I’m gonna skip through some of it and read. He describes that he had several meetings, then with elders and different people. Then he writes, even though I didn’t know Emily’s side of the story, I voted to move ahead with Dane’s recommendation. Our next step was to inform the other elders. So, the three of us each took a few men to call. Then Dane set up a meeting with Emily for Friday, March 19, to inform her and he asked me to be there. At that brief meeting at 1pm, Dane fired Emily saying it was, quote, the will of the session. Unsurprisingly, Emily was quite upset, although trying to maintain her composure. I tried to just listen and not say much. She started reading the agreement. Apparently was there an NDA that they had given you? EMILY HYLAND 13:32 Yeah. On top of the details regarding severance. JULIE ROYS 13:35 Is there anything remarkable about that, or pretty standard? 13:39 I think that it was passed off as something that oh, this is just how we do things. We don’t really know what’s in here. But I read contracts very thoroughly and to be like, Wow, no NDA, no severance. That was how it was written, is that if I did not sign away, my legal rights, agree to confidentiality and agree to a non-disparagement, I mean, never saying anything negative about the pastors, the officers, the church or how I was treated. That was the only way I was gonna get any severance. And that’s how it was written. There was no mention of why I was terminated. It wasn’t for cause that was it. JULIE ROYS 14:15 I wish I could say that that was remarkable in some way. I’ve learned that’s very unremarkable that’s very similar to what I got from the Moody Bible Institute when I was fired. And so many people that I’ve talked to are getting NDAs now, and I’m glad that this issue is coming to the fore. That people are realizing that churches now are giving NDAs, that Christian organizations are giving them and they’re about as carnal a document as there is and it is there to protect the institution; has nothing and no care and concern for the employee. As a sister in Christ or a part of the church, but I digress on my editorial comment on that one. But NDAs are just I just think they’re evil. He continues to write, Emily brought up her recollection of being bullied and strongly pushed back on the decision because of the current cultural attitudes toward misogyny. Skipping ahead. Later, I learned that at 3:30pm, a staff meeting was held to announce Emily’s termination. Dane said 1) Emily was fired for cause, 2) the decision was the will of the session, a session being in a Presbyterian Church sort of the equivalent of the elder board, and 3) staff should not contact her. I need to say that because of Dane’s actions, a few months later, I resigned as an elder and my wife and I left the church. Not to go into many details, but at that time I heard Dane give many of the same rationalizations and explanations for his attitudes and actions in this precipitating conflict. It made me rethink my decision regarding Emily, that I had made a mistake. My agreeing to terminate Emily’s employment was based almost entirely on believing the word of Dane, my pastor. I realized now that I should have looked deeper, ask more questions, and met with Emily to get her side of the story. And again, that’s Dave Veerman, a former elder there at Naperville Presbyterian church. Paul, as you listen to this letter, I could see on your face, yes, we’re on Zoom, by the way, folks, but I could tell that you’re resonating with some things in there. But what stood out to you, as you heard that letter? PAUL COUGHLIN 16:22 That elder is a rare person, sadly. I mean, that’s a rare person who’s going to stick their neck out like that. But those are the people who really keep integrity on the table. So, if I had a hat on, I would take it off to that gentleman. You know, there’s a lot of things that Emily has talked about. And we spoke earlier about the pattern of behavior, right, that people undergo. And when you recognize that pattern, you begin to realize you’re not crazy. And one of the things that is so painful for targets is betrayal. You could hear it in Emily’s voice. And she talked about it; people not talking to her, been at the same church for something like 15 years and people don’t talk to you. The emotional impact of bullying in the workplace itself is swampy for many people. And then you have this being ostracized. And one thing I’d like to point out for any workplace, but especially faith centric workplaces, is that you’re going to expect people to live by a certain level of integrity. And sadly, for whatever reason, it seems to be baked into the system, betrayal is coming. I’m reminded, and I’ve experienced that we’ve all licked our wounds when it comes to this behavior. I’m reminded of that wonderful movie Braveheart, where William Wallace was in. JULIE ROYS 17:45 One of my favorites, by the way. PAUL COUGHLIN 17:46 I’m not surprised. He’s betrayed by his best friend. And because of that, his heart is completely taken out of the battle, he doesn’t care anymore. That is what will happen to us. And so, what I would like to say to our listeners right now is that don’t be surprised by the betrayal. For some reason, it is baked into the system, in most cases, most of the time. I’m reminded by that quote from Martin Luther King, who said, in the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends. It’s just how it goes down. It’s par for the course. But I would also want to say to the people listening now who could be that support structure around others, please keep that in mind. You can play a profound role, not just in bringing fairness into the workplace and with integrity, but also in the psychological and spiritual bolstering of another person, you’re that important. JULIE ROYS 18:49 And I’ve heard that repeatedly from people who have been victims of spiritual abuse, church abuse, retaliation, bullying. That they can handle that there’s one bad apple. Like, they can handle that there’s a bully pastor out there, right? They can deal with that. What they can’t deal with, is that everybody got in line with that guy. Everybody stood there silently, while they were excoriated for false charges against them, whatever, and that the average person stood by and did nothing. And that’s been my experience. I know, I just had a birthday recently. I don’t even know if I should say this. But, you know, you get these greetings from folks that you’re like, wait, you haven’t talked to me since the day I was fired! In fact, you wouldn’t take my phone calls. But okay. Thanks for the Happy Birthday. Appreciate that. I mean, it’s one of those things that’s just absolutely stunning. And this is why I think spiritual abuse and church hurt is far worse and more fundamental than other kinds of abuse. And I’m not meaning to minimize certainly all of them are horrible, horrible. But there’s something about this that just goes to the core of your belief system of who you think people are. And if we don’t separate out, God’s people from God Himself, can really mess up and distort our image of who God is. And I think there’s so many people deconstructing today, whatever you want to call it, are just trying to come to grips with what is it that was true that I believed and what was just the stuff that I accepted with it that really wasn’t? And I know there’s people listening who are there, I’ve been there, right? I’m still there to some degree, you know. PAUL COUGHLIN 20:39 And Julie, could I add to that our Lord was bullied before He was crucified. Our Lord knows exactly what it’s like to experience betrayal, false accusations, to put up with the arrogance and the hubris of other people. And he can empathize with our weaknesses, he knows exactly what it was like, because the crucifixion included many of the same components of workplace bullying. So he is on our side, he knows exactly how we feel, and he is there for us. EMILY HYLAND 21:11 I thought about that over the last few years, when you take communion, and it starts with on the night he was betrayed. You can just stop right there and say, Jesus knows what it’s like to be betrayed, and forsaken by everyone who you thought was for you and with you. I mean, to identify in that aspect of religious community is a thread of hope you can have because Jesus knows betrayal. JULIE ROYS 21:39 I’m so glad that you both brought that up. Because I think the ability to identify with Christ in his sufferings, if you’ve been through something like this, is much greater. And yet, as I’ve experienced it, the eye opening thing hasn’t so much been that I get to suffer with him. But it makes me so much more aware of how hideous the suffering that Jesus endured. Just having tasted a small amount of what he went through, has given me just such a greater appreciation for the suffering of Christ by being able to enter into it again, in a very small way, comparatively. PAUL COUGHLIN 22:21 Julie, one thing I tried to point out for people who you’ve talked about, like deconstructing faith, and all three of us have gone through its process right. In my mind, one thing that I have tried to do to try to keep things clear is the difference between churchianity and Christianity. And I think when we see this suffering of Christ, of such great unfairness, I see that in the category of true Christianity, that’s what it’s about. What we are experiencing in faith centric organizations is what I would call churchianity. And I believe that there’s obviously overlap between the two. But also, there’s great distinctions. I think that’s very helpful for people who have been abused so that they can start thinking of it in terms like that, because it helps them hopefully not throw the baby out with the bathwater, where it’s all bad, and it’s all wrong. Rather, it helps to put it in context. JULIE ROYS 22:22 Well, much of what we’re going to be talking about in this podcast is really looking back and thinking, what I wish I had known then that I know now, because it is a learning process. And man, can it be a rude awakening, but an important one. It’s like the matrix as the red pill or the blue pill, right? You know, those of us who have taken I don’t know, is it the red pill that opens your eyes? But yeah, if you take that pill, there’s no undoing it, and you see it. Let me just start with you, Emily, I know one of the things that you said, if you were to do this over again, is you would stop talking to yourself and start listening to yourself. What do you mean by that? EMILY HYLAND 23:55 Well, as I said earlier, I think I was talking myself in circles, and something would happen, and I would disconnect from my intuition. It felt wrong, but I told myself, nah, and I downplayed the harm that was coming, which I know now, like, that’s not mercy. Mercy is an intentional weighing of the harm that you receive, and a decision to forgive it. To just dismiss harm, and to downplay it and pretend like that wasn’t harm, that’s actually not mercy. I think that, particularly to Christian circles, we think of the Spirit speaking through our intuition. For instance, if I had an intuition to go and talk to a neighbor, and invite them to a church choir service, we would say that that’s the you know, Spirit leading you. But it doesn’t work in the other way. Like if you have this intuition that, you know, I think something’s wrong here. I think my pastor isn’t behaving as a pastor should, that your mind does not really like that absolutely could be the Spirit speaking on your attentions, you’re trying to tell it this Be quiet, and to stop talking. And so, I think I was trying to rationalize away a pattern of events. And now, if I could go back, I would have told myself Stop, listen to how you’re feeling, and especially your sympathetic system. I mean, that is there by God’s design. And when we feel fear, when we feel out of control, when we feel afraid, or wanting to run away, or pressured, and those hormones start making you feel stressed and anxious, that’s not nothing. That’s your body responding to something that is really happening. And that I should have been listening much more carefully to that, instead of just telling myself in my higher brain, oh, don’t bother with that. It was like, No, this is merely myself trying to protect myself. And I discounted it for a very long time. Until one day, like I said, I just happened to read a description of what workplace bullying in Christian ministry looked like. And it was like my intuition just got plugged in all at once. And it was like, Whoa, now, what followed was my intuition bracket was perfect. I mean, it was remarkable how, yeah, I was right on this stuff. I was accurate. And I didn’t really want to be, I didn’t want to be bullied, and I didn’t want to work for a bullying pastor. None of that was by design. But identifying those behaviors, identifying what was going on behind the scenes, was when that intuition reconnected. And I think that if I could have gone back, I would have listened to my intuition, and realized, yes, that is the spirit, it’s saying some hard stuff that I didn’t want to hear. But that silencing it was to my own detriment. JULIE ROYS 26:53 And let’s also acknowledge that in a lot of these churches, we’re hearing consistent message often of listen to the authorities in your church, be submissive to the authorities in your church and their leadership. Don’t gossip, the meddling, we’re hearing those constantly. And so, it’s a cognitive dissonance that you’re dealing with. And I remember we did a surprise birthday party for my husband once. And there were numerous times that he should have figured out what was going on. And he just didn’t like, and afterwards, we asked him because he was so surprised. Like, how did you not get that? And he’s like, I don’t know. It’s just like this cognitive dissonance and you throw out things that don’t fit the narrative. And you just, it’s funny how we do that. One of the best books out there, and it’s funny that you’ve even said it several times. And when you’re talking about this, is it something’s not right. And I think Wade Mullins book, Something’s Not Right, is just so so good in helping you put your finger on that. So, if you’ve never read this book, you have to read Something’s Not Right. It’s just so good. Or listen to Wade’s talk at the Restore conference, where he talks about some of these things. They’re all available at our YouTube channel, you can see that. And by the way, Paul, your talk on bullying is available on video on our YouTube channel. It’s also available as a podcast, I think June 23, I think of last year is when we published that. So, you can go back and listen to Paul’s whole talk on bullying, which is I know mind blowing for so so many people. Paul, as you hear what Emily just said about trusting that intuition, what comes to mind for you? PAUL COUGHLIN 28:31 A number of things. One thing that would have really helped Emily and so many other people is if she had at least one person standing by her side. She talked about almost like talking to herself and the cycle. We all get into that. And what really helps if we have a person, ideally, a person who is wise, but also more than wisdom, courageous. If we have someone to confide in, they can talk us out of those circular thinking, tends to spiral down, not up usually. And in that wisdom that they give us, we can find the seeds of courage as well because when we get clarity, we have a much stronger ability to move forward, hopefully in an intelligent way with both truth and grace and love. So, there are people out there who need us desperately in that situation. And I’d like to point out a distinction statistically between men and women when bullied in the workplace. Statistically, men tend to get angry and leave. Women tend to medicate and stay. And unfortunately, and to hear that the protectors what we do is we often advise find another job because it can be so damaging to the person’s spirit to their soul when they undergo this work. And statistically it can be harder on women. That damage can go deeper and last longer. In fact, many of the characteristics of PTSD are the same that happens in the workplace, then people returning from war, it can be that bad. So, it’s an important distinction to keep in mind. You know what I think what happened was Emily, is they picked on the wrong person, and I’ve told Emily this; is that chances are the people in her former workplace, the main pastor particularly, in my opinion, has probably been doing this for a long time, has probably been targeting people specific people and getting his way. And what happened is he probably targeted the wrong person; a person of a lot of backbone. You can tell Emily’s very sharp, but sharpness alone won’t do it. Functioning degree of courage is often necessary in order to defend yourself. And we have a wonderful success story now, I think because of Emily’s character of who she is. JULIE ROYS 31:04 Well, this concludes part one of my podcast with Paul and Emily on bullying in a Christian workplace. In part two, you’ll hear Emily describe more of what she wishes she knew back when she was being bullied that she knows now. And you’ll hear more expert advice from Paul Coughlin, on how to deal with bullies. And also, why you may have become a target. PAUL COUGHLIN 31:25 Bullies in the workplace, particularly within the church, they use our niceness against us. It’s one of the reasons why we’re targeted. We don’t use the word victim at the protectors very often, we prefer the word target. And here’s why. You have been selected, the bully in the workplace, the bully pastor has picked on some people but not other people. Why is that? Because a bully is not looking for a fight, they want to overwhelm another person. So, they look for the nice person, they look for the person, for example, who lives by turning the other cheek. JULIE ROYS 31:57 Also, just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts or Spotify. That way you’ll never miss an episode. And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks so much for joining me today. Hope you were blessed and encouraged. Well, again, that’s Paul Coughlin. And we’ll be releasing part two of this podcast in just a few days. So, you want to be watching for that. Also, if you’re a survivor of church hurt or abuse, or you’re a Christian leader who just wants to learn more about how to protect against abuse and help survivors, I want to invite you to join me at our upcoming Restore conference. This two-day event, October 13 and 14 at Judson University in Elgin, Illinois, is a very special time of healing and equipping. Joining me will be author Wade Molen, whose book we referenced in this podcast, along with Lori Anne Thompson, Sheila Ray Gregoire, Mary Demuth, and more. For more information, go to RESTORE2023.COM. Also, just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts or Spotify. That way you’ll never miss an episode. And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks so much for joining me today. Hope you were blessed and encouraged. Read more

Guest Bios Show Transcript How is it that evangelicals, who have long extolled the virtues of the First and Second Great Awakenings, now think being “awakened” or “woke” is a bad thing? And how did we evolve from valuing sanctification—to reducing faith into a self-help project? In this podcast, author and longtime professor Karen Swallow Prior joins Julie to discuss the current crisis in the church, which isn’t just about Trump or celebrity pastor scandals. As Karen explains, evangelicalism suffers from a crisis of imagination.  Somehow, over the past few decades, the pool of images, stories, and metaphors that form our imagination has become distorted and diseased. And the result has been catastrophic. We no longer think or imagine in biblical ways. For example, instead of thinking of the kingdom of heaven as something that advances as we love, serve, and sacrifice for our fellow man, we’ve adopted an empire mentality. In this system, one wins by dominating his fellow man and putting the right people in office. It’s a far cry from the words of Jesus: The last will be first. To get out of this crisis, we need to reform our imagination—radically. But to do that, we first need to understand how we got here, Karen explains. And only then, can we chart a way forward. Guests Karen Swallow Prior Karen Swallow Prior (PhD, SUNY Buffalo) is a reader, writer, and longtime professor. She is the author of several best-selling books including On Reading Well, Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me and Fierce Convictions: The Extraordinary Life of Hannah More—Poet, Reformer, Abolitionist. Prior has written for Christianity Today, the Atlantic, the Washington Post, First Things, Vox, and Religion News Service. Show Transcript SPEAKERSKAREN SWALLOW PRIOR, JULIE ROYS JULIE ROYS  00:04How is it that evangelicals who have long extolled the virtues of the first and second great awakenings now think being awakened or woke is a bad thing? And why have testimonies degenerated into a contest over who has the most dramatic story? And how do we evolve from valuing sanctification to reducing faith into a self-help project? Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys, and today I’m going to be talking about the evangelical imagination with Karen Swallow Prior.   Karen has just written a book by that name. And as she explains in her book, our current crisis isn’t just about Trump or celebrity pastor scandals. Evangelicalism is suffering from a crisis of the imagination. Somehow over the past few decades, the pool of images, stories and metaphors, the form our imagination has become distorted and diseased. And the result has been catastrophic. We no longer think or imagine in biblical ways. For example, instead of thinking about the kingdom of heaven as something that advances as we love and serve and sacrifice for our fellow man, we’ve adopted an empire mentality where we win by dominating our fellow man, by putting the right people in office, by winning an actual culture war, by being first not last. And so, if we want to navigate out of this crisis, we need to reform our imagination. But to do that, we need to understand our history and how we got here. And Karen has done a masterful job of researching and explaining that development. So, I’m very much looking forward to our discussion today.   But before we dive in, I’d like to thank the sponsors of this podcast, Judson University, and Marquardt of Barrington. If you’re looking for a top ranked Christian University, providing a caring community and an excellent college experience, Judson University is for you. Judson is located on 90 acres just 40 miles west of Chicago in Elgin, Illinois. The school offers more than 60 majors, great leadership opportunities, and strong financial aid. Plus, you can take classes online as well as in person. Judson University is shaping lives that shaped the world. For more information, just go to JUDSONU.EDU.   Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity, and transparency. That’s because the owners there Dan and Kurt Marquardt, are men of integrity. To check them out, just go to BUYACAR123.COM.   Well, joining me now is Karen Swallow Prior, a former longtime English professor at Liberty University, and until quite recently, she was a research professor of English Christianity and culture at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. Now she’s a full-time writer and the author of several fantastic books including her latest, The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis. Karen also writes a monthly column for Religion News Service, is a contributing editor for Comment, a founding member of the Pelican Project and a senior fellow at the L. Russ Bush Center for Faith and Culture. And last but not least, she and her husband Roy live on a 100-year-old homestead in central Virginia, with two dogs, Eva the Diva, and Ruby. If you follow her , and I’m just thrilled to have you.   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  03:45 And so great to be talking with you, Julie, thank you.   JULIE ROYS  03:48 I am going to start this podcast with a little bit of a confession. Normally just because of my schedule, when I come to do a podcast and I come to read the book, it’s often the day or two before the actual podcast and I’m rushing through this book to get through it. And true to form, I did that with your book. Now that I’ve read it, I am really dying to go back and to read it again. And to sit down I’m even thinking, I got some friends like we should do a book club and do this book because every chapter is so so rich. And so, I’m just thanking you for writing this book and for the richness in it. And you bring so much of yourself into it. It’s just quintessential Karen Swallow Prior because of all of the literary illusions that you have and just fantastically done. So, thank you.   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  04:42 Thank you. I have had a few interviewers either confess or read schedule. I think a lot of Christian books are fast reads. And so, I think a lot of people picked it up and just thought they could breeze through it, and I don’t maybe if I were a better writer, I would write in a breezier style,, but you’re not the only one to say it’s you know, it’s rich and taken time and a lot of thought.   JULIE ROYS  05:05 absolutely true. And with most books, when I go through them in two or three hours, I feel like I’m done. Your book I didn’t get through in two or three hours, it took me much more than that. But at the same time, I was just like, Man, this is important stuff that we need to really meditate on. And we really need to think about. And this idea of writing about the imagination. I love that because I think the imagination is something that so often, especially in evangelicalism, right, because we’re so reason focus, we think of the imagination as something that’s fiction, something that’s not real. And we don’t realize the extent to which the imagination and the stories, this pool of ideas and thought, how that really impacts the way we act, the way that we think, the way we perceive the future, all of that. And you so beautifully wove that into this book. I remember from when I was homeschooling my kids, we used to talk about the imagination as a garden, and how the weeds can take over. And I think in essence, that’s a lot of what you’re saying in this book, there’s a lot of weeds that have gotten into our imagination, and yet, we’re not even cognizant of them. So first, let me just ask you, why did you decide to write this book at this time?   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  06:26 For me, it takes a long time to write a book. And maybe that’s why it takes so long to read. So, I started imagining this book, probably 2018 or 2019. But it really arose or teaching Victorian literature, and my college students are primarily evangelical, grew up in evangelical subculture, and a lot of what we would  read in the Victorian age. Now, the Victorian age is the century after the rise of evangelicalism, but it sort of embodies the great influence of evangelicalism. And so, we would read this literature that talked about purity culture, and the sexual double standard that you know, the one standard for women, and another one much lower for men, family values, the separate spheres for men and women, all of those things in this wonderful literature that I love. And my students would often say, wait a minute, this sounds like the idea I was raised with, or this sounds like what I was taught, you know, in the 20th century. So, we would have these discussions, these conversations. Well, what is a truly biblical view of purity of family of men and women, and what’s really just Victorian? We started separating those two threads in the classroom with my students who had largely been brought up in evangelical subculture was the beginning of the book. And, you know, so it’s been a few years where I’ve been able to think about this, find other examples. And of course, a lot has been going on in the culture outside the classroom that helped me to see this as not just an intellectual exercise in the classroom, but really part of the crisis that our movement is facing right now.   JULIE ROYS  08:05 Isn’t that interesting that the Victorian era would be like our current era? I don’t think most people would even fathom that, that’s true. And even so many of the hip and, you know, cutting edge ministries we have today, would not recognize how their roots are actually in some of these centuries, way before them, and we’re going to delve into that. But before we do, since we’re talking about the evangelical imagination, let’s start with a definition of evangelicalism because this is something that has morphed with time and means different things to different people.   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  08:43 Absolutely. And of course, even the term has many different meanings and understandings, as it might have had over the years, it’s really been kind of hijacked and catapulted into headlines and political polls and surveys. And so, it’s just become even more confused and contested. And so, I realized that I am evangelical, so I know this, the problem surrounding the term and in many people’s desire to reject it or replace it or denounce it. So I drew on a number of definitions that are given by scholars and the primary one that I think everyone either agrees with or differs with a little bit is that of the church historian David Bebbington as the Bebbington quadrilateral, and Bebbington basically looks at the evangelical movement from the 18th century on and says that, regardless of the denomination or the country, or the century, evangelicals are defined by their emphasis on the conversion experience, the centrality of the Bible or their lives as God’s authoritative word, the centrality of Christ’s crucifixion, and His sacrifice for our sins. And also, a lot of people don’t maybe realize this but an activist spirit like evangelicals have always been activists of some kind; missions in the 19th century, social justice in the 21st, you know. I mean, across the board left or right evangelicals are defined by all four of these things, but including they all come together, activists spirit.   JULIE ROYS  10:16 And that activism has its outworking very different in each age, which you highlight in a number of your chapters. But each one of your chapters sort of focuses on a word or a concept that captures an aspect of the evangelical imagination. And then you talk about this development of the concept about what’s good and true about the concept within evangelicalism, but also what may be a perversion and that’s what I think is so eye opening. Let’s start with just this concept of awakening, your second chapter, because your first chapter sort of outlines what the imagination is, which I think was awesome. But explain how awakening and this idea of being awakened, is central to evangelicalism throughout the history and development of the movement.   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  11:10 My expertise is in British Literature, the 18th and 19th century. So, I’ll say that’s the beginning, but most people are more familiar with American history and religious history, even if we’re not experts. And we all know about the Great Awakenings, right? I mean, the Evangelical revival in America in the 18th century, it was called the Great Awakening, and then there are ones after that. So right away, we know that this whole idea of awakening is central to the evangelical movement. It also happens to be a very powerful and prevalent symbol in literature, throughout all time, but also during this period. So that is an area where I was able to make a connection, like why awakening and how many ways is that concept, that idea that symbols show up, and we have the Great Awakening in America. But the other thing that really defines America is the American Dream, which of course, you know, sleeping, dreaming, waking, these are all connected. And so that’s one of the points that I make in this chapter and a couple places in the book is how the American Dream, which was so much part of America’s founding has been part not just of American history, but also of evangelical history, just because of the way our nation was founded. And so, people talk about whether or not you know, there’s Christian nation and what that means or doesn’t mean. Even the whole concept of the American dream, and that sort of consumerist materialists prosperity idea is interwoven not only with American history, but evangelical history.   JULIE ROYS  12:49 And of course, the American Dream is in the New Testament. Not. Not close.   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  12:57 But Make America Great is there.   JULIE ROYS  12:59 Oh, yeah, exactly. And this is the issue that you’re getting at this sort of sifting between, you know, what is real and true to Christianity. Obviously, the idea of being awakened spiritually, I mean, evangelicalism grew out of what had become a very dry and dead and wrote Christian church culture, and yet people awakening some of them pastors awakening, which is beautiful, to the truth of a relationship with Jesus who is the truth. Ironically, I thought that the word woke, right. Something that’s based on being awakened, has now become within a lot of evangelical circles, a pejorative term, and yet, again, it’s our roots.   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  13:47 It’s our it’s our roots. Right? And, and it is, you know, I talked about this in the book, and there’s so many more things I could have said, but I wanted to trace that history. That’s, you know, the way that the African American community use the word woke early in the 20th century, is really similar to the way that we were using it back in the 18th century. Now woke is centered in Yes, social justice and being awakened to oppression. But that’s what the Great Awakening is too, is being awakened to the spiritual oppression that we undergo when we do not have that relationship in Jesus Christ, or we are denying the work of the Holy Spirit. And so, there’s a direct connection there. And, again, going back to what I said about how evangelicalism has always been defined by an activist spirit. So this whole idea of being woke and having your conscience gripped by things that are wrong in our culture, whether systemically or individually, or there is sin matters or social matters. Like that is part of our heritage and to use that variation of the word woke as an insult or a pejorative or just an outright dismissal for everything that you disagree with, does violence not only to the language but does violence to our heritage as evangelicals and just violence to the people who are using that term to express this urgent and important felt need.   JULIE ROYS  15:12 So, to the person who’s trying to keep what is good, throw out what is bad when it comes to this most central concept of being awakened spiritually, what would you say?   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  15:23 I would say that, you know, this is one reason why I’m still an evangelical is because evangelicalism arose in the modern age. And an important feature of the modern age is the individual [ ] the individual soul that need for individual salvation and conversion. And it’s all centered on the conscience. Now, I also happen to be not just evangelical Baptist. And for us, soul autonomy is really important, like the idea that we are each responsible and accountable as individuals, our own individual souls before God. And so that idea of the individual conscience is central to the evangelical movement. And so being awakened, not only spiritually, but also awakened just to our relationship in this world with one another and how we treat one another. It’s just to me, it’s central to what it means to be an evangelical.   JULIE ROYS  16:26 So, A related term, which you already mentioned, is conversion. I think if you’ve grown up in evangelicalism, you’ve heard of this idea of easy believe ism. I remember that my mother moved from the north to the south, and she did go to a Baptist church in the south. They had a horrible tragedy where a teenage boy shot his family, killed all of them. And then he turned the gun on himself. And I remember my mother was so shocked that the pastor got up and said, Well, we know that the shooter was a Christian, because he came forward and gave his life to Christ. You know, when he was I forget what age and she was just appalled by this, that that was given as something to sooth the community, supposedly. I mean, she felt like how can we know this man that just went on a murderous rampage? Of course, we don’t know, if he had mental illness, whatever, but  that kind of statement, which, again, it takes that conversion experience into almost 100% iron clad, you’re going to heaven, I think there’s been some perversion of what a conversion really means. And you talk about the history and development of this term, if you would, give us a little bit of the background and how this has evolved over time.   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  17:45 You know, the Evangelical revival in England arose at a time when, you know, a couple of centuries after the Reformation took place, and there was an established church in England, a state church, a government Church, which meant that if you were born as a citizen in England, that meant that you were a Christian, officially. So, it just bred of nominal Christianity, but this is what the Evangelical revival is like the Wesley’s when they were young men, John and Charles Wesley who helped begin this who were Anglicans, studying for the ministry. They felt something was lacking, and then had that famous warming of the heart experience, and which we would call it being born again, or individual conversion. And so, this revival in England and this awakening in America centered on this idea that you’re not a Christian just because you are born into a Christian family or confirmed or baptized as an infant in a Christian church, but you must be born again, you must have an individual salvation experience. And, again, I’m evangelical, I believe that. But as you pointed out, just because someone goes forward, or just because someone fills out a card or raises their hand, that in itself does not mean that they were converted. And that is why the Bible does say, not all who say Lord, Lord will be saved. And that is also why the Bible gives us evidence, such as fruit of the Spirit, to show that someone that exhibits godliness and Christ likeness and doesn’t mean that the converted don’t sin. Would that it were so but it’s not. But again, this good, important biblical idea becomes distorted when all of the emphasis is on going forward, getting the hands raised, filling out the cards, counting the number of people who’ve made decisions for Christ, and then letting them off and go without any follow up or discipleship, or kinds of things that can’t be measured as easily, which are actually so much more important.   JULIE ROYS  19:47 But it sure makes a good newsletter.   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  19:49 Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, it does. And that’s the sad part about it. It often becomes a fundraising gimmick. How many people have come forward or whatever. And sometimes with good intentions, but I think it has been perverted. You talk about an 18th century novel in this chapter, which I had never heard about called Pamela. Talk about that book and how it sort of typifies the issue. Yeah. Non one ever reads or talks about Pamela unless they take an odd course, from me or some other 18th century novel professor. It’s considered widely is like the first English novel. It’s so rooted in all of evangelical history during this time, because it’s a story of, you know, a young servant girl whose harasser is attempting to seduce her and harass her and she’s holding on to her virtue. He actually tries to sexually assault her twice. If anyone wants to read it, spoiler alert. And the novel shows that through her good behavior, she tames him and he’s inverted. You know, that’s obviously not a good idea to follow that model. And she marries him. Yes, I think we still have those dynamics. But the reason I include that novel is because the story doesn’t end when they get married. The story ends much later, when this horrible husband, this former Reagan player has had some kind of conversion experience and grows and matures. But the novel was widely criticized and mocked and satirize, because it was showing this like cheap grace kind of dynamic that we just talked about, and that this guy can just be converted, and everything  is instantly better. And so, it’s an interesting novel from a literary perspective. But it’s also interesting because it parallels a lot of what evangelicals were thinking and teaching and modeling, but it shows it in such an access that we should stop and question and say many this is not how to evangelize and convert people.   JULIE ROYS  21:53 A related concept is the idea of testimony and giving your testimony. And again, I’m thinking about my childhood. So, I’m one of those that went forward when I was six years old, at a camp meeting. don’t really remember what was preached. But I remember like when he said, Do you want to come forward and accept Jesus? I was like, Oh, I’ve heard about Jesus my whole life. Of course, I do. You know. And so, I did go forward. I actually remember it very vividly. Because for the next two weeks, everybody I met, my parents would be like, oh tell them your testimony. But it was good for me because it solidified in me that experience and the importance of it. A lot of people don’t have necessarily that one time testimony. I know my sister, one of the most beautiful Christians I know on the planet, she can’t point to a time, and I think in your book you talk about you can kind of point to a time period, right? But not really a time. So, this can be a good thing, the testimony. You talked about testimony envy, which I thought was a great phrase. How can this be twisted, and how has it been twisted within evangelicalism?   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  23:03 So, testimony and story  are just a central aspect of what it means to be human and also to what it means to be a Christian. We are to be prepared to give a defense to give our testimonies to tell our story. And yet, we also have to examine sort of the flip side, and as you said,  if we don’t remember that particular time and place and we can’t tell that story because we, like in my case, and probably your sisters, were so young. But even John Bunyan, as I show in the book, has a really long Spiritual Autobiography. And you keep wondering, okay is this the moment is this the moment he keeps having these spiritual epiphanies or awakenings. And Jonathan Edwards himself says, sometimes people don’t know and that’s okay. I’m paraphrasing him, obviously. So, it’s wonderful to have a testimony. But that testimony envy that I talked about, and you mentioned, can lead people to feeling as though if they don’t have a testimony, something is wrong. Or we’d come to learn that someone who shared a testimony, embellished it. And so again, as I show throughout this whole book with all of these beautiful, wonderful concepts and ideas that are rooted in the Bible, but also become part of our imagination, our social imaginary, if they get distorted or twisted, then we take something that is good and true, and turn it into something that is not that; our salvation testimony is the most important one, but also our sanctification, our growth, the way God works, and as well as all of those are testimonies.   JULIE ROYS  24:36 I couldn’t help but think of Michael Warnke when I was reading that chapter. If you remember, he was in the 80s had this very dramatic testimony of being converted from being a Satanist to Christ, and he would tell the stories became an evangelist. Well, it turned out it was all bunk. He had concocted the whole thing; he had made it up. And the horrible thing is It just takes one fraud, for about 100 real testimonies and the truth for a lot of people, the Christian life is day by day living in the ordinary. And these days, I’m much more impressed by the person who’s not so on fire outwardly, but just is living that quiet life of obedience to Christ, not bringing attention to himself or herself, and just following the Lord. And I think we forget how ordinary even Jesus was right? You know, some of them have dramatics; Saul has a dramatic testimony. But a lot of them it was just, follow me., and they did. The evangelical, or the Protestant work ethic, which is another concept that you talked about. And that’s something that was drilled into me, in fact, there wouldn’t be a Roy Report if I didn’t have a Protestant work ethic. Yep. Before reading your book, I don’t think I’d ever really thought about how this work ethic developed out of sort of an age of improvement, and how it even might be contributing to our self-help movement today. Would you explain how these things are related?   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  26:09 Yeah, that was a fun chapter, because I too, am a product of the Protestant work ethic, and it’s made me who I am today. And so that is good. But there’s this sort of, off branch of that work ethic, which is improvement, even the idea of a self-improvement or an improvement to your life was something that people for thousands of years, didn’t imagine. Because for thousands of years, people’s lives, generation after generation after generation, looks the same. You were trying to survive trying to herd your sheep and raise your children, and nothing much changed. So, improvement itself is a very modern idea. I’m for improvement too, but it goes too far when we improve just for improvement sake, or when it breeds lack of contentment, or we often don’t look at what we lose or sacrifice by trying to make an improvement. If we go to the supermarket, we see these packages of food and products that say new and improved. And when you read the fine print, it’s really just the labels changed or something. It’s not even necessarily anything substantial that is improved. But we love improvements so much that the marketing and the research that goes into it shows us that it works to have that little label on it, even if we don’t know what the improvement was. And of course, that carries over into modern evangelicalism when we are formed and shaped and motivated by self-improvement and influencers. And these aren’t all bad. But we’re the Christian, we are supposed to undergo growth and sanctification, which is really not quite the same thing as improvement.   JULIE ROYS  27:50 The focus of it is so different. I mean, it almost becomes like a Babel thing, like I’ve built this, I’ve done this, instead of, you know, sanctification, the point of it is to become like Christ. Why? So that we can glorify Him. Because the chief end of man is to glorify God, and we miss that. We think the chief end of man, actually, we think the chief end of religion is to make our life better, so we can live our best life now. I mean, we’ve just so fundamentally perverted it. And this is why I think, when I hear so many people deconstructing, and I think we all should, I don’t know if I like that word. You want to call it sifting, whatever. But we should be looking at what is it that we have imbibed? And what is it that we’re really rejecting? I’m very grateful that for me, the stories, and the ideas that I feel like inform me, a lot of them are centuries old, because they’ve grown up in our family and in our church. But if you came to the Lord in this generation, and this is all you know, is this iteration of evangelicalism, I can see why people hate it. I hate a lot of it too, because it has nothing to do with the gospel, just nothing.   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  29:01 There are so many layers that need to be peeled back. And so many things that need to be examined under the surface, but we have to look at them, so we know what to throw out and what to keep. And that’s what I’m trying to demonstrate with this book.   JULIE ROYS  29:15 So, you devote an entire chapter to sentimentalism which I think highlight a major, major tension in evangelicalism. I mean, on one hand, we are products of the Enlightenment, and I think you really explain that in a really good way. We love reason. I think when you look at the Sunday service in most churches, you can see that –  what’s the highlight? It’s the sermon, right? It’s the word. That can be a good thing. I will say it’s one of the things I liked about the years that we spent at an  Anglican Church is that the highlight was actually the table. It was the Eucharist which is a much more experiential though not experiential in the sense of rooted in your subjective experience, but in coming to the table that Christ has called us to do every week. And so, I love that, but again, you’ve got this reason on one hand, and yet on the other hand, as you describe, we’ve been influenced by something called the cult of sensibility, which emphasizes more feeling and emotion. And you use the book Sense and Sensibility, which doesn’t necessarily mean what we would think it means today so that that has changed over time. But this is kind of a new idea to me. And then how this sensibility has sort of morphed into the sentimentalism that we find so commonly in churches today.   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  30:30 Yeah, so Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility is a good touchstone for thinking about this idea, because most people are at least familiar with the title, if not the book. And if you’re at all familiar with the book, or even the movie, you know, that like sense represents Eleanor and her rational, reasonable, non-emotional approach to life and Mary Anne represents sensibility, which is that romantic emotional approach. And Austen was actually satirizing just before Austin’s lifetime was called the cult of sensibility, which tried to show that moral virtue is demonstrated by how sensitive you are to art and literature and opera and theatre, and not necessarily the real people suffering around you, perhaps, but at least you may respond emotionally with your heart to something that you see. And that is the mark of virtue. And Austin was making fun of them. But there was a short-lived movement. But it did slowly morph into sentimentalism, which is basically emphasizing emotion for the sake of emotion. As you said, we’re both Protestants; we’ve made that clear. We’re both maybe privilege word and reason and rationality a little bit more. So, it’s not to say that we should ignore or downplay the emotional aspect of our humanity. It’s not to say that empathy is a sin or anything like that. Because we are both emotional and rational creatures, and that those things should be in balance. But what sentimentalism does is it just emphasizes the emotional, and more specifically, when I talk about like Christian and evangelical art, it’s emphasizing the sort of cheap, easy emotion like the easy way of feeling sad or happy, if you watch like a, you know, Hallmark or Lifetime movie. It just plays on our emotions, or a Budweiser beer commercial with puppies and horses, plays on our emotions, right? Those are cheap, easy ways to draw out our emotions that ignore sort of the hard realities or the sacrifice that good art, or spiritual redemption requires. So we live in a culture that has emphasized sort of the cheap and easy emotional shortcut. Real truth and sacrifice and redemption as well as good art requires sacrifice, and bringing into balance, truth, goodness, and beauty, which is just not the same thing as sentimentality.   JULIE ROYS  32:59 I kept thinking of the verses where the Lord says, These people worship Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. I see it in the church today. I mean, people that I report on, and I know so much about the sin that they’re involved in, and yet I’ll see them in their services, you know, projected on YouTube, acting so spiritual and crying and during the worship, and it’s repulsive, I think it has become manipulative, it has become where we leave no room for the moving of the Holy Spirit in our highly programmed services. And where it’s excesses of emotion that’s in the church. And again, over the centuries, the church has been very concerned about this, and has thought deeply about the place of worship and emotion. And sometimes airing way too far to cutting off emotion side, but at the same time, wanting it to be real.   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  33:59 Yeah, I mean, emotions are an essential part of what it means to be human. But if we confuse emotion with worship, I mean, we can worship God, and we want to feel what we are saying and expressing with our worship. But some of us are just more rational, some are more emotional. And the goal as individuals, and as a church is to have them in balance, not go from one extreme to the other.   JULIE ROYS  34:21 For time sake, we’re gonna have to skip over several chapters of your book, although I will just say, I would really encourage people to get the book. And by the way, if you get the book right now, it’s something that we’re offering as a premium to all the donors to The Roys Report. So you can get Karen’s book, which thanks to some intervention that you did on your part, because this is a hardcover book. It’s an expensive book, but you helped us get it at a really reasonable price, so we can offer it to anybody who gives a donation to The Roys Report in this month, we will send you a copy of Karen’s book, which again, fantastic book. You just go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE.   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  35:03 And if I can just throw in one word. It’s not only a hardcover book, but this is also something I’m so proud of, because I negotiated it. It includes a number of beautiful color plates of paintings and artwork that I either talk about in the book or that illustrate the things I’m talking about. And so, I think books should be beautiful. And I think this one is.   JULIE ROYS  35:24 Oh, it’s gorgeous. So, thank you for helping us get that cheaper than we deserve.   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  35:31 I’m so glad I was able to do that.   JULIE ROYS  35:33 So, the last three chapters, which I think are absolutely crucial, chapter nine, you explore the concept of empire, and how evangelicalism, maybe without meaning to but it is just integral to this idea of British imperialism, which again, the sun never set on the British Empire, right? I mean, talk about the pride involved in that. But would you describe how evangelicalism, even the modern mission movement has become so married to Empire and how we can extricate ourselves from that.   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  36:08 If anyone knows anything about me and my work, you know that I love cultural engagement, right? I love to engage all of the culture, art,  literature, think about it as a Christian, applied biblical worldview. And the fact is, even with the negative things that I have to say, especially in this chapter, this is sort of the darkest, heaviest chapter. I think. My whole point is that we are creatures of culture, no matter what Christians we’re talking about the ones that the first century, the ones of the 30th century should the Lord tarry.   All Christians will be in a culture, they will be influenced by their culture, hopefully they will influence their culture. So, what I’m talking about in this book of, you know, a 300-year slice of very like Western British American evangelicalism and the problems that we have to face, all Christians are going to have to face that entanglement with culture. So that’s just how it is. And so, I’m not saying anything in particular, that is different. Where us as modern evangelicals as for Christians than any other place. But Empire happens to be an area in which it is the time and the place and the context in which evangelicalism was great before. The evangelical movement arose as the British Empire was arising. Evangelical influence and power reached its peak when the British Empire was peaking. So, the great work the evangelicals wanted to do as missionaries was inextricably tied to the work that British Empire wanted to do in colonizing and conquering around the globe. And so even if it’s just barely coincidence, which it’s more than that, there was effort and human intention and agency and mixed motives and all that involved, but even just the mere coincidence of the movement, and the Empire, arising at the same time means that evangelicalism was born by notions of Empire.   And so, we might not go out as evangelicals and take lands and oppress people. We might we might not, but we don’t have to do that to see the influence of empire in our evangelical culture today whether it’s what our friend, Skye Jehani, has coined the evangelical industrial complex, or mega churches or big conferences, or coalition. All those things that I’m part of, too. So, I’m not standing at the outside and pointing. What I’m asking and examining saying, has this imperialist mindset affected us? Well, it has, it’s in our DNA. And so that empire exists when we try to dominate our neighbors rather than loving them.   JULIE ROYS  38:52 I will say, just to balance a little bit with that there was an article in Christianity Today several years ago that talked about colonialism and the missionaries and found that a lot of missionaries, actually the majority of them, were much more on the side of the Indigenous people and fighting for their rights than they were the colonial powers. So, I think there is some balance to that. But when I read this, the thing that I thought of so much, and this is where I’ve probably experienced so much change myself, is just the triumphalism within evangelicalism, and sometimes it’s just really trite that we just always have the Cinderella story. It’s in our brain and in essence, Christianity is a Cinderella story. I mean, Jesus did rise from the dead, we are eventually going to see heaven, but the in between, we forget the cross and the suffering and all of that, and that’s a part of what it means to be Christian. And now I think, too, I’ve become much more aware of how I’m a part of the white dominant culture. And it’s just like we’re talking about the imagination that the soup that you swim, and you don’t even realize it.   But now that I’m beginning to realize it, I can see it more and more and more and in the ways that Christianity around the globe, I mean, quite frankly, Western Christianity is shrinking. The global south is growing and growing by leaps and bounds, and we’re going to be, we are learning from them. And we need to learn much more and stop thinking that we have the corner on the way to do things when we need to admit that they do. This is not a white man’s religion. This is, you know, something that was started by a Jewish dark-skinned man. And so, we need to be aware of that.  Then your next chapter on reformation reminded me of the motto of The Roys Report, which is reporting the truth, restoring the church. It’s central to our again imagination as evangelicals to reform to be restored. I mean, that’s huge. And yet we have seen so much perversion of the real. And I know there’s people listening right now who are so disillusioned because of what they’ve seen in the church. How do we reform something that has been so fundamentally distorted?   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  41:21 That’s a big question. But I think some of the answer is, it’s so simple, it’s listening to one another, as you said, like listening to the people outside of our circles, who have different stories, different experiences. It’s not turning away, You  model that. It’s not turning away from the sin that’s in front of us, or the sin that’s beneath the surface that we sort of sense we would rather not know about. It’s paying attention to the red flags, it’s being open, honest, supporting those who are courageous enough to come forward, and just opening our eyes. And I feel like for me, that’s where I am in my life. And so, this book, in some ways, is sort of my confession, because it’s just me demonstrating what I’m going through, because I had a very good for the most part experience within the evangelical world, most of my life, but others . . . .   And so, I don’t feel like I’m saying anything in here that is new. It’s new to me, perhaps, but I can hear other people saying, Yeah, well, I told you so a long time ago, or we’ve been saying this a long time. And so, I humbly respect that and admit that, and yet, we had this Protestant Reformation 500 years ago, which we’ve already identified with. And yet part of what that movement said is like, always reform is not just one reformation. And the way that I frame it in the book is that maybe that first big reformation was over doctrine and cleaning up the doctrine and clarifying that in the church, and maybe in the next 500 years is about practice.   JULIE ROYS  43:01 For too long, we have focused almost exclusively on orthodoxy, you know, right belief. And there’s been so little emphasis on orthopraxy, which is right behavior. And we have people who are preaching on huge platforms with the most pristine doctrine you can imagine and, you know, passing judgment on those who don’t have as good a doctrine, and yet their lives. And I’m so glad you said fruit of the Spirit when you were talking about fruit because that’s what reflects whether we’re filled by the Holy Spirit, not by how many people are listening to our sermons or our podcasts or sitting in the pews. It is about Christ likeness. Well, lastly, let’s talk about the Rapture. This has been the topic of so many evangelical books and movies from the Late Great Planet Earth to the Left Behind series. And the rapture, again, is something that’s just seared into the evangelical imagination, and yet a literal rapture, which, at least in the tradition I grew up in, was very much assumed. Now, a lot of evangelicals are saying, well, maybe it’s not exactly how we had envisioned it.   Regardless, our obsession with the rapture, I think sometimes we miss the point. And you talk about that. What do you think about the Rapture now, as you reflect on it? What’s it about, and what is God really asking us to think about His Second Coming?   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  44:33 Yeah, I mean, for me, I have some lighthearted fun with this, because what’s not fun talking about the Rapture and chick tracks and left behind and although you know, the trauma of that. This topic does illustrate what I’m trying to do throughout the whole book, because I grew up thinking that this interpretation of a physical literal rapture. I didn’t know that was an interpretation, right? And I also didn’t know it was an interpretation that arose in the 19th century. I just thought it was what all Christians believed. And so, it was a shocking revelation when I learned that not all Christians have this interpretation. And so that’s not the only thing that we could say about having interpretations. And so, we need to examine not only our assumption, but examine our interpretive communities, because we interpret in community.   And so, we are shaped by the way that our communities read Scripture emphasize scripture, which parts they tend to quote in the sermons and which ones never get preached about. And so, rapture is just, you know, one sort of dramatic example of that. And I say in the book, I haven’t studied this on my own, I’m not a theologian in this area, I don’t even really care what it means because I was just so tired of it. But I do know that whether the rapture is physical and literal or not, what the word means refers to us being caught up in Christ, right. And so all of the interpretations of that phrase are important, especially the one in which we are caught up with him now. Because we see him and are so filled with the spirit that we reflect Him and nothing else is as important. As Paul said, all this world is dung. We only want Christ. And that’s what it means to be caught up in him. And so that’s the most important interpretation. And that’s kind of the note that I closed the book on is just to say, let’s just imagine that.   JULIE ROYS  46:32 Let me read that because I think you put it so well, and it really moved me. So, I just want to read this part of your book. The rapture is assuredly this. We who are in Christ will be caught up with him, caught up in him. To be caught up with Christ in Christ is to be filled with a love not only powerful enough to move the sun and the stars, but powerful enough to love that person we would otherwise despise. It is to love the kingdom of God more than the kingdoms of this world. It is to count all human empires as dirt, all our petty platforms and performances, as dung. To be caught up in Christ is to be enraptured by him, to be beholden to him, to be taken by him to be, as 17th century poet John Donne puts it, ravished by him. Not just in the sky, and on some future day, but here, and now. Just imagine it. I love that.   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  47:29 Thank you. I worked hard on that ending.   JULIE ROYS  47:32 I’m sure you did. And if that captured our imagination, as Christians as evangelicals, if we were more caught up in Jesus, and in this picture of oneness with him, instead of in the political empires that we think we have to gain or in the huge mega churches we think we have to build. If it really was about Jesus, again, what a huge difference that would make. And if anything, I hope people take away from your book, it is that; that this needs to be about Jesus and not about us and our imaginations need to be filled with what’s good and true and beautiful. And that will change the world. So, thank you.   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  48:17 Thanks, Julie.   JULIE ROYS  48:19 Well, again, thanks so much for listening to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to recording the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And as I mentioned earlier, if you’d like a copy of Karen’s book, The Evangelical Imagination, we’re giving them as a thank you to anyone who gives a gift of $30 or more to The Roys Report this month. So, if you appreciate these podcasts, would you please consider giving to support our work? As I’ve said before, we don’t have any big donors or advertising, we simply have you, the people who care about the integrity of the church and the protection of the most vulnerable. To donate and get a copy of The Evangelical Imagination, just go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATED. Also, just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcast, Google podcasts or Spotify. That way you’ll never miss an episode. And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks so much for joining me today. Hope you were blessed and encouraged. Read more

Guest Bios Show Transcript Victims of adult clergy sexual abuse often report that their first wound—the abuse itself—was awful. But it wasn't as bad as the second wound: the response by the church to their abuse.  This is precisely what Moriah Smothers and her husband, Jack, describe in a follow-up conversation to our initial podcast interview about the alleged abuse Moriah received at the hands of her former pastor, Patrick Garcia. In this podcast, Moriah tells of the shame and rejection she experienced from other church members when her abuse was mislabeled an “affair.” Some called her “Judas.” Others told her the devil had got the upper hand. The backlash left both Moriah and Jack devastated and confused.  Yet after a year of extreme pain and brokenness, Moriah heard an earlier edition of The Roys Report podcast with another victim of adult clergy sexual abuse. She said it led her to an epiphany and significant healing.  It also prompted Jack and Moriah to confront leaders at their former church—The Hills Church in Evansville, Ind.—for how they handled Moriah’s abuse. The couple also reached out to Bob Russell, pastor emeritus of one of the largest churches in America, who is currently re-platforming Patrick Garcia.   You’ll hear how Russell and the Hills Church responded. And you’ll hear Moriah and Jack’s impassioned plea for the church and other Christian institutions to start dealing with clergy sexual abuse in an appropriate way. Guests Dr. Moriah Smothers Dr. Moriah Smothers is an Associate Professor of Teacher Education and a former elementary special education teacher. She is also a survivor of adult clergy sexual abuse (ACSA). Dr. Jack Smothers is a Professor of Management and a secondary survivor. Their heart is to help other ACSA survivors find healing and community. They are passionate about educating church leaders to identify, prevent and respond to ACSA. They have two children and have been married for 15 years. You can connect with them at jackandmoriahsmothers@gmail.com. Moriah has also been affiliated with Restored Voices Collective, a nonprofit group that seeks to break the silence around ACSA. Show Transcript SPEAKERSJULIE ROYS, MORIAH SMOTHERS, JACK SMOTHERS, PAUL LINGE, JIM BURGEN JULIE ROYS 00:04In 2020, Moriah Smothers says her spiritual and sexual abuse by her pastor was suddenly exposed. Only no one recognized it as abuse. Instead, it was labeled an affair, and Moriah was ostracized by her church. Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys, and this is part two of a two part podcast with Moriah Smothers and her husband Jack Smothers. In part one, Moriah told of what she believes was grooming and abused by her former pastor Patrick Garcia. And if you haven’t heard part one, I encourage you to go back and listen to that now. It’s a harrowing and cautionary tale about how adult clergy sexual abuse happens. And I wish more Christians understood this phenomenon because it’s a widespread problem wreaking havoc in the church. But so often it goes undetected, and the victims instead of receiving help receive condemnation, and the predators often get re platformed only to continue their predatory ways. So again, if you haven’t heard part one, I encourage you to do that now.

 But in this podcast, Moriah and Jack describe what is often called the second wound. This was the response of their church to Moriah’s adult clergy sexual abuse, and the shame and the rejection that Moriah experienced was absolutely devastating. But you’ll also hear how after a year of extreme pain and brokenness, Moriah heard an earlier podcast that we did on The Roys Report with another victim of adult clergy sexual abuse and hearing that podcast and recognizing that it wasn’t an affair, but abuse led to a ton of healing. But it also prompted Jack and Moriah to confront the leaders at their former church, Hills church in Evansville, Indiana, for how they handled Maria’s abuse. The couple also reached out to Bob Russell, Pastor Emeritus of one of the largest churches in America, who is currently re-platforming Patrick Garcia. You’ll hear Bob Russell and the Hills church responded, and you’ll hear Moriah and Jack’s impassioned plea that the church and other Christian institutions start dealing with adult clergy sexual abuse in an appropriate way. So, I’m very excited to share this podcast with you. But first, I’d like to thank our sponsors, Judson University, and Marquardt of Barrington. If you’re looking for a top ranked Christian University, providing a caring community and an excellent college experience, Judson University is for you. Judson is located on 90 acres just 40 miles west of Chicago in Elgin, Illinois. The school offers more than 60 majors, great leadership opportunities, and strong financial aid. Plus, you can take classes online as well as in person. Judson University is shaping lives that shaped the world. For more information, just go to JUDSONU.EDU. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity and transparency. That’s because the owners there Dan and Kurt Marquardt are men of integrity. To check them out, just go to BUYACAR123.COM.We now pick up my conversation with Moriah and Jack Smothers. They previously described how their pastor Patrick Garcia groomed Moriah and then abused his power by luring her into an emotional and sexual relationship. This was eventually discovered by Patrick’s wife, who then told the church leadership. And this is where we join our discussion. So how did you feel the church responded to you, Moriah? MORIAH SMOTHERS 03:49I don’t want to over exaggerate this and I can share details. The abuse from my pastor was horrible. The way the church responded was 10 times more traumatizing than the abuse. I could have recovered from the abuse in a reasonable amount of time, I feel but the literature when you read about this, it calls it the second wound. And the first is that having just that abuse experience, but then the church response was really painful. I don’t think the church had any knowledge of adult clergy sexual abuse. And so we were basically told again, through zoom, I think Dave was designated to be the person that communicates with us, nobody else really did, that they were going to release a statement. This is what the statement was. We were not involved in any of the processes the information. I did again, we thought we only had a fair narrative. We had no information about ACSA. And so I did send a text message. Jack and I thought it was a good idea at the time to some of the women I was really close to and I disclosed that this situation had to do with me. In hindsight that was not a good choice because of the way I worded it but oddly, one of the things I’ve struggled to recover the most from, were some of the communications from my very best friends from the church. And most of them were very involved in the church as well. And so one of the ones that has just stuck with me is when your identity is eviscerated, things just have the ability to sink really deep. One of them was calling me Judas and Patrick’s wife at the time was like Jesus. A lot of them wrote, you need to get help, you really let the devil win was a common one I got. I’ll never trust you again was often. And I will say those that were ugly, hurt, they hit really deep. I did get a few women to respond or just like I don’t understand but I’m praying for you. And very little support from within the church. I do want to say that God was really I wouldn’t have been able to make this big faith statement a year ago, but I realized now God was so good. He sent I didn’t know this woman, but she was local. When she heard what was happening at the Hills. She is also a survivor. And she asked for my contact information from a mutual acquaintance. And she immediately got in contact with me and has mentored me, she didn’t know about abuse either. But she and her husband made it and were thriving. But it was another abuse situation locally and just was such a good mentor to me. So, inside the church, the response was not supportive. It was not understanding. We were ostracized, basically. Even people we love dearly the extent of support was basically like, go get marriage counseling, and so not supportive. Outside the church, nobody we met understood ACSA. So I’m not saying that we still never got the language. But there were some people that were able to love on us. Our next-door neighbors, were just Jesus to us. This fellow survivor, my parents came around us very quickly. And so we did have some support that we you know, a lot of people don’t have, so I want to acknowledge that. JULIE ROYS 07:04Wow. Jack during this time, you and Moriah’s parents met with Dave Bowersox and Daryl Maron. As I’m understanding that was a pretty tough meeting. Would you describe what happened in that meeting? JACK SMOTHERS 07:22It was intense. But so Moriah’s parents are wonderful, amazing Christians, they have invested a lot into Moriah and I, and we trust them, we love them. And so we felt that it would be good to take them along. And I’m glad that they went. They’ve done a lot of counseling in their life. And so they took resources, books, a variety of different resources to help Dave and Daryl in the Hills guard against situations like this occurring again. So they gave them those resources. And we talked through the situation, they shared some of the information that they had, such as you know, I was not aware at that point in time, of the May encounter that had happened at the zoo and police report. And since I was not allowed to come to that meeting with Moriah, I didn’t have that information. MORIAH SMOTHERS 08:22There’s was an investigation. JACK SMOTHERS 08:23There was an investigation. They hired an investigator to look into Patrick’s devices to see if they could uncover anything. And I guess that went on throughout the summer. And when that didn’t come up with anything that he was re platformed later on in that fall. JULIE ROYS 08:41Help me understand this. And maybe I misheard you, you’re saying there was an investigation, they looked at all the devices, and then they re platformed Patrick? JACK SMOTHERS 08:52Yeah, The investigation came up with nothing, they did not find any communication. Their suspicion of communication. But they didn’t find anything between Patrick and so this was after just to clarify, this was after the May event. JULIE ROYS 09:08Got you. So in between the two? JACK SMOTHERS 09:10There was that investigation that didn’t come up with anything. When everything finally did come out, and what was that? September? October? That’s when the meeting happened with Moriah’s parents and myself and the pastors. JULIE ROYS 09:25And is it true that Dave Bowersox confessed during that meeting that he was aware that Patrick had an attraction to Moriah? JACK SMOTHERS 09:34That is true. So Dave’s advice to Patrick was just get a handle on it, get it under control and resolve your old feelings, essentially. They felt like Patrick may have targeted Moriah, but they said that they felt like Moriah was complicit in that situation. Of course, they didn’t understand at the time the ACSA framework and that complicity would not be possible in that situation. So it was high drama. JULIE ROYS 10:03Stunning to me that seminaries don’t teach this. It’s against the law. I wish it was in more states, but in certain states, it is against the law for a pastor to have a relationship like this with a congregant. It seems like we’re, maybe we’re just on the cusp of becoming awake to this. But even as I have interviewed pastors, and say, hypothetically, do you think it would necessarily be abuse if a pastor has a relationship with a married congregant? And there’ll be like, we don’t know what the role of the woman was. Like, I don’t even understand the basics of exactly what you said, Jack, that when there’s a power differential, someone cannot give consent, when there’s that kind of power. But it’s just stunning to me complete and utter ignorance. And it’s inexcusable. Every pastor should be aware of this. The same way that you have to go through training with Title XI, if you work for a university, pastors need to go through this kind of training, if they’re going to serve in the pastorate and so do all the elders and the people who are holding them accountable. But it is just not happening. And it’s really unbelievably frustrating. MORIAH SMOTHERS 11:19Yeah. And really, that’s the heart of why we’re talking to you, is that you’re right. It’s illegal in 14 states right now. Understanding adult clergy sexual abuse is a job requisite skill at this point. 20 years ago, maybe not knowing maybe I can get it. There’s so much literature now and fantastic researchers that this has been discussed too widely to claim ignorance at this point. And so I completely agree with you. There should be no ignorance of this issue. JULIE ROYS 11:50In the wake of what happened is my understanding that Hills church actually paid for counseling for Patrick, is that right? JACK SMOTHERS 11:57That’s what they told us. JULIE ROYS 11:59Okay, did they pay for counseling for you? JACK SMOTHERS 12:02They did not. JULIE ROYS 12:03Help me understand that? Did they give any kind of explanation for that? JACK SMOTHERS 12:08No, we didn’t ask them to pay for anything. MORIAH SMOTHERS 12:11I chose a counselor because my survivor friend had also seen this woman. And again, she didn’t know she was actually a survivor at the time. And so she was affiliated with a church that the Hills did not want us to receive counseling from. And so they actually discouraged me from seeing a counselor. They wanted us to see a counselor that was also I believe, seeing Patrick and his wife at the time. And so I was uncomfortable seeing a counselor that they recommended, which they didn’t offer to pay for anything either way. But again, Julie, our supportive statement was go get marriage counseling. As if our marriage was broken, not that I was targeted and groomed and abused, confusing. JULIE ROYS 12:55And the statement that was given at the time called it an inappropriate relationship, correct? Patrick did say that it was his fault, and no one but him. His fault, yet seems like some mixed messages in what was being said. MORIAH SMOTHERS 13:10And there was no disclosure, I was a congregant. And I think that while there was no overtly blaming me in this situation there, I felt like the context of the sermon was, frankly tacky. It was preaching from the woman caught in adultery. And it was from the lens of a let’s not throw the first stone but as a broken woman, I listened to it. That was all I heard is the adultery piece. They had all the advisory boards stand up front, and you could just see their disgust on their face. It was a group I should have been part of. Because if anybody had known I was missing, that would have been very a clear signal if they had known. It really has always bothered me, they never disclosed I was a congregant. I think that was very intentional. Actually, Dave Bowersox had apologized. He said, I’m so sorry you all are having to go through with this. And Jack, I think he said something like, I’m sure there’s not a script for it. And they’ve said, Oh, no, there actually is. So they received counsel from somewhere about how to handle these situations. JULIE ROYS 14:13They didn’t make you were a big Scarlet A, at least. I guess we’ve progressed a little bit. But unbelievable. Yeah, what you went through and I’m so sorry. That just sounds absolutely traumatizing. For a year while you’re in biblical counseling, you’re believing the narrative. How did you internalize what you had done and the consequence? MORIAH SMOTHERS 14:40Yeah. Oh, man, that’s complicated. Julie, honestly, a lot of pieces did not make sense. But I was so desperate to keep my family together. I was willing to take responsibility for anything and everything. And so that’s what I did for a season is I did a lot of work with my biblical counselor to figure out what was wrong with me. Like how had I sinned, how had I fallen, I will own it, I will repent for everything under the sun. Because I wanted to be well and whole. I didn’t understand how this happened because I didn’t want to have an affair. To be honest, I’m not even attracted to Patrick. I had no clue how this happened. But all we had was a fair framework. My mom tried to be really sweet and helpful gave me like a fair recovery books and things. And I started to read them. And I was like, this isn’t me, this isn’t I’m not represented in this. And so I will say the counselor I saw, knew nothing about abuse and trauma for this situation. She did some good soul care kind of things with me. But yeah, we were just trying to keep it together with the fair. JULIE ROYS 15:47Wow. That’s a very humble response, and so often we don’t see those. You can only do what you know. But when you know, then you’re responsible. And that’s super, super important. It seems like you did have an epiphany. And it was on a podcast that we published, which, when I hear things like that it’s so heartening. We work in the trenches a lot from day to day. And it’s not the easiest work. But things like that, to hear stories of how it has impact is, it can give you some fuel for a decent amount of time. So I’ll just say that it just is really encouraging. MORIAH SMOTHERS 15:47He won’t say this, but my biggest source of healing was Jack. That sweet man, we walked together a lot. That’s where we bond as we walk. And so like we were walking every day for miles and miles. And he was my counselor at that time. And how deeply unfair for him to have been traumatized the way he was, and yet he was supporting me. I wanted basically nothing to do with faith at that point. And I’ve loved Jesus my whole life basically, that I thought, How can God cannot be good if my pastor treated me this way. Which I could have gotten over that, but I thought, There’s no way the church is good or right, if it’s been covered up by other pastors. So I was relying on Jack’s faith. And Jack never asked me to leave. And again, we thought affair, never asked me to leave. He never yelled at me. There was a moment that it’s still it’s really hard to talk about. It was very soon after all of this had come out. And again, I was following him around the house because I was dazed and confused what had happened. He stopped in the doorway, and our kids were sitting there watching. And he said, I just feel so much compassion for you. And that was the first time he hugged me since it all came out. And I don’t usually cry. I’m not a crier. I sobbed and sobbed in the hallway. And it was like, from that moment, I knew we were going to be okay. But it was hard. It was a hard road. And I did get some bad advice spiritually. The counselor told me that God had probably planned this for me, maybe for Patrick Garcia to get out of ministry. And I thought, man, if that’s what God plans for the children he loves, I don’t want to follow that God anymore. So that was a rough road. I will say for that counselor, Jack and I once we did realize what had happened, that it was abuse, we went back to her, presnted that. She graciously received that she apologized to us for not knowing. And so I have a lot of respect for her for that reason. And I’m excited for the work she’s going to do in the future with this new knowledge. JULIE ROYS 17:49But you heard a podcast, I guess it was November 2021, that I recorded with Katie Roberts, a beautiful, wonderful person that has become a friend, because I’ve been able to share her story with a lot of you. And so courageously she walked through what was incredibly difficult, and she took incredible hits from people criticizing her. It is just so indicative of the misogyny in our culture, that we just have such a difficult time wrapping our heads around the fact that women are not the temptress or that we cannot acknowledge that this is abuse. But Katie, beautifully did, and you heard that podcast when she talked about her own grooming, and abuse. Talk about what that was like to hear that and for the light bulb to go on. MORIAH SMOTHERS 19:23That was an epiphany and that’s exactly what it was. I’d been listening to your podcast for a while because I didn’t have the words but I felt like something was mishandled here. It just, what happened in the church, it didn’t sit right. Like I knew it didn’t feel like justice somehow but I didn’t know why. And I’ve been listening to you for a while Katie came on. And I remember almost feeling a little shaky and scared because I felt like she’s telling my story. Like how could she possibly know what happened to me? And how has it happened to her? And this was way before I knew that there’s so many similarities between these grooming and abuse stories with clergy. And I listened to the whole thing, I sent it to everybody in our support network, which let’s be honest, that actually wasn’t very many people at the time. But anybody that knew our story and would listen, I sent them the podcast. And I was like, how can this be? The language she used to explain like the grooming and the trauma bonding, the love bombing. She used the language that I had been describing, but didn’t have the right word for it. And so it was such a weird thing. But I remember feeling I have to know more about this. And so I looked up Katie’s email, and I emailed her and I said, I don’t know if this makes any sense or not. But this is my story. And I shared it all. And she responded, and we ended up hopping on a phone call or zoom, I don’t remember. But her first words to me, I actually wrote them down to share at the end of this podcast, because there was so much compassion when she heard my story. And she said, I’m so sorry how you’ve been mistreated. And from someone outside of my circle, but didn’t have to love me and hear my story, that was such a powerful moment, because she got it. And while we were talking, she kept saying I understand, and that makes sense. And I thought, I didn’t even understand all of this, and she did. And that’s another part of the reason we’re talking to you is that we found truth and understanding and freedom through Katie’s story, which I know was a grueling experience for her. And I thought if the Lord is going to bring this opportunity full circle, where I learned through Katie, if someone can hear our story, and hear the tragedy, but also the hope, then we can’t pass that up. JULIE ROYS 21:53I love that. And I have found that nobody can minister to a survivor like another survivor. MORIAH SMOTHERS 22:03I’ve learned the most through that community, there’s a support group community that Katie and a few others founded. It’s called Restored Voices Collective, and the learning, the growth, the empathy that happens in there, it could not be replicated, and it’s only other survivors. So we’re just supporting each other, we’re not trying to overly educate or correct, it’s just living life together in the aftermath of deep brokenness. JULIE ROYS 22:33And I think that’s what I’ve heard and what I’ve experienced, what I’ve seen. The Restore Conference that we’ve done, you know, a couple of those. And I remember the first one, I thought, oh, we should have prayer ministers, you know, to make sure because really, I mean, the whole vision was just to gather people that were literally strewn along the highway. I mean, that’s just how it seems when you report these stories, and the church isn’t caring for them, the church harmed them. And so they have nowhere to go and to see them come together. And I realize the prayer ministers are here, they’re each other, right? It’s the person who’s sitting down right beside you, who you don’t have to explain hardly anything because they get it. And it really is. And I know the survivor community is not perfect. And sometimes there can be some really painful things that happen within it. But I would say 90-95% of the people in there are just some of the most compassionate, good people because their character has been refined by fire. MORIAH SMOTHERS 23:39And I attended your last Restore conference, and I got to meet a lot of the women I’d only known online up until that point, through zoom meetings, and one of the things that struck me is that personally, they’re very normal, seeming. It’s like when you feel so broken and devastated. Which is strange to me, like these very regular moms and women, but what I also know about them is they are warriors, they are so strong and so capable and intelligent. And that was an amazing experience just to see like my supporters in person. And that was amazing. Thank you for putting on those conferences, because I got to meet my people in person because of that. JULIE ROYS 24:20It’s a pleasure to do it really is and it’s an honor. And we have another one coming up. So October 13 and 14th. If you’re interested in that, I hope if you’re listening you can because honestly, being with those people and experiencing what God does there, is probably one of the favorite things that I’ve ever done in my life. I absolutely love it. So it’s RESTORE2023.COM if you want more information on that. So talk about the difference and you’ve already touched on it but the healing journey for you and Jack having this new perspective that this was not an affair that this was abuse, that you are a victim, that you’re a survivor walking through this, what difference did that make emotionally and relationally, but also spiritually? MORIAH SMOTHERS 25:16Oh, that’s a big question. So I will say, for me the language made all the difference. Because earlier in the podcast you mentioned, I wrote that I felt like an addict. Now, knowing that description while being true is describing trauma bonding, that was really powerful. And I think because I’m a teacher person, like, language has been so healing for me. And it’s given me search terms, basically, to read about what does this mean. So that’s been a huge part of my healing. And then also being able to teach other people in my life about this is what this means this is how this happens. And just having the right words to study has been very healing. Also, I would say, understanding ACSA was healing in and of itself, because there’s so many pieces of who I am, who Jack was, our life didn’t just didn’t fit affair. And so it felt very insufficient. And we did not have answers. Once we had this framework and understood how this happens, I started talking to other survivors, hearing similarities and stories. It’s a really sad club to be part of. But then you have your other people to compare notes with. And so you have options and choices again, that I never had before. And so again, we were happy healing in private with that, but that made a big difference. My faith was a battle though. I think, intellectually, and emotionally, Jack was so stable for me and such a good listener, he helped me heal up in that way. My faith was a big, I still struggle with that, if I’m being completely honest. I was really ready to walk away for a while thinking that there’s no goodness in church, I don’t see how God can be good if these are the people that are leading a church. And so I got to a place in my faith that I realized that, so our kids committed their life to Jesus as well before, while I was really still struggling, which was such a beautiful thing. So I really felt like to be a good wife and mom, I’ve got to figure out this faith thing. Because I was willing at that point, I’ll follow Jack wherever he goes. So if I have to attend church and just be mentally elsewhere, I will. But I knew I’ve got to figure out what this is. So I mentally went through like the major religions. And I was like, I don’t see myself becoming a Buddhist and like really going through, like, where am I going to land because I’m a faithful person, I always have been, I knew I needed a religion, or faith. And so I thought, gosh, well probably like my best option is just really going with some kind of new age thing. But I would be a horrible God to myself. And so I felt like that’s not on the table. And so I thought, Okay, I’ve got to figure out what do I really believe about Jesus? Because Jack has been being Jesus to me. And I don’t mean that in a weird way, just like modeling the goodness of God, like I was holding on to his faith. And for the first year, again, only affair framework, I was able to read the Psalms, which was fine, like that was good, it was a start. But then when I realized I’ve got to make my mind up about what I think about Jesus, I started reading the gospels again. And that was a moment for me that I realized, I absolutely love the person of Jesus Christ, and that our hearts were so much in alignment about, he rarely called out anyone in sin or the vulnerable. He called out religious leaders for the way they were hurting vulnerable populations. And so that was a turning point for me is that, first of all, Jack modeled faith to me. He modeled the love of Jesus, which kept me hanging on by a thread. And then once I could finally reengage with the Word of God, I just focused on the person of Jesus. And I was able to fall back in love with him and really have some deeper roots again. I say now, and I completely mean this. The only people in my life I really trust are Jack and Jesus. JULIE ROYS 29:08Wow. I love the honesty and the vulnerability. And I don’t know anyone who has walked through church hurt, or certainly adult clergy sexual abuse- that’s just brutal – who hasn’t struggled in their faith in their walk with the Lord. I just spent the weekend with a survivor and, boy, they were raw, and they were honest, and I’ve been through it too. So. MORIAH SMOTHERS 29:40And we’re really healed up in a lot of ways. But I mean, we’re almost three years out, but church is hard still. We’ve just moved. We’re looking for a new church home. It’s hard. And there’s a lot of triggers and red flags and it’s just even when you’re in a good place and you really love the people. It’s just hard. JULIE ROYS 29:56It is, but I will say one thing, my teachers, Katie has been a teacher. Lori Anne Thompson has been a teacher. And they’ve been gracious with me like when I’ve written something and I used a wrong word or a wrong term, and they won’t mince words. They’ll reach out to me, but they’re gracious when I’m like, Oh, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. I’m not. Yep. Okay. Help me understand. MORIAH SMOTHERS 30:22That’s survivor community, they are loving but they are fierce and I love that about them. JULIE ROYS 30:27Yes, they are. But I think it’s so important to process what’s happened. And I know just my own church hurt, experience, being able to process with people that you’re not going to rack them, if you just say exactly how you’re feeling in the moment. And that’s just super, super important. Let’s turn to holding the church accountable, because after this happened after you became enlightened about what had actually happened to you, you reached out to the Hills leadership, and you wrote them a letter, you’ve given me a copy of that letter. I think it’s so good. I would love for you to just read it because my understanding is you sent this letter, so far, you haven’t gotten a response. MORIAH SMOTHERS 31:17No, I think it was confirmed it was received. Actually, the first letter I sent Jack was really kind. Again, I know we’ve been harsh about the church we came from, the Hills. We love a lot of the people there. I think there’s some good things happening there. Out of respect, Jack met with Dave Bowersox to let them know this letter is coming. But besides that, you did get a response after this letter, though. Didn’t he call you? JACK SMOTHERS 31:42He did respond. I don’t know if it was a call or an email. But he did respond. MORIAH SMOTHERS 31:45And I think it was basically like we mishandled the situation was the response. I wrote this letter in fall 2021. So that was right after learning about adult clergy sexual abuse. So I will say I’ve learned a lot more since then. There are a few pieces of it that knowing what I know now, I would reword differently. But this is right where I was at having learned it, so I’ll read it for what it is. My Hills church leadership. For most of the past year, Jack and I have been trying to navigate our way through this situation, with the framework and language that surrounds an affair or inappropriate relationship, which implies there was full consent from both people. While many of my choices were sinful and I egregiously sinned against God and Jack, it did not account for many of the experiences represented within the reading and counseling in which we engaged. I voraciously sought material to gain an understanding of what happened with the hopes that knowledge would alleviate my confusion and brokenness. In doing so I recently discovered the concept of adult clergy sexual abuse, ACSA, and for the first time I understood what had occurred. With this new knowledge, I felt compelled that we as the church need to grow in this area. Upon reflection, Jack, and I believe there are two logical explanations for the way that Hills leadership handled the situation, which include either ignorance or intentional misrepresentation. From an assumption of ignorance, if you had been aware of power dynamics requirements for consent, the cycle of ACSA abuse, how targets are chosen by predators and the grooming process, then this situation would have been conveyed to the congregation differently. The alternate explanation is that you received legal/peer counsel to minimize the liability of the church by intentionally misrepresenting clergy abuse as an inappropriate relationship. Regardless of the explanation of what happened in the past, there is much work to be done going forward to minister to those who have been hurt within the church. Therefore, I am writing to you with the hope that you as an institution will be able to grow and change as I have been growing and changing in my understanding and the implications of this critical issue. I hope you have read and shared my side of the story with the church leadership, elders, pastors and advisory council, which was given to you in fall 2020. However, if you have not, I suggest you review it so you have an anecdotal understanding of ACSA in this specific situation. Given my new understanding of power differentials and how they apply to pastors and congregants, I fully believe I was exploited by Patrick Garcia, and it was erroneous and misleading for the church leadership to convey it as an inappropriate relationship, which conveys consent. The predatory nature of the lead pastor was not communicated to the congregation, which is of great concern to me because it minimizes the impact of abuse within the church. I’ve included several resources on ACSA and I pray that you will educate yourselves and your leadership teams on the nuances of this type of abuse, how to effectively prevent it and how to handle it with integrity and transparency if it does occur. The reason that I am writing to you is threefold. One, I ask that you reach out to other potential victims and provide them with the support and resources to understand misconduct, grooming and abuse by spiritual/pastoral leader. As you are likely not aware of all the victims who have been adversely impacted by pastoral misconduct in the church you lead, an open invitation to all congregants is likely needed. Please connect them with a female counselor that is well versed in adult clergy sexual abuse and misconduct. The wounds from this are complex and deep. So I implore you to seek out your hurting sheep and care for them. Two, I ask that you share my story and ACSA resources with anyone in the church that you consider a leader. In my opinion, this means the elder board, pastoral staff and advisory board at a minimum. It is the church leadership’s responsibility to shepherd their flock with care and dignity. Choosing to not educate yourselves when a wolf has wreaked havoc on your congregation is not living up to the call our Lord has placed on your role. Number three, I ask that you inform the perpetrator and people from whom you received counsel, that this was not simply an inappropriate relationship, that it falls under the criteria of adult clergy sexual abuse. By doing this, I hope you will clearly communicate that God’s church is a place that abuse in any forum is not tolerated, because your primary goal is to protect the people under your care. I then provide some working definitions of clergy sexual misconduct, clergy sexual abuse and abuse of power. And then there were hyperlinked resources at the bottom. JULIE ROYS 32:41So you asked for three things. Of those three things that you asked for, have you gotten any of them? MORIAH SMOTHERS 35:40If any of those things have been done, they have not been communicated to us. JULIE ROYS 36:39Okay. And, Jack, you had a conversation with Dave Bowersox after he received this letter? What did he say? JACK SMOTHERS 36:50They were still processing what their response was going to be. And so he did thank me for meeting with him before we sent the letter to give him a heads up about what our intention was in sending the letter. But that was the extent of the response that we received. JULIE ROYS 37:06And then you send a follow up letter to a couple months later, still nothing. MORIAH SMOTHERS 37:10No. I reminded them of the request, and I sent the follow up, not to just be hounding them, but it was when everything had come out in a bigger way with the SBC. And so I thought surely this will get their attention that they’ll realize how serious this is because the SBC even came out and said that if a pastor is in a relationship with a congregant, it’s abuse, and that’s a disqualifying sin. And so I thought having this outside entity that is that powerful, repent, hopefully, that should speak volumes to them. I received confirmation it was received, but I have not heard word if anything was actually done. JULIE ROYS 37:50Right. And when this is called an affair and not abuse, it does open the door for the person to reoffend, and to continue doing this. And there may be others who have similarly been groomed by Patrick. MORIAH SMOTHERS 38:07I’ve been told very specific information about those situations, which makes me think it’s credible, but I have not had interaction or communication with any women that would say that. But again, they probably wouldn’t even know it was grooming. JULIE ROYS 38:21So now, almost three years have passed since Patrick resigned from the Hills. When he did so he said he was going to undergo a quote, season of restoration so that the root of my brokenness and dysfunction can be addressed. Christian Post just published this article in June in which Patrick says he’s repented. He said, he’s gotten to the root of his pride. He’s preaching again. Do you believe Patrick Garcia is repentant? And why or why not? JACK SMOTHERS 38:53I’ll give my thoughts on that. Not to dodge the question, but I don’t believe it matters whether or not he is repentant. I believe that an abuser is disqualified from ministry regardless of whether or not they repent. I hope that he has restored his relationship with God. I hope that all abusers come to an understanding of the pain that they have inflicted and are genuinely sorry and repent from that sin. But that does not mean they are then qualified to stay in that profession. They can go get any other job anywhere in the world, but not that one. MORIAH SMOTHERS 39:35Actually, one of the things I feel strongly about is that I hope he’s repentant. I hope everyone repents, but that does not mean there’s leadership roles out there for them. I think actually, repentance means not seeking out leadership, because that’s where this pain occurred. Like clearly that’s a temptation that’s a difficult area. Restore your relationship with God and be involved in a healthy body, church body. But I don’t think that means leadership. And that’s where I’m seeing my biggest concerns are about the church right now is that repentance equates to re-platforming. And I don’t think that’s what that means. JULIE ROYS 40:13And when trust is betrayed, trust has to be earned back. And honestly, I said this not too long ago, but some of these guys don’t have enough time in their life to earn back the trust that they’ve squandered and that they betrayed. But I agree with you. And I know there’s going to be people who disagree. And what about David? We’ve talked about this so many times on podcasts, or listen to other podcasts, we’ve addressed this ad nauseam, but I’m just so tired of it. Above reproach is the qualification in Scripture for an elder. Are you above reproach? I have a tough time thinking that someone who has preyed on a congregant. Think about that; you’re supposed to be a shepherd, and you became the wolf. How we could ever put that person back in the sheep pen again. And the amount of concern and compassion and let’s pray for the predator that you hear. And the little that you hear about praying and concern and care for the victim is appalling. And I think it’s very indicative of the kind of culture that we live in, which puts celebrities up on the platform. And man, if you are an order, and you you have the right stuff, boy, people just love you. But man, if you’re not, and you happen to be in the way of someone getting back on that platform, it’s very difficult. So I asked Jim Bergen, he’s the lead pastor of Flat Irons Community Church in Colorado, and Paul Linge, who currently oversees the counseling ministry there at Crossroads, whether or not they thought that Patrick was ready to return to ministry, whether he should be replatformed. I got two very different responses. So I’d like to play both of them. First, here’s how Jim Bergen responded. JIM BURGEN 42:12Patrick absolutely messed up in a simple way with this woman. Her degree of willingness or participation. I don’t know anything about she didn’t call me. Patrick confessed to me, and I okay about disclose everything you know, and get on it. And even as he’s starting to move back into ministry, I have a lot of texts going hey, do you think I can preach again? Do you think I can preach again? And I’m like, slow down. Because it’s been, I don’t think, we lose most of the New Testament and all of the Old Testament, if sexual sin disqualifies you from ministry forever. I mean, David, we lose Abraham, okay. But I don’t think that when a pastor makes a mistake like this, it’s a death sentence forever. But it definitely is a slow, long healing process. And that’s what I cautioned him with, over and over again. JULIE ROYS 43:04Okay, clearly, Jim Bergen doesn’t share our view on this. MORIAH SMOTHERS 43:09Really, Jim Burgen understand or know any survivors of ACSA. Just sexual sin and not the spiritual or emotional or psychological. He needs some education on that. JULIE ROYS 43:20He does. And actually, in our conversation, I pushed back on that and asked him about spiritual abuse, about adult clergy sexual abuse, as well, and what qualifies. And it was clear to me that a lot of this was new to him. MORIAH SMOTHERS 43:35Yeah, we’ve met some really, truly good men, good shepherds, pastors that we have a lot of respect for. They don’t know. And I’m just floored by that. JACK SMOTHERS 43:47But the good ones respond with a desire to learn. Yes, and that’s really encouraging. Moriah has done a wonderful job of putting together training on ACSA. We’ve been able to deliver that to two different churches, and it’s just fantastic and encouraging and edifying to see the godly people who get it and they want to improve they want to protect their congregation and guard against wolf-like behavior. JULIE ROYS 44:16As I said, I also asked Paul Linge about this question, and I’d like to play his response. PAUL LINGE 44:23Christian Post article stated that he did meet with Crossroads elders as part of what I think was I don’t remember if it was Southeast or Bob Russell in particular but basically trying to put him on a restoration pathway which to me was grossly inefficient. General sense was it was a box to check rather than any kind of your display of repentance. Because for him to really go on a restoration journey with the people at Crossroads and Evansville. That’s not a one-time meeting. There’s probably months of meeting, based on the damage that was created in our community. So that’s why it feels very superficial. I personally, and just through my own contacts have not seen the necessary repentance, or else he would be spending a lot more time in Evansville, the community that he helped blow up if that were true. And so I don’t, I think the article comes across as in not just to me, but to others in our communities who read it, as though he was somehow the victim, whether that was the victim of Crossroads, the victim of the Hills leadership, the victims of Savannah, and it’s just not true. At some point, a person has to take ownership and responsibility that for their own choices and behavior. I think he keeps getting prodded along by some key figures, who, for whatever reason, are reticent to just tell him the truth. Maybe they are, and I just don’t know it. But it just seems like he’s been continued to be propped up. I don’t know if it’s so much of a timeline, Julie, as it is looking for mile markers along the way. Right. So looking for signs of humility, looking for signs of teachability, looking for signs of repentance, looking for signs of restitution. I wronged you, you know, I dented your car, I’m going to pay for it to make sure it gets fixed. When you see that, you know, kind of the key is anybody I have wronged, then I’ll make it right. That’s the type of response I think you’re looking for when you’re talking about character change, or even your personality change. Once you start to see that and you’re like, okay, something’s happening. What we’re looking for is their demonstration is there not feigned or fake remorse, but genuine repentance. And that’s what I would say, at least from my experience from my seat. I have not seen that in Patrick Garcia in the last five years. JULIE ROYS 47:02I’m guessing you resonate with a lot of what Paul said. I think he’s absolutely right for looking for the markers of repentance, whether or not that means you can re-platform that’s another question. And there’s really need to be two different questions that people need to understand; you can be restored to Christ, you can be restored to the body restored to a position, that’s a totally different thing. And I think people need to just start saying you’re permanently disqualified. I don’t know why we just can’t seem to say that in the church. And yet I think it needs to be said for abusers. Absolutely. MORIAH SMOTHERS 47:39And, Julie, I just want to again, echo what Paul said in his clip. It’s what Jack and I were saying, Actually, Jack wrote this to Leonardo Blair, who wrote the article that the level of pain and trauma that article caused from Patrick, Blair made himself as the victim clearly demonstrates no understanding of spiritual authority, power dynamics, abuse. Anyone that was mentioned in that article, he re traumatized, and Leonardo did too. So I’m going to be very blunt, I hold the Christian Post responsible for publishing that as well as Patrick Garcia. Because I think, yeah, I think I hold them all responsible. We have too much information to just publish whatever might get a few clicks at this point without considering all of the victims, not just Jack and I, but the churches, the families. JULIE ROYS 48:30And I think reporters need to be educated, absolutely need to be educated and trauma informed and all of these things and if you’re not fine, but it’s no excuse at this point. Get it. MORIAH SMOTHERS 48:44Yeah, we get it. If you’re not and don’t want to be, go report on the weather, don’t report when they’re in a space where there are victims. JULIE ROYS 48:50Yeah, absolutely. And there is clearly, I would agree, complete dearth of understanding of what ACSA, adult clergy sexual abuse is, and it needs to be remedied. I agree. Again, Patrick has been re platformed by Adventure church. He’s preached there several times. That’s a church in Louisville, Kentucky. I reached out to Adventure for comment. The church did not respond. Bob Russell has also replatformed Patrick. Bob had Patrick share about his fall and restoration at Bob’s mentoring retreat for pastors. This, that Patrick is up there now instructing pastors about his fall and restoration and they’re learning from him how to be a pastor. How does that make you feel? JACK SMOTHERS 49:41That is absolutely ridiculous. You can’t have someone who is an abuser trying to instruct people on how not to abuse. I don’t understand really the line of thought and why you would want to put him into that scenario given his background. I think honestly I would just say my concern is, why is there so much focus on helping these pastors who have abused other people, instead of focus on how do we help the abused? How do we help the victims of the people who we have, are partially responsible for their victimization? That’s really where the focus should be is how do we care for the vulnerable? because that’s exactly what Jesus did. That’s who he ministered to. And that’s who he loves. So that’s, we just have a mis alignment, a missed focus on on what we really talk about in churches. JULIE ROYS 50:37And I’m guessing Bob Russell has met with Patrick, and continues to mentor him and yet, you guys reached out through Dave Road up, who I understand is someone who has relationship, he’s in Christian leadership has a relationship with Bob Russell. He wouldn’t meet with you. He would not meet with you. MORIAH SMOTHERS 50:58Yeah. Paul Linge was the connection. We met with him and several other Crossroads leaders and shared our story shared educational material. They held space for us and held our story with so much goodness. That was very restorative. I struggle with pastors in general, getting to meet with Paul Linge helped restore some of that faith in that role. So the connection between us and Bob Russell is very removed, we don’t know him. But we told Paul, if Bob Russell’s willing to hear our story, we’re willing to share it. And so there was also David Roadcup was involved there. David Roadcup knows our story as well. He shared it with Bob Russell what he could and said, Are you willing to meet with this couple, because they have concerns that Patrick Garcia is preaching again. And his comment was that if there was not sexual intercourse, I will not meet with them. That was what we were told. And so I guess anything, pastors are allowed to do anything, and be preaching and be re-platformed, besides have sexual intercourse with someone who’s not their wife, is the message there. JULIE ROYS 52:01Well, and again, we didn’t hear that directly from Bob’s mouth. But I have reached out to Bob, to try to get comment to try to clarify to give him opportunity. And he has not responded. If he’d like to, I’m still here, and he can do it. And I’ll report what he says. Or if he’d like to apologize, he can do that, too. But just would like to hear from him, it would be really nice. Last question. And thank you so much. I know this is so hard, and can be re traumatizing. And it’s difficult. And I know that you only do this because you care about other victims, you care about the church, and its ability to care for others and so this doesn’t happen and keep happening to people. And so that Patrick doesn’t get platformed and is able to prey on vulnerable people again. But I know it comes at a cost. And so I’m extraordinarily grateful to both of you. I know, just knowing the audience that we have for this podcast, that there are people listening, who have been through what you’ve been through, they may be in totally different levels of healing right now of understanding. But I think it’s amazing how well both of you are doing three years, that may seem like a long time, it also seems a really short time, and you’re doing remarkably well. Not just as human beings individually, but together in your marriage. And that’s, I think, a testament to who you are as human beings and to the godliness. As you know, when you were talking about Jack and the way he’s carried you through this, great husbands are a gift. And that’s really beautiful to hear that. But I’m just wondering what you might say to other survivors who are listening, some of whom may just be right now white knuckling it just to hold on? MORIAH SMOTHERS 53:55Yeah, yeah, and the survivor community is really, that’s my heart. Like you said, that’s why we’re here. There’s a line in Wade Mullins book that I’ve tried to anchor myself to, and I’m not going to quote it perfectly. Something’s Not Right is the book that says, as part of your healing journey, you need to think about what your abuser or his supporters would want you to do and do the opposite. And so this is me reclaiming using my voice for that. And so I really thought about what would I say to other survivors, because I know where they’ve been at. And so I would repeat what sweet Katie Roberts said to me the first time I spoke to her in person, and is that I’m so sorry for how you’ve been treated. You aren’t alone. There’s others of us that have been where you’re at. It’s an absolute nightmare. But there are other people out there that get it. We’re here for you. There’s a group of women that would love to hear your story, and we’re going to understand it because we’ve lived it as well. We’re here to support you in that and that’s Restored Voices Collective. Julie, if you can put that little link in your bio that would be great. I would encourage other survivors work really hard to find a counselor that understands trauma. Don’t settle for a counselor that just loves Jesus. With what you’ve been through, it’s not enough. They need to know trauma and abuse. If they love Jesus, that’s great too Take the time to learn and study the language of what happened to you. Some of the researchers and writers that have been instrumental for me are David Pooler has been one of them. Dr. Heather Evans is another one, Mary DeMuth’s book, We Too, is a really wonderful book. And I would say, take care of yourself. I know, this healing process is long and hard. You need people that can cheer you on and just sit with you in the pain. And the last thing I would say is, my faith is intact. And I hope that people that have really had a close relationship with Jesus, that have been abused, I hope you’re able to find your way back to Him. But take your time; he’s patient, he’s willing to sit with you through all of the pain. And so when you’re ready to explore faith again, or figure out what that looks like, just look to Jesus, don’t look to your church leaders don’t look to a denomination. Just look to Jesus for that. JULIE ROYS 56:12That is so good. Moriah thank you. And thank you for just sharing so openly, Jack, thank you the same, again, difficult topic, but appreciate the way that you guys have walked through this with integrity. And the way that you’re really reaching out to others and taking courageous stands to speak out, which is never easy. So thank you, it’s just really been a blessing to get to know you. JACK SMOTHERS 56:37Thank you. MORIAH SMOTHERS 56:38Thank you. We appreciate the opportunity. JULIE ROYS 56:40And thanks so much for listening to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And if you’ve appreciated this podcast, would you please consider supporting the work that we do here at The Roys Report. As I’ve said before, we don’t have any big donors or advertising we simply have you, the people who care about telling other survivors stories, exposing wrongdoing, bringing healing and restoring the church. Also this month when you give a gift of $30 or more, we’ll send you a copy of Christy Boulware’s book, Nervous Breakthrough. It’s such a great resource and I’m so excited to make it available to you to donate and get a copy of Nervous Breakthrough, just go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. Also just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcast, Google podcasts or Spotify. That way you’ll never miss an episode. And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks so much for joining me today. Hope you were blessed and encouraged.   Read more

Guest Bios Show Transcript In 2020, Moriah Smothers thought her emotional and physical relationship with her pastor, Patrick Garcia, was an affair. She blamed herself and was ostracized by many in her church. Yet now, Moriah realizes she was the victim of adult clergy sexual abuse. And since Garcia has returned to preaching—and was recently featured in an article as a repentant and reformed pastor—Moriah is speaking out. In this exclusive podcast interview, Moriah and her husband, Jack, speak publicly for the first time since Patrick Garcia resigned from The Hills Church in Evansville, Indiana. At the time, Garcia confessed to engaging in an “inappropriate relationship, both physically and emotionally.” And he pledged to undergo a “season of restoration so that the root of my brokenness and dysfunction can be addressed.” Almost three years later, that season is apparently nearing a close. Garcia said recently that he’s been able to determine what caused his crash. And, with the backing of mentoring pastor Bob Russell—pastor emeritus of one of the largest churches in the U.S.—Garcia is starting to minister again. This comes as a shock to Moriah, who says Garcia groomed and abused her, using his power as a pastor to keep her in a relationship she repeatedly tried to escape. And, in this podcast, Moriah and her husband, Jack, explain why they don’t think Garcia should ever be allowed back into ministry. This podcast includes an interview with a pastor who served under Garcia at Crossroads Christian Church, where Garcia served until 2018, when he was fired. The Crossroads pastor says Garcia wasn’t fired for mere “philosophical differences,” as previously announced, but for profound character issues. Also offering perspective is Jim Burgen, lead pastor of Flatirons Community Church in Colorado. Like Pastor Russell, Jim is a close friend and mentor for Garcia. Is Garcia a restored pastor, whose gifts shouldn’t be withheld from the church? Or, is he a predator, who continues to deceive and manipulate, and shouldn’t be allowed in ministry again? Multiple voices engage with these questions and provide understanding on adult clergy sexual abuse. Guests Dr. Moriah Smothers Dr. Moriah Smothers is an Associate Professor of Teacher Education and a former elementary special education teacher. She is also a survivor of adult clergy sexual abuse (ACSA). Dr. Jack Smothers is a Professor of Management and a secondary survivor. Their heart is to help other ACSA survivors find healing and community. They are passionate about educating church leaders to identify, prevent and respond to ACSA. They have two children and have been married for 15 years. You can connect with them at jackandmoriahsmothers@gmail.com. Show Transcript SPEAKERSJULIE ROYS, MORIAH SMOTHERS, JACK SMOTHERS, JIM BURGEN, PAUL LINGE JULIE ROYS  0:00 For a year, Moriah Smothers thought her emotional and physical relationship with her pastor Patrick Garcia was an affair. She blamed herself and was ostracized by many in her congregation. But Moriah says she now believes she was a victim of clergy sexual abuse. And now that Garcia is returning the ministry, she’s speaking out in this exclusive podcast. Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys and joining me on this episode is Moriah Smothers and her husband Jack Smothers. Moriah has not spoken publicly since 2020 when Patrick Garcia resigned from the Hills Church in Evansville, Indiana. At that time, Garcia confessed to engaging in an “inappropriate relationship both physically and emotionally.” He added, no one is to blame for this repeated wicked behavior but me and he pledged to undergo a “season of restoration so that the root of my brokenness and dysfunction can be addressed.” Now almost three years later, that season is apparently nearing a close. In a Christian Post article last month, Garcia says he’s been able to determine what caused his crash. And now with the help of mentoring Pastor Bob Russell, Pastor Emeritus of one of the largest churches in the country, Garcia is starting to minister again. He’s also speaking out claiming the relationship he had with the other woman was an emotional affair, but the church forced him to say it was physical. He also claims the church didn’t know how to handle his struggle with anxiety and depression, contributing to what happened. All this has come as a shock to Moriah, who says Garcia isn’t telling the truth. She says Garcia groomed and abused her using his power as a pastor to keep her in a relationship she repeatedly tried to escape. She also says she’s reached out to Russell and leaders at the Hills, trying to get them to acknowledge the abuse, but they’ve refused. On this podcast, you’ll hear her story. You’ll also hear from a pastor at Crossroads Christian Church, where Garcia served from 2016 to 2018. That’s when he was fired for alleged philosophical differences. And you’ll hear from a pastor who like Bob Russell, is a close friend and mentor for Garcia. You won’t hear from Patrick Garcia. We reached out to him to hear his side of the story. He responded via email saying and I quote, “enough has been said about that part of my story. I’m in the season of accepting the Lord’s forgiveness and moving on.” We’ll get to this important podcast in a moment. But first, I’d like to thank the sponsors of this podcast, Judson University, and Marquardt of Barrington. If you’re looking for a top ranked Christian University, providing a caring community and an excellent college experience, Judson University is for you. Judson is located on 90 acres just 40 miles west of Chicago in Elgin, Illinois. The school offers more than 60 majors, great leadership opportunities and strong financial aid. Plus you can take classes online as well as in person. Judson University is shaping lives that shaped the world. For more information, just go to JUDSONU.EDU. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity and transparency. That’s because the owners there Dan and Kurt Marquardt are men of integrity. To check them out, just go to BUYACAR123.COM. Well, joining me now is Moriah Smothers, who is speaking publicly for the first time about what she claims was clergy sexual abuse by Patrick Garcia, former pastor of the Hills Church in Evansville, Indiana. Also joining her is her husband Jack Smothers, who has stood by Moriah throughout the turmoil and devastation of the past several years. So Jack, and Moriah, thank you so much for being willing to talk about what I know is just a really painful and difficult situation.   MORIAH SMOTHERS  04:11 Thank you for having us Julie.   JACK SMOTHERS  04:12 Thank you, Julie.   JULIE ROYS  04:14 So as I mentioned in the open, Patrick Garcia resigned from the Hills Church in 2020, confessing to what the media called an affair. In the past three years you haven’t said anything publicly about what happened. And now you are speaking publicly for the first time. So what led you to want to speak out now about this situation?   MORIAH SMOTHERS  04:37 Julie, Jack and I have never wanted to, felt the need or the call to be public about any of this. Our heart was basically to disappear and heal up, figure out what happened, why it happened. And we have taken a few opportunities these past three years to for some educational reasons with some local church leaders, but really, we were very happy healing up in private on our own with some supporters as well. The reason that we’re talking to you now is because of the Christian Post article that was recently released. We had no prior knowledge of that article, completely caught off guard by it. But after we both read it, we were deeply troubled by the fact that there was no mention of adult clergy sexual abuse in that write up. And even then I still didn’t feel the need to say anything different than Patrick Garcia’s story. But what really pushed us to reach out and say something and be public for the first time is I was so devastated and insulted for the survivor community, for other women that are your friends, and in a support group with now. I just felt the article was deeply disrespectful and tone death of everything happening in the evangelical church, between Ravi Zacharias and Hillsong, and the SBC, the Christian Post can do better and should do better. And so I felt like, I didn’t want this opportunity. Jack didn’t want this opportunity. But here it is. And we’re really here to tell our story for survivors, and hopefully, for church leaders to know better and do better.   JULIE ROYS  06:12 And so Leo Blair, who wrote that article. I know, Leo, he’s a colleague, someone that I’ve talked to on numerous occasions, and has been helpful to me in stories. And he’s done some excellent work. But in this case, sounds like he did not attempt to reach out to you, correct?   MORIAH SMOTHERS  06:29 No, there was no attempt at all. Nobody involved in that story reached out to us or notified us at all. We were very surprised by it.   JULIE ROYS  06:36 Okay. And I think he did reach out to the Hills’ elders who did not respond to him. I guess they could have put him in touch with you. But that didn’t happen. And I’m not sure that that was asked for even but a very regrettable situation. And so I’m glad that you’re going to be able to tell your side of the story. Let’s back up to when both of you met Patrick Garcia. As I understand, both of you were volunteers at Crossroads Christian Church in Evansville, Indiana. And that’s where Patrick pastored from roughly 2016 to 2018. Would you describe your relationship with Patrick at the time?   MORIAH SMOTHERS  07:16 Yeah, sure. Basically, Julie, there was no relationship. We started attending that church when Ken Idleman was pastoring it. We had a lot of respect for his preaching and teaching. And it would be classified technically, as a mega church; it was very large. We were serving and attending but the pastoral transition did happen while we were there, but there was no relationship of any sort. Our children are about the same age. So we might have walked past each other in a hallway but no kind of communication, no, no relationship of any sort, except he was the pastor. And that was it.   JULIE ROYS  07:49 Okay, and I’m guessing you had impressions of him, though. He was your pastor. Jack, was there ever did you have any conversations with him at this point, or he was just the man up on stage/   JACK SMOTHERS  08:02 We had passing conversations. And I do remember, one time at Crossroads when Patrick was still a pastor there. I did say to Moriah, I have a bad feeling about him. I didn’t have any evidence of anything, I just got a bad impression and asked her to keep her distance from it. That was the extent of our interactions.   JULIE ROYS  08:23 So then, in 2020, Crossroads fired Patrick Garcia, and another Pastor Rick Kyle, over in this is what the statement said, at least initially was philosophical differences. That was the reason given. I’ve also spoken with Paul Linge who was and still is a pastor at Crossroads. And we’ll get his take in a minute about what really was happening behind the scenes. But from your vantage point at the time, what did you think had happened and why Patrick Garcia was being fired by the church?   08:25 At that point in time, we were just congregation members very far removed from that inner circle with any sort of connection to Patrick or the elders. And I think that’s an interesting question. It’s something that churches should really consider deeply because for your average congregant, especially in a megachurch, that pastor, that teaching individual is going to be the person who your congregants feel more connected to. And we had a personal relationship, a friendship with another pastor by the name of Dave Bowersox, he was a friend. We love him and his family and he chose to resign from the church as a result of all that. And that, at the time, spoke volumes to us and we trusted him we trusted his friendship and I chose to side with them in moving to the Hills, which at that point in time, Patrick was not a part of, it had nothing to do with Patrick moving to the Hills. He didn’t come on to staff  at the Hills until later on. But at that point in time, it was really because of our friendship with Dave.   JULIE ROYS  10:04 Was there a narrative though? That was because I know that this cause major turmoil. In fact, it spawned, I know, an article in Christian Post back then, because I went back and read a lot of these articles. I wasn’t aware of it at the time. I wasn’t covering this sort of news, or I think my nose was probably in other stories at the time. But it sounds like it caused a lot of turmoil at Crossroads, several pastors resigned when Patrick was fired, there was a petition circulating. This was a major deal. And I’m guessing there had to have been trying to figure out which side is telling the truth, am I right?   MORIAH SMOTHERS  10:40 Yeah, there was definitely it was highly contentious. The narrative I remember hearing, believing, understanding was that the elders wanted to lead in a more traditional way. And that the pastors that were being fired and or resigned and left wanted to be more progressive. And so there was truly what we believe the statement about philosophical differences in leadership. And again, at the time, we also believe that maybe Crossroads was wanting to be a bit more of a country club feel, then really reaching out to the needy, the vulnerable. So that was the narrative that was being put out there for people that were asking questions. That’s what i remember.   JACK SMOTHERS  11:22 You don’t realize how gullible you are until after the fact until hindsight is available. But there was evidence that we could have looked into and chose not to, because of those connections and those relationships that we had those trusted relationships. And so those just exerted a profound influence over us. And then we regret that.   JULIE ROYS  11:43 As I mentioned, I talked to Paul Linge, who currently oversees the counseling ministry there at Crossroads, but he served as executive pastor under Patrick Garcia. And this is what he told me about why Patrick was fired.   PAUL LINGE  11:58 There were some fundamental character fissures in the makeup of his heart, his mind, his belief system, and those would leak out on a fairly regular basis. And while I never saw him act, to my knowledge, inappropriately toward a female, okay, that’s too much that’s inappropriate, that’s wrong. But he would laugh at it just crude things. And unless they like for nudity, not that I saw but like pictures of like a shadow of It’s a little embarrassing to talk about, shadows of a man’s penis, and, and this was like early on, and he would laugh about it. And I was like, yikes, okay, something is a little off here. And I would confront him on it. And sometimes he would receive it. But it was dismissive as well. Basically, he was unteachable, he was young, he was still in his late 20s. I saw the way that he would posture himself in elder meetings, he was unteachable, he would not listen to men who are leaders in their areas of business and industry and are men of God. He had his own his official group of Crossroads elders that he was technically under the authority of, but he had his own private board outside of that. It was composed of guys who would tell him what he wanted to hear. And some of these are the Bob Russell’s, and others, some of whom have had what appears to be great success in ministry. But they didn’t have the nuts and bolts of the character of Patrick Garcia. And so I think it could be said that he came with what looked like a good pedigree; graduate of Cincinnati Christian University, the son in law of Dave Stone, who at that time was the lead pastor at Southeast Christian Church. And so it looked like good pedigree, but I don’t know that the proper due diligence was done in tossing him the keys, so to speak, of Crossroads Christian Church. It felt like the keys were tossed to a reckless teenager rather than a mature man of God, who had in mind things of God.   JULIE ROYS  14:02 That’s Crossroads Pastor Paul Linge, expressing a perspective that it sounds like neither, you know, you, Jack or Moriah had at the time. I’m just curious, as you listen to that, what kind of thoughts do you have and feelings about what you just heard?   JACK SMOTHERS  14:20 Gosh, it’s hard to go back in time and put yourself in that place. Of all the information that we were ignorant of. What we know now is Paul Linge is a man of God like that guy that is truly the real deal. He is a committed Christian and I don’t have insider information because I was not a member of the elder board. But I am not surprised by anything. Any comment that he made in that clip.   MORIAH SMOTHERS  14:46 There was a lot too. Jack and I kind of were looking at each other like we’ve heard this before. There was a lot of weight put on Patrick’s pedigree, and the people that he had surrounding him in ministry support. And again we didn’t know, but we thought that must mean something because it was consistently put out there. A phrase we heard a lot was ‘he comes from good stock’. I bet we’ve heard that hundreds of times. And knowing now that he was going a lot on reputation, and I think we’ve heard a lot for different organizations. But it seems like we’re looking at charisma more than character is something I’ve heard in other churches. And yeah, nothing Paul said was surprising to us knowing what we know now. But, Julie, you’re correct. We did not have any of that information, when this split was happening. And we were trying to make a decision; we didn’t know.   JACK SMOTHERS  15:38 And I think that’s important for churches to keep in mind when they are, I think Crossroads did as good as they possibly could have with handling that situation. But as a congregant, I think we probably needed more information to truly assess their rationale, their justification for letting Patrick go, because we essentially put ourselves into a dangerous situation.   JULIE ROYS  16:04 Well, it does sound like some of the elders did try to speak up and they were pretty strongly censored by people for doing that. So I know it can be a very difficult situation. And I’ve often said when I’m reporting, it’s like saying something bad about somebody’s grandmother. Like, it may be true, but people just don’t want to hear it. They want to believe what they want to believe. And it can be a very difficult situation. But as you guys mentioned, Paul Linge mentioned one of the difficulties that Crossroads had was dealing with these outside advisors. And like you said, this stock that he came from, he had this close relationship with Bob Russell, retired pastor of Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, one of the biggest churches in the country, very influential church. At the time, Patrick was also married to the daughter of Dave Stone, who was the pastor of Southeast Christian Church at the time, and Patrick, and Dave Stone’s daughter has since divorced, but at the time again, he was Dave Stone’s son-in-law. I reached out to Bob Russell for comments about the role that he’s been playing in Patrick’s life, as well as the role that he was playing at the time. He did not respond to me. However, one of Patrick’s other advisors is Jim Burgen, and he’s the lead pastor of Flat Irons Community Church in Colorado. And Jim was kind enough to grant me an interview. And here’s what Jim said, regarding his understanding, at the time of why Crossroads fired Patrick.   JIM BURGEN  17:31 My understanding is that he was trying to be very transparent, trying to be very real and authentic, admitting that he wasn’t perfect and admitting he dealt with depression, things like that. And I do remember him telling me that the I don’t want to be a gossip because I wasn’t there, alright? So I know that Patrick was telling me that they didn’t really want that image of their pastor. They wanted their pastor to be somebody who, because he had faith, and because he had the word of God, these things weren’t really problems in their life anymore. They want him to stand on a pedestal and be an example, that you can overcome anything, which is a lot of pressure, but it also is, it’s just not integrity. And so I read the same stuff you’ve read, but I’ve heard from Patrick, they didn’t want that. They didn’t want that. And then they parted ways over the I don’t believe they parted ways over one thing, though, like, is just the overall, you have a different philosophy of ministry than we do.   JULIE ROYS  18:28 So like then, or since you haven’t really talked to any of the leaders at Crossroads?   JIM BURGEN  18:34 No, not once. Or Hills. I’ve not talked to any of those leadership.   JULIE ROYS  18:39 Again, that’s pastor Jim Bergen who served as an advisor, I think he still is a mentor to Patrick. I like Jim, he was very gracious to grant me an interview. And we talked a long time. But I have to say when I heard him say that he hasn’t talked to the leadership of Crossroads or the Hills, not once, that was concerning to me. Especially I know, he had Patrick come speak at his church in 2019. So this was after Patrick was fired from Crossroads. And it just doesn’t seem from my vantage point, that there was respect for the local elders; enough respect to say, hey, what happened? But it seemed more like Patrick was, he’s our prodigy. He’s our guy. And so if he says this, I’m going with it. And if there’s one thing in this story that even we’ve seen so far, nobody reached out to you to get your side of the story. Nobody reached out to these elders between these advisors to get their side of the story. I’m guessing you’re feeling some similar things there. But do you have anything to add that you thought when you heard this from Jim?   JACK SMOTHERS  19:50 I don’t know if Jim is willfully and intentionally ignorant, or if Jim is confused, perhaps, or maybe I’m wrong, right? But in my opinion, that’s the only thing that I can say. His statement about Patrick trying to be very transparent and real and authentic. What Patrick was actually doing is trying to manipulate other people into getting what he wanted. So my reaction to pastor Bergen is, I guess I should have gracious assumptions and say he did not apparently know the real Patrick Garcia.   MORIAH SMOTHERS  20:28 My concern with his statement too Julie is, I think, a lot of times when these situations occur, the person where the blame should fall is excellent at isolating individuals so they can control the narrative. And I think that when that happens, it’s really easy to spin the story that is in your favor. And so I think it was a real leadership failure to not have broken out of that vacuum, and have talked to other stakeholders like the Hills and Crossroads and other people involved in that.   JACK SMOTHERS  21:03 Do you feel that the language he was using, the language that Patrick would use about being so real and authentic was really a way to justify his sin and normalize his behavior?   MORIAH SMOTHERS  21:17 Yeah, I think the closest thing I’ve ever read that accounts for that is that Chuck DeGroat. He wrote When Narcissism Comes to Church. I came across the term I think he’s the one who coined it, it could have been someone else, but called fauxnerability. That term exactly represented the culture of the Hills, and the culture that I believe Patrick wanted to create; that I’m going to be very open, vulnerable, transparent, but it’s more transactional. And then I’m not really going to live that privately, which was a lot of the interaction he and I had together was horrible.   JULIE ROYS  21:52 So within months of Patrick leaving Crossroads, he joined this new church that two former pastors at Crossroads started Dave Bowersox and Darrell Marin. Both of you decided to become part of this new church. What motivated you to do that?   JACK SMOTHERS  22:11 Really was our relationship with Dave, we barely knew Darrell. But we were in a small group of Dave and his wife, Sandy, and really trusted them and loved their family a lot. And we also had kids about their kids age and Dave and I had a meeting at the university where Moriah and I are employed. And he mentioned, they were creating an elder board and said, I would be a great fit for that. That never really came to fruition while we were there. They created an advisory team and invited Moriah to be on that. I wasn’t invited. We were involved with a discipleship ministry while we were at the Hills. But anyway, our relationship with Dave is what drew us there.   JULIE ROYS  22:54 The not having an elder board, and having an advisory board with I’m guessing really had no teeth or accountability. Am I right?   MORIAH SMOTHERS  23:02 That’s exactly right. And so this advisory board they created had men and women that were all in with the church. Which I thought at the time, like what a wonderful demonstration like representation of the church. It was made very clear to the board multiple times that there was no accountability that pastors had to us. And we were never to be a decision making body. At the time I was there, it was very much, so we’re gonna read you our stats, tell you the good things we’re doing and you brag on us. And so it was a Yes-man and woman situation, let’s cheer and say, rah. But no, there was no authority with that position.   JULIE ROYS  23:41 And I will just say right now, and I do get asked this all the time. But people say like, how can you evaluate a church? And it’s step one, look at the elder board. Are they truly independent or are they beholden to the pastor in some way? Are they staff members of the church? In other words, is the pastor their boss, so of course they’re not going to buck him? Are they family members? This is another one that nepotism that runs in these. All of these things need to be looked at but what can they really do look at the bylaws. Do you have bylaws? If you do have bylaws, how is a pastor senior pastor going to be removed? Is that spelled out in your bylaws? Finances – do you know how much your senior pastor makes? And I don’t care if you’re at a small church or a large church, whatever. To me the fact that religious nonprofits and churches don’t have to reveal what their top wage earners make, but secular nonprofits do, to me is appalling. Why should the church be less accountable to the people that give it money than the world right? than the secular nonprofits? It’s these kinds of red flags that before I got into doing what I do today, I wouldn’t have thought of either so I don’t fault people for it. But I think we’re in a season or a time in the church right now that’s really somewhat of a crisis, with scandal after scandal coming out. And if people, if the church individuals, congregants, if we don’t wise up, we’re never going to see a change, because it’s not going to come from the top, it’s going to come from the bottom up. So, Moriah, it’s my understanding that about a year later, so it was about October 2018, that you began on the advisory board at the Hills church. But then Patrick started communicating with you on an individual basis. And this is what you would say, is the early stages of what you believe is grooming you. Would you describe why you believe that this was a grooming situation and the beginning of abuse?   MORIAH SMOTHERS  25:48 Before I get into that, Julia, and I will, is that one of the things that was revealing in the Christian Post article is that Patrick actually told on himself and said that he’d had a crush on me for three years. We had no interaction, we didn’t know each other and knowing what I know now, I absolutely believe that I was targeted well in advance. I think he had been taking notes on me the times we had interacted. Jack and I lead a Bible study group with the pastors for a new curriculum, there were some things from that were a little unusual, but I just didn’t think much of. So that communication initially, I would have considered very innocuous. It was really about the ministry Jack and I were helping run and so a lot of those emails early on, like I would have to discuss with Jack and things like that. But eventually, they turned into more texting, still some emails, but more texting. And I didn’t loop Jack in on those, which was a huge error on my part. But it really a lot of it was just like joking and silly things that if someone had picked up my phone and read, they would have thought, that’s odd, her husband sat on a bit, it wouldn’t have been anything. So it wouldn’t have been an obvious red flag. And so I let a lot of that go, even though I’m sure I had a gut check at the time, but it’s my pastor, like, I’ve always had healthy, safe relationships with my pastor. So I didn’t think anything about it. it fairly quickly turned into joking though. His demeanor is very polling. He described it like a very silly kind of teenager, he just joking. The first thing that really caught my attention, though, was like, that doesn’t seem quite normal is he sent a gift to my work. And so he put a different name on it a pseudonym. And it was an inside joke about a logo from Flat Irons. I made the joke our son was into Pokémon, and I asked him, I said, Well, Patrick, you’re wearing a Pokémon shirt. Matt, our son would love bat, like I didn’t know you were a fan. And so he sent this to my office. And then that was the first time it caught my attention, texting, communication. And honestly, a lot of times it was about church. And so it was intermixed between what was happening at church and fake life, and then personal and personal questions and things like that. I didn’t have any of this language then. But all of this was really heavily infused with love bombing, which I know now I didn’t know at the time that just this excessive praise, this endearment that, honestly, it really ingratiates someone with you, you feel so valued and seen. But the intention there is for manipulative purposes. And so I really believed a lot of that. The more we communicated, the more he sought out my opinion on church issues. And I did I just felt flattered that he thought my perspective was valuable in that context, because I’ve never, that’s never happened before within that kind of inner circle church group. Also, the thing that very quickly happened is he started depending on me for things. He would just often say, like how overwhelming his work is, and he’s so far behind, and he’s shepherding and writing sermons and doing all these things, and I’m a former Special Ed teacher, like teachers are helpers by nature. It’s what we do. It’s what we’re good at. And so I thought, like, oh, my gosh, I have the skill set, I can help you out. Do you need me to proofread something? Pretty quickly, he said, You just take over doing all my emails for work. And I thought, well, I can respond to some of them, I guess, because it’s what my pastor needed. And so that’s really where it started. It clearly escalated into much worse, but I would say those are some of the initial grooming stages is the joking silly conversations, personal questions, and then it started creating that need of I need you to help me be successful in ministry. The other piece that I would feel maybe goes between if we’re looking at severity or intensity of grooming, this one kind of straddles the line is he very quickly started sharing personal information with me about himself and about his colleagues and about the church. He told me some things about Crossroads. I mean, just things that I had no business knowing as a congregant, confidential information that he never should have shared with me about himself and others. And so at the time, I was giving advice and input, but I felt flattered that he wanted to share that with me as well.   JULIE ROYS  30:14 And I’m sure as you know, now, your story is not an isolated incident. This is a pattern that plays out over and over again. And at least from sitting in my seat, the one characteristic that I see that makes people vulnerable is it’s the ones that are really sincere, and helper type people. And it’s so awful because it’s actually such a virtuous thing that the victim possesses as a character quality that predators seem to be able to just sniff out and just be able to exploit. And I know that’s how you feel, and what you feel Patrick did to you. When did you first realize, Oh, my goodness, this is a dangerous relationship?   MORIAH SMOTHERS  30:59 Yeah, it was fairly early on, really. I don’t know that I would have said dangerous, but I recognize that I was looking forward to him communicating with me. And so it was even small, but I thought, Man, that’s not healthy. And I think a common belief is that anyone who is targeted , they’re struggling in their marriage. Jack and I have a wonderful marriage. We did before I was groomed we were doing well during and praise the Lord, we have a wonderful marriage now. And so I’d like to debunk that, that it’s only broken people or broken marriages that are targeted, because that’s not true. But it was pretty early on, I realized I’m looking forward to him texting, and that was messed up. And this is the other spot that man, if I could do anything and go back, this is the spot I would go back and redo this is I thought I could handle it. Because I really again believed that my pastor would honor his fiduciary duty of putting me and my family’s best interest above his own. And so I said, Hey, I need to talk to you about something, let’s FaceTime. And so we hopped on a FaceTime. And I tell him, I said, This is so humiliating, I’m humiliated, and I know you’re going to be embarrassed. But I’m looking forward to you contacting me, I think I’m attracted to you. And so we need to cut communication. And he reported this in the Christian Post very differently than what had happened. I think he said, I hooked him. But what really happened is that I asked him, I said, this is again, I didn’t understand, I thought it was my fault. I said, we need to stop all communication totally like this has to be done and over. And he said your family is too important to our church, to the ministry. I love your family, we need to be in contact still. So do you trust me to pray about it? Absolutely. I’ll trust my pastor at that time to pray about it for me. And I said, Sure, I understand that. I didn’t want to lose our community. And that I trusted him to pray about it. And Julie the part I would go back and do is that was my moment in time to tell Jack, but I did not tell Jack about what was going on. Because Jack is a man of character and integrity, we would have been out of that church so fast. I didn’t want to lose our people in our community group. And what I didn’t realize is Patrick came back and I basically just opened the doors for full on grooming and abuse. And he said, Moriah, you know, I never do this. I never say this when I preach from the stage. But God has told me that if we stay above reproach, then he wants us to be together. And it was a strong implication of like, for ministry purposes. And I was floored by that. But Jack and I are happily married and we’re doing great. I had no desire to be out of my marriage ever. And so I was really confused by that. But he was very convincing that this was a word from the Lord. So things accelerated from there in a really tragic way.   JULIE ROYS  34:03 And this is spiritual abuse 101. It doesn’t get much more blatant than God told me. And this should be a red flag for anyone. But again, we’re not trained in how to identify these red flags. But when somebody says God told me, I mean, how do you argue with that, right? I mean, it’s just really manipulative language that somebody would use.   MORIAH SMOTHERS  34:28 He’s my pastor, I trusted pastors, healthy relationships. My dad was a pastor, like, I had no reason to think there would be any kind of predatory behavior. Like none at the time. I clearly know better now, but.   JULIE ROYS  34:43 So about this time is when the relationship progressed to you and Patrick meeting in public parking lots, which is kind of a next step. Would you describe the frequency of these meetings and the nature of them?   MORIAH SMOTHERS  35:02 So I remember the first one he asked to me. So we could figure out this is a common phrase of how to manage the tension of being in communication, but it not being romantic. That was the first time we met. I vividly remember how sweaty my hands were. I knew I shouldn’t be in this situation. But I also, truthfully, I still trusted him that, okay, if I meet with him, then we can figure out a way for this to be over. That didn’t happen. And so we did on and off continue to meet. I would say it was, I honestly don’t remember a number. I would say maybe once every couple weeks or so. It was almost always surrounding the situation of I tried to end it, he would say, let me figure this out, figure out a plan so you don’t have to leave the church. And then let’s meet as our last time. And so when we would meet honestly, like, we talk about church, we would talk about our personal lives. It was a lot about how he was struggling just being a pastor managing everything difficult relationships. I felt like I was his counselor most of the time, it was a lot of that. Sadly, it did progress. The abuse never became fully sexual, but there was hand holding and hugging things of that nature that happened. Yeah.   JULIE ROYS  36:23 And he said, in the Christian Post article that at one point, you tried to kiss him, but he put the brakes on. True? Not true?   MORIAH SMOTHERS  36:32 I don’t remember that happening. There was embracing that happened. So I could see him thinking that’s where it was going.   JULIE ROYS  36:40 So you wrote in your timeline that you sent me that during this period, you felt like, quote, an addict living two lives. Would you explain that?   MORIAH SMOTHERS  36:49 So the timeline I sent you I wrote in 2020, when things were very fresh. I had no language surrounding abuse, trauma, ACSA. And so that feeling was still is still correct of how I felt. What I know now, though, is what that is was trauma- bonding. That happens in a cycle of abuse of feeling like very affirmed, valued the love bombing, and then trying to end it. And it’s like this very toxic cycle. And so that’s what it was, is I, frankly, I hated who I was becoming. I love being a wife and a mom, and I love my job. So there were so many beautiful parts of my life. I loved the church I was serving, we were super engaged. So I felt like there were all these beautiful parts of my life. And then there was this really toxic, ugly thing that I didn’t know how to get out of. Even as a grown woman educated, I didn’t know how to get out of this. And so that’s where I just felt so painfully torn. Because at this point, I knew things were bad. Like I knew they were very bad, because we were communicating every single day, multiple times a day, even when I would end the relationship, he would still use phrases from the stage to communicate with me that were like inside praises. He’d post on social media photos, but he put little photos like emojis in the corner that were messages to me, and the communication was all the time. So I now know it was trauma bonding, but the truth is, at the time, I saw no way out without imploding our life. And so I stayed in it, because I didn’t know how not to.   JULIE ROYS  38:30 And it’s interesting. And I hear this all the time, the minimizing of the devastation that a relationship that didn’t go there was no sexual intercourse, but had obviously a sexual component to it had this kind of grooming involved in this kind of trauma-bonding, love-bonding, I mean, all of these things, the devastation is massive, isn’t it?   MORIAH SMOTHERS  39:00 Yeah. And I think what’s really hard to account for and if I’m just being really honest, I don’t expect for anyone who hasn’t experienced this or walked with someone to understand this. But physically, what happened was minimal compared to the emotional and the spiritual wreckage of feeling like your pastor should be doing the right thing, and he’s not. I would say I ended this relationship. I use that term very loosely, it was abuse, but I ended it two or three times every single month. It was ongoing. That was most of our conversations with me trying to figure out how to get out of this. And there was a lot of communication in between as well but yeah, I think what’s not accounted for when these situations come out, is just the emotional spiritual psychological damage that’s left in its wake and it’s horrific.   JULIE ROYS  39:57 And Jack during this whole time, are you seeing red flags or things that are making you go, what’s going on? Or was this pretty much hidden from your sight?   JACK SMOTHERS  40:06 I had no evidence if that’s what you mean. But what I did see was Moriah’s natural demeanor is very light hearted, very life giving just a joy to be around. And that was stolen. She became darker she became her humor became vulgar, her language in terms of profanity that started to occur. And so I remember asking her one time, like, hey, something is changing about you, and I don’t know what it is. Is it something that’s wrong with our relationship? Or what can I do to get us back on track? But something is off, and I don’t know what it is. And she couldn’t answer because she was in a cycle of abuse at the time.   MORIAH SMOTHERS  40:51 And Julie, so horribly as well that I would sometimes bring this home to Jack. Like I was so torn up about what was happening privately that I would put that on our marriage and say, but if you treated me like this, when it had nothing to do with Jack. Towards the end, I even started saying, let’s move, let’s apply for jobs, let’s go somewhere else, because I thought that’s my only way out of this. And so was pushing so hard to escape, but I made life pretty hard for Jack for a while, because I was not me anymore.   JULIE ROYS  41:24 Moriah, eventually, your relationship with Patrick included sexting. In fact, that was the title of the Christian Post article, basically, How Sexting Brought This Pastor Down. Would you describe the nature, the frequency, who initiated the sexting? How did that happen?   MORIAH SMOTHERS  41:46 But that also had a grooming process to it. I’ve never been a selfie person, I think I’m just old enough that I missed that kind of way. Patrick would send dozens of photos a day. And so I think there was a grooming process with getting me to that place. But the sexting did occur, it is incredibly painful to talk about still. I don’t remember the frequency, it wasn’t truthfully, many times what I would consider overt sexting. But the ongoing dialogue for us was highly flirtatious and inappropriate. What I would say was over happened, I don’t know probably less than 10 times, and it was always followed by like, guilt, shame, that can’t happen again. And then we were back there.   JULIE ROYS  42:33 All of this did remain secret until May of 2020. And that’s when this police report came to the attention of pastors at the Hills church. How was there a police report that made this apparent to them?   MORIAH SMOTHERS  42:47 I honestly I still don’t have all the information. Because when everything did eventually come out, we were very much so left in the dark. So I don’t fully understand all the details to this. But my knowledge, what I do know is that there was a time we were meeting in a public parking lot. We’d met there several times, the people working in that location had noticed it. And so after so many times of meeting there they called the police to check because they thought it was odd that two cars were parked there. I think we were there after hours even. And so a policeman came out just said, Hey, what’s going on? Nothing was going on. And so, it wasn’t any kind of like, charges or anything. It was just documentation that we had been there. And so I don’t know the process of how that actually got to the Hills, but it did. Once that happened, I didn’t know anything about that. I think we were on vacation as a family. And what I’ve been told not being involved in that is that Dave and Daryl, the other pastors, met with Patrick, confronted him with what was in the police report, which wasn’t much information, just that we’d met there several times, and it was documented. Patrick spun a story that there was nothing going on, that he and I had only met there once. And Jack and I haven’t seen this report. So we’re not really sure what’s in it. That he said we had only met there once, and that we were handing off a binder or a book or something. And so he had been there before, but I hadn’t. And so very shortly after that, Patrick was also instructed not to contact me because they wanted to verify his story. Patrick got in contact with me immediately said this is exactly what happened. I remember he said, I took a bullet for us. And so you’re gonna get called into a meeting with Dave and an elder, and this is what you need to say to backup my story. And so I knew what was going on. We got home from our vacation. Dave called and asked me to a meeting, and I asked if Jack could go with me, and he said no, he cannot. And so I think again, I was still I was not in a good place mentally and emotionally. I think I was hoping that if Jack was there, it would come out and maybe I could be free from this, but Jack wasn’t allowed there. And so I remember sitting in the parking lot of where I was going to meet the pastor and the elder. And Patrick called me and he said, these are the exact lies I told. If you want to save your family, my family, the church, and also they were fundraising for a new building at the time. And that money he indicated to me was associated with him, because he had raised those funds. He said, If you want to save all these things,  then you need to backup my story. And I consented, or I agreed to backup his story. And so I think in the Christian Post article, it read very much so like I eagerly and enthusiastically agreed to lie. But I felt very much if I’m gonna lose my family and my church, then I’ll lie. And so I did lie. I sat down with the pastor and the elder. They very much so wanted to hear the version of the situation, I told them, so I didn’t have to lie much, because they wanted to believe it. And so I did lie in that situation.   JULIE ROYS  46:03 And did you volunteer to step down from the advisory board at this time?   MORIAH SMOTHERS  46:08 I did. Yeah, that was the primary way Patrick had access to me just individually without Jack around. Otherwise, Jack and I did ministry together, we were pretty much always together. So I said, I’m happy to step down from that. I guess that’s appropriate. And they didn’t want to raise any red flags about why I was stepping down. So they told me no, please don’t do that.   JULIE ROYS  46:28 Wow. And you secretly were trying to get out.   MORIAH SMOTHERS  46:33 I was trying to get out in a lot of ways. But except being fully truthful with Jack, which would have got me out.   JULIE ROYS  46:42 So Jack, what was your response when you heard the rendition of the story that Moriah told you?   JACK SMOTHERS  46:50 The story that I received was, she made a silly mistake and met Patrick in a parking lot to receive a binder about church. Sounds pretty innocent when you are in a loving relationship with someone who has, over a long period of time, established a firm foundation of trust, you’re raised in a family where people treat you in a trustworthy way. It builds a lot of gullibility in a way and so I didn’t really second guess it. I just said, Oh, man, that was silly. Let’s just learn from it and move on. And in retrospect, that was maybe not the most loving thing to do. The most loving thing to do would have been to ask more questions, if I felt uneasy about it. Yeah.   JULIE ROYS  47:33 Yeah. It’s tough, though. You don’t want to be the jealous husband, who doesn’t believe. It’s a very difficult situation to be in. At this point, Moriah, you asked Patrick to basically get some outside help, right? Like, I mean, you knew he had this outside Advisory Council board, whatever you want to call it, mentors that he looked up to. How did he respond when you asked him to get this help?   MORIAH SMOTHERS  48:02 Yeah. So all the previous times I’d ended it, it was really just between the two of us and I just want it to be done. But this time, I said, clearly, I felt like this was, again, I was spiritually very twisted. But I feel like this is God telling us like this has to be done. This was our chance to end it. And he didn’t feel like he could end it, that he needed me. And so I asked him to just, I begged him, I’d said, like, please just talk to somebody tell somebody what is going on. Because this entire time, I had some real questions like even like I said, this an affair, isn’t it? Nice to no, because it’s not physical like that it’s not. And I asked him, I said, please just talk to somebody get their input. And so he told me, he did talk to a couple people. One of them was a former colleague and friend that was in his previous church in Texas. And then also he communicated that he talked to Jim Burgen about it. I didn’t know either of these people at all. But he told me that he was advised by both of them to not share any of this information with people at the Hills, the other pastors, they just didn’t need to know the details, and it would cause a difficult situation. And so I thought he had been advised by wise counselors, which is what I asked him to do.   JULIE ROYS  49:19 And of course, you have no way of knowing whether that actually happened or not. But I did reach out to Jim Burgen, and asked him specifically about this, about whether or not he ever encouraged Patrick not to confess the details of his relationship with you to the church. And this is what Jim Burger said.   JIM BURGEN  49:37 I knew they were having struggles. I didn’t know he was meeting in cars with women. Not at all. And if I had known that, I would have absolutely done the opposite of what you’re hearing; cover it up, don’t disclose. It would have been the opposite of that is you’ve got to cut this relationship. You need to go to Savannah, you need to go to your leaders. I was fresh off the heels of sabbatical. I was on a sabbatical for six months at the end of 2019, dealing just with a lot of exhaustion. So at that point, I would have been really raw and open because I was in such a tremendous, intimate relationship with my elders. They knew the inside out of my heart. I would have pointed in that direction too. Whether he had that or not, I don’t know. But that’s what my advice would have been. I never, never ever in a million years would say, cover this up, keep it a secret, don’t give details because basically what I’ve been counseling this keep going just don’t get caught, which would be absolutely the opposite of what I would ever have counseled anybody.   JULIE ROYS  50:36 Again, Jim Burgen weighing in on his perspective of what happened. It didn’t take a long time after this whole police report surfaced for the truth to come out. So apparently, the church sends Patrick off on, I’m sorry, this study break. I’ve seen so many study breaks. For pastors, they get caught with things like this, you wish they would just be upfront with what’s going on. But instead, it’s covered up from the church. And I guess he needs to do more study about something. But during that study break what was happening between the two of you?   MORIAH SMOTHERS  51:15 Yeah, so during the study break, keep in mind, I was still on the advisory board, because they hadn’t taken me off. This was also not disclosed to the advisory board at all about what was really going on, their concerns. We were still in communication. I think there were attempts to slow the communication down, that it was frequent. There was also up until this point, things had been bad. But again, most of our communication was just like silly, everyday things, light hearted. Things got dark after this and really heavy in a way that it hadn’t been. There was a lot of like power reversals. And I remember Patrick being very clear that like, I have control of this situation. And he would want me to like verbalize consent at that. There was a situation where some pastor I have no clue who it was, it was just in the news that he had probably an affair, which is the language they use, which would have been abuse. And I said something to Patrick about it. And I said, “Hey, I read this story. Did you read that?” He had. And I said, “Doesn’t that sound like what’s happening here?” And he like, forced me to verbally agree that’s not what’s happening here. This is consensual, and so it just got really heavy. He also started pushing to blame. He was like, let’s reassess when we’re gonna be together. And I mean, I remember the clearest time again, only in hindsight of being gaslit was, I was just feeling very convicted. And I said something like Patrick, I’m not leaving Jack, I have no desire to end my marriage. I’m not doing that. And he somehow flipped it around, and I ended up apologizing to him, that I would even think he might ask me to do that. And so just really, really sick, twisted. But the communication was still often.   JULIE ROYS  54:07 And how old was he at this point?   MORIAH SMOTHERS  54:09 So if this was in 2020, he was probably 32 ish?   JULIE ROYS  54:13 Thiry-two. It’s a lot of responsibility for someone extremely young, really. And he’s in his late 20s and pastoring a church of 7000 previous to this. It’s just a little bit stunning that someone so young would be given that kind of responsibility. In September 2020, then I’m guessing he comes back from his summer break. And you met in person a few times. Would you describe what happened in those meetings?   MORIAH SMOTHERS  54:45 Yeah, so all of those were to wrap things up to end things like again, there was this kind of mounting pressure. It just has to be that and frankly, I was starting to be a mess. Like I had been able to keep my life together pretty much. He would actually say, I know this is hard for you. But just let me shoulder the pressure of keeping this together. I was not doing well at that point in time. And so we met in a parking lot. And again, naively thought, like this is the last time, but that was, every time I was nervous and felt like oh my gosh, would have foreseen and it was, it was scary. That was the first time that he scared me, at the way he was behaving, and I actually had the thought, like, I hope I’m able to get out of this car. And it was just, it felt like things were moving really fast. And so again, I was hopeful that maybe that was the last time. But communication just continued, even though there’s so many last times that communication continued still.   JULIE ROYS  55:46 So the following month, October 2020, Patrick’s wife, Savannah, she discovered some of the messages between the two of you the sexting, I’m guessing she saw?   MORIAH SMOTHERS  55:57 Yeah. I don’t know exactly what was seen. You read those? Yeah. Yeah, it was a lot of it was just silliness. But then there were things that absolutely indicated that there was sexting and it was highly inappropriate.   JULIE ROYS  56:10 You found out about this from Patrick, right, when Savannah found out what was his demeanor and reaction?   MORIAH SMOTHERS  56:19 Well, I knew something was a little wrong. We had been communicating. And Julie, I don’t think I mentioned this, but early on through the grooming, it was mainly text, emails, and then it switched through social media platforms. And so he was always very thorough, reminding me like, hey, delete our messages, delete our conversations. And we were communicating with an app Words with Friends. We were playing a game on there, and there’s a chat feature. And so we’d been communicating, I gotten distracted with something, and had just left our conversation because something happened quickly. And when I came back, I messaged him again, and there was never a response. And so I knew something seemed different because he always responded. But he didn’t that time. And so it was all through the evening. I never got a response. I knew something was going on. I think that was I shared maybe a little bit with you at that time. I’ve minimized I heavily minimized what was going on to Jack. But I did disclose a little bit to him. And it was sometime in the middle of the night, I got an email from a random email address. But the email address and how it was worded was like a lot of inside jokes between us. And the phrasing was really strange. It didn’t the email it was from Patrick. We know now he had all this like technology taken. So I don’t know how he did this. But he basically said that Savannah found messages. And then he included a bulleted list to say like, these are the lies we’ve told remember them and back them up about what it was. But the email sounded like silly, like almost joking. It was not like, devastated. It wasn’t angry. It was a very strange message. When I knew that this had been discovered, I freaked out. And so I deleted the email, I never responded and I like permanently deleted it from my Gmail. And the next day, he sent another one from the same email and it was just, sorry, with a crying emoji and I deleted that one as well. I did end up telling Jack eventually that he had sent that. So I did know something was coming. But I didn’t know the fallout that was about to happen.   JULIE ROYS  58:30 Jack, how did you find out?   JACK SMOTHERS  58:32 Moriah disclosed a little bit of what was going on. But really it was Dave Bowersox who called and shared the communication, the sexting conversations that had occurred, and in a PDF document. And so I read through those, and yeah, that’s how I found out. Of course I was devastated at the time. But my really, I think God was very gracious over me at that point in time because all I could think about was our kids. Sorry. Two wonderful and amazing children that they deserve a safe home. They deserve to feel protected. And this was an attack on our family. We have a great example in scripture of Christ protects his bride, how Christ dies to himself to protect his family. So that’s where we at. Sometimes protecting your family looks like getting on your knees and praying. Sometimes protecting your family looks like asking a lot of questions. listening intently. I was thankful that in our job, so in higher education, we are required to go through training. I believe it’s every year, we’re required to complete these modules just on what is Title IX, sexual harassment, all these things. There’s one thing that stuck out to me. And it was where there’s a power imbalance, there’s no such thing as consent. And so I thought, okay, professors, student, doctor, patient, Pastor, congregant. These are all similar relationships where there’s a direct power imbalance, there could not have been consent, and I’m smashing all this together. This was not all at one time, this was weeks or maybe months of reflecting and trying to absorb the information that we have. It wasn’t until probably a year after it all came out that we really understood ACSA and that entire framework.   MORIAH SMOTHERS  1:00:48 But Jack was the first person to raise this piece of information, like how is there consent there as your pastor? And some of the contextual things that I’d never recommend this for anybody, but we were quarantined at the time, with COVID. So we couldn’t be with anybody. And so we can laugh about it now a little bit, but it was at the time, just heartbreaking. I was so broken and devastated and confused. It looked like I was coming out of a cult. Like there’s this like trauma fog that descends. I didn’t know what to do. I followed Jack everywhere in our house. I couldn’t be away from him. And so he’s grieving and mourning, and I’m following him around and we’re quarantined and have little children that were trying to – it was a mess. So everything we did was over Zoom about all the disclosures.   JULIE ROYS  1:01:41 So how did you feel the church responded to you, Moriah?   MORIAH SMOTHERS  1:01:45 I don’t want to over exaggerate this. And I can share details. The abuse from my pastor was horrible. The way the church responded was ten times more traumatizing than the abuse.   JULIE ROYS  1:02:04 That concludes part one of my interview with Moriah and Jack Smothers, and we’re ending on a bit of a cliffhanger. But this is something that I’ve heard over and over again from victims. The original abuse is horrific, for sure. But it’s easier to understand that the church can have one bad apple than to realize that it’s not just one bad apple. There’s a whole system protecting and managing that one bad apple, often at the expense of the victim. And you’ll hear that part of Moriah and Jack’s story in part two, and it’s such an important story. So I hope you’ll be watching for that to release in just a few days. But thank you so much for listening to The Roys Report. And if you’ve appreciated this podcast and our investigative work, would you please consider giving a gift to support us? As I’ve said before, we don’t have big corporate sponsors or large donors. We have you, the survivors, advocates, allies and church leaders who care about ridding the church of predators and making it a safer place. Also, this month if you give a gift of $30 or more, we’ll send you Christy Boulware’s book, Nervous Breakthrough; Finding Freedom From Fear and Anxiety in a World That Feeds It. This is such a great resource for anyone struggling with anxiety and panic attacks, or really any mental health issue. So to get the book and support the Roys report, just go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. Also, just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcast, Google podcasts or Spotify. That way you’ll never miss an episode. And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks so much for joining me today. Hope you are blessed and encouraged. Read more

Guest Bios Show Transcript What do you do when you feel called to start a ministry, but your pastor tells you not to? He says you’re not ready. You need to be under his authority. And your ministry must “complete,” not “compete,” with the local church. That’s precisely what happened to Christy Boulware, author of Nervous Breakthrough: Finding Freedom from Fear and Anxiety in a World that Feeds It. And in this second part of Julie’s interview with Christy, she tells about how, after overcoming a severe panic and anxiety disorder, she wanted to help others—but her pastor stood in her way. This led to the painful discovery that her church was a “cult,” and her pastor was addicted to control. This threw Christy into a tailspin and caused her to question her calling. But over time, with the help of wise friends, she and her husband realized they needed to leave their church and continue the ministry God had given her. Christy’s is such a powerful story. And through it, she gives a helpful blueprint for how to discern spiritual abuse and escape it. Guests Christy Boulware Christy Boulware is an international speaker, author of Nervous Breakthrough, Bible study creator, and founder of Fearless Unite. She is happily married to the love of her life, Troy. They have three beautiful children together. Show Transcript SPEAKERS JULIE ROYS, CHRISTY BOULWARE JULIE ROYS 00:04 What do you do when you feel called to start a ministry, but your pastor tells you not to? He says you’re not ready. You need to be under his authority, and your ministry must complete, not compete with the local church. Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys, and what I just described happened to Christy Boulware, author of Nervous Breakthrough: Finding Freedom From Fear and Anxiety in a World That Feeds It. For a decade, Christy’s biggest nemesis was severe anxiety and panic disorder. But once she got well she found she had another obstacle, her own pastor . This threw Christy into a tailspin and caused her to question her own calling. But over time, she and her husband realized that they were being spiritually abused. They also realized that the church where Christy at first found Jesus and gotten saved, was also very cult like and harmful. Then the second part of my discussion with Christy, she tells her story of experiencing church hurt. And I believe there’s so many great lessons in this story about how to handle spiritual abuse and its aftermath. So, I’m really looking forward to sharing this conversation with you. But first, I’d like to thank our sponsors, Judson University, and Marquardt of Barrington. If you’re looking for a top ranked Christian University, providing a caring community and an excellent college experience, Judson University is for you. Judson is located on 90 acres just 40 miles west of Chicago in Elgin, Illinois. The school offers more than 60 majors, great leadership opportunities, and strong financial aid. Plus, you can take classes online as well as in person. Judson University is shaping lives that shaped the world. For more information, just go to JUDSONU.EDU. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity, and transparency. That’s because the owners there Dan and Kurt Marquardt are men of integrity. To check them out, just go to BUYACAR123.COM. We now resume my conversation with Christy Boulware, author of Nervous Breakthrough: Finding Freedom From Fear and Anxiety in a World That Feeds It. JULIE ROYS I know that once you got to a place of feeling healthy, and God had brought you through this, you had an excitement, to share that with others. And that’s really how God works. The comfort that He’s given us, He wants us to give others and so I think that’s such a beautiful desire. But as you began to step out in this, and this is so sad, you would hope that your pastor would be the person most excited about that and getting behind it and blessing it. And I hate to say this, but I think especially when it’s women stepping out in ministry, very often they don’t find their pastor blessing it. And that was your situation. Tell us that story of and you don’t really touch on it in your book. But I know that’s a bigger part of your story. When your pastor really wasn’t thrilled. CHRISTY BOULWARE 03:59
Yeah, I actually had a warning sign that I missed. So, I was about 18 months into my recovery journey and tapped into this local church doing really well making friends, things were going great. I started sharing my testimony, they had given me an opportunity to share my testimony. I was blogging and doing a little bit of speaking about it. And so, this was around June of 2015. So, the breakdown happens in 2011 and June of 2015. I just was starting to feel this prompting to start a support group for other women that were struggling with the same thing that I struggled with. And I asked my friend who, my very good friend who actually was the pastor’s wife for advice about this feeling that I was having didn’t know what to do with them. And she just said, let me talk to my husband, which was our pastor. And she comes back to me and she said that. Here’s what he said. He said Christy, you need to aim longer before you fire. And I just paused. And she just said, basically what he’s trying to say is you’re not ready to start a ministry, Christy. And I got off of that phone call just completely crushed, and so confused, too. And I took this hunting analogy to my husband because he’s a big hunter too. And I said, Troy, this is what she said to me, this is what Pastor said to me, what do you think? What do you think I should do? And it was this moment, I’ll just never forget it. Troy just boldly and confidently said, No, if you aim too long, you’ll miss. It’s time to start this ministry. And I was like, All right, let’s do it then. Let’s start it. So, here’s what’s so crazy, Julie. Fearless Women was what it was called before, we’ve now rebranded as Fearless Unite. But it started in a library with 38 women in attendance, and it grew rapidly. And churches started to hear about it and other churches started partnering with us. And before we knew it, we were doing these monthly meetings where 200 or 300 women were showing up at it. And by the end of 2015, we were a legal 501 C 3, and we became a nonprofit organization. So, part of the programming that we offered was these local community events that were completely free. The support groups that kind of outgrew the support group mentality, because so many people were coming to it. So, we started putting together programming called Impact groups. Now what these were, they were fear and anxiety Bible video studies that were written and produced by myself, but also our Fearless team. So that was interesting. I got called into the pastor’s office. Yeah, I got called into the pastor’s office. JULIE ROYS 06:44 I’m feeling anxiety right now. I’ve experienced this. But okay, yes. CHRISTY BOULWARE 06:48 What smoke alarms are going off right now? So, I got called into the pastor’s office, this was early 2017. And my husband was with me for this meeting. And we had these, like, kind of three major big ideas that he was explaining to us in the meeting. And the first was, God’s work must be done God’s way. And he used II Samuel 6, the Ark of the Covenant. And as you recall, in that story, Usiah, I think is how you say his name, he died for touching the Ark. And we began to get this underlying feeling that he was saying, You’re messing with God’s way by not doing it the way that we want you, like, I want you to do it. And so, he didn’t come out and say, You’re gonna die. But there were these implications of using that scripture to make us understand that God’s work must be done God’s way. Now, the next big idea that he gave us was parachurch ministry, which is what Fearless Women was a parachurch ministry is not in the Bible. So, he just told us parachurch ministry is not in the Bible. So, he then said, we’ll support parachurch ministry if you’re doing something that we don’t do, or can’t do, and it was built under biblical government. And then this big idea was said, Christy, don’t compete with the church, complete the church. And I was super confused after that point. And then we got to one of the, there was lots of points. But these were the three main ideas that really hit my husband and I. The last one was God works through authority. And so, he used John 10 1,3, but then also, verse seven, I’m just going to read it to you, it says, Then Jesus said to them again, Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. And then he gave us two points after that. He said, God gives the senior pastor, he said, senior pastor, a flock. And then the second one is the door, in and out, is through the pastor. Needless to say, my husband and I had a lot to think about a lot to pray through. And truthfully, Julie I left that meeting feeling so confused, and conflicted, controlled. I also felt like we were doing something wrong, I felt like we were being disobedient to his authority. And it was incredibly difficult to process through that. JULIE ROYS 09:16 Let me pause you there. Because there’s so much to unpack and what you just said. One, going back to you not being ready. Almost in a way, and I’m guessing being ready would be the pastor telling you you’re ready, which would put him in control of when you’re ready. But it also, and this might be a strong word to call the curse. But it’s almost like saying, it’s going at you as a person. It reminds me of I remember when I was in my late 20s, wanting to step out in a ministry and I had a pastor look at me and say, Julie, you’re not a visionary leader. And I remember at the time just being like so puzzled by that because I had already started like two different ministries at this point, and I’m like, how am I not a visionary leader? And he’s like, Well, I can’t go into detail like I can give you the book. And I could go through all the points, but you’re just not. I remember just coming back home, and it was my husband who looked at me and said, “That’s insane. Of course, you’re a visionary leader, like you’ve started all these things like, how could you do that if you’re not a visionary leader? I mean, I don’t know what they mean by that. But don’t receive that, Julie. And I’m like, Okay. CHRISTY BOULWARE 10:18 Thank you, Lord, for an amazing husband. JULIE ROYS 10:21 I know. And what’s sad too, is that as women, I think our fallen condition is that we tend to be bent towards men that we don’t look straight up into the Father’s eyes, which is what we really do need to do. And it’s wonderful when you can have a man bless you, like we had our husbands bless us. But often the men won’t. And sometimes we need to just be able to look directly. And we do need to be able to look into the Father’s eyes and say, who have you made me? And what are you calling me to do? And our identity has to come directly from Jesus, because otherwise, we will be paralyzed, and we won’t be able to move out and what he’s calling us to do. CHRISTY BOULWARE 10:56 You gotta preach, Julie. JULIE ROYS 10:57 I think it’s important to name those things, right? Because we do and as women, I hate to say it, but it comes so often, because we’re a threat to somebody in spiritual authority sees us as a threat. And I don’t know what it is about strong women, but we just make these men go, they do, they just, they get so threatened. And that’s what I hear in your story. But then the authority and control using scripture the way that he did, and to say Jesus doesn’t say that the pastor is the gate. Jesus says, I’m the gate, right? They enter, and I know my sheep, and they hear My voice, and they recognize my voice, because their mine. And he’s put himself what he did in that conversation is put himself in as Jesus, which is frightening. But that is what so often happens. And so, I know there’s people listening right now that are probably, you know, there’s bells going off because they’ve had this happen. But it’s devastating to us in the moment. It is so confusing, because we’re hearing, the confusion is not because oh, what our pastor is saying the spiritual authority saying is true, but because we’ve heard something from our father, our father has called us and has commissioned us to do something. And yet we have these earthly voices that should be, you know, blessing that and instead saying, No, you can’t be getting that right. And so, it puts us into a tailspin. So how did you work through this? CHRISTY BOULWARE 12:28 Lots and lots of prayer. But I think one of the biggest things was we asked for his notes. We said, “Can you please put in writing what you taught us that day? Because we’re very confused, and we would like to study it out ourselves. Can you put the scriptures down? Can you put the notes down? So, we received the notes that he taught us that day, and we felt led to go seek wise counsel. Now what’s important about this wise counsel, and if anybody’s listening, it was outside of our local church. We sought console outside of our local church. And the beautiful thing is the Lord had blessed us with so many partnerships of other churches with what Fearless was doing at the time, that it was very easy for me to find a neighboring community of an elder of a lead pastor, that I could have a sit-down talk with. So, I sent the notes over to this pastor, my husband and I and this pastor and his wife, we sat down over a nice lunch, and I’ll never forget it, Julie, he just very boldly and bluntly said, Christy, we reviewed your pastor’s notes, and we think you’re in a cult. And we think that he is using scripture to manipulate and to control you. And I remember even the pastor’s wife that day was like, oh, no, no, but we could say this a little nicer kind of thing. And you know, we don’t we’re not trying to hurt your feelings. And he’s like no, I don’t know how else to say this. I don’t know how much easier like how to say this. And I remember us leaving that going, no, this can’t be true. We love our pastor, like we believe in him, like just know, like, Ah, this can’t be true. So, but then we had to just really wrestle with that. JULIE ROYS 14:09 Boy, I love what you did. It reminds me of the Bereans, right? Who, even the apostle Paul, took what he was teaching them, they searched the Scriptures to see if what he told them was true. And I think so often people that are in hyper controlling churches or cultic churches, which as I think over the past decade, the definition of cult has changed where it used to be it has to have some sort of heretical doctrine at the core of it. And I think people are realizing no, you can have an orthodox, very biblically Orthodox Church, it can still be cultic because of the control. And because of the place of the pastor, and because of these things. Thank God, that you were able to find someone who was able to discern that. But wow, that’s when you’ve been, how long have you been at the church at that point? CHRISTY BOULWARE 15:00 So, since 2007, that’s when I raised my hand and accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior. So now what we’re at 2017 when that conversation took place, yeah. JULIE ROYS 15:08 Wow. So, you’ve been there a decade. And you hear this, and this is your community. So how did you process it? CHRISTY BOULWARE 15:16 We still believe the best and our pastor, and we asked for one more in person sit down meeting with him. And so, we did. And it was my husband and I and his wife, and we sat down. And we wanted to take a humble approach. Because what if we were wrong, Julie? We hadn’t been to seminary, we didn’t have all this extra knowledge, you know. So, it’s like, gosh, what if we were wrong? And we wanted to believe the best in him. But here’s what’s interesting. My husband, we’re talking about our strong husbands. He prayed this very simple prayer as we walked in, and we were holding hands together. And he said, Lord, show us what we need to see. That was it. Just show us what we need to see. And so, our first topic of discussion when we sat down was that my pastor wanted to go over the biblical government that our parachurch ministry had. And he asked, do we have a lead pastor on our board? And we were genuinely curious. It was like, no pastor. I mean, we don’t have a lead pastor on our board of directors, but we have a pastor. And we’re curious, like, why does it matter if it’s a lead pastor? And he started to use this analogy that lead pastors know how to bench press more. JULIE ROYS 16:27 Sorry, wow! Okay. Okay. CHRISTY BOULWARE 16:32 Could bench press more. And so of course, we were dismayed. And we’re just but again, we have so much respect for this man and love that we were just still trying to process it all out. And again, remember, since parachurch ministry is not in the Bible, the only way you would support it would be under biblical government doing things that the church wasn’t doing, and if I wasn’t competing with the church. So again, he was trying to make a case for the biblical government, which just led us into that next area of concern was how he didn’t feel like it was right that we were producing, and leading out small groups, which is what I called Impact groups, and that was competing with the church. And so, I remembered Christine Caine had just spoke at our church. And she does propel groups. And propel groups were exactly like what our impact groups were. We were creating biblical, small group material, that were helping people overcome fear and anxiety. It was a meeting and need in the church because fear and anxiety is an epidemic right now. And there were so many people that would love to be in a Bible study about fear and anxiety. And we were producing these and putting these out. So, I asked him, I said, Well, we just had Christine Caine here. And she does propel groups. And we’re okay with that. And Dave Ramsey, he does Financial Peace groups. And I said, I’m just trying to do something similar to this, and not compete with the church, but just meet a need in the church to disciple to hurting women that are struggling with the same thing. And interesting that you had brought up that scripture in Corinthians, comfort, comfort others with the same comfort God has given you. That was the key verse for our impact groups, it was, God had comforted me, I was going to turn right back around and comfort others. Julie, he wasn’t really happy with my line of questioning and responses at that point. And the conversation started to go a little bit south, and we wanted to keep it holy. And I just said to him, I said pastor, I can tell that we’re not going to agree on this topic here. So, can we just agree to disagree here? Or is this the end of the road for us? And I’ll never forget this, Julie. He looked right at my husband and I, and he just said, this is the end of the road for you. You will not be supported if you continue. And just like that, the place that I found Jesus, by the man who led me to Christ, we were no longer welcomed in our church anymore. And I left that meeting completely devastated with my heart in a million pieces. And my husband, on the other hand, just had a smile on his face. And he said, Thank you, God for showing us what we need to see. JULIE ROYS 19:08 Wow. I haven’t told this story yet. And I will just allude to it now because I haven’t fully felt released to tell it. But I have friends who were told that if they persisted in something they were doing, they could no longer take communion within a church. And I thank God that they listened to the voice of God, and not the pastor at that point who was not speaking the words of God. And I’m just struck that whole senior pastor thing. There’s no biblical basis for that. And where is the priesthood of all believers? Yeah, that is such a control move, but so glad that you were able to discern rightly, what was going on. Wow, I can only imagine the devastation you must have felt. I mean, there’s one thing to know in your head. God’s calling me to do this. I’m sure there had to have still been some degree of doubt, because that’s just how we work as human beings. When you have a spiritual authority, say something like that to you, it’s hard. It’s hard to take. And it messes with you inside. Even if in your head, you say that was BS. I know, it’s somewhere deep down. You know what you’re doing is, right. You have that conviction. But at the same time, you’ve got that kind of messing with you. I guess you could apply the same thing you were talking about the anxiety, snowballing thoughts where you had to take this thought captive now and these doubts captive, but walk me through the process coming out of that emotionally, spiritually? That’s got to take to some degree your legs out from under you. Or did it? Maybe you were just like, so confirmed that you just shot right out of the gate? I don’t know. CHRISTY BOULWARE 20:46 Oh, heck no. JULIE ROYS 20:48 Maybe I’m projecting but yeah, how did you deal with it? CHRISTY BOULWARE 20:51 My husband was very strong. He was so grateful. And for me, this is where I found the Lord. This was where all my dearest friends were. I lost all kinds of friends. I felt so lonely, depressed, incredibly anxious. You’re right. The self-doubt raged in my mind. What if I’m wrong? What if I’m being disobedient? What if I’m rebellious? What if I am in direct contradiction of God’s word? I want to honor God’s word. So, it was like this mind game of questioning my calling, who I am, what I should be doing. I mean, it was excruciating. But I do, I think there’s some things that we did right, and some things that I think we did wrong. And what we did right was we stood up for ourselves, we stood up for ourselves, and we did not allow ourselves to be manipulated and controlled. And we refuse to slander and gossip, even though all of that was being done for us at Facebook and the things that were being said, and this behind-the-scenes conversations that would later come back to us. I was just floored by the amount of just deception and just straight up slander and things about our character that just were not true. Another thing we did right is we took a while before we jumped into a new church home. And when we did feel called to move on to a new church home, we did sit down with the leadership of that church and asked, What are your thoughts on parachurch ministry because we didn’t want to get ourselves. We found that they were with open arms excited to take in this parachurch ministry, were championing, welcoming, cheering it on in a very healthy way. So that was good. Another thing is we took some time before we started serving. We really needed healing. And we didn’t just jump right into serving again. Some things we did wrong, Julie, this situation felt like a divorce. Now, I’ve not walked through a divorce. But I’ve walked through many dear friends that have had to walk through a divorce. And it’s so incredibly painful. I mean, the place that I fell in love with Jesus Christ is the place that wounded me. That made me second guess and question everything that I’m doing and feel called to do. And so that just created an enormous amount of anxiety in me and again, losing all these friends. And I became obsessed, literally obsessed with trying to figure out why God allowed this to happen. And I wasted too much time being distracted by that. And I was worried about it constantly. I think something else that we did wrong is I didn’t get counseling soon enough. I just didn’t. And I’m in counseling now. But I’m learning that even so long ago, this is 2017 that I am still disentangling myself from bad theology that was imposed on me for years and years. Even in my new church, a healthy church, where I’m my counselors, I need you to take church off of an idol here, Christy and I need you to ask yourself, are you codependent on your pastor’s covering right now? And so, ah! all these really big ideas that I’m working through myself right now that are going all the way back to 2017. And I wish I would have gotten into counseling sooner, because it’s affected the way I view church. It’s affected the way I view pastors; it’s affected the way I view church, people, and community. And this last one might sound a little funny, but I forgave too fast. And here’s what I mean by this. When I was in therapy, my therapist said to me, Christy, you cannot forgive what you haven’t acknowledged. And I thought, oh, so then she gives me this worksheet where I have this five-page worksheet, and I have to work through the four stages of forgiveness, and part of it is writing down why you were hurt. And when they said XYZ to you, how did that make you feel? and when this person betrayed you through and it was like a ripple effect because it wasn’t just my pastor I needed to forgive it was the pastor’s wife. And then it was the friends that betrayed me. And it was like this ripple effect of forgiveness that needed to be put out, but I needed to walk through the stages of forgiveness first, to truly forgive. I think I was just like, oh, yeah, I forgive them. That’s what you’re supposed to do. That’s what Christians do you forgive. But really deep down, I was still bitter. I was still hurt. I was still wounded and had not worked through that forgiveness properly. JULIE ROYS 25:09 What a wise counselor you had. CHRISTY BOULWARE 25:11 Oh, amazing. JULIE ROYS 25:13 Yeah, that’s wonderful. And that is a gift. And I’m curious because you said this covering? Did you have the umbrellas of authority that were like the Gothard thing going on, or something similar? CHRISTY BOULWARE 25:24 I’m watching Shiny Happy People right now, too. And I’m just like, I can’t wait to see my gosh, it’s giving me anxiety. I was never shown like a picture of umbrella or covering. But this idea of spiritual authority that you had to run to or be over like your pastor was the person that you needed to check in with, was absolutely under woven in all of it for sure. JULIE ROYS 25:48 Wow. Well, I’m very grateful. I did not grow up in that. I grew up in a very conservative Christian church, but it was not fundamentalist. And my mother was a very strong spiritual force. And she was our superintendent of Sunday schools in the church I grew up in, and I had a pastor who gloriously did not feel threatened by my mother, and just was able to bless her. Now they moved when I was in college, from Pennsylvania to Kentucky, and then that stopped. And she couldn’t really minister after that. And that was really sad for me to watch. But I have said many times, I’m so grateful for that heritage that I was given. Because when I saw spiritual abuse happening, when I began to experience it, yes, there was self-doubt, there was all of that. But I also knew, it’s like what they say, with dollar bills. If you’re trying to figure out a counterfeit, you look at the real, you study the real, and I grew up in the real, and I’m so blessed, I know I’m so blessed by it. I thank God for it. Because I see so much of the non-rail right now, in the work that I do that I’m just I’m so grateful that I know the real exists, I love the church. I couldn’t stay in this work if I didn’t love the church, because I’ve seen how beautiful it can be. And I’ve seen how beautifully it raises the next generation within it. But we’re just really gotten a foul of it because of and sadly, a lot of it is due to these pastors who are into building their kingdom, and not the kingdom of God and controlling and you cannot control what God is doing. It is completely outside of your control, but the Holy Spirit, you don’t know where it comes from. And you don’t know where it’s going. But you better get on his agenda. Because if you’re trying to steer yours, you are going to just shipwreck everything. And we’re seeing that happen all over the church right now. And I know, and we’re running out of time. So, I have to get to our last question. But we could talk so long on this. But I know right now there are people listening, who have had all of the same things that you’re talking about happen to them maybe, and then some and the spiritual abuse and the confusion and the pain and all of that they’re in the midst of this. And that’s what with so much of the interviews so many of the interviews I do., it’s that abuse that they’ve experienced, sadly, in the church that is causing so much of their anxiety and their trauma. So, would you just speak that person who right now is feeling really stuck in the midst of the aftermath of this kind of church hurt situation? CHRISTY BOULWARE 28:29 I think understanding that you can be understood. I think that’s so important. And that church hurt is so excruciating, I think sometimes we sweep it under the rug, like it’s just not that big of a deal, or it doesn’t hurt that bad or I mean, it’s truly one of the deepest pains I have ever walked through. Even going through suicidal thoughts and a nervous breakdown. It was so painful. So, I think I just want to tell you, I get you, I understand you. If you’re on the other line listening, gosh, I’m so sorry for the pain that you’ve experienced. And I think I just have three little pieces of advice. The first one would be don’t stay in an abusive situation. Please go seek wise counsel outside of your church community. And ask God pray, ask him to give you wisdom and discernment because oh my goodness, he will. Like you said with the dollars I didn’t grow up where I knew the real so I couldn’t tell there was a counterfeit and that’s why it was making it so difficult. But God was so faithful to provide the people at the right places at the right time because my heart was bent towards truth. I wanted to know the truth and he gave me the truth. And do not please man. Please God. That’s what we’re here for; please God first above all else, and then get help for the hurt. I wish I would have gotten help sooner. I love Julie that you’re doing The Restore. I think your conferences what you’re doing with that is just so beautiful. So go to one of her conferences, go get into therapy, get help. And then this last one is probably the most difficult for me to say. But it’s just remember that God still uses imperfect people. And sometimes that just doesn’t make sense. And here’s a little story. I was recently interviewing someone for a marketing position that’s available in our organization. And one of our interview questions was just tell me how you found the Lord. And she tells me the story about how she accepted Jesus as her Lord and Savior in this most beautiful, glorious way, and how God was working in her life. And guess what? It’s through the same man that hurt me in the same church, that we were asked to leave. And I just thought, oh, my gosh, and I was so conflicted in my flesh in that moment, and the Lord led me to Philippians 1:15 – 18. And it’s when Paul’s talking about okay, look, some people are going to preach out of envy and rivalry, and some are going to do it out of goodwill. And then it goes down in verse 18, it says, but what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached, and because of this, I will rejoice. Yes, I will continue to rejoice. So what I’m not saying is you shouldn’t address church hurt, or you shouldn’t address control or manipulation, like you absolutely should do it. But do it in a Christ honoring way. But remember, that God still use an imperfect people to reach people for His glory. JULIE ROYS 31:39 Yeah, and that’s a tough one. But it is true. I’ve had a number of people process; I came to the Lord through this abusive person. I came to the Lord through somebody who I don’t even know is a believer at this point. And does that mean that you didn’t truly come to the Lord? No. That doesn’t mean that . The Lord has met you and praise God that He can use a donkey so he can use a bad pastor. Christy, thank you so much. And thank you for mentioning Restore again, that’s coming up October 13 and 14th at Judson University, and early bird tickets are still available for Restore. But it is a wonderful two-day conference where so many other survivors come together and find healing. But not just survivors. And I’m really encouraged. I was excited at our last Restore, we had a number of pastors come, we had a number of seminarians come. And it does grieve me that I find so many pastors like if you do a conference on how to grow your church big and how to be successful man, they will flock. But to come and hear from survivors? to come and hear about how to handle church hurt? or how to respond when somebody comes to you and says, I’ve been sexually abused? to find out those things, how to really shepherd and care for your sheep. Often pastors aren’t very interested in that, because that doesn’t bring in the dollars and the people and the noses and all those things. So, I really encourage you, if you’re listening, and you’re in a position of spiritual leadership, at a church or a para church, I really encourage you to consider coming to Restore. And those of you who are hurting, wonderful place to find healing. Again, it’s RESTORE2023.COM. You can find out more about that. But Christy, thank you so much. This was just such a great discussion, and I so enjoyed your book, but even more so being able to talk with you. So, thank you. CHRISTY BOULWARE 33:38 Thank you so much. JULIE ROYS 33:39 And thanks so much for listening to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And if you’ve appreciated this podcast, would you please consider supporting the work we do at The Roys Report? As I’ve said before, we don’t have any big donors or advertising, we simply have you the people who care about telling other survivors stories, exposing wrongdoing, bringing healing, and restoring the church. Also, this month when you give a gift of $30 or more, we’ll send you a copy of Christy’s book Nervous Breakthrough. It’s such a great resource and I’m so excited to make it available to you to donate and get a copy of nervous breakthrough. Just go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. Also, just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report. That way you’ll never miss an episode. And while you’re at it, I really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks so much for joining me today. Hope you were blessed and encouraged. Read more

Guest Bios Show Transcript Fear and anxiety are gripping society today. A stunning 42.5 million Americans are diagnosed with anxiety disorders each year. Nearly 800,000 people worldwide die by suicide each year. Repeatedly, Jesus said fear not. But let’s face it, many of us are finding that increasingly difficult. In this edition of The Roys Report, you’ll hear from someone who knows about fear and anxiety firsthand. In 2011, Christy Boulware suffered a debilitating panic attack. Then she experienced vision issues, paralysis, and hospitalization. At one point, she couldn’t get out of her bedroom, so her mom had to help her care for her own kids. Prior to this, Christy had been ‘superwoman,’ excelling personally and professionally at most everything she did. But out of nowhere, fear and panic rendered her unable to do even basic tasks, and she was on the verge of suicide. If you’ve struggled with fear and anxiety, you’re going to find Christy’s story of how she overcame a severe panic and anxiety disorder extremely helpful. But there’s another battle Christy has fought that many listeners to this podcast will relate to: her battle against spiritual abuse and control. In fact, for many of you, your fear and anxiety is due to spiritual abuse or church hurt. What Christy learned through her process was painful, and it reveals powerful truths for us all. Guests Christy Boulware Christy Boulware is an international speaker, author of Nervous Breakthrough, Bible study creator, and founder of Fearless Unite. She is happily married to the love of her life, Troy. They have three beautiful children together. Show Transcript SPEAKERS JULIE ROYS, CHRISTY BOULWARE JULIE ROYS  00:04 Fear and anxiety are gripping our society. A stunning 42.5 million Americans are diagnosed with anxiety disorders each year. Nearly 800,000 people worldwide die by suicide each year. And depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide. Repeatedly Jesus said Fear not. But let’s face it, many of us are finding that increasingly difficult.   Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys and joining me today is someone who knows about fear and anxiety firsthand. In 2011 Christy Boulware suffered a debilitating panic attack. Then she experienced vision issues paralysis and was even hospitalized. At one point she couldn’t even get out of her bedroom, so her mom had to help her care for her own kids. Prior to this, Christy had been super woman excelling personally and professionally at most everything she did. But out of nowhere fear and panic gripped her, and she was on the verge of suicide.   If you’ve ever struggled with fear and anxiety, I think you’re going to find Christie’s story of how she overcame a severe panic and anxiety disorder extremely helpful. But there’s another battle Christy has fought that many of you will relate to as well. And that’s her battle against spiritual abuse and control. In fact, for some of you, your fear and anxiety is due to spiritual abuse or church hurt. And I think hearing this part of Christy’s story and what she learned through this painful process is going to be especially powerful for you. So, I’m super excited to talk to Christy and to dive into her story.   But first I’d like to thank our sponsors, Judson University, and Marquardt of Barrington. If you’re looking for a top ranked Christian University, providing a caring community and an excellent college experience, Judson University is for you. Judson is located on 90 acres just 40 miles west of Chicago in Elgin, Illinois. The school offers more than 60 majors, great leadership opportunities and strong financial aid. Plus, you can take classes online as well as in person. Judson University is shaping lives that shaped the world. For more information, just go to JUDSONU.EDU. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity, and transparency. That’s because the owners there Dan and Kurt Marquardt are men of integrity. To check them out, just go to BUYACAR123.COM.   Joining me now is Christy Boulware, a speaker and author of the book Nervous Breakthrough: Finding Freedom From Fear and Anxiety In a World That Feeds It. Christy also is the founder of Fearless Unite,  a nonprofit helping people overcome fear and anxiety issues. So, Christy, welcome, and thanks so much for joining me,   CHRISTY BOULWARE  03:03 Julie, thank you so much for having me.   JULIE ROYS  03:04 And I wish I could say that I read this book, and I couldn’t relate to anything in it. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. I’ve had my own struggles with fear and anxiety and trying to overcome those, and it’s difficult. And it strikes each of us in different ways. But your book was so honest and vulnerable. So, I thank you for that.   CHRISTY BOULWARE  03:26 I’m happy to share. And I wish that there wasn’t such an epidemic of fear and anxiety happening in our world right now. Because it truly is. It’s an epidemic. And I think that we have to get more open and honest with the real things that’s happening in terms of depression and worry and fear and anxiety and panic disorder and have more open and honest conversations about it as well.   JULIE ROYS  03:51 And you mean we can’t just pray it away and it’s gone? Tell people they need more faith and boom, they’re better?   CHRISTY BOULWARE  03:56 Are we gonna go there now? Let’s go there now, because I got some bones to pick about that, for sure.   JULIE ROYS  04:02 Let’s table that because we are going to get to that and I’m looking forward to getting to that. But let’s talk first about where you started. Because you never thought that you would ever be in this place of struggling with fear and anxiety. As I read your book, you were like a superwoman, right? You never met a challenge that you didn’t face and overcome and then all of a sudden, you’ve got this issue with panic attacks. Just if you would describe your progression and how you got there.   CHRISTY BOULWARE  04:34 I’m sitting on the sunny beaches of Cancun sipping a fruity drink reading my gossip magazine, and all of a sudden this feeling of ‘I gotta get out of here now’. Now, Julie, I’m looking at the beach. I’m having a great time. Why in the world would my body all of a sudden just break down on me? So, it was this feeling of I gotta get out of here now, my heart starts beating really fast, I feel very disoriented, I’m dizzy, I’m queasy. I get up to my bedroom in our hotel, this very nice hotel that we’re at. And all of a sudden, I’m like, I’m pretty sure I’m gonna pass out. And I remembered I packed this really strong fan. And for something just told me like, start taking deep breaths into this fan. I start taking these deep breaths, cleansing breaths, and this lasts about 20 minutes. And then it was poof, it was just gone. I go back down to the deck with my friends and my husband, and I’m like, I have no idea what just happened to me, but that was so weird. And they’re like, Christy! We’re in Cancun! It was probably just bad water, bad food, whatever it might be. And then we just brushed it off. And that was my first episode that took place.   JULIE ROYS  05:38 And so, you go home, and you’re thinking that was just weird. And then what was it about two weeks later, or something like that? This is so weird how this hits us. I mean, it reminded me of that book, The Body Keeps Score. And of course, it’s talking about trauma and stuff. But we can pretend that stuff isn’t happening and that we’re not under all this stress and pressure. But eventually our body will tell us what’s going on. So, tell me about how that happened that you began to realize, no, this is a full-blown panic disorder.   CHRISTY BOULWARE  06:09 Yeah. So, I actually was in the airport on the way home Julie, I open up my email, and I realized I had missed about 200 emails. Now here’s what you need to know, I was in a high power corporate medical sales career. I had climbed the corporate ladder, I was incredibly successful, doing really well for myself making over six figures. And I was a workaholic. And I never rested. I was constantly obsessed with achievement, and accolades and money and the next sales gig that I could land. And so, I open up my email and like, oh, man, I got 200 emails, and all of a sudden, I started seeing black dots in my eyes. Sometimes when you slam on the brakes in a car because you don’t want to hit the car in front of you, and then you get this rush of adrenaline that comes through, and it feels like pins and needles in your body. That’s what was going on. I had black dots and pins and needles on the right side of my body. And I’m like, what is happening to me? It progresses, I go home, I’m trying to sleep, I can’t sleep. In the middle of the night, it’s about 3am, I start feeling complete paralysis on the right side of my body. I call my primary care physician and I’m like, Doc, something I can’t feel the right side of my body. He’s like, Christy, I think you’re having a stroke. Go ahead and take yourself to the emergency room. Husband takes me to the emergency room. And I get there and of course I land myself a stay. They do all the right stuff, cardiac screening, everything. I’m there for about a day. Doc comes in and guess what, Christy? Good news. everything checked out okay.   Now, Julie, at that point, I wanted to punch the doctor because I’m thinking there’s no way I’m okay. Like, I feel like I’m dying. And he said, but here’s the deal. We’re pretty sure you’ve got panic and anxiety. And I’m gonna write you a prescription for Xanax. Go home, follow up with your primary care in a little while and I thought you got to be kidding me? Like panic and anxiety? A bottle of Xanax? Like nothing computed, nothing made sense. And all the while I’m snowballing out of control. This panic and anxiety is getting worse and worse and worse. And just like that discharged me home. And I’m starting to understand, what does it mean to have severe panic and anxiety disorder?   JULIE ROYS  08:20 And at one point, it got so bad you couldn’t leave your bedroom? Is that right? Like your mother had to come? You had kids at the time too, right? What were the ages?   CHRISTY BOULWARE  08:28 Two small boys. Actually, this still haunts me during the severe panic and anxiety disorder. You’re right, I couldn’t leave my bedroom, my hair was falling out of my head I couldn’t eat. In my darkest moment, I had suicidal thoughts. There were hunting guns that were in the corner of our bedroom, and they weren’t loaded. But I knew where the bullets were. And the kingdom of darkness just whispered this thought, why don’t you just use those guns, you’re never gonna get through this. This is going to be your life forever. You’ve already missed your son’s first steps, which is, I was so confined to my bedroom that it was my only safe place. It was the isolation, it was, as soon as I began to walk out of the room, the panic and anxiety was so intense and so deep that I couldn’t breathe, and I couldn’t eat. And it was just like I couldn’t leave my bedroom. And it was so severe and so bad that the thought of, if I have to live like this, if this is gonna be my life forever, it would be better if I just wasn’t here.   And I remember my husband coming home the day that I was having those thoughts and I had put blankets over the guns. And he came in our bedroom that day, and he’s like, Christy, why are there blankets over my guns? And I just fell and collapsed into his arms, and I was like, because I am afraid I’m going to use them. I’m tempted to use them, and I remember him thinking like, wow,  I can’t fix this. This is so bad.   And see Julie I was a person that had it all together. I was a person that prided had myself in getting out of any difficult conversation, landing any sales deal, always being in control. So, to all of a sudden go from being this high executive, workaholic, corporate girl that had it all together to literally having back-to-back panic attacks being diagnosed with severe panic and anxiety disorder, not being able to leave my room, was such a huge change in my life that nobody understood, nobody got it. They were used to in control Christy.   JULIE ROYS  10:31 And you were used to in control Christy. I loved how you wove together in your book, your faith journey, with this whole journey through mental illness and panic disorder. Your faith at this point, sounds like you call it a CEO faith. So, I’ll let you describe what CEO is for but describe how this began to really break you. But spiritually, Jesus said, until a seed falls into the ground and dies, it can’t be reborn. And it really is often these breaking situations that brings us to the point of need, and understanding we need a savior. So, describe your faith and how this began to impact you spiritually.   CHRISTY BOULWARE  11:15 Yeah, and it’s the play on words with the title of the book. It’s nervous breakthrough, I had a nervous breakdown. But my nervous breakthrough was really the breaking point for everything that was important in my life. I was a CEO Christian, which is Christmas, Easter only. I grew up Catholic. And I had Catholic roots. I grew up praying traditional prayers, the rosary, going to parish school religion, but it was just a tradition. It was just a set of rules. It meant nothing to me. And it wasn’t until I was suicidal, having a nervous breakdown, diagnosed with severe panic and anxiety, where I started to ask myself important questions like, if my help doesn’t come from me, self-help, then where does it come from? And I would ask myself questions like, maybe there’s a better way than the way that I’m doing things. And I remember in the middle of my nervous breakdown, after the situation with the guns, there was a little cross that was above our bathroom in our master bedroom. And this cross meant nothing to me. And I had never even really paid attention to it other than it was just a nice gift that somebody gave to me at one point. And I remember after being so broken, that I got down on my knees, and I prayed to this little cross, because in my Catholic roots, you would kneel when you prayed, and I kneeled. And I was like, alright, God, if you’re real, and you are who you say you are. And again, Julie, I don’t know what I’m praying at this point. You know, I’m just saying these prayers out of desperation. Help me, I can’t make it through this on my own God, I need you to show up. And I promise if you do, I’ll dedicate my life to you.   That was the desperation. And it was like after that moment of surrender, after that moment of prayer, little mini miracle after mini miracles started to take place. And hope began to come back in the room. And also, the shift of that too was my husband’s prayer for me after the guns. We were not a praying couple. We knew of God. We didn’t have a problem with God. But we didn’t need God. And it wasn’t until I untangled my Superwoman cape and laid it at the feet of Jesus, that things started to actually turn around in my life.   JULIE ROYS  13:34 Interesting. And I’m just curious, as I’m listening to you, I’ve been actually going to an Enneagram coach, slash kind of spiritual advisor person.   CHRISTY BOULWARE  13:44 Are you an eight?   JULIE ROYS  13:46 No, everybody thinks I’m an eight. And I’m not and actually, she initially thought I was a one. Because that’s a reformer want to be good. And then she realized, no, I think you’re a three. Which is the achievement oriented. Are you a three?   CHRISTY BOULWARE  14:02 I’m an eight. I’m an eight.   JULIE ROYS  14:03 Oh, you’re an eight! Yeah, that’s interesting. Yeah. The challenger. Yeah. But I thought that was interesting. She said, “I think you grew up in such a one environment like I grew up in the holiness background. And that I think that’s why you presented as a one is because that’s like what’s most important to you. But yeah, more of a three. And I described something in my past where I’m like, I wonder I’ve always wondered Is that panic attack and she’s almost every three I’ve talked to has these in their background. And I remember at one point, I just memorized Psalm 90. I’ve memorized tons of Scripture, and I would just say them to myself to get through it. And that renewing of your mind that Scripture does is amazing, like putting the focus on Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I mean, just so hugely important. And it’s funny because I think a lot of people think, because of the line of work I’m in and the kind of people I go up against, I’m not scared. I’m scared all the time. If it weren’t for the Holy Spirit and His indwelling of me, and given me the courage and courage is not the absence of fear, right?   CHRISTY BOULWARE  15:02 So good. No. I think understanding the depth and magnitude of God’s love is one of the major things that we underestimate in dealing with overcoming fear and anxiety. And so, the Scripture you’re talking to is 1John 4:18,  but we’re not reading the beginning part of it. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.   JULIE ROYS  15:03 It’s walking through it. And for everybody who’s like getting all, I don’t know, you bring up Enneagram you never know what people were gonna say. I don’t even know what I think about it that much. All I know is I trust this person because she’s grounded in a Christian worldview. And I just find it a helpful tool. But as you’re saying this one of the things that she said to me, she went to these conferences, you know, it’s a secular, sort of in the Enneagram thing. And she said, they talked about fear. And they’re like, Yeah, this is all rooted in fear. So, you just have to stop fearing. And she’s like, you know, like, where? And she said, but the thing that struck me as a Christian being, you know, having the scriptures, perfect love drives out fear, right? Perfect love drives out fear. And I know that was important for you in your journey. If you could talk to me about how God’s love became real to you during this process, in maybe a way it hadn’t before.   CHRISTY BOULWARE  16:21 So first, we have to get real with the fact that there is no fear in love. So, if we’re fearing, is it possible that we don’t quite understand the love and magnitude and character of God’s faithfulness and goodness? I remember just recently; I was fearful about a procedure that I was having. And I was kind of having these mini panic attacks. I call them setbacks after the initial nervous breakdown now, when I have a panic attack, I call them a setback. But basically, I was in the closet, and I was praying. And I felt the Holy Spirit just say to me, daughter, I don’t dangle suffering over my children. And it was this moment of, well, yeah, would my dad dangles like my actual biological would he dangle suffering and I and I realized that not everybody has a beautiful relationship with their father, but my dad would never dangle suffering over me. That is not a loving thing to do. So, I started to just realize that man, God’s love is so deep and so good, and so faithful, that I have to understand his love better. And when I recognize his love, I’m not going to fear as much, and His perfect love really does cast out fear. So, I was trying to teach people like when you’re fearing and you have this anxiety, ask yourself like, is this the Lord? Did the Lord send this to you? And it’s no he didn’t. There is no fear in love because perfect love casts out fear.   JULIE ROYS  17:47 That was key for me is recognizing whenever you’re feeling fear, that’s never from God. Fear is from Satan, right?   CHRISTY BOULWARE  17:55 For I did not give you a spirit of fear, but of power, love, in 1Timothy That spirit of fear is demonic, and it’s just not from Jesus. Now, is there times that he’s going to warn you? But in those times where I have had those warnings, there’s a level of perfect peace that passes all understanding. I talked about when my father-in-law was dying of pancreatic cancer. And I remember being in a little side by side going to the farm with them. And I was like, I called him Papa B. I said Papa B, are you afraid right now? You’re facing death? No, I’m not afraid. I have this is like, Okay, God, whatever we’re going to face, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, no matter what I face, you’re going to be walking right beside me, therefore, I don’t have to fear. So therefore, if I am fearing, I know that it’s not from God. So, it’s just having to really recognize the fear that we walk through and knowing that he’s going to be right by our side, even if we do walk through it there. And we don’t have to be afraid then.   JULIE ROYS  18:54 And so, would you say that during this process is when you actually became a Christian? Or do you feel like you were a Christian when you were a kid? I don’t even know those designations are important, you know, in a way, because we either walk with Jesus and work out our salvation as we’re doing that. But I’m just curious, at what point you would say, Yes, this is where I became a Christ follower.   CHRISTY BOULWARE  19:15 Yeah, this is interesting, because I’ve wrestled with this, because in 2007, in my past church, my pastor asked me to raise my hand, and repeat a salvation prayer after him. And I guess in that moment, that’s when I committed my life to the Lord. But no fruit came from that prayer at all. I went back to doing my same old things. This was in 2007. And then in 2011, I had the nervous breakdown. And I would say that my moment of surrender, which surrender is a daily choice. Every day I have to choose to surrender to Jesus Christ every single day, sometimes minute by minute, Julie. And so, I think that breakthrough moment that breakdown moment was when I decided to say you know what, I’m no longer in control. You’re in control. Had I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior at that moment in 2007? Yes. However, I don’t believe my lips knew what I was saying, I don’t know that even my heart and my mind knew what I was saying, I required discipleship, I needed somebody to walk through that with me. I mean, my heart was good. I wanted that. But I didn’t know what I was saying, I didn’t know what I was committing my life to. And it wasn’t until that breakdown where I really had that breakthrough moment. So I would say my true surrender moment happened in 2011, in the middle of my severe panic and anxiety disorder.   JULIE ROYS  20:36 This would be a totally other discussion, I won’t go too far down this rabbit trail, but I’ve talked to a number of Catholic believers who own their faith later in their life or sometime in their adult life. And I talked to a guy who actually was involved in really evangelism among other Catholics. And he said, Boy, I tell you Catholics are so easy to lead to the Lord. And he believed there was a grace imparted when they were baptized. Of course, a lot of evangelicals would be like, No, that’s not possible. But he said, All I can say is the heart is often so ready to receive, because it’s been maybe bathed in this. And Catholics, of course, have a really good strong sense of guilt. So you don’t have to talk that much about needing forgiveness of sins. But I always love talking to people that come from a Catholic background, and who have really found true faith. And I think you can grow up just as nominal in a very Bible believing Evangelical Church and walking through the motions, and never have owned your faith. Fascinating to hear how this worked, and how the Lord worked in your life, to bring you to this point of surrender. You also Okay, I’m going to bring it full circle to our initial thing about medication, and faith versus medication. Obviously, there’s a faith component. Honestly, I don’t know how anybody makes it through any kind of mental illness without knowing the Lord without having God working in them. Because our mind is a battlefield. And if we are not renewing our mind with what’s true, the lies will just overcome us. But there’s also just our human weakness that our flesh, like sometimes we need some help. And so I know there’s been a lot of guilt around using medication as believers. And I think it’s really unfortunate. But would you speak to the role that medication played in kind of your healing and walking through this process?   CHRISTY BOULWARE  22:30 Absolutely. I was blessed with a Christian primary care physician. I didn’t know that he was a Christian. But when I had my follow up, after having my three weeks of back-to-back panic attacks, I walked into my primary care physician, and we discussed my hospital visit, we discussed my symptoms, and he looks at me and he says, Christy, you have severe panic and anxiety disorder. And then he goes on to say this, you are going to have to get to the root of your problem. Because if you don’t, and you don’t figure out how you got here, here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to give you a prescription, and it’s going to help, and you should use it. But you’re going to come back to me with the same problem and I’ll up your medication, and then you’re gonna come back to me again, and I’ll up your medication to where it’s gotten so far, that I can only give you so much, and then I won’t be able to help you anymore. So, I suggest you go home, and you do the work. And you figure out how you got here, and he even suggested, get into a church get into a church family. Now at this point, since I was a CEO Christian, I wasn’t faithfully committed to a church at all.    So, I remember thinking in the moment, wow, I don’t want to continue to be on medication for the rest of my life and keep upping my medication over and over and over. I don’t want to rely on that. So, I have an interesting perspective on this. I believe that the church has done a mighty disservice to people that are dealing with fear and anxiety with the work that I do with a nonprofit organization that I run. I can’t tell you how many people have come to me with spiritual abuse that have said, I was told that I didn’t have enough faith or if I would just pray more my anxiety would go away or mental health isn’t a real thing. And it breaks my heart because it’s really I have to tell you, if somebody in the spiritual community in the depths of my hell and the middle of my fear and panic and worry, would have handed me a Bible and said, You need to read your Bible more and you need to pray more, I would have been so devastated and so wounded, because here’s the truth. My body was in breakdown mode. I had so much adrenaline and cortisol flooding my body that I was literally in a depressive state, and I couldn’t function and think on my own. I didn’t know how to pray. I couldn’t open a Bible. I couldn’t read for myself. The medication got me to a point of stability to where then I could function I could shower again I could eat. And I was able to actually read a Bible or a book or pray or think clearly.   So, I feel very strongly that we should use medication and every good and perfect gift comes from above. So, if God is offered the medication and we have medication available, and we’re in a space where I was in then goodness gracious, use it now.   On the other side, I believe that we’re passing out antidepressants like candy. And that’s not the answer, either. So, what is the answer? The answer is we are a holistic body, soul, and spirit. I like to use a tricycle is a visual, but it’s got three wheels. And if I rolled into this interview with you on this tricycle, and only two of the tires had air in it, and one was completely flat, I would look like a fool trying to pump this thing into our interview, because it’s just not going to work properly. I have this dream of the faith community and the medical community coming together and working together so that we can treat somebody body soul and spirit and I have a whole chapter in my book on that. And so yeah, is there room for medication in the life of the believer? Absolutely! Especially for mental health. And I’m so grateful that I had it because I couldn’t, I wouldn’t have been stable without it. Now, am I on it anymore? No. But I did the hard work dug deep. And I like to say it’s like an arrow, a bow and arrow, sometimes you got to pull the arrow back. And that gives you the strength and the power to plow forward. And so, I say anybody, it’s my personal conviction. But if you’re on an antidepressant, or you’re using medication for anxiety, I believe that you should be walking with a therapist. I believe you should be doing the hard work to find out why it is that you’re there. And for me, it was years and years of the approval of man, that’s what my soul lived for. Success was my drug of choice. It was accolades and money and all the things that really doesn’t bring happiness and peace into your life. So, I had to dig deep. Why did I care so much about that? Why did I care about the approval of man? Why was I so obsessed about success and master’s degree and money and landing the next big, like, why was my worth founded in those things, and instead of in a holy, amazing God? So, I had to work through all of that. I had lots of pride; I was dripping with pride. All of my conversations were about me, myself, and I, and just really learning to let go of that. And focusing on what really matters in life, which is serving and loving Jesus,   JULIE ROYS  27:43 We look at these as breaking situations, I think they actually are what make us human. I look back at my life, and there’s numerous times where I feel like the Lord has broken me. I feel like I keep having to be in that Jacob situation where you wrestle with the Lord and you get the limp, you have to walk with a limp, or boy, I tell you pride it is the root, I think of just about all sins, has some sort of origin in pride.   Let’s talk about the battle of the mind a little bit. We’ve alluded to that. But when it comes to anxiety, there’s the snowballing effect, right? There’s a little thought, and then you obsess on it, it becomes bigger and bigger, and we get more and more anxious. So how did you find that you could deal with these thoughts? Scripture says take every thought captive. Easier said than done. Right? It’s like, okay, I got it. That’s a very difficult thing to do. And yet, I do think it’s something I don’t think God tells us to do something, and then doesn’t give us the equipment to do it. So how did you learn to deal with that?   CHRISTY BOULWARE  28:50 What I’m about to share with you is probably single handedly one of the most important things that I had to learn to be able to overcome fear and anxiety. And it’s this whole idea of our thoughts matter. And you mentioned the snowball, but like I’m a very visual person. So, what I literally think about is this tiny little snowball at the top of the hill, and then you just, ploop, you make the snowball go down the hill. And as it goes down the hill, it’s getting bigger and bigger, but it’s also getting faster and faster. And so, when I think about that, I think, Okay, I have got to stop my negative thought that’s coming in while it’s this tiny little ball at the top of the hill, because if it doesn’t, it will plow me over and I will have a panic attack. And so, the revolutionary idea that I had to understand was that my thoughts matter and my thoughts will cause panic and anxiety. And once I got real with that, and then I realized there’s science behind that, but then the Bible backs that up. I love Romans 12:2 where it says don’t conform to the patterns of this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. It’s this whole idea of okay, what does renewing your mind actually mean? What does it really mean to take every thought captive? And so, for me, it starts with a thought dump. Almost every day, Julie, and I’m not perfect, but almost every day, I will do a thought dump, which is where I’m really saying to myself, Okay, what ticked me off today? What am I frustrated about? What am I worried about? What am I happy about? So, I put gratitude in there as well. But then so what happens is, I began to see a theme. I am worried about my health today, or I am worried about this relationship today. I’m worried about this conflict. So, then I’m recognizing. so, I have these five R’s that I do. So, it’s the thought dump, and then I recognize so what’s the theme of my negative thought? Then I’m gonna replace it. So, what are the scriptures that I can use to replace these lies or these themes that I’m believing about myself? And then I’m going to rewrite it. And so, I’m going to actually take some time to insert God’s truths into these lies that I’m believing, and then I’m going to recite it. And I don’t think people go this far, they don’t talk or say it out loud. So, I take time to speak these rewrites out loud. And then I’m going to repeat it. I’m going to do it over and over. And guess what? The second I’ve mastered that negative thought that I have, another one comes in. So, it’s like, it’s and I have to then refuse to not renew my mind. Like, I have to renew my mind every single day. And so, I like to tell people once you’ve had a nervous breakdown, it’s like a heat stroke situation. Once somebody’s had a heat stroke, they’re more susceptible to having another one. It’s the same thing for me with panic and anxiety. So, I have to guard my heart and my mind, I have to do these thought dumps. It is a necessity in my daily living. Otherwise, I will have a panic attack in three seconds flat, and I know it like I know it. So, if I don’t journal if I’m not diligent about renewing my mind, I’m going to have what’s called a setback and aftershock is what I call them aftershocks, yes.   JULIE ROYS  32:07 Wow! So, it’s not something in a way you are walking with a limp. You’re recognizing this is my humaneness. This is my weakness, and it’s something that you live with, and you can overcome. But it’s like we live with our weaknesses, right? But how beautiful that it forces you to live a reflective life, it forces you to live a life that’s in conversation with your father about what’s true about me and what’s not true. And really daily, putting off the old man and putting on the new man, or the true self and the false self, however you want to call that. you also talk in your book about smoke alarms and recognizing that there’s smoke alarms that are going off. And I think you know, for the first part of your life, you were just ignoring these. Talk about those and how we can be recognizing when alarm goes off.   CHRISTY BOULWARE  32:56 Julie, if you and I were in the middle of this interview right now and a smoke alarm went off, we both would have to go Hold on stop cut the interview, you’d have to edit it, all that stuff. And we would have to pay attention to that smoke alarm. Yet, our body has these beautiful God has designed these beautiful built in smoke alarms that you and I are plowing through every single day. So, I’m very passionate about teaching people about smoke alarms and reminding them not to ignore these things. So, things like clenched jaw, or I always tell people when they’re sleeping, pay attention to where your shoulders are. Nine times out of 10 my shoulders are up here, and I’m supposed to be in bed. Like my shoulders are up to my ears and I’m tense in bed when I’m supposed to be relaxed. So, pay attention like where are your shoulders? How do your shoulder blades feel like how is your body? Are you clenching your fists? These are indicators. They’re smoke alarms, there are stress going on in your body that you’re not paying attention? Are you having tension headaches? Are you often having headaches? Is your stomach often off? Like you feel like you’ve constantly got butterflies? Are you having heart palpitations? Are you having tightness in your chest? These are all beautiful blessings. I like to tell people that sometimes anxiety is my friend, because it says hey Christy, something’s off here. Where are you not trusting the Lord? Where aren’t maybe you’re walking in unforgiveness right now maybe you’re bitter towards somebody, maybe you’ve got a conflict that you need to hit straight on and you’re not doing it? What are the smoke alarms that are going on in your life? Because I promise if we’ll just stop and go okay, Lord, my jaw has been clenched for three days. And I’ve had insomnia for four days. What is it that I need to hear from you on? What is it that I need to do? What is it that I need to trust you on? Just the other day I use a roller to help get the tension out. And I just felt like the Lord was like, hey, you can think about every knot that’s in your body is a way that you haven’t been surrendering or trusting me. And I thought oh man, what a way to look at it. Okay. Like I’m building this tension up, because I’m either trying to take control again, I’m not trusting the Lord, I’m not waiting on his timing. So, it’s like Carrie Underwood says, Jesus take the wheel. I’ve taken the wheel back again. So, it’s so important that we pay attention to the smoke alarms.   JULIE ROYS  35:16 So, I haven’t talked yet about Christian community. But I know for me, and it’s been traumatic for me, and I’ve talked about this in other podcasts, but we lost our church home, or we left. But it was a point at which we couldn’t trust the leaders anymore because of some of the covering up of sex abuse and some things that were happening. But that’s a trauma. And I found, we’ve been in a position in the past year and a half of rebuilding Christian community again, and I’m in my mid-50s, I’m not really enjoying having to do that at this stage of life. And yet God has been so gracious to bring just the people that have come into my life in the past year to 18 months have been just amazing gifts from God. It’s funny, I was talking to somebody just yesterday about the pain that they’ve gone through, in church and in Christian community. And I’m like, can’t live with them can’t live without them. You gotta just press in and somehow find Christian community, whether that’s in a formal church, when I totally get when people can’t. But man, we just, we can’t do it without each other. So, I’m just curious what role that Christian community played in your life, as you began to rebuild,   CHRISTY BOULWARE  36:32 I’m going to tell a little bit of a story because for my journey, letting someone into my mental health space was very challenging. And not everyone earns the right to speak into that deep, dark place. And I learned that the hard way. And so I had to really understand what proper community was first. And Beth Moore has this brilliant quote. She says be authentic with all transparent with most intimate with some. And so, then I had this kind of visual that I like to think about. And so, in the early 2000s, frosted glass in a bathroom was like, on a shower was really in and cool. Now, it’s like clear glass is really cool. But anyway, I have this thought of it’s frosted, glass, Christy, like, when you would walk into a bathroom, and you’re showering and frosted glass, if somebody came in, it would be fuzzy, right? They wouldn’t be able to see everything, they could see some things, but not everything. And I think that’s how we’re supposed to be with most people. Transparent where you can see but not everything. But where I went wrong is I was intimate with so many people about my journey, and my healing, and just my heart. And they didn’t prove to me that they could handle it. And I was destroyed by that. And that actually wound up isolating me more. So, for me, I had to learn what trustworthy people were. And I had to learn that the hard way. And so, community at first wasn’t a great thing for me. And it wasn’t until I had to walk through that, until I realized that once I shared with healthy, trustworthy community, God’s people then that true healing and community took place.   JULIE ROYS  38:22 Yeah, that’s something definitely as I’ve lived in this very public space that I’ve had to learn and learn some of it the hard way, that there are some things you really do have to hold very tightly and only share with really trusted friends.   CHRISTY BOULWARE  38:38 Be a little frosty is what I like to say.   JULIE ROYS  38:40 A little frosty is very true. And especially when you’re in a space where you have as many enemies as I do. You really have to watch that, yet you have to find that place where you can be real but absolutely true that you don’t have to be intimate with very many, even though that’s really important. Well, this concludes part one of my interview with Christy Boulware. And if you’ve been encouraged by this episode, you’re going to love Christy’s book, Nervous Breakthrough: Finding Freedom From Fear and Anxiety in a World that Feeds It. And this month we’re offering Christy’s book is our gift to anyone who gives $30 or more to The Roys Report. As you know, we don’t have any huge donors or grants driving our work, but we have you the people who are passionate about seeing truth exposed and the church restored. So, if you’d like to support our work and get a copy of Christy’s book, just go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. But there’s more to come from my conversation with Christy. In part two, Christy tells what happened when she got well enough that she wanted to help others and start her own nonprofit. You would think this would be something that her pastor would be excited about, but instead he tried to shut it down which sent Christy into a tailspin. Fortunately, some wise friend spoke truth to Christy about her pastor and her church.   CHRISTY BOULWARE  40:05 We sought console outside of our local church. And so, I sent the notes over to this pastor, my husband and I, and this pastor and his wife, we sat down over a nice lunch. And I’ll never forget it, Julie, he just very boldly and bluntly said, Christy, we reviewed your pastor’s notes, and we think you’re in a cult. And we think that he is using scripture to manipulate and to control you.   JULIE ROYS  40:31 Well, again, that’s just a taste of the second part of my discussion with Christy, which explores spiritual abuse and how to respond to it. We’ll be releasing part two in just a few days, so you’ll want to be watching for that. But thanks so much for listening to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. And if you want to make sure that you never miss an episode, I encourage you to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts or Spotify. And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks so much for joining me today. Hope you were blessed and encouraged. Read more

Guest Bios Show Transcript Hillsong Church has been embroiled in a steady stream of scandals, exposing sexual and financial misconduct—and a toxic and exploitative leadership culture. So, should we still be singing their worship songs? Or should we re-think our song selection and worship sets? In this podcast, Julie continues her dialogue with two collaborators of a groundbreaking new study on modern worship. And in this second of a two-part conversation, we explore the scandals surrounding the megachurches producing so many of our worship songs. As we discussed in part one of our discussion, the new study found that almost all the top worship songs, being sung in churches across America, are produced by just four megachurches. They are Hillsong, Bethel, Elevation, and Passion City Church. Now, the two study collaborators, Elias Dummer and Dr. Shannan Baker, join me for part two, where we discuss the scandals at these incredibly influential megachurches and implications of using their creative content. Elias is a singer/songwriter who’s also worked in marketing and research. And Shannan is a post-doctoral research fellow at Baylor University, who’s studying contemporary worship. So, they know this subject matter extremely well and were able to provide valuable insights. At some points, though, we disagreed strongly. But Scripture tells us that “iron sharpens iron” (Proverbs 27:17) and we believe that this kind of challenging discussion helps all of us think more critically and deeply. Guests Dr. Shannan Baker Dr. Shannan Baker is a postdoctoral research fellow at Baylor University, where she recently received the Outstanding Dissertation Award for the Humanities. Her research focuses on contemporary worship. She explores the theology of the text, the music and industry of the songs, and its practice in the church. Her hope is that her research will edify the body of Christ by finding practical applications for the worship life of the church. Elias Dummer Elias Dummer, a native of Ontario, Canada, and current resident of Nashville, Tenn., is passionate about the local church. A founding member of The City Harmonic, he was lead singer and songwriter for the contemporary Christian band which disbanded in 2017 after eight years together. Recently, he helped plant a church near Nashville and has released a two-part solo album entitled The Work. Show Transcript ELIAS DUMMER, JULIE ROYS, SHANNON BAKER, PhD JULIE ROYS 00:04 Hillsong Church has been embroiled in a steady stream of scandals exposing sexual and financial misconduct and a toxic and exploitative leadership culture. So, should we still be singing their worship songs? Or should we be rethinking everything, including our worship sets? Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And this is part two of my discussion of a groundbreaking new study on modern worship with two study collaborators Elias Dummer and Dr. Shannon Baker. Elias is a singer songwriter who’s also worked in marketing and research. And Shannon is a postdoctoral research fellow at Baylor University who’s studying contemporary worship. In part one, we explored how almost all the top worship songs being sung in churches across America are produced by just four mega churches. They are Hillsong, Bethel, Elevation, and Passion City Church. It was a fascinating discussion exploring the history and development of the modern worship movement. And I encourage you if you haven’t already, go back and listen to that podcast. But in part two, we talk about the scandals these incredibly influential mega churches had been involved in and what that means for worship pastors and congregants. Ours was a very lively discussion, and at some points, we disagreed strongly. But I believe we generated more light than heat. And so, I’m really excited to share this podcast with you. But first, I’d like to thank the sponsors of this podcast, Judson University, and Marquardt of Barrington. Judson University is a top ranked Christian University providing a caring community and an excellent college experience. Plus, the school offers more than 60 majors great leadership opportunities and strong financial aid. Judson University is shaping lives that shaped the world. For more information, just go to JUDSONU.EDU. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity, and transparency. That’s because the owners there Dan and Kurt Marquardt are men of integrity. To check them out. Just go to BUYACAR123.com. Well, again, joining me to discuss some of the difficult issues surrounding the worship industry, and the songs that we sing every week in church, are Elias Dummer and Dr. Shannon Baker. We pick up our discussion with my explanation of the conundrum I feel in singing worship songs produced by mega churches like Hillsong, which seem so corrupt. This worship was making Brian and Bobby Houston, the founders of Hillsong, rich. It was enriching their son Joel, who was heading up Hillsong worship. In fact, Joel Houston wrote The Stand. And I watched the video, and it was from 12 years ago, I watched it last night. And honestly, I am even now thinking about it. It’s hard for me, because that song, I remember singing, right? I remember being moved by that song. And I’m seeing people on this video clearly impacted singing worship to the Lord. And yet right now it turns my stomach. There’s no way that the people at the top didn’t know what was going on, and what they were participating in. How do we process so much of this? Let’s just look at Hillsong first, and let me just ask you Elias; today, would you play a Hillsong song at your church? ELIAS DUMMER 03:39 Without hesitation. JULIE ROYS 03:41 You would play one? ELIAS DUMMER 03:41 Absolutely. JULIE ROYS 03:42 Okay. ELIAS DUMMER 03:43 I think if you start to go down that road, you may as well rip two thirds of the Psalms out of the Bible. David was an accused rapists for all intents and purposes. SHANNON BAKER, PhD 03:54 And murderer. ELIAS DUMMER 03:55 And murderer. Paul, once upon a time murderer. I think it’s also really easy to look and see a shared last name and assume that everything Joel did, it’s an impossible game to win. And we’ve all worked in and alongside larger institutions. And while there are cultural facets that play out if that’s very true, I think the specifics matter. The sort of Whack a Mole boogeyman thing doesn’t work because it is so often distraction to solving the real problems. I’ll give you a really specific example. In the Hillsong documentary that came out a couple of years ago, I guess now, the last episode of that documentary, the focus on the assaults and the cover ups. That was really the meat of what that thing should have been the entire time. And probably because of the way that Netflix distribution deals work, they had to make three episodes. I’ve been in the media world we all know how this works. They made three episodes out of a one-episode, important conversation piece. And what they filled almost an entire episode with discussions about manipulative music. When in reality, not manipulative music most people would consider to be bad music. Like we literally go to music to be emotionally manipulated. We go to all music for that purpose. And so, it is a tricky thing because we engage music, we love the art, the art does something in us psychologically, neurologically, and emotionally. And then we come out of that, inferring upon its author all kinds of trust, and goodwill and assumption, in most cases, that may or may not be fair. Like, O Holy Night; people love O Holy Night. I might be wrong about this. But I had heard it was written by a guy who’s not a believer at all. So, we have to be really careful with assuming that art and its author always have this direct relationship to its use. I think we’ll be sorely disappointed in the Bible’s authors; we’ll be sorely disappointed in the authors of the Psalms, and we’ll be left with very little to do if we’re looking for humans that aren’t complex to create art. May as well the AI do the rest. JULIE ROYS 06:07 A lot there. Let me push back a little bit. Because I hear the David thing all the time, right? I think one of the things we forget about David is that he was punished. His firstborn with Bathsheba was killed, the Lord took his life. We also forget that David repented. And I haven’t seen repentance from the Houston’s. ELIAS DUMMER 06:30 But we don’t strike the pre repentant Psalms from the Bible. JULIE ROYS 06:33 No, but I’m saying what we see in David is someone that the Lord called a man after his own heart, and part of being a man after his own heart, was how he responded to sin. And he was very repentant in what happened. And when I report these stories, people often say, what are you hoping for? I’m hoping for repentance. I’m not hoping for things to burn down. I’m hoping for the leaders to repent. I have yet to see it. ELIAS DUMMER 06:59 You and I are on the same. I mean, my wife and I had this conversation not too long ago. I’ve had eight senior pastors in my life that I’ve served under or alongside. Of those eight, three are no longer pastors because of something related to sexual sin or adultery or similar things. So, it’s not like I don’t understand what it means to see the scale of the problem. That’s not what I’m saying at all. What I’m saying is, we can’t take for granted like, what is it that Joel Houston is supposed to be? It’s a leap, for example, to say, because this happened at the top, and they share a last name, it must mean that he knew what was going on, it might. JULIE ROYS 07:37 if you look at the whistleblower documents that have come out, the enriching that was going on, was throughout the entire organization. ELIAS DUMMER 07:45 And I’ll give you an example, the reporting on that scandal about a month ago, I believe, indicated as one of its big whistleblower elements, that Hillsong had paid a million dollars in royalties to Joel Houston. And this was treated as one of the negative components. The crazy thing about that is Hillsong was legally obligated to pay those royalties to Joel Houston. They were collected through ASCAP and BMI and these sorts of things. And Joel and Hillsong as the song publisher, now we can have a conversation about that. But Hillsong as the song publisher couldn’t keep the money, it had to go to Joel. JULIE ROYS 08:20 And that’s the way things were set up. I will say right now. ELIAS DUMMER 08:22 That’s how songwriting works. JULIE ROYS 08:24 I don’t know why that wasn’t happening, as I understand, with Vineyard when they were doing it. ELIAS DUMMER 08:29 It’s kind of that’s a different conversation, then. Yeah, yeah, question of whether songs are tracked. And whether the whether $1 exists, that’s never the question. Somebody somewhere made a few bucks. And in the days of Fanny Crosby, it was the hymn publisher who made the money, and it just didn’t happen to flow down all that often. So, there is and always is money in the distribution of goods right? Now, our relationship to that I’m not taking that for granted as good. That’s not my point. My point is that we want to say, the way it is now is uniquely evil. I think it’s different. And I think it’s complicated. And I think if we don’t deal with the specifics, then our efforts to deal with what looks like the problem end up being a little more than hot noise and white noise, that we never deal with the real thing because it’s too easy to dismiss. And Hillsong is filled with examples where that documentary was a perfect example. Somebody could go and what are you talking about? Listen, all music moves me. And then the credibility of the documentary is shot. The documentary has spent an hour talking about something that’s easily dismissed before addressing a thing that’s very much a problem. JULIE ROYS 09:38 I’m not arguing that. Yeah, and I’m not arguing in favor, I think Hillsong there’s been a lot of documentaries made and they’re made by organizations that, frankly, don’t understand half the time. The media organizations they may be trying to do their job, or they may be trying to sensationalize. ELIAS DUMMER 09:54 But there’s a lot of information missing. JULIE ROYS 09:56 But there often is, and this is my thing with so much of the media when they report on evangelicalism. They don’t understand evangelicalism, they don’t understand the church. And so, they don’t, I don’t think they do it well, and they often miss it. And sometimes they do it very well. But sometimes they don’t. But I cannot overlook how big and how much money is being exchanged. And when we talk about these four churches again, the whistleblower documents that were released what it showed, and it called the whistleblower themselves who came from within Hillsong this wasn’t an outsider, this was an insider, called something called the celebrity preacher scam. This whole, you invite me to your church, my church will pay you an exorbitant honorarium, then I’ll invite you to my church, we’ll pay you an exorbitant honorarium. We’ll give you first class or business class travel, we’ll put you up in the best hotels, and who’s the honorarium going to? It’s coming from the church from donors money, but it’s going to the particular pastor who’s coming to speak. And when we look at these four churches, here we go. Hillsong is a number one mega church that’s driving all of this. I would say, it’s so much of this worship music. Louie Giglio of Passion was a regular speaker at Hillsong, pulling honorariums between $5000, which may seem reasonable to $35,000 Australian dollars for each engagement. Bill Johnson, head of Bethel spoke at Hillsong least four times between 2019-2020 making between $5000-$28,000 a speaking engagement that’s in Australian dollars. Steven Furtick, of Elevation Church spoke at Hillsong, at least once. Again, these aren’t the whistleblower documents aren’t comprehensive of everything. it’s what was reported and what we have, but at least once was paid $14,000 to speak at Hillsong. But of course, we know Steven Furtick lives in a 16,000 square foot, multimillion dollar house. I am looking at that seeing in Scripture that you’re right, money isn’t evil, but the love of money is. And when you see these kinds of huge honorariums going to the head of these churches. And you see the kind of collusion when you’re talking about, you can say there’s nothing evil about that. But how much has money perverted, and this is the question, I guess, when we get right down to it, is how much has money and the love of money, perverted not just these churches and the way they’re operating, but the worship industry itself? Because let’s look at the four most powerful churches that influence the songs that we sing. And are they even living in a godly manner? How would Jesus feel if he came today, to those churches? Would he be flipping the tables? Would he be? ELIAS DUMMER 12:36 Those are great questions. I mean, I think it’s a complicated space that we live in, and I Shannon hasn’t as much I’ve lived in that space for the last 20 years. There’s a couple of things to consider. This isn’t necessarily an apologist approach; I’m just throwing it out there. The way that the talent industry works, and the way that the music industry works, and whether we like it or not, that’s what we’re talking about here, talking about people who have managers and agents, and so on. And depending on their book publishing deal, depending on their record label deal, and how it all there’s people who have to share everything, it’s all percentage splits. So, if you are a speaker, and you have an agent, that agents probably taking anywhere from 10 to 15%, sometimes more, depending on their deal, you have a manager who’s taking 15 to 20%, sometimes more depending on the deal. And so, you’re looking at anywhere from a range of minimum 25% to 35-40%, going out the door immediately. So, every fee gets split, and then you’ve got costs on top of that. So even your $5,000 fee starts to look pretty unreasonable for the sort of black and white value that a speaker would bring to attending an event. And now that’s, of course, more true in the conference space than it is true in the local church environment. That’s a different ballgame. But at some point, it does get complicated and weird. You’re right. I will say in from my own life, I’m someone who has gone out of my way to set my life up so that I’m operating with integrity. To some people’s standards, I make good money. The reality is most of that money is made in my business ventures. So, what people don’t, it can be easy. And it’s helpful to have the real black and white documents, of course, but it can be easy to project onto Oh, the fees are there. Therefore, this is happening. When I think of Saddleback and that sort of thing, where the salary was $0. And his books were selling enough that the books bought his house multi times over. And Stephen Furtick’s case I know he’s often listed as a writer; we could talk about that. But at the end of the day, if he’s a writer on all of these big songs, to what extent is that the fruit of his work as a pastor speaker versus the fruit of his work as a creator and that sort of thing? I don’t know that I have the answer to that. I do share your discomfort with it. With the sort of sheer scale and the way that there is this ability to dictate the market when you have a big enough share of the market. That’s true in every market. JULIE ROYS 15:01 One thing, let me just when it comes to Steven Furtick, his name being on all the songs, interestingly, because I’ve spent a lot of time reporting on Harvest Bible Chapel. And James MacDonald was on some of those songs. Luke MacDonald was on a lot of them. I’m not sure what role they actually played on them. But I know when they set it up, you’re right, Vertical Worship, they will get a cut. I don’t know if they’re still getting a cut. I know they were. I also know that those contracts from talking to Josh Caterer who used to be a worship pastor there, but who had been in the music industry for a long time, before he became a believer, actually had a punk rock band. And he said, those were the most exploitative contracts he’d ever seen. In fact, he left because he wouldn’t sign it. But Furtick Yeah, he’s probably getting a commission on the music. Some might look at that and say, well, he wrote it, and he should be a part of it. Some might look at that and say, Well, isn’t that nice? He got his name on there, so he could get the royalty. There’s two ways to look at that. ELIAS DUMMER 15:57 I do know that he contributes to some songs very meaningfully. I’ll say that. He’s not a writer. JULIE ROYS 16:01 Okay. Let me say too, though, when you look at his house, we don’t know his salary, because they don’t disclose it. If you’re a secular nonprofit in the United States, you have to disclose your top wage earners. The only ones that don’t are churches. And why is it that a church, a religious nonprofit where you have people giving to God’s work, why should the leaders there be less accountable than your secular nonprofit? So, we don’t know what his salary is. But we do know that the people that set his salary, who are supposedly providing accountability, are other megachurch pastors. Who are the megachurch pastors that are setting a salary, and what are their salaries, what do they think is reasonable? And the fact that they won’t tell us there is no transparency. So that kind of transparency, like you’re teaching us some stuff about what’s happening in the music industry. But there is a lack of transparency across the board. ELIAS DUMMER 16:51 I totally agree. And I think that’s part of what motivates us a little bit, is the idea that I think we operate with a sort of naive mythos of what worship songs are, and partly evangelicals and Christians, maybe not at large, but evangelicals certainly have this sort of allergy to talking about business in business terms. So, we’re drawn to using spiritually veiling language instead of discussing money as money. I think for me, part of what motivates me in this, and I’ve said this to Phil Wickham, when he asked why we’re doing this, it is, at the end of the day, I think it’s important that we talk about what is true so that we can solve real problems with real facts,. It is really hard if what we’re doing is talking about these ideals we hold about the things and not treating the participants as human beings and not taking for granted that basically caricature which isn’t quite what you’re doing in this case. But I agree with you in transparency, we need to be talking transparently about how money works in the music business, about how royalties work about how we discover songs, but what we really think about that sort of thing, and what we think about where worship songs come from, and why. And if we can have an honest conversation about that, then maybe we can shape an industry which is going to exist in some form, into something that we all feel better about. But if what we do instead, just like with senior pastors, is prop up a sort of mythology of the thing, then we can’t do that. It protects the status quo. Now our team is a bunch of participants. We’re not trying to take this thing down. That’s not at all what we’re trying to do. I probably trust the Joel Houston’s of the world more than you’re prone to do. And that’s fine. But it’s not because I think the sun shines out of something. It’s just as simple as saying, I think our relationship to art is complicated. And the industry, which we’re all forced to participate in, in doing this is also very complicated. And naivety around that is part of what contributes to the degree of hurt that so many of us experience. JULIE ROYS 18:56 Shannon, let me ask you, when we’re talking about some tough things, and I liked that this conversation has gotten real. I think it’s healthy to have this kind of back and forth. But as you look at scripture and principles, what should be guiding us as we do try to evaluate this industry and these kinds of issues that we’re talking about? SHANNON BAKER, PhD 19:20 Yeah, I think the guiding factor for me, as I’m thinking about, I’ve also been a worship pastor at a church for a few years, is when we’re looking at all of these songs, I think, above all else, making sure that we’re selecting songs, wherever they come from, that have solid, biblical and theological truths that align with interpretation of Scripture, for your context, I think is the most important factor. And I think I’m being broad intentionally because there are churches that will use Bethel songs and have no problem with Bethel theology. And will use Bethel songs. Great if it’s edifying your church and people are coming to know Christ, awesome. Because that’s the goal, right is to have more and more people drawn to Christ. I know there are other churches that don’t agree with Bethel’s theology, and will not use Bethel songs, and they’re finding other songs, and people are coming to know Christ. And I think at the end of the day, yes, it’s helpful to know who the songs are by. I mean, Elias has already given a lot of contexts for maybe how to approach who the artist is. But I think for me, it’s really just important that whatever you’re singing is theologically true and aligns with good interpretation of Scripture. So, and I think what really comes down to that is some people would look at these four mega churches and say none of them do. They’ll look at all four of them and say, the songs, none of them are theologically true. It’s all heresy. Which, you know, that’s their prerogative. I think there are some great songs coming from these churches. But I would say for the ones who just blindly use the songs from these four primary contributors, just for whatever reason, maybe they don’t have enough time to listen for new people, or they just trust them. So, we’ll use whatever they get from them. I would just challenge to look for the songs that are maybe a little more hidden. Spotify makes it really easy. And whatever songs you find, just remembering too, yes, music can be manipulative, but making sure that the words we’re singing and that worship pastors are choosing for people to put on their lips and say before God, are theologically true. JULIE ROYS 21:41 I’m trying to think the on the list that I saw, was In Christ Alone on there? SHANNON BAKER, PhD 21:46 So that song was written before 2010. JULIE ROYS 21:49 I was gonna say that would be an outlier. SHANNON BAKER, PhD 21:52 It does appear it says there are a few outliers like that. In Christ Alone I believe appeared on almost every single list in the 2010s decade. So, there are a few of those songs that are still sung just weren’t new songs on our list. JULIE ROYS 22:08 That would be one, I would say it’s theologically rich. But you’re right. That’s a good question. We haven’t really talked that much about the actual content of the songs and what’s happening with them. We used to have a joke, I know at our church, that there are meteorology songs, let it rain and let the winds blow and the song, and some of them have very little theological content. Although I will say too, one of the things I think that worship music gets really pounded for is people say, Oh, it’s just mushy, love songs. And when I look at the Psalms, that’s a lot of mushy love songs in there. And people would say, we sing them over and over again. And I’m like, What do you kiss your wife over and over again? Yeah, I mean, I think we forget that this is relationship with God. And I appreciate what you brought up there, Shannon. At our we had a Restore Conference last year. And it was our second one that we’ve done, but it gathers a lot of folks that have been hurt or wounded by the church. And in our first one, I intentionally wanted to have worship there. I know there’s some people that will be like, when you gather people who have been wounded by the church, these are just all triggers for them, and some will go so far that we shouldn’t talk about God because they were hurt by the church. And if we don’t talk about God, and we don’t invite the Holy Spirit to be present, then we’re cutting ourselves off from the source of our healing. And that will be devastating to us. So, the first one we did that we actually had a band. The second one, I just really felt it was important to strip it all down. And so, we just had a guitar and the worship leader brought, he did bring somebody who played keyboards and would sing background, but it’s very stripped-down worship. And almost all of our songs were hymns. Because I did notice that so many of the worship songs today, for these people who have been hurt in the church, have triggers for them. But it makes me wonder but for the people listening who have been through sort of a church hurt experience, and they’re looking at these songs or even looking at how it can be done differently, speak to them. How should they look or approach this worship music that and I understand what you’re saying Elias. Handel’s Messiah, I don’t think Handel was a Christian even. And yet we worship with it. But yet I think now because of the current cultural moment that we’re in, with so many of these scandals blowing up, and because of people being wounded in those environments, what would you say to them when they say, I know a lot of them saying, I have trouble even entering into worship anymore, because of what happened to me. ELIAS DUMMER 22:55 Sure. Yeah. That’s definitely a heavy thing to think through. And like I mentioned earlier, not something that I don’t personally understand exactly. My own main mentor in life is somebody with whom I have a complicated relationship in my mind. I think of stuff going on over in the UK right now as a really good example of the same sort of thing and people like Matt Redman are commenting on it. So, I think there’s this. JULIE ROYS 25:17 And let me just for those who don’t know about that, we actually just published a story not long ago about Mike Pilavachi, who was the founder of Soul Survivor, which brought huge youth festivals, would bring in like 30,000 youth from all around mostly UK, but really all around the world. People would come from all over. ELIAS DUMMER 25:34 It was hugely influential for me. JULIE ROYS 25:36 And what’s coming out is that a lot of allegations that he abused these young men who were a part of the Ministry of Soul Survivor, and Matt Redman was one of the early people that came his worship music really became popular through Soul Survivors. Go ahead. ELIAS DUMMER 25:52 Yeah. So, all that to say, I think there is often this kind of flattening of the question of experience of church based on the platform versus not the platform, that I don’t know if it works in reality. I think there is a pretty big gap between the senior pastor in the church and everybody else very often. And there’s just people have different roles to play, and they play them. And so, I think, experientially, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s going to be easy to be in a context where you’re experiencing something that for you is associated with pain and hurt. I can understand that. And I can understand needing to work through that. But at the same time, we’re human beings. So, if I think about like, what it means to think about humans coming together in worship, there isn’t really another activity that’s as unifying, in a holistic sense, in an embodied sense, as song. And so, it’s difficult to think of something which would cause 300 people to pray the same thing at the same time and feel something about it. It’s basically music, that’s what we’ve got. There’s no easy answer to that question, I guess is what I’m saying. It just really is a difficult thing to work through. I think where it gets hard is when we start to want to remove anything that can be very difficult. I don’t know exactly how we do that, and then not end up with something which is as lifeless and soulless, and almost dualistic in a sense. We start to take the things like the one that gets raised a lot in my world is that question of emotional manipulation. Is worship music emotionally manipulative? And my answer is yes. And the reason is, what I said earlier. We look to music to do that thing; that’s music’s function is to move us. And the person who first sought to manipulate the music was the writer trying to manipulate themselves, in a sense. Like trying to bring about in them a feeling that conveyed the thing they were trying to put across. And it’s so easy to look at the people doing this and infer intent and infer sort of malice, where maybe it might exist, and it might not. And I wish there was an easier answer for this. But in my experience, there isn’t. It is just a complicated thing that is hard to wrestle through, if you’ve been through that sort of hurt. I’m writing songs like this. And I was talking with my friend Chris, who’s in a band called Brain Collective. And we were writing a song together. And we were saying how it can be so hard to write worship songs, because every song is practically an existential crisis. You don’t have that when you’re writing love songs about your wife, it’s not the same. And so, it’s not as though the writers of these songs are lacking gravitas and are not wrestling with these questions themselves. They are. They’re often some of the first victims of it. And so, I think we need to be comfortable, or we need to at least do the work of seeing things for what they are and what they are not and approaching them as such. And yes, that can be like untangling a ball of yarn. But on some level, if we hope to still be around in this thing. That’s work we have to do. And it’s hard. JULIE ROYS 29:11 I know for me, there was a period where I couldn’t listen to any modern worship. I’ve come back to being able to and I lead worship, just in a small context now. But being able to play some of those songs that have such positive connotations for me, where it says in Scripture, come back to the things that you did at first, and often those are those songs that are so meaningful, that first connected me with the Lord. And so, I found that very meaningful. Now, will I ever be able to sing an Elevation song again? Or Hillsong? I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t know. That would be really tough for me personally, but I hear what you’re saying. And I appreciate it. Shannon, any final thoughts on your part before we sign off here? SHANNON BAKER, PhD 29:58 I guess my final thought would be our study focused on the 2010s decade. It focused on the previous decade leading up to the pandemic. The worship landscape now, the contemporary worship landscape now looks very different, and there is starting to be a shift. That is encouraging. There are new artists that are emerging. One of them seemingly has no connection to these big four. Her name is Charity Gale. She’s becoming more and more popular. Maverick City is coming up. Other names are becoming known whether they have associations to these big four are not. So, I would say, on an encouraging note, the 2020s, I think, are going to look very different than the past decade. And there are a lot of positive changes that I think are coming. JULIE ROYS 30:48 Is there any chance that somebody who just writes songs and isn’t a great singer or performer, that their song will ever their worship song could ever be played? SHANNON BAKER, PhD 30:58 If they’re not the one particularly recording it or releasing it themselves? I think they can collaborate with some people who are, and it probably will get known that way. But without, right now, I think unless you’re latching on to an artist that’s becoming popular right now without a connection to them, or getting and landing a big record deal, I think it’s very difficult. Which again, puts the burden on the worship pastor and the worship leader to take the challenge and the responsibility to seek out lesser-known artists who are writing great songs. You just have to look for them. JULIE ROYS 31:38 And maybe within your church context, there can be songs that are just yours, and are happening being written by your own people. Well, Shannon, and Elias, thank you so much for this challenging discussion and for the insights you have from the study. I know it’s continuing to be released. I think you’ve released like three articles, which is releasing part of your study. But like a total of you expect about eight, right? So, we’re not even halfway through some of the unveiling that’s going to happen. So yeah, I look forward to that and to reading those. But thank you so much for taking the time today. Really appreciate it. Well, again, thanks so much for listening to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And if you’ve appreciated this podcast, would you please consider supporting the work we do at The Roys Report? Its generous supporters like you that make this podcast and all of our investigative work at The Roys Report possible. And this month for gift of any amount, we’ll send you a copy of Wounded Workers: Recovering From Heartache in the Workplace in the Church. I know a lot of you who listen to this podcast have experienced church hurt, and many may be in a situation right now where you’re trying to evaluate whether to stay or to leave. This book is especially designed for you, and I think you’re going to find it invaluable. So, to donate and get a copy of Wounded Workers just go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. 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Guest Bios Show Transcript What comes to mind when you hear Hillsong? Elevation? Passion? Bethel? You may think megachurch. You may think controversy or scandal. But you also may think of music. And chances are, if you were in church last Sunday, you sang a song produced by, or associated in some way with, one of these four worship powerhouses. In this edition of The Roys Report, two collaborators of a new study on worship join me to discuss their stunning findings. Perhaps the biggest jaw-dropper is that almost all the top songs sung in churches across America over the past decade have been produced by just four megachurches — Hillsong, Elevation, Bethel, and Passion City Church. And what’s especially concerning is that some of these megachurches have been embroiled in scandal and have ties to questionable theology. Hillsong, for example, has been embroiled in one scandal after another for the past two years, involving alleged sexual misconduct, fraud, spiritual abuse, and toxic leadership.   Bethel has attracted controversy for promoting bizarre practices like “grave soaking.” Elevation, Bethel, and Hillsong have been accused of promoting the prosperity gospel. And Passion Lead Pastor Louie Giglio was a frequent speaker at Hillsong and participated in what some have dubbed Hillsong’s “celebrity preacher’s scam.” So, what does it mean that these churches have essentially had a monopoly on worship in American churches? Historically, how did we get here? And how should churches and worship leaders navigate this current music landscape?  These two guests bring much wisdom and experience to the discussion. Dr. Shannan Baker earned her Ph.D. in Church Music and is affiliated with Baylor’s Christian Music Studies program. And Elias Dummer is a veteran worship leader and singer-songwriter with decades of experience on the inside of the Christian music industry. Guests Dr. Shannan Baker Dr. Shannan Baker is a postdoctoral research fellow at Baylor University, where she recently received the Outstanding Dissertation Award for the Humanities. Her research focuses on contemporary worship. She explores the theology of the text, the music and industry of the songs, and its practice in the church. Her hope is that her research will edify the body of Christ by finding practical applications for the worship life of the church. Elias Dummer Elias Dummer, a native of Ontario, Canada, and current resident of Nashville, Tenn., is passionate about the local church. A founding member of The City Harmonic, he was lead singer and songwriter for the contemporary Christian band which disbanded in 2017 after eight years together. Recently, he helped plant a church near Nashville and has released a two-part solo album entitled The Work. Show Transcript SPEAKERS SHANNON BAKER, PhD, JULIE ROYS, ELIAS DUMMER JULIE ROYS 00:04 What comes to mind when you hear Hillsong, Elevation, Passion, Bethel? You may think megachurch, you may think controversy or scandal. But you also may think of music. And chances are if you were in church last Sunday, you sang a song produced or associated in some way with one of these four worship powerhouses. Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys and joining me today are two collaborators on a new study exploring the songs we sing in church and the affiliations that produce them. Stunningly, almost 100% of the top 25 worship songs of the past decade were written or in some way connected to just four mega churches. And those mega churches don’t necessarily have the best reputations. Hillsong, for example, has been embroiled in one scandal after another for the past two years. These involve allegations of sexual misconduct, fraud, spiritual abuse, and toxic leadership. Bethel has attracted controversy for promoting bizarre practices like grave soaking. Elevation, Bethel and Hillsong had been accused of promoting the prosperity gospel, Passion is perhaps the least controversial among the four though Hillsong whistleblower documents show that Passion pastor Louie Giglio was a frequent speaker at Hillsong. And he participated in what some have dubbed Hillsong celebrity preachers scam. So what does it mean that these organizations have essentially had a monopoly on worship in American churches? Historically, how did we get here and what’s the takeaway for worship pastors and congregants? I’m super excited to explore these important questions with my guest today. But first, I’d like to thank our sponsors, Judson University and Marquardt of Barrington. Judson University is a top ranked Christian University providing a caring community and an excellent college experience. Plus the school offers more than 60 majors great leadership opportunities and strong financial aid. Judson University is shaping lives that shaped the world. For more information, just go to JUDSONU.EDU. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity, and transparency. That’s because the owners there Dan and Curt Marquardt, are men of integrity. To check them out, just go toBUYACAR123.COM. Well, joining me now is Elias Dummer, a Canadian born singer songwriter from Hamilton, Ontario. He was the lead singer of a contemporary Christian band called The City Harmonic which disbanded in 2017. After eight years together, Drummer also helped plant a church near Nashville. And in 2019, he released his first solo album called The W, Volume I. So, Elias, welcome, and thanks so much for joining me. ELIAS DUMMER 03:01 Thanks for having me, Julie. JULIE ROYS 03:02 And before I introduce Shannon, can you just tell me how you got involved in this worship leader research project and what your role in it was? ELIAS DUMMER 03:10 The worship leader research is a follow up to some research that was done by two of the partners in our team, Mike Tapper and Mark Jolicoeur, which looked at the shelf life of worship songs and how that’s changing, and maybe has come to reflect, say, a big pop single more than it used to. And so, I knew Mike and Mark, both being Canadian, and all Canadians know each other. No, I played a show at a church where Mike used to pastor and it was quite a memorable event where the fire alarm went off, and we. And it’s the concert in the parking lot, and all kinds of stuff like that. So Mike, and I’ve kept in touch quite well over the years. And he knew that I had been involved in other domains as well. In addition to music, I’ve run a strategic marketing consulting firm for 16 years. The idea of interacting with the kind of follow up project and looking at what some of the implications of the data we happen to have. And not only what has been going on in popular worship for the last 30 years or so; we’re one of a handful of people who have that data, but also building out sort of project which looks at the ways that worship leaders themselves view the major producers of worship and kind of understand their own role and what they think they do versus what they actually do and that sort of thing. That’s really where I came in my history in marketing was bridging the industry, the music industry, of course, and the sort of attitudinal market research component, which has been really fun. JULIE ROYS 04:43 Yeah, and fascinating that you wore so many hats that really dovetail together in this entire project. Also joining us is Dr. Shannon Baker, a postdoctoral research fellow at Baylor University. Shannon’s work focuses on contemporary worship, the theology of the lyrics, the music and the industry of the songs and their practice in the church. Sounds like some fascinating work, Shannon. So glad that you could join us. SHANNON BAKER, PhD 05:07 Happy to be here. JULIE ROYS 05:08 And you bring in, as I understand, the know-how on the methodology and how to go about the study. Is that correct? SHANNON BAKER, PhD 05:15 Yeah, so I’m operating as our academic data specialist. So, my role was to really crunch the numbers, get findings that our group could talk about and discuss since it is a collaborative project. So, our methodology for this project was very similar to some other research that I’ve done. There are so many different ways to approach studying worship music. So, in order to find popular songs, there’s a couple key places that researchers will typically go to examine contemporary worship songs. And one of the top ones is the CCLI, Christian Copyright Licensing International outputs top 100 lists based on church reporting. So obviously, at least on the academic side, that’s the go-to place to find out what the popular songs are. But there’s also some criticism about who is represented by that top 100, which churches report to CCLI. So, to try and mitigate some of the criticism we might receive from focusing on just one list, we did cross reference with another list or multiple lists that you can find publicly from praise charts. So, looking to cross reference to figure out what those top songs are. And yeah, that’s how we eventually got down to the collection that we studied. JULIE ROYS 06:38 And CCLI is something that you’ll often see projected on a screen if you look really carefully. And I don’t think a lot of people understand how that works. But when you project a song, and there’s a CCLI license, somebody’s getting a royalty on that song, is that right? SHANNON BAKER, PhD 06:53 Yes. So CCLI’s role is to consolidate the process for churches to use copyrighted songs. So, a part of that process is they provide churches the ability to legally use copyrighted music, in exchange for the church’s having to report back to CCLI, the songs that they use, and then CCLI takes care of paying out the royalties to the appropriate people. JULIE ROYS 07:19 And a lot of that is good in the sense that, you know, Elisa, you’re a singer songwriter. You want to get paid, and you need to get paid, and there’s nothing wrong with that. Yet, at the same time, I think there’s a growing discomfort in what has been recognized as an industry and evangelicalism in a way is an industry. And we talk a lot on this podcast, even about the Evangelical Industrial Complex, and all of these are interconnected, and synergistic, and sometimes ungodly in the way that they cover for each other with certain things. So, there is I would say on this podcast, probably a following of people that become increasingly concerned about how that all works together. And can we have something where money is involved, and money exchanged, and have it be holy? And when we’re talking about worship music, one of the most personal, one of the most intimate parts of our relationship with God is worship. It’s the one thing that we give back to God, right?, is worship. Everything else he gives to us. And so, this is just a fascinating topic. But also, it’s something personal, probably to everybody listening, if you have a relationship with the Lord. ELIAS DUMMER 08:26 Sure. Yeah, it’s probably worth adding that it’s almost 100% because there are two notable exceptions. But basically, as Shannon said, we cross referenced these mega lists. And naturally, we ended up with a bunch of titles and filtered out songs which were written or produced prior to 2010. Because we were mostly interested in where new songs are coming from and what are the attitudes towards the people who make them and that sort of thing. And so, after doing that, we ended up with a scant 38 titles. So, in 10 years, a total of 38 titles reached the top 25 of those two lists, is what it comes down to. JULIE ROYS 08:26 So let me just dive in to probably what is maybe surprising, maybe not surprising, because I think there’s this understanding that, wow, a lot of these songs sound alike these days that we’re singing. I’m not sure that a lot of people mind that because they become so popular. But you found that 100% of the top 25 worship songs from 2010 to 2020, because that’s where your study was, came from just four mega churches: Bethel Church, based in Redding, California, Hillsong Church based in Sydney, Australia, Elevation Church, based in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Passion City Church, based in Atlanta, Georgia. Elias, let me throw this to you. Walk us through how your team made that discovery. ELIAS DUMMER 09:55 So, of those 38, a majority, I think it’s in the mid 60% range were directly attributable to those four churches. So, by that, I mean, they either released them themselves, or they had a co-writer on the song, regardless of who the artist was. So that is a direct tie. Then you have a second group, which is not quite as large of songs which might be, let’s say, affiliated with that movement. And so that would include an example like, say, Great Are You Lord, by All Sons and Daughters, is a song that at first glance doesn’t appear to have anything to do with any of these churches. And so, you start to notice when we did this by tracking published dates on YouTube, of covers at churches, and so on, that the song was covered meaningfully and repeatedly, prior to appearing on the top 25 of the two charts. So, once you start counting, for those, only two out of the 38 songs don’t fit that pattern. So they are either all directly attributable to these four churches, or attributable by affiliation. Now, I’m friends with a lot of these people. So, I need to be intentional in saying, Hey, this is not taking anything away from those artists. In fact, my own song, Manifesto, which came out in this window and was in the CCLI charts, would have fallen into the Passion category. Charlie Hall covered it and so on. So, and I’ve was never signed to Passion, they didn’t write the song, it’s just different. What we were interested in partly was how do worship leaders view these things. And I think sometimes it says though, there’s, I want to say, as though there’s this worship leader cabal of this church guys, which in some cases, there’s other important conversations to be had. I think this probably says more about guys like me planning worship at the local level, even than it does about the institutions themselves. So in any case, by affiliation, or direct association, all but two songs were tied to those churches. And those two songs, one is from North Point, so itself, a mega church. And the other was a Phil Wickham song called Great Things, which is sandwiched between two big songs he wrote alongside Bethel. So, it’s hard to say that it played no role at all. But for the purposes of our study, we certainly couldn’t attribute it that way. JULIE ROYS 12:16 But Northpointe big mega church right there in Atlanta right next to Passion, and this is something I found when I was at Moody Radio for 10 years, is that at the top, it’s a really actually a very small group. And a lot of people know each other. And so, there is, and can be beautiful collaboration. For example, one of the songs Phil Wickham, he describes how Bethel Church really was instrumental in his song, This Is Amazing Grace, becoming popular, and talks about how it was picked up by somebody at Bethel. I think it was Jeremy Riddle, who was at Bethel at the time, now he’s at Dwelling Place, which used to be Vineyard. Whole entire, we actually just published a piece on that, and then a lot of scandal going on there allegations of abuse. But anyway, I digress. But he rewrote some of it for Bethel, then Bethel released it, and then Phil Wickham’s song got out there. It kind of seems like I remember in the days when I was growing up, and this dates me, but for a comedian, the goal was to get on the Johnny Carson Show. And if you got on Johnny Carson, that was sort of launch your career. With music, country music, especially, you got to play the Grand Ole Opry, right? Has it become like that, in that if you’re a musician, if you’re a worship leader, if you want your song to get out there, these are the gatekeepers. ELIAS DUMMER 13:37 Yeah, I think there’s something to that. I don’t know if it’s quite that simple. But part of it is there has been a lot of research done on how listeners in general approach new music. And so, it can be tempting to say, Oh, this is a gatekeeper in the sense that they are controlling the industry. And I think it’s more complex than that. I think we tend to look at all music through kind of a social lens, before we decide to even check it out. And if you think worship pastors are notoriously overworked for their, in terms of the deliverables they have to have versus the time they have in a week, and it’s just at some point, there’s going to be some natural bottlenecks. And so, it makes sense, as disappointing as it can be as a songwriter myself, that is true for all intents and purposes. Without a rubber stamp of approval, it can be difficult for a song to sort of pop through that wall. But some of it is created by circumstance and the environment that we’re in and how we listen to all music as well. So, it’s just a complicated problem. So, it’s interesting that you use the term gatekeeper because in my research recently, I used that term for a different set of people, the worship pastors, and the worship leaders at the church. JULIE ROYS 14:53 Oh, interesting. SHANNON BAKER, PhD 14:54 Right? Because just because a song is written or released by these major contributors doesn’t mean it’s getting sung in the church. Someone has to select that song to use in the church. And that was the second part of our study that we looked at and should be released hopefully soon. But we looked at quantity of how many songs are being released by these primary contributors, versus how many songs actually appear on our list. And the percentage is very small, from the 10 to 12 songs that are released on an album, only two or three actually get major use in the church. So, while you could view these major contributors as the gatekeepers of the industry, keeping other people out, really, if their songs aren’t getting sung, they aren’t becoming those primary contributors. So, the real gatekeepers are the worship pastors who are choosing to continue to select and use regularly these major contributor songs. JULIE ROYS 15:57 Okay, that is a really interesting point. And I’m curious, Elias, you’ve been a worship pastor at a church, right? So how would you determine what songs to play? ELIAS DUMMER 16:10 I mean, it is hard when you in my case, I’ve run several companies alongside working at the church. So, it’s been years, it’s been years since I was full time at a church. So, I was part time. And in part time capacity, there’s a limit to how much time I can spend listening to music and still do the rest of my job. And so, at some point, you are looking at the charts to see what’s working, and how do I shortcut what to check out what to discover and that sort of thing. And so that absolutely plays into it. You hear through, say, Facebook groups and different things like that, stories of a great song that’s really hitting and maybe you check it out, maybe it’s a fit for your church, maybe it isn’t. But it is, I think, absolutely fair to say that the gatekeeper for as far as the writer, songwriter, recording artists record label is concerned, the real gatekeeper of worship music is the worship director. It’s an interesting thing about CCLI, for example. It’s not like when your church happens to play that song, you’re cutting a check to a church, it doesn’t work that way. It is more like a pie system, where a CCLI takes in all of the reporting for that period, and then divvies up all of the royalties received based on a percentage share of the plays in that period. And so, it’s not a per play payment, which really skews the way that the data works a little bit, and explains exactly why during your reporting period, the person dictating exactly how rich Chris Tomlin is, is the worship pastor. JULIE ROYS 17:40 Okay, that’s an interesting perspective. And I do want to dive into looking at some of these mega churches where this music’s coming from. But I think you make a really good point. And I’ve said this before, too, with so many of the scandals even that I cover or the accountability. It really depends on the consumer to a certain degree. And we look so much at what’s happening at the top. But we have to realize at some point, we’re driving this as a consumer, we’re in the church, we’re the ones that keep going to these churches, we’re the ones that allow it to happen. And so, I think sometimes there’s a lack of knowledge. And so that’s one of the things we try to do is bring information, bring knowledge so that you can be an informed, and I hate to say consumer, I can’t stand that our churches have become so consumeristic. But it just, in some ways, is the way that it is. But before we talk about that, I just want to table that for a second and back up and talk about how this developed, because I was in the Vineyard movement for about 10 years, many years ago, but I actually had it, I loved it. This was back when John Wimber was a part of it. And it was a very different philosophy of why we did worship and why Vineyard music was there. It was my understanding that John Wimber he was trying to document what God was doing in the churches. And honestly, I’ve never seen such nurture of worship leaders as I did in the Vineyard. And I played guitar, not really well. Took a few classes in junior high. But it was in the Vineyard. There’ll be classes, oh, you play guitar? Come, we’ll train you to be a worship leader. And so everybody was getting trained on how to be worship leaders. And then you were deployed into your small groups to lead worship. And then you just started doing it more and more, and we had so many worship leaders. And as a result, there was so much songwriting happening. And it was grassroots. It was from the worship leaders up and then really what Vineyard my understanding Vineyard music, was trying to capture what God was doing in the church through the songs. So instead of it being like it is now where you have these big names producing all this stuff, and then the worship leader going to this big, centralized location, it seemed like it was very much grassroots from the bottom up, and then trying to record it So give us the history of kind of how it started. Initially a lot of this contemporary Christian music getting played in the churches started with Calvary Church and the whole Jesus People movement, which was very much driven by bringing the songs that were popular to people, hymns were getting sidelined, and putting things in the vernacular, musically speaking of the people. So, whoever wants to take that one, I’ll throw it out. And would love to hear you describe how it began there. ELIAS DUMMER 20:21 Sure, I’m pretty familiar with this. I will say I’m not are resident historian. Adam Perez, in our group, is our historian. So, he definitely has more details than I do. But I would be remiss to not mention that the whole movement actually started in the 1940s when a man 1940s and in Canada, no doubt. So, in the 1940s. JULIE ROYS 20:46 Okay, let me just stop you there. I would say some people would say it goes all the way back to Martin Luther. He used to take bar songs, right? And bring him into the church, the tune just changed the words. But anyway, go ahead. ELIAS DUMMER 20:57 I would just say there’s a theory out right now that there’s two different streams that eventually culminate into the way that we understand contemporary worship music today. One of them does start in Canada in the 1940s with a man named Raj Loiselle, who started in his church, what came to be known as the Praise and Worship movement. Where you would start with the praise song and then move into a slower time of worship. So that was back in the 1940s. So, it has existed since then. But yes, the Jesus People movement, Calvary Chapel in the 1960s is the other stream, the contemporary worship stream, where a lot of I think more of the industry side a little bit starts a little bit more with creating music that’s getting recorded and distributed. So, you have, as you already mentioned, Vineyard, Calvary Chapel, and Integrity Music were the three big contributors and creators of this music in the 1960s, 70s and into the 80s. SHANNON BAKER, PhD 21:59 And I think the main thing that we see as the movement continues to develop is each of these individual churches, as you even kind of mentioned, were writing songs for their church networks,. Vineyard was writing songs and singing them and sharing them with Vineyard churches. Same with Integrity music was sharing it within its networks, Maranatha within the Calvary Chapel Network. So, most of these churches songs were staying within their church networks. As it continues, and we start to see more and more of the individual church solo artists, you’re Michael W. Smith, and a few others in the 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, you get Matt Redman, Chris Tomlin. The one thing that we start to see in the 2000s, pushing into the 2010s, is this desire for that solo worship artist to be housed within a church, because it lends them this extra measure of authenticity. So that’s when we really start to see worship music come back into being housed within the church is because the solo artists are finding homes and leading regularly at their home churches. Which then leads to all of these home churches creating their own worship bands, which is what we see now is the major development in the 2010s is the development of the church worship band. So that’s when you have Passion becoming a little bit bigger. They existed because of their conference in the 2000s. But really, as an established band led by Chris Tomlin in the 2010s. You have Elevation emerging right at the beginning of the 2010s decade. Bethel comes on the scene 2010. Hillsong has been around for a while, but you have these two new major players emerging that are these church worship bands onto the scene in the 2010s decades. So that’s how we got there a little bit. But the main difference now, and Hillsong recognized this, after a while because they’ve existed for a couple of decades. Is they realize their global reach. And so started to acknowledge that and write with that in mind. These other churches, depending on who you talk to, Elevation worship still describes their process as writing songs that they’ll use in their church. Bethel, in a similar way, you know, leads their songs at their churches, and Passion in the same way. So, all four of these major contributors do lead their songs at their church and in some cases, exclusively, as far as we know, at least as far as they’ll produce on YouTube. Hillsong primarily does Hillsong songs and Elevation primarily does Elevation songs, but for the most part sharing with the rest of the church. JULIE ROYS 24:53 One group we haven’t mentioned yet and I don’t see it in your study, and it might be because they become much bigger in the past, probably five years ,is Maverick City Music, which is this collective as I understand it, bringing more persons of color into the scene which had been really white dominated. And of course, they’ve been connecting a lot with Elevation. Do you see any difference with what Maverick City Music did? Or do you see it just following the pattern that we’re seeing? ELIAS DUMMER 25:22 There are a couple of factors there. Like you said, they do a lot of collaborations, Elevation, that sort of thing. It’s not known necessarily by all but Maverick City’s first writing camps were funded by Bethel, at least in part. JULIE ROYS 25:36 Oh, interesting. I didn’t know that. ELIAS DUMMER 25:38 And that’s what I mean by this sort of, it’s tempting to look at this and see this evil cabal of people. It’s like, well, they’re also trying to solve the problem that we all see at the same time. I think the question even and Maverick City is actually a very good example of this, Elevation is a good example of this, is the degree to which the movements we look at the artists we look at, the labels and churches we look at are interfacing with the music industry as we know it. And how we understand that is I really think the question that screams from it all, Maverick City pivoted to these kinds of pay to attend writing camps eventually. They started charging serious ticket money and filling arenas very, very quickly. That’s not as necessarily as a critique. I’m a recording artist myself. I just think the way that we talk about all of it, and I think you’re doing a good job of this, but the way that we talk about all of it needs to be earnest and transparent. Because there’s always been money in Christian music. Every part of what we do, somebody somewhere is making it, distributing it, and sharing it. And there’s $a dollar involved along the line. And I think the advent and proliferation of streaming can’t be overstated, as just dramatically changing the way this whole thing works. If you think about it, based on the radio numbers, my estimates are somewhere between 70 and 80% of church going Americans don’t listen to Christian music outside of church. The only place that they’re hearing most of these songs until they’ve heard them and come to like them, and then go listen to them is at church on a Sunday. And in many cases, one of the dominant ways that new music, like Maverick City, is discovered is through Spotify playlists, and that sort of thing, a lot of which is managed by either algorithm, or literally three people. But it’s this strange relationship between the local church and the music industry that I think we’re not really talking about. Most of the time, when we talk about this, we’re still operating on the models that Vineyard and similar movements popularized, and taking those for granted when we look at the new way, and they couldn’t be further apart. I mean, The Blessing is a really good example of that, a very popular song. I think we as a worship pastor, I would often take for granted that a worship record heard was an album of songs, which had grown up in a church network or in home group somewhere, and became a song that had been tested, if you will, in the local congregation,. The Blessing was written on a Thursday and played and released to the public on a Sunday. So, this is the song which was ultimately even if it was from that church was ultimately industry first. That’s not to say that’s a bad thing. It’s just, it was a Beyonce style move. Not a Wimber style move. JULIE ROYS 28:29 I know I’m looking at it, and I am uncomfortable, because I loved the songs coming from the people where the Holy Spirit was anointing it, and people were beginning to sing it. And then I’m not saying it can’t happen the other way. Obviously, God can anoint any means of in ways of things happening. But probably my biggest discomfort when I read this study was that the four churches that we’re talking about: Hillsong is embroiled in a major scandal. We’re talking sexual misconduct, financial misconduct, abuse of volunteers and interns. It was a toxic culture. Hillsong College, toxic culture. And yet this was one of the if not the most influential church movements because of not because of the preaching of Brian Houston. I’ve never heard Brian Houston preach before I started researching this. Not because of anything other than the music. In fact, people look at Shout to the Lord by Darling Zscech. Boom! That put Hillsong on the map. I didn’t even know what Hillsong was before Darlene Zscech. That’s what most of us think of at least in the States, when we think of Hillsong. This worship was making Brian and Bobby Houston, the founders of Hillsong, rich. It was enriching their son Joel, who was heading up Hillsong worship. In fact, Joel Houston wrote The Stand. And I watched the video, and it was from 12 years ago. I watched it last night and honestly I am even now thinking about it. It’s hard for me, because that song, I remember singing, right? I remember being moved by that song. And I’m seeing people on this video clearly impacted, singing worship to the Lord. And yet right now it turns my stomach. There’s no way that the people at the top didn’t know what was going on and what they were participating in. How do we process that that so much of this? Let’s just look at Hillsong first and let me just ask you Elias, today, would you play a Hillsong song at your church? This concludes part one of my podcast with Elias Dummer, and Shannon Baker. In part two, you’ll hear how Elias answers my question. You’ll also hear some difference of opinion and a lively exchange as we hash out respectfully those differences. We also forget that David repented, and I haven’t seen repentance from the Houston’s. ELIAS DUMMER 31:01 But we don’t strike the pre repentance Psalms from the Bible. JULIE ROYS 31:05 No, but I’m saying what we see in David is someone that the Lord called the man after his own heart, and part of being a man after his own heart, was how he responded to sin. Well, I especially enjoyed the second part of my interview with Elias and Shannon, and I think you will, too. These are difficult issues, complex issues. And as Elias explains, they’re ones that he encountered personally, as several of the pastors he served under left their positions because of personal sin. So be watching for part two of this discussion, which we’ll be releasing soon. Also, if you’ve enjoyed this podcast and appreciate our investigative work, please consider donating to The Roys Report. As I’ve said before, we don’t rely on big donors or grants or advertising. We rely on you, the people who want the truth and are passionate to explore these issues so the church can be renewed. To support our ongoing work, go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. Also, just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcast, Google podcasts or Spotify. That way you’ll never miss an episode. And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks so much for joining me today. Hope you were blessed and encouraged. Read more

Guest Bios Show Transcript Is it true that men are visual in a way that women will never understand? Or that boys can’t help but lust if a girl is dressed like she’s inciting it? In this edition of The Roys Report, we continue a two-part discussion with Sheila Wray Gregoire on toxic teachings on sex and womanhood within the evangelical church. You just heard two doozies. But there are more, like: A girl has a responsibility not to be a stumbling block to the boys around her by what she wears, and Girls who dress immodestly are worse than girls who dress modestly If you’ve grown up in the church, you’ve probably heard these teachings. But are they true? And what kind of outcomes do these teachings produce? Sheila answers those questions, drawing from a survey her team conducted involving more than 7,000 women. She also shares what one thing our daughters most need to hear if they’re going to grow up healthy in the church. Guests Sheila Wray Gregoire Sheila Wray Gregoire is an author, podcaster, and researcher into evangelicalism and sex. The founder of BareMarriage.com, together with her team she has surveyed over 32,000 people for her books The Great Sex Rescue and She Deserves Better. Her goal is to change the evangelical conversation about sex to be healthy, evidence-based, and rooted in Christ. She lives in Ontario, Canada, with her husband. They have two adult daughters and two grandbabies. Show Transcript SPEAKERS SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE, JULIE ROYS JULIE ROYS Is it true that men are visual in a way women will never understand—or that boys can’t help but lust if a girl is dressed like she’s inciting it? Welcome to The Roys Report—a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And in today’s podcast, I continue my two-part discussion with Sheila Wray Gregoire on toxic teachings on sex and womanhood within the evangelical church. And you just heard two doozies. But there are more, like: A girl has a responsibility not to be a stumbling block to the boys around her by what she wears, and Girls who dress immodestly are worse than girls who dress modestly. If you’ve grown up in the church, you’ve probably heard these teachings. But are they true? And, what kind of outcomes do these teachings produce? Sheila will answer those questions, drawing from a survey her team conducted involving 7,000 women. She’ll also share what one thing our daughters most need to hear if they’re going to grow up healthy in the church. We’ll get into our conversation in just a minute, but first, I’d like to thank the sponsors of this podcast—Judson University and Marquardt of Barrington. Judson University is a top ranked Christian University providing a caring community and an excellent college experience. Plus, the school offers more than 60 majors great leadership opportunities and strong financial aid. Judson University is shaping lives that shaped the world. For more information, just go to JJUDSONU.EDU. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity, and transparency. That’s because the owners there Dan and Kurt Marquardt, are men of integrity. To check them out, just go to BUYACAR123.COM. We now return to part two of my conversation with popular marriage blogger Sheila Wray Gregoire about her book, She Deserves Better. We pick up our conversation with talk about the purity culture and modesty. JULIE ROYS Obviously, there’s been a lot of pushback on purity culture. In fact, you mentioned in your book about Matthew West, when he had that song come out about Modest is Hottest. And I know he said it was satire. And maybe it was kind of tongue in cheek, but at the same time, it’s sort of double down on some of these purity messages that are so, so damaging. I mentioned that I read this book, at least portions of it, with my daughter who’s 21. She really resonated, especially with the discussion on modesty, I think, because there’s just been so much trauma that she’s experienced, that I think a lot of girls experience. And yet I think, you know, as parents, we’re like, oh, jeez,, what do we do with this? I mean, it is really, really difficult. But talk about some of these modesty messages, how they’re communicated, and what is communicating to our daughters, how are they internalizing these things? SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE So, we wanted to really flesh this one out, because we knew this was going to be a big one. So, we asked about four different iterations of the modesty message, when the girls had believed. S we didn’t just say, Did you think you had to be dressed modestly? We asked it in four different ways. So, we asked girls if they believed boys are visual in a way the girls will never understand. Boys can’t help but lust if a girl is dressed like she’s trying to incite it. A girl has a responsibility not to be a stumbling block to the boys around her by what she wears. And girls who dress immodestly are worse than girls who dress modestly, and we let people decide what worse meant. So that was up to the survey taker. All of those messages are horrible. They all have terrible outcomes. But I’ll tell you the two with the worst outcomes: is the two about boys about boys natures. When girls believe that boys are visual in a way that girls will never understand, and boys can’t help but lust, when you take those girls and look at them long term, they are 52% more likely to have a sexual pain disorder called vaginismus as an adult. And vaginismus is largely a condition of evangelicals. It’s when the muscles in the vaginal wall contract so that sex penetration becomes very painful, if not impossible. A lot of women can’t insert tampons without pain. It’s really debilitating. And we found an incidence rate of around 23%, which is at least two to two and a half times the rate of the general population. If you talk to any pelvic floor physiotherapist, they will tell you most of my patients are evangelicals. And so, there is something about our teaching that is actually hurting women’s bodies. And in our first book, our first big book, The Great Sex Rescue, what we found is that obligation is really highly correlated with vaginismus. So, when you tell a woman you’re obligated to give your husband sex if he wants it, her chance of experiencing sexual pain increases to almost the same statistical amount as if she had been abused. So, women’s bodies interpret obligation as trauma. JULIE ROYS It is abuse, isn’t it? It’s essentially psychologically abusing them so that they’re conditioned to a certain behavior. I mean, it’s really, really damaging. And yet harkening back to my Moody Radio days since we’re talking about this, I know on Moody Radio, when we would talk about this issue, so many people will call in and quote Scripture about the woman needing to please the man. I mean, it’s just, it is mind blowing to me. SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE Yeah, it really is. So, you know, the obligation is dramatic. But we also found that modesty is dramatic. And especially not all of it is all of the modesty messages results in the higher rates of sexual pain, but especially the ones about boys. Because what those messages tell you is that you can never be safe. You live in a world where boys will always objectify you, where boys and men will only ever see you as sexual objects, all your dreams of intimacy, they’re just pipe dreams, and you’re just never safe. And this is what we’ve told women and girls, so they’re 52% more likely to have sexual pain, they’re 68% more likely to marry an abuser. Interestingly too, believing the modesty message means you’re more likely as well to be assaulted as a teenager and more likely to be in churches where other people around you are assaulted. Because churches that teach the modesty message, guess what? Predators love those churches. Because those churches are telling your daughter, if he lust after you, it is your fault, not his. JULIE ROYS And what does it do to the boy to be continually told that you have a sex drive you can’t control? SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE Oh, I know. I mean, this drives me nuts too. Because for boys like we’ve also conflated noticing with lusting, right? So, if a boy notices that a woman has a good figure, he thinks he’s already lusted after her. And then we tell him that you know this is hopeless because you’ll never get over it. I mean, the Every Man’s Battle Series actually tells boys that we know the reason for sexual sin among men. You got there naturally simply by being male and they say men just don’t actually have that Christian view of sex. Like no! women do not have the Holy Spirit more than men do. JULIE ROYS That is so so damaging. And I’m so glad that you’re calling this out. And clearly, if this is the view that you have, I mean, it seems like and when you’re talking about the low self-esteem, and so many of these girls like they begin to internalize the message that they’re an object, right? They’re nothing more than an object. And you were even saying later down the line that it’s not just in high school. But even as these women get older, tell me what your survey found as far as their self-esteem, and their ability to even view themselves rightly as I get older. SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE Yeah. So, if you believe those modesty messages as a teenager, you’re 30% more likely to have low self-esteem below average self-esteem as an adult. Like this affects you long term. And it’s interesting, because whenever I talk about modesty on Facebook, people will always say, Well, sure, I mean, girls aren’t to blame if boys lust, but, and there’s always a but, right? But girls need to understand how boys are visual and how they can’t help it. It’s like no, stop it. Like what our data shows is that you cannot say that. When you say girls need to just understand what boys experience then you are saying it is okay to live in a world where girls are 68% more likely to marry an abuser, where girls are 52% more likely to have sexual pain. No, that is not okay. And we can expect boys and men to respect women. Can I tell you some of the worst examples of the modesty message? JULIE ROYS Yes, please. SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE So, this is from Dannah Gresh’ Secret Keeper Girl curriculum, which was quite popular in sort of those thoughts and onwards. She wrote a lot for Braille magazine about modesty. She had Secret Keeper Girl conventions all across North America. She’s now rebranded to True Girl, and the curriculum was changed a bit, but it still focuses on modesty and not encouraging men to complete the picture of your body. And its addressed to 8- to 12-year-old girls. So, there was this one fashion test that girls were supposed to take. So, you’re supposed to raise your hands, it’s called the raise n’ praise. And if your belly shows, that’s bad, because and I quote, bellies are intoxicating. And then there’s a conversation, a script that moms are invited to have with their daughters, where you explain what intoxicating means to your daughter, how intoxicating is like when he’s drunk and has gotten out of control. And God created men to be intoxicated by your body. And that’s a beautiful thing. But God only wants one man to be intoxicated by you. And that’s your future husband. And so, you need to cover up so that you don’t inadvertently intoxicate other men. Let’s break this down. She told girls as young as eight, that the sight of their bellies would make adult men out of control, and that God made it this way. And that’s not Christian. That’s pedophilic. And how did nobody say anything? JULIE ROYS That’s a good question. I mean, what explanation do you have for that? SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE I think we are so enamored with the idea that men can’t help it. So, everything has to be on women and girls to control it. That we just give in to this. You know, we also looked at the adult women because most people who believe this modesty message as teenagers do not believe them today. That’s the good news. So, most people believed all this stuff in youth group have deconstructed a lot of these beliefs. So, but when you look at the women who haven’t, when you look at the women who still believe the modesty message, which would include women who are teaching it, because most of these, most of the stuff is taught by women, when you ask girls who told you to dress modestly, overwhelmingly, they will say by other women. So, it’s largely women who are teaching this stuff. Well, the women who believed the modesty message as adults, are far more likely to be in abusive marriages, they’re more likely to be in marriages where their husbands use porn. They’re more likely to be in marriages where they are worried about how their husband looks at other women in public. They’re more likely to have lower self-esteem themselves. And so, I wonder how much of it is women. And this isn’t all women, okay? This doesn’t mean that if a woman believes in modesty message, she necessarily has a bad marriage, she’s just more likely to. But how much of this is women not wanting to believe there’s something wrong with their husband, and so they’re just trying to control what their husband sees? Because that’s something they feel they can control, since they can’t seem to make a difference with him. JULIE ROYS And I’m wondering how much of it too is devaluing yourself so that when you’re dating, and these red flags come up, it’s kind of like, well, this is how I’m used to being treated. Or this is all I deserve. SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE Yeah. And actually, this is actually one of the big things we talk about is because if you tell girls, hey, boys can’t help but lust after you. And hey, all boys are visual. All boys are going to check girls out. This is what boys do. This is the male objectification of women and male sexuality are one and the same thing. If we tell that to girls, and then they’re dating someone who’s constantly checking out other girls who’s constantly making comments about other women’s bodies, are they going to realize that guy is a creep? Or are they just going to think I guess that guy is just a man? JULIE ROYS Exactly. SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE You know, we’ve taught them don’t look at red flags. Red flags aren’t even real because all guys are like this. You can’t expect anything more. JULIE ROYS Let me just play devil’s advocate, because I know there’s probably some people listening who are gonna say, Well, okay, those modesty messages, you’re saying those were damaging. But at the same time, I’m super uncomfortable with what my daughter is wearing. Or when you go shopping with your daughter, it’s tough even finding, you know, I find it kind of tough to find decent clothes. As Christian parents, how do we talk about this with our daughters? And you know, to the person who’s saying, Hey, listen, can we really go overboard with this? Because look, you know, what the culture is doing? Speak to that person right now who’s feeling that way? SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE Yeah. So first of all, I do want to say that in She Deserves Better, we do have like, a really good exercise to do with your daughter after the modesty chapter on how to talk about clothing that has nothing to do with not causing him to lust but has to do with how do we be appropriate? How do we be kind? How do we not flaunt our wealth? Which is actually what the Bible is talking about when it talks about modesty. JULIE ROYS Right about braiding and gold. And yeah. SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE So, we do walk you through so that that can really help. But let me just say this, when I was 18,19,20, mom jeans were really in style, right? So, you had the narrow waist, and then everything got really big. So, nothing was tight around your butt. And it was quite high waisted. And this is just what I was used to. And so, I would wear these for years, and then more of the form fitting jeans came in, and even the low-rise jeans, and I didn’t wear them forever, because I thought that is scandalous. Like that is absolutely scandalous. But then after a few years, I realized everybody is wearing these, and nobody seems to care anymore. And so, I got some and I actually liked them, you know. Now I’m kind of happy the waist have gone back up a little bit because I was kind of tired of always having your butt crack showing. But you know, like things are, things are better. But the point is, when something becomes common in the culture, it loses its effect. Okay? So, let’s take yoga pants. Gen Z, I’m sorry, I’m Canadian. So, I will say Gen Zed, but okay, Gen Z guys. Do not notice the yoga pants on the whole because everybody was yoga pants. And once everybody wears yoga pants, it’s pretty much lost its power. Boomer men notice the yoga pants, because when Boomer men were young, no one wore yoga pants. And so, Boomer men and Gen X Men are just going, oh my gosh, look at her in the yoga pants. But to other 20-year-old guys, they don’t see it. And we need to stop judging the younger generation by our standards, because look at what the younger generation was. And if you have a daughter who was wearing exactly what every other 19-year-old or 18-year-old or 16-year-old or 15-year-old wears, she isn’t being immodest not for her culture. Because there are some cultures which consider shoulders super immodest, but cleavage is fine, right? There’s cultures where you can basically go topless, but you could never wear pants, you have to be in a skirt like, things are different. It’s all very cultural. And there isn’t one particular body part that is always going to turn on men, it really is largely cultural. So, I would just really encourage people to stop thinking about certain fashion trends as being terrible. And start thinking instead about ideas of how to get dressed so that you respect yourself so that you show that you respect others so that you’re not off putting, I mean, you know, like, I think there’s issues if you’re wearing tons of piercings and tons of mean tattoos, like that’s a question too, because what are you saying to other people about whether or not you want to be friends with them, or whether you’re comfortable around them? Right? So, there’s lots of issues other than just showing skin. I think we can talk to our kids about consent, like there are certain parts of my body that someone would need to consent in order to see. Like, you’re not supposed to just go flashing your boobs in the grocery store in our culture. And so, I don’t ever want to show any parts of my body that somebody should legitimately have to consent to see because then I am violating their consent. So, you know, so you can have those kinds of conversations, but we just should not be pairing it with the idea that boys can’t help but lust. JULIE ROYS In your ministry or business, your reputation is your most valuable asset. But what do you do when you suspect misconduct? Hopefully, you do the opposite of many of the organizations I report on. Instead of covering up wrongdoing, you investigate it, and Accord Analytics can help. In just 72 hours, their team of experts can scour emails, call logs and other records to produce usable evidence. They also can analyze your organization to identify specific threats and to suggest best practices. For a free consultation go to ACCORDANALYTICS.COM. You talk about the one thing that parents should consider non-negotiable if they want to raise a healthy daughter, What is that one thing? SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE Your daughter needs to be able to disagree with you. She needs to be able to use her voice. That’s such an important thing. Because if your daughter can say, you know, Mom, you know, Dad, I think you’re wrong, then she’s going to be able to say that, in the future, if she’s married to a husband who isn’t treating her well. She’s going to be able to say that in a work situation, and speak up for others, she’s going to be able to say that in an unfair educational situation. But if she doesn’t feel like she can ever disagree with you that her voice doesn’t matter, she’s not going to learn how to speak up. And one of the most important things that your daughter needs to know is that her voice matters, and her opinions matter. That doesn’t mean that you have to agree with her. But you can honor her and let her speak up without punishment. And when we model that at home, then she’s going to be able to do it in other places where it is ever so important. Because so often instead, we think that obedience to parents means that you have to go along, and you have to agree. And that is how churches end up becoming abusive. Let your daughter have a voice. JULIE ROYS That’s interesting that you say that, because that’s the one thing I’ve talked about in my home that I grew up in, where we would have just really spirited discussions about everything under the sun at the dinner table. And we’re kind of weird because we never took it personally. It was like sport for us, like we loved it. And you know, every now and then it would kind of get, you know, to a certain point, and my parents had kind of tried to tone it down. And at that point, it was too out of control. But it wasn’t till I got older that I realized you offend people when you do that, because nobody got offended in my family generally, like when we talk about ideas and different things. But I realized now, that was in same ways, training me for a lot of what I do today. And I know my daughter recently was at a job where she’s in college, but she’s, you know, having to work restaurant jobs. And she had one boss that was horribly abusive. And she got up and she walked out and reported him to her boss. And he was moved to a different place. And I remember asking her I’m like, if you hadn’t reported that, would somebody have said something? And she’s like, No, he just would have kept doing it. And he was, you know, sexually harassing people. He was screaming at them. I mean, all of this. I was so proud of her for doing that. I mean, I felt so good about that she’s learned that you matter, that you have worth, that nobody has a right. You know, I don’t care whether it’s a boss, I don’t care whether it’s an authority figure in the church, I don’t care who, nobody has a right to degrade you or to cross your boundaries or to treat you as less than human. That’s not okay. SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE And why hasn’t the church been teaching that to girls? JULIE ROYS Patriarchy maybe? SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE Yeah, well, I think it I guess it must be but it’s like it doesn’t come from Jesus. How can anybody claim they know Jesus, and then try to control and try to blame girls for boys sins? Like, and it’s not only in the in the sexual realm there. Shanti Feldhahn wrote a book called For Young Women Only. Shanti Feldhahn and Lisa Rice. And it was based on a survey that she did of boys, and it was directed at teenage girls, this book. She also wrote a lot for BRIO magazine, Focus on the Family. And in it, she was talking about how boys have trouble often expressing their feelings. But what boys really, really need is unconditional respect. And she didn’t just mean the boy you’re dating, like all boys around you, they need unconditional respect. I don’t have a problem with that. If by respect you mean listening to them talk, you know, honoring their boundaries, treating them like a person. But then she says some boys have trouble expressing their feelings. And so, if you’re trying to figure out if you’ve crossed the disrespect line, watch for anger. JULIE ROYS So, their anger is your fault? SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE Right. So, if he’s angry at you, you must have disrespected him. Now, if you’re a girl, and you’re in an abusive relationship, what are you going to think? Or maybe you’re not in an abusive relationship, but you’ve just internalized this teaching, and then you get married. And you start thinking if he treats me badly, it’s because I’ve disrespected him because I haven’t unconditionally respected him and given him complete deference. JULIE ROYS What an awful message and that is making women small. And I love your chapter on women deserve to be big, right? I love that. And those messages, those weren’t just for girls, those were for wives too. I remember being in Bible studies and being told, if you know the right answer, don’t say it in front of your husband. cuz he needs to do that, and you can’t be too much. And it’s like, I remember listening to this. And I’m just like, Who are these, like insecure men who can’t even have their wives disagree with them, or know more than them or whatever? I mean, it was just pathetic. SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE If you’re driving in a car, and he turned the wrong way, don’t say anything, because that wouldn’t be good. JULIE ROYS It’s just so bad. And I think we should be respectful of each other. You know, I mean, I don’t like it if my husband says something nasty when I’m driving, which he never does. And he’s just not like that. But I mean, respect one another is a good thing. But these messages that women have to be less so men can be more, it’s just, it’s really gross. Two groups of people, I want you to just before we get off this podcast to speak to, and one is the mom right now who’s feeling a little panicked, because she’s like, Oh, my word! What messages has my daughter been getting in church? How can she know whether or not these harmful messages are being taught by her church? And then what can she do about it if she finds out that they are being taught? SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE Okay, well, first, some good news that I do want everyone to hear. Religiosity, church attendance, believing in Jesus, these are all good, good things. So going to church women who go to church as kids, they’re going to have better marriages, on the whole, when they’re an adult, they’re gonna have higher self-esteem. The church tenants believing in Jesus, all good things. But and here’s the big but; once girls start to internalize some of these toxic messages, like about consent, how boys can’t help it. And so, you need to stop the sexual progression. So, about modesty, about being small about not talking so much, once they start to internalize those things, the benefits of church attendance disappear. And in some cases, it would have actually been better not to have gone to church at all. So that’s the sobering part. That doesn’t mean every church is bad, though. So, everyone, I want you to go back in time to your grade four math class, and your learning averages. And what you’ll know is that the average means that you’ve taken all of the data from all these different things, and the average is less than the best, but better than the worst. And so, if we know that the average of church attendance is good, but we also know that these toxic teachings are bad, there has to be something bringing up the average. So, it means there are churches doing these things right. There are youth groups, maybe the church isn’t that healthy, but the youth groups actually pretty good, you know, or whatever it might be, there might be some good youth leaders. And so, it’s really incumbent on us to take a look at what is being taught in youth group. And often youth group is so separated from the adult church that you don’t always know what’s going on. So, I would just say, volunteer. You know, talk to your youth pastor, what are you teaching about modesty? What are you teaching about sex? So, your church, maybe your church doesn’t talk about gender dynamics very much. Like it’s a relatively healthy church, there’s lots of women on the platform too, the pastor doesn’t say anything openly misogynistic. But what you need to understand is in youth group, all they talk about is relationships and dating. So even if they don’t say it in the main church, whatever they believe, is going to be exponential in youth group. And so, find out what is being taught in youth group. You know, if the youth leader is teaching something weird, give them a copy of She Deserves Better, and see what they think. Because a lot of times, it’s not that people deliberately want to spread toxic stuff, and that they won’t listen, they just honestly don’t know what else to do. And this has been in the water. And so, I’ve heard from so many women this week since the book released where they’ve gone to their youth pastor, and the youth pastor has been excited about the data and the graphs and the charts in the book. And they’re like, oh, wow, okay, this is a new way to talk about it. And that’s great. But if they don’t listen to you, then you need to take a good hard look. Because if your daughter, maybe you’re a healthy family, you know, you don’t teach this weird stuff, you actually communicate really well. But if your daughter is in a church that is teaching her not to use her voice, that she talks too much, that she’s easily deceived, that boys should be deferred to, even if these things aren’t taught explicitly, but if that is the message that has been given, she’s more likely to go to church camps with people who believe even more conservative things to go to Christian colleges where they might believe even more conservative things to marry someone who was way more on that spectrum. And so, we need to think, okay, is this the social group that I want for my daughter? And that’s a hard conversation to have. But you’ve just got to be involved. You got to meet your kid’s friends, meet your kid’s youth leaders, because our girls deserve our attention, and our girls deserve us to put in the work to figure this out. JULIE ROYS And can I say they also deserve youth groups where they’re not just talking about relationships? Like, yeah, I thought it was so good in your early chapter where you talk about how when you were in church, and you were in youth group, I mean, you were talking about your relationship with Jesus. I mean, I remember when I was in youth group was some of the most profound spiritually formative things happen to me. I mean, we were talking about Jesus, we were talking about the Holy Spirit, we were talking about, you know, missions, we were talking about, you know, reaching our friends for Christ. That’s what we were talking about. We really weren’t talking about relationships that much. I mean, of course, we were with our peers all the time, you know, but yeah, yeah. I mean, we were talking about what is the most important thing is to love God right? And then love others. You know, I mean, we were talking about the mission of the gospel. And I think it’s sad and pathetic, that our youth groups have degenerated into all we talk about is relationships and dating. I mean, I remember we focused on Bible study, and worship. And we’re like, if you want to go to the youth group that entertains you, the world entertains better than the church anyway. So go there, but we’re going to be about Jesus, we’re going to be about worship, we’re going to be about the word. And people came, you know, that’s the thing. I think there’s such a spiritual hunger. And so, I just think it’s so reductionistic, that when we think that our youth, which most people become believers between the age of 16 and 24, this is their prime spiritual formation time, and you have an incredible opportunity to really mold their souls and begin to really introduce them to Jesus Christ in a powerful and personal way. And it just grieves me that we’re not doing that more. SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE Yeah, exactly. I was the same too. Our youth group we were how to give your testimony how to reach your school for Christ like that’s, so we were so interested in it. And I don’t know why things changed except the church as a whole changed. And we started emphasizing gender essentialism and male hierarchy a lot more in the late 90s and early aughts than we had in the 80s and 90s. And there really was a big conservative resurgence. JULIE ROYS Lastly, I wanted you to speak to the women my age, your age, you know, maybe a little bit younger, or even the millennials. I know I, I listened to the bodies behind the bus your interview had with John Harris and her talking about so many of these messages. I think the millennials really internalized a lot of these, but who are just saying, Man, I did internalize these messages, and I’m realizing how harmful it is. And yet, it’s hard to erase those tapes. If you were taught these messages, it just goes deep, especially then, if you went through the you know, Nancy DeMoss. What she said to teenagers is one thing what she says to wives doesn’t get a whole lot better. And so, I know people who are in that camp. Speak to that woman about how does she begin to heal and adopt more healthy messages about herself and her worth? SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE I think I just want to say I’m sorry. Like I am so so sorry. I subscribed to BRIO magazine for my daughter, Rebecca. And she devoured that magazine. And she developed an eating disorder because she thought she was fat. Because of the modesty rules. They told her she had to be able to pinch an inch of fabric or else she wasn’t modest. Well, my daughter was very slim, but very curvy. And in those days, there were no genes where you could pinch an inch. And she told that story. I didn’t even know that story. She told on a podcast recently. And I started crying because that was another thing I didn’t know as a mom, I was an involved mom, I should have known, and I didn’t. I got her that magazine. I gave her I Kissed Dating Goodbye. I put her in two different youth groups that were teaching her all of these negative things. Now, thankfully, we had a great relationship. And we could joke about a lot of these terrible messages. And I raised a daughter who could speak up to youth leaders, and that’s wonderful. But she should never have been put in that position. And a lot of people weren’t able to speak out, they were just told your voice doesn’t matter. Because you’re a woman. And that was never Jesus saying that. That was never Jesus saying you don’t matter. The longest conversation we have recorded of Jesus with another human being was this with the Samaritan woman at the well. Jesus spoke to women. Jesus treated them like people not like objects. Jesus wasn’t trying not to lust after them. Jesus wasn’t bouncing his eyes so that he wouldn’t sin with temptation. Jesus looked at them and saw them. And that’s what you should have had. You should have had people seeing you seeing who you were, instead of judging you and accusing you of being a temptation or being a stumbling block or being bad and it can get better. I think Jesus really wants this to get better and I think Jesus really wants you to know his heart for you. That your voice matters, that you’re not easily deceived that you don’t talk too much, that you aren’t just a stumbling block that you are precious. And so I hope, I think She Deserves Better can be so healing, just to hear what you should have heard all along, and maybe give you a glimpse of Jesus’s heart so that you can hold on because I know there’s so many people who are struggling with faith and thinking, should I just throw it all away, because this is so toxic, and it should never have been. And I just hope and pray that there is a new revolution coming in the church where people are gonna say enough is enough. We need to get back to Jesus’ heart for people because we all deserve better. JULIE ROYS That’s so good. And, you know, we just celebrated Easter not long ago. And it just reminds me the first people that Jesus appeared to were the women, the women who in that culture, couldn’t even be a witness in a trial because their testimony wasn’t even thought to be worthwhile and be credible. And yet Jesus appeared to women and told them to go back and tell the male disciples that he had risen. Just so much affirmation from Jesus and I think if we just would be biblical, instead of extra biblical in the way we teach about these things, it will be much better and I just thank you, Sheila, for bringing us back to that and for writing this book and so, so excited to have you come to Restore and to meet you in person will be just so much fun. SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE Yes, I’m excited about that too. JULIE ROYS Well, and just a quick reminder that if you’d like to join us at the Restore Conference where both Sheila and I will be speaking, just go to Restore 2023 dot com. That’s Restore 2023 dot com. Also, if you’d like a copy of Sheila’s book, She Deserves Better, you’re in luck! We are giving away the book to anyone who gives a gift of $30 or more to The Roys Report. Plus, your gift will help support great podcasts like this. To give your gift—and get a copy of She Deserves Better—just go to Julie Roys—spelled ROYS—dot com, slash donate. That’s Julie Roys.com/donate. Also, just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or Spotify. That way, you’ll never miss an episode! And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then, please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks for joining me today! Hope you were blessed and encouraged! Read more

Guest Bios Show Transcript Is the church conditioning women to think less of themselves? And do the most common teachings girls hear in youth group make them more likely to marry an abuser? Less likely to understand consent? And more likely to blame themselves if they’re assaulted? In this edition of The Roys Report, we’ll explore these topics with Sheila Wray Gregoire, author of a fantastic book exposing toxic church teachings on sex and women titled She Deserves Better. Sheila and her team surveyed more than 7,000 women for this book. And what they found was truly eye-opening—and concerning. They found, for example, that the emphasis on sexual purity can backfire. Instead of helping girls make good choices, it can actually shame them and then prime them for abuse. Similarly, much of the teaching surrounding modesty can lead to low self-esteem and body image issues in girls. In this podcast, Sheila breaks down these toxic teachings. And we discuss how to really protect our daughters, so that they can experience healthy relationships—with men, with themselves, and with the church. Sheila Wray Gregoire Sheila Wray Gregoire is an author, podcaster, and researcher into evangelicalism and sex. The founder of BareMarriage.com, together with her team she has surveyed over 32,000 people for her books The Great Sex Rescue and She Deserves Better. Her goal is to change the evangelical conversation about sex to be healthy, evidence-based, and rooted in Christ. She lives in Ontario, Canada, with her husband. They have two adult daughters and two grandbabies. Show Transcript SPEAKERS JULIE ROYS, SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE JULIE ROYS 00:04 Is the church conditioning women to think less of themselves and do the most common teachings girls here and youth group make them more likely to marry an abuser, less likely to understand consent and more likely to blame themselves if they are assaulted? Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And today I’m going to be speaking with Sheila Gregoire, author of a fantastic book exposing toxic church teachings on sex and women called She Deserves Better. Sheila and her team surveyed more than 7000 women for this book, and what they found was truly eye opening and concerning. They found, for example, that the emphasis on sexual purity can backfire. Instead of helping girls make good choices, it can actually shame them and prime them for abuse. Similarly, much of the teaching surrounding modesty can cause low self-esteem and body image issues. In this podcast, I’ll explore these toxic teachings with Sheila, and we’ll discuss how to really protect our daughters so that they can experience healthy relationships with men with themselves and with the church. I’m so excited to explore this topic with Sheila. But first, I’d like to thank the sponsors of this podcast, Judson University, and Marquardt of Barrington. Judson University is a top ranked Christian University providing a caring community and an excellent college experience. Plus, the school offers more than 60 majors great leadership opportunities and strong financial aid. Judson University is shaping lives that shaped the world. For more information, just go to JJUDSONU.EDU. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity, and transparency. That’s because the owners there Dan and Kurt Marquardt, are men of integrity. To check them out, just go to BUYACAR123.COM. Well again, joining me is Sheila Gregoire, founder of BEARMARRIAGE.COM, the largest single blogger marriage blog. She’s also an award-winning author of nine books, including The Good Girls Guide to Great Sex and her latest, She Deserves Better. Sheila is passionate about changing the evangelical conversation about sex and marriage to line up with kingdom principles, and she’s passionate about calling out abuse and making church a safe place which makes her a kindred spirit. So, Sheila, welcome and I’m just so excited to talk to you about this book. It’s a fantastic resource. SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE 02:39 Thank you, my friend, it’s good to join you again. JULIE ROYS 02:41 And again, being you’ve been on my podcast before but before I recorded this podcast with you, I went back and listened, and I’d forgotten all about this. But you and I were on Moody Radio together back when I did my show, UP for Debate, talking about of all things, modesty. SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE 02:58 I know. It’s funny that things come full circle. JULIE ROYS 03:03 They do and I think both of us if we were to record that today would probably be in a little different place. So, a lot has happened in the past five or six years. And I think that’s a lot of what we’re going to be talking about, the evolution of things within the evangelical church, a lot has changed. But unfortunately, a lot has stayed the same as well. And so really looking forward to diving into that. Before we go any further though, I also want to mention that I have an exciting announcement that you will be coming to The Restore Conference on October 13 and 14th. So, so excited about that and about having you join us. So, thanks for agreeing to do that. I’m just thrilled that you’re gonna be there. SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE 03:41 Well, I’m just so excited to meet people in real life. You know, you feel like you type into your keyboard all the time. And I’m so yeah, I’m so jazzed to see everybody. JULIE ROYS 03:49 Yeah, and for those of you who don’t know what Restore is, it’s a two-day conference for folks that have experienced church hurt or those who are allies of these folks who have experienced church hurt or church leaders, especially we would love to see church leaders come. I know at the past few conferences, that’s been an area that’s been growing people coming saying we want to know how to minister to people who have been through these sorts of church hurt experiences, and some of the other folks coming, Wade Mullen Mary Demuth, Lori Ann Thompson, who I know is your fellow Canadian, there in the great white north. So really excited about that. If you want more information, just go to RESTORE2023.COM. But Sheila, to get to your book., She Deserves Better. I just finished reading it last night. It was outstanding. And what was really kind of fun is that my daughter, my 21-year-old is home and so I got to read portions to her, and she was like, man, I want to read this book this is an outstanding book. So, you got the thumbs up from my daughter as well. SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE 04:55 Oh, that’s great to hear. JULIE ROYS 04:57 Yeah, it was really cool. And I know that we’re going to have a lot of conversations around this book. And actually, after each chapter, you have discussion questions that moms and daughters can have these conversations, which, what a great resource. I mean, I think this is going to be so helpful for moms and daughters to engage over these topics. SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE 05:16 That was really our prayer. We have about 1000 people in our launch team, which has been crazy. And a lot of them are saying, I’m either reading it so that I can talk to my daughter better, or I’m reading it to reparent little 15-year-old me. Yeah, cuz it’s all this stuff I should have heard, but I didn’t. JULIE ROYS 05:31 Yeah, yeah. Well, I love the premise of your book that women deserve better, especially women within the evangelical church. And I have to say, it’s just been sad to see in so much of my reporting that women in the church are not believed, a lot of the time, they’re silenced. They’re gaslit, they’re fed lies about who they are, and about their worth. And so, I see that changing, and the culture is changing. I think we’re just on the cusp of that change. But I think you’re a big part of that. And your advocacy and your voice has been so important. So, thank you for that. And looking forward to unpacking that. I had to laugh at the opening of your book, when you talk about growing up with blue eyeshadow, the Brady Bunch, and learning to play guitar using Amy Grant tunes, while on summer missions trips. I think we must have had the same adolescence. SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE 06:21 Yes, with the bangs that go really high too, right? You’re teasing your bangs. JULIE ROYS 06:25 Yeah, man. My hair, I think from one side to the other was about a foot, you know, I mean, yes, it was the 80s. But we really did have different messages when it comes to sex and marriage and dating. You know, you said that you dated a lot in high school, I dated a lot in high school. I came from a very strong Christian home. I dated non-Christians, which I’m not sure that was the best thing. You know, I look back and I’m like, ooh, some stuff could have gotten really bad. It didn’t. But it could have. But yeah, I mean, that was the culture we grew up. And our daughters, on the other hand, grew up thinking, if you’re in certain evangelical, conservative churches, that dating was taboo in the church, you know, we had books like I Kissed Dating Goodbye. The purity ring’s became a thing. You would think that given all of this emphasis that we’ve had in this, you know, latest generation on dating and sex and everything, that it would produce a lot better marriages and a lot healthier marriages. That’s not what you found, was it? SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE 07:30 No. Exactly. When purity culture came in, and you can kind of date it to the mid-90s, maybe to like 2015, although I think it’s still there. It’s just using different words. But the message is that we’re really taught especially to girls ended up having really significant long-term effects that were harmful, which is so sad. And I don’t think the intention was ever that. I think that the people teaching this stuff had good intentions, but they just didn’t realize the implications of what they were saying. And so that’s what we’re trying to do in She Deserves Better, using actual research. We surveyed 7000 women, to see how their experiences as teens in church and the messages that they were told in church, how those impact them long term. And the picture is not pretty. JULIE ROYS 08:20 Yeah, I mean, it’s interesting, because in the church, so often we talk about all the dangers that are outside the church. And you actually found that the messaging around some of these things is actually more healthy in the secular culture, which is shocking, then in the church. Am I getting that right? SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE 08:38 Absolutely. Especially around things like consent and date rape around ideas that women have worth and that our voices matter. Those are things that are definitely healthier in secular spaces. And I think that’s tragic. And it needs to change. JULIE ROYS 08:54 Yeah. And when we’re talking about this, though, even though we’re talking in the church, these messages that we’re gonna be unpacking, these are biblical messages. It’s not like Christianity has been tried here and found wanting, it’s like, I kind of think of it like it’s a Pharisee ism, on top of what the Bible actually says. We’ve created these rules on top right? SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE 09:15 Yeah, exactly. Because when you look at the negative things that we measured, Jesus never said them. Jesus, in very many cases said the exact opposite. And yet, our church culture has created gender dynamics that are really harmful for girls. And we need to confront that because our girls do deserve better our boys deserve better. And we deserved better in the past too. And I think if enough of us look at this, honestly, if we’re willing to look at this, I think we can do better for the next generation. And I believe there is such a hunger and an urgency to this. I think people are ready. JULIE ROYS 09:52 Let’s start with church youth groups. I know for a lot of families, the reason they go to a church is for the youth group. And I’ll be honest, even though my husband and I have done youth group ministry, the older I get, the more I’ve really started thinking about the wisdom of pooling a bunch of teenagers all together at this stage of life and then putting some inexperienced pastor over them. I do think they can often be just sort of a breeding ground for all sorts of trouble. And sadly, so many of the abuse stories that I report on happen within church youth groups. I know you found that there’s tons of landmines within these youth groups. Talk about those. SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE 10:35 Oh, there are. I don’t know where you want to go first. But here, let me just give you a stat that’s very sobering. So, of the 7000 women that we surveyed 18.7%, I believe reported being sexually harassed or abused or assaulted within youth group situation. Of those about 10% were by a pastor, 20% or by Sunday School teacher or other youth leader. And then you had I think it was like 52% were by a peer and 48% were by some other adults. So, it doesn’t add up to 100. Because people could have had multiple people abusing them. But in total, if you look at it, 12.9% of women say that they were sexually harassed or assaulted or abused by an adult in church while they were still minors. JULIE ROYS 11:18 And there’s so little training, isn’t there? Like, it’s not like these youth pastors come in, and even if they have seminary training, there’s nothing hardly out there, is there really training them to deal with abuse? SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE 11:29 No, there really isn’t. And so much of the training in seminaries doubles down on a lot of the messages we’re going to be talking about, which tend to put the responsibility for male lust and male sin on girls shoulders. And so when they’re in a seminary situation where this is constantly taught, and then they get to a youth group situation where there’s all these girls around, that’s a lot of problem. And they also are not equipped. If you think about it, the person on staff at a church who is the most likely to hear disclosures of abuse, of eating disorders, of mental health problems is your youth pastor. (Yeah). And yet your youth pastor is often 24 years old, maybe newly married, very little education, very little real-life experience, very little life experience outside of church settings, and they’re not qualified for this. And that doesn’t mean they’re not good youth pastors. I know that there are, but we need to think that the most qualified person should really be in charge of the youth, not the least. JULIE ROYS 12:27 Yes, absolutely. And I think we way overblow the proximity to youth that they need to be, you know, like, they don’t need to be that young. In fact, when we were in youth ministry, we found that the number one characteristic you need to be in youth ministry is love for the kids. And sometimes in especially with these kids who sometimes don’t have good parents and good role models. Sometimes they love the 50–60-year-old who’s willing to come in and it’s great. I mean, it’s a wonderful dynamic when you have that. But you know, bare minimum, we just need to have some training. And there just isn’t very much. But let’s talk about some of these messages. I think one of the saddest things that I read in your book concerned drawing boundaries. I think we do a good job of encouraging our kids to draw boundaries around their faith, you know, to stand for their faith and be bold about it. And, you know, avoid drugs and alcohol, things like that. But when it comes to standing up for themselves, especially if you’re a girl, you found that our churches do a pretty abysmal job. Would you tell me about that and what your survey found? SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE 13:38 Sure. So, do you remember the acronym JOY? It’s been used a lot in church circles; Jesus first, others second, you last. And Camp Kanakuk has a similar saying called I’m third, where you know Jesus first, other second, your last. And so, we’re supposed to be caring for other people and not worrying about ourselves. Camp Kanakuk is also involved in one of the worst sexual abuse scandals, where they ignored complaints of parents, where they allegedly promoted and move people around who were known to sexually abuse kids. And you have to wonder how much is this I’m third idea impacting abuse rates? Because I think they’re very linked. And that seems to be what we found as well. When it comes to boundaries, there’s two different kinds. There’s what I call conviction boundaries. So, I don’t drink, I’m not having sex till I’m married. And we’re really good at those like you said, you know, churches are super good at those. Christian kids do tend to have sex less, to drink less all of that stuff. So yay, way to go us. That’s some good news. What we’re really bad at is protection boundaries. So, the idea that I am worth protecting, that I actually matter, because when you believe the JOY acronym, then what you think is everybody else’s needs have to come before my own. That’s not actually what Jesus said. You know Jesus said, you know, love others as you love yourself. So, we need to love ourselves too. But girls especially are often taught, if you say no to someone who needs you, then you are hurting that person, and that is bad. So, you’ll have, you’ll have a friend, maybe you’re their only friend, they’re a little bit socially awkward. they text you constantly. So, what are you doing? It’s like you’re trying to get a paper done and say, I’m bored and they won’t go away. And then if you try to draw boundaries, they’re like, but you’re just the only person and without you, I would be so lost. And maybe they even threatened. You know, we talked to women whose they would have people threaten to kill themselves and you don’t know what to do as kids and you feel like I am responsible for this person. And so, no matter how much awkwardness I feel, no matter how put out I am, I have to live with this because that’s part of being Christian. Jesus didn’t even do that. JULIE ROYS 15:55 And you talk about, and we talked about this a lot, and you know, abuse survivor communities about DARVO. You know this idea – deny, attack, reverse, the victim, and offender. You talked about the churches were actually DARVOing these young teenage girls often. Right? SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE 16:10 Oh, we do it so much in many different ways. Throughout the book, we show how we DARVO about modesty, about consent, about boundaries, about feelings. JULIE ROYS 16:18 We’re really good at DARVOing in the church. SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE 16:20 Or we are. But one of the ways that we get kids to have no boundaries is we tell them that their emotions don’t count. Right? So, whatever you’re feeling, you’re not really feeling it because you’re supposed to have joy in the Lord, Julie. What’s the matter with you that you don’t have joy in the Lord? And so, if you’re feeling anxious, if you don’t like being somewhere where other people tell you, No, this is supposed to make you happy, then you’re told well, the heart is wicked and deceitful above all things. And you need to stand on faith, not on feelings because feelings are bad. But emotions are what God gave us to be our little Spidey senses, like they tell us what is going on in our situation in our circumstances. And if there’s something that we need to work on, and if we’re constantly telling girls, you don’t feel what you think you feel, then they learn that when I’m uncomfortable, I need to disregard that. Well, you never want your child to disregard being uncomfortable. You want your daughter to say, Okay, I’m uncomfortable. Maybe there’s a reason for this. Let me investigate what’s going on to figure out if there’s a reason that I’m uncomfortable, or even if I’m uncomfortable, that matters in and of itself, and I’m allowed to remove myself from the situation. But no, it’s like, you don’t really feel that. What do you mean, you feel uncomfortable? What do you mean, you don’t like being with this person? Don’t you realize Julie, , and now we’re gonna reverse victim and offender that by saying that you are hurting them? Now, what do you mean, you don’t want to be with this youth leader? You know, don’t you realize how much time they’ve spent? How do you think they’re going to be able to keep ministering Julie, if you if you say that to them? JULIE ROYS 17:53 That’s unbelievable. And as you’re saying that I’m thinking of the church that we recently left, because there was a sex abuse scandal, and it wasn’t handled correctly. And you have an abuser, who is being chaperoned, to come to church. And again, it’s like, oh, but don’t you care about the abuser, the person who abused a teenage girl? Sure, I care about him. But I care about protecting all of the women in the church, and this idea of chaperoning them so they can come. I mean, it’s just, why are we so often and you’ll hear this so often too, when you have an abusive pastor, whatever. Let’s pray for him. How many are praying for the victims? Like why do we always seem to prioritize the predator instead of the victim or instead of the vulnerable? What is that? SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE 18:41 Yeah, you know, my oldest daughter, who’s one of the co-authors on the book. So, there’s three of us. JULIE ROYS 18:45 How fun is that to have your daughter work? I mean, that’s just got to be awesome. SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE 18:48 It is really. Rebecca, I like to say that Rebecca writes most of the snarky lines, so when there’s really good one liner, that’s Rebecca, my daughter, and she wrote most of the modesty chapter, because that was her big thing. And she edits, she makes everything better. She does all our focus groups. And she writes the survey. And then Joanna does all of our stats. And she’s amazing at that. I don’t even understand half of what she says. But she’s very good at it. But when Rebecca my oldest when she was in youth group, she was probably about 15. And there was an 18-year-old who was hanging out in their youth group, and he was known to have sexually assaulted several girls at the high school. So, this was a known predator. And he gave off seriously creepy vibes. The girls did not feel comfortable near him. So, she went to the youth leader. And they were doing one of those 30-hour famines, you know, where you sleep overnight. JULIE ROYS 19:35 Oh, yeah, we did those. Yeah. SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE 19:36 And she said, we don’t feel comfortable with him. And the youth leader said, Why are you being so judgmental? Just because someone is weird. Don’t you know they need Jesus? Wow. And wouldn’t do anything about it. And so, the boys in the youth group each did a buddy system with each of the girls so the girls were never left alone so that this guy couldn’t do anything. So, the boys protected the girls, but the youth leaders told them, You are being judgmental. Don’t you know, he needs Jesus? And so, his need to hear about Jesus was greater than the girls need for safety. JULIE ROYS 20:13 Wow. And no wonder we’re having these issues in our youth groups, if that’s where we’re placing our priority, and we’re not protecting women and girls, that’s just so bad. And it’s actually you know, in a way, these girls are being groomed to be abused. SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE 20:29 Exactly. Because if you feel uncomfortable, and you want to get away from somebody you don’t want someone here will Don’t you know, they need Jesus, you might be the only one who can bring Jesus to them. JULIE ROYS 20:38 What an awful message. Let’s look at dating. because the big runaway book, you know, that came out when we were doing youth ministry was I Kissed Dating Goodbye. Of course now, the author of that Josh Harris. Thank you, Joshua Harris. Yeah. Now has renounced his faith. I mean, it’s really sad, but I remember, I remember reading it and going, oh, wow. I’ve never thought about that before, you know, and we kind of had a joke in our youth group, because we had discussions about it about the book, I don’t know, it was like three or four weeks that we spent on it. And during that time, everybody started dating in the group. So you know, people weren’t absorbing it. But we, you know, we just had discussions about it, like, what do you think? But it became, you know, I know in a lot of circles became just legalistic and this idea of courting, and then all these dating rules, you couldn’t kiss before you were married, which I just can’t even imagine going down the aisle, having never kissed a boy, and then having your wedding night. I mean, I just can’t even fathom that. But now we have several decades to sort of look back and evaluate, you know, what’s been the fruit of this? So, tell me, I mean, you’re the expert, what has been the fruit of I Kissed Dating Goodbye, and all of these, these rules? SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE 22:01 Okay, so much to say here. Well, first, let me paint the picture. Yeah. So, in the 80s, we often think that everything is getting worse, right? Like society is going downhill. And we’re, everything’s just terrible. But actually, in the 80s, teen pregnancy rates were higher than they are today, the rate of teen sexual activity was higher. Drug and alcohol use were higher. Now today, oral sex is higher, porn use is higher, mental health is worse. So, we have, you know, we have our own issues. But the 80s was bad. And all of these school boards and counties and governments and churches were looking at the teen pregnancy rates, and they were going, we got to do something. And so, they brought in super comprehensive sex ed, and Christian parents didn’t like that. And so, there was this big revolt against comprehensive sex ed. And that’s when purity culture largely came in with the whole abstinence only message. So, we’re only going to say abstinence. And at the same time, you have this dating movement where we’re not going to date, we’re not going to even kiss, we’re going to wait to the wedding. And it was kind of sold as like, this is what Christianity should be. And we’re going to harken back to the olden days. There were no olden days where people didn’t kiss before the wedding. Like even in Jane Austen. Like you watch, they kiss, they’re engaged, okay. Like, there is no olden days. And in our survey of 7000, we broke people down by generations. And if you look at boomers, there was like nobody who waited to kiss for the wedding. Like in Gen X, maybe 1%. You know, and then suddenly you get to millennials, and you’re looking at I think it was like 12 or 13% waited for the wedding. JULIE ROYS 23:41 Wow. Yeah, it’s kind of funny. We, my husband used to like to say how he waited so long before he kissed me. And he was telling this story to all these people. And I’m like, sweetheart, do you realize when you kissed me? And he’s like, Well, I know I waited a long time, blah, blah, blah. I’m like, you kiss me on our second date. Yeah. He’s like, I did not. I’m like, Yes, you did. And he’s like, Well, I know by that time, I was serious. I’m like, Well, yes. You were born serious. Yeah. It’s just so funny. But I have to say, now you’re going to this is not going to be helpful to me because my daughter and I got in this. This I wouldn’t say heated argument but like it was, it was lively, we’ll say lively. But everything we do, we really are passionate in our family. I know. That’s hard to like, imagine. But yeah, we got in this whole thing because I was like, you know, when I was a kid, I mean, to me, the hookup culture. So, my perception would be the opposite of what you just said. Because my perception when I was growing up, like and again, I’m in a small town, maybe I’m living in a bubble. I don’t know. But like when I was growing up, not one of my friends had sex and talked about it. One friend I remember said like, let slip that the boy she had been dating, like for a year and a half that they were having sex and we were all like, oh, and they weren’t even Christians, right? We were just all Like, Oh, my word, you know, we were like so shocked it was, which, you know, I talked to my daughter and the culture seems like it’s gone, you know, like her culture she grew up in. So different. So, so different. So, I’m trying to put that together with the numbers that you’re given me, you know. I mean, it just wasn’t true to my experience. But maybe, I mean, help me put that together. Am I missing something? Or is it just that I just lived in Small Town, Pennsylvania, where we were about 15 years behind the culture for sure. Yeah, it really did and also, I’m talking about high school, right? Like things are very different once you get to college age today, for sure. But even among college, college students, the rate of sexual activity has dropped. Now the rate of porn use has gone way up. And this is all it’s difficult to tease out what’s going on. But for high schoolers, yes. In the broader culture, there was more sexual activity in terms of intercourse in the 80s, 70s and 80s then there is today. Which I know we think is bizarre. But things are not necessarily always getting worse. Now, you could argue that because there’s more oral sex and porn use, have we really gotten better and very good point. Maybe it’s more casual now too, because like, the idea of having sex with somebody that you weren’t dating. I remember when I heard that people were doing that, like, I’m in my 40s. Again, probably a little bit out of touch. But I was just like, You’re kidding me. You know, like, I was just shocked by that. SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE 26:23 I’ve never been part of the hookup culture either. And just imagining that it’s, I guess, I can’t quite get my head around it either. But you can understand why I think when purity culture came in, people really did want to help, because there was so much heartache going on. And STDs were high. You know, people were trying to prevent teen pregnancies. And so, they thought, all we need to do is get kids to stop dating. If we can just get kids to stop dating, and to take marriage more seriously. And, you know, to get parents involved in the courtship so that you choose a good mate, and you’re protected. And it was very much let’s protect these kids. So, here’s what we did. We looked at, we took our 7000 women, and we divided them into four groups. So, people who were allowed to date and dated, people who were allowed to date and didn’t date, people who were not allowed to date and didn’t date, and people who were not allowed to date but did date anyway. So, there’s your four groups, a little quadrant, and we looked at their outcomes. The thing is that during purity culture, there was really only one outcome that people cared about, which was, are they a virgin on the wedding night? Yeah, I have two married adult daughters. And I can tell you that on their wedding day, that was not my primary concern. On their wedding day, I was just thanking God, that neither of them were marrying abusers. And the both of them were marrying guys that I had total faith in. Because as a parent, what you really want, like the biggest nightmare is that your child is going to marry an abuser. And so, we measured that. We looked at their future marital and sexual satisfaction, we looked at their self-esteem, because self-esteem is highly linked to better mental health, better jobs, better relationships overall. So, we had a number of different outcome variables, including whether people got married or not. Paul commends singleness, we should be far more welcoming of single people in churches. I think it’s terrible that we have created churches that are so antagonistic, often towards single people. But at the same time, I think if someone wants to get married and never does, that is something that that we can mourn. You know, if people are happy being single, that is wonderful. But I think we do need to acknowledge some heartache. And if our kids want to get married, we want them to be able to get married. So, let’s add that as an outcome variable. When you look at all of those things, here’s the hard truth. There is no one size fits all rule that works best for all of those things. And during purity culture, people were trying to find a rule, they were trying to say, just tell me what to do with my kids. And there isn’t a rule. What I can tell you is that there is one option that works out best for most of those things. And it’s your child being allowed to date but choosing not to. And that’s not something parents can control. JULIE ROYS 29:09 No, no, I’ve raised three kids. None of them were disinterested in dating, much to our dismay. We would have been happy for that. But yeah, I mean, that’s just a tough thing. But there’s no rules in some ways, I think for raising teenagers period. Like everything you’ve been taught, you know, the worst. The worst parenting advice I ever got, was from one of these homeschooling, I don’t know if Veritas Press or what it was, but I got this DVD teaching and it was all about how Jesus at age 12 had all of his character formed, and how your child at age 12, Sheila, should have all of their character form and I just remember as a parent going, oh my word we’ve completely failed! I don’t think there brain is formed It was insane and all this guilt but the Christian space, not just were these messages that you’re talking about hard for the kids and for those adolescents coming of age, but for the parents too, because they put these ridiculous rules and measures of success on parents. And you know what? What I’ve seen over raising three kids is if you love them well, and stay engaged with them, and that relationship stays warm, despite whatever mistakes they make, and you make because you will make plenty and keep them connected to you know, they stay connected to the Lord and to you. By the time they’re adults. love covers a multitude of sins. Thank you, Jesus. But that’s I mean, those are the important things like you said, my daughter’s not married, I have a son, one son who’s married, and you’re right on their wedding day. The most important thing is what kind of person are they marrying? And what’s the trajectory of their life right now? Are they pursuing the Lord or not? I mean, these are the things that matter. Not did they perform according to these rules, or whatever. And it’s it really is perverse, and it’s no wonder that we have a performance-based idea of God like he’s a taskmaster. I mean, this is a microcosm of really a much larger problem, isn’t it? SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE 31:33 It really is. And it’s interesting how the things that we tell teens, they are kind of like a painting a small miniature painting, of how we see God in general, because the way that we parent our teens is the way that we think God parents us. And so much in the last few decades in evangelicalism has all been about trying to control kids and guilting them into things and blaming them for things, even things they weren’t even thinking about yet, but assuming that they’re messing up when they’re not messing up. JULIE ROYS 32:07 Well, this concludes part one of my interview with Sheila on her newly released book She Deserves Better. In part two, we’ll discuss modesty messages, like men are visual in a way women will never understand, or boys can’t help but lust if a girl’s dress like she’s inciting it. You’ll also hear about a sexual pain disorder that appears way more in evangelical women than anyone else. SHEILA WRAY GREGOIRE 32:31 It’s really debilitating. And we found an incidence rate of around 23%, which is at least two to two and a half times the rate of the general population. And if you talk to any pelvic floor physiotherapist, they will tell you most of my patients are evangelicals. And so, there is something about our teaching that is actually hurting women’s bodies. JULIE ROYS 32:50 Again, that’s just a short excerpt from Part Two of my discussion with Sheila Wray Gregoire. But if you’re thinking I’d love to get a copy of Sheila’s book and explore this topic more, you’re in luck. This month, anyone who gives a gift of $30 or more to The Roys Report will get a copy of She Deserves Better. Plus, you’ll be helping support our ministry which is almost 100% grassroots funded. We don’t have any big donors or grants or advertising. We have you the people who are passionate about protecting the vulnerable and seeing the church restored. To give your gift and get a copy of She Deserves Better, just go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. Also, just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts or Spotify. That way you’ll never miss an episode. And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about this podcast by leaving a review. And then please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks so much for joining me today. I hope you were blessed and encouraged. Read more

Guest Bios Show Transcript American evangelicals love megachurches. Today, there are about 1,750 megachurches in the U.S. and 65% of them are evangelical in their theology. But are these megachurches truly helping the evangelical movement—or are they destroying it? In this edition of The Roys Report, Julies continues a discussion of Jesus vs. Evangelicals with Dr. Constantine Campbell, author of the book by that name. And in this second part, Dr. Campbell offers a scathing, yet necessary critique of the modern megachurch movement. Many see these huge megachurches—with big buildings, large congregations, and massive budgets—as success stories. But when evaluated by the standard of making mature disciples of Jesus Christ, these megachurches fall woefully short.  Dr. Campbell and Julie also look at evangelicalism’s so-called “lunatic fringe”—from prosperity preachers to proponents of Christian nationalism. At one point, these agenda-driven grifters would not have been accepted by the evangelical community. But increasingly, these leaders are becoming mainstream despite their heretical gospels. Dr. Constantine Campbell Dr. Constantine Campbell is Professor and Associate Research Director at Sydney College of Divinity. He is a New Testament scholar, jazz musician, and the author of several books, including Jesus v. Evangelicals: A Biblical Critique of a Wayward Movement. Dr. Campbell also teaches jazz performance at The Australian National University. Show Transcript SPEAKERS JULIE ROYS, DR. CONSTANTINE CAMPBELL JULIE ROYS  00:06 American evangelicals love mega churches. Today there are about 1750 mega churches in the United States, and 65% of them are evangelical in their theology. But are these mega churches truly helping the evangelical movement? Or, as my guest today suggests, are they destroying it?    Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And this is part two of my podcast on Jesus versus Evangelicals with Dr. Constantine Campbell, author of the book by that name. And if you miss part one, I encourage you to go back and listen to that now. In it we discussed why so many things evangelicalism is known for today, like seeking political power and judging sinners, are the exact opposite of what Jesus modeled. And in part two, Dr. Campbell critiques the mega church movement. Many see these huge mega churches with big buildings, large congregations, and massive budgets as success stories, but using the metric of making disciples, these mega churches fall woefully short. We’ll also look at evangelicalism’s so called lunatic fringe, the prosperity preachers, and proponents of Christian nationalism that at one point would not have been accepted by the evangelical community. But increasingly, these leaders are going mainstream despite their heretical gospels.   We’ll get back to my interview with Dr. Campbell in just a minute. But first, I’d like to thank two sponsors of this podcast, Judson University and Marquardt of Barrington. Judson University is a top ranked Christian University providing a caring community and an excellent college experience. Plus the school offers more than 60 majors great leadership opportunities and strong financial aid. Judson University is shaping lives that shaped the world. For more information, just go to JUDSONU.EDU Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity, and transparency. That’s because the owners there Dan and Kurt Marquardt are men of integrity. To check them out, just go to BUYACAR123.com.   Well, again joining me to discuss evangelicalism, Jesus and mega churches is Dr. Constantine Campbell, a Professor and Associate Research Director at Sydney College of divinity in Sydney, Australia. We pick up our conversation with a topic that’s become a regular focus of our investigations at The Roys Report, American mega churches.   Chapter seven in your book addresses mega churches. And of course, this is where I have spent so much of the past several years. And you do cite a lot of the work that we’ve published and based on them and other data, you explain why these mega churches and you really don’t mince words. I mean, you really do say are destroying (that’s right) evangelicalism. And I’d like to just walk through some of the information that you present because I think it’s so powerful. Let’s start with who goes to a mega church. Willow Creek, which I went to Willow Creek many, many years ago. But they argued and this was one of the reasons I was excited about it was this whole unchurched Harry and Mary because no unbeliever would get saved in my church I grew up in. They might get saved through the believers that sit in the pews, through their personal relationships, but nobody would get saved through coming to church. I mean, it just, it didn’t happen, right? So, this idea of reaching the lost through this incredible whiz bang kind of service. I did see a boss of mine, who we invited came to church, but it was in the context of spiritual conversations we were having. And then he became a believer. And actually, we saw chain reaction, a whole bunch of people became believers through what God was doing with his little sales team, you know. But by and large is the research showing that that’s who’s coming to our mega churches primarily are unbelievers?   CONSTANTINE CAMPBELL 04:13 Yeah, I think part of the sort of profile of mega churches is that they’re extremely good at reaching unchurched people, but the statistics don’t really back that up. They’re slightly better than the average church, but you’re talking about 1% better. And the reality is that most mega churches, most of their numbers come from other churches. And that’s the anecdotal experience of many other pastors of small churches and many Christians that they just well as I put it, suck other churches dry and that’s part of the problem for them. So, I think if you remove that, well, they’re very good at reaching unchurched Harry. If you remove that because it’s not actually statistically true, then what are they good for?   JULIE ROYS  05:01 And that is the question.   CONSTANTINE CAMPBELL 05:04 Yeah. And unfortunately, really, I think that they are again, first I want to say there are many mega churches where the pastors are godly servants, and they stay out of the news, and they do love their people. And many people do experience growth within those churches and there are many positive ministries that mega churches are able to do that smaller churches that are not able to do. Willow Creek, for example, has ministry to incarcerated people and things like that. But I argue in the book that the model of the mega church is unhealthy both for attendees, but also for the pastors. And it’s really based around celebrity. And it’s based around consumerism. And it’s based around this false notion that bigger is better. And that showy, like showy worship music and dazzling lights., and theatrical performance, is what church should be about. I’m not against great music, I’m a professional musician. You know, I’m not against theatrical performance, I love going to the movies, and I love stage plays and that sort of stuff. And I’m also not opposed to those things having a role in church. But it seems to me that the whole mega church model puts confidence in those things, to do the heavy lifting. But if you read the New Testament, the heavy lifting is done by proclaiming the Word of God, by the power of the Spirit, and through loving one another.   And this is really important. In the book, I draw on Ephesians chapter four, where Paul talks about this model of the church where it’s building itself up in love. And it’s an idea of every member of the church working together, as a body of Christ grows in maturity. Not numerically necessarily, but in maturity and in faith. The consumerism of the mega church model is that you really don’t see that happening. You see a few people working very hard, the professionals, but the average person attends, you know, they pop along, they take in the show, maybe they have a coffee with someone afterwards, and then they go. That’s actually not good for them spiritually. Because the reason church is called a service, a church service is we’re meant to be serving one another. Not a church show. And unfortunately, so often, the megachurch model lends itself to a church show, rather than a church service.   JULIE ROYS  07:34 I heard somebody say this recently, where they saw so many people who had been serving in their small church, go to the mega church. And here are people that were active in their small church, when they go to the mega church, they become inactive. They watched the show. And I know we’ve experienced where, you know, we’re in a house church now. And like if you don’t, if each person doesn’t give something, it just doesn’t happen. Right. And so, I do think as making disciples, and as a vehicle for making disciples, the mega church seems to be failing miserably.   And you wrote something, and this just, it took my breath away, but I want to read this from your book. You say, if a clever wolf wanted to destroy GOD’s flock, the following four step strategy would do the trick. Step one, take the sheep away from the good shepherds, leading small churches and put them all under a bad shepherd in one big church. Step two, wait for the Good Shepherd small churches to close. Step three, let the bad Shepherd lead the flock astray through weak teaching and self-centered consumerism. Step four, let the bad Shepherd fall when his true nature becomes known. The result? All the good, small churches are gone. The good shepherds have left the ministry, their former flocks have become corrupted, and the big church Juggernaut is no longer able to function without its celebrity bad Shepherd. It would be a devastating strategy.   Sadly, I have seen that happen. I’ve seen it happen in the Chicago area. And you quote in your book, Paul Lundqvist, who is a former pastor and missionary who I’ve come to know just through his engagement with The Roys Report, and we published something that he wrote that was just so powerful, that he’s talking about how so many of the churches just dried up and died when Willow and Harvest, you know, came to town and everybody went to the bigger show, and now that they’ve imploded in many ways, people are left with this devastation. And I know for me, as I’ve gone searching for a church in the wake of scandals and things, what I find in the landscape is it’s absolutely sobering. I go from show to show to show. What is hard to find is a church that feels safe is a church where you will be loved for who you are, not what you can give to the church, to find one where people are really looking to minister to one another. And you don’t have to have some outstanding gift to be able to just serve and give. And I’ve been so grateful for the pockets of true church that I’ve experienced. But I know so many people out there, and for my kids, my heart just absolutely breaks for them. I think what is going to be left for them? What is left for them? You know, even now I see them struggling to find churches that they really connect with and how do we recover from what’s happening? And should there be some churches who I mean, it seems like they always wait for the major implosion right for the pastor to fall and for you know, the toxic system to be exposed. It would be so nice if churches would be able to say this isn’t unhealthy. Maybe instead of getting bigger. We need to divide and grow smaller.   CONSTANTINE CAMPBELL 11:15 Yeah, yeah. Well, in some ways, I’m so sorry that that paragraph resonated so strongly with you because it’s a very sad reality, isn’t it? I was lucky in I lived in the next-door suburb from where Willow Creek is, in Lake Zurich, which is next door to Barrington and I went to a church in Barrington called the Village Church of Barrington, an Evangelical Free Church, led by Dr. David Jones, and I love that church. And a big part of it was because of who he is. He’s a Trinity grad smart guy got his doctorate in ministry. Actually, I cite him number of times in the chapter about mega churches, because his study was on multi-site churches, and their negative effect on Christian growth and maturity. But here’s a man who, to my mind gets it. Like, he walks humbly with the Lord teaches the Scripture is very serious about teaching the Bible, but he’s also the kind of person that you can talk to and wants to know how you’re traveling and won’t judge you for when you’re failing. And we just need more people like that.   JULIE ROYS  12:30 And you know, his background?   CONSTANTINE CAMPBELL 12:31  Yeah, I do know, his background. He was at Harvest.   JULIE ROYS  12:34 And he used to write sermons for James McDonald. And I think probably having seen that has shaped him and ministering to so many Harvest refugees has shaped him.   CONSTANTINE CAMPBELL 12:50 Yeah, there’s so many Harvest refugees in that in that church, including some of the former elders from Harvest. So, they’re, in part, reacting strongly against the negative things that we’re talking about. But you see, it’s working, and you can’t just get rid of those negative things, you have to replace them with something. And I think, I think with David, you know, it’s like, if you under understand the scriptures, you understand that humility is a prerequisite for leadership. And you understand that love is a prerequisite, and that you understand that it’s by the power of the Spirit, in concert with the Word of God that grows churches, by honoring Christ as the center. If you’re not doing that, then negative things are gonna happen.   But the thing is, I think part of the problem with that whole culture is that to be perfectly honest, there’s such little theological formation, even for the pastors, that don’t know these things that I think are quite basic. They don’t even know that. And the churches don’t know that. So, the churches aren’t able to discern what’s going wrong. And neither are the leaders because they’re just operating on what is basically a worldly model of success, which is entertain people, create a consumerist situation, be flashy and showy, be funny, do all that use these strategies and methods. The apostle Paul says, you know, we issue those worldly methods. You know, he preaches Christ crucified and loves people. That’s basically his method for ministry, preach Christ and love people.   JULIE ROYS  14:32 And that is radical. There are so few places in the world where you are loved. (Yeah) If the church really loves well, I mean, that’s how the early church was known as a community that loved well, and that was radical, it will always be radical, because our world is not based on love and on giving to each other, (right). In your ministry or business, your reputation is your most valuable asset. But what do you do when you suspect misconduct? Hopefully, you do the opposite of many of the organizations I report on. Instead of covering up wrongdoing, you investigate it. And Accord Analytics can help. In just 72 hours, their team of experts can scour emails, call logs and other records to produce usable evidence. They also can analyze your organization to identify specific threats and to suggest best practices. For a free consultation go to ACCORDANALYTICS.COM.   I don’t want to close this conversation without talking about what you call the lunatic fringe, which thank you, yes, it is. I mean, you’re talking about folks like Paula White, Joyce Meyer, which I can’t believe how mainstream she’s become. Joel Osteen, TD Jakes. These are not evangelicals, and yet, as you know, they really have made it into the mainstream. And interestingly, my head’s been in the Hillsong documents that have come out, which are just I mean, there are so many stories that could be generated from those documents, but one is, I mean, Joyce Meyer, Joel Osteen, TD Jakes, I mean, TD Jakes is a mogulist. Prosperity gospel, so prevalent in Joyce Meyers teaching, they’ve learned Joel Osteen has learned and they’ve all learned how to kind of walk super close to the line, but not quite over it so that they can say they’re not a prosperity gospel person, you know, they just kind of lead you to the door and encourage you to step through it, but they don’t actually do it themselves, although some of them do. I mean, the, I think Paul White still very blatant, even if you go to her website, you know, do this and you’ll be blessed. And this is give me a lot of money. But these folks are promoting some false gospels. One I mentioned prosperity gospel, and you might want to touch on that briefly. But there’s some other gospels that are becoming more mainstream as well. So, would you talk about those and the threat that they pose to evangelicalism?   CONSTANTINE CAMPBELL 17:01 Yeah, so as you mentioned, the prosperity gospel, which is also so widespread and prevalent, and sounds so good to people because you know, who doesn’t want to prosper. But also talk about what I call the self-help gospel. And this is where I think Joel Osteen is probably the premier example, where he sort of dispenses coaching tips, life advice. And as I say, in that chapter, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. And the Bible is chock full of practical wisdom, like the book of Proverbs, for example. You know, if you do something stupid, something bad is gonna happen to you that sort of, you know, or if you’re wise, you know, things are gonna go better for you. And that sort of general, common-sense approach is biblical, and it’s good.   But it’s also not the whole story. And actually, if you take the Bible in its entirety, I believe the ultimate message is that we all exist for the glory of God in Jesus Christ. And that’s actually the ultimate purpose of our lives, the ultimate meaning. And sure, God may choose to bless us and with material wealth, or health or success, or not, and there are plenty of Christians for whom that has not been the case. But that’s actually not really the point; our happiness, or our prosperity, or our self-help. It’s not about us. And that’s the biggest danger I think, with both those false gospels, it’s not about us. It’s not meant to be about us. We’re built for worship, you know. It’s about Jesus, its meant to be about him not as our coach in the sky to make our lives better, but that we might live in a way that brings honor and glory to Him and let other people know about him.   So, the third false gospel I mentioned in that chapter is what I call the nationalism gospel, which just conflates or corrupts Christianity with nationalistic themes. And I go so far as to call it syncretism, where you’re just blending Christian and non-Christian elements and calling it Christianity. And I can imagine that for many Americans, that would be a little bit offensive. But I’m hoping as an outsider with some lived experience in the US and some knowledge that helping to uncover a blind spot there. And sometimes you need a neighbor to do that. Because by definition, you can’t see it yourself and I welcome the same correction for our context here in Australia. So, if someone wants to write Jesus, the Australian evangelicals, I wouldn’t be able to do that because they’re my blind spots, you know?   JULIE ROYS  19:38 Well, and I feel like my spiritual heritage has helped me so much because we were Anabaptist and came to America from Switzerland because they were burning us at the stake the other Protestants were. But Anabaptists had this radical idea that, you know, we should actually follow our conscience and people should be allowed to follow their conscience. But also, were very separate from the state, like even the idea of taking a state job, or serving in the military. I mean, we were called dunkers in Pennsylvania, because it was a duress of turn during World War Two because my dad’s family were all conscientious objectors. But it was just seeing that we were not part of the world. Now, I’m not saying I’m a pacifist, and I’m not saying that I hold to all those separatists doctrine, but it’s been helpful, it was so ingrained in me that we are not of this world that we should live counter culturally. And so, if we look a lot like the culture, it’s probably a sign (Yeah), that we’re off base.   CONSTANTINE CAMPBELL 20:42 Yeah, I think so the message of the New Testament and Jesus teaching is so upside down from the world’s values. I’m a fan for understanding culture and sort of fitting into a certain extent, and being relatable, like being a normal person, in the culture that we live in. But at the same time, our natural tendency is going to want to just not be countercultural, I think, for most of us, and that’s something that personally, you know, I need to watch and check my own ways of thinking to see whether I’m actually thinking in the way of Jesus or whether I’ve just bought the assumptions of the culture around me. But I think that’s got to be the first step, right? is at least asking the question, and being aware that I totally have that potential and tendency to just adopt the way people think around me, rather than critique it by scripture or critique it by the way of Jesus. I’m certainly would not claim to be perfect in any sense in that area. But I think the way forward has got to at least be well, let’s check ourselves. Right. Let’s see. Let’s see how we’re traveling in that way and be open to gentle correction.   JULIE ROYS  22:01 Well, and I will say true confessions as I was reading your book, there were parts of it that were very convicting.   CONSTANTINE CAMPBELL 22:07 Thank you for saying so. (Yeah) Me too.   JULIE ROYS  22:11 And that’s good. That’s good. I mean, even with a conversation I had with my daughter last night, you know, about my way of thinking and how I think it’s always right. Of course, as parents, we fall into that, but we have to continually be confessing pride and going back to humility, because we just that is our natural tendency. And with each success, it’s such a double-edged sword, because it’ll just often make you more proud.   But you come back, and I love where you land this book, I really, really do. You’re not rejecting Jesus, obviously, what you’re showing is that evangelicalism that I think, you know, what would Jesus say? He would come in and he would look at every single one of these symptoms that you’ve talked about and would go to the deeper illness, which is our pride, which is our desire for comfort, and ease and some of these things. And you really call us back to our first love. What would that look like if we were to return as evangelicals to our first love?   CONSTANTINE CAMPBELL 23:19 It’s the same thing that I feel like has happened in my own life and that needs to continue to happen, which is a profound sense of humility first. That Jesus does offer a different way from the way that I’m naturally sort of wired to think or to be or to relate to others, and that he critiques my way. And so, the first thing I think that a return to our first love has got to be is like, how am I failing to be like Jesus, you know, how am I failing to follow him? And there’s so many ways. I mean, let me tell you. I mean the book is a critique of American evangelicalism, but I could write 10 times the amount just critiquing me, trust me. But seriously, like, you can only really learn from Jesus if you’re open. And sometimes that will happen through a great personal tragedy will crack you open. Or maybe that will happen through something, someone says, or maybe, who knows.   But God uses these things, to make us open to humble us, and we need to be humble. And I do feel that if you are open and humble, then the rest is possible, because you can hear it, and you can take it on board, and you can correct where you need to be corrected. And again, this is why it’s the opposite of pride the most biblical sin because it makes you changeable and I think we need to be that way as individuals. But we need to be that way as the church, churches, our individual churches, but as a whole as well as sort of posture of humility that’s open to saying, you know what, maybe it was a mistake to throw all our support behind Donald Trump. You know, maybe it was a mistake to try to change the culture through political power. Maybe it’s a mistake to excessively punish some sins and let other sins go by. Maybe it’s a mistake the way we tend to treat divorced and remarried people, maybe it’s a mistake, etcetera, etcetera, just reassess. And honestly, I hope and pray that just that anyone who reads the book that it will, at a minimum have that effect that someone will be like, Okay, I just need to be open to rethinking my attitude about X, Y, or Z. And if it achieves that goal, then I’m really grateful.   JULIE ROYS  25:45 There are two pages from your book that I wish I could read the whole thing, but I know for the sake of time, I can’t. I will say this, get this book and read pages 207 and 208. I love how you right Faultline evangelicals celebrate an unhealthy church model the mega church that has adopted our cultural fascination with celebrity size, consumerism, and entertainment. Jesus “whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant”. Mark 10:43.   Again, we need to be soaked in Scripture because the Scripture confronts the way of our thinking and the way of our culture and the way of evangelicalism right now. But I thank you so much, Constantine, for writing this book, for your humble posture in doing so, and the love that comes through in your book because, again, love, humility, these are the hallmarks of followers of Jesus Christ. It was what made him so unique. And so, thank you, and thank you for this conversation.   CONSTANTINE CAMPBELL 26:47 Well, thank you so much, Julie, that those words mean so much to me. And thank you for your time today. And thank you for your ministry, which I think is just so important for the health of the church going forward.   JULIE ROYS  26:58 Again, thanks so much for listening to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And if you’ve enjoyed today’s discussion, I think you’ll definitely enjoy Dr. Campbell’s book, Jesus Versus Evangelicals. And in April, if you give a gift of $30 or more to The Roys Report, we’ll send you a copy of that book. Plus, you’ll be helping support our ministry which is almost 100% grassroots funded. Again, we don’t have big donors or grants or advertising. What we have is you the people who are passionate to see evil exposed and the church restored. To give your gift and get a copy of Jesus Versus Evangelicals, just go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. Also, just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcast, Google podcasts or Spotify. That way you’ll never miss an episode. And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks so much for joining me. Hope you were blessed and encouraged.   Read more

Guest Bios Show Transcript Evangelicalism was once known for its theological convictions, like the centrality of Scripture and the need for personal conversion. Now, it’s known for Trumpian politics, anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, megachurch scandals, and grift.  Clearly, it’s a movement in crisis. And according to New Testament scholar Constantine Campbell, if the movement doesn’t correct course, it’s in danger of becoming shipwrecked. In this latest podcast, Dr. Campbell, author of Jesus v. Evangelicals: A Biblical Critique of a Wayward Movement, critiques evangelicalism using Scripture as his standard. And he shows that it’s not Christianity that’s failed in this present age. Instead, it’s evangelicalism that’s failed in recent times to behave Christianly. For example, Jesus taught his disciples to win the culture by making disciples. But today, evangelicals are trying to transform culture by gaining political power. Similarly, evangelicals today rail against some sins, like sexual immorality or perversion. But we wink at equally, or even more pernicious sins, like pride and arrogance. Those grieved by what we’re seeing in the church will surely be encouraged by this podcast. In discussing what’s wrong in the church, Dr. Campbell also describes what it would look like to do things right and to truly follow the example of Jesus. Dr. Constantine Campbell Dr. Constantine Campbell is Professor and Associate Research Director at Sydney College of Divinity. He is a New Testament scholar, jazz musician, and the author of several books, including Jesus v. Evangelicals: A Biblical Critique of a Wayward Movement. Dr. Campbell also teaches jazz performance at The Australian National University. Show Transcript SPEAKERS JULIE ROYS, DR. CONSTANTINE CAMPBELL JULIE ROYS  00:04 For many evangelicals, evangelicalism and Jesus are one in the same. But according to New Testament scholar, Dr. Constantine Campbell, that’s no longer the case. The movement is in disarray and unless evangelicals correct course, they’re in danger of shipwrecking their faith. Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And today Dr. Constantine Campbell, author of Jesus versus Evangelicalism, A Biblical Critique of a Wayward Movement, joins me, and if you’re a regular listener to this podcast, it’s not going to come as any surprise that evangelicalism is in trouble. But what Dr. Campbell does so well is explain why what’s being modeled in evangelicalism is antithetical to the gospel. To quote G.K. Chesterton, “It’s not that the Christian ideal has been tried and found wanting. It’s been found difficult and left untried”. For example, Jesus taught His disciples to win the culture by making disciples. But today, many evangelicals are trying to change the culture by gaining political power. Similarly, evangelicals today railed against some sins like sexual immorality, or perversion, but many wink at equally or even more pernicious sins, like pride and arrogance.   Friends, if you’re aggrieved by what you’re seeing in the church, I believe this podcast is going to encourage you. Yes, we’re going to be talking about what’s wrong in the church, but in doing so, Dr. Campbell describes what it would look like to do things right and to truly follow the example of Jesus. I’m so excited to share this podcast with you.   But first, I’d like to thank two of our sponsors, Accord Analytics and Marquardt of Barrington. In your ministry, your business, your reputation is your most valuable asset. But what do you do when you suspect misconduct? Hopefully, you do the opposite of many of the organizations I report on. Instead of covering up wrongdoing, you investigate it, and Accord Analytics can help. In just 72 hours, their team of experts can scour emails, call logs and other records to produce usable evidence. They also can analyze your organization to identify specific threats and to suggest best practices. For a free consultation go to ACCORDANALYTICS.COM. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity, and transparency. That’s because the owners there Dan and Kurt Marquardt are men of integrity. To check them out, just go to BUYACAR123.COM. Well again, joining me is Dr. Constantine Campbell, a New Testament scholar, author, and documentary host. Dr. Campbell is a Professor and Associate Research Director at Sydney College of Divinity in Sydney, Australia. He’s also the author of several books, including his latest, Jesus versus Evangelicalism, A Biblical Critique of a Wayward Movement. So, Dr. Campbell, welcome, and thanks so much for writing this book and for taking the time to join me today.   CONSTANTINE CAMPBELL 03:08 Oh, thanks so much for having me. Julie. It’s great to meet you and speak with you today.   JULIE ROYS  03:12 Well, I feel the same way. And I’m honored that you referred to The Roys Report several times in this book, it’s always just super, super encouraging when we see the impact of the work that we do, not just here in the US, but in Australia, too.   CONSTANTINE CAMPBELL 03:28 It’s so important. I mean, I can’t think of another ministry really like it. Just so important to be keeping churches and church leaders accountable. And not in a sort of policing kind of way, but in a way that has genuine concern for the church. I just think it’s so important, and I’m really thankful for the work you’re doing.   JULIE ROYS  03:47 Well, thank you for saying that. It is a joy to speak with you. To get to our topic, I don’t think it probably comes as a surprise to anybody that’s followed my work that evangelicalism is, as you say, a wayward movement, a movement that’s lost its moorings. Yet, It’s sad to speak of it that way because I know historically and for me and my family, which goes back many generations of following the Lord, evangelicalism has been known as a movement that really is about vibrant faith in Jesus Christ. And so, I think that’s hard to come to grips with. But I think any evangelical who really loves Jesus has to admit that that’s what it at least is becoming, or in fact, has become, and you even call it perhaps a pseudo-Christianity. What led you to the conclusion that we are in this state?   CONSTANTINE CAMPBELL 04:41 Well, you know, as you say, it’s difficult for anyone who has really identified with the movement that we call evangelicalism. It’s difficult to sort of stand back and critique it. For a long time, you know, I became a Christian as an adult in an evangelical church and I was trained in an evangelical seminary, and my entire academic career has been teaching in evangelical institutions. And that label that badge means so much to the people who wear it, who use it. And nevertheless, as you say, these are very troubling times for evangelicalism. And what tends to happen here in Australia is we say, oh we’re not that sort of evangelical. We say, well, they’re the Americans, or they’re this sort of evangelical,  we’re another sort. But the reality is, that distinction really doesn’t mean very much to anyone who’s not inside the movement. And even within the movement. A lot of people don’t really understand what the label is supposed to mean, you know. A lot of people think it just means evangelistic, rather than a set of theological convictions or a way of being a Christian. But I sort of came to this point of critique, I touched on it briefly in the book, but kind of as a quiet critic over the years, since I’m a biblical scholar in New Testament in particular, there’s so many opportunities when we’re looking at the text of Scripture with students to be thinking about, well, there’s hear what the Bible says, and, you know, and I would say, I don’t often hear people speaking about this theme that so clearly here in in Paul’s writing, so I don’t hear preachers talking about this very much. Or sometimes, you know, I heard in a sermon the other day, someone said this, and this text is clearly you know, stands in direct contrast with what I heard or, and students would offer their perspectives and was more of a sort of internal critique initially, a kind of, I guess, as an evangelical myself, wanted to be guided by what I think is the most important evangelical commitment, which is the authority of the scriptures, and to allow my faith, my belief system to be shaped by that, even if I’d heard other things or if I’d been taught other things. So, I wanted to allow the Bible to critique that. And I wanted that for my students to create a sort of robust, biblical evangelicalism.   But the reality is, it’s sort of cut to a point where I guess I couldn’t be a quiet critic anymore. And things sort of reached a point for me personally, but also in the movement, especially in America, especially with certain political things going on, where I think for the sake of evangelicalism, something needed to be said, publicly, and sort of pretty strongly. And so that’s sort of how the book came about.   JULIE ROYS  07:37 And you talk about a number of different symptoms of evangelicalism being, you know, sick. That we really are having trouble, but you say this is, really these are the symptoms that reflected a deeper illness. And so, I want to dig into some of that, as we kind of walk through this book, chapter by chapter. Sometimes I don’t do that when I do books, but this one was so good. It’s like every chapter I want to talk about. So, if we may split this up into a couple of parts, just because, again, it’s really rich.   And you start with, and you’ve alluded to this, God and country and this priority that American evangelicals, I don’t know if this is around the world, but American evangelicals seem to place on cultural and political transformation of our nation, and sometimes marrying America as the city on the hill when I don’t think it was mentioned in Scripture as the city on the hill. But evangelicalism has always had sort of a social action kind of component to it, but it seems like something’s really shifted. And I think it probably shifted a long time ago. But I know for me, I didn’t realize how profoundly it had shifted until the Trump administration. From your perspective, what causes you alarm, as you think about the politization of the gospel, and this God and country theme that really is very, very strong in America?   CONSTANTINE CAMPBELL 09:09 Julie, there is so much to say about that? Right? I think the starting point would be this assumption, that there’s something special in God’s purposes about America. And I don’t want to deny that that could entirely be the case. But the sort of assumption that America is and ought to be a kind of Christian nation. And that’s sort of been there historically, really, from the beginning of America’s history since European colonization. And this, to my mind really does not reflect biblical teaching. There’s not one particular country that, you know, has a special place in God’s plans. Or if there is one, it’s Israel, and as you say, in the Old Covenant in the Old Testament. So, I think a lot of American Christians want to preserve that sense that America is a Christian country. So that’s one thing.   The second is how to go about that, but also how to go about any cultural influence or political influence. In the book, I sort of contrast the civil rights movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, with the sort of religious right movement beginning in the 80s. And this is not my observation, but I repeat this observation that the civil rights movement was not partisan. It didn’t connect itself to one particular party. It was political in the sense that it appealed to politicians and appealed for legislative change in those sorts of movements. But it did it from a nonpartisan position so that it could actually function as a prophetic voice in society. And it did it the long way, which is to try to persuade American minds through nonviolent protest, through television, through interviews, through preaching, and then gradually, you know, if you can persuade the population, then politicians fall in line, you know, that’s how democracy works.   And so, the Civil Rights Movement achieved enduring change, because it actually changed the way America thought about race. Whereas the religious right movement went for the shortcut approach, which is try to achieve change by using political power. So just go straight to the top, win offices, get your people in position, and then the lawmakers can actually affect policy. But the problem is, if you don’t take the people with you, then it’s not going to create enduring cultural change.   And it actually and this leads to my third problem, which is that Christians should have a totally otherworldly view of power, and how power is used. And I think this is one of the things that go right deep into the heart of the illness of American evangelicalism in its present state, is that it wants to exert power in a worldly way, which is, simply I’m going to overpower my enemy. And I’m going to use political power, in this case, to get what I want for me and my tribe. And that just seems antithetical to the way the New Testament addresses issues of power.   Paul, in his letter to the Corinthians in chapter one says that the cross of Christ turns upside down human power structures, and its actually this foolishness to Greeks. Because how can you worship a crucified God, like, what sort of powerful God gets himself crucified? But Christ crucified is the power of God for salvation. And so, it turns the whole economy of power upside down, so that in God’s economy in the kingdom of God, if you like, the economy, the kingdom of God, the weak are exalted, those who are humble are exalted, and those who exalt themselves are humbled are lowered. And if Christians don’t operate that way, in seeking to change culture and influence the world around them, then they’re actually just being secular, and just being like the rest of the world, where the strongest winds, and that is not the way of Jesus, that’s not the way of Christianity and it fundamentally misses the heart of what Christianity is about.   JULIE ROYS  13:35 And I remember back in 2016, writing some commentaries, and I lost actually, supporters for doing this because I was like, if we’re gonna say that character matters, we can’t all of a sudden jettison that because this is the Republican candidate. And it was shocking to me to hear my brothers and sisters in Christ, I thought we were on the same wavelength, make arguments, rationalizing why we had to basically shelve all of our values and commitments to get us a Supreme Court, you know, that’s going to vote our way. And we’ve seen some benefits of that. Yeah, we have a court right now that overturned Roe v. Wade, wonderful. I’m glad that happened. However, at what cost? At what cost? And that’s what I love that you bring out and I said this, I said, we are going to see, we may have some political gains. But at the end of all of this, the harm to the church is going to be profound. And I don’t see evangelicalism as a whole right now willing to even acknowledge how much harm has been done yet alone, repent of it. I mean, as you look at it, what kind of what’s been the lasting damage of us adopting this approach?   CONSTANTINE CAMPBELL 14:50 There’s so much, but I think the probably the thing that I find most sad is that the very reason for exercising power in this way is to try to transform a community or a culture to be more God-wood, you know, to reflect God’s values. But the irony is by pursuing political power in this way, I think it’s made a culture deaf to the message of the church. Because all they see are power mongering hypocrites, who are trying to get their own way at any expense. I mean, look, to be honest with you, Trump is a threat to the world, not just America, you know. He’s actually such a dangerous figure. And I think, you know, to put the world at risk, in this way, simply to get policies passed, and to get the Supreme Court justices that you want. Like, I’ll just speak frankly, it’s doing a deal with the devil. And that never works out well. So, the sacrifice of character and integrity, and the sacrifice of the message of Jesus, for political power is, you know, I don’t want to be too dramatic about it. But I think it’s put the cause of Christ in America backwards decades.   JULIE ROYS  16:11 It has, and we have a huge PR problem now. And you say, I heard you saying earlier that we forgot that culture is downstream of politics, right? You change a culture before you change politics. But you also change a culture by changing the heart. And we have to start there. And right now, the hearts are hard to our message. And they’re associating things with Christ that have nothing to do with Christ. And we’ve got some, some hard, hard work to do. And I think some repenting some public repenting to do before, people are going to listen to us, hopefully, in our private realm of the people we encounter who are non-Christians. I think they’re surprised often now when they get to know us that we’re not this thing, that we are in the media. And hopefully we’re not that way in private. But we’ve got some work to do.   We have had in politics, obviously, an us/them mentality, right? And that’s caused a lot of problems. But you also talk about there being an us/them mentality within the church, and this tribalism, and it is so so true. I mean, you have the reformed community, you have the Charismatics, you have, and I read that, and I thought of actually a really a sad, but  it will be forever. In my memory of one of the first meetings I had been at Moody Bible Institute, I was with Moody Radio for about 10 years. And we were having a meeting. And we were trying to figure out what the new president wanted and what he liked. And it wasn’t about like what Jesus wants. It was about what the new president wants. And I remember at one point, the VP of broadcasting drawing a circle, and putting writing in the middle of that circle, charismatics, and then drawing a line through the circle. And I remember at the time just being shocked, and I’m sure had I not been there for just I’ve been there two weeks. So, like, I’m just like, as green as can be, that I probably would have said something that might have gotten me ousted out of there quicker than I was. But at the time, just so shocked that these are our brothers and sisters, and we’re drawing a circle and putting a line through it? I mean, are we nuts? But that’s what’s been happening. And it really is an us/them ,if you’re not a part, not only or if you’re not an evangelical, but if you’re not in evangelical who’s part of my tribe, then you’re not with me, you’re against me. Explain how you see that, and, again, the damage this is doing to the cause of Christ.   CONSTANTINE CAMPBELL 18:48 So, I think tribalism is a terrible danger to the church because we get stuck in these idiosyncratic sycophantic echo chambers. And we just kind of spiral down in them and become weirder and weirder and more off base, and more and more off base, because we don’t have anyone challenging and correcting us. Yeah, I do think it’s an insidious problem, because so many evangelicals really are blind to it. It sort of happens often without us noticing. And this is an area where my own context here in Australia, that issue is very relevant here, just as much as in the US. In some ways, you know, I got caught up in it myself, and I needed to kind of leave Australia. And when I was in America, particularly, I was able to look back on the scene there and see it a little more objectively and see some of the things that were going on, that really could only be described as tribalism. So that if you line up behind a certain leader, as opposed to a different leader, who may believe 99.9% of all the same things, who might both be faithful people who might both be, you know, great leaders, but if you line up behind one rather than the other, you’re the enemy, you know, or even if it’s not put that strongly, you’re just sort of left out, you know, you’re just not in the in group. You’re in that other group. And you know, and we have a certain opinion about that other group and It’s just not, it’s just not acceptable, even if any particular tribe could claim that they’re 100%, right in theology and 100% right in practice, they’re 100% wrong to exclude others on those grounds, because that again, betrays the spirit and character of Jesus, who said, If you love one another, then they will know you’re my disciples. That is how the disciples of Jesus are identified by their love for one another. And he didn’t say, if you love one another, and they’re Calvinist, or if you love one another, and they’re charismatic, or if you love one another, and they’re inerrantists. No. He says, If you love one another, and I think that actually gives us if we take all of it tremendous freedom, to embrace one another, and recognize, you know, we’re aliens and strangers in the world, we are fallen human beings. And yes, we have the Spirit of God, if you trust in Christ. But we’re all so flawed, and so wrong about so many things. And we’re on a journey, you know, where we’re going to learn, and God will teach us, and we will teach each other. But no one’s got 100% right, and even if you do, where’s the compassion for others who are not there yet, or who think differently, or who’ve come from a different culture, and so don’t read the Bible the same way that you do? Like, actually, by listening to them, you might see things about the scriptures that you hadn’t seen before. Because we’re all sort of blinded by our western individualistic, modern mindset that shapes the way we read the text. And so, any reading of the text and any practice of Christianity must be conducted with humility. And we should invite contrary views to sort of open our minds and our eyes to see things that we may be missing.   JULIE ROYS  22:18 That’s interesting, you say that. I mean, it’s almost what happens if you continue to inbreed within a group, right? I mean, it’s their weaknesses. Yeah, it is what happens. And we’ve lost that someone who might think differently than us, might be, God forbid, right, and we might be wrong, or might add some nuance, which there’s no nuance anymore. And there’s no humility. I mean, the amount of arrogance to think that you have the scriptures figured out, right? It’s mind boggling to me.   We have this us versus them within evangelicalism, we obviously have it in spades, I think between us and the world. And we see different groups within evangelicalism capitalizing on that right? To sort of, I call, well, actually, I didn’t get this for myself, Coleman Luck calls it the politics of panic. And he’s right, we do a lot of this. Because if you can fire up the base with a lot of fear, you can motivate them towards something. But I think it’s created a real problem with how we’re perceived by the world because we’re, you know, it says, they will know you’re Christians by your love. And yet they’re certain groups of people, and you talk about them, you know, LGBTQ community is not seeing us as loving them. And I don’t see you saying we need to throw out our core theological convictions. But what I do see you saying, and I’ve said this to some people recently is that I feel like my core convictions haven’t changed, but how I hold them, has changed. Where I find myself more willing to sit in discomfort, because it’s uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable, but to sit with that, and just keep my mouth shut, and just listen. And how can I love you, you know. But it’s pretty tough to do. And, you know, I see, as I’m reading your book, you are saying, if we don’t come up with a different way of engaging the world, we’re not going to engage the world. Right?   CONSTANTINE CAMPBELL 24:28 Yeah, I think that’s a good way to put it. Yeah, we’re just going to be treated as well, actually increasingly in the West. And I think in Australia, we may be ahead of the states, but this is probably where the states is going. Christianity is seen as immoral. So, it used to be that Christians were good people. Then Christians were neutral. You can believe what you want as long as you don’t foist it on other people through to now being Christians are the most immoral people because the one thing that modern society won’t tolerate is intolerance. And Christians are perceived as intolerant. And I think you’re absolutely right. This in one way has nothing to do with what you actually believe about those issues. It has everything to do with how you hold those beliefs. As you said, I really like that phrase. And again, it has to do with how we love other people. We’re all products of a broken world. If I know God, and you know, God, that’s by the grace of God, it’s not by any merit of our own. That’s evangelical theology. Right? That’s we haven’t deserved this place in God’s family. We haven’t warranted the Holy Spirit in our lives. This is God’s free gift to us. And so, who are we to look down on someone who has not yet received that gift? You know. That’s just appalling, to be honest. And again, I think we need to think about what’s our ultimate goal here? Is our ultimate goal to win something? Is it to take power? Is it to  dominate someone or judge someone or be over someone? Or is it to point them to the love of God? How do you point someone to the love of God by telling them that their whole way of living is evil and corrupted from the devil, and I want nothing to do with you? It’s just like it’s not going to work that way.   JULIE ROYS  26:33 Judson University is a top ranked Christian University, providing a caring community and an excellent college experience. Plus, the school offers more than 60 majors, great leadership opportunities and strong financial aid. Judson University is shaping lives that shaped the world. For more information, just go to JUDSONU.EDU. Well, and I think we’re entering an era where Christian values, like you’re saying, are no longer the dominant cultural accepted, you know, value. So, we’re going to have to live a little differently. And I just think of my grandpa, when he was a missionary to Sierra Leone, West Africa. And, of course, in the communities they went to, the villages, there were chiefs with many wives. And if a chief got converted, I mean, one, you don’t lead with your living an immoral lifestyle by marrying many wives. I mean, I don’t think if you lead with that, you’re really gonna get very far in a culture. But there were things in the culture that were horrendous. I mean, they did female circumcision. I mean, just horrendous things. But they didn’t lead with that. You know, my mother used to always have this saying that you don’t try to clean a fish before you catch it. And we need to start allowing the gospel of Christ to change hearts, and allow the Holy Spirit to do the work, instead of us relying on us doing the work and changing things to look clean to make us feel, okay, or to say to the Mission Board, well it was as a Mission Board then you know, hey, this is what we’ve done. And this is what it looks like right now, instead of this is a mess, and we’re living in the mess, and by God’s grace, we think he’s going to redeem it. But I mean, I think right now, we are living in I mean, there’s, there’s a mess. There’s no doubt about it. But I think as believers, man, we just cannot be leading this way.   Let’s talk about one that’s a little more I’d say very, very common in the church, the acceptable sins, and the unacceptable sins. Because we’re kind of touching on that right now. Because we do have our acceptable sins, you can be a glutton, and speaking of DL Moody, very, very large man. That’s okay. You know, in the United States, that’s absolutely fine. Or, you know, greed seems to be just fine in our capitalist society. We’re fine with that. But sexual immorality, abortion, drug addiction, these things. Those are sins that are not going to be acceptable. Talk about that a little bit about why do we have sort of this dichotomy of sins? And I do like you don’t just sin-level the whole thing and say they’re all the same. But we’re kind of upside down a little bit, aren’t we on what sins get our attention and which ones don’t?   CONSTANTINE CAMPBELL 29:35 Yeah, I think you’re right. We are upside down. And as I kind of cheekily refer to it, if you look at the broad teaching of the Bible, the most biblical sin is pride. And I sort of argue that that is really at the root of not being able to be right with God because if Jesus message is to repent and believe the good news, where repentance requires humility because you got to turn around from the direction you’re going and come back, you got to admit, okay, I was wrong and to go the other way. And to believe that means to trust and have to make allegiance with Jesus. And so, you’re saying, Okay, I’m not going to go my own way, I’m not going to be boss in my own life, I’m going to make Jesus Lord, and I’m going to trust him what he’s done for me. So, repentance and belief that repentance and faith are like, that’s his message. And it’s impossible to do either of those things if you’re full of pride. And Jesus teaches in several parables, especially in Luke’s gospel, about the difference between humility and pride. And perhaps the most shocking is in Luke 19, where he talks about the Pharisee, and the tax collector praying in the temple, and the tax collector, you know, this is a trope that every one of his listeners would understand. This is a simple person who, you know, supports the Romans, those occupiers those evil occupiers, and cheats our own people to line his own pockets. So, he’s despised, and it’s kind of the definition along with prostitutes of what a sinner is in that culture. And then the Pharisee, who is this elite religious leader who, you know, is so impressive by religious standards and more serious and committed than any other religious group in Israel in the day, and they’re both praying at the temple, and the Pharisee prays basically saying, I’m great look at me. And I’m glad I’m not like these other people, doesn’t ask for anything, doesn’t show any dependence on God doesn’t ask for God’s mercy just basically says, Thanks, God, I’m not like these other people. Whereas the tax collector beats his chest, can’t even look up to heaven. He’s full of shame and says, God, be merciful to me. And Jesus says, the tax collector, not the Pharisee, walked down from the temple justified, made right with God. And it’s incredibly powerful. I still get shivers down the spine, when I think about it, that parable, because it just turns again, turns everything upside down, which is what Jesus did again, and again and again. And religious performance if it’s mixed with pride is not celebrated by Jesus. But someone who’s committed terrible sins yet is humble and throws themselves upon God’s mercy is exalted by Jesus. It says, be like that person, be like that person.   And unfortunately, our churches, and you document them. And this is one of the reasons your ministry is so important is that you actually shine a light on leaders who are committing the kinds of sins that our evangelical culture tolerates, but that Jesus does not tolerate and that the Bible as a whole does not tolerate. I mean, in Proverbs, it even says that God hates the proud. I mean, that’s so strong. That’s so strong. He hates people who are proud. And so how do we have church cultures that permit leaders who are proud, or who are arrogant or who are bullies, or who dominate, or who exert power in these unchristian ways to last in their role until it eventually becomes too toxic, and they have to go? Whereas commit one of these other sins, sexual morality is the most sort of prominent one in our minds, I guess. They’re gone like that overnight. So, what’s gone wrong? Yeah. And that’s what that chapter about acceptable sins is all about that we’ve actually we’ve got it; we’ve got the balance incorrect. And that Jesus offers mercy and grace to repentant sinners. And especially they seem to keep coming up as the ones who failed sexually in various ways. And he doesn’t rub their noses in it, you know, but he forgives them. It says that their sins are forgiven, but the proud religious leaders who resist Jesus and who resist repenting, received no mercy from him. There’s no word of comfort for them. In fact, he condemns them in pretty much the strongest language possible.   JULIE ROYS  34:23 And I think you see, in the investigations that we’ve done, I mean, this has been one of the hardest things is getting the church to take bullying and intimidation and spiritual abuse seriously. And I remember like when I was first reporting on Harvest Bible Chapel and James McDonald I remember somebody saying, you know, sort of tongue in cheek but I wish this were just sexual immorality, it’d be so much easier. And I’m like, Yeah, you’re right. I report that there’s no argument about whether this is bad enough to disqualify you from ministering. But we have you know, right now I did so many stories on Andy Wood, who’s the successor for Rick Warren at Saddleback, and even had a colleague of mine do an interview recently with Rick Warren and I was just so grieved over it. And I reached out to him, and I said something because they were chalking it up to just workplace issues and administrative type issues. And that’s not really a serious issue. And I’m like, No, this was absolute bullying, and spiritual abuse. And yet it’s getting a wink within the church. And of course, Andy Wood went on to succeed Rick Warren. And very concerning when you have that kind of pattern because it doesn’t usually go away.   But we really have forgotten, and I used to have a pastor that said, there’s one choice in life, and it’s between pride and worship. And the more knowledge we have, right, the more theologically correct we are, the more susceptible we are right? Because knowledge puffs up to those sins. So, I appreciate you dealing with that. And you go into one of the unacceptable sins, which to you is personal, which is divorce and remarriage. And I have talked to so many women within the church, like Nagmeh Panahi, who was pressured to go back to her abusing husband, Pastor Saeed, because it ruined the image, right? And we’ve made this idol out of marriage. But I’ve talked to so many women who have encountered that in one way, shape or form within the church. You encountered it yourself because you experienced divorce. What was the church’s response to you? Did it feel like Jesus to you?   CONSTANTINE CAMPBELL 36:36 First off, I’d say some people, and some responses really did. And that was kind of a saving grace for me, in a way, because I have to say that this is the time when I didn’t know if my faith would survive it, to be honest with you, because I think we had made such a strong connection between marriage and Christian faith, that it was almost like, no one would say this, but it was almost like, you know, if your marriage fails, are you even a Christian anymore? Like, that’s how strong.   JULIE ROYS  37:08 It’s like apostasy too, yeah.   CONSTANTINE CAMPBELL 37:10 Yeah, exactly. And that’s just not a biblical concept at all. And it undermines the mercy and grace of God. It sort of says, there’s one unforgivable sin and it’s divorce. And, you know, no one can recover from that and be a Christian. And it’s just total rubbish, thankfully, and I had a few people in my life who knew that and reminded me of that, and who drew nearer to me, and I thank God for them. And actually, that experience, contrary to what I thought was gonna happen, really deepened, and renewed my faith, because I really saw the grace of God working through those people and working through my life circumstances as well.   But to be sure, there were many others and church culture in general, that was I felt not reflective of Jesus; judgmental, jumping to conclusions, cutting relationship, believing rumors, and rumor mongering, and gossip mongering, taking sides, all this sort of stuff that you it sort of, I mean, I think back on some of these people, and if you told me that was going to happen, before it happened, I would think that they would never react that way, you know. No, that’s not going to be you know, surely God’s love, you know, surely common sense, you know, but I was just shocked and surprised again, and again, how, I guess I put it down to how ill equipped some parts of the church are in dealing with what I would regard as a major personal catastrophe. Some people just couldn’t cope with it. And didn’t have a way to think around it except, well divorce is wrong. So, either fix it or  I don’t see how you can be a Christian. And it’s just like, yeah, so writing a chapter about that was really personal obviously. If you’ve read it, as I know you have, but the listeners if they read it, you know, it’s personal, I probably didn’t succeed. I tried to keep my personal feelings and hurt out of it so that it’s useful for everybody, whether it’s those who are suffering, post-divorce, or suffering in a marriage where this even sounds wrong, but there needs to be a divorce, but also to help the rest of the church, to know how to care for people in those situations, and to show the love of Christ because as I read the Bible, there’s no failure that disqualifies you from the love of God. That’s what Paul says in Romans 8. Nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ, famine, hardship, nor divorce. So, I rest my head on that truth.   JULIE ROYS  39:51 And you say there’s a couple of questions that are helpful to ask and a couple of questions that are not helpful to ask just on a practical level. Walk us through those.   CONSTANTINE CAMPBELL 40:01 Yeah, I think people should be able to work them out for themselves, if you operate from a posture of what is the loving thing for this person in front of me? Rather than thinking, I’ve got to satisfy the inner juror and decide, you know, is this person guilty of something, needs to be rebuked, or, you know, the sort of inner policeman or inner juror. Bhat if we’re operating out of a genuine concern for the other person, a good question to ask will be are you okay? How can I help you? Do you want to talk about it? Bad questions to ask, in my experience are what is the biblical grounds for your divorce? Is there someone else? These sorts of questions come with assumptions that are accusatory before you know anything about the situation. And they’re just not helpful. It’s a bit like your grandpa’s experience. You don’t lead with that stuff, you know. First, relate and connect and be loving. And I think if someone wants to talk about their situation, that’s fine. But it’s actually not other people’s job to judge whose fault it was that this separation or divorce happened, or, you know, what sins were committed. And that sort of thing.   JULIE ROYS  41:17 Yeah. I mean, what do you say, I’m guessing when you applied for your job at the seminary, you’re at, you had to answer some questions about it. And there are some legitimate places where, obviously, we need to explain ourselves if we’re going to be in positions of leadership. But for the average person, can we not love without knowing all the answers and just love imperfect people living imperfect lives, in an imperfect world, right?   CONSTANTINE CAMPBELL 41:46 That’s right. We’re aliens and strangers in a fallen world. And we’re all getting hit and bruised and hurting others. And it’s all part of the messy life that we live in. And yeah, I think in positions of responsibility, especially in a theological context, questions need to be asked. But again, the way they’re asked is very important. There’s more to finding out whether someone is capable or should be in a position of leadership, as The Roys Report keeps pointing out well, okay. I find it extraordinary that the elders of Mars Hill concluded that Mark Driscoll was not guilty of any immorality was their wording, right? So, what they mean by morality is, he didn’t commit adultery, and his marriage stayed together as pretty much what it means. But being domineering and arrogant, and being a bully, is not counted as immorality. So, that’s crazy, you know? So, I think when people are being interviewed for those sorts of positions, or whatever, the question should not be just around, how’s your marriage? Or can you tell me about your divorce? But also, like, you know, looking for how do you exert power? You know, what sort of leader are you? You know, how do you treat people who disagree with you? Those sorts of things, which are just as important in my view.   JULIE ROYS  43:09 Well, this concludes part one of my podcast with Dr. Constantine Campbell. In part two, we’ll explore the mega church and its impact on evangelicalism. And Dr. Campbell doesn’t mince words, but actually says this model of church is destroying evangelicalism, and it’s a far cry from the model described by the apostle Paul.   CONSTANTINE CAMPBELL 43:28 Paul talks about this model of the church where it’s building itself up in love. It’s an idea of every member of the church working together, as the body of Christ grows in maturity. Not numerically, necessarily, but in maturity, and in faith. The consumerism of the mega church model is that you see a few people working very hard, the professionals, but the average person attends.   JULIE ROYS  43:54 Well, again, that’s just a taste of part two of my podcast with Dr. Constantine Campbell, author of Jesus Versus Evangelicals. And if you enjoy this podcast, you’re really going to enjoy the next one. I also believe you’re going to enjoy Dr. Campbell’s book, Jesus Versus Evangelicals. And in April, if you give a gift of $30 or more to The Roys Report, we’ll send you a copy of Jesus Versus Evangelicals. Plus, you’ll be helping support our ministry which is almost 100% grassroots funded. We don’t have big donors or grants or advertising. We have you the people who are passionate to see evil exposed, and the church renewed. So, to give your gift and get a copy of Jesus Versus Evangelicals, go to JULIEROYS.COM/CONATE.   Also, just a quick reminder to subscribe to the Roys report on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts or Spotify. That way you’ll never miss an episode. And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then please Share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks so much for joining me today. I hope you were blessed and encouraged.   Read more

Guest Bios Show Transcript Why are Christians drawn to abusive celebrity pastors? And why do appeals to love and serve often gain less traction than condemnation and harshness? In this edition of The Roys Report, Julie explores explore these questions with Dr. Raymond Chiu, a business professor at Redeemer University in Ontario, Canada. Along with two colleagues, Dr. Chiu has done extensive research on why we like our leaders to be rough and tyrannical. What they found is that the appeal of tyrants is not an aberration, but a phenomenon tied to how our minds work. Because these leaders, like megachurch pastors, are distant and unknown, we don’t really know them. And in the absence of any real knowledge of who they are, we look for certain defining characteristics that we associate with leadership. But what’s scary is that those characteristics—or “defining features”—are extremely toxic. They’re features like domineering, pushy, manipulative, conceited and loud. In this podcast, Dr. Chiu will unpack why we do this—and how we can combat this tendency. He also addresses how this dynamic plays out in church contexts and what we can do about it. Tune in to our fascinating discussion, which has practical application for your life and ministry. Raymond B. Chiu Raymond B. Chiu teaches leadership and nonprofit management at Redeemer University, a Canadian institution rooted in a Christian Reformed tradition for over 40 years. Together with Agata Mirowska and Rick D. Hackett, their leadership research has been featured in Forbes, Psychology Today, and other national media. As a business professor with training in theology and ethics, he takes special interest in understanding the expression of faith in the public sphere, especially among workplaces, religious refugees, and charities. Raymond celebrates a 25-year marriage to his wife Lesley and enjoys walking alongside his three young-adult children. Show Transcript SPEAKERS JULIE ROYS, RAYMOND CHIU, PhD JULIE ROYS  00:05 Why are Christians drawn to abusive celebrity pastors? And why do appeals to love and serve often gain less traction than condemnation and harshness? Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And today I’m going to explore these questions with Dr. Raymond Chiu, a business professor at Redeemer University in Ontario, Canada. Along with two colleagues, Dr. Chiu has done extensive research on why we like our leaders to be rough and tyrannical. What they found is that the appeal of tyrants is not an aberration, but it’s a phenomenon tied to how our minds work. Because these leaders like megachurch pastors are distant, we don’t really know them. And in the absence of any real knowledge of who they are, we look for certain defining characteristics that we associate with leadership. But what’s scary is that those characteristics or defining features are extremely toxic. They’re features like domineering, pushy, manipulative, conceited and loud. In this podcast, Dr. Chiu will unpack why we do this, and how we can combat this destructive tendency. He also addresses how this dynamic plays out in church context and what we can do about it. I’m so excited to delve into this fascinating topic with Dr. Chiu.   But first, I’d like to thank the sponsors of this podcast, Accord Analytics and Marquardt of Barrington. In your ministry or business your reputation is your most valuable asset. But what do you do when you suspect misconduct? Hopefully you do the opposite of many of the organizations I report on. Instead of covering up wrongdoing, you investigate it, and Accord Analytics can help. In just 72 hours, their team of experts can scour emails, call logs and other records to produce usable evidence. They also can analyze your organization to identify specific threats and to suggest best practices. For free consultation go to ACCORDANALYTICS.COM. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity, and transparency. That’s because the owners there Dan and Kurt Marquardt are men of integrity. To check them out just go to BUYACAR123.COM.    Well again joining me is Dr. Raymond Chiu, a business professor with training in theology and ethics at Redeemer University in Ontario, Canada. He’s also a leadership researcher whose work with colleagues Agata Mirowska and Rick Hackett has been featured in Forbes, Psychology Today and other national publications. So, Dr. Chiu, welcome. I’m looking so forward to our conversation today.   RAYMOND CHIU, PhD  02:51 I am too and thank you so much for focusing on all of God’s children that are in churches today, especially those who are hurting or neglected in some way and don’t have a voice. So thank you for doing that work and helping me to understand leadership as well.   JULIE ROYS  03:06 Well, and I can tell just in your work, that your heart is for the vulnerable and those in our churches who are hurting, and I’m looking forward to diving into our topic, which again, deals with tyrannical leaders, authoritarian leaders, but I’m really curious, how is it that you got interested in this topic of research and looking into why we tend to prefer some of these leaders? You’re right that there are various terms that are used for that you’ve mentioned tyrannical, authoritarian, domineering, aggressive, they’re all in the same area. And I’ve worked in nonprofit management for a while and being concerned about social ills. Of course, the ethical failure and success of leaders is always an interest given the challenges that we face in our communities and the world today. And as I came out of seminary and into doctoral studies, I discovered that my supervisor and I both had an interest in leadership and ethics. And he invited me on to a team that had just started looking at the relationship between morality or what we call moral foundations and people’s leadership preferences because we want to know if there’s something deeper they’re causing the troubles we’re seeing in the world today. And that led to about a decade of groundbreaking research.   So that brings us to what I think is one of the most maddening topics in our church today, one of these dynamics where we seem to prefer these tyrannical leaders or these authoritarian leaders. You know, we have someone like John MacArthur, who tells Beth Moore to go home, and people cheer him for that, right? We’ve got a Mark Driscoll who’s been shown through all the research and the reporting, definitely a bully type leader. And yet, you know, I was in Phoenix not that long ago, and his parking lots full at his new church, people are going to it’s a mega church. Again, he knows how to grow these. So, what is your research shown as far as why we seem to prefer these kinds of leaders?   RAYMOND CHIU, PhD  03:47 So we did a study of 1147 North American participants, and we look specifically at elements such as fear, such as their deep moral convictions, and try to see how they related to their preference for tyrannical leaders. And it turned out there was a relationship between a person’s fear of a dangerous world and their propensity to adopt conservative or traditional moral values. And those values or morals or intuitions, which is what we call them, are also related to a preference for a domineering leader.   So that would be the impression or the perception that these leaders are truly effective. And so we have this chain reaction that is happening, it’s psychological. It’s not just sort of a feeling in the moment, but it’s something that occurs among individuals and groups. We focus on a tyrannical leader what we call a tyrannical leader, because we’re really focusing on the traits, the fact that these people exhibit things that are clearly destructive and dysfunctional, but somehow, people seem to gravitate towards them. So we have these three things: fear, morality, and these impressions that we have of leaders is usually in the context of a lack of information as well. But these things are causing this perception that this kind of leader is a good thing.   JULIE ROYS  05:22 So you mentioned that fear tends to move people towards conservative or traditional values. Now, I tend to be pretty conservative myself. I like to think that my values and my beliefs are rooted in truth, and that’s why I’m choosing them. But help me understand this fear and how fear might move us in that direction. And are you saying that the Conservatives are more fear based than liberals? I mean, is that what you’re saying? Because it kind of sounds a little bit that way.   RAYMOND CHIU, PhD  05:52 Yeah, that might be the implication. It makes me think of the question, do we follow Jesus because we love him? Or do we follow Him because we fear condemnation, or we fear eternal damnation? Fear is always part of our human experience. If I were to give examples, you can see how fear mongering is actually something that is often part of the political discourse. It’s an intentional political strategy. Social media and conservative media especially has a lot of doomsday language saying our country is under crisis. Certain groups, gays, Muslims, migrants are threatening our country. This is part of the language of conservatism and it’s part of our daily human experience. And you know, when you think about it, it gets down to the core of our frailties as human beings. Just think about the times when your mom told you not to stay out at night or to be careful with strangers. And these reactions to threat, to danger are manifest in many different ways. There’s decades of studies showing that they relate to things like becoming more prejudiced, wanting to have more children, wanting to punish social deviance. It even reduces men’s desire for attractive women. It does as well, for example, fear of disease, which is related to fear of a dangerous world. And we’ve seen that and experienced that with the pandemic. It leads us to become politically and socially more conservative, to conform to the majority to become less extroverted, less open, less liberal in our sexuality. So, these are effects that pervade in our day to day lives, and experience and you think about all the things that we are even more afraid of now post pandemic. And so it’s understandable to perhaps suggest that, you know, some of these fears that we walk around with every day are going to affect the moral and social values that we adopt in churches in society.   JULIE ROYS  08:03 Coleman Luck and I did some podcasts together. And he wrote a book on the curse of conservatism. Not saying that conservative ism is wrong. Well, being conservative isn’t wrong, maybe the ISM, here’s where you get into problems, because that’s where it becomes an ideology, right? But there is definitely a politics of panic going on.   Interestingly, you bring up like COVID, it almost seemed like the Conservatives were more on the non-fear side saying, well, we don’t need all these restrictions, why is everybody living by fear? And then you had liberals wanting to have more of the restrictions. But I also see your point in that, to conserve it means that you want to protect something right? You think there is something worth conserving or protecting? And fear isn’t always bad, either. I mean, we have it’s one thing when I look at some of these bully types, you know, Christian leaders, and I wonder to myself with the way they’re behaving, do they have a fear of God, the way they behave? Like it seems to me, they really don’t fear God and I legitimately fear God. Like, I legitimately know that someday I’m going to give an account to someone to whom I’m morally responsible. And I’m going to have to say and justify what I did, although, thanks to what Christ did on the cross, I’m forgiven, but still I have that idea that I’m going to be held accountable. And I do wonder whether some of these folks have that.   But you mentioned this idea of, sometimes we have love and fear in conflict, right? And you know, as Christians, we are to be driven by love, and certainly not fear of protecting ourselves. We’re to give up ourselves, right? So, talk to me a little bit about this moral response, and even as Christians, how we should be thinking about things when fear and love might be in conflict.   RAYMOND CHIU, PhD  09:49 You know, I think we all care about ourselves and each other as well. And we all have good intentions. And that’s something that is reflected in moral foundations theory and our understanding of morality in general, we want all people to have well-being. The question is, is how that well-being is achieved. For some, it’s through caring directly for people and their rights, and for others is by, as you say, conserving or protecting the group. And so while the Conservatives may not be so concerned about fearing the disease within, their fear that disease without, from the outside the China virus, right? You know, what are other countries, you know, what conspiracies are going to be attacking and compromising our country. So it’s not that they don’t care, but they care in a different way. And they care from a group perspective. And so, it’s that group perspective that allows a certain kind of leadership a kind of social authoritarian values having to do with, you know, how one should behave in a group. That’s the kind of conditions that allows that to happen.   And so we had discovered, in fact, there is a relationship between that fear and that sort of group focused morality, which focuses on specifically three types of conservative or traditional morality: authority, the belief in strong authority, a belief and strong loyalty to the group, and a preservation of a kind of purity or sanctity in a group that’s often used to define a group.   JULIE ROYS  11:27 I want to hone in on that. So how does our want to conserve something, to protect something, to what I’m hearing you say, protect a group, right? How does that move us towards being predisposed to liking more of your strong, even heavy handed leader?   RAYMOND CHIU, PhD  11:46 So we have impressions in our mind, about what a leader looks like, or should look like, and we call these prototypes, right? So we have stereotypes, prototypes of men and women, you know, fathers and mothers. And in the same way, we have these prototypes in our mind if we see someone who matches that prototype, alpha male, you know, athletic, student, Council, President, whatever it is, but you know, those people who seem to be popular and get a following, those people match the prototypes. And there are a number of prototypes, most of them are good.   We have your sensitive leader, you’re intelligent, dedicated or dynamic leader. These are all proven by social science to be things that people have in their mind.   But there’s also what we call this tyrannical prototype that authoritarian, domineering, aggressive leader. And the specific traits that have been identified are these; there are six of them. And you can think about how they play out in your own experience perhaps. Domineering, pushy, manipulative, loud, conceited, and selfish. When you think about these, some of these are clearly ungodly. But if we were to sort of be in Sunday school, we would obviously say these are not godly or good things. But we’re talking about the average person out there and even a Christian who’s back at home watching movies or playing video games, right? The things that they react to that draw their attention that they find to be impressive, you know, are not necessarily the quiet demure soft spoken pastor. That doesn’t draw anyone’s attention. It’s the rich televangelists. It’s the preachers in sneakers, right? It’s the prosperity gospel, these are the things that signal to people, oh, they’re up on a stage, they must be successful, they must have something right, even though they’re displaying these dysfunctional traits. And, you know, it makes me think about I don’t know about you or your listeners, those times when we listen to this really domineering preacher on Sunday morning, and thought to ourselves for a moment, you know, if that person behaved that way in normal society, that wouldn’t really be acceptable. But somehow there’s this feeling that we’re really impressed that they got away with it, that people are in the audience, as you say, are laughing and that, you know, there’s this sort of group reaction that man, this guy can pull it off, and they are somehow better for it. It’s incredible.   JULIE ROYS  14:37 If I’m understanding you correctly, and tell me if I am. What you’re saying is when we have these fears, and we see a world that’s dangerous and out of control, which there’s no doubt there’s that element throughout conservative Christianity where the world is bad and it’s scary and it’s changing. You know there’s truth in that. But that we’re tending to want this leader that doesn’t look anything like Jesus. Right? I mean, this leader who maybe has these negative characteristics, yeah, we think, Wow, that guy may be a jerk, but he can, he can be my champion. Is that what you’re saying?   RAYMOND CHIU, PhD  15:19 Yes, he can be our champion, he can do what we go to leaders every day for, and that is to get the job done. I think it’s fair to say that we all have an agenda. It’s not surprising to say that certain religious groups that are allied with political movements have an agenda. That could be even perhaps a cultural mandate, I think it varies depending on you know, which part of the world you’re in. And so, if that’s your agenda, to protect society from crisis to save our country from degradation, then who can get it done? It’s more likely the person who’s going to ram it through, you know, to the extent there who are, you know, greedy and selfish ourselves, after thinking about it not surprising that we would just buy into a leader that we feel will do our dirty work, so to speak.   JULIE ROYS  16:16 Well, I mean, that dynamic is definitely there. I mean, I don’t get it on a certain level, because I remember when Donald Trump was running, and I was like, wow, he’s such a jerk, like he won’t get anywhere. That’s my thinking. Like, I’m immediately repulsed by bullies. I always have been. It’s probably why I’m in the line of work that I am. But I was shocked. I mean, absolutely shocked with how the Christian community got behind him. And then was like, well, you know, sometimes you and what you just said, sometimes we need the bad guy to do our dirty work, was essentially the argument I got from other Christians. Sometimes we need a bad guy to do our dirty work. And so a perfectly you know, almost like, well, Jesus couldn’t get us out of this mess. So, we can’t really act like Jesus. I mean, really? Bottom line. That’s, what I’m hearing some Christians say.   But then to see this come into because there was an argument with Trump. Well, he’s not a pastor, right? People are like, well, he’s not a pastor. Let’s not expect him to be one. But we’re talking about pastors in a lot of these situations, we’re talking about, and this is what’s been shocking to me. And there needs to be a good study on this because there was a study and it turned out it was very flawed, but it was on narcissist pastors. And, and it showed that there tended to be a preference, like Christians were preferring these narcissists in these positions. And it’s no wonder that we’re getting so many narcissists in these mega churches. But it seems like there’s a curated image, which is kind of like maybe a tough guy. But we’ve made the tough guy acceptable, like somehow we’ve Christianized the tough guy. And so we’ve got these mega church pastors with curated images, because they’re on social media. And I think this is one of the problems. And I talked to Caitlyn Beatty about this when we’re talking about celebrities for Jesus. This goes back pretty far for evangelicals, you know? Even the Great Awakenings and Jonathan Edwards, who would get up and preach and would go to different towns, and people didn’t necessarily know him very well. And so we have these leaders, and there’s a lack of information, we don’t really know, for example, how does he treat his wife? Have we seen him with his kids? You know, it used to be the pastor stayed in the community for a very, very long time, would live there, maybe his whole life pastor, the same church, and he lived there, and people knew they would know if he had rough edges, and I would think there would be a certain amount of positive pressure on the pastor to conform his image to Christ, because everybody’s seeing it. But now it’s almost the opposite way. So, talk a little bit about how this lack of information and what your research found how this contributes to promoting these people with very poor character, but do have a really flashy image.   RAYMOND CHIU, PhD  19:03 A different way that leadership scholars study leadership, which is to look at the actual behavior. So when we are able to research people who do know their leaders, then we asked specifically, about, you know, whether or not they are ethical, whether or not they you know, consider the needs of their followers, whether or not they, you know, communicate well and exhibit certain virtues. So, you’re absolutely right that there is this difference between the everyday pastor that we know. Like my pastor who has been pastoring for 35 years and is very soft spoken, but you know, such an excellent, genuine person. A difference between that person and someone that we hardly know and, you know, social media makes it a lot worse. Obviously, probably one of the most important articles I’ve read in a long time, by Jonathan Hight in the Atlantic highlighted the fact that social media really only serves to be a platform for the most extreme views to stand out and gain traction.   And so if I’m a tyrant, and I’m able to work that type of social media through Tweets and Instagram, and then also do things that attract the attention of media outlets, and they themselves amplify and repeat those traits, we’re essentially feeding to the base exactly those things that got them attracted to that tyrant in the first place. So, it’s a kind of self-perpetuating mechanism that we have. Now it’s a perfect storm. And in the end, it doesn’t really matter the substance of what the leader says anymore, because if they already identified now, because it’s about groups, it’s about identity, if they already identify with the leader, and what they say or how good they are, probably doesn’t matter anymore. It’s really sort of how they feel. It’s again that impression they get that, oh, this person is really going to take it to those other people. And if they can feel that this leader will continue to advance their agenda, continue to be aggressive, domineering, selfish, and in whatever way in order to achieve the group’s goals, then that’s all they need to know. They don’t need to know the details. They don’t want to know the details. You know, it’s interesting that more or sorry, less conservative media will have quite a preoccupation with tracking all the intrusive of people like Donald Trump, but when in fact, you know, there’s followers of him and you know, similar leaders who really don’t care about that kind of thing.   JULIE ROYS  21:47 Let’s talk about toxic masculinity because in my reporting, I’ve seen an awful lot of this, sadly, within conservative Christianity. We mentioned Driscoll, and I remember talking to the head of his security who talked about being in a staff meeting and Driscoll turning around and just berating his associate pastor, you know, and berating his masculinity. Tough guy, right, but very toxic, toxic form of masculinity, or, you know, the whole patriarchy movement, where we see men encouraged to rule their homes, not serve their wives and children, but to rule over them. And that somehow this is a good. So, what did your research show about this kind of toxic masculinity and why it’s happening?   RAYMOND CHIU, PhD  22:38 In fact, it wasn’t a primary focus of our study. And really interesting link emerged in that that relationship between traditional morality and preference for tyranny turned out to be stronger among males, which reinforces this idea that there’s this association between leadership and masculinity. I think Kristin Dumas from Calvin University addresses this much better in her book called Jesus and John Wayne. But that particular angle taken in this book is, you know, we have this problem with evangelicalism and masculinity, and our research would offer something to embellish or maybe expand on that. And that’s a fact that most leadership researchers understand based on decades of research, that basically there’s this think-leader, think-male principle, that whenever we think about leadership, we think about masculinity, we expect leaders to be male, we expect leaders to have male traits, as well, which are more agentic more aggressive. And so because, you know, even subconsciously, people associate leadership with masculinity, you can think about what effect that has on leaders, especially male leaders, who are looking to fortify their own sense of masculinity.   Now, we didn’t, you know, this is not something that can be conclusive from the research, but it’s understandable to see how males especially because the leaders are male, and because many leaders are strong, that, you know, males could be trying to actualize themselves through the type of leader that is before them. And hence, we have, of course, hyper masculine groups like the Proud Boys, like the Oath keepers, who, of course, were part of the disruptive and violent movements that we’ve seen in in recent years. But they are also fashioned around this idea of the toxic male leader.   JULIE ROYS  24:50 You said something that was very curious to me and something that I’ve sort of had a theory about myself, where you said that, that some of these men were trying to actualize themselves in the leader, which says to me, these are men that are actually weaker in their masculinity, who tend to prefer these hyper masculine leaders. In other words, it’s not the strong man who is going after this kind of leader, not the man who’s secure in himself. But it’s more a man that’s insecure in that, who is, I mean, almost compensating by attaching to this toxic leader. What I found is that a lot of these churches that when I, you know, begin investigating, I will find that a lot of the men that gravitate around these really bully type leaders, a lot of them are not alpha males, they’re beta males, right? I mean, I hate to use those terms. And so that alpha male, I mean, the men that have stayed with, for example, Mark Driscoll for 30 years, you have to be I mean, you’re berated on a regular basis. So, you kind of have to be to put up with that. And then you’ll see the men who are strong in their masculinity, they’ll be the ones that call them out. So they’re not going to last that long, because they’re going to be calling out this leader for their behavior. But yeah, it’s just really, really fascinating to me. There’s so much in there that I’m sure you could research for a long time, and still have more.   RAYMOND CHIU, PhD  26:21 Yeah, I have actually come across research that talks about it, the fact that it’s more insecure males that would follow after a dominant leader. So, there’s research done in a different way that corroborates with what you say. And it certainly is understandable that yes, it’s going to be those so called weaker males that are going to be able to put up under those environments. And even the fact that I used the word weaker, I mean, you know, weak implies, you know, less valuable, less worthy, but, you know, there are other forms of masculinity that are valuable. And, yeah, it’s unfortunate that our cultures, religious or not, are feeding into this idea that to be masculine, you need to be having these sort of even destructive qualities.   JULIE ROYS  27:12 Well, and Jesus was the strongest leader that there was, and his strength enabled him to lay himself down and to sacrifice himself for us and, every time we talk about leadership, I always, you know, go back to wow, Jesus didn’t talk that much about leadership. He talked a lot about servanthood. And yet we you know, in this culture very obsessed with leadership. Judson University is a top-ranked Christian University, providing a caring community and an excellent college experience. Plus the school offers more than 60 majors, great leadership opportunities and strong financial aid. Judson University is shaping lives that shaped the world. For more information, just go to JUDSONU.EDU. I want to pivot talking about how in these hyper masculinized cultures, that abuse seems to so often thrive. And I know that’s something that you did look into in your research. What did you find out between the connection between abuse and masculinity?   RAYMOND CHIU, PhD  28:24 I think the answer to the question really can be imagined by thinking about what would happen if a stranger came up to you on the street and tried to bully or coerce you? I mean, of course, you know, who is this person, you’d have nothing to do with it, you’d have your guard up right away. And you probably wouldn’t feel much pressure, hopefully not. But you know, everything changes, when you’re in an environment where you have this kind of tyrannical leader, where not only does the organization and its legitimacy, endorse this leader, which means that he is automatically afforded trust. But this leader also embodies all of those things that address those fears and insecurities, those priorities, those convictions that we talked about before; that this leader fights to overcome our uncertainties and our threats and our fears, that he fights to protect the group, he leads people to God even, he presents a father figure, you know, we’re thinking about the masculine aspect, and, you know, provide spiritual insight, spiritual guidance, of course, in a religious context. You know, when that happens, then you have this entire environment and this entire organizational structure that then provides an opportunity for abuse.   Another way to think about it is this; one thing that leadership scholars often think about and ask themselves is, do leaders lead by behaving in ideal ways such that followers followi it? Like, are leaders just sort of trying to do the sort of servant leadership thing and transformational leadership thing? Or do they lead based on what works? Do they just kind of behave how they think they should behave or how they see other leaders behave? And you know, if it works, it works. You know, God must be blessing me. I must be a good leader. It’s more likely the latter, in many cases, as we’re kind of fumbling through leadership than the first. If a preacher has experienced sort of domineering, vindictive, disciplinary preaching in the past, and, you know, uses it, and find it works, and find that people come and say that they’ve been transformed, and they’re awestruck. I mean, they’re going to keep on doing that thing. And so if that environment that I talked about before is also an effect, and they’re finding that these things work, why would they not have a propensity or at least an enticement to use that power for their own needs and for their own gain? Right, because, you know, so far, they’ve really been doing it, supposedly, for the good of the congregation, and it works. But the problem is, it fosters some of these destructive traits that are really not kind to other people. And that’s the unfortunate thing.   JULIE ROYS  31:29 So, help me understand how did you research that? I mean, did you find, did you ask leaders, for example, whether they do, they tend to just do what works, or whether they move towards their ideal of what they want, or their followers, which whether they’re going from a pragmatic point of view.   RAYMOND CHIU, PhD  31:52 Some people think that leadership is just a question of just, you know, being good, and then people follow you. But people follow bad leaders, too. So, part of it is understanding how this leadership can translate into specific situations. And I think it’s more of the kind of research that you’re doing, and that, you know, the historical research that Kristin Dumas is doing, and others that put color and explanation, you know, put the real stories and the narratives to these broader phenomena that we see. I mean, the data that you have is actually really, really rich data to recall that qualitative data. And it’s the combination of this quantitative research with this qualitative research. As scholars, we often remark that journalists often do excellent, excellent qualitative research, you know, case studies and investigations into how an entire organization works and functions. And oftentimes these case studies are used by academics as case studies. So I think brought together that, you know, the data is there, the research is there sort of as a whole.   JULIE ROYS  33:01 I know we’ve talked a lot about academic theories and your academic research. But this isn’t just academic for you. You were in a church, I understand that had been planted by an American mega church movement. And that did not end well for the church. And I’m guessing there was a lot of hurt as the fallout of what happened there. But would you speak to some of that, and the dynamics, when we see this tend or preference for authoritarian leaders, how that does play out specifically in the church context.   RAYMOND CHIU, PhD  33:38 And this particular church just happened to be much more on the authority-based, top-down approach. And the important thing is that it really plays out in how people do church, how the church is structured. So, this particular church really prided itself on the fact that only the elder board had authority for all decisions. And the organizational structure did not have any space for accountability to members or accountability to any other body. So, it’s only that sometimes very small group of elders who would be vested with all the responsibility and authority to make all decisions.   And so when trouble happens, it was literally impossible for the membership to do anything to raise the issue to call a vote because there were no members; members were the elders and you know, this kind of sort of top down structure would be reflected in the fact that everything was quite tightly controlled. Lay and youth leadership was genuinely de-emphasized, there was little grassroots initiative. You know, this eventually led to a power struggle because you know, when you have this situation you also have a context within which the leaders themselves believe that they are capable of leading without incident, right? So if you’re in this small group, and you’re saying to yourself, we don’t need accountability to anyone else, you’re also saying to yourself, we can handle it, like we can decide on everything. And I’ve also heard people within the denomination, and leaders within a denomination saying that, you know, all we need in this church or all we need in churches like this is a godly leader. We don’t need to deal with organizational structure, we don’t need to do with deal with culture, we don’t need to deal with our norms and systems and how we make decisions here. All we need is a godly leader. That’s why we’re having problems. And so that kind of mentality signals the fact that authoritarianism is really linked to a whole set of interconnected beliefs. And it’s very unfortunate this happened, you know, I pray for them. Those people are very dear to me. But, you know, I generally would not recommend that kind of approach for our church.   JULIE ROYS  36:07 I think you’re touching on some really big dynamics within the church right now and things that I think we need to wrestle with. And if we are leaning more towards authoritarianism, it would make sense that we’re also becoming more mega church, right? And would you say that if we’re going to reverse this trend, obviously, we need to look at things in ourselves, because we’ve talked about that. And I want to talk about that, but just on a structural level, do we need to move towards something that’s smaller, so that more people can be involved, that every person gets a voice?   RAYMOND CHIU, PhD  36:46 I would concur with that. And I currently attend the opposite of that kind of more authority-based church that I went to before, where you can see the difference. And I think, in my case, the leaders are relatively hands off. They’re very trusting of the laity who are organized very effectively into lay-led committees, there’s a tremendous mind initiative, there’s quite a few kind of mature Christians that are stepping out into the different areas of ministry, the youth are highly, highly engaged, and involved in leadership, it’s a totally different experience. But you know, as you said, you know, if the belief is that we want this church to operate efficiently, and we prefer expediency over the process, then the result is going to be what you’re going to get, you reap what you sow, essentially.   JULIE ROYS  37:43 That’s something I learned, I was a history major in college and dictatorships are extremely efficient, extremely efficient, at least in the short run. Now, they tend to in the long run, not to be so efficient, because people get trampled on, and then you get a big mess when there’s an uprising. But in the short run, they’re very efficient. But more if leadership and the governing of something, the running of something is more spread out between a lot of people, it’s going to be a little bit messier. It’s going to take more time, but then you also have people growing up, you know. I mean, you can go to a mega church and just sit there and have everybody do something for you. And you never have to do anything. And if you’re in a church, like you’re describing, which is a lot like, we’re in a house church now and like if we don’t step up, then we just don’t have church on Sunday, right? I mean, either we do it or it doesn’t happen, which I think is not too far away from the New Testament model. Again, this gets back to what do we want? Do we want to be involved? Or do we want to go to the show? Do we want someone who will do all the work for us and all the protecting of the, you know, the evils out there for us? Or do we want to be involved, and, you know, trusting God for those things, and really seeking his leadership in those things?   So we’re talking about a lot of root problems, which really get down to who we are, and how we think, as human beings. And so if we’re going to change, you’re talking about some pretty fundamental changes in our thinking, but also in our actions. And I know that that could feel pretty overwhelming for folks. So what kind of hope can you offer in our current climate?   RAYMOND CHIU, PhD  39:25 I think we can offer hope. And I think you alluded to some of these things already when you talked about sort of coming back to what you think is sort of the root of doing church and doing church in a good way in a godly way. And I truly do believe the answer comes from returning to the Bible and to Christ. I mean, it’s really interesting to read the Bible again, for what it’s saying about leadership about how leaders emerge, and not necessarily in good ways. It’s often that you see in the Bible that there’s these perceptions or assumptions about physical prowess or seemingly redemptive violence that you know, qualifies someone to be a leader, if I use the term from Walter Wink. There’s many stories in the Bible where leaders emerge through some of these kinds of tyrannical kind of behaviors. Prime example is Abimelech, son of Gideon, by a concubine, actually. And he used racial politics to gain a following and then killed seven of his brothers, as some of you might know, to gain the throne.   And so, we need to be looking at these stories as well as you know, many other stories in Jesus time where people had all sorts of expectations about what kind of king or ruler, or insurrectionists, that Jesus would be. All kinds of insights in terms of what people are looking at. While at the same time, God was always saying, well, you don’t need a leader, you don’t need a king, you just need to follow me, right. And so, reading the Bible in that way, just returning to the word, and then also looking at Christ, and not putting him in a box. Just realizing that he really reflects, you know, as someone who is a leadership scholar and professor, he really reflects one of the most diverse expressions of leadership I can think of. And it’s not just servant leadership, it’s also transformational leadership, in the way that he deals with people. It’s a deep sense of stewardship of his mission, and his flock, and the time and the resources that he has. It’s also a diverse set of moral virtues that exhibits in his character that come out at various times whether its courage or humility or empathy or justice. And of course, he also exhibits almost a subversive form of leadership, where he’s trying to say, yes, you know, follow me, but I’m gonna do whatever I can to subvert your perceptions of what a leader should be. I’m going to subvert sort of your reliance on the idol of leadership and bring you back to the gospel bring, you back to the true source, which is grace. And so yeah, I think I think there’s a lot that we can learn by just going back to square one.   JULIE ROYS  42:06 We could talk for a very long time about these things. But we have run out of time. But I want to thank you so much. And I’m guessing your research will continue along these lines, and you’ll have some more research coming before long  am I right? Are you working on something now?   RAYMOND CHIU, PhD  49:25 Yes, we are. We’re working on trying to study this from a different angle, using scenarios of tyrannical leaders in real life contexts and then seeing whether or not people’s moral intuitions as well as the gender of the leader. So, our prior study did not look at the gender of the leader. So looking at whether the gender of a leader has Ian effect on whether or not these moral intuitions result in preference. And we know from prior research that women do not do well trying to emulate men.   JULIE ROYS  50:23 Fascinating. Well, I look forward to that and look forward to maybe having you on again to talk about that. But thank you so much, Doctor Chiu. I appreciate you appreciate your work, and for taking the time.   RAYMOND CHIU, PhD  50:34 Thank you for having me on. It’s been a privilege.   JULIE ROYS  50:36 Again, thanks so much for listening to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And just a reminder that we’re able to do this podcast and all of our investigative work at The Roys Report because of support from people like you. So, if you appreciate our work, would you please consider giving a gift to support us to donate just go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. Also, just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcast, Google podcasts or Spotify. That way you’ll never miss an episode. And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks so much for joining me today. Hope you were blessed and encouraged. Read more

Guest Bios Show Transcript Jesus Revolution—a new film recounting the Jesus Movement of the 1970s—has become a box office sensation with Christian moviegoers. But is the movie accurate? And does its focus on megachurch pastor Greg Laurie do justice to this 1970s movement that changed the world? On this edition of The Roys Report, Christian filmmaker David Di Sabatino, creator of the Emmy-award-nominated documentary, Frisbee: The Life and Death of a Hippie Preacher, joins Julie. If you’ve watched Jesus Revolution, then you know that Lonnie Frisbee played a pivotal role in the Jesus Movement. He was the hippie preacher who helped lead thousands to the Lord and performed mass beach baptisms on the Southern California coast. And, he’s the young man who imparted his vision of reaching lost hippies to Pastor Chuck Smith, who then launched the Calvary Chapel movement. But there’s also a dark side to Frisbee that the movie didn’t portray. According to Di Sabatino, Frisbee was living a double-life—partying and engaging in gay relationships at night and then preaching the next morning. Plus, Di Sabatino says the film’s focus on megachurch pastor Greg Laurie is the antithesis of the 1970s Jesus Movement. The focus of this revival movement was Jesus—not celebrity preachers. Plus, Di Sabatino says some of the facts presented in the film are just plain wrong. For example, Laurie, whose memoir the film is based on, misrepresented how his church started, Di Sabatino says. We sought comment from Laurie on some of these issues, but his secretary said he was not available. However, he has spoken to other media outlets about some issues with the film, and these are included in this podcast. This is an eye-opening podcast. And though we’ll be discussing some of the issues we had with the film, we’ll also be discussing what’s inspirational and beautiful about it, as well. David Di Sabatino David Di Sabatino is a documentary filmmaker known for his films Frisbee: The Life and Death of a Hippie Preacher, which was nominated for an Emmy Award, Fallen Angel: The Outlaw Larry Norman, and No Place to Call Home. Trained as a historian, Di Sabatino is the compiler of The Jesus People Movement bibliography (Greenwood Press, 1999).  Show Transcript SPEAKERS JULIE ROYS, DAVID DI SABATINO JULIE ROYS 00:00 Jesus Revolution—a new movie recounting the Jesus Movement of the 1970s – has become a box office sensation. The movie made $15.5 million dollars in its opening weekend. Now it’s nearing the $40 million mark—and has become a runaway hit with Christian moviegoers. But is the movie accurate? And does its focus on megachurch pastor Greg Laurie do justice to this 1970s movement that changed the world? Welcome to The Roys Report—a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And joining me today is David Di Sabatino, a Christian filmmaker and creator of the Emmy-award-winning documentary, Frisbee: The Life and Death of a Hippie Preacher. If you’ve watched Jesus Revolution, then you know that Lonnie Frisbee plays a key role in the movie. That’s because Frisbee played a key role in the Jesus Movement. He was the hippie preacher who helped lead thousands to the Lord and performed mass beach baptisms on the Southern California coast. And, he’s the young man who imparted his vision of reaching lost hippies to Pastor Chuck Smith, who then launched the Calvary Chapel movement. But there’s also a dark side to Frisbee that the movie didn’t mention. According to Di Sabatino, Frisbee was living a double-life—partying and engaging in gay relationships at night and then preaching the next morning. Plus, Di Sabatino says the film’s focus on megachurch pastor Greg Laurie is the anti-thesis of the 1970s Jesus Movement. The focus of this revival movement was Jesus—not celebrity preachers.  Plus, David says some of the facts presented in the film are just plain wrong. (Sound byte): “Greg Laurie is lying about how that church started. Now, whether he doesn’t remember whether he just wants to keep Lonnie out of his lineage—Lonnie handed off to him a church of 300 thriving young people. That’s when Greg came in.” I reached out to Greg Laurie to get comment on the issues David Di Sabatino raises, but his secretary called me back and said Laurie was not available. Greg has spoken to other media outlets, though, and I include his comments to them in this podcast. This was an eye-opening podcast for me—and I trust it will be for you too. And though we’ll be discussing some of the issues we had with the film, we’ll also be discussing what’s inspirational and beautiful about it, as well. We’ll get to my interview with David in just a moment. But first, I’d like to thank two sponsors of this podcast—Judson University and Marquardt of Barrington. Judson University is a top ranked Christian University providing a caring community and an excellent college experience. Plus, the school offers more than 60 majors great leadership opportunities and strong financial aid. Judson University is shaping lives that shaped the world. For more information, just go to JUDSONU.EDU. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity and transparency. That’s because the owners there Dan and Kurt Marquardt, are men of integrity. To check them out, just go to BUYACAR123.COM. Well, again, joining me is David Di Sabatino, creator of the Emmy award winning documentary called Frisbee: The Life and Death of a Hippie Preacher. David also has produced a documentary on the life of early Christian rocker Larry Norman, and a documentary about a Christian sect in Chicago called Jesus People, USA. So, David, welcome. And thank you so much for joining me. DAVID DI SABATINO 01:06 Thank you for having me. JULIE ROYS 01:07 Today, we’re going to be talking about the Jesus revolution and the movie and just the events depicted in it. But before we do that, I’m just curious what got you interested in the whole Jesus movement and this time in the 1970s, when being a Christian was cool and following Jesus became kind of a hippie thing. DAVID DI SABATINO 01:29 So I grew up in the Italian Pentecostal movement in Toronto, Ontario. As a Pentecostal, there’s talk of revival, there’s talk of these great guys of spiritual power. I started looking around and trying to figure out what a revival was, because, you know, is a revival meeting next Tuesday at 10 o’clock, or was this a larger thing? I started looking, what’s the last revival that we had? Somebody said the Jesus movement. So I started looking at that. I was a Larry Norman fan. JULIE ROYS 01:59 As was I. DAVID DI SABATINO 02:00 Yeah, he would talk about it. And then I decided that I wanted to document this because there weren’t really a lot of books on this thing. So, I honed in on Lonnie because his stories as I started to talk to people, it’s like, a prophet was dropped in the middle of 1960s hippiedom in California. The stories are larger than life and it just drew me. So I was attracted to him because of that background, because of the signs and wonders, because of the miracle stories. Lonnie is just this fascinating character. And you’re seeing that now, because he’s the most riveting character in that movie. JULIE ROYS 02:41 Well, it is interesting because Lonnie Frisbee and I grew up in the church, not in the Pentecostal movement, but in the Evangelical Church. And I mean, to be honest, I didn’t hear very much about Lonnie Frisbee at all. Even Chuck Smith, we were kind of outside the whole Calvary Chapel thing. But that’s someone that I’ve become very familiar with, as I’ve been reporting, because Calvary Chapels keep showing up in different scandals that I’m covering. There seems to be a lot of scandal that follows Calvary Chapels. And there is like a whole other side to this. And I’m curious for you, you grew up Pentecostal. Did you come to this as a skeptic, as a believer as maybe a mixture of both, or just, you know, someone who’s curious? DAVID DI SABATINO 03:26 I’m not a true believer in the sense that I didn’t have questions. I’ve got lots of questions, you know. I mean, I went to seminary, I went to Bible college, I went to grad school, I was curious and interesting. But when I found roadblocks in it, I just didn’t discard it, I just found answers for it. JULIE ROYS 03:43 Give us a little bit of the history sort of in a snapshot for those who don’t know it very well. DAVID DI SABATINO 03:48 The 1960s was a time of tremendous openness. People were searching for truth, with open hearts, you know. It was a very innocent time in some respects. And whatever you decided was the truth, you got up on a street corner with a guitar and sang it or preached it out. And people would sit and listen, because they were so hungry for truth. I mean, the great scene in The Graduate where, you know, he’s got all these opportunities offered to him. And he goes, you know, what, I don’t want my parent’s culture. I want to go and find something that’s real. I don’t want to just this staid-50s culture. So these kids all at the same time, started looking around. And there was a percentage of them that started looking up and straight to Jesus, and saw that he had truth, not necessarily organized religion, but you know, the Jesus of the Bible. And so, all these little 18 year olds and some hippies, some church kids, they started embracing this. And you had then a movement that started people like Chuck Smith, were open to it. And it caught on like wildfire when somebody from that kind of culture said yes to this. So now you have you know, Calvary Chapel explodes because you have all these young hippies going, well, you know this guy, he loves us, and he’s going to take us in. There were other places that said, no, these dirty hippies, you know, leave them at the door. So the Jesus movement then, you know, starts to go on and these people start to make music, they start to do Jesus papers, you know, the countercultural kinds of papers, they aped those. There were communes all over the place. And this happened not just in Southern California, but across the country, Canada, some parts of Europe. I mean, it was a worldwide phenomenon, because something was happening. And people were tuned into it. JULIE ROYS 05:37 Yeah, I used to be a part of The Vineyard, which is one of two denominations. They don’t like to call themselves a denomination, but network of churches, whatever you want to call it, that sprung out of this, and actually, Lonnie Frisbee was connected to. But you have Calvary Chapel with over 1000 churches coming out of you have Vineyard churches, actually, not just in the USA, but worldwide. And I remember talking to a pastor at the Evanston Vineyard here in Chicago area. And he said, Boy, back in the 70s, like Jesus people movement, you just had to like, say, you’re having a Bible study, and it would just like flood, like, you know, people would just come. And so just an amazing time. And I think, an amazing period of Christian history and an amazing move of God with some very complicated characters. And interestingly, I mean, in the Jesus Revolution film, and we’ll talk more about this, Greg Laurie features prominently. I mean, he’s basically the main character, but was really, you know, I don’t want to say a bit player, but I mean, he kind of was I mean, that, yes, the Harvest. His church grew out of that, but he was not central to the beginning of the Jesus people movement. Correct? DAVID DI SABATINO 06:47 Correct. He left out some stuff, which is fine. One of my friends said Greg Laurie made a selfie movie, which I thought pretty much what I mean, if you he paid for it. So, you know, he can do whatever he wants. So, he’s attached himself to the story. And I have some thoughts on that. I bumped heads with Greg when I was doing the Frisbee documentary. He did his movie. You know, he followed Lonnie around like a lost puppy dog. He dressed like him. He tried to ape his moves. He tried to be him. And that’s not represented in the movie, which is fine. Again, I’m not a person that goes to that movie and go, oh, man, he got it all wrong. It’s his movie, right? Lonnie’s story is yet to be told. Because Lonnie story is much more difficult. JULIE ROYS 07:33 And I’m really looking forward to unpacking that because I think that is an important part of the story. And I think the Jesus Revolution and what happened there has a lot to speak to us today. Especially you know, as we’re looking at what happened at Asbury, and is that revival, is it not revival, is it renewal? I mean, what’s happening? We’re gonna dig into that. Let me start with what you liked about Jesus Revolution. Again, this is an extremely popular movie it was supposed to they were hoping to gross what 15 million now they’re double or even triple that. I mean the movie is doing extraordinarily well and obviously connecting with people, and I found myself connecting with parts of it deeply and parts of it not. DAVID DI SABATINO 08:15 That’s how I felt. Yeah. JULIE ROYS 08:16 Okay, so tell me what you liked. DAVID DI SABATINO 08:18 What I liked about it? Those early Calvary Chapel scenes where love song is playing those songs and people are drawn, the water, baptisms, seeing the power and transformative power of the Holy Spirit come down on people. You know, they did a really good job recreating the beach baptisms, all those kids sitting on rocks at Corona del Mar. Wonderful. I mean, that was just, they really captured that well. I thought Jonathan Roumie, I thought he did a great job of Lonnie. I mean, that’s a tough character to nail and he did a good, he did a great job. But Kelsey Grammer was just fantastic. I mean, who doesn’t like Fraser Crane? I saw him in interviews and he’s, you know, he’s saying the words that I crafted, you know, because, you know, whatever you say about whatever I did, I mean, the documentary kind of set the stage for this story. And some of the words that I put together he’s now saying, and I got a kick out of that. JULIE ROYS 09:20 I was really connecting with the Kelsey Grammer character, as well as Chuck Smith. And the reason I think I connected so deeply with it was that was my parents. I grew up late 70s, early 80s. I was in high school and this is when Christian music was just taking off. You know, Larry Norman. You know, I remember his very early, early, you know, drinking whiskey from a paper. You know what I mean? DAVID DI SABATINO 09:49 The best of all that stuff. No doubt about it. I give him his due. He was a great performer. JULIE ROYS 09:56 Yeah. And I saw my parents who you know, in my home, we listened to sacred music and we listened to I think the Carpenters and John Denver were like, the most rock we could get, you know, that’s the closest we could get the pop music that we were allowed on like long trips. And so I saw my parents struggling with this new like Christian rock thing just reminded me of Chuck Smith, although I don’t think they were as square as he was. But they embraced it because they saw the impact it had on me. And when I was in high school, there was, you know, your Jesus people who found Jesus went to Oral Roberts University, charismatic, all that, who ended up discipling me, and we ended up doing this coffeehouse ministry outreach to my friends, and my parents, you know, I saw them take him and his wife under their wing and disciple them and do very much like Chuck Smith did. And so that part of it really was precious to me, because it brought me to that. I mean, it’s nice to have a movie that doesn’t make fun of a spiritual reality and things that we honestly can’t describe, like healings or manifestations of the Spirit. I mean, they’re hard to wrap our heads around, but yet at the same time, we follow a God that Aslan is not a tame lion, so to speak. So, he does things that confound us. So, I agree with you. Like there’s some things in this really to be commended. But there’s also some issues as well. So, let’s start diving into some of those. Connie Frisbee, you said that her head is going to explode when she sees how she was portrayed. Why do you feel that way? DAVID DI SABATINO 11:38 Funny enough, I talked to Connie yesterday. And, you know, my question was, did anybody bother to ask about Connie and who she was? I mean, I’m assuming that what happened was, and I don’t know this, but Greg probably framed all that stuff for them and they just filled in the Connie character, you know, because it wasn’t a big role. So, she comes off extroverted, you know, and a couple of my friends said, we were waiting for her to, you know, lean over and kiss Greg next. And because, you know, there was almost like an intimacy developed between the two of them. JULIE ROYS 12:16 Yeah, that was a little creepy, to be honest. DAVID DI SABATINO 12:16 Yeah, but I don’t know what this is about. But I’ll tell you what her response was, you know, she just, you know, she said, Look, I’m used to this, I’m used to them, you know, dismissing me from history and not talking to me at all, you know, my phone is open. Why didn’t somebody call me? At the same time, I said, it doesn’t work that way. You’re a bit player. They cared about the Frisbee character and the Chuck Smith character. But you know, curly hair extroverted, that’s not Connie. They take license and you have to deal with that. JULIE ROYS 12:48 Yeah, you do. DAVID DI SABATINO 12:50 They’re not doing the Connie Frisbee – Lonnie Frisbee story. They were doing the Greg Laurie story. So that’s what’s important to them. That’s a little thing. JULIE ROYS 12:56 Well, another maybe little thing, but this bothers me. I mean, I know there’s artistic license, but why can’t we do things true to the story? Chuck’s daughter picking up Lonnie as he’s hitchhiking. That never happened, right? DAVID DI SABATINO 13:09 It never happened. No. JULIE ROYS 13:10 How did he meet him? DAVID DI SABATINO 13:11 That girl was dating a guy named John Nicholson, who brought Lonnie to Chuck Smith. That’s, you know, it’s another thing. But she gets up on stage with love song at the end. Yeah, I mean, come on. That never happened. JULIE ROYS 13:25 Some artistic license also with the guy who wrote the Time article. DAVID DI SABATINO 13:29 Ian Black. JULIE ROYS 13:30 He wasn’t African American, right? DAVID DI SABATINO 13:32 Oh, no. Richard Ausling? No. There were two guys that came out and did stories. So, I think they’re conflating there is the Look magazine article, which came out first. That story, it came out in February 1971. It’s the Jesus movement is upon us. Now that’s Jack and Betty Cheatham, who did all the photographs. And Jack Cheatham is responsible for getting the Jesus movement story to New York. And when he put that up the ladder to these guys in New York, these guys said, did you pay those people to go into the water to be baptized? Are you staging this? They didn’t believe it. And he said no. He said, that’s what they’re doing up and down the coast. They’re having beach baptisms. And so that’s why that story got slated. The guy that wrote the article, his name is Brian Vashuan. Then there was the Time Magazine one which is Richard Ausling. All white, everybody’s white. Again, creative license, you know, that’s fine. JULIE ROYS 14:31 I mean, I just saw Les Mis in theaters and the cast was not all European, which I guess if you want to be true to Les Mis, it would be. But I like that, that we’re using diversity and I like that but at the same time, it wasn’t Time magazine that put him on the charts as you’re saying it was it was Look magazine, who published first so I mean, again, minor things. DAVID DI SABATINO 14:55 But you know, I talked with Chuck Smith’s right-hand guy is still alive and he’s a pastor, and he said to me, he said, in the crowd early Calvary Chapel, there’s black faces, you know, there’s people that are of color. And he said, we maybe had three the whole time I was there. You know, there just was a white crowd. But historically, this is what it was. It was a white movement, really. So, if you’re a Black person in the 1960s, and they did join up with some Jesus movement groups, but largely, why would you do that? They’re not speaking your language. Really. Just the way it was, yeah. JULIE ROYS 15:34 What a missed opportunity and how the church might look different today. And we wouldn’t be having half the issues we’re having today, had that happened and had we seen properly that the Civil Rights Movement is a part of our values as Christians to be a part of that. That’s something we’re extraordinarily late to the game on. DAVID DI SABATINO 15:55 There’re other things I’d like to say about some of the missteps in the movie. Lonnie would have never said that he was the Jesus movement. Like when he turns to Chuck and says, The only reason this is happening is because of me. I mean, that’s not true. That’s not Lonnie. You know, I talked to Connie yesterday, her comment was Lonnie wouldn’t even ever had that thought. One of the great things about Lonnie is he understood that this was God moving through him. He would have never thought he took any you know; it was anything of his. I mean, he understood and his comments where, God raised me up from the dunghill. He understood throughout his life that it had nothing to do with him and that is was all God. One of the great things about Lonnie, he never would take credit because he didn’t do anything. He just kind of showed up. And God put this thing on him to be kind of like a fire starter. So that comment in that film they just got that so wrong. That’s just not him. Beyond that, Lonnie started Greg’s church. So that narrative about how Riverside happened, that’s wrong. That’s just dead wrong. There’s a fellow named Fred Wah, who was involved with the early Riverside Church. Twenty years ago, Fred phoned me up, and he says, David, I love Lonnie, and I love Greg. But Greg Laurie is lying about how that church started. Now, whether he doesn’t remember whether he just wants to keep Lonnie out of his lineage, Lonnie handed off to him a church of 300 thriving young people. That’s when Greg came in, after Lonnie had discipled these people and brought them along. So that’s the story. I got one more. The fact that they have marketed this film to suggest that, oh, this is going to be the catalyst to a revival. I mean, that is the most disgusting thing about this whole thing to me. Because it’s like, name me the movement or somebody’s self-centeredness, and hubris has fired off something in the Spirit. You think the spirit responds to your selfie movie? Give me a break man! To say that this is going to spark some sort of movement in the Spirit. What are you talking about? Are you so daft that you can’t see what you’re saying? Because basically, he’s saying I am the high point culmination of everything good that came out of the Jesus moment to which I say, Oh, that’s nice. You built a big church, who cares? Who cares, man, good for you. You know, I don’t care about that. But to say that that’s going to spark the Spirit of God. That just got my blood boiling. JULIE ROYS 18:48 Well, as we’re thinking of revival, and especially coming out of the Asbury revival, which let’s remember at Asbury, we had a bunch of big-name people who came in right? Wanted to co-op the revival for their own platform. And the administration there said, you know, if you want to come fine, but you’re gonna sit like any other congregant, and they put the kids up on stage, you’re not going to get on stage. And it was good for them. And they made it very clear, this revival is what God is doing in a grassroots movement through the students, and we’re not going to get in the way of it. I love that. But what’s happening now for Greg Laurie to say, you know, it is kind of the antithesis of what happened at Asbury to now go promote this movie and say, you know, this is what God did, and he can do it again. Yes. Can you do it again? Yes. But what’s it about? And this is what bothered me so much. It wasn’t about the celebrities. I mean, Chuck Smith is about as vanilla as can be the way he’s portrayed, and I think it’s probably somewhat true to form. Lonnie was a character but as you say, the thing I like about Lonnie is that he really seems to be showing up for what The Holy Spirit is doing. And he’s there to be a part of what God’s doing not to kind of co-op this for himself. But I do get the sense from watching your documentary and reading some others that Lonnie truly was seeking something real. But he was a pretty complicated character who maybe never overcame his own demons. But he was seeking something real. And so, to see this movie, it’s played prominently, that Lonnie, and Church both tell Greg Laurie that he’s going to go preach to thousands. And to me, this is so classic charismatic, and I love charismatics. And I lean that way myself, but I remember once turning to my husband and saying, When is somebody going to get a prophetic word that you’re going to live out your life in relative obscurity, and you’re going to serve your family and do it faithfully. But that’s going to be the beautiful thing that God has birthed in you, is that your life is going to be remarkably normal, but you’re going to live faithfully for him, and you’re going to touch some people profoundly in your life through living that quiet life. Like you never hear these, you always hear these, you know, kind of grandiose, and that’s where I see like, just the spirit of man getting caught up in these things. DAVID DI SABATINO 21:09 I say that all the time. I say, you know, when Is God gonna anoint somebody to make dinner? I don’t get it. And I’ll tell you even with this story, and I’ve watched this the whole time, everybody wants to be important. So, I have a question for you. The Asbury thing; I know what happened in the 70s. Is it the exact same place? JULIE ROYS 21:27 Well, it happened at Asbury did it happen in that specific chapel? That I don’t know. DAVID DI SABATINO 21:32 But the fact that it happened at the same college 50 years later, that is extraordinary to me. That coincidence, like why? Because I know the original one, some teachers got up and said, Hey, man, we’ve been phoning it in, and we’re sorry. And this tremendous sense of forgiveness and confession, started this whole vista. And people just started flocking to this place because the Spirit reacted to the humility or whatever. I mean, you know, that’s what I’m thinking. And it was tremendous, but that 50 years later, the same thing sparks off and good for them to rope it off. JULIE ROYS 22:10 Yeah, I mean, my mother was Wesleyan, and she grew up on the campus of Houghton College. So very similar roots and coming out of the holiness tradition, for them, the litmus test of it is not speaking in tongues being filled with the Holy Spirit. It is a second work of this spirit to give you the power to overcome sin in your life. It’s a repentance and holiness movement. And so my mother, like I remember her telling me stories of when she was a child being woken up in the middle of the night, because revival was happening on the campus of Houghton College, and going out, you know, like, I don’t know, one-two in the morning, as a really young teenager, and being in the church and hearing professors get up and confess their sins. For her as a kid, you can imagine hearing these adults get up and confess their sins. just remarkable. But again, it was very grassroots and she used to talk about it. So, this was part of my growing up; wanting and longing for revival and wanting for holiness in the church. That has always been, you know, deeply rooted in me because of my history. But I’m guessing at Asbury the same sort of thing, because it comes out of a similar revivalist history. But yeah, it’s beautiful when you see that happening. DAVID DI SABATINO 23:29 I think that’s why people gravitate towards Lonnie, there’s an authentic Ness to him. You and I both know that charlatans abound. Lonnie wasn’t like that. He kind of just showed up. And you know, the authenticity of Lonnie is he moves a 40-year-old pastor who doesn’t like the hippies, to let him up on stage the next week, knowing full well that he came out of the homosexual lifestyle. How does that happen? The meeting between Lonnie Frisbee and Chuck Smith should be on the Mount Rushmore of 20th century spiritual events, because what happened there just defies all logic. And they get at it a little bit. I don’t know how you would do it screen-wise. Lonnie explained it much more dramatically than Chuck did. He said it was like a cloud came and enveloped us. And we were both moved because we understood that there was some connection that had been made. You know, Chuck downplays it because Chuck comes out of Aimee Semple McPherson. He downplays the demonstrative acts of the Holy Spirit. He doesn’t want to talk about that stuff. He doesn’t want any kind of glamorization of that because he saw the abuses. You know, Aimee Semple McPherson was, you know, the dramatist and the healings and Katherine Kuhlman followed in that step and a lot of that is just show. I mean, I’m not suggesting that they didn’t do good things. I’m just a lot of that is for performance. Lonnie just wasn’t like that. So, for him to move this guy, that is extraordinary. This is absolutely extraordinary. And he gives him his pulpit and this thing starts to explode, you know. So for me for Greg Laurie to super impose himself on that. You know, and that’s maybe my own personal pet peeve. And I know he was there, but that should be a hands off event where you go, I don’t want to take anything away from this event because this was an act of God. JULIE ROYS 25:39 But yeah, this is an amazing thing. That Lonnie is able to come in both of them know Jesus, Chuck and Lonnie, but he really converts Chuck to what’s most important. And being willing, you know, this is something that I did love about the Vineyard is that they had a commitment to the church being messy, because when the Holy Spirit moves, it’s usually messy. And we want to clean it up because it makes us nervous, right? But I love that Chuck embraced that at the beginning. DAVID DI SABATINO 26:09 I mean, you know, I’m watching people do backflips and calisthenics to try to scrape the gay off Lonnie. JULIE ROYS 26:16 So, let’s talk about this. It’s my understanding he renounced his homosexual past and got married, but then sort of back slid into, you know, and this is when he was married, he was going to gay bars, partying one night. And then the next morning preaching. What Brent McCorkle told Christian Post was, they chose not to mention it, because they wanted to stay true to the story of who Frisbee was in 1969 and 1970. And supposedly, he wasn’t acting out on his, you know, homosexual desires at that time. Laurie told Christian Post and I quote, I don’t know the specifics of his, Lonnie’s, immorality if it involved homosexual encounters. But during the time of the Jesus movement, I never saw or heard anything of that kind. And I don’t believe it was happening at all in his life. This is something that happened later, his marriage fell apart. And then we know he died in his 40s of AIDS. So, I mean, how do you respond to those explanations of why they didn’t mention it? DAVID DI SABATINO 27:20 So, for this movie, I don’t think this was the vehicle by which to try to explain Lonnie’s complexities. Now, the things that they are saying, there’s, you know, they’re saying that out of ignorance. Why would Greg know that? He wouldn’t, I mean, Lonnie leaves in 1971. So Greg never sees him until his deathbed in 1993. I don’t think that they had any interaction. You know, so he doesn’t know about Lonnie’s life. You know, I can tell you from what I know, that Lonnie did renounce, you know, homosexuality, and for the rest of his life, preached that he was not gay, and that he did not, and that homosexuality was a counterfeit. And he preached that and told anybody that wanted to talk to him about that. However, what he did throughout his life, was venture back into that lifestyle. So, the people that are saying, well, you know, he was molested as a child, and therefore, he fell into this sin or whatever reasoning that they want to do. I think you have a real problem with that, because I can show you all along the way that he was engaging in that behavior all along. JULIE ROYS 28:33 Even in the late 60s, early 70s? DAVID DI SABATINO 28:36 Yes, I talked to Connie about it yesterday. But this is the reality of his life. JULIE ROYS 28:41 And wasn’t Lonnie disciplined by Chuck Smith for some of his behavior? DAVID DI SABATINO 28:47 Chuck knew. To his credit, so I think he knew about it. And I think he said, but God is using him. He didn’t dismiss him, even though he knew. I give him credit for that, because that’s unlike anybody else, including John Wimber, who treated Lonnie horribly for 10 years because of this. Horribly. JULIE ROYS 29:10 So, Lonnie was a married man, whether this is a homosexual relationship or heterosexual relationship. I mean, it was forbidden by scripture, I mean, to have extramarital affairs. So when you bring up Chuck Smith, I mean, I read a 2007 article just recently, CT article called Day of Reckoning. And they’re talking about Calvary Chapel and specifically Chuck Smith having this dangerous laxity and maintaining standards for sexual morality among their leaders. And this became, I mean, really a hallmark for Calvary Chapels. I mean, tons of scandals. And one pastor said these men cannot call out sin. Easy forgiveness, insiders say, has created an atmosphere of sexual license where some unethical pastor sense that there are few consequences for sexual misconduct. So not to make it a gay issue or a non-gay issue, I mean, the fact of dealing with sin within Calvary Chapel, he did have a pattern of looking the other way, which then came back to bite the movement. What I’ve heard, and I hear this repeatedly because I report on these scandals, right? Is that we have men from broken homes, maybe abuse in the background, all sorts of you know, drug use immorality coming in getting saved, right? They get saved, and they want to follow Jesus and they want to do what’s right. And they do for several years, because you know, you’re on that sort of a honeymoon period of just, you know, you’re kind of on this high, Jesus high, whatever you want to call it. But when life hits, and it requires character, and it requires dying to self, and it requires walking in holiness, there’s not that ability to do it. But also, there’s like zero understanding in the church zero, about, you know, getting some professional counseling about getting some help for these folks, for someone like Lonnie, that was abused as a child. I mean, just horrible that we have not had a framework of dealing with those root issues. You know, has the church treated gay people horribly? Absolutely. No question. But have we treated just broken people with just a lack of care and understanding? And that’s where, again, I’m watching this movie, and I’m seeing those issues. DAVID DI SABATINO 31:32 Yeah. Boy, it’s complex. Boy, I tell you, cuz, you know, I’ll tell you from what I know, Chuck had his own issues. And again, the overriding principle of Calvary Chapel was if you are anointed, then we’re going to give you all the slack that there is. So yeah, you are absolutely right. There is that thing in Calvary Chapel. And what they say is, you know, you take on the limp of the leader. And this is the way that he handled it, because it was given to him, he was given grace for his foibles. Again, it’s a good impulse. And then when taken to another level, it becomes the rigor des jour and, you know, unfortunately, people will use it and abuse it. So, you’ve got guys that are running around, and nobody’s going to put the hammer down. Because, you know, there’s a fine balance between the law and the spirit and you know, you can’t just have that sort of thing. And you’re right about Calvary Chapel, I don’t follow them past, you know, a certain point, but I could see that happening. Absolutely. Lots of guys that, you know, have gone off the reservation and do things and then nothing happens. JULIE ROYS 32:48 And Calvary has influenced a lot of I would say charismatic movements. Chuck Smith was famous for the Moses model. And this was the idea, right? So your pastor, you know, we’re not living in, you know, like we’ve skipped over Acts 2 where the Spirit of God comes on your young men and your women and your children, we’ve missed that. Now, we’re reverting back to an Old Testament model where the Holy Spirit speaks only to your pastor. And then he has to disseminate the words of God to His people, and the elder board isn’t there really to hold him accountable, it’s just there to support him and try to keep them as healthy as we can, while he’s self-destructing half the time. I mean, and this has become the model for the Association of Related Churches, ARC. The largest, arguably the largest church planting organization in North America. And if you just go to my page, and go under investigations, and click on ARC and Church of the Highlands, and you will see a litany of scandals just in the past two or three years. Unbelievable how much sin is going on in that church, and this is a, I would just say, the Moses model is perverse. And that’s why when I see at the end of the movie, you know, Greg Laurie, wanting to, you know, glorify the mega church, but also appropriate, these words of knowledge, you know, prophecies, whatever, as you know, for him, and this is why, you know, he’s got this mantle. I can’t say whether God said that, or he didn’t say it. But I can say that that kind of thinking and the celebrity and thinking you’ve got the anointing and the mantle’s on you, has been absolutely toxic. It is, and instead of us watching a movie about what Jesus did, among unbelievably ordinary, messed up people, we’re hearing about the words of these celebrities that were making even Lonnie being a celebrity. I mean, I think all of that, did God use them? Yes. Could he have done it without any of them? DAVID DI SABATINO 34:47 It’s funny, because like, after my time within that world, I kind of thought to myself, you know, it’s sad that church has become the center of so many people’s focus instead of the family. And wouldn’t it be nice for us to pull back and go, you know what? let’s make the center of the locus what God wants to do the family instead of this thing. I don’t get it. I don’t get what people are expecting church to be. And these mega churches, are they a good thing? What’s the guy that did Purpose Driven Life? JULIE ROYS 35:20 Rick Warren. DAVID DI SABATINO 35:21 You know, he repented of all that, to his credit. Now I don’t, you know, I didn’t follow it. But I remember, you know, when I came down there, and I met him and because he was friends with my boss, and I liked him. He repented of building the biggest, baddest church on the block. But he got caught up in that. And he shouldn’t have and he realized it. He’s one of maybe, you know, I don’t know. I don’t see too many people do that. I see a lot of people trying to emulate that. And that seems to be the goal. JULIE ROYS 35:49 Yeah, but what when he retired instead of saying, Okay, let’s break this up and have each one be a separate congregation and let’s find pastors, he brought in a guy with all sorts of allegations of spiritual abuse. And it’s like, we have to find somebody you know, the man, right? We have to find the celebrity pastor to pass this on to. And you know, it’s like, when do we wake up and say, the model is broken? DAVID DI SABATINO 36:12 I agree with you. JULIE ROYS 36:13 It’s heartbreaking. I’m just thinking, put not your trust in princes in whom there is no help nor the Son of man in whom there is no help happy as he whose hope is in the Lord. You know, and yet we have made it about man over and over again. And I probably need to get off my soapbox, but I could talk about this all day and obviously have a lot of passion behind it, because I’ve seen the damage and I talked to the wounded and I talked to the casualties of this movement. In your ministry or business, your reputation is your most valuable asset. But what do you do when you suspect misconduct? Hopefully, you do the opposite of many of the organizations I report on. Instead of covering up wrongdoing, you investigate it, and Accord Analytics can help. In just 72 hours, their team of experts can scour emails, call logs and other records to produce usable evidence. They also can analyze your organization to identify specific threats and to suggest best practices. For a free consultation go to ACCORDANALYTICS.COM Well, let me get back to the story because you’ve hinted at why Lonnie and Chuck didn’t split. What did eventually cause them to part ways and then Lonnie to end up I mean, he ended up at the Vineyard? DAVID DI SABATINO 37:41 Lonnie felt that, you know, he would say, Church, why are you putting the Holy Spirit in a box? You know, that was one of his great lines. He felt that, you know, Lonnie loved Katherine Coleman. And he saw, you know, the show people that that did this stuff. And I think there was a little bit of that with him. I think, too, it was just an honest expression of who he was. He was an experimentalist, not only in the counterculture, but when he came to church, and fortunately, or unfortunately, God would sometimes backup, you know, what he did. So he would take this mantle and put it over people to get them to speak in tongues, which is, you know, it’s ridiculous. But he was a hippie, he didn’t know, you know, so he’s doing this stuff. And then, what’s kind of sad is that people started to do the same thing around him and you’re like, you know, anyways. What happened with Chuck, it was a spiritual thing. Chuck was very uncomfortable coming out of that Foursquare drama, you know, everything’s drama. Everything’s manipulative. He did not like that stuff. So, inch by inch, he started encroaching on Lonnie’s kind of charismatic. Chuck, we call it charismania. Where you make the gifts of the Spirit and the demonstrative acts of the Holy Spirit, the main thing. He was against that, so it was Lonnie that made the decision to leave Calvary Chapel. Chuck would have never told him to leave. But on Chuck’s part, I think Chuck was restricting him more and more. And I think the movie touched on that. I mean, that’s a complex issue. But that’s basically what happened. Lonnie left; Chuck did not want him to leave. JULIE ROYS 39:23 What’s hard, is reconciling the fact that someone who was sinning. In some ways people would look at his lifestyle and say, that’s open rebellion against God. You know, he’s partying one night and, and that’s hypocrisy. I mean, that’s hard. That’s something that Jesus was pretty clear about. Whether the immorality is heterosexual or homosexual, the point is, as a minister of the gospel there, I mean, there’s scriptures that are pretty clearly about what qualifies you as a pastor. Being above reproach. DAVID DI SABATINO 39:59 And pride is so insidious. Yeah. I mean. My thing was, I thought it was tremendously unfair that Lonnie got marginalized and treated because of this sin. I’m not saying that it’s okay. And that, you know, it should have been that a blind should have been turned to it. I don’t think that’s good, either. But my feeling is that we dote on this sexual sin, to our detriment, because what are we saying to people that have sexual sin when they come into the church? I mean, if I had sexual sin, I wouldn’t go to a church. That would be the last place because if I’m exposed, the way that I get treated is much worse than somebody else who’s just proud. You know. I mean look at what’s going on here. Greg’s pride and arrogance are being used as a virtue. Really. And what do we do? And in the American church, this is something that’s great. Look at him. Oh, that’s wonderful. Hey revival is going to happen. Really? Really? On pride and arrogance? This is what you’re going to build revival on? Okay. I’d like to see that happen. You know, I’m waiting for that to happen. Now it’s great that they’re making all this money. But you know, that’s because you’re marketing very smartly. But revival outbreak? Come on. You can’t imagine how that galls me. I mean, it’s just so ridiculous. I don’t know what the answer is to this. I mean, because there’s always a fine balance between these issues. JULIE ROYS 41:27 Well, there is. I hear you talking out of seeing people, wounded people in the church, not be properly loved and supported. And really, people walk through healing, like, and we’ve been so like, allergic to professional counseling, and to learning from the world at all, which I think has been a real problem for the church, because we’ve not helped people that really need help, and we’ve not come alongside them. And yet, I’m coming at this from seeing the unbelievable license for pastors, and especially if you’re a superstar, and if you’re a celebrity, and if you perform well. Wow! And it’s destroying the human being, though. I mean, this isn’t loving to the human being it wasn’t, it wouldn’t be loving for Lonnie, even in that situation to just have it winked at and for Chuck to keep using him, because, yeah, you’re bringing people in, it’s working. I mean, that can be an abuse, too. I mean, so I think there needs to be, you know, if we’re not going to grieve the Holy Spirit, and we’re in the midst of a move of God, we need to uphold both his holiness and His love. And both of those things need and they both of them work together. When they’re applied, rightly, DAVID DI SABATINO 42:42 I would hope that that happens, I just don’t, I don’t know how that balance gets struck. I don’t know, I don’t know what the what the resolve is. For me, it’s been come out of her and just, you know, be separate, and just kind of go handle my family, and just not worry about all this other stuff. Because it’s just so painful to watch. I’ve had friends who committed, you know, sexual acts outside of their marriage, and they get treated worse than the devil. You know, it’s like, these people lose their minds. How can this happen? What really? You had heterosexual sex, you don’t know how that could have, like, this is uncommon to you? That they treat him with such disdain. That person is cut off from talking to anybody. So, one week, they’re the guy and then the next week, they’re the devil. And it’s like, is this how God would handle this? Like, really? I don’t know what the resolve to that is, I have no idea. You know, Chuck’s trying to be gracious. And now you’re saying 30 years later, this is a huge problem. That’s, I can see that. The drift, you know, just the drift of that notion can then become an abusive thing. Like anything what starts as a good impulse, and then it becomes calcified. And people, you know, are trampling over it, just to use it for their own gain. JULIE ROYS 44:03 And only Chuck knows why he did it. But I will say, I mean, Lonnie became the person that attracted people and launched the Calvary Church. So, I mean, we’ve given Greg Laurie a hard time here. But he does live in a $3.5-$4 million dollar home there in Newport Beach. The movie itself is a huge capitalist venture. Laurie, is you know, one of the movie producers. There’s a whole book Jesus Revolution: How God Transformed An Unlikely Generation and How He Can Do It Again. You can buy that for a retail price $18. You can get the Jesus Revolution study book from Lifeway for$14.99. You can get the leaders kit from Lifeway for $89. Somebody is making an awful lot of money on this. Here’s the thing. I mean, as I’m looking at it, and I’m understanding revival, that normally repentance and renewal is the precursor. You know what I’d like to see? I’d like to see all these multimillionaire megachurch pastors, which where have they gotten their money? From donated money from, I would like to see them do exactly what Jesus urged the rich young ruler to do. I mean, what would happen in our churches, if they opened up the books and said, here, you’re gonna see what we pay everyone, and our pastor who’s making, you know, over a million dollars or six-hundred grand, or whatever it is you’re making, you know, and he’s going to come down, and he’s going to have a median, whatever the median is here, you know, whatever it would be. I’m not going to say the exact and people are gonna say, well, you’re saying it’s wrong to be rich. And it’s one thing to be rich because you produce something that people buy. And that’s how you’ve made it. It’s another thing to be rich because people are donating. You know, and I guess you could say the ones that got rich off of publishing and, you know, their book royalties, and that’s a whole other thing. But I just think somewhere in there, if there’s going to be revival in this country, and the mega church leaders, our celebrities want to want to lead? lead by stepping down, lead by giving up, lead by selling all your goods, doing those radical things that Jesus said. Lead that way, then I would say, I wouldn’t be surprised if a revival would come to this country. DAVID DI SABATINO 46:11 Yeah, agreed. I would love to see that movie. Now, you said we’re piling on Greg Laurie. Let me pile on some more. I don’t like Greg Laurie. I’ll say that right up front. I haven’t had a lot of interaction with him. I got a phone call one day when I was doing this movie. There was a story about his salvation. Lonnie tells it very differently than Greg tells it. Lonnie tells it much more dramatically. The Lonnie’s rendition is that Greg came and started to heckle at Harbor High School, he started to heckle him. And Lonnie saw him in the crowd and said in the name of Jesus I command you to shut up. And Greg, Lonnie says he hit the ground. And as he hit the ground, he started speaking in tongues. That’s the story. And when people came to him and said, well, so Greg wasn’t a Christian when he was heckling. But then by the time he hit the ground, how does this work? When did he get saved? And Lonnie would say, on the way down. You tell the story, and people would laugh. And you know, it was one of the big stories. So I’m listening to that story. And I’m going, okay, so I find a guy that says he was in the crowd and he saw that happen. So, I, you know, I’m a researcher, right. So, I have prima facia, kind of, I have a guy, right. So I started telling that story, because I got a guy, right that says he was there. It was not just Lonnie story. It’s a guy that says he was there at Harbor High School when it happened. So, Greg gets wind of this, and I’m telling the story. And he phones me up. And he starts to say, that didn’t happen. And I said, Okay. And he said, Let me tell you, and the first thing out of his mouth is this. That guy took a lot of drugs, you know? And I was like, whoa! look at this. He’s dismissing this guy by besmirching him. He’s not contesting what I said, he’s not entering into a dialogue with me. He’s belittling this guy. And I said to him, and I didn’t say this to him, but I wrote him a letter later, because I was, I was stunned. Like, I was just like, what? So, and again, I was working for a guy who’s his friend who put me on the phone with him. So, I’m in a position of, you know, do I want to keep my job or want to yell at Greg Laurie? So, I didn’t yell at him. But I sent him a letter later on. And I said, How does this work? Because you took drugs? And not only did you take drugs, you sold drugs? Do I get to dismiss you? You know, is that how this works? Because what you should have said to me was, well, I have my take on it. And I can produce these people or, you know, come back to me with some sort of dialog that says that you’re interested. Instead, you dismiss this guy who you know, who is your friend at one time. And I said, what is that? So that’s who Greg Laurie is, to me. And I’ve corroborated that with a bunch of people. He is an arrogant man to do that to his friend, and to besmirch him like that. Just a total jackass to me, but that’s my feeling. JULIE ROYS 49:21 Who is this guy? DAVID DI SABATINO 49:22 He’s passed away. His name is David Sloan. David Sloan was a young hippie friend of Lonnie’s. He laid the foundations of Calvary Chapel. I mean, this is, you know, he found out that I had done that to him because somebody, Greg must have told somebody else. He came back and he thanked me. He said, you know, you had my back and I said, Dude, he should not do that. Like, that’s just, you know, because it’s, I’m the guy, right? Like, I’ve got this church and I can do whatever I want. I was like, nah, nah, you know, that pissed me off. Because again, God called me you know, when I was in Canada, God laid Lonnie’s story on me. And Lonnie is the guy that gets written out right? When I came down in 2001, all of his friends are bemoaning the fact that nobody is talking about Lonnie. And so I said, okay, we’re going to fix that to whatever extent I can, because God has laid this story on my heart. And so, I stuck up for the little guy. Because that’s what Lonnie was. And that’s how I feel. And that’s what you know, you’re doing the same thing. We stick up for the people that can’t stick up for themselves. Because either we have big mouths or we don’t know any better. I don’t know what it is, you know, but, you know, for me, it’s like, you can’t do this to people. You can’t treat them like the gum on the bottom of your shoe. How dare you do that! That’s my feeling. JULIE ROYS 50:48 And I think I think God’s heart is grieved. DAVID DI SABATINO 50:51 Oh, yeah. JULIE ROYS 50:53 And I think he still has and longs to gather people to Himself. And I think we’re the ones who are getting in the way. And so, I mean, am I thrilled to hear people talk about revival? Absolutely. Was I thrilled to see what happened at Asbury? Absolutely. Do I long for that to happen now? Absolutely. But I think it begins, it does begin with us facing these things and how people are treated, how the little guy is treated in our church, how the sinner is treated, you know how the person up front, who sets himself up an example how they’re living? How are they really living when it comes to loving people and exhibiting the fruits of the Spirit? Which are not numbers and money and how many books you’ve sold. It’s love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, self-control. These are the fruits of the Spirit. I think there is an opportunity now with people talking about revival, and looking at past revivals and looking at moves of the spirit. But I think it starts with us getting in tune with what God’s doing, instead of trying to coopt stories for our own self-aggrandizement. Right? That’s where it needs to begin. So, David, fascinating discussion, I knew it was going to be fascinating. I knew that it was going to be challenging and it has been and I just I appreciate your commitment to truth and to getting the truth out there and to giving a more complete picture of what happened and encouraging us towards that. DAVID DI SABATINO 52:31 Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. JULIE ROYS Again, thanks so much for listening to The Roys Report—a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And just a reminder that we’re able to do this podcast and all our investigative work at The Roys Report because of support from people like you. So, if you appreciate our work, would you please consider giving a gift to support us? Whether your gift is $10, $100 or $2,000—they’re all important. And they all help us pay for reporters, editors, producers, and web designers. And without those, we can’t create this important content. So, to give, just text 22525 on your phones and the word, “report.” That’s 22525 and the word report. Or go to Julie Roys.com/donate. Also, just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or Spotify. That way, you’ll never miss an episode! And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. 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Guest Bios Show Transcript Many times, those who have experienced spiritual abuse are retraumatized when they try to speak about what’s happened. They’re often labeled bitter, disgruntled, and gossips—and once again, wounded by Christians and the church. In part two of Julie’s podcast with Justin Humphreys, they discuss how to help survivors of church hurt. How can church leaders and members promote their healing? And how can the church—the source of so much pain and trauma for these survivors—become what Jesus intended it to be, a place of safety and healing? Justin and Julie also examine spiritual leadership. What does authentic, healthy leadership look like? And how does it differ from the toxic forms we so often encounter? As CEO of Thirtyone:Eight and author of Escaping the Maze of Spiritual Abuse, Justin has profound insights into these questions. And if you missed part one of Julie’s podcast with Justin, exploring the definition and stages of spiritual abuse, be sure to take time and listen now. It’s our hope and prayer that these podcasts will help equip you to spot and deal with spiritual abuse. Justin Humphreys Justin Humphreys is CEO of Thirtyone:Eight, an independent Christian safeguarding charity operating across the United Kingdom and internationally. Established in 1977, the charity now supports in excess of 10,000 member organisations to create safer places for all.   He is co-author of two recent books Escaping the Maze of Spiritual Abuse: Creating Healthy Christian Cultures (SPCK, 2019) and Just Leadership (SPCK, 2021). He is an Honorary Fellow at the University of Kent (Department of Religious Studies) and a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Chester (School of Psychology).   Justin holds an MSc in Child Protection and Strategic Management, a BSc. (Hons) in Social Work Studies and a Diploma in Counselling Psychology & Psychotherapy. He has been a Christian since the age of 11 and is married with three adult children. Show Transcript SPEAKERS JULIE ROYS, JUSTIN HUMPHREYS JULIE ROYS 00:04 Many times those who have experienced spiritual abuse are re traumatized when they try to speak about what’s happened. They’re often labeled bitter, disgruntled and gossips and once again, wounded by Christians in the church. So how should the church respond to survivors of church hurt? And how can we create cultures in our churches that are safe and healthy? Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And in part two of my podcast with Justin Humphreys, we tackle these crucially important questions. And if you miss part one of my podcast with Justin, I encourage you to go back and listen to part one. in it we deal with the definition and stages of spiritual abuse. And as the CEO of Thirtyone:eight, the leading Christian safeguarding charity in the UK, Justin has profound insights into this unique form of psychological and emotional abuse. But in this podcast, we look at the aftermath of spiritual abuse. How can survivors heal? And how can the church the source of so much pain and trauma for the survivors become what Jesus intended it to be a place of safety and healing? We also look at spiritual leadership. We’ve discussed some of the ways that it can be abused. But what does authentic spiritual leadership look like? We’ll get to my interview with Justin in just a moment, but first, I’d like to thank two sponsors of this podcast, Accord Analytics and Marquardt of Barrington. In your ministry or business your reputation is your most valuable asset. But what do you do when you suspect misconduct? Hopefully, you do the opposite of many of the organizations I report on. Instead of covering up wrongdoing, you investigate it, and Accord Analytics can help. In just 72 hours, their team of experts can scour emails, call logs and other records to produce usable evidence. They also can analyze your organization to identify specific threats and to suggest best practices. For free consultation go to ACCORDANALYTICS.COM. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity and transparency. That’s because the owners there Dan and Kurt Marquardt, are men of integrity. To check them out, just go to BUYACAR123.COM. Well again joining me for this podcast is Justin Humphreys, CEO of the Christian safeguarding group Thirtyone:eight. Justin also is coauthor of the book Escaping the Maze of Spiritual Abuse. We pick up our conversation, as we’re discussing what happens after you leave a spiritually abusive church. Part of navigating your way after you’ve left one of these systems is dealing with the emotions. And I think it’s especially difficult in Christian environments, because some of these emotions, we’re told we shouldn’t have, that they’re wrong, that spiritual people shouldn’t feel this way. And of course, they’re always called bitter or disgruntled or, you know, all of these disparaging words. But speak to the person right now who’s feeling these emotions, very powerful, real emotions of anger, and betrayal and mistrust. JUSTIN HUMPHREYS 03:25 Can I firstly speak to the word you used, gossip? Because so often, an accusation of gossip is made towards the individual who just needs to vocalize what they are seeing and experiencing. To be told that that’s gossip is hugely destructive. I mean, it’s a weapon, it’s a threat that is used. It is a beast in itself. So destructive. So, I guess, I would say, don’t be persuaded to think that sharing your concerns is gossip. Clearly, we’re not necessarily in the early stages, at least if we can discern and intervene at an early stage, that sharing that concern with somebody appropriate is anything other than a good thing to do. And we’re not talking about shouting it from the rooftops. Although sometimes I guess we feel that that’s the only way. But deal with things that are low level if you can. You know, we talk about the hallmarks of healthy culture. And it’s really difficult when the culture is not safe and it is not healthy. The opportunities to deal with things that are low level are really they’re seldom there. So, taking a step back, taking time to reflect on what has been the buildup of low level concern. If we can challenge it early enough to prevent those issues from becoming embedded and entrenched and more deeply rooted, then we may have a slightly easier escape. I don’t say that with any sense of glibness because I’ve seen the damage. I’ve seen the damage. So I guess I’d want to say to your listeners, Julie, I’ve heard you. If your experience is what we have been talking about, I’ve heard you. You need to know that there are people who do understand who do believe, who would want to get alongside you; those people when you’re in the middle of it may not always be the easiest to find. But we’re out there. JULIE ROYS 05:44 When the victim or the survivor of spiritual abuse, many of them don’t want to ever reenter a church again. I shouldn’t say many, some. I thought it was very interesting, and actually, my last interview with a cult experts said that often survivors of cults, they do return to a church that has a similar theological structure. Because you can’t unbelieve what you believe, you know, and especially when it happens to be rooted in the word of God, and you know it’s true, but it’s been twisted. So, they come back to church. And often, the churches don’t know what to do with them. Just don’t know what to do with them. Because, and I think we often tend to ostracize them, because their emotions make us feel really uncomfortable. Really, really uncomfortable. I thought you made a great point about the process when someone begins to open up. Speak to that and speak to the person, and this is why, and I’ve heard this, I heard from one pastor who sent his entire staff to our Restore Conference last year. We’re having another Restore Conference in June. And I just really, really encourage people, whether you’ve been in abuse, whether you’re abuse survivor, whether you’re just a member of a church, whether in leadership or lay member, if you just want to be helpful to the survivors that come in, because there’s so many refugees out there right now, spiritually speaking, who are coming into your churches. But I heard from a pastor who said he sent his staff. And he said, wow, wasn’t exactly what I thought it was going to be. But it ended up being better than I thought it was going to be. And they have come back with a tenderness and a sensitivity, that they couldn’t have come to without hearing firsthand from people what happened. So yeah, speak to this process, speak to church leaders and church lay people about what they need to do and to be for these survivors that walk into their churches. JUSTIN HUMPHREYS 08:03 I think, possibly one of the greatest challenges for church leaders, is to reach out and reach in, despite your fear. So, there will be so many occasions, like you just said, Julie, where church leaders and others come on our training, and they say, we really just wanted to find out what all this is about, and why you spend so much time talking about it. We expected to hear one thing and we’ve come away experiencing something very different. And there is almost a change of heart, you know, to enter the room defensively, expecting that they are going to need to challenge left, right and center. Oh, well, this can’t be right because and when you can’t say that, because and that’s not true, because and actually find, wow, this has actually resonated with sometimes my own experience, you know. So, it’s not unusual for delegates to come to our training and be confronted with the reality that they have, at some point in their journey been a part of a spiritually abusive community. And when the reality of that dawns hearts change. This is not about attacking God. This is not about attacking Christians. This is not about destroying the Church and its ministry. This is about shining a light into some very dark places, acknowledging that it happens more than we might like to believe., and that actually, there’s something that needs to be done here, you know. So I think I would just encourage church leaders to particularly, if you are going to have people enter your church who have been in harmful, abusive, damaging circumstances, some of them spiritually, how are you going to address them and meet them in their place of need if you have no understanding of what they’ve experienced and come from? So, reach in , reach deep, confront your own fear, I think is probably one of the key things that I would say. Don’t be persuaded that what you’re doing is destroying God’s church. Because actually, God is big enough, powerful enough to protect himself and do his own business. He just chooses to use us. And I love that you said that when someone default is what happened to them, we tend to think, Oh, this is an important conversation, which it is, but we don’t realize this is a process. This is just the beginning. And we really don’t need to say a lot. We just need to be a safe space, right? and validate their feelings, validate what they’ve been through, and don’t pass judgment. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Just enabling somebody to come and be, to watch to listen to, in a sense, rebuild what they had before the sequence of events took place. And if you have somebody who is perhaps reacting in a way that seems, you know, unexpected, or disproportionate, just take a moment to ask yourself why that might be. JULIE ROYS 11:40 Exactly, yeah, trauma victims act like trauma victims, and yet they often get shamed for it. I love that because they really need a space to be able to be reactive for a while. And who of us wouldn’t be good grief? Yeah, I appreciate that. Let’s talk about creating healthy church cultures. I love that you, it reminded me of you know, Church Called Tov by Scot McKnight, Laura Behringer. Their book is so good on trying to create that environment. First, let’s talk to the leaders and to authentic leadership. Because, as you note in your book, I mean, it can be that abuse happens, sort of along people of equal spiritual footing, you know, or authority from lay person, lay person or can even happen from lay person to a pastor or a board member or something like that. I mean that’s possible. But I will say of all the reporting I’ve done, that is really, really small. I’m not saying it doesn’t happen; I have heard from pastors that just got ganged up on horribly unfairly, and that does happen, but most often, it is from someone, and they’re able to do it because they have this position of power. And there is this question of, okay, I’m exercising spiritual authority. Where do I know, where’s that line? Like? When is, you know, appropriate spiritual authority? And when is it becoming control and then abuse? You know, where are these lines? And how do I know as a leader where those are? And how do I lead authentically in the body of Christ? JUSTIN HUMPHREYS 13:25 And these are the million-dollar questions related to coin an overused phrase, but it is. You know, going back to Mark Stibbe, he talks in a piece that he wrote for the Church of England newspaper back in 2018, that it is so difficult to chart the transition between exhortation and coercion. When do we move from one to the other? How do we know that that’s happening? Is there a red line over which once you’ve stepped, you’re well and truly the wrong side of it? Well, I’m not sure that often there is. I mean, sometimes there are some clear marks and there are clearly some behaviors which apart from anything else may be criminal or legal but outside of that this huge expanse of gray in that area and how we, how we hold ourselves accountable, how we take time to self-reflect on our own behavior, on the responses of others to the things that we have said and done, and are prepared to when necessary, self-regulate, to say there’s clearly an issue here. I clearly stepped over somebody’s line. Somehow. I need to understand where that line was, why it was there. Why did that person take such offense, why did they respond in the way that? And can I do? Should I do something different? You know that passage in scripture where the psalmist says, search me and know me God. That actually means that we’ve got to be brave enough as leaders to say, you know the worse of me, God. I need you to help point that out for me, I need to be able to root that out, deal with it, so that I’m not causing harm to other people. But is there a distinct red line? Not always, it’s really tricky. And we see what we call a spectrum of behavior. Lisa Oakley, my colleague has been working on this in recent months. And it depicts a progression, a journey from what is healthy, into things that are unhelpful to things that might be unhealthy, and ultimately, things that are harmful. And we need to understand that often, we see people moving up and down this continuum. But we need to be alert to the indicators of when we’re stepping into the right-hand end of that spectrum. And we’re starting to look at an unhealthy and unfortunately, sometimes harmful behaviors, and that we’re prepared to bring challenge and we can hopefully pull that back, rather than let it become embedded and entrenched. There’s a huge amount to do. JULIE ROYS 16:26 And all of us misuse our authority at some point. I remember talking to Diane Langberg, who has written so just I mean, her books are, they’ve just opened a whole new world, I think, for understanding spiritual abuse. But she said to me, I remember, if you’re a parent, you’ve misused your authority at some point. All of us have done this. And I think you make a good point, you know, it’s how do you respond often? And what are your motivations? Like, are you there to lead? Are you there to serve? Because Jesus said that, that those who would want to lead would be the greatest servants of all, and I think our whole leadership movement, I did an entire podcast on this with somebody wrote the book Unleader, fantastic. I love this podcast, because he’s like, Yeah, everybody’s concerned about leading, nobody’s concerned about serving, even though that’s what the Bible talks primarily about. But can you give an example of something that might be you know, just to kind of make this a little more concrete of something that might be just sort of unhelpful, and then, where it might move into, like this unhealthy or abusive category? JUSTIN HUMPHREYS 17:28 We often talk about unhealthy patterns. So, when does bullying become bullying? Is a single offensive comment bullying? Is two bullying is three bullying? Often we find that it is a repetitive pattern. It may increase in its severity or its impact. But as soon as we have moved into something which has become a repeated event, then we are seriously at risk of it becoming at the very least unhelpful and sometimes harmful. You know, we’re not talking about the person who says, Well, I asked my pastor if I could preach on a Sunday morning, and he said, No, I think he’s spiritually abusing me. Well, how long have you been in the church? Six weeks. You know, I say that slightly tongue in cheek, but it’s not those disagreements, it’s not those misunderstandings, not those differences of opinion as such. But when they become repetitive, and when they become more serious, often, then we know we’ve got a problem. And particularly when challenge has been brought and the challenge is rejected, then we’ve often got a problem. JULIE ROYS 18:51 Well, let’s talk about that, because you talk about kind of these different hallmarks of safe and healthy churches, and one of them is, you know, how do you respond to your negative stories? When you hear a negative account, as a church, when somebody brings up maybe something that happened that you don’t feel so good about as a church like this was not a good thing? Is there an openness to discuss it? If there’s a criticism, do we take that criticism well, or do we punish the person and shame the person who’s brought the criticism? I mean, talk about some of these hallmarks of healthy churches that stand in contrast to the dysfunctional ones and the abusive ones. JUSTIN HUMPHREYS 19:37 Yeah, it’s a really good point. And I think much of the situation that you’ve just described about how willing is a church or a leader or leadership to acknowledging its past failures or negative elements, all rooted in this sense of humility, you know. So, in Philippians, if you remember there’s this passage that’s often in various versions titled imitating the humility of Jesus. And it talks about preferring each other, each other’s needs. It talks about servanthood it talks about a complete reversal of, you know, the expected norms around leadership. And that humility that actually is able to say, I am not going to get it right all the time. In fact, I can guarantee you, I won’t. But when I don’t, I welcome your feedback. I welcome your constructive challenge, because I want and I need to learn. You know, when we see an open, humble posture being taken by a leader in that regard, then we can have some confidence that our ability to bring our challenging narratives might not be quite as hard as it would be elsewhere. It’s one of a whole number of things that we might look for. You know, how we listen, and listening well as leaders got to be the place to start. Now going back to talking about how we, as leaders going to deal with those who come to our churches who have had a spiritually abusive experience elsewhere, what if we’re not prepared to sit with them and listen? Well, we’ve got right off on the wrong foot is so important. JULIE ROYS 21:31 Judson University is a top ranked Christian University, providing a caring community and an excellent college experience. Plus, the school offers more than 60 majors, great leadership opportunities and strong financial aid. Judson University is shaping lives that shaped the world. For more information, just go to JUDSONU.EDU. And you talk about messaging and symbolism, and I thought this was good. You talked about a church that has like an old, faded poster about how to report you know, if there’s abuse or something, and that that communicates something. That you can’t put up a poster that looks sharp, and that looks fresh, and it says this is important to us. And if you see anything, this is how you report it. I mean, do we need to as churches, to put in our programs, you know, or to put up on the screen every now and then or to have posters, saying if you see a problem, here’s how you report it in the staff manuals, very clear reporting structures, and safeguards that you’re not going to be retaliated against? I mean, what do churches need to do to tell their congregants this is a safe place? JUSTIN HUMPHREYS 22:46 So many different things, you know, ranging from what is public, what’s on the wall, the posters then being up to date that, you know, they’re not being the dog eared things that are covered by a million and one other things have got pinned onto that board. You know, the messages that are taught from the platform, and the fact that we need to communicate messages appropriately to different audiences within our congregation, community, whoever it is, including our children, young people. How do we talk to and teach our children, young people to contribute to their own safety, safety of their peers? So I remember having a conversation, I was leading a seminar at a large Christian gathering in the UK a few years back, and it was a bunch of 50 or so church leaders. And I said, How many of you have either preached or heard a preach on a safeguarding related issue or the importance of the biblical mandate, if you’d like, for us to be creating safe places? Well in the room of about 50, about 3 hands went up. Come on people! What is going on? We either believe this or we don’t! You know, sort of messaging and the communication is so important. JULIE ROYS 24:09 And I would say if you’re sitting in a church, and you repeatedly hear messages on gossiping or on social media and things that are said and basically vilifying people who speak up, wouldn’t I mean, that I would get up and walk out, right at this point, you know. If I heard that in a message, I’d be ready to get up and walk out. I have once, once in my life been in a sermon where a pastor pointed out, here’s whistleblowing. And you know, it’s interesting, not only did the whistleblower blow the whistle on wrongdoing, he named names. So many want to talk about Matthew 18 about going privately you know, which has been so abused. So few want to talk about publicly exposing somebody who needs to be held account and Good grief, don’t expect the vulnerable victim to go one on one to the abuser. I mean, we need to be communities where it’s said from upfront, and it said across the board and it is safe to say, we stand with victims. And if you report something, we’re going to take it seriously, and we’re not going to vilify you. I have, I have yet to hear, you know, I’ve heard one sermon where that was said and alluded to, but a really strong message. I mean, pastors, I would really encourage you that if you’re listening right now, do that on Sunday. Do that, especially with all of these scandals going on, get up there and make an example and say, we will be different. And if I’ve done something like this, if I’ve grieved you, or the Holy Spirit, please come tell me. It’s so badly needs to happen in our cultural context. And I’m thinking of two, there’s a revival going on, supposedly, you know. That’s what people were calling it, whether it is or it isn’t, I don’t know. But we have students meeting 24/7, at a Christian college here in Kentucky, Asbury University, and a hallmark of that is repentance, repentance, and the church owning and people finding healing for some of these, you know, the church hurt, at least according to reports, that’s what’s happening. Well, how refreshing would it be? And could there be revival in our countries, and over here in the US across the pond there in England all around, if Christians will begin repenting, Christian leaders repenting, and churches saying we need to do things differently? We need to see reform. And so let me go this gets me to my last question. And it is with all this abuse and scandal going on. You know, I hear it a lot that people feel despairing. I felt despaired. You know, at times I felt despairing. Is this a move of God where he’s cleaning up his church, though? I mean, should we be encouraged that sins that have happened and persisted for decades, are finally coming to light? Is this a move of God? What’s your opinion on that? And here’s the other thing. How long is it going to take? I think some people are like, Oh, we thought we were done. Oh, my goodness, there’s more? There’s more? And so, I would like your take on this. Well you know what, I’m going to withhold what I think I want to hear what you think, on this on this point and then I can share mine, although I wouldn’t be surprised if ours are similar. So how do you respond to that? JUSTIN HUMPHREYS 27:38 Julie? Emphatically yes! This is a move of God. I have no doubt in my mind. I was having a conversation with a dear friend of mine, who I become to know because of these sorts of situations. But we were talking together about this ministry, this call to be a part of shining a light, shining God’s light into some very dark corners, a prophetic ministry. Because the way I see it, Jesus wants to return to his bride. He wants a Pure Bride. There is so much impurity in the church, so much evil doing. And I do believe that there is a period that we have entered into, and I don’t know, maybe to preempt the final question. I don’t know how far in we are, and I don’t know how far we’ve got to go. But I know that we are in the middle of doing something, being a part of God’s great clean up. You know? And as difficult as that is, and I hear you, Julie, you know, the despair, you know, the sense in which we could be gripped by hopelessness, if we did not keep our eyes fixed on Jesus. We will not let that overcome because there is work to be done. And as tough as it is, it’s a privilege to be used in the way we are. And there’s lots to be done. JULIE ROYS 29:42 Amen. I just think of the scripture where Peter was told that the gates of hell would not overcome the church. On you I will build my church again. Not you, as in Peter as the Catholics may think, but on this statement that you are the Christ. But on you I will build my church and the gates of hell will not overcome it. We have as much as we believe in Jesus, we have to believe in His Church too. And that he will accomplish his purposes in it. And I do think, you know, we want a quick escape. I remember somebody saying to me once about somebody that was in the midst of counseling, and I so desperately wanted to see healing for this person, and they said to me, you know, Julie, it didn’t take this person a month or even a year to get into this problem. It’s been persisting for a long time, it took a long time to get in, it will take a long time to get out. I think we need to have some stamina as Christians. We’re in a pruning, we’re in a really hard season. And this season isn’t going to be a year, it’s not even going to be five years, it might be decades of God doing and dismantling and exposing, but that’s what we’re in for, right? And it shouldn’t surprise us. Jesus said, Watch out for the wolves in sheep’s clothing. He said, Watch out for the false prophets. And yet, we’re so thrown when we see them. But I agree with you, God is doing something. Every time I report an investigation, I sit there and I just I look at it. And every time I see God delivering information into our hands, so that we can report it. And not because we were so brilliant at doing our jobs, but because God brought it to somebody and convicted them that they need to report this and they bring it to us. And so, such a privilege. And it is a privilege to be a part of what God is doing. And so I encourage people and I said this at a talk I did, actually in 2019, at the Restore Conference, that God gives each of us like he gave David one smooth stone that we can use, and every single one of us can be a part of what he’s doing. And so just encourage everyone listening, God is using you, God will use you, don’t lose heart, and He will accomplish his purposes. Justin, we could talk for a very, very long time. And I say this to so many of my guests. But it’s so true, because I only talk to people I want to talk to and then when we get into discussions, it’s so rich. But it has been rich, and I so appreciate you. And so thank you, thank you for your work. Thank you for engaging so deeply in this discussion. And God bless you and what you’re doing. Thanks, Julie. And you too, amazing work. Let’s keep on keeping on. Amen. Again, thanks so much for listening to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And just a reminder that we’re able to do this podcast and all of our investigative work at The Roys Report because of support from people like you. And right now we’re offering Justin’s book Escaping the Maze of Spiritual Abuse to anyone who gives a gift of $30 or more to The Roys Report. To give just TEXT22525 five on your phones and the word REPORT. Or to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. Also, just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts or Spotify. That way you’ll never miss an episode. And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks so much for joining me today. Hope you were blessed and encouraged. Read more

Guest Bios Show Transcript Spiritual abuse has become an increasingly hot topic, as more and more stories of bully pastors and hyper-controlling churches have grabbed headlines. But how does spiritual abuse differ from mere emotional and psychological abuse? And what are its key features and stages? In this podcast, Justin Humphreys, CEO of Thirtyone:Eight and author of Escaping the Maze of Spiritual Abuse, joins Julie to discuss this important issue. Thirtyone:Eight is the leading independent Christian safeguarding charity in the UK. And over the past few years, Thirtyone:Eight has conducted numerous high-profile investigations of churches and leaders accused of spiritual abuse. This includes what some British publications have called the “mother of all abuse stories”—abuse by Jonathan Fletcher and John Smyth. Smyth ran a system of evangelical camps for boys from elite schools throughout England. And Fletcher was vicar of the prominent Emmanuel Church Wimbledon and one of the most influential evangelicals in all of England. During this in-depth conversation, Justin describes those cases, and how both Smyth and Fletcher twisted Scripture to suit their selfish ends. He then explains how the term spiritual abuse came into being—and how our understanding of it has evolved over the past few decades. Julie and Justin then explore the stages of spiritual abuse, how to leave spiritually abusive systems, and then how to heal and create safe church cultures with authentic spiritual leadership. Justin Humphreys Justin Humphreys is CEO of Thirtyone:Eight, an independent Christian safeguarding charity operating across the United Kingdom and internationally. Established in 1977, the charity now supports in excess of 10,000 member organisations to create safer places for all.   He is co-author of two recent books Escaping the Maze of Spiritual Abuse: Creating Healthy Christian Cultures (SPCK, 2019) and Just Leadership (SPCK, 2021). He is an Honorary Fellow at the University of Kent (Department of Religious Studies) and a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Chester (School of Psychology).   Justin holds an MSc in Child Protection and Strategic Management, a BSc. (Hons) in Social Work Studies and a Diploma in Counselling Psychology & Psychotherapy. He has been a Christian since the age of 11 and is married with three adult children. Show Transcript SPEAKERS JULIE ROYS, JUSTIN HUMPHREYS JULIE ROYS  00:04 Spiritual abuse has become an increasingly hot topic as more and more stories of bully pastors and hyper controlling churches have grabbed headlines. But how does spiritual abuse differ from your emotional and psychological abuse? And what are its key features and stages? Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And joining me today is Justin Humphreys, CEO of Thirtyone:eight, the leading independent Christian safeguarding charity in the UK. Over the past few years Thirtyone:eight has conducted numerous high-profile investigations of churches and leaders accused of spiritual abuse. These include an investigation of the Crowded House, the Church founded by Steve Timmis. Timmis is the former CEO of Acts 29, who was fired in 2020 for alleged bullying and spiritual abuse. Thirtyone:eight has also investigated what some British publications have called the mother of all abuse stories, abuse by Jonathan Fletcher and John Smyth. Smyth ran a system of evangelical camps for boys from elite schools throughout England. And Fletcher was vicar of the prominent Emanuel Church Wimbledon, and one of the most influential evangelicalisms in all of England.   So, Justin Humphreys is well acquainted with abuse in a church context. And in his book, Escaping the Maze of Spiritual Abuse, Justin explains how the term came into being and how our understanding of spiritual abuse has evolved. He also explores the key features of spiritual abuse and its impact. And he explains how to create safe church cultures with authentic spiritual leadership. I’m so looking forward to my discussion with Justin.   But first, I’d like to thank two sponsors of this podcast, Judson University and Marquardt of Barrington. Judson University is a top ranked Christian University providing a caring community and an excellent college experience. Plus the school offers more than 60 majors great leadership opportunities and strong financial aid. Judson University is shaping lives that shaped the world. For more information, just go to JUDSONU.EDU. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt  of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity and transparency. That’s because the owners there Dan and Kurt Marquardt are men of integrity. To check them out just go to BUYACAR123.COM.   Well again, joining me is Justin Humphreys, CEO of the Christian safeguarding group Thirtyone:eight. He’s also an Honorary Fellow at the University of Kent and a visiting lecturer at the University of Chester. And Justin is coauthor of the book, Escaping the Maze of Spiritual Abuse. So Justin, welcome, and thanks so much for joining me.   JUSTIN HUMPHREYS  03:00 Thank you for having me on Julie. It’s great to be here.   JULIE ROYS  03:02 And I am so excited to speak with you because I’ve been following your work and the work of Thirtyone:eight. And you’ve you know, as I referenced in the open, you have been at the center of some of these major investigations involving scandals with Jonathan Fletcher, and John Smyth. And Thirtyone:eight has just done phenomenal work. I know you’re very well respected. But sadly, because we’re in the US most of my listeners, though, certainly not all. But we’re often not aware of what’s going on there in England. So a lot of people probably aren’t familiar with your work aren’t familiar with John Smyth or Jonathan Fletcher, and yet I think what is happening there in the UK mirrors so much of what’s happening here in the US with a lot of abuse, both sexual, physical and spiritual abuse happening and then being covered up. So I would really appreciate it if you could summarize for us, and I know it’s hard to summarize these huge stories, right? But if you would give us just kind of a brief synopsis of what happened with them, and then the impact that it’s had there on the church in England.   JUSTIN HUMPHREYS  04:11 Yeah, thank you, Julie. Firstly, John Smyth was a very high profile, highly influential leader within the Church of England and the wider conservative evangelical tradition of the church, if you like. Now deceased, but John was also a queen’s counsel. So, for those who may not be familiar with that top lawyer, Barrister in this country, prominent, well connected. I mean, connected to the highest levels in society. And he was found to have abused countless men throughout an extensive period of time. He would go through a long period of grooming, and then would befriend, and then emotionally, physically, psychologically, and spiritually abuse those men in the name of Scripture in the name of God. And when he was a risk of being exposed for all of those abusive, horrendously abusive practices, where he would take these young men into the shed at the end of his garden in a country home, he would literally beat them to within an inch of their lives. When he was at risk of being exposed of that he was aided to flee the country. He went to South Africa, and then continued to abuse and the evidence would seem to suggest even kill others whilst out there.   There’s a lessons learned review, as we call it in the UK here that’s underway, that was commissioned by the Church of England. It’s called the Machen Review being undertaken by an individual called Keith Machen. It is now long, long overdue in its reporting. It just goes to show the scale and complexity of what’s being looked at.   JULIE ROYS  06:18 And John Smyth. Also, these camps that he ran with really elite, those educated in the best schools of England. And a lot of names that we know here, even in the US like Nicky Gumbel, who has the Alpha course, went through those camps, and they were just extraordinarily prominent, weren’t they?   JUSTIN HUMPHREYS  06:37 Yes,  hugely, hugely influential. I don’t think we can underestimate the connections that an individual like John Smyth had. It was described to me as a spider’s web. It’s really quite unlike anything I’ve seen before and possibly since.   JULIE ROYS  06:57 Kind of the mother of all abuse stories, because of how long it went on, the fact that they had done an investigation found he was guilty, and then shipped him to South Africa, just absolutely horrific. But one of the men who was somewhat complicit in these, in this abuse was Jonathan Fletcher, who has his own story. So, if you could tell us a little bit about Jonathan Fletcher, who he is and what he did.   JUSTIN HUMPHREYS  07:23 Yes, Jonathan Fletcher in many ways, a similar character, certainly within the same conservative evangelical tradition of the church. Again, very well connected. Up until recent times, largely a very well respected, a hugely influential figure, one of many would have argued the greatest teachers and leaders in the Christian world that this country has seen, certainly in recent times. But again, found to have committed awful offenses against individuals. Our own review into that particular case, 146 pages of report into that matter, found that he had also harmed and abused men in his care emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, and as suggested by some sexually as well. Some similar behaviors, some different behaviors, but again, with this sense that it was not open for challenge, it was the way and it was the way that God would have it. And so on a spiritual level, incredibly deep, leaving emotional, spiritual as well as physical harm upon individuals.   JULIE ROYS  08:55 And evangelicalism is not as big in England as say it is here in the United States. So I mean, I can kind of guess, but I’d like to hear from you like, how devastating is it to the evangelical community, to have two of its most prominent figures there in England, be found to be such horrific abusers.   JUSTIN HUMPHREYS  09:19 To find that there is a, let’s say, a very rotten apple in that cart, hugely damaging. And I guess whilst we have to acknowledge that that is undoubtedly the case for many people, that it would bring people to a point of questioning their own belief systems, their own faith, their own relationship with God, which is absolutely the worst part of all of this. There is a sense in which all of those things are often the things that are used to perpetuate, defend, and justify the abusive behaviors. Look what damage you will do to God’s name, look at the damage you will do to this wonderful person’s ministry, if you were ever to speak out about what you have experienced. So whilst the reality is it does do huge damage, those are the very things that are often used as some of the threat at the time.   JULIE ROYS  10:22 It’s interesting you say that because I mean, obviously, I hear that all the time that if we report this, it’s going to just do such damage to the kingdom of God. I heard from one guy who said, I’ve totally lost my faith because of not the abuse, though this is the thing. It’s often not the abuse, it’s the cover up, and he even said, if more people had spoken out like you are, I think I’d have my faith today, I might believe. To speak out, and to take a stand and to do the sorts of things, revealing this rot at the core, to me is what Christ calls us to do. It’s what the prophets did. And you see in Scripture, they just did not shrink from talking about what was awful, even in our own house. In fact, I would say it usually began with our own house, right? God spoke to the Israelites about their sin, He cared more about their sins than the Philistine sins, right? He cared more about the Jewish people sins and what they were doing. Even in the New Testament, where we see him clearing the temple, who was he harshest on? It wasn’t the sinners; it was the Pharisees.   So again, just to bring this back to where it, I think it’s so important that we be truth tellers, and we be truth tellers within our own tribe when it hurts. And so that’s why again, I feel like you’re a kindred spirit, and so good to talk with you. But let’s talk about spiritual abuse. Because I think Jonathan Fletcher and John Smyth’s very clearly their physical abuse, the sexual abuse, that’s easy to pin down, right? I mean, you can look at that and say, well, that’s horrific. The spiritual abuse, as you mentioned, is more insidious in its nature, and it’s more cloaked. And it’s very, very confusing. And at the beginning of your book, I thought the foreword was so well done by Mark Stebie, who is a survivor of John Smyth’s abuse. Would you recount some of the abuse that Stebie experienced at John Smyth’s hand and kind of how that typifies the spiritual abuse and how these predators cloak what they do in the work of God and the words of God?   JUSTIN HUMPHREYS  12:33 Yeah, I mean, firstly, I have to say, Mark has become a dear friend. And the degree to which I hold him in high esteem is something else. I think, you know, his courage, his bravery, his suffering, all immense. So, for him to agree to just put some part of his experience into words for Felisa Oakley, my coauthor and myself, was a huge privilege and a real eye opener. And in many ways Mark shares a story which is fairly typical of a larger group of fellow survivors at the hands of John Smyth. And if I can just read a couple of excerpts from the book from Escaping the Maze, that Mark gave to us because I think they make this point and they help us to try and think about what it is that sets spiritual abuse aside from any other form of abuse. And maybe we’ll come back to talking about the coexistence of different types of abuse later on.   But here so in the foreword, Mark writes under a short section called Divine Position, he says, “When Smyth had undermined the core tenets of the Reformation by setting himself up as a mediator between the victims and God, he thereby reduced the effectiveness of the Atonement. That is true. But it was worse than this, Smyth told us that God is our Father in heaven, therefore, he cannot be your father on Earth. So, I’ll be your spiritual father.” And then he goes on to say about how particular passages of Scripture were used, they were distorted, twisted and misapplied.   So one of his favorite verses one of John Smyth’s favorite verses, was ‘you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood’. He took that from Hebrews 12:4. And he took it literally as a justification for the physical and sexual abuse that he meted out upon extremely vulnerable, yet intelligent young men and the horror really that that conjures up, a passage of scripture can be so twisted and so distorted, so embedded within the psyche of an individual that it can result in those sorts of abusive behaviors. It is beyond belief almost. But we know that it’s true. These things happen. This was the reality for Mark and his fellow survivors. That is, in many ways, one of the factors that sets spiritual abuse apart from any other. That there is a justification that’s given that is based upon scripture, more often than not completely taken out of context, but used to serve and justify the means of the abuser.   JULIE ROYS  15:47 As you’re speaking about that I’m reminded of Jesus’ temptation in the desert. I mean, who is it that takes scripture, and twists it? Its Satan. This is just I would say, and I don’t use these words that often, but really satanic to take the words of God, manipulate, twist, pervert them and use them to try and control which is exactly what Satan tried to do, tried to control Jesus in the desert using his own words, you know, the words of God. So, so evil.   So again, this is not a new phenomenon. In fact, I would say it goes back even to, you know, Eli’s sons in the Old Testament, Hophni and Phinehas, who, here they were priests of God, and they stood at the gates and would really manipulate people to cheat them and get the best part of the sacrifice for themselves, who would sexually abuse women who came to the temple. I mean, just so so wicked, and they were punished by God for that. And so, we see it throughout the pages of Scripture, but I think this term spiritual abuse is rather new, as I’m understanding kind of coming out of the 50s and the heavy shepherding movement. Is that right?   JUSTIN HUMPHREYS  17:04 Yeah, yeah. I mean, that’s where we were charted back. Some of the responses that we still receive today, that seek to push back on the existence of spiritual abuse, would say, well this is a new untested form of abuse. And the terminology is unhelpful. Well, some people may find it unhelpful. But the reality is, this has been around for a long time.   Going back to the account in the Gospel of Matthew, you know, the famous passage that refers to the millstone and the mills, it would be better for a millstone to be tied around your neck and to be cast to the depths of the sea than for you to harm one of these little ones. Well, the whole context that Jesus is talking about there is the damage that is done by individuals who would seek to come between them and God. Distort, divert, damage, and destroy that relationship. So, Jesus was talking about it, and warned against the dangers of it. And I can’t imagine many more, I can’t recall many more harsh words ever spoken by Jesus, whilst he walked this earth than those. He reserved special judgment, special punishment for those who would behave in this way. So those that would say, oh, you know, this is a new thing and really isn’t tested and it’s not, you know, it’s not really legit. Well, I would argue strongly against that. And I would say, Well, what, what’s this speaking to then?   JULIE ROYS  18:42 Hmm? Well, and so often, it seems like the pushback comes from those who have the most to lose about us talking about it. So, I’m so grateful for it. And I’m glad that we call it spiritual and abuse because that’s exactly both those words are important. And we’re gonna get to a definition of spiritual abuse exactly what it is. But you do, I think, a really great job of talking about what it isn’t or maybe some of the myths surrounding this term spiritual abuse, and one is that it just happens to really vulnerable people, which it’s almost victim shaming, right? Like you’re so stupid that you got manipulated. Speak to that, does this just happen to you know, weak willed people who put themselves in the way of these powerful manipulators?   JUSTIN HUMPHREYS  19:31 Far from it. Spiritual abuse can happen in an environment with the most intelligent and seemingly the least vulnerable. What we see is that spiritually abusive cultures and behaviors can exist amongst the most unlikely and my coauthor Dr. Lisa Oakley, talks about it well in some detail about how it is only often once you in a sense, have escaped the maze, and have looked back upon what it was you were in and a part of, that you come to a point of realizing just how damaging toxic it had been.   JULIE ROYS  20:19 You know the one characteristic I would say in all of the abuse victims that I’ve talked to, when it comes to spiritual abuse, the most prominent characteristic I found is that people that are incredibly earnest, incredibly good, and it’s their goodness, and their just really their purity. That is exactly what again, because they are so sincere in their faith, that then the wolf, the manipulator, the predator, sees that sincerity and uses this very beautiful, childlike thing that Jesus said, we can’t enter the kingdom without and uses that very thing against someone. Just, again, so wicked.   Let’s talk about too and I’ve wondered this myself. And I remember once even kind of crowdsourcing it on Twitter saying, Does this happen in some denominations more than others? Are charismatic churches more, more likely? Are Reformed churches more likely?   JUSTIN HUMPHREYS  21:28 The short answer is no. There is no boundary to this. And I remember casting my mind back to the launch of Escaping the Maze, going back to 2019 had all sorts of people come, we were in the House of Lords in London. And I spoke to an individual who had come into the room and sat at the back. I didn’t know who he was, didn’t recognize him at all, an Asian gentleman. And he sat there, and I thought he was basically playing with watching some content on his phone the whole way through. But I spoke to him afterwards. And he confirmed in what he was doing. He was making notes. He said, I’m from within the Muslim community and I’ve just been sat here making notes as you talk, because everything that you are talking about is something which I see happening within the Muslim community. So, the fact that yes, it reaches across the Christian community should be no surprise, therefore, we actually see it operating in communities of completely other differing faiths. Where there is opportunity to use faith, scripture, sacred texts to justify harmful behavior, it will happen.   JULIE ROYS  22:56 And the same thing seems to apply too about theological, doctrinal convictions. I do know there have been a good deal of cases, at least here in the US involving abuse of women and children, and those being dismissed by the leadership. And it does seem to happen in a lot of complementarian churches where women wouldn’t be allowed to be pastors, for example. And a lot of people suggesting that that is to blame. At the same time, here we have Willow Creek Community Church, where Bill Hybels was very much an egalitarian, very pro women in leadership, and yet we know he was abusing. Do you see any patterns along kind of doctrinal lines, or any types of abuse that seem to attach themselves to certain doctrines?   JUSTIN HUMPHREYS  23:49 Well we at Thirtyone:eight have been really quite careful to try and navigate a solid path through all of the theological, doctrinal confusion that exists around these particular issues. After all, we have been accused of gunning for the conservative evangelical tradition in the United Kingdom. That’s not the case; we have only gotten involved in dealing with issues where we have been invited in to do so. And it just so happened that there were a number that that were from that particular tradition.   So, we try very much to steer away from the theology because we’re not theologians, after all, for the most part. But what we do find is that there are some potentially problematic doctrines out there. So where we find the role of male headship being the model that is used to the exclusion of all others, what does that actually say about how women are valued, how they’re treated? What their contribution is towards the wider community? And if you’re starting off with any sense that anybody is a lesser person, less able to contribute, does not have equal standing, then well of course, you’re going to encounter difficulties. And we just have to be so careful, don’t we that we are not setting up constructs which just facilitate harm and abuse. And that is so often what we see. I mean, I don’t mind saying to you, Julie, you know, I, on occasions have said to myself, that said to God, God, what are we doing to your church? You know, what have we made this thing? Do I even want to be a part of it anymore? And that being the reality, because much of what is happening, are constructs that are put in place to be self-serving, to maintain the institution, or the process, or the belief mechanism or the doctrine. At the end of it all, are we loving people? Are we really doing our utmost to reflect who Jesus is who God is, as a just God? It’s not just about what we do what he did, or does it about who he is, he is a just God. So why do we need to dress it up in all these ways that make it so difficult and so confusing for everybody to navigate? Because where the confusion exists, the harm often follows.   JULIE ROYS  26:31 And that is the hallmark that we’re told in Scripture that they will know you are Christians by your doctrinal purity? No, by your love. And I know that’s become more and more important to me, it’s like I could care less about your doctrinal purity. I mean, do I think doctrine is important? Absolutely. It is important, but at the same time, I want to know more about how you treat people. Because I think at the end of the day, it’s loving Jesus loving other people. That’s what it comes down to. And I don’t think entrance into heaven is going to be a doctrinal quiz. It’s going to be did you live it? Did you live it? Did you follow me? And did you really have saving faith that impacted these areas of your life? Because it hasn’t impacted these areas of your life, whether you’re a Calvinist or an Arminian, or whatever your doctrine is, Scripture seems to indicate that you’re in trouble, if it hasn’t. I’m so with you on that.   So, let’s talk about spiritual abuse. As you’ve said, some people say, this shouldn’t have its separate category. This is really psychological and emotional abuse. Make the case why do you think spiritual abuse needs its own category?   JUSTIN HUMPHREYS  27:41 Well, I think what I’d say in this case, and it may be different in the US to how it is in the UK. But we are still struggling with a universal or broadly accepted understanding of the issues of spiritual abuse. I’m struggling with how we articulate that to the authorities that may need to be called in to intervene and be a part of the response, where it has taken place. So actually, what we have found at this point in time is that it is more helpful to frame it as a form of emotional and psychological abuse that has spiritual elements which are relevant to the believer. And if we can’t use the language of emotional and psychological abuse, as understood by the authorities in whatever jurisdiction we’re in, then we’re going to struggle with addressing the issue. So we have found that actually talking their language as a first base and then saying, but you need to understand there are these extra elements, there are extra overlays to this situation, which, frankly, you may struggle to understand but you need to understand this much that they are a fundamental importance to the victims and survivors. That is how we have approached it. What we need to work so hard towards is gaining a better understanding of those within secular society as much as within the Christian community, so that we can actually just open the door on it. You know, I mentioned before, that spiritual abuse will inevitably coexist with other forms of abuse, whether that be emotional, psychological, physical, sexual. And often we just find that it’s the other labels or the other categories that get our foot in the door, that then enable us to say, but you know what, there’s this other thing going on as well.   JULIE ROYS  29:58 Well, and I would say as a category of emotional and psychological abuse., it is, and of course, I’m speaking as a believer, but I think it is the most damaging form of abuse. I think, one that goes to the very core of who you are as a human being and understanding yourself as a child of God, and to have someone who is a spiritual symbol of God, God is our Father. These are fathers, they are spiritual fathers who are doing these evil things. I don’t think you can have a more damaging type of abuse. And I’ve talked to people who’ve said, you know, the physical I could take even the sexual I could take, it’s the way that this was spiritual, that got at the very core of who I am, who I understand myself to be, who I understand God to be. And what an awful, awful, awful thing to do to a human being.   JUSTIN HUMPHREYS  30:54 110% agree with you, Julie. And I often find myself speaking to people to say, why is it that we find it relatively so easy to talk about physical or emotional harm or abuse, and so difficult to talk about the reality of spiritual abuse? After all, we often talk about mind, body spirit, or you know, Paul talks in in his letters, doesn’t he about the things that he does that he would rather not do. The clash of the flesh and the spirit. Well, if we’re acknowledging that the spiritual element of our existence is so important, why can we not acknowledge that that element of who we are can also be abused and damaged? And I just, I don’t get it.   JULIE ROYS  31:47 Well, here’s the million-dollar question that I’m sure a lot of people are waiting an answer for, and that is, what is spiritual abuse?   JUSTIN HUMPHREYS  31:58 We would identify a number of key defining factors in relation to spiritual abuse. Coercion and control, manipulation, and exploitation, enforced accountability, requirement for secrecy and silence, and the pressure to conform. They are among the key factors and identifiers of spiritual abuse. But what we see they are done with this overlay of spiritual or scriptural justification. So these aren’t, they’re not exclusive, they’re not exhaustive, but they are some of the more common factors that we see that would alert us to the possibility that we’re looking at a spiritually abusive situation. And it would be important to say that whilst these are often behaviors displayed by a leader towards others, it can happen in reverse. And it’s important that we acknowledge that fact. But what we often see is that there is a difference between coercive control or bullying and harassment, as abhorrent as those things are, they would not necessarily in our view, meet the definition for spiritual abuse, unless there is that spiritual justification. You know, it’s almost you know, I am the appointed and anointed, you shall not challenge what I say, I hear from God for you, and you will not question. Therefore, all these things that I’m telling you are what you have to put into practice in your life. So, no ability to consider, to challenge to reject, to make choices about what you might choose to accept and what you might want to reject. It is no, this is how it is and you will do or you will believe.   JULIE ROYS  33:54 So you devote an entire chapter to kind of these key characteristics, key features of spiritual abuse, some you’ve already alluded to, kind of a an elitism of saying, like John Smyth did, I’m your father and I will take care of you. And kind of I’ve got a corner on the truth, right? I mean, you seem to see this. I know it’s been in a lot of the churches I’ve reported on where yeah, there’s other Christians out there, but we’re kind of the best expression of what God’s doing on this earth. Talk about some of these other key features that people might see might be a red flag to say, you’re in a spiritually abusive environment.   JUSTIN HUMPHREYS  34:40 What we would often see is that all of those sorts of things are playing out. And they are happening with an absence of accountability.   JULIE ROYS  34:50 Accountability for the leader, yet usually one of the features is there’s hyper accountability. Yeah. If you’re the follower, you’ve got to say everything, be accountable to the nth degree right to the leaders?   JUSTIN HUMPHREYS  35:03 Absolutely, absolutely. So that that refusal to acknowledge the need for accountability in themselves, having set up power structures that shall not be challenged. All roads lead back to the one individual. A different rule book at play, you know. So, all of you will do it like this. But I’m different. I’m God’s anointed and appointed. I’m the one leader, I can do things slightly differently, I’m allowed to do that. Even God has given me permission not to do or to do, you know? So again, the justification, the divine justification that is given in those scenarios.   So I think one of the things that we would always say is that there may be some indicators that would suggest that spiritual abuse is taking place, those are all valid. We need to take quite a comprehensive and holistic view of the environment of the culture in which the behaviors are existing, and really give ourselves time and space to examine what is that? What does the culture say? And how does that either facilitate potentially harmful behaviors, or how does it actually prevent those behaviors from taking root and allow challenge?   JULIE ROYS  36:31 In your ministry or business, your reputation is your most valuable asset. But what do you do when you suspect misconduct? Hopefully, you do the opposite of many of the organizations I report on. Instead of covering up wrongdoing, you investigate it. And Accord Analytics can help. In just 72 hours, their team of experts can scour emails, call logs and other records to produce usable evidence. They also can analyze your organization to identify specific threats and to suggest best practices. For a free consultation, go to ACCORDANALYTICS.COM. Something that your book did that I honestly find somewhat novel in all the books I’ve read is that you talk about the stages of spiritual abuse. Which it often starts out extraordinarily positive. The experience with the church and, and honestly, with that, that really positive, as you call honeymoon stage, it would be hard to then kind of initiate the other stages. But let’s go through these; talk about that honeymoon stage and why it’s important.   JUSTIN HUMPHREYS  37:38 I must give credit to the analogy of the honeymoon, to my coauthor, Lisa Oakley, who is an amazing individual, by the way, and so dedicated to this work extraordinary. But she talks about this honeymoon phase, which is that at the outset, everything’s rosy in the garden, there is no reason to question what it is you are a part of, or what somebody is saying to you and whether that’s okay. You are experiencing in effect, everything that you should be experiencing of the Church of the Body of Christ. It’s good, it’s wholesome, it cares for you, it loves you, it goes out of its way for you, it’s generous. All of those things, but it is after our honeymoon period, or can be in many cases where spiritual abuse then occurs. There is a point after which once that getting to know that familiarity has been built almost that being lulled into a false sense of security has happened, that we might then fall into the next stage, which looks quite different.   JULIE ROYS  38:42 Right, you talk about the next stage, a catalyst moment. This is where the honeymoon picture begins to crack a little bit. And you know what’s so sad, though? I mean, even as I’m hearing you discuss it, the honeymoon period, when you’re experiencing that, I mean, I’m sure there’s people thinking this right now. Wow. I love my church. I think my church is great. It has ministered to me so much I feel belonging, and all those things. And it’s not to say that if that’s what you’re experiencing, that it’s not real. That could very much be real and beautiful. But this is what you need to at least be aware of. Because I think when you’re aware of it before it happens when it happens, you recognize it. So, let’s talk about the catalyst moment. What is this stage and kind of how it plays out?   JUSTIN HUMPHREYS  39:35 Yeah. So the catalyst moment is the moment that you might identify because let’s give an example. You have brought some constructive challenge to something that you’ve been told, or maybe something that was included within a sermon on a Sunday morning. And the response that you get is explosive. Way way out of proportion. And you’re left feeling Whoa, what is that? Totally disproportionate total extreme reaction. But what you have seen is the first indication of a different side to an individual who is capable of being spiritually abusive.   So actually, in my later book, Just Leadership, talking about the dark side, we all have that part of us going back to the writings of Paul, where you know, the things about ourselves which aren’t so good, which are capable of taking us down a wrong path, and the blind spots that we have to those things. And what we start to see is the manifestation of that dark side, the inability of that individual to exercise sufficient self-care that this stuff is overflowing and impacting everybody else. So that explosive reaction to constructive challenge, which is seen as destructive criticism.   JULIE ROYS  41:07 Or gossip. Gossip is so overused. But yeah, and I’ve often said in a dysfunctional system, there are no problems. But if you raise a problem, you become the problem. And that is just a hallmark of these systems. After the catalyst moment, for me, I’m reading this and I’m going through story after story after story, because I report so many of these, but there’s often a very positive experience. In fact, so positive, because these are master manipulators often, but so positive that it makes the victim go Wait, did I miss read that? Am I making too big of a deal out of this? Wait, what? And so there is this questioning and you use the term gaslighting, which again, is making the person who had the experience who really is saying feel like they’re a little crazy. In fact, I don’t know how many times I’ve received emails saying thank you so much for reporting this story. This happened to me, thank you for confirming I’m not crazy, because you often feel like you are crazy in the system. So, you have this positive experience. And then you have something called renewing the vows. Describe that.   JUSTIN HUMPHREYS  42:17 An analogy for this stage or period where that extreme positivity starts to come almost as if out of nowhere. The result of that is confusion. So, was I wrong about all of that that’s been taking place for however long it is? Maybe I need to rethink maybe I need to question because actually this person is would appear to be okay. And you might even be pulled in more closely than you ever were before, before you started to be pushed to the periphery of the inner circle. You’re now being pulled in even closer. And the confusion that takes place is significant. And it is a power play. You know, it is about seeking to rock the foundation of what you believe, or think has been happening to date, deliberately. Let’s be buddies, let’s be best friends. We’ve not had a good period. So, let’s just put it all behind us. Let’s get back on a good footing. We’ll be great, everything will be fantastic. You’ll be back to the honeymoon phase. But actually, it’s just a ploy.   JULIE ROYS  43:39 Well, and the more you’re drawn into the inner circle, and I remember Dave Jones who was at Harvest Bible Chapel, James McDonald for years, he’s the one that first pointed this out to me, but he said the degree of damage that people experience in these abusive churches is directly correlated to how close they are to the inner circle. So if you’re out on the periphery, you may not notice this stuff, but the closer you get drawn in and then when you get drawn in there’s a certain amount of you know oh I’m special which you know, who doesn’t want to be special who doesn’t want to be you know, important who doesn’t want to be often in these mega churches at the center of what’s happening? It’s very often these folks have their own ministries that are somewhat contingent on the bigger ministry and this leader’s approval of it and it’s got a lot of pull that you know, hooks into things in us that are able to be hooked, you know. But then there does come a point which you call the final catalyst and a point at which it’s a bridge too far. But I tell you what, leaving is way, way easier said than done. Brutal process. Talk about that final catalyst and what happens when you actually leave.   JUSTIN HUMPHREYS  45:06 I guess it’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back. It’s that final event that triggers a realization that actually, if I stay here any longer, what makes it so difficult to make that decision to leave amongst many other things? Well, if you imagine the ploys and the games and the power plays that have been going on, in the period running up to that, I mean, in Just Leadership, the other book, I talked about the loyalty card.   JULIE ROYS  45:37 Oh, that’s yes.   JUSTIN HUMPHREYS  45:39 That is played by the leader that demands your unwavering support and loyalty. They hold you in close, they lavished reward they have heaped on praise. We all want to be loved, right?   JULIE ROYS  45:53 And we want to be thought of as loyal. But here’s the twist. It’s not loyalty to God. It’s loyalty to the leader.   JUSTIN HUMPHREYS  46:01 Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So, the final catalyst, I guess, in a sense, is the point of, I don’t know, enlightenment? Where you come to a point of thinking, however this has been dressed up, this is not good. But leaving means so many things on so many levels, doesn’t it? Because, after all, we attempt to fashion church after our concept of family. So we’re tearing ourselves apart from our families, from people that we love. Ultimately, we will be told that by leaving, you are turning your back on God, you are being disloyal to Him, you will remove yourself from under the cover of his grace and mercy. With the conversations, Julie that I’ve had with people who have made the decision to leave an abusive church or setting and the lengths that have been gone to by the leader to make them persona non grata in their communities and networks. They’ve been told that if they leave, that will happen. They leave and every effort is made to make that happen.   So, leaving is or can be the hardest part. So in escaping the maze we draw the analogy throughout the book,  you know, it is a maze, you know, we’ve got so many different opportunities to turn this way to turn that way we come up against dead ends, we have to turn back again. And ultimately, sometimes it takes us to reach a point of high ground to see the exit to see what we’re in for what it is. And then we’ve got the difficult journey to find our way out.   JULIE ROYS  47:45 Well, again, that’s Justin Humphry’s, author of Escaping the Maze of Spiritual Abuse. And this is the end of part one of my discussion with Justin. In part two, we’ll talk about that important journey of recovering from spiritual abuse. We’ll discuss managing the painful emotions survivors feel. We’ll talk about building healthy church cultures. And we’ll discuss the importance of telling your story and not being silenced by those who call whistleblowing gossip.   JUSTIN HUMPHREYS  48:12 Don’t be persuaded that what you’re doing is destroying God’s church because actually God is big enough, powerful enough to protect himself and do his own business. He just chooses to use us.   JULIE ROYS  48:26 But again, part two will be releasing soon. So please be watching for that. And just a reminder that we’re able to do this podcast and all our investigative work at The Roys Report because of support from people like you. And right now, we’re offering Justin’s book Escaping the Maze of Spiritual Abuse to anyone who gives a gift to The Roys Report. To give just TEXT 22525 on your phones and the word REPORT. Or go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. Also, just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcast, Google podcast or Spotify. That way you’ll never miss an episode. And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Thanks so much for joining me today. I hope you were blessed and encouraged. Read more

Guest Bios Show Transcript After years spent in an abusive church, how do you heal? How do spot a safe pastor—and can you avoid repeating the same mistake?  In this edition of The Roys Report, Pastor Ken Garrett, author of In the House of Friends, returns to describe the process of healing after escaping from an abusive church. It’s the second of a two-part interview with Ken. If you haven’t already, listeners are encouraged to tune in to part one first. In part two, Ken describes the powerful experience he had when he first divulged to a pastor outside his former community that his previous pastor had sexually abused Ken’s two daughters.  Ken recalls: “He just exploded—not quite out of his chair, but . . . his head snapped back and he became visibly enraged.”  Though surprising, Ken said his new pastor’s reaction was healing.  “I hadn’t let myself experience that (righteous anger). I was so ashamed to be a dad who was out there preaching . . . and look what this wolf was doing to my children.”  But over time, Ken worked through that shame and eventually became an expert on church abuse and healing. In this episode, Ken goes into detail describing how to spot a safe community and a safe pastor. And, he tells of the decades-long legal battle he and others have had, trying to bring his former pastor to justice.  He concludes by discussing what survivors of abuse need most after escaping their abusive communities. If you’re a survivor of an abusive church, or family or friend of a survivor—or maybe you just want to understand spiritual abuse better—this two-part podcast is for you. This Weeks Guests Dr. Ken Garrett Dr. Ken Garrett is the pastor of Grace Church, Portland, a diverse, historic downtown church, and author of In the House of Friends: Understanding and Healing from Spiritual Abuse in Christian Churches. Ken has spoken and written for the International Cultic Studies Association, and provides support and encouragement to many survivors of abusive churches, cults, and high-demand groups in the Portland area. He founded the Spiritual Abuse Forum for Education, an informal gathering for mutual encouragement and education that welcomes and supports survivors of religious abuse from all faiths. Show Transcript SPEAKERS KEN GARRETT, JULIE ROYS JULIE ROYS 00:04 After a year spent in an abusive church, how do you heal? How do you spot a safe pastor and have you avoid repeating the same mistake? Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And joining me today is Ken Garrett, author of In the House of Friends: Understanding and Healing from Spiritual Abuse in Christian Churches. And today’s podcast is part two of a two-part series on escaping and healing from an abusive church. If you missed part one, I encourage you to go back now and listen to that podcast first. In it can tell us about the 12 years he spent in a cultic abusive church in the Portland area, and he draws on that experience to describe hallmarks of abuse of churches and their narcissistic pastors. He also describes what survivors of abuse need most after escaping their abusive communities. And in this podcast, Ken describes the powerful experience he had when he first evolved to a pastor outside his former abusive community that his previous pastor had sexually abused Ken’s daughters. Ken describes what a safe community and a safe pastor looks like. And he tells of the decade’s long legal battle he and others have had trying to bring his former pastor to justice. This is such an important discussion and I’m so glad you’ve joined me. But before we dive in, I’d like to thank two sponsors of this podcast, Accord Analytics and Marquardt of Barrington. In your ministry or business, your reputation is your most valuable asset. But what do you do when you suspect misconduct? Hopefully you do the opposite of many of the organizations I report on. Instead of covering up wrongdoing, you investigate it, and Accord Analytics can help. In just 72 hours, their team of experts can scour emails, call logs and other records to produce usable evidence. They also can analyze your organization to identify specific threats and to suggest best practices. For free consultation go to ACCORDANALYTICS.COM. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity, and transparency. That’s because the owners there Dan and Kurt Marquardt are men of character. To check them out, just go toBUYACAR123.COM. We now rejoin my interview with Ken Garrett, author of In the House of Friends: Understanding and Healing from Spiritual Abuse in Christian Churches. And we pick up our conversation after Ken explains how hungry survivors of spiritual abuse are for community yet understandably they’re weary and mistrusting especially of churches and Christian leaders. So, Ken decided to do something a bit radical. Rather than expecting survivors to come to church, he rented a room at a pub in his home city of Portland. And rather than inviting just Christians, he opened the meeting up to survivors of abuse from any religious background. That gathering has become what’s known as the Spiritual Abuse Forum for Education, a regular gathering to promote friendship and education for survivors of spiritual abuse. Ken Garrett explains. KEN GARRETT 03:24 When I started this thing, I thought to myself, I was working on my doctorate and I really wanted to do something, but I thought, good grief, no one’s gonna come to this. But I want to try something, but I don’t want to start a small group that has the feel of a recovery meeting. You know, this bear lightbulb swinging in the in the ceiling while you drink bad coffee and say yuh. I wanted something even less formal. So, I went down the path of a meetup and just come and get to know people. And it’s worked really great. But when I just put that on Facebook, because it was cheap, and a way to advertise it, I had 200 people by the end of the first week. And now it’s like, I don’t know, I think 700 or so. And it has exactly what we had hoped every week. Usually, 15 or so people come into this meeting. And yeah, they grab a piece of pizza and a glass of beer or whatever. And they just hang out. Some of them never talk and they grip their chairs, like it’s a plane going down or something. But others find an opportunity to discuss what they’ve been through. And so that’s just what we started doing. And I think we’re in our fourth year now for it. And it’s been tremendous. It’s not, I don’t want to oversell it because I’m not a counselor. I don’t offer extended care really. But I have found that just the community, it means a lot to people that has surprised me. I used to just do all the teaching of the principles that I’d learned and Lifton and all of this stuff, great stuff. But we’re at a point now where I introduce a topic, I say a few things about it, and then we kind of throw it out there. And more and more people are, you know, Scientologists, for instance, are wanting to say, wow, that’s what happened to me. Or somebody from a polygamous background is more willing to say, yeah, that’s the bologna that I lived with. So, there’s this strange sharing that is tearing down, what to me was the exclusivity of Christian abuse. We’re not special. JULIE ROYS 05:50 Well, let’s talk about we’ve talked about the spiritually abusive pastor. Talk about the safe pastor. And I love this quote from your book, where you say over the years, I’ve come to believe that Christians need great pastors more than they need great preachers. The great preachers are the ones that we put on the radio, that we sell the books of, and everything else. And often they are the most abysmal pastors. So, what does a safe pastor look like? KEN GARRETT 06:21 A safe pastor is somebody who has a highly highly developed theology of the pastorate. He has not made it to where he’s at, because of his skill set or because of another powerful pastor that’s brokered him in. Great if that happens, and you get a job out of it, but your success as a pastor depends on your understanding of what that calling means to you. And if you abuse the people that you are called to serve, you have horrifically violated a calling. And it’s serious business. All of these restoration schemes that happen when the big guys get in trouble? And I mean, some of the local ones that I know and that you know around me, they’ve actually attempted to craft their own restoration process and told their elder team, here’s how it’ll work. I’ll be out of the pulpit this long, and I know you guys need help with this. No. You have violated something so precious, that you have to leave what you’re doing. And you have to leave it with no plan or demand with nothing but your desire for God. And then you trust Him for how you’ll be restored. You trust him for that, if at all in that position. So, a good pastor has the fear of God that drives his life. I started out wanting to be a great preacher. My mother managed a big Christian bookstore, and she started sending me study guides from Chuck Swindoll. Who’s like this awesome, you know, Chuck Swindoll, wow. And it was back in the 80s. And between that and Keith Green and my own somewhat ambitious and exhibitionist nature, I thought, I belong in a pulpit. And so, my vision of ministry rose and fell on my speaking abilities. I had taken a lot of theater in college because I love theater and acting and all that I just felt like it was a good fit for me. But it was such a betrayal of my needs, and really a betrayal of what a church needs. So over the years, with failure, with study, with cancer, with the various challenges that I faced in my life that have broken me down, I so treasure now being a shepherd and a pastor to other people with drug problems, cancer problems, failure. I just like being in that boat with them. That’s really the idea of being a pastor who’s a safe person. It just really comes down to being the Ezekiel Shepherd, that is fiercely loyal to the owner of the sheep and serving the sheep in love because he’s a sheep, the pastor’s a sheep. Ezekiel said that. He said, Well, I am a sheep. So you have that clear understanding, as opposed to the shepherds that are extracting and using the sheep. And then my personal feeling, you know, Julie, is I don’t understand how, regardless of the religious tradition you come from, I can’t wrap my mind around how you could be an effective pastor without being a winsome, gracious, consistently tender hearted man or woman. I can’t wrap my mind around that. Sometimes historically, we’ll hear about pastors that were just real curmudgeons, you know, but boy, could he preach or he’s kind of demanding, but boy did he know His scripture or something. So, I believe the true shepherd is simply one who settles in in his life with his with his flock. That’s what gets me through the day. JULIE ROYS 10:31 That is so good. And if I had, you know, $1 for every time I’ve been told, when I bring up bad behavior, oh, he’s apostolic or he’s, as you say, pioneer, or he’s, whatever you fill in the blank. There’s no excuse for it. If you’re a pastor, you serve the sheep. You don’t abuse the sheep; you don’t prey on the sheep. Something that you wrote in your book that was powerful to me, was about the way that your pastor responded. When you first left the church, you ended up at a church that you didn’t know if it was safe or not, you know. The pastors first interaction seemed good, but you didn’t really know. And then one night you came over to talk to him about probably the most awful revelation that you didn’t even know when you left the church. Right? KEN GARRETT 11:19 Absolutely. My daughter’s being molested by the pastor. Sure. JULIE ROYS 11:22 Yeah. Absolutely. I can’t even imagine as a parent who has a daughter, the heartache, the rage, everything. But the reaction of that pastor, describe what that reaction was and what it did to you and to your soul. KEN GARRETT 11:40 Wow. Well, we went to his house to meet with him and his wonderful wife, and Lois. And we just got together, I think we were having coffee or something. And we wanted to tell him that our daughters had revealed to us that our pastor that we’d left, had sexually molested them, as you know, in the years past,. And we just didn’t know where to go with that. Now, we had gone to the police right away. But as Christians and in a church and a seminary student, I just, we didn’t know where to go with that. I wasn’t aware that every pastor takes care of people who have been sexually molested. I didn’t know that at the time. So, I felt very alienated and isolated. You know, this unthinkable thing happened in my Bible Church. So as we shared with him about what was going on, of course, you can tell when you’re talking to somebody, if the subject matters getting serious, you get a zeroing in and focusing. And so Pastor Ralph, and I could tell we crossed the line, he knew that we were talking about something big. And I told him and he just exploded, like, not quite out of his chair, but he like kicked his leg out. And his head snapped back and he became visibly enraged. And I hadn’t let myself experience that. I was so ashamed to be a dad who was out there preaching to everybody at work and studying Greek all day, and all of this and look what this wolf was doing to my children. And I was like anybody, when you discover something like that with your children, you’re so ashamed, it is paralyzing. So, I had not quite allowed myself to respond with that kind of anger, that kind of response. So, seeing it in a man who I grew to love very deeply and looked up to and who was doing the job I hoped I could do someday, you know,. Seeing that unleashed in me the kind of normal and righteous response to the issue that you should have as a pastor. You never as a pastor should consult the lawyers about what you’re going to do to protect your church with what’s going on. Not until a long way down the line. And you should not even really approach it for that reason. You should not call the other leaders right away to let them know this thing that you learned you should you know, gird your loins, and get out the door and go get to work on the problem and confront and console and you know, get right into the blood and guts of the issue. And that’s what Pastor Ralph did. So, to me, it was like a course in pastoral theology. I should have gotten three seminary credits for it for having coffee. It just struck me, not only as such a beautiful response that was natural and spontaneous, but also so tragically different from the pastor of the church I had been to. So here I am, 26 years later. And I remember it like it happened this morning. It was so powerful. And that’s where I began to just ask God to please make me like that. It’s okay if I’m not the next Chuck Swindoll. That’s okay. And it’s okay if I’m not the, you know, as powerful or whatever, as I hoped I could be or thought I might want to be. Would you make me that? A man identified with his church that way? So, it was life changing for me, Julie. Yeah. JULIE ROYS 16:22 I love that story. To have someone have the emotional response that feels with you? I mean, that is empathy. Right? It’s entering into it and feeling it and having that anger. But the other thing is, it’s anger. And Christians are so afraid of anger. And recently, I actually met with somebody who’s kind of an Enneagram coach, and I don’t know hardly anything about enneagram. I just mentioned it so that the real fundamentalists can go out there and like, call me a Satanist now, because, honestly, I don’t know that much about the enneagram. But it was fascinating meeting and actually, the Holy Spirit showed up in a really powerful way for me personally. But I found out that I’m a very unusual one. Because I guess ones often have a very strange relationship with anger. Like they usually feel guilty for feeling angry. And I’ve never felt guilty. In fact, when people are like, gee, Julie, you sound angry. I’ll say, yeah, I’m angry. Children are getting abused, or getting sexually molested in our churches, by our pastors. Why are we not angry? People were being bullied by pastors who are supposed to be the shepherds. Why aren’t we angry? And to see how healing it was for you that your pastor got angry? And I just I think there’s a call to Christians being angry, righteously so, not sinning in our anger. But yes, should we be angry about the injustice and what’s happening within our churches? 100%. And I’ve seen it be healing as I interview people who have been through this. It’s natural, and it is right and good. There is a place for anger. I mean, Jesus drove the money changers out of the temple, and there is a place for it. So, I just that story blessed me in a very personal, personal way. KEN GARRETT 18:22 Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Yeah, the anger. You know, the primary responses people have after they’ve been abused in these kinds of places are depression in various forms, and shame, which is tragic, and anger. And I believe that anger is so suppressed in churches. I’m not sure of all the reasons why. But the problem is of those three things, anger is the one correct feeling that much of the time you should have. I got ripped off by this guy. He violated areas of my life that I don’t even like thinking about. And yet, I struggled with not letting anger get ahold of me or something. There’s a good point there. When anger turns into vengeance or when anger corrupts your own well-being in life, of course, it’s toxic. But like you said, anger is a righteous response to the, well, good grief, cosmically to the shalom of God’s creation, the violation of a human being. But personally, think about that; somebody does that to you or somebody you love, and anger is down the line. So yeah, there’s something that anger is not commended when it should be in the church. It’s almost treated as a necessary sin that we hope you’ll get over pretty soon because we all know you can’t be angry. JULIE ROYS 20:06 If you’re looking for a top ranked Christian University, providing a caring community and an excellent college experience, Judson University is for you. Judson is located on 90 acres, just 40 miles west of Chicago in Elgin, Illinois. The school offers more than 60 majors, great leadership opportunities, and strong financial aid. Plus, you can take classes online as well as in person. Judson University is shaping lives that shape the world. For more information, just go to JUDSONU.EDU. Let me turn to your last chapter in your book, which I thought was really just really helpful. Because I know people personally who have loved ones in some of the abusive churches I’ve reported on and they are distraught, some of them are actually cut off where they have no communication. Some of them do have communication, but it’s just extremely strained. It’s difficult. Talk to that person and everybody who leaves these abusive churches, has relationships with people that are still in them. And it’s tough. So how do you deal with that in a helpful way when you know somebody is in an abusive church? KEN GARRETT 21:27 Yeah. Good news, bad news. The bad news first, you can’t snatch them up, put them in a van and drive to a Motel Six and fix them. And I’m half joking with that. But there is no coercion of truth bombing, or doctrine arguing, or shaming, or anything that’s going to work. You have to understand the contract is in play. You no longer hold a place of significance to the cult member. You got to understand that; don’t let your feelings get hurt. That’s what cults do. They usurped you. And so that’s the bad news. But the good news is your behavior and relating to the member to the cult member is not unnoticed. It does make it to the soul. And it is so dangerous to the cult leader’s agenda, to have his people treated with kindness, love, protection, respect, because you’re creating any emotional, when you show those things, you’re creating an emotional, if not physical escape route. You are creating an escape hatch in the soul of your loved one, by showing kindnesses by saying things like, let’s get a cup of coffee and we don’t even need to talk about religion. Or you can say, hey, you know, we have a lot of differences, and I understand them. But you know what? We’re family, we love each other., and I noticed you’re doing great on your job, you’re studying and I just want to commend you, man, you’re doing some great things in your life. Now, normally, we want to go, you’re not coming to Thanksgiving. You’re in a cult or something like that. But showing that kind of love and kindness is really what should be an art form for us Christians, and for the cult member. And this is what happened to me when I was in. It’s devastating to have love and kindness shown to you by people who believe you’re in a very destructive life situation. Now, you’re emotions or your soul, the unseen part of you gets plastered over in the cult, with one survival scheme after another to keep you from incurring the wrath of the leader, to keep you on the good team, to keep you safe. And underneath those layers and layers of epoxy is a living soul. Your soul is owned by God, it is not yours. And he does not give up that real estate. It is His. You can abuse it. You can hurt it. You can do all kinds of terrible things to it, but you cannot sell it and you don’t give it up. I believe that soul given to us by God has a certain self-protective nature to it. And so, it’s chipping away. It’s like Andy Dufresne in Shawshank Redemption man. It’s always chipping away at the prison of the cult for that day of escape. And I think there’s a part of you that wants healthiness and safety and goodness, and righteousness and rightness with God. So when you’re shown kindness by your family, you’re concerned loved ones. And you know, it’s so painful for them that when they show you gracious kindness and emotionally rise above reacting to you, that kindness goes straight to that part, the inside part. And it is devastating to evil to have that placed in the human soul devastating. The very kindness of Christ, planted in the life of a cult member. It might not do anything for five years or 10 years, maybe never. But man, you’re giving them the best shot at getting out by showing them kindness instead of withdrawing or arguing or gossiping. One of the things people do that have contacted me with their loved ones in abusive churches, culture just this has happened a couple of times. Parents have contacted me with oh my goodness, evidences and emails and stories of the horrific way they’ve been treated, and that I treated my parents; cutting off, judgmental, involved in all kinds of things. And as we’ve talked about the importance of bearing the burden of continuing a loving relationship, they’ve unfriended me on Facebook, because they want to make sure that they are all there for their kid or their friend in the cult. And that if, in the cult, they knew well I’m also friends with Ken Garrett, who wrote this book about you and or something like that, that would destroy the whole thing. So, I really treasure the fact that when they make that decision, kind of keep me at a distance because I’m the anti-cult church guy. And I don’t want to be the buddy of the dad whose daughter’s in the cult saying, yeah, we really love you. This is the dad’s job and the mom’s job. So, when a person moves into that kind of demonstration of love and kindness to the cult member, I think it involves an aspect of loyalty and character protection and not gossiping, that you don’t go to your small group at church and talk about the latest thing they’re doing. You just begin to protect the dignity of your cult, your cult member friend, or whatever, and begin to employ a strategy between you and the Lord Jesus, of storming the gates of this hell, and you’re all alone, you got to do it. JULIE ROYS 27:49 And in doing so, you’re disrupting the narrative of what they’re told about you, right? And what they’re expecting. So, the whole dance is disrupted, and that creates a dissonance. Again, love right? And I mean, it comes down to love, it comes down to love. We’re known by our love, people. Repentance comes by kindness leads us to repentance. We forget these things, I think sometimes. And so, so important. I just want to end by asking you, we haven’t talked a lot about this other than your pastor’s response when he found out that your daughters were molested. But I know, this has been a long legal process. At one point, you’re pastor, Mike Sperou is how it’s pronounced, S P E. R O U. Yeah, he was convicted of molesting a minor. But then because of a Supreme Court ruling, this got overturned and now you guys are waiting. He’s out there, pastoring a church right now. KEN GARRETT 28:49 Yes. Right. Yeah. JULIE ROYS 28:50 And you’re hoping that he will get behind bars again. Just if you can tell us what’s happening and what you’re hoping with the whole legal case right now? KEN GARRETT 29:00 Sure. Well, just a brief timeline is charges were filed in 97. And the police really fumbled dropped the whole thing. And then they were refiled by the girls by seven victims in 2013 or 14. He went to trial in 15 was found guilty by an 11-1 jury of sexual assault felony assault on a minor. And it was one remaining girl who fell into the statute of limitations for Oregon. So, they got him on that. And they sent him away on a 20 year sentence to the Oregon State pen. It was appealed. Because in the course of the trial, the girls were all referred to as victims. And the Oregon Supreme Court ruled that that wasn’t fair. It made the jury think that it was a foregone court agreed upon concept that they were victims. Maybe they weren’t or whatever. So that appeal was overturned. And we went to court again, and he lost again, okay? On like an another 11-1 or something and went back to prison. And then the Supreme Court argued, okay, so that was Supreme Court vs or Louisiana, Louisiana versus Ramos, I believe it was, in 2020 is when the ruling came out. And that basically invalidated the court system of the two states of Oregon and Louisiana, that a non-unanimous felony jury decision was not to be accepted. So, and ours was 11-1. So and this, the non-unanimous jury has racial histories, especially I think, in Louisiana, and probably here in Oregon. And so, I understand their reasoning on it. And I don’t at all, you know, feel horrible about that. But we were non unanimous. So, in July of 2020, it was in the middle of COVID. His conviction was overturned by the Court of Appeals in Oregon. At the court appearance where it was officially overturned, at the very same court within about 20 minutes, the deputy DA refiled charges. And he said, I’m not going to let a serial pedophile skip around on this. So, charges were refiled. And we are back to court now in May, just in a few months here. So, it’ll be our third major trip to court. And I have no idea you know, what’s at stake for him. Whatever it is, I’m sure he’ll start working at a I don’t know, I just don’t know how the DA and defense attorneys are going to go on it. But it is scheduled for three weeks of court again in Multnomah County in May. And he is out now pastoring his church, I think there’s a couple of dozen people left. They’ve disappeared from social media over the last couple of years. I imagine their lawyer, an expensive defense lawyer. I imagine he said, look, I’m sure you guys really believe in what you’re doing. But you look like you look guilty. So, no more postings no more we’re the only ones. So they’ve been dead silent on all social media. I have no idea what’s going on with them. Highly doubtful that they’re having church worship services with any people attending any new people or anything. They’re just hanging out basically giving over their lives to the abusive pastor. JULIE ROYS 32:52 Wow! And I know from reading your accounts, that there’s some parents of some of the abuse victims that are still apart? KEN GARRETT 33:00 Yes. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Still parents there. Yeah, they have cut off themselves from their daughters and in court call their daughters liars and won’t speak to them. And it’s absolutely tragic and amazing. And we left before our girls were teenagers, but the ones who stayed the families who stayed the pattern was the girls left, they left through usually a relationship with a boy that wasn’t very good. And it was kind of out the bathroom window and runaway and nobody cares you’re gone. And the boys left through joining the military and going to Iraq. That’s how they got out. And o, to this day, there are families there and parents there who are completely estranged from their children and believe their daughters are lying. And they know they’re not, of course, but their emotional welfare in the cult depends on them saying those things. So that’s where that’s at. JULIE ROYS 34:08 I can’t imagine the emotional roller coaster of living that sort of drama and having that a part of your life. But I pray in the midst of that, that there’s been healing for your family. I mean, the fact that you’re in ministry today, and that you’re ministering to so many abuse survivors, is a testimony to the grace of God. KEN GARRETT 34:33 Yes, yes. Thank you. That’s true. JULIE ROYS 34:36 It’s encouraging to me. I’m sure it’s encouraging to a lot of people who are listening. So, thank you, and God’s blessing on you and what you’re doing. KEN GARRETT 34:45 So appreciate you Julie, thank you very much. JULIE ROYS 34:50 Again, thanks so much for listening to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And just to reminder that we’re able to do this podcast and all of our investigative work at The Roys Report, because of support from people like you. And for the month of January, we’re offering Ken’s book, In the House of Friends, to anyone who gives a gift to The Roys Report. To give just text 22525 and the word REPORT. Or go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. Also, just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts or Spotify. That way you’ll never miss an episode. And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks so much for joining me. 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Guest Bios Show Transcript How do people get sucked into abusive churches? What are the tell-tale signs of an abusive church? And, after leaving one, how can you heal? In this edition of The Roys Report, Pastor Ken Garrett, author of In the House of Friends, shares key insights on understanding and healing from spiritual abuse in Christian churches. For 12 years, Ken and his family belonged to a cultic, abusive church in the Portland area. During those years, Ken sacrificed his career, wealth, and relationships to a church he believed had a monopoly on truth. He also later learned that his pastor had been sexually abusing Ken’s two daughters. As Ken explains in this podcast, his former pastor may have been preaching correct doctrine, but he was a fraud abusing his flock spiritually, financially, and sexually. Ken’s is a painful story—but it’s also redemptive. Since leaving his cultic church, Ken and his family have experienced deep healing. He’s also become an expert on abuse in the church. And today, he not only pastors a church in the Portland area, he also leads a group for survivors of spiritual abuse. In this podcast, Ken shares his profound understanding of abusive churches and how they operate. He also gives practical steps on how to pursue healing, or help someone heal, after spiritual abuse. If you’re a survivor of an abusive church, or family or friend of a survivor—or maybe you just want to understand spiritual abuse better—this podcast is for you. This Weeks Guests Dr. Ken Garrett Dr. Ken Garrett is the pastor of Grace Church, Portland, a diverse, historic downtown church, and author of In the House of Friends: Understanding and Healing from Spiritual Abuse in Christian Churches. Ken has spoken and written for the International Cultic Studies Association, and provides support and encouragement to many survivors of abusive churches, cults, and high-demand groups in the Portland area. He founded the Spiritual Abuse Forum for Education, an informal gathering for mutual encouragement and education that welcomes and supports survivors of religious abuse from all faiths. Show Transcript SPEAKERS KEN GARRETT, JULIE ROYS JULIE ROYS 00:04 How do people get sucked into abusive churches? What are the telltale signs of an abusive church? And after leaving one, how can you heal? Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys and joining me today is Ken Garrett, author of In the House of Friends: Understanding and Healing from Spiritual Abuse in Christian Churches. For 12 years, Ken and his family belong to an abusive cultic church in the Portland area called North Clackamas Bible Community. During those years Ken sacrificed his career his wealth and his relationships to a church he believed had a monopoly on truth, but over time can realize that though his pastor may have been preaching correct doctrine, he was a fraud who was abusing his flock spiritually financially and sexually. Ken’s is a painful story, but it’s also redemptive. Since leaving his cultic church, Ken has experienced deep healing. He’s also become an expert on abuse in the church. And today, he not only pastors a church in the Portland area, he also leads a group for survivors of spiritual abuse. And if you’re a survivor of church abuse or family or friend of a survivor, or maybe you just want to understand spiritual abuse better, this podcast is for you. We’ll get to my discussion with Ken in a minute. But first, I’d like to thank two sponsors of this podcast, Judson University and Marquardt Barrington. Judson University is a top ranked Christian University providing a caring community and an excellent college experience. Plus the school offers more than 60 majors great leadership opportunities and strong financial aid. Judson University is shaping lives that shaped the world. For more information just go to JUDSONU.EDU. Also if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity and transparency. That’s because the owners there Dan and Curt Marquardt, are men of integrity. To check them out, just go to BUYACAR123.COM. Well again, joining me is Ken Garrett, author of In the House of Friends: Understanding and Healing from Spiritual Abuse in Christian Churches. Ken also is the senior pastor of Grace Church in Portland, Oregon. And he’s the founder of the spiritual abuse forum for education, a regular gathering to promote friendship and education for survivors of spiritual abuse. So Ken, welcome, and thanks so much for joining me. KEN GARRETT 02:44 Thank you very much. Yeah. JULIE ROYS 02:46 And before we dive in, I should probably mention that we’re offering your book, In the House of Friends to anyone who makes a donation to The Roys Report in the month of January. This is an outstanding primer on spiritual abuse and really helpful for anyone who’s experienced spiritual abuse or wants to help a survivor of abuse. So if you’d like to support our work here at The Roys Report and get this outstanding resource, just go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. Or you can TEXT 22525 and the word REPORT. Well, Ken, I think one of the reasons that your book is so good is that you know about spiritual abuse firsthand. You and your wife spent 12 years in an abusive controlling church in the Portland Oregon area. And you weave that story of your abuse throughout your book, which I think is a really effective way of telling that story. But I’d like to start with your story. How is it that a bright intelligent guy like you ends up in a cultic church like North Clackamas Bible community? KEN GARRETT 03:55 Right, right. Good question. We were transitioning, I think, in many ways into being adults. And then me, of course, transitioning out of the military. We were somewhat vulnerable, and yet carried with us a very deep, and Sharon likes to say we were deeply pious people. We were very serious about pursuing the Christian life. We loved Keith Greene’s ministry although he had died by then, but the very impacting on us both in terms of our views of our faith and what we wanted. So, we were very impressionable and very vulnerable. We were respected, and we were loved for who we are right away. And we were drawn into intimacies of conversations and self-sharing that probably were not quite appropriate for our stage of membership at this church. But it promised some things that we deeply, deeply wanted. We wanted community, we wanted to raise our kids with other young people having kids and get along and trust each other. So, we were recruited into that through the members of the church that reached out to us. JULIE ROYS 05:18 And you also describe how you began to change as a person, as you got deeper and deeper into this church. So describe that, how did you begin to change? KEN GARRETT 05:30 I think I became kind of insufferable, you know? It’s funny because my church was in the neighborhood I was born and raised in, and I live in that neighborhood to this day. And so, my friends, some of whom, we were cradle buddies at our Lutheran Church we went to, they all got cut off by me when I joined my serious church. And I became, I would have described it as, at the time as being maybe a true Christian. But I also might have just said, an evangelical or something like that. But really, I was becoming a narrow-minded fundamentalist. And I was very dogmatic, and I just became a very difficult person to be around if you didn’t agree with me. I alienated a lot of my co-workers, I was a paramedic. And I would, which means you spend much time in the cab of an ambulance with a partner. And you have to trust each other, and you have to get along. And that’s a very important relationship. And I’m so glad that they tolerated me because I drove a few of them to tears witnessing, drawing them out, exposing their vulnerabilities and whatnot. And I became very dogmatic toward my wife in our marriage. The abuse of complementarianism and male domination and all of that which is rife, especially in fundamentalist religions, even other than Christianity. It’s candy for men. It’s just to be affirmed by a divine figure, God, or your text or whatever, that you really should be boss of just about everything. JULIE ROYS 07:20 Yeah, and especially your wife. KEN GARRETT 07:22 Oh, yeah, of course. It impoverishes a marriage. And so that was difficult on our marriage that I went down that road. JULIE ROYS 07:33 And this is what’s so interesting, I think about your book, the idea that an Orthodox Christian church could be a cult. That you can have right doctrine and apply it in a wrong way. I mean, what did you see when you were in this cult? There being a line where, okay, this might be healthy, but this is how extreme it got? And where it just went way too far? KEN GARRETT 07:56 Yeah, yeah. Where it crossed the line was in the belief that simply dumping the information on anybody, regardless of your behavior, character, or embarrassing absence of love for the person was somehow a secondary concern to God, because the big concern is get people into heaven. And in my cult, simply providing the information as skillfully as possible, was seen as pretty good work for evangelism. That was crossing the line. Because evangelism, or you know, sharing Christ outside of a context of Christian loving, humble character, is pretty empty. And you know, Paul talks about that in First Corinthians 13. It’s pretty empty without love. Concerning the cult you mentioned, how can a church be a cult? Part of the problem is this; beginning in the 1960s, and onward from that, we needed a way as the Christian church to explain why other religious movements were wrong and not for us. We needed a way to differentiate ourselves from the Jehovah’s Witnesses, from the Mormons. And we couldn’t really do it morally because they were so moral. They were really good people. I mean, just wonderful, loving families and loving. And so we had to figure out a way to tell our people, hey, you’re on the right team here. And that became through examining their propositions and doctrinal statements. So, I grew up a Lutheran and Lutherans are just the sweetest people in the world around here. So we were never going after the cult people, but I grew up in that kind of an understanding of Christianity that was pretty, pretty non combative. But in considering these other groups, if they did not hold to the full divinity and humanity of Jesus, the hypostatic union, if they did not hold to that, they were a cult. And Dr. Walter Martin’s work emphasized that point. And so, the standard of judgment became, well, what are the Jehovah’s Witnesses believe about Jesus/ And it was eh! no! Well, what are the Mormons believe about Jesus? eh! no! Everybody was out which I believe you’re in through faith in Jesus Christ as he’s presented in the Bible. So it’s not like I’m waffly about that. But calling people a cult based on doctrine has been proven to really give abusive churches a huge break. And the International Cultic Studies Association, I’m a member of that, and it’s not a Christian organization, but they really just pull their hair about this issue of cultic churches saying, well, at least we’re not a cult. We believe in this and that and the full Divinity of Jesus. So I wish we didn’t even have the word anymore to tell you the truth. But what it really comes down to is the behavior of the community itself. If there is those things I wrote about the isolationism, the elitism, the rewards, and the punishments, the painful exiting, the inappropriate sharing and confessing, the exacting of resources, be they monetary or sexual or just your time or whatever. The Christian church today still is dancing around the cult issue saying, well, not quite a cult, it was an abusive church, you know. I think the day is coming when we just go you know what, you can be a church and be a cult. JULIE ROYS 12:11 I 100% agree with what you’re saying. And as I was reading your book, I was like this describes churches that I’ve reported on, to even step on some churches, their toes, when I hear the using truth as a club? I mean, tell me, Mark Driscoll didn’t do that? Tell me John MacArthur doesn’t do that. We are not known by our love. We’re known by our truth. And that becomes a real problem. And I don’t think truth and love are in conflict at all. But when they are in conflict in your church, that seems to be a huge red flag. And I don’t believe this anymore. I did when I was first reporting, that the church has to hold to some heresy to be a cult. I don’t believe that; it’s much more some of the hallmarks that you’ve said, and we’re going to unpack those. But before I do, I just want to know, what is it that made you say, huh, this isn’t right. After 12 years of thinking, you’ve got the corner on truth, right? And everybody else is wrong. And you’re right, and you’re going to enlighten the world. What made you realize this isn’t okay, and our pastor isn’t okay? KEN GARRETT 13:26 Yeah, yeah. Well, emotionally, my life became such a train wreck emotionally, because of the breakdown of my marriage. My relationship with Sharon was just on the rocks. Also, I had begun to use drugs. I used cocaine and went down that road of dipping and dabbing on weekends. And this was all self-medicating is what it was, but at the time that just morally and emotionally destroyed me. So, it wasn’t really after 12 years. It was after about eight years. JULIE ROYS 14:06 Oh, wow. KEN GARRETT 14:06 And now I wasn’t an angel living amongst the Philistines or something, you know. I wasn’t at all like that. I was a desperate and troubled person. But I suddenly became very sure he wasn’t going to change as the pastor. He wasn’t going to change. A lot of people had no interest in him changing. He was impoverishing me. My wife was kind of lost to me in terms of our marriage and our family. It’s not like I was going to leave her or something, but it was empty. And considering those things, the contract was broken. Once that contracts broken, it’s just a matter of time. The jig is up. And so when I’ve talked to people now from churches, you know who were telling me, here’s my experience with my pastor, here’s what happened. Here’s the way it is. A few of us women feel the same way. And here’s what’s going on. The last person I talked to, I said, you know, the contract is broken, in your mind, about what you believed about your life and your church. So don’t pressure yourself about, am I going to stay? Am I going to go? what’s going to happen? It’s done. It’s done, and it can’t be rebuilt. So that’s what happened with me. And it took about four years before I was walking out the door. JULIE ROYS 15:41 Let’s talk first of all about the abusive pastor because you even write, every abuse of church is a communal expression and product of the dysfunction and narcissism of an abusive pastor, even if the pastor has died and others have taken his place. So, talk about the abusive pastor. How do you know if a pastor is abusive? What are the hallmarks? KEN GARRETT 16:06 The main hallmarks are found in the experience of those around him, particularly those closest to him. For instance, at Mars Hill, if you were just attending a Mars Hill Church, and you love the music, and you love the preaching, and all that, you don’t feel like you were spiritually abused. You just you know, you might not think anything of it. If you were on the inner team? JULIE ROYS 16:32 You knew. KEN GARRETT 16:33 Oh, yeah. You knew what was out. JULIE ROYS 16:35 Yeah, and that’s interesting you say that, because I remember talking to Dave Jones, who’s someone who used to write the sermons for James McDonald. And he has dozens, maybe hundreds of refugees from Harvest Bible Chapel here in the Chicago area where James McDonald pastored, for like over 30 years. And he said, the amount of your wounding is usually directly proportional to how close you were to James McDonald. KEN GARRETT 17:02 BINGO, BINGO. Yeah, absolutely. The title of my book is In the House of Friends: Understanding and Healing from Spiritual Abuse in Christian Churches. Really, what we’re talking about is healing from predatory abusive leaders. I believe it’s in the lives of the victims that we determine the abuse and the extent of narcissism in the pastor and the leader. You don’t get to be a senior pastor and a leader of a congregation, small or large, unless you have a skill set that is a very unique thing. And you know, it can be used for such good and kindness in the world. But you do have some skills. You know, you do speak every week in front of a group of people. You do have power, the pastor’s power of time, his time and is so it’s a magnet for narcissistic leaders, that it’s through examining the effects that he has on the world and the people around him, that you can really start to suspect the suffering they cause and where they’re at. JULIE ROYS 18:15 And I wish people would really look at the fruit. I mean, that’s what you’re saying, look at the fruit of this pastor. Not fruit as in how many books has he written? How many people you know are coming to the church? I mean, that’s what we look at as Americans right? No! Fruit in Scripture is love, joy, peace, kindness, gentleness, self-control, I mean, these things, is your pastor exhibiting that kind of fruit? And do those close to him exhibit it? And one other caveat, I’ve seen a lot of churches where you say a lot are impoverished around him. I’ve also seen the opposite where, you know, he basically is paying people off who are close to him. Yeah, hugely rewarded with salaries that are incommensurate with you know, that kind of position at other similar sized churches and giving them ministries but they know he can destroy your ministry too. He can destroy it with one word. He’s that powerful. KEN GARRETT 19:11 Oh yeah. And that happens in you know, some of the names you’ve named. John MacArthur’s church to Mars Hill. Oh, yeah. You know, you’re not in a safe position by getting closer in. And it’s at the end of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, by your fruits, you will know them, you know, and then he goes on and says many will say in that day, did we not blah, blah, blah. And so I started thinking to myself, if the fruits are things like kindness and good works and sacrifice and all that, Julie, I can imitate all of those things. And you can look very closely at me and see me doing incredible things for people if I want. I mean, so what is Jesus saying there? By their fruits, you will know them. But these are people that are really good at, I mean, moral people, moral moral people. So, then I thought to myself, the examples that Jesus gave on that day, many will say, did we not? All of those examples are speech acts. Okay? I mean, you can act like you think it would look to cast out a demon, but you’re gonna say something. And prophesying in his name, these are speech actions. Speech is the fruit of a teacher or a leader. It might be nice if I’m a good gardener, or whatever, you know. But really, what I’m called to do is to speak in certain ways to my church. And that was true of the leaders of Jesus’ day. So, I just got this idea that when we talk about the fruit of abusive leaders, it’s the fruit of their corrupted speech that is unChristlike, that is usually heard by their family, their children and those closest to them. When we hear stories of the boardroom of the Scientology people or any Christian abuser, when we hear stories from the survivors of the people that leave, we hear of just vile, angry, hateful, abusive speech spewing out of their mouths. So, it made sense to me, at the speech, in the words of a leader, his actions need to be observable, but hey, you can trick anybody by doing things a certain way. Trick them, you know? Jim Jones had wonderful social programs before he went off went really bad, but the speech that your wife hears, she knows, and your children in the car on the way to and fro, or your closest friends. What you say after that person leaves the room to the people still in the room, your speech. And I think the Lord’s basically saying in the end, and this is what he says at the end of this sermon on the mount is, you’ll be judged for your words as a false teacher. Or as a wolf, basically, you know, what does he say? Thorns don’t produce grapes or something like that. I think what he’s saying is, no matter how it looks, in the end, people betray themselves by what they say, it has to come out. You can’t live a lie. My guy lived a lie for a few years preaching exegetical sermons, and, you know, preaching all kinds of great things. But eventually, he couldn’t live with the cognitive dissonance anymore. It had to come out. And so, he began to become more reckless in his humiliation and his criticisms and things that he’s ashamed of today and is held accountable to today. So that’s just my little thing there, when we’re trying to determine who is an abusive leader, you don’t always know because all you’re seeing is a great preacher who says good words, and good grief. Look at all the good things he’s doing. JULIE ROYS 23:30 I think you’re right, that they’re con men. I mean, I always remember that somebody told me the Greek word that we get hypocrite from is actor. So, he’s an actor. But I think you’re absolutely right. I used to say this in radio, if you listen long enough to because I saw because I was 10 years in Christian radio. I saw the character of these men often and I’d be like, it eventually comes out if you’ve listen long enough. They’ll say all the right words, they’ll sound really good at certain times. They’ll eventually come out. James McDonald. He got fired when his hot mic recording got aired on local radio, you know? I mean, and people are like their jaws hit their chest, whereas everybody close to him goes, that’s how he talks all the time. It wasn’t anything surprising. You know when John MacArthur told Beth Moore to go home, some people are like, oh, my word, did he really say that? Those closest to him said talks like that all the time. He’s just a harsh human being. KEN GARRETT 24:23 Yet people are clapping. JULIE ROYS 24:24 Yeah, Mark Driscoll was known as the cussing pastor. It’s there folks. But we don’t want to see it. We don’t want to believe it. And so, we look the other way. And I think that’s a lot of the trouble. But let’s move from the pastor, the hallmarks of the pastor, to the hallmarks of abuse of churches. You’ve named some of them, but I want to dig in a little bit more. One of them that you talked about is loss in demanding more and more. And this is something, you know, I was texting with a friend just this week as we were looking back on experience at a church and they were like, you know, one time It actually went through my mind to switch houses with the pastor, because he seemed like he needed a bigger house. And she’s like, why would I think that? You know, right? I mean, why would I think something like that? And I’m like, yeah, that is a little freaky. That’s not quite right. But you experienced in your church, those kinds of demands, I think a lot of people listening have experienced of demands on their time, or their money. Talk about that. KEN GARRETT 25:24 Those are really good examples. And I think the word that I ended up with that put it to its surgical meaning was extraction. An abusive pastor and his team, they ultimately end up extracting the value from their congregation. They are the modern-day application of Ezekiel shepherds that were fattening certain sheep and slaughtering them to eat them themselves. There’s an extraction of resources, of emotional resources, and extraction of loyalties. Sexually certainly that’s always, always around, an extraction of finances, money commitments, and then a biggie is time. Getting vulnerable people, younger people who have a bit of control over their time, and really need to spend it with each other as a husband and wife or something kind of just settling into life, but instead keeping them busy four or five times a week. So, extraction is the way that I look at it. And the way it works is that the flow of things of value, both public and private, the flow is always into the coffers of the abuser, never out. Now, what you mentioned earlier is absolutely relevant, that there is a reward system. People are rewarded mostly for their silence and support, but they do receive rewards got it. But generally of the church itself, these guys with their zillion dollar homes and planes, and all of this, these all represent the material extraction of resources from the people of God, into the coffers of the abuser. And I think that’s a very important indicator for when you’re thinking about your church. And maybe the abuse you’re experiencing is to ask yourself, well, like Sharon and I, we said, okay, we’re in our middle 30s now, and we don’t own a home, although I’ve been working for years as a paramedic, and we’d sold homes for our ministry, but we don’t own a home. Our credit is so terrible, we couldn’t even get a cell phone. We’d run all of our credit cards in you know, we were a wreck, just from the financial setting. Professionally, I had avoided going into management as a paramedic, because it would get in the way of ministry, and all of these things that could have enriched and valued our lives. As we started evaluating and thinking about it, we realized all of those opportunities had been either abandoned or our resources that we did have had been extracted into the value of the church and of the pastor. So that is a one-way street in these abusive groups. It never flows to you, simply never. You will never get back what you give. JULIE ROYS 28:46 So good. Some of the other hallmarks that you talk about, we can’t go over all of them. That’s one of the reasons you get the book. The book is so good. But the elitism I have found that in every single abusive church that I have reported on., Not that they think no one else is a Christian, although in some of them they do. But it’s like we’ve got the most pure the most doctrinally correct, I’ll tell you which books you can read and which ones you can’t and you know, I will save you from those godless people out there that have wrong philosophies. I mean, the elitism is just it’s like a disease, isn’t it? that just infects everybody. Talk about that. KEN GARRETT 29:34 Yeah, that’s a really good point. There’s an elitism that comes first off from the control of information within the abusive church. And that’s where we get down to saying things like, we only read this version of the Bible, we only follow these writers and educators, we only read this guy’s books, and Robert Lifton, who is the kind of the father of modern cult totaless studies, he called it the control of the milieu, the first step of controlling the environment and the information that a person has when they enter into an abusive group. So that has to be in place first, then the person needs to be convinced that the materials, the truth, the experience he or she is having is the best. This is how we’re going to save the world; this is what’s going to happen. And that elitism is very important. So that when you are leading people to cut off their families, cut off their friends, cut off their opportunities, everything, you provide them with the rationale that you are investing, you’re making an investment here into a better way of life, a higher level of living, an experience and practice of the faith, that is simply I mean, good grief, you should be living in Jerusalem in AD 34. I mean, we are that. And that does a tremendously powerful thing to people, when they’ve made foolish and tragic decisions with their relationships in their life. It allows them to have a bit of dignity. And to say, Yeah, I know, my high school classmates all hate my guts. Now, my mom and dad think I’m crazy. And I mean, just all of these things we go through, but I can handle all of that, because I’m one of the best. Our church, I shouldn’t say this because it’s so silly, but I’m going to. Our church actually claimed to be training Christians that would be like Green beret Christians; to be dropped anywhere in the world and establish a church. They have never established one other church than themselves. And they don’t even need to jump out of an airplane, I mean. So, but that was the idea that you’re just getting such an education. In my old church, we learned Greek, Hebrew, church history. I mean, just all kinds of seminary level training and whatnot. And that was to build the perception of elitism that would keep us from straying over the fence and establishing good connections with other Christians and other institutions. JULIE ROYS 32:32 Wow. Weird. It is weird. And then you combine that with fear. Yeah. Which of what the seven or so things that you mentioned, I would say fear is one. And it’s not fear of displeasing God. It might be coated like that, but it’s usually fear of displeasing the leadership. KEN GARRETT 32:56 The leaders. Yeah, did I write that? JULIE ROYS 33:00 I think you did. But I tell you what, I’ve seen it over and over. The difference between displeasing the leader and displeasing God is blurred. In fact, that almost becomes one in the same because the leader is the spokesperson for God. KEN GARRETT 33:18 So tragic, because, cults, they don’t go out and try to find the weakest willed people they can to join their cult. They want people that have resources, intelligence, things that can contribute to the cult. And so what you find when you have people, competent, mature people, doctors and nurses and lawyers, and paramedics and everything, but you find them living in fear, it is just tragic. And they do live in the fear of displeasing the leader. And I think that might be one of the hard parts for people leaving the church to really come to terms with when people leave abusive churches, is to admit that their primary emotion around this person was fear, because he could with a snap of a finger, he could put you in a U-Haul, driving out of town to hopefully go live with your folks somewhere while you figure out what you’re going to do with your life. He could do that. Unofficially, he had that power. And you knew he had that power. So, you lived in fear of displeasing him. And it’s hard when you leave that experience of life. It’s a blow to your pride to have to admit it, you know, yeah, I was so scared of that guy, I did this, this and that and I thought this was the best thing for my life. So fear of the leader is a tremendous thing these guys carry out of these groups. JULIE ROYS 33:33 It’s fear of being socially ostracized by the community which, you know, marches to his drum. And even now, I mean, this is what makes it so hard for me to report on these communities is because of the fear. Even after they’ve left, people are terrified of speaking. Yeah. That’s how strong the grip is. And when you start seeing that many people that afraid, folks, you know, this is part of a very, very unhealthy system. I want to talk about when you leave a church, and you’re trying to heal, and what these folks who are survivors of abuse, and, you know, I know so many of them, who have been through church hurt. They walk into churches, and you say in your book, that some of these studies put the number of people that have been abused in churches, somewhere the percentage like 2%. I think it’s way higher than that. I think a lot of the people who have been in abusive churches don’t even know it till years, years later. And so, the reporting on that, I mean, I think it’s way higher than that. And I think maybe it’s because the space I live in, I talked to so many people who have, but they do walk into churches where people think this church is the best thing since sliced bread. They’re happy people and happy churches, and you’re walking in the wounded, right? What do these people need? And if you’re someone who’s left an abusive church, what should you be looking for? Speak to both the person who’s there, and also the person who’s at a church and happy but maybe wants to help these folks who come in. It is very difficult, but it’s not impossible. And I think in helping people that leave these churches, it’s really important that we abandon using the tools that were used to hurt them. And that means the tool of expected church attendance, expected Bible study involvement, expected small group enrollment, expected mentoring relationships. The ways that we as Christians often think we can help people are actually offering them more of what hurt them. KEN GARRETT 37:27 Okay. So where do we go with that? I mean, good grief. I live by the Bible. I’m a Bible preacher, and I believe in healthy mentoring and friendships and all that. What I believe is that we have to become experts in majoring in the one thing that is absent in every single abusive situation. And that is grace. Grace does not exist in the cult, it doesn’t exist in abusive churches. Nothing like it exists in Krishna, or yoga cults or anywhere where people are being abused. So as Christians, kind of seeing to our own house first, I think we need to explore and understand what grace means. But not so much theologically, because we’re all pretty, yeah, I mean, the worst churches in the world get up and preach grace on Sunday. JULIE ROYS 38:32 Or they have it in their name. KEN GARRETT 38:33 Or they have it in their name. Of course! Yeah, absolutely. I think it involves a very deep dive in understanding graciousness. And we don’t do that quite like we should. We’re awkward. We’re uncomfortable. It’s an easy thing. But it’s something we need to think about and work on. And that involves treating people graciously, not calling them out, not making them wear a name tag, not making sure they come back to church next week, not letting them just sit in a dark corner and come in late and leave early as they like. When we refuse to treat people with the kind of graciousness and respect that really exists in any good community, I think we fail in the biggest part of Christianity, and we become uncomfortable as Christians in churches. There’s so many of them, how can I speak for them all? But I think in churches broadly, we’ve not begun to understand and deal with the trauma of sexual abuse, particularly with women but men too, of course, and children. I don’t think we’ve really begun to grapple with what it means to be a healing organization that protects people. We’re still in a bit of a hangover of years of being drunk on the leader’s success and excuses and pathetic behavior. We’re still hungover from it. And that’s where we need to get. And that involves being gracious and kind to people. It also involves understanding depression, trauma, it involves seeking somewhat of an acceptance of the anger and the dissociation a person feels with their faith and with church attendance. And the role of triggering in going into a church. That was kind of my big rhetorical thing I was trying to get to when I wrote that chapter on, when the walking wounded walk into church. I just wanted to point out the tremendous triggers that pop out at them that we don’t think is a trigger. But accepting and acknowledging that is very powerful in the life of an abused person. So, I had a family come to my church and our worship leader is saying, I surrender all. JULIE ROYS 41:06 Oh no. KEN GARRETT 41:07 I surrender all. JULIE ROYS 41:11 It’s a great song. It’s like they haven’t been through this. KEN GARRETT 41:15 Yeah. And they left the church crying. They left the church crying. Yeah. And, and it’s not because that’s a terrible song, or the worship leader was an abuser or anything. It’s just, it’s understanding the experience. So I think in helping people, we have to take our religion off the table. Which means, okay, good grief, let’s meet for a beer and just talk about what happened. Or, hey, I get it. You can’t commit to coming to church. I don’t even think you should, if you feel this way. But if you want to do so, how about if you just make it every couple of months? I’d love to see you. And we can connect then see how you’re feeling? But how about if you not sign on any lines, and you just think through and heal from what’s happened to you? I believe a friendship and a relationship that expresses that kind of coloring over the lines to accept and affirm victims and survivors is the only hope of having a meaningful part in their healing. Otherwise, you’re just gonna miss the deep healing that needs to happen. JULIE ROYS 42:37 Well, this concludes part one of my interview with Ken Garrett, author of In the House of Friends. In part two, Ken talks more about how to minister to survivors of spiritual abuse. And he tells of a powerful moment when he disclosed his daughter’s abuse by his former pastor, to the pastor of a new church, he had started attending. KEN GARRETT 42:57 He just exploded like, not quite out of his chair, but he like kicked his leg out and his head snapped back, and he became visibly enraged. And I hadn’t let myself experience that. I was so ashamed to be a dad who was out there preaching to everybody at work and studying Greek all day and all of this and look what this wolf was doing to my children. JULIE ROYS 43:31 In our next podcast, Ken also describes the legal battle to bring his former pastor to justice. And he offers insights for how friends and family should respond to people they love, who currently belong to an abusive or cultic church. Thanks so much for joining me for this episode of The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And just a reminder that we’re able to do this podcast and all our investigative work at The Roys Report, because of support from people like you. And in the month of January, we’re offering Ken’s book, In the House of Friends, to anyone who gives a gift to The Roys Report. To give, just TEXT 22525 on your phones and the word REPORT. That’s 22525 and the word REPORT or go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. Also, just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts or Spotify. That way you’ll never miss an episode. And while you’re at it, I really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks so much for joining me. Hope you were blessed and encouraged. 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Guest Bios Show Transcript https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O03fx4PX3Jk Celebrity culture has invaded the church. Pastors, who should be shepherds serving the flock, have become idols attracting adoring fans and commanding six- and even seven-figure salaries. What has happened to the church? How did we get here? And what can be done to counter this truly anti-gospel culture? In this podcast, I explore this pervasive problem with Katelyn Beaty, author of Celebrities for Jesus: How Personas, Platforms, and Profits Are Hurting the Church. As Katelyn explains, platforms and influence can be used for good. Billy Graham, for example, used his star-power to reach millions for Christ. And thankfully, Billy, unlike so many other Christian celebrities, never succumbed to public scandal or sin. But he’s almost become the exception. It seems monthly—or even weekly—we hear about another celebrity pastor, or Christian leader, who’s fallen into sin, or revealed as a bully or fraud. And with each revelation, there are scores of people who are disillusioned and alienated from Christian community. In this podcast, Katelyn describes the historical development of celebrity culture in the church. They also look at the three major temptations celebrity culture has spawned. And lastly, they explore what believers can do to counter celebrity culture in the church. This Weeks Guests Katelyn Beaty Katelyn Beaty is author of Celebrities for Jesus: How Personas, Platforms, and Profits Are Hurting the Church (2022) as well as editorial director of Brazos Press, a division of Baker Publishing Group. She served as former managing editor of Christianity Today magazine and has written for several Christian and mainstream outlets. An Ohio native, she lives in Brooklyn, NY. Learn more at KatelynBeaty.com. Show Transcript SPEAKERS JULIE ROYS, KATELYN BEATY JULIE ROYS  00:03 Celebrity culture has invaded the church. Pastors who should be shepherds serving the flock have become kings demanding us to serve them and commanding six and even seven figure salaries. What has happened to the church? And how did we get here? And what can be done to counter church celebrity culture?   Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And joining me today is Katelyn Beatty, author of Celebrities for Jesus: How Personas, Platforms and Prophets Are Hurting the Church. As Katelyn explains, platforms and influence can be used for good. Many point to Billy Graham, for example, who used his star power to reach millions for Christ. And thankfully, Billy, unlike so many other Christian celebrities, never succumbed to public scandal or sin. But it seems monthly or even weekly, we hear about another celebrity pastor or Christian leader who’s fallen into sin and revealed as a bully or fraud. And with each revelation, there are scores of people who are disillusioned. There’s often a pile of bodies, so to speak, behind the bus. But perhaps even worse is what’s done to God’s name and his reputation. Instead of glorifying Him as we should be. The Church and its representatives are dragging his name through the mud. What’s happening is grievous, and it’s anti gospel. As author and theologian Scot McKnight said at our last Restore conference, the church has one celebrity and his name is Jesus.   Well, I’m so looking forward to exploring this topic with Katelyn, and I think you’ll find she has an eye-opening perspective, given her years in Christian media and publishing. But first, I’d like to thank the sponsors of this podcast, Accord Analytics and Marquardt of Barrington. In your ministry or business your reputation is your most valuable asset. But what do you do when you suspect misconduct? Hopefully, you do the opposite of many of the organizations I report on. Instead of covering up wrongdoing, you investigate it, and Accord Analytics can help. In just 72 hours, their team of experts can scour emails, call logs and other records to produce usable evidence. They also can analyze your organization to identify specific threats and to suggest best practices. For a free consultation go to ACCORDANALYTICS.COM. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity, and transparency. That’s because the owners there Dan and Kurt Marquardt men of integrity. To check them out, just go to BUYACAR123.COM.   Well again, joining me is Katelyn Beatty, author of Celebrities for Jesus: How Personas, Platforms and Prophets Are Hurting the Church. Katelyn is editorial director of Brazos Press, a division of Baker Publishing Group. And she’s the former managing editor of Christianity Today magazine and has written for several Christian and mainstream outlets. So, Katelyn, welcome, and thanks so much for joining me.   KATELYN BEATY  03:04 Thanks so much for having me, Julie.   JULIE ROYS  03:06 And I discovered reading your book that we have something in common that I didn’t realize before, and that is that we both love the song Jesus Freak. So.   KATELYN BEATY  03:16 I mean, who doesn’t? It’s one of the classics from my growing up years, for sure.   JULIE ROYS  03:22 It really is. But the question is, can you play it on guitar?   KATELYN BEATY  03:25 No, can you?   JULIE ROYS  03:27 I can play it on guitar.   KATELYN BEATY  03:29 Oh my gosh, well, you should do that on one of these podcasts.   JULIE ROYS  03:32 I really should.   KATELYN BEATY  03:33 Your listeners would appreciate that.   JULIE ROYS  03:36 I think that would be a good way to lose all of my listeners on this podcast. But thank you so much for taking the time. I appreciate it. I so enjoyed this book, and I should also mention is that we’re offering your book, Celebrities for Jesus, as part of a two-book gift pack to anyone who gives $50 or more to support The Roy’s Report in the month of December. The other book in that pack is Redeeming Power by Dr. Diane Langberg. So, if you’re looking for a great Christmas gift or just want the book for yourself, go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. Or you can text 22525 on your phones and the word REPORT. Again, that’s 22525 and the word REPORT. So, Katelyn, let’s start by just defining our terms. How would you define the word celebrity and how is it different from merely being famous?   KATELYN BEATY  04:35 Yeah, for as much as we talk about celebrity dynamics both in the church and in mainstream culture, it’s a bit of a difficult phenomenon to pin down. I would say it is a uniquely modern phenomenon in that it relies on the tools of mass media to project a personal image or persona or brand that inspires adoration, affection. We talk about celebrity worship. So, there’s something, I think even spiritually, there’s a posture of putting someone on a higher plane or seeing them as higher than the rest of us mortals. I think for the purposes of identifying celebrity dynamics in the church, I’ve really come to the definition of social power without proximity. It is the ability to shape hearts and minds, often, you know, thousands, millions of people if you’re using the tools of mass media, but always from the distance, that the stage and the screen, create a distance. And I think in that distance comes all sorts of temptations and problems. It’s almost like, the more people know of you, or know your name, or your face or your voice, the fewer people can know you in a real intimate kind of flesh and blood way. And I think that’s a dangerous place to be for any church leader, because we all need people who know us good, bad, and ugly, you know. We all need people who are not necessarily impressed by us but are also not going anywhere. They’re committed to us for the long haul, they know how to speak the truth in love. And so, when someone has their star rise, and they become, they find themselves with a celebrity status, I think healthy leaders will say, this can create temptations, and I need to be all the more willing to seek out accountability from people who can name my blind spots. But oftentimes, of course, I mean, the stage and the screen and the spotlight are intoxicating. They feed our ego, our need to be important or desirable. And obviously, we’ve seen so many stories, you know, the higher your star rises, oh, how much harder the fall is on the other side.   JULIE ROYS  06:55 Well, and you mentioned the biggest name that I think most people think of when they think of the first Christian celebrity. I think the first name that comes to mind for my generation would be Billy Graham. And of course, there were some before him, Billy Sunday, and DL Moody, for example. What are some things that you would say some characteristics that all of these early sort of pioneer Christian celebrities, whether they wanted to be or not, what would you say are some characteristics that they all have in common?   KATELYN BEATY  07:26 Well, all of those men, to one degree or another, and especially Graham, were very pragmatic in their embrace of the tools of media. You know, starting with newspapers, Dwight Moody formed relationships with reporters in Chicago and beyond, like, come get a front row seat to this big crusade we’re about to hold, there was a sense of spectacle. And using the tools of media to draw more people in. Of course, Graham, very powerfully used radio and television and even social media to reach you know, he even bragged about this, and I say this as a fan of Billy Graham’s, but he bragged that, you know, he could reach millions more people than even Jesus, because he had these tools, which is a very bold thing to say. But kind of, yeah, pragmatic embrace of media. Going back to the role of spectacle and event and drawing crowds, and the bigger the better, I think all of those men, to some extent, use the tools of spectacle to draw crowds. With Graham at least there was an attempt to connect people to the local church, but there was a sense for all of those men that going to church is not enough. You need to have a real born again, experience with Jesus. And I think it was probably easy for crusade attenders for any of those men to walk away and maybe have the church, the local church, deemphasized in their conception of discipleship, and I think that it is true that Graham reached many more people just numerically than Jesus did. But we also have to ask, well, what are people being discipled into? And are they being discipled into a kind of need for a powerful emotional experience? Or are they being led into that proximity into that community, where discipleship and spiritual formation over the long haul can happen?   JULIE ROYS  09:30 Well, it’s interesting, I actually volunteered for a Billy Graham crusade. I don’t remember how many years ago this was, it’s probably 25-30 years ago. But I remember they would send a team out and they would train the local church to be involved in the follow up and the discipleship. There was that connection to the local church. And there was too You mentioned something called the Modesto Manifesto, which I guess is where we get the Billy Graham rule from where Billy Graham would never be alone with a woman. But there’s another part to it that I didn’t know about that deals more with accountability, right?   KATELYN BEATY  10:08 Right. I really am struck by the holistic nature of the Modesto Manifesto. I mean, we tend to kind of fixate on the sex part, and the Billy Graham rule and its application in modern life. But I think Graham, to his credit, understood. He and his colleagues early on, when they were getting written up in every major newspaper, I think that he knew, you know, this could be a problem. This could lead to real pride, evading accountability. So, he sought financial accountability, he decided his salary would be set by a board, it would not be based on attendance at crusades or kind of a moment of giving in this very kind of emotional moment, we’re not going to manipulate the crowds to give more. I would love contemporary church leaders to become familiar with the Modesto Manifesto and how it works out in application is going to be unique to specific contexts, but I think Graham was prescient in a lot of what he understood. I mean, even just the notion of financial accountability, and as you know, how many churches and ministries essentially want to evade it or have found ways to evade it and have used deceptive means to hide, you know, how money is being spent or where money is coming from. And Graham wanted to be a transparent person and leader. He was a person of integrity, and I’m so grateful for that.   JULIE ROYS  11:46 Well, and I like Billy Graham, too. In fact, I don’t think I missed a Billy Graham crusade in our house that was like an event, right? And when Billy Graham was on TV, we would watch and I still to this day, like when you hear you know, Just as I Am, I’ll get choked up. I mean, to see people streaming forward coming to know the Lord. What he did was really amazing. And I know people personally who have become believers.   At the same time, as much as that Modesto Manifesto was a good step and a positive step, I think some of the things he failed to do, for example, his board, BGEA is full of family members. Very, very big problem. Franklin Graham, who is the CEO of the BGEA, drawing two CEO salaries, which at one point when they were published, was close to a million dollars. Now, I don’t know how much he makes, because the BGEA is no longer filing 990s. It’s become, you know, by an IRS classification, it’s become a church. And so, we see some of these things that I mean, it seemed like Graham was trying to be a pioneer, in a way making it more transparent, more accountable. Yet, today, we’re seeing this kind of, you know, I think it’s really on shaky ground when you stop filing 990s.   KATELYN BEATY  13:10 Oh, yeah. And you just wonder, gosh, I mean, what would Billy Graham think about the state of the BGEA, and I want to believe that he would not have made the decision to switch over to church status in order to not have to file with the IRS. Even the idea that the CEO would be making over a million dollars. I mean, that just seems outlandish, and unethical and inappropriate for a minister of the gospel. And so, gosh, if this has happened in just one or two generations of the BGEA, when you had a founder who was trying for transparency and accountability, what is going on in the American church that even in just a generation or two, in this one particular organization, you have such a change of spirit and direction?   JULIE ROYS  14:08 Yeah. And it’s interesting too, this whole celebrity thing. I do think it’s uniquely evangelical. I don’t know if you’ve read Nancy Pearcey’s, Total Truth. She actually traces back this whole celebrity to George Whitfield, and the late, you know, mid to late 1700s. Because there you have someone who before he would come in and preach, he would send  the assistants in, and they would hand out flyers. So, some mass communication, right? And then you’ve got George Whitfield, who was trained as an actor, and everybody’s sitting in these churches where you have hour long sermons, very monotone, from what I understand, sometimes a preacher wouldn’t even look up. He just read the whole thing, right? So, people were dying for something that was a little more animated. And that led to you know, the great awakening. And so, we see these revivals, but it really is kind of in our DNA, isn’t it? as evangelicalism that we want to reach the masses? Do you see Whitfield is I heard you, um, and so I’m guessing you kind of see that maybe there’s a connection there as well.   KATELYN BEATY  15:14 Yeah. What strikes me about Whitfield and, you know, his rhetorical power, his charisma, I think, personal charisma and centering churches, ministries, movements of the gospel around charismatic leaders and figures who can truly wow a crowd with their oratory skills, that feels very quintessentially Evangelical, quintessentially American. I think celebrity just more broadly, has been seen, as I think foolishly, ultimately, of course, but has been seen as a neutral tool that can be adopted to reach more people with the gospel.   We know that we live in a culture that’s obsessed with celebrity, where celebrities dictate our hearts and imaginations and our money and gosh, you know, there’s the celebrity worship. Well, if we had Christian celebrities, could that be used as a tool to draw more people into a church or a ministry? And of course, the reality is that celebrity is not a neutral tool. It is not a tool that you can just pick up and put down; it shapes leaders in the process. And it’s very easy when you have a taste of it yourself as a leader to start believing your own hype, you know. And so, you might think, well, having a charismatic, passionate, likeable, attractive leader who has celebrity status, has national renown, this is going to be good for our church. But on the other side of a fall, or moral failure or scandal, you also have to count costs, you know? What does that look like to a watching world, even just when you look at opulent spending, opulent wealth? I think many of our neighbors, our non-Christian neighbors, know that there’s something very dissonant in that when a minister of the gospel is showing up on stage with $3,000 sneakers. I mean, we think that it’s a tool and then we end up presenting a representation of the Christian life that doesn’t look like Jesus, that doesn’t look like how the Christian life has been lived out traditionally, and historically. So, if the gospel and the good news is warped in the process, then this is not a tool that we can just pick up and put down. I think it has changed us and has harmed us.   JULIE ROYS  17:56 I would agree. And I’m wondering to put you on the spot, but you talk a lot about mega churches and mega pastors. Is it possible, do you think I actually was asked this question recently. I’ll say what I what I said, but I want to hear what you said first, but is it redeemable, the mega church? Or is this a model that really just needs to die?   KATELYN BEATY  18:21 I have also received this question. And I think we are in a moment when we are seeing the costs more than the benefits. And there have been critiques of the mega church for the last several decades. Kind of the consumeristic element and felt need and entertainment. And there are all these elements of the mega church model that have been critiqued. I would say, if you find yourself helping to lead a mega church or in a mega church, why not split the church and by split, I mean, branch off into smaller churches and empower other local pastors to invest deeply in a smaller community, and when you reach a certain size, you continue to plant? I just think there’s something about the size and the distance between the pastoral leaders and the members or attendees that is unhealthy and unsustainable.   JULIE ROYS  19:31 I’m 100% with you, and in fact, the Village Church, which I’m not really a huge fan of either, but one thing they did do, right, I think they’re in Flower Mound, Texas, I think it is, the individual campuses split off and became independent churches recently. So, there is some of that I hope happening where mega churches start to think maybe this multi-site thing isn’t the best model. And I wonder, too, I mean, I was thinking about this recently, when you have a church, where the pastor can’t really know you, and you can’t know him, is he really a pastor? And is this really a church? I mean, it might be a great Christian organization, but is it a church? And I think we need to start asking those questions. And I used to be much more circumspect about how I felt about mega churches. I’m at the point right now where I’m just like, no, this is just a toxic model, and especially for Americans, and where you talk about how we’re almost susceptible to it, because we’re almost conditioned to like this model.   KATELYN BEATY  20:45 Yeah, we’re also conditioned to think as Americans that bigger is better. And I just think we have seen time and time again, that numerical growth can’t be the only metric. And it can negatively affect other really core metrics of the Christian life. The primary role of a pastor is to be a shepherd of the flock, and you can’t shepherd well, if you don’t know your flock. And of course, the megachurch model has imported an understanding of the pastor as a CEO-type visionary, who’s going to lead our church into bigger, better, scalable. And do we need another CEO in the world? I mean, we do but not in the church, you know that the pastor is called to do something countercultural, and that is different from the world and that is to care for souls. And that work is not really scalable. It’s very personal. It’s very, oftentimes one on one or in small groups. It takes time, it’s inefficient. But this is how Jesus ministered to people. The Son of God was willing to take the time to meet with people who were getting in his way, or you know, derailing his plans, and he would stop. And how refreshing and just perpetually radical that is over and against an American church where many pastors it seems like they’re just too busy.   JULIE ROYS  22:18 And speaking of some of the characteristics of mega church, which again, sort of the Billy Graham thing gave way to what in the seventies. Well, I guess the first megachurch was Schuler’s, which would have been, you know, mid 50s. And then Willow Creek became sort of the model, which you spent quite a bit of time on, which is a church that I attended at one point. And I remember at the time just going like, wow, because like, I grew up in this local church, the very typical, the organist, and you know, as a high schooler me going, like really?, who would ever come here if they didn’t have to kind of thing and seeing much more the parachurch was what got the work done. And when I came to Willow Creek, I just went, wow, it’s like the parachurch church. Like they’re doing, what Youth for Christ would do or what Nav would do, or what you know, InterVarsity would do. Like, I always saw the parachurch as the only ones capable of actually reaching people who weren’t going to go to the church anyway, because they were born into it. And I saw that happening. Now to think back that what I didn’t know, was happening behind the scenes. You’ve mentioned some characteristics. One, the pastor doesn’t know his people. What are some other characteristics you see sort of embodied in Willow, that you know kind of typifies some of these toxic qualities of the mega church?   KATELYN BEATY  23:42 Well, in a lot of these stories, and this is very true at Willow Creek. You have a dynamic visionary founder, and the church very early on comes to understand itself and its story as enmeshed with their founder or the lead pastor, to the point where over time, it can become hard for the church community to even understand themselves apart from the founder, like who are we without Pastor Bill? I think that was probably true for a lot of people a Willow Creek, and I also think it went the other way; that Bill Hybels couldn’t understand himself apart from Willow Creek. So you had this enmeshment, where if there had been concerns, and there were concerns, obviously, they were kind of subsumed under this sense that, yeah, but he’s our pastor and his Pastor Bill and who are we without Bill Hybels and we rely on him to lead us into the future.   When you look at board composition, you know, multiple conflicts of interests where you have not in the case of Willow Creek, to my knowledge, there weren’t family members, but people who had been selected by the pastor to serve on the board, which is not the way to go about it. because it’s too close. You need proper distance so that people are free to speak truthfully about concerns so that their own status or sense of importance in the church is not tied to the rise or fall of this particular leader in the investigation that Willow Creek eventually signed off on and commissioned it, it just said plainly that board members saw Bill as their celebrity. And so, it was hard, he was very good with words, very sharp, and people were intimidated by him, or he had been the person to have brought them to Christ to have, you know, preached the gospel to them. Well, who am I to stand up to my spiritual father, my hero in the faith, my mentor? That power differential is very hard to come up against.   JULIE ROYS  26:04 You talk about this concept of refracted light. And I have seen this not just at Willow, I’ve seen it in my Harvest reporting. I see it even in reporting about John MacArthur about what’s going on there at his church, but there seems to be a lot of people who have benefits from being around this super mega church pastor. Talk a little bit about this concept, and maybe about our dark sides that we like being close to these celebrities.   KATELYN BEATY  26:37 Yeah, well, the concept of refracted light is actually from Diane Langberg, who you mentioned earlier, and I would highly recommend her book, Redeeming Power, in her work. And it’s essentially a term that describes the glow that we receive from our closest or attachment to powerful celebrity figures. One of the examples that Nancy Beach, writer and leadership expert who is involved at Willow Creek for several years and was actually one of the women to come forward with allegations against Bill Hybels several years ago. She spoke with me for the book, and she talked about very plainly about when she was in the orbit of Bill Hybels. And when she was in that inner circle, she got opportunities that she wouldn’t have had otherwise; opportunities to travel around the world, to do big conferences, book deals, speaking engagements. You think about, I hate to put it this crassly, but a certain monetary gain that can come from having received the imprimatur of this other very important person. Wendy Alsup is another woman I spoke with for the book who talked about a similar dynamic at Mars Hill when she was there. She said, if I hadn’t been at Mars Hill and been in good graces with Mark Driscoll at that time, I wouldn’t have gotten my first two book deals with Crossway. So, it’s a way of talking about a kind of interdependent sharing of power that can come, which of course, then disincentivizes you to say something because you think, oh, gosh, well, I’ve tried my, I’m following on their trail. So, I don’t want to lose that.   But I think, you know, even for people who aren’t necessarily in that inner circle, but who really look up to a celebrity leader or figure, there is this sense that we can get that we are special, that we are spiritually, we are doing big things for God. I think Willow Creek very much understood itself to be on the front lines of Kingdom work and what God was doing in the world. It may be even a spiritual superiority, like this church is kind of where it’s at where it’s happening, and that, you know, we all want to sense that our work in the world is making a kingdom impact, that there’s a sense of purpose and meaning that comes from our connection to a leader or a specific community. And I don’t think that that’s wrong, per se, I think we are meant to find joy and meaning in our life in the local church. But I would distinguish that from a kind of spiritual superiority, which could be something like spiritual pride, which could be we’re right and they’re wrong, or God is uniquely present to us in a way that God is not present to other types of Christians or other churches, and I think that is not a healthy place to be.   JULIE ROYS  29:58 Well, and you have the quote at the beginning of the chapter I think, where it’s the Hybels saying something about the local churches, the hope of the world. But he kind of conflates the local church being the hope of the world and Willow Creek being the hope of the world. And I heard the same thing when I was reporting on Harvest, that there was this idea that we really got it right at Harvest Bible Chapel, and everybody else was sort of second fiddle to us. In fact, they really looked down their nose, at Willow, because Willow wasn’t, it was too seeker sensitive. It wasn’t, you know, biblical enough. And that same dynamic that you’re talking about, the refracted light where I know James McDonald would stock his board with people that their ministries were bolstered by Harvest. And so, there’s also the flip side of that, not only can they make you, but they can break you. That is a dynamic that is throughout evangelicalism and kind of this dark side. So that would be one of the temptations of this celebrity, is abuse of power. So, we’ve touched on this already. But there’s so much to unpack here, and you do a lot of talking about the publishing industry, which you’re really quite honest about it for somebody who’s in publishing. And I think, when I first discovered how you get a book deal, like I thought it was you wrote a good book; I mean, how silly of me.   KATELYN BEATY  31:26 That’s just icing on the top. If you can write a good book, great, but.   JULIE ROYS  31:32 That’s great if you could write a good book. And thankfully, there are good books, we highlight them all the time. But the point is, if you write a great book, unless you’re really lucky, like the author of The Shack or whatever, if you don’t have a platform, it’s going nowhere. There’s this whole marketing thing behind it. There’s a whole platform building. And it’s all driven by one thing. And you talk about that one thing. So, give us the insider’s view here of what really drives the publishing industry, even in Christian publishing, which isn’t really even Christian half the time because they’re owned by secular companies.   KATELYN BEATY  32:09 Right, right. Well, big reveal, the one thing is money. And it wasn’t, I do want to say I don’t think it’s always been so driven by platform by questions of platform. I think there was a time before the big Christian publishers were owned by multinational conglomerates that had no kind of faith or missional element, besides making money as businesses. Before they were owned by those companies, I think there was genuinely more freedom to take risks and chances on people who weren’t household names. This was before social media. I think, obviously, social media has added jet fuel to this platform obsession for all of us. But I think what we have lost in many cases in Christian publishing is the willingness to take risks on really good writers with really good ideas and important messages, who don’t have the time to build a platform. I mean, I even think about the work and craft of writing is kind of being antithetical to the work of marketing yourself. It’s interior, it’s laborious, it requires a lot of solitude. And a lot of writers are introverted, and just the whole, the work that is required to even get on the radar of so many Christian publishers these days, almost supersedes the work of actually writing. It’s like you can get a book deal if you’re just really good at creating viral content. I mean, it is genuinely the case that today, if you have, you know, 50,000 followers on TikTok, and you have a lot of really funny or interesting videos, but have never written a great paragraph, you can get a book deal. You know, the publisher will find ways to work around that deficit; they’ll you know, you can hire a ghostwriter, or they’ll just have a really good editor. Whereas if you are an excellent writer who’s really spent years honing your craft, or  you’re an expert in a particular topic that’s really important, you have the credibility and the credentialing, but you don’t have the platform, it’s going to be very hard to get a foot in the door. And in this way, I do think that a lot of Christian publishing has kind of just looked at what works in the rest of the world and thought, I guess we need to do that too. Instead of thinking, maybe Christian book publishing ought to be different from how the world works, ought to bring other really important questions of discernment to the table when we’re trying to figure out who to partner with and extend a platform to, because that’s what you’re what you’re doing, when you publish someone’s book.   I personally feel grateful, you know, I work for Baker Publishing Group. And because it’s an independently Christian owned publisher, there is, I think, more freedom than I would have at other places to ask important questions of spiritual maturity, the craft of writing, quality of writing, the importance of the topic. But we asked the platform question too. And so, it’s not that platform or reach or audience is totally unimportant in a lot of cases. But it certainly needs to be less important than it’s made out to be. And, of course, you have people who really want to be authors who have found ways to falsely present their following on social media. I talk in the book about the purchasing of fake followers to give really impressive social media numbers, and then you run an audit and you realize that like half of the followers are robots. Needless to say, Christians should not be purchasing fake followers, it is a deceptive practice.   JULIE ROYS  36:21 Well, and even if you look at certain Twitter accounts, and I’m gonna step on a toe, but I’m gonna do it anyway. But Ed Stetzer, he’s following over 200,000 people? Like, how do you follow over 200,000 people? I mean, obviously, that’s.   KATELYN BEATY  36:38 Wait, he’s following over 200,000?   JULIE ROYS  36:41 He is following over 200,000 people. Now he has slightly more, he has slightly more followers, people following him that he’s following, but he’s following over 200,000 people on Twitter. I mean, that is a tactic to get people to follow you. But to have 200,000?! I mean, and this is somebody who is seen as a guru to the Christian world on, you know, he was quoted on the rise and fall of Mars Hill about, you know, integrity and everything else. And I’m looking at his Twitter platform just going like, this is a manufactured platform in a way. Now do a lot of people genuinely follow Ed Stetzer and what he tweets? Yeah, but at the same time, you know, it’s become so common, we’re almost not surprised by it.   KATELYN BEATY  37:26 Yeah. And I think about social media too, as a way to, I’m thinking about the recent story about Matt Chandler, who was asked to step down from ministry for a season over inappropriate messages with a woman who isn’t his wife. You would probably know better than I would, I think he’s back or he’s coming back soon. He suggested in a recent Instagram post that he is on his way to a return.   JULIE ROYS  37:55 He suggested and then the elder board said that they’re very pleased with his progress with said vague online relationship.   KATELYN BEATY  38:06 Yeah, this is the kind of story, Julie, that I’m sure is like designed to infuriate people, because it’s so intentionally vague, right? Just tell us what happened, oh, my gosh! But I was, you know, I was looking at the responses to his posts, Matt Chandler’s post, about returning to ministry. And a couple of things I noticed just how many people said like, we love you, we support you. And I think you don’t know; I don’t have any reason to think that you know what’s going on. And you know, what restoration or repentance has looked like for him personally. We can’t know that from social media. We know what he wants to tell us. And also, how many people said, I don’t go to the Village Church, I listen to your sermons online every week, and I can’t wait to have you back? And truthfully, I don’t know the details of this story. Like, you know, it’s been kept intentionally vague. And I don’t want to impugn Matt Chandler, you know, I just don’t know. But it was just striking to me how quickly people moved into we love you; we support you, we’re ready for you; this fandom, that I thought could be really unhealthy when you’re talking about unhealthy leaders. Coming back being restored to a place of authority or power when it’s not time. It’s way too soon.   JULIE ROYS  39:39 There’s dark sides on both the receiving end, which we’re talking about. There’s dark sides if you’re the Christian celebrity. And this gets into one of the other temptations you talk about, which is this creating a persona and character splitting as you call it. Describe what character splitting is and why it’s dangerous.   KATELYN BEATY  40:02 Character splitting is essentially a way of describing a disintegration when we talk about integrity. And we want leaders who have personal integrity. Integrity means that the parts of the person are integrated. That who they are behind closed doors is who they are on stage. That if you were to find yourself in a private one on one setting with them, or in an elevator or something, you wouldn’t be shocked, you wouldn’t have this dissonance like, wow, they seem so nice and loving from stage and, gosh, don’t cross them behind closed doors, because they’re really an angry person.   So character splitting is what unhealthy leaders do to continue to perpetuate the glowy persona, what they want others to believe about them, and what others want to believe about them as well. And oftentimes, the other part of them, the hidden part, is unexamined, and unintegrated. And when you have that disintegration and splitting, the hidden person can get away with things. You know, there’s a kind of, as long as I can keep up the glowy persona, then behind closed doors, I can get away with things, I can do things, because, you know, everybody has bought in to what I’ve presented to them. I think this can create, in a lot of cases, a kind of a lonely at the top dynamic or alone at the top. Where, because a group of people, a community has attached so much to the public self and the glowy persona, they’re not actually that interested in knowing the more vulnerable or hurting or just less impressive parts of their leader. And leaders find well, who do I go to be authentic? Who can I really show up as my full self with? And I think that is oftentimes connected to stories of, you know, various addictions and unhealthy coping mechanisms. The loneliness and isolation is oftentimes where temptation comes in. And in this regard, I do have compassion for pastors whose communities have essentially asked them to be alone at the top. They’ve put so much pressure on the leader to perform a role for them, that we’re actually not loving our leaders well when we’re leaving them in that place.   JULIE ROYS  42:46 Yeah, absolutely. And when you talk about character splitting, and having parts of you disintegrated, I mean, we used to just call it compartmentalization, right? And when I think of that, I think of the Nazi concentration camp guard, who would go, and all day would be slaughtering human beings. And then somehow could put that in a compartment and go home and be a loving husband and father. And the ability of the human psyche to do that it’s scary. And when you begin splitting off your ability to justify the behavior, like Ravi Zacharias, you know? Here’s a man who I actually interviewed him face to face you might have interviewed him in person. Did you ever interview him in person?   KATELYN BEATY  43:42 I don’t know. I definitely didn’t interview him. I’m trying to think if it’s possible that he like came through the CT offices, but certainly, my impression of him from you know, watching these debates with atheists or reading his books was,  this is a man of God. And I have no reason to think not, right?   JULIE ROYS  44:02 Right. And I remember meeting him in person; he was just as winsome and gracious in person as you would find him on stage. I would have said this man is the real deal. And now to know how abusively he used his power and must have somehow justified it in his mind. And yet his board look the other way.   KATELYN BEATY  44:28 Yeah, I mean, that story. Just, you know, it’s been a few years now since the reporting came out, but it is haunting for many reasons. How do you so winsomely and graciously get up in front of crowds of people and present the gospel and then abuse vulnerable women the world over? You know, in the same day, I imagine or in the you know, in a short period of time. I think Ruth Malhotra I mean, I have so much respect for her learning about the role that she played in trying to ask for the truth and trying to hold Ravi accountable when there were things that he was saying that didn’t line up with what they were learning. And gosh, how she and a few other women were vilified, for asking for the truth. We have to take the responsibility of calling our leaders to repentance when we see these types of patterns, even when it’s very, I imagine it’s very uncomfortable. And yet, how do you live with yourself if you don’t, and then you learn something like what the RZIM board and other leaders did?   JULIE ROYS  45:40 So, one of the things that we have in common in our background is that both of us attended the same church in Wheaton, Church of the Resurrection, which is an Anglican Church, an unusual church. I tell people, it’s a charismatic Anglican Church, and they kind of look at me funny. Although if you go to Africa, you’ll find lots of charismatic Anglican churches. But it’s been embroiled in scandal, because of alleged cover up of a sexual abuser. This is something because of my personal connection because I attended there, I haven’t reported on. I’ve published pieces, but they’ve been pieces that I’ve gotten from Bob Smeadna or Katherine Post. I think he’s done most of them actually, from RNS. We’ve republished them, but I haven’t done any editing, because again, it’s conflict of interest. I’ve attended there, and I know the people. But I’m seeing things now that I didn’t see then. And I think especially around this issue of celebrity, and celebrity pastor. Rez, in many ways, was the anti-mega church. Like they, I mean, the idea of inventing church and doing it your own way would be just, you know, anathema to them. They follow the great tradition, right? So, they’re gonna follow the way Anglicans have done services forever. The band wasn’t front and center, it was actually off to the side. And the musicians, very much did not bring attention to themselves. It was anti celebrity, and yet now we’re asking a question, because we have a Bishop who was also the priest of Church of the Resurrection, Stewart Ruch, who’s very charismatic. Let me just ask you, do you see, at Church of the Resurrection and what we’re seeing in ACNA, too. And for those who don’t know what that means, ACNA is for the Anglican Church in North America, which Church of the Resurrection is part of. Do you see celebrity dynamics in play there that have contributed to this alleged mishandling or even cover up of sex abuse?   KATELYN BEATY  47:58 I would say what I witnessed to some degree at the church in the few years that I was there, but also in reading about the alleged cover up of sexual abuse involving church leaders, is that there is a cultive personality at work. Stewart Ruch is a very charismatic, passionate, incredible speaker. I would say his style of spiritual leadership and even his personality are very much intertwined in the story of that church and its growth over the years. We might say, what would Church of the Resurrection be without Stewart Ruch? And what would Stewart Ruch be without Church of the Resurrection? And when you have those dynamics in place, and you have instances where someone with a cultive personality and a following has really made some mistakes in terms of responding lawfully and responsibly to allegations of sexual abuse, there can be a very quick move to protect the brand or the image that we as a community have in place for this person, that can be difficult to see and name places where the leader failed. And there might still be an opportunity for repentance or restoration. But if you can’t even name as a community, what went wrong and believe that your leaders might have actually really messed up; like really made some very significant missteps in the response to this, then you’re dealing in the realm where you’re not as a community willing to grapple with the truth. You know, where you’re trading the truth in for a story and an image and a narrative that is definitely easier to digest, but is not actually doing justice to victims, or even to the leaders to give them an opportunity for repentance.   I had no personal relationship with Stewart, meaning I was not part of the cultive personality at work at that church. Truthfully, I actually never interacted with him. You know, I heard him preach many times. And I knew many people in the community who would say that they had had these very powerful and personal experiences with him. I never had a conversation with him. And you know, I think the distance that celebrity can create, and if you believe that you really are a kind of celebrity figure in your own community, you’re not available for people in the same way if celebrities are very busy people. So, I don’t know I, you know, as these reports from RNS and other places have come out over the last year and a half now, I’ve thought a lot about my book; not because Stewart and other leaders are the preachers in sneakers type. As you said, Julie, they don’t kind of fit the standard American Evangelical celebrity mold. But I do think a common thread would be that cultive personality, putting someone on a kind of spiritual pedestal so that then you are not able to or willing to ask difficult questions when there’s serious problems or mistakes.   JULIE ROYS  51:40 Yeah, we overlook them, there’s no doubt. And I think the distance that you’re talking about, I mean, I would say my husband and I knew Stewart somewhat, and Katherine, his wife, but not well, and it would take literally at least six months to get on his calendar. And I remember at one point thinking he’s the bishop, I’m just not sure he’s the priest. Because if you’re not available, and you’re not really pastoring your people, and I think he used to be in the early days, but I think that stopped being there. But I think it shows that even at churches, and this is, I think, a cautionary word for those of you, you’re like, well, there’s no way we’re celebrity because we’re a church of 200, or we’re church of 100. Any sized church can be a celebrity and have celebrity dynamics, am I right?   KATELYN BEATY  52:38 Yeah, absolutely. It’s the kind of elevation where the pastor is seen as not even being capable of doing any wrong. And that just can’t, that’s just not humanly true. And it can happen in all sorts of churches, regardless of size, or tradition or theology. We’re talking about something that is ultimately about power, and the misuse of power. And that crops up in any context where there are fallen humans.   JULIE ROYS  53:09 And this brings me to your last chapter, which I love the simplicity of it, because basically, what you’re saying is, as individuals, as Christians, we need to begin embracing the ordinary; just embracing that our life in the ordinary, you know, it has meaning. And those relationships, those face-to-face friendships, those relationships, they have meaning too. I mean, that’s really where, you know, all the one another’s happen, in, you know, embodied relationships. And so, I love that to me, the gospel is all about loving people, and you have to know them to love them. And so, you know, I just thought that was a great place to land. But, you know, let me give it back to you as your opportunity to talk to people as they’re like, you know, detoxing from either being a celebrity or being caught up in celebrity, what are some, how do we become healthy ourselves?   KATELYN BEATY  54:16 I think a lot of this comes down to examining our own motives. And even in my own work, I mean, you and I both have public platforms. And gosh, wouldn’t it be both awful and ironic if in trying to let people know about my book, I tried to seek some kind of celebrity status, to sell a book that critiques celebrity status? But if we’re in the world of communication ministry, we have some kind of measure of platform asking, Okay, how much time am I investing in the stage and the screen? And how much am I trying to resist the lure and the glow of that by recommitting myself and rooting myself in types of communities where friendships can blossom that are not transactional? You know, I think, even looking at the dynamics of our friendships and relationships and thinking, I need people who, again, are not impressed by me and are also not going anywhere.   I think it’s rare, actually, to have friends like that, to find friends like that in this lifetime, over the long haul. Those friendships and those relationships are where the real work of transformation and sanctification happens. That’s what we’re all called into. It’s what we need in order to be the people God intends us to be. So, looking at our relationship with churches and our church leaders, have I put someone on a pedestal that is inappropriate, have I come to see a leader as having a larger-than-life status in my own life and my own spiritual journey and just examining how, when you put someone in that elevated status, it can be hard to see problems until it’s too late. And I think just a way to guard against that is to be wise and discerning not just about our leaders integrity and character, but what’s going on in our own hearts toward towards them. I mean, of course, I think we all spend too much time on social media. But that’s like, it’s kind of a given.   JULIE ROYS  56:42 It’s so yeah, it is kind of a given. And especially if you’re in media, you have to be on social media. But there is a point at which you can feel thin. And you really, you know, need to disengage. And I know, Lori Anne Thompson, who most everybody who listens to this knows Lori Ann from the whole Ravi story, but she’s just a beautiful person. And she recently just disengaged completely from Twitter, and she said, I was here for a season. But I you know, what I loved about one of the things she said is the deception that people needed me. And I thought, wow, that is so important. Jesus doesn’t need any of us. He chooses by His grace to involve us and to partner, you know, allow us to partner with what he’s doing in the world, which is an incredible privilege. But he doesn’t need any of us and when we’re thinking I think Christmas is such a wonderful time because we talk about the Incarnation, right? Jesus came in flesh and blood, Jesus came and was real and was among us, and was one of us. To remember that, and to be that for each other. And I think your book, Katelyn, does a great job of inviting people more into that to be able to see the dangers of celebrity of platform, and then to invite them into, you don’t use the word incarnational. But I think it’s there in that kind of embodied relationship. So, thank you for what you’ve done. Thank you for this book. And thanks for your ministry.   KATELYN BEATY  58:31 Thanks, Julie. Thanks for a great conversation.   JULIE ROYS  58:34 Well, again, thanks so much for listening to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And just a reminder that we’re able to do this podcast and all of our investigative work at The Roys Report, because of support from people like you. And as you probably know, December is a critical giving month for us. This is when we raised about 30% of our total annual budget. So, your help in helping us get to this goal is absolutely crucial. Plus, in December, if you give $50 or more to The Roys Report, we’ll send you a gift pack of two hardcover books, Katelyn’s Celebrities for Jesus and Dr. Diane Langberg’s, Redeeming Power. To give just text 22525 on your phones and the word REPORT. Or go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. Also, just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcast, Google podcast, Spotify, or YouTube. That way you’ll never miss an episode. And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks so much for joining me. I hope you were blessed and encouraged. Read more

Guest Bios Show Transcript https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J15p-DfWfjY How do you hold on to your faith after experiencing abuse in a church? And how can you find Christian community when so many aspects of church trigger painful memories? In this week’s podcast, Doug and Wendy Duncan join me to discuss their journey into—out of—what they say was an abusive and cultic Christian community.   After being taught God was angry and punitive, they had to heal their image of God—and of themselves. And they needed to relearn Christian community—and figure out how to connect with Christians in a way that didn’t trigger bad memories. Both Doug and Wendy are contributors to our premium for donors this month—Wounded Faith: Understanding and Healing from Spiritual Abuse. And though their experience may have been extreme, it has many parallels and insights for anyone who has experienced spiritual abuse. In thoughtful detail, Doug, who’s a professional counselor, explains the hallmarks of thought control and the red flags to look for when exploring a new church. Wendy talks about her process of healing, and how to view God as our Good Shepherd, instead of a demanding disciplinarian. This is an incredibly helpful podcast that’s extremely relevant, given the prevalence of abuse in the current Christian environment. This Weeks Guests Doug & Wendy Duncan Doug Duncan, MS, LPC, is a professional counselor licensed in the state of Texas and practicing in the Dallas area. His wife, Wendy Duncan, is a licensed social worker who works as a recovery coach. Doug and Wendy specialize in helping people recover from religious or spiritual abuse, cult involvement, depression, phobias, and trauma. As former members of an aberrational group, the Duncans are sensitive to the particular concerns of people struggling to overcome the legacy of cultic and spiritual abuse. Show Transcript SPEAKERS JULIE ROYS, DOUG DUNCAN, WENDY DUNCAN JULIE ROYS 00:00 So how can you hold on to your faith after experiencing abuse in the church? And how can you find Christian community when so many aspects of church trigger painful memories? Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And joining me today is Doug and Wendy Duncan, a couple who say they spent decades in an abusive cultic community in Dallas. And in that community, they were taught that God was angry and punitive, and that their community was the only true bride that God loved. The year spent in that cultic group devastated not just Doug and Wendy sense of self, but their view of God and their ability to connect with other believers. In this podcast, the couple tell their journey into and out of this spiritually abusive community, and they share the road they took to recovery and the expertise they’ve gained over many years. Wendy is now a spiritual abuse recovery specialist. And Doug is a professional counselor specializing in helping people recover from religious trauma and cult involvement. This is going to be a fascinating and informative podcast and I’m so looking forward to our discussion. But before we dive in, I’d like to thank the sponsors of this podcast, Accord Analytics and Marquardt of Barrington. In your ministry or business, your reputation is your most valuable asset. But what do you do when you suspect misconduct? Hopefully you do the opposite of many of the organizations I report on. Instead of covering up wrongdoing, you investigate it, and Accord Analytics can help. In just 72 hours, their team of experts can scour emails, call logs and other records to produce usable evidence. They also can analyze your organization to identify specific threats and to suggest best practices. To schedule a free consultation, go to ACCORDANALYTICS.COM. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity and transparency. That’s because the owners there Dan and Curt Marquardt, are men of integrity. To check them out, just go to BUYACAR123.com. Well, again, joining me are Doug and Wendy Duncan, survivors of what they say is a pseudo-Christian bible-based cult. Wendy has a master’s degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and is a licensed social worker. Doug is a professional counselor and specializes in helping people recover from religious or spiritual abuse. The couple recently started the Wounded Sheep Project, which is a call to churches to reach out to those who have a wounded faith and feel estranged from God. So, Doug, and Wendy, Welcome, and thanks so much for joining me. DOUG DUNCAN 02:51 Thank you for having us. WENDY DUNCAN 02:52 Thank you so much. JULIE ROYS 02:54 Well, Doug and Wendy I am so looking forward to talking to you and hearing your entire story. But before we dive in, I should probably mention that you’re both contributors to a book that we’re offering donors this month, called Wounded Faith: Understanding and Healing from Spiritual Abuse. This is an incredible resource covering topics like healing your image of God and returning to church after experiencing spiritual abuse. We’re offering this book to anyone who gives a gift of $30 or more to The Roys Report in November. To do that, just go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. So I would like to start with your journey into this cult that you experienced. And I was surprised to find out that the name of the organization that you were part of was Trinity Foundation, because I know Trinity Foundation. Ole Anthony who started the group has been on the forefront of exposing televangelists, and some of their corruption. He’s been on 60 minutes, and they’ve been helpful to us and some of our research and so just surprised to hear that kind of saddened to hear that. But this was something you were part of Doug for, like, what 20 years, were both of you a part for like 20 years? DOUG DUNCAN 04:06 Wendy was there about seven years, the last seven years that I was there. Early childhood, I attended a Methodist church with my parents and then later on as an adolescent, I got very involved in several youth groups. I was in Young Life, went to college and got involved with the Navigators. I was very involved in evangelical churches and groups as an adolescent. That certainly gave me a background but I think in some ways, certain vulnerabilities to the pitch that Ole made, who offered what he was teaching as being the purest and the best and, you know, the most committed version of Christianity that you could find and you know, since I was very gung-ho that appealed to me. JULIE ROYS 04:56 It does appeal especially I think, to young people who have a desire to give their lives to something and you want it to be something that’s worth giving your life to. And certainly, the call of Christ is something worth giving your life to. But in the expression that it sounds like you experienced was pretty spiritually abusive. Wendy with you, you grew up Southern Baptist, right? And what was that experience like for you? WENDY DUNCAN 05:20 My parents were both very active in the Baptist Church, my mother was a WMU director for a while my dad was a deacon. You know, we were there every time the doors opened. And until my dad had an accident when I was 10 years old, you know, we were the model Christian family. I was estranged from God for a number of years. And then when my last semester of college, had one of those Damascus Road experiences, and God was so real, and it just changed the course of my life. I ended up going to seminary, and there’s a lot of other stories. But I’ve experienced spiritual abuse, church hurts, church disappointments.* At the time that I met Doug, I was looking for a place that would accept me. I had been divorced. And that was a big deal with Southern Baptists. You know, you’re always kind of like a second-class citizen. You’re not really as spiritual, devoted or as good as everybody else. So, I meet Doug, and he invites me to a church. He says, come to our Bible study sometime, our church on Sunday evenings, all the different Bible studies, small Bible studies get together and they have like a potluck dinner, and they talk and we have such a good time. And then all the groups get together for what we call a big group. And there’s music and our leader preaches, But, Julie, before I ever went to their first group, I called different apologetic ministries. And I said, What do you know about Trinity Foundation? Is it a cult? Is it, you know, is it legit? And all of them said, they’re eccentric, they’re a little out there. But we don’t see them as rising to the level of the definition of a cult. So, I called Trinity Foundation and asked for their doctrinal statement, received that in the mail looked at it, and it just looked like any mainstream Christian church. And what we know now is, it’s not what the group says that they believe; it’s how they practice what they believe. DOUG DUNCAN 07:29 What Jesus said, By their fruits, you will know them. He didn’t say, by their doctrine, you will know them. The Pharisees had good doctrine for the most part, but they treated people badly. And that’s what Jesus saw some of what happens in the churches now that would upset him now as well. JULIE ROYS 07:47 What you just said, I think is so important, because when I first started doing a lot of my investigative work, when I would say is this a cult? what I was always told is to be classified as a cult, you have to have some sort of heretical or aberrant kind of teaching. And what I was experiencing what I was seeing, not so much experiencing, but hearing other people’s experiences, was that they had experienced just horrible spiritual abuse and bullying and manipulation and control and all of these things. But there was almost a doctrinal purity to the extent that that became, I would say, in some of these cases, idolatrous, but some cases, it really had nothing to do with doctrine. It really had to do with orthopraxy, not orthodoxy. Orthopraxy being you know, right practice and orthodoxy being right doctrine. Let me ask you, Doug, since you were the first to get involved with Ole Anthony, and the Trinity Foundation. What was it? I mean, you said a little bit that you were attracted to this idea of the perfect expression. Can you give me some more details and how you were recruited into this group? DOUG DUNCAN 08:59 Part of what was going on, I think, with me at the time, as you know, as a college student and very involved in evangelicalism is that I was under a lot of probably mostly self-induced pressure to perform. And so, you have, you know, evangelicalism as performance religion as performance. And so initially, Ole was proffering a very extreme form of grace, which actually probably was not right. I mean, it was a license, I guess. There was plenty of heresy that Ole taught. You know, one once you got below the surface, and how he wanted to present himself to the world. He had all kinds of crazy, weird heretical Gnostic doctrines that he was teaching. He wanted a certain amount of acceptance in the apologetics ministries because of his work with the televangelists. So, he wanted to look like he was mainstream, but he certainly was not. I mean, he taught plenty of really strange, offbeat, heretical, crazy things. But you know, initially, it just, you know, it seemed very, very Gracie, you know, wasn’t about performance. This was the 70s. It kind of had a hippie vibe to it. And people cuz people drank it was a rowdy bunch. But at the same time, you know, he offered it like, you know, he was like Jesus, he was hanging out with the people from the street. You know, this was all exciting and interesting to us. Because, you know, you had people who were drug addicts and hookers, and you know, all kinds of wild, crazy things. And people would get in arguments in Bible study, and they’d shout at each other, and people would cry. It was actually pretty interesting. The joke was, we had grown up in Ozzie and Harriet land. So, it just seemed kind of interesting. And it felt very authentic. That felt like grace, it felt like you didn’t have to perform. But, you know, ironically, over the years, the thing completely turned around. And it was constant performance all the time. But the performance was not about moral purity as much as it was just to be obedient to leadership and, you know, being, you know, gung-ho for whatever the project that Ole was working on at that moment. WENDY DUNCAN 11:08 One of the things that attracted me was all of us lived semi-communally, I homeschooled the children, we had all our meals together, we were in and out of each other’s homes, it was community. Community, lay down your life. I liked all that. I mean, I liked that idea about community. And they liked me. And I liked that they liked me. They accepted me, and they didn’t care that I was divorced. In fact, they thought I was too religious. JULIE ROYS 11:37 So, what were some red flags that you began seeing, and saying, this does not seem to be all what it’s cracked up to be? DOUG DUNCAN 11:47 One red flag for me was my mother hated the group. She felt like I should not be involved in and that was carrying me down a bad path, that it was a cult. But, you know, again, I was 18-19 years old when I first started getting involved. And I thought this was the right thing. This is what God wanted me to do. And so rather than listen to my mother, I followed the siren call of a false prophet. Interestingly, Ole was right about some things. He had some legitimate points that he was correct about, about the prosperity gospel and televangelists. His motivation for doing it had more to do with getting publicity for himself. And he wanted to be a hero and a rescuer of Christianity and seen as a prophet, and all of that. But Ole was able to accomplish a lot because he had slave labor to do all of that stuff. From the early years, especially it was all about Ole getting a forum just so he could be on TV. And I think that was really his motivation. JULIE ROYS 12:57 Wendy, you write that, at one point, you began to realize, there’s a lot of talk from the leader of sacrifice for everyone else. But when you began to look, you didn’t see the leader sacrificing. You saw the people sacrificing for the leader and the leader kind of living, it sounds like, a pretty cushy life. WENDY DUNCAN 13:20 That’s true. He talked about sacrificing and laying down his life and that he had given up fame and fortune and everything for us. But early, early, early, when I first started going, I wanted to see, you know, because in the Baptist Church, when they had the meetings, you got a budget report. So, I asked, you know, if I could see the budget report, or the financial report. Ole blew up, he blew up at me, it’s so angry, and talked about me not trusting and me not understanding the doctrine and, you know, just laid into me about all my bad stuff. During the early days, I questioned some of the doctrine and he would humiliate me, ridicule me in front of all these people. And so finally, I just, you know, shut down and didn’t say anything. And I often say that when I first got there, I did not believe what they believed, and then slowly, I started realizing that I didn’t know really what I believed anymore. And then eventually, I did believe what they taught. It was a typical thought reform environment. JULIE ROYS 14:30 Well explain that. DOUG DUNCAN 14:31 There’s a really good book Christians everywhere should read called The Psychology of Totalism: A Study of Thought Reform in China, by Robert Lifton, who’s a psychiatrist. And so, it’s really the seminal work in the anti-cult field because it explains thought reform, what used to be called brainwashing many years ago. That term is out of favor, but he basically says that there are eight criteria that creative thought reform environment, you don’t necessarily have to have all eight, but all thought reform environments will have some of the eight So there was milieu control. JULIE ROYS 15:11 Like your environment, controlling the environment? DOUG DUNCAN 15:13 Yeah, you’ve got to control the information and all of that. That’s why, you know, cults will cut off people’s relationships with those outside that, you know, it’s a subtle process. Now you keep people busy, you know, you have Bible studies several nights a week, so that they don’t have much time to do anything else or be with other people or read other books that are not, you know, the things you’re supposed to be reading. JULIE ROYS 15:37 It’s interesting to me, you’re describing this in the context of a cult, and yet so many of the investigations I’ve done with churches where it’s not a cult, supposedly, but that same sort of thing happens where your kids go to the church, or they do homeschooling, and only one way of doing it is correct and right. The doctrine is so pure from upfront from this church, that you only read their books and the books of people they approve. And so, it becomes a very insular community. And then, without even meaning to do this, people realize all of their relationships, all of them are within this group. And so, when they leave, it becomes like their whole world that they’ve built for, like 20 years, 25 years. It just comes crumbling down. So, I really appreciate what you’re talking about. So okay, milieu control, what are some of the other things? DOUG DUNCAN 16:31 All right, then there’s mystical manipulation, which is like planned spontaneity. So, you know, maybe you’ll have a healing that would happen. You know, Jim Jones used to do this in his group. He had these basically fake healings, but they were very dramatic and created the expected emotional response from everybody, but it’s manipulation. But to get everybody to believe that they’re having a spiritual experience, in the context of the environment. Cults and cult leaders, they’re always demanding you to do better, to do better, to be perfect, even though that’s impossible, as we know, nobody is ever going to be perfect. And yet, for the cultic group, you’re never good enough. JULIE ROYS 17:17 But let me stop you on just that one point, because it’s very interesting to me, what you’re describing where the church was, or the even the doctrine, at first to you is presented as sort of antinomian, which is this sort of hyper grace, that it doesn’t even matter what you do, because it’s all covered by grace. And so, it’s almost where Paul says, Should we send more that grace may abound? And you know, of course, he says, God forbid! But antinomianism, again, is this just really, really hyper Grace thing. And then it went to almost a hyper legalism of you have to do everything just right, and just perfect. And yet, it almost has to go to that hyper legalism for the control to happen, like you’re describing. So, I mean, I find that fascinating. And I do find fascinating, how many hyper legalistic, hyper controlling, very shame-based kind of doctrine, comes out of places with the name grace. DOUG DUNCAN 18:18 Oh, yeah, that’s interesting. WENDY DUNCAN 18:20 The first church that I went to, you know, you’re supposed to come to church Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday. And the preacher would even say, the really good Christians come on Wednesday. You are expected to go to Bible studies, visitation, read your Bible every day. I mean, there was a whole list of things that you were supposed to do in order to be a good Christian. But had nothing to do with a relationship with God. It had to do with performance. JULIE ROYS 18:47 Very interesting. DOUG DUNCAN 18:49 So that’s always going to be a thing in communist China, people having to engage in self-criticism. There’s always this thing of always having to examine and confess your own sins and a lot of times confess them to the group. And of course, the Trinity Foundation, they took that to an extreme, you know, to the point of having hotseat sessions where people were just broken down psychologically. You know, you confess all your sins to the group and then have everybody wail on you for a while and until Ole had decided that you had had enough and were sufficiently penitent, and then he would be the one to say, okay, you know, God forgives you or whatever. WENDY DUNCAN 19:32 Doug and I have been facilitating a support group for former members of cults and spiritual abusive groups for about 15 years. And it is amazing because it does not matter if they are coming from a fundamentalist church, Bible based church or Eastern religion or what. They all have the same characteristics. DOUG DUNCAN 19:55 A lot of times when you have several new members in the support group or whatever, somebody will look around and say, did all our leaders go to the same school of the dark arts to learn how to be manipulators? And Wendy’s right, you really can’t tell the difference between that somebody was a Hindu guru who was abusive, or their Christian pastor, frankly. You know, it’s the same set of techniques that they all use. JULIE ROYS 20:23 It seems like every single one of these groups, there is just some real gross hypocrisy going on. For example, you say there’s these really high standards that are applied to the members, right? So, there’s a lot of works for the members. And yet for the leaders, when you bring up things, or if you dare, about their behavior, that’s off limits, right? DOUG DUNCAN 20:47 Right. JULIE ROYS 20:48 So, they have license. DOUG DUNCAN 20:50 They have license, they have no true accountability, which I think is a line of demarcation in a healthy church and a healthy, honestly, in a healthy institution, business or nonprofit or anything, the leadership has accountability. And these leaders, these abusive leaders are very good at evading accountability. In fact, a lot of times, that’s why they set up the whole thing the way they set it up. JULIE ROYS 21:17 I’m curious with you, when did it get to the point, and, you know, I’m guessing you’re having these discussions between the two of you where you’re saying, something’s not right. And so, when did it kind of grow into sort of a crisis? WENDY DUNCAN 21:35 Actually, we did not have those conversations very often, because you didn’t talk about leadership, you didn’t talk about the elders. DOUG DUNCAN 21:44 Yeah, no gossiping, you couldn’t talk about leadership, because you will be violating the injunction against (XXXX). Which I understand why gossiping is bad. But the way that these groups apply that sometimes. WENDY DUNCAN 22:02 It’s to keep themselves from being criticized. DOUG DUNCAN 22:06 Right. That there would never be an opportunity for anybody to even get to the point of being able to hold them accountable, because they even have a conversation it gets, you know, gets labeled as gossip. WENDY DUNCAN 22:18 We did not have those conversations. What was the straw that broke the camel’s back with us was we wanted to get married. And at Trinity Foundation, you had to have the blessing of Ole and the elders in order to get married, but they did not want us to get married. Primarily, and that’s another example of the control by the leadership. We dated for seven years. The week before we got married, my Bible Study leader, one of the elders told me, God is going to kick your butt if you marry Doug. I can’t tell you how much that scared me and how upset that made me, because all week long, I was thinking, oh, something’s gonna happen to Doug. He’s gonna get in a car wreck or something is gonna happen. And what she says is true. God’s gonna punish me for marrying Doug. What a cruel thing to say to somebody! Talk about spiritual abuse! I mean, that was horrendous. DOUG DUNCAN 23:17 And one of the men said, why haven’t you two gotten married yet? And when we said, Trinity Foundation won’t let us. And Mike said, well, I’m Trinity Foundation. I haven’t said anything about you can’t get married. And I think that was a wake-up moment where we said, wait a minute, it’s not Trinity that doesn’t want us to get free. It’s Ole. WENDY DUNCAN 23:38 He was constantly badgering Doug. Every time Doug would bring up the fact that we would like to get married, he would make it about Doug wasn’t being content in being single. One morning, he badgered and harassed and ridicule Doug in a Bible study meeting. And when Doug told me that, for some reason, I snapped. So, I went to Ole, and I said, Ole, I’m so tired of you telling Doug that he’s out of the wrist, and that he’s not being content if he wants to get married. And Ole, your voice is so loud, I can’t hear God’s anymore, and I ran out of the room. And that’s what ended up being the title of the book that I wrote, I Can’t Hear God Anymore. Because Ole had replaced God, his voice. After that, you know, I was going to a meeting and I started crying because I thought I had lost the love of my life, you know? I finally found a man who was a Christian who loved God, and I thought he would never forgive me. DOUG DUNCAN 24:39 I realized that Wendy was right, and that Ole was abusive, that he was abusing his authority. And so long story short, we ended up basically eloping and then that started a cascading series of events that led us leaving the group several months later. WENDY DUNCAN 24:56 They were so angry, so angry that we got married. That’s a whole other story. JULIE ROYS 25:01 But that’s, again, another hallmark of spiritually abusive environments is they don’t respect your personal boundaries. I mean, you should be able to make personal decisions about marriage. Now, you know, say they’re not a believer, okay, that that might be a biblical standard. But I mean, the other things that you’re talking about, like some sort of hoops you have to jump through that are extra biblical. This is just, again, its overstepping boundaries, and I’m guessing there are other boundaries, because there always are. DOUG DUNCAN 25:34 Let me say one thing. That’s another one of Lifton’s criteria, that doctrine over person. So, whatever the teaching is, becomes more important than the humans that you should be trying to shepherd and minister to. So, it becomes about our rules, our system, our procedures, our doctrine. This is the letter of the law rather than the spirit of it. And so, I think that was part of the thing there, too. JULIE ROYS 26:05 So eventually, you do leave. And you leave, as I understand it, pretty broken, pretty confused, pretty without a sense of self, and I so appreciate your chapter in this book, Wounded Faith, Wendy, where you talk about healing our image of God. Even it’s our image of self because you talk about how your image of self and your image of God are connected. So, talk about that. What was your image of God, coming out of the Trinity Foundation? WENDY DUNCAN 26:42 That God hated us. And that he only loved us if we were a part of the Bride of Christ, which was the community. JULIE ROYS 26:53 you were the only bride? DOUG DUNCAN 26:55 Yeah. WENDY DUNCAN 26:56 Yeah. The Trinity Foundation was the Bride of Christ. And God hated you if you were not a part of the bride, not a part of the group. So, he did not love the isolated believer, he did not love the individual believer> You hear something over and over and over for years and years and years, you begin to believe it. I did not believe it at first. But I began to believe that God hated me, that God was harsh and cruel, had no mercy, was just you know, waiting to punish me for anything that I did. And Ole taught he did not want to have a relationship with you. That’s egotistical for you to think that God, the God of the universe, would want to have a relationship with you. God does not want you to pray to him. I mean, you know, that is just so arrogant, for you to think the God of the universe would want a relationship with you or want you to pray. So that’s what I believed about God when I left. All spiritually abusive groups and cults pervert who God really is, the character of God. And, you know, it is so painful, because, you know, we see so many people that are just so broken, and they don’t want anything to do with God. You know, they’re like, No, there’s no God, and God would not allow that to happen to me, you know. And most of the time people join churches, or these groups, because they have a heart for God, they want to know more about him. And then they get abused, and their faith is shattered. That was probably my first task in the recovery, was trying to figure out who God was. And I will tell Doug, Doug, I just want my relationship with God back. And he was like, you can’t have that previous relationship with God back. You know, that’s gone. And the other thing is, when I did talk to God, I’d say, you know, God, I want a relationship with you again, but I don’t like you. I don’t like you, because you’re angry all the time, and you don’t like me and all that. But I want to have a relationship with you, but I don’t like you. So I went through the whole process, I started reading books. I couldn’t read my Bible by the way. I started reading other authors who had struggled with their faith. I was reading one of those books, and all sudden, you know, I had one of those aha moments. And I said, that’s who he is. That’s God. Now I remember. Now I know who he is. And that was just the beginning of reconnecting with God. That God was a God of grace and love and mercy. And he hurt because I had been through that experience. It’s hard because all of these people who’ve gone through these horrible experiences when all they wanted to do was get to know God better, you know? JULIE ROYS 29:45 One of those books that was so helpful to you was The Shack. And I know that that book, well, I have my own experience with The Shack. So, when I was at Moody. So, I was on Moody Radio for 10 years. And The Shack was just, you know, vilified. Like, you cannot read The Shack. I mean, God’s not a woman. And he appears as a woman, and this is, you know, heretical and blah, blah, blah. I never read it because I was busy doing other things. And then I finally realized when the movie came out, I’m like, okay, I can give two hours to just see what this is. And I watched it. And I saw the line that was really close to universal. Like, it gets really, really close to that line. But it never fully goes over. And the truth is, it’s not even saying that God is a woman, because it is a woman that portrays God in the movie, but she’s called Papa. And it’s simply because this man has been so hurt by men that this is a way that God can relate to him. But it’s not saying that God is male, which God isn’t male or female anyway, I mean, he might relate to us as masculine, but we won’t go into that. But yeah, it was so disregarded. Yeah. I’m so glad that you said that. Because when I started writing about The Shack, I thought, oh, my gosh, I’m gonna get really, really criticized for this. Because I was born evangelical Christian. You didn’t read those kinds of books, you know? Those were heretical. But yet it had touched my life. And you’re right, I the same thing happen. If it had not been for such a profound encounter with God and relationship with God, I couldn’t have gone through all the church hurts and church disappointments and abuse that I’ve gone through. I clung to that. And, you know, I’m so glad that I had that to cling to. But thank you for saying that about The Shack. And I watched this movie, and I was profoundly impacted by The Shack. And when I watched it, I thought of a family member. And I said, this family member has to watch The Shack. I just knew it. And so, I called the person up. The person was far from God at that point, although I should say was, was coming closer to God. And I said, can we just go see this together? And the person said, Yes. And we saw it. And this person is bawling during it. Of course, I’m bawling during it. And afterwards, I mean, it was profound. I prayed with that person to start that relationship again, with God, because somehow, and even I think if you grow up in a good church, sometimes the expectations of God, you know, we should, God’s holiness, should make us better understand His grace, right? And should make us better understand His love. But sometimes that’s just a disconnect. It just is. And so, I found that book, that story, remarkably powerful, and expresses the love of God in such, and the mystery of God. Because you know, this side of eternity, we really will not get that God is great, and God is good and bad things happen to me. We just, I mean, you can wrestle with that all day. Job wrestled with it, and he never even gotten an answer, right? I mean, other than for me to describe this to you, you know, would be beyond your ability to comprehend. And at some point, there has to be some trust, and we have to believe. But yeah, when you mentioned the book, The Shack, and having those experiences with God, and for me, I don’t think if I hadn’t had, in my journey, those experiences of knowing profoundly experiencing God and His love in a profound way, we wouldn’t be talking right now. I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing. But it is interesting to me, that sometimes God uses the very things that have been told us are off limits. This is bad. Well, to me it’s sad that it has been vilified the way that it has. And I do think, now would I give The Shack to somebody who was steeped in New Age and universalism? No, probably not. I think though, it can be a very powerful tool for understanding the love of God. Especially if you know, having right doctrine is not a lot of our problems, you know? It’s understanding and comprehending and experiencing God’s love, and God is love. So, if you miss that you miss kind of the whole thing. WENDY DUNCAN 34:45 I don’t know if you’ve read much of Henri Nouwen. But one of the books that he wrote is The Life of the Beloved. He talks about how we are the beloved and once you really get your head and heart around that, its life changing. When you can tell yourself, I’m the beloved, and it’s not about me, it’s about God. That’s who God is. And I also wanted to say that you know what you said about God being a mystery, that is so true. This side of heaven, we’re never going to know everything. We’re not going to know why he does what he does. Now, when I was growing up, and in the churches that I belong to, you know, we were always trying to figure out what God was up to. JULIE ROYS 35:31 And we wanted to put him in and very neat box with a bow on top. WENDY DUNCAN 35:34 It wasn’t until much, much later that I realized, God is a mystery. How in the world am I going to figure out the God of the universe, you know? His ways are not our ways. So. JULIE ROYS 35:47 So good, so, so good. The one thing, too, that I wanted to hone in, and something you wrote about, is that you also had to find an expression of the Church which was different than what you were used to. And I hear this from so many folks. Talk a little bit about that part of your journey. WENDY DUNCAN 36:07 You know, we criticized liturgical churches when I was growing up, you know. They didn’t really know what they were doing. It was all rote; it was all ritual. We started going to an Episcopal Church, and it was the liturgy that gave me back my ability to worship God. Because when I couldn’t pray, the prayers were there for me. When I couldn’t read Scripture, the Scripture was read. When I couldn’t sing, everything about the liturgy is to pull you into the worship. So, it’s a body worship you bow and know Jesus. It is said, there’s times you kneel and stand, and we’re going to do different things that is just so impactful. It gave me back my relationship with God and a way to worship God. So, I will always be grateful for that. DOUG DUNCAN 36:55 What happened with me is, after we left Trinity Foundation, of course, you know, we had spent so much time investigating all of the pastors and evangelicals that, you know, everything just seemed tainted for me and shallow and Wendy soldiered on looking for a church, you know, and I wasn’t really going in the wake of that experience. But I did suggest to her that maybe we could try a liturgical church I had a friend growing up who was an Episcopalian, and I would go to church with him and his family sometimes. And so, I said, maybe we can try an Episcopal Church and I hadn’t been in one in I don’t know how long. But we went to the early service of one, because at that time, I was working on Sundays in retail. So, we’d go to the early service. And of course, like, there were like six people there. I mean, very, very few people there at eight o’clock in the morning, and we didn’t know what to do. You know, there’s all the things you know, where you’re supposed to kneel, and then you’re supposed to do this. And then it came time for communion. And everybody goes down to the altar rail to receive Communion. And the priest came out from behind the altar rail, because we just stayed back in the pews. And he said, would you like to come have communion with us? And we said, you know, we’re not members of this church. And he said, that’s okay. We invite all baptized Christians to have communion. We were baptized Christians. So, we went down. And that was my profound experience at that moment, because having left Trinity Foundation, you know, having flamed out in my cult, I didn’t know, I thought God might be done with me. And then I had just a profound experience of grace and felt God reaching back to me, you know, through the process of the priest and the communion and, you know, having Eucharist there in that little Episcopal Church, that was my moment of reconnection. It was another moment of conversion for me that really reconnected me with God. And so, we ended up joining that little church and went through confirmation, and we’re still Episcopalians. And, you know, it’s still spiritual home for us, I still feel that same connection to God every Sunday morning when we go and we have communion. JULIE ROYS 39:24 I know what you’re talking about. I grew up very low church, and looking down, you know, as all of us evangelicals did, down our nose at all the high church and liturgical stuff it’s too Catholic or whatever. And it’s beautiful. After you’ve read some of those prayers, then the prayers that you often hear that are just made up on the spot seem kind of trite. I mean, it’s like that somebody put a lot of time into a prayer that actually leads you in prayer, in expresses things and reminds you of things that you need, that are already on your heart, but you know, maybe hadn’t been so beautifully expressed that way and will remind you again. To me it’s gorgeous and that the Eucharist in an Anglican service is just absolutely, I mean, it takes you to the throne. I mean, right? I mean, it’s phenomenal. And I love that the Eucharist is the high point. And that is where the church comes together. That we are one body, and Christ is our head. Not a pastor, not a leader, that Christ is our head. And I think that’s just so critical. You wrote a chapter on reconnecting, returning to church, and I thought it was so good. The red flags, that you said, you know, here are some things to look for when after, you know, coming out of spiritual abuse, you’re looking for a church. Although I would say these are things that just generally are probably good things to look for. The first one was, be careful of a church that inhibits your relationship with God. Explain why. DOUG DUNCAN 41:05 Church should not put itself in the place, and certainly, this is what I experienced with Ole. Like, they’re in control of the spigot, and they can turn your relationship with God on and off. Your relationship with God is between you and God. And I understand you express that in you know, in service and in fellowship and other things. But your relationship with God doesn’t belong to your pastor. That’s something that’s between you and God> People who put themselves in the position of saying, you’re on the outs with God, that’s a huge red flag very, very cultic. JULIE ROYS 41:49 You also talked about your faith not being just an intellectual exercise, and I will even put in there, a doctrinal exercise. Why is that so important? DOUG DUNCAN 42:01 Well, it’s because it’s not doctrine over person, it’s person in relationship over doctrine. When I read the words of Jesus and the Gospels, and again, I’m not saying the doctrine is not important, or that is not real or anything. But Jesus talked about relationship. And he talked about love. And he talked about service and giving and all the things that that really, truly make up who we are. And certainly, the doctrine informs that, but it’s not really the main thing. It’s not really the main thing with God. God desires our heart, he desires our trust, he desires our faithfulness, our faith. And I think that’s really what the walk is about, is walking in trust in love with your father. JULIE ROYS 42:49 And I think a lot of the other things that you bring out are things even in our discussion, you know, like, permitting questions. It should be an environment where you can ask, not using scripture to control. I mean, when that scripture becomes a tool in the hands of the leadership, to make you do things, often for them, not even for God, but for them, or for their initiative. We’re going to do this thing or that thing. I remember being at a church, and there were extra biblical things I was being asked to do. And I couldn’t be in leadership unless I did. And I’m like, wait, I don’t even agree with this. So, I think that’s another big red flag that you point out that I think it’s important. And then I think over emphasizing those harsh demands of discipleship. I mean, being a disciple of Christ, He does say, deny yourself and take up your cross and follow Him. Yet, DOUG DUNCAN 43:44 He also says, My yoke is easy, and my burden is light. And so, you have to interpret Scripture in the light of all scripture. And I think that’s another thing that cults do, is the proof texting that they will red-line one scripture and say, Okay, this is the thing. It’s a thing, it’s in Scripture, but it’s not the only scripture, and you have to interpret it in the light of other scripture as well. So, they get out of balance, and interestingly, Ole hated the word balance. You would always irritate him if you said anything about balance. You know, I find balance is an important thing for believers to have. And I think that that was what drew me into Trinity Foundation is because, you know, I was already obsessive in my evangelicalism. I don’t think my walk was healthy, prior to running into Ole. You know, looking back on it. I think it was performance driven, it was obsessive. That set me up to be easy to manipulate, you know. Whereas I think, you know, a mature Christian faith and walk is much more about balance and understanding that, sure, you don’t want to be lackadaisical. You don’t want to be lukewarm. But at the same time, you know, fanaticism, I don’t think really that’s what Christ is calling us to do. JULIE ROYS 45:08 Well, I so appreciate, again, your work that you’ve done. And this book, I think is an incredible resource for folks. I would add two more things on that. One is church governance. And I’ve said this before in podcasts. People’s eyes glaze over when you talk about church governance, but it is so important, because whenever you see abuse, if you look at church governance, you’ll find that there’s almost always no accountability. So there has to be real accountability there. And the other is transparency. If you don’t know what your pastor makes, and don’t give me this, you know, that’s private, whatever. No, I’m paying my money to you. And if you were a secular nonprofit, you would have to publish your 990 with all of the top wage earners public. And so, I expect the same transparency from a church. In fact, I would expect more than from a secular nonprofit, and cannot we do that for our people? And if we’re embarrassed, or we think our people wouldn’t understand the salaries or the way we’re spending our money, then maybe you shouldn’t be spending your money that way, because they’re the ones who are giving you the money. So again, I think that’s so critically important. Ironically, that is one thing Trinity Foundation was big on, was the financial part. But some of these other ones not so much. WENDY DUNCAN 46:28 It is so important for people that are listening to your podcast to know that there is hope. That they can recover from spiritual abuse or cultic abuse. That there is hope they can reconnect with God. And you know what? We tell folks all the time, it’s not easy. It’s going to be the hardest thing you’ve done, but recovery, you can recover. JULIE ROYS 46:50 Thank you for the work you’ve done. I know you’ve done so much speaking and helping other groups of people find their way out of cults, or out of spiritually abusive environments, and find health again, in this road to recovery. So, I just really appreciate that and appreciate the time we spent. So, thank you. DOUG DUNCAN 47:08 Thank you. This was fun. WENDY DUNCAN 47:10 We really appreciate all that you have done. DOUG DUNCAN 47:12 Yeah, for sure. JULIE ROYS 47:13 Again, thanks so much for listening to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And just a reminder that we’re able to do this podcast and all our investigative work at The Roys Report because of the support from people like you. And this month, if you give a gift of $30 or more to The Roys Report, we’ll send you a copy of Wounded Faith: Understanding and Healing From Spiritual Abuse. To give, just text 22525 on your phones and the word REPORT. Or go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. Also, just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcast, Google podcast, Spotify or YouTube. That way you’ll never miss an episode. And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks so much for joining me. I hope you were blessed and encouraged. Read more Trinity Foundation Response to Wendy and Doug Duncan We asked the Trinity Foundation to respond to the Duncans’ allegations, which are outlined in Wendy Duncan’s 2006 book, “I Can’t Hear God Anymore: Life in a Dallas Cult.” Trinity provided the following written statement: Trinity Foundation has an unusual history for a religious non-profit organization. Founded in 1973, after Ole Anthony experienced a dramatic conversion to Christianity, Trinity Foundation hosted Bible studies for almost forty years. In 2010, the church part of Trinity Foundation became an independent organization named Community on Columbia which functions as a small church in Dallas, Texas. Ole learned his theology, not in the church pew or the Christian college classroom. Instead, he was self-taught, spending many hours studying the Old Testament scriptures in a synagogue library. Trinity Foundation began observing the Jewish feasts, from the Passover to the Feast of Tabernacles, believing they pointed to Christ. In 1988, Ole began the Dallas Project to pair homeless families with churches to end the homeless crisis in America. Trinity Foundation members took the homeless into their own homes. One such person was Harry Guetzlaff whose personal life was falling apart as his company was collapsing and he needed a place to live. His arrival at Trinity Foundation forever changed the course of the non-profit organization. Guetzlaff was a filmmaker who committed to giving televangelist Robert Tilton $5,000 in hopes that God would bless this seed-faith money and save his floundering business. His story infuriated Ole and resulted in Trinity Foundation aggressively investigating prosperity gospel-preaching televangelists. In 1991, Ole assisted Prime Time Live journalist Diane Sawyer in investigating three TV preachers: Robert Tilton, Larry Lea and W.V. Grant. My involvement with Trinity Foundation began in the early 2000s by sending tips to investigators. In 2005, after reading a Chronicle of Philanthropy article about Dean Zerbe, aide to Senator Chuck Grassley, I contacted Ole about working with the U.S. Senate to investigate televangelists. Ole sent the Senate Finance Committee attorney a brief challenging Benny Hinn’s tax exempt status and encouraged Zerbe to hold hearings into religious fraud. Our goal was to radically expose the financial crimes of televangelists. In the 1950s and 1960s, Congress held the Kefauver Hearings and Valachi Hearings into organized crime. Mafia figures received subpoenas requiring them to testify and the public learned vital information about the American mafia. Could the same kind of hearings bring critical exposure to televangelists that also operate in a criminal manner? I moved to Dallas in 2012 and served as a volunteer investigator for Trinity Foundation. In 2019 Trinity Foundation received an anonymous grant for its investigations and I was hired as a staff investigator. Even though I didn’t live in Dallas or interact with Wendy and Doug Duncan during their time at Trinity Foundation, I have read Wendy’s book and have several concerns. On page 109, Wendy writes, “Ole had been an expert hypnotist before becoming a religious believer …” Expert? In my opinion, this is an exaggeration. In my view, Ole exaggerated at times and so do the Duncans. One of the biggest criticisms of Trinity Foundation was the “hot seats.” During questioning, members confessed their sins to the community. On page 91, Wendy claims these “psycho-torture sessions … became a daily part of life for the members.” Daily? Based on conversations with Bible study members that attended and participated in hot seats, none of them agree with the characterization that this was “a daily part of life.” Some members claim these sessions helped them tremendously to move closer to God. Page 114 suggests that Ole believed people had to speak in tongues to be saved: “He had said things before about me not having the Spirit because I didn’t and couldn’t speak in tongues. I wasn’t charismatic; therefore, in Ole’s mind I wasn’t saved, I wasn’t one of the chosen ones.” However, a few pages earlier, the book says, “Now, Ole never used the word save.” (page 107) In my own conversations with Ole, he never said that speaking in tongues was a requirement for salvation. I have also talked to long-time members of Trinity Foundation/Community on Columbia and none of them recall Ole ever teaching this. Current Trinity Foundation president Pete Evans has never spoken in tongues and he has been involved in Trinity Foundation since 1974. Page 132 reports, “Actually, Ole’s theology was very Calvinistic …” What Wendy leaves out is that Ole rejected the belief in perseverance of the saints, a key tenet of Calvinism. Ole believed that Christians could lose their salvation, rejecting the idea of once saved, always saved. Wendy also writes that Ole “often referred to himself as an apostle.” (page 133) I never heard Ole refer to himself as an apostle and questioned several long-time members if they heard Ole call himself an apostle. Two denied this charge. One member said that it is possible Ole referred to himself that way a long time ago but not in recent years. On page 178, Wendy summarizes Ole’s view of God: “The only thing God cared about was the church and, of course, the only true church was Trinity.” If Ole really believed that, then why did Ole select several board members for Trinity Foundation who did not attend Trinity Foundation/Community on Columbia Bible studies? Ole never pressured me to attend the local Bible studies and never told me that Trinity Foundation/Community on Columbia was the only true church, and I attend a different church in Dallas. After the Prime Time Live broadcast former members of Tilton’s church sued the televangelist and Tilton countersued his critics and Trinity Foundation. Wendy’s book approvingly quotes (page 181) attorney J.C. Joyce who represented Robert Tilton, but her book doesn’t mention the most controversial, satanic comment of Joyce: “The right to believe what we choose to believe is absolute. We even have the right to defraud people with that belief.” That quote would come back to haunt Joyce as Trinity Foundation’s attorney Gary Richardson would use it during cross examination. While the Duncans deny they contacted televangelists to get funding for their book, we have indisputable evidence that Wendy went to another attorney for numerous televangelists (in fact this attorney represented Tilton, Benny Hinn, Paul and Jan Crouch, etc. at the time) for assistance. For a balanced view of Wendy’s book, I recommend Jackie Alnor’s statement. Pete Evans can recommend several former members of Community on Columbia and Trinity Foundation that would be willing to be interviewed regarding Ole’s character, integrity, and teaching. Doug and Wendy left the Trinity Foundation community in 2000, having met only once I know of with Ole during the last 20 years of his life. Evans says the Duncans have repeatedly misrepresented Ole’s character. Ole poured himself out as a living sacrifice until the very end. On Facebook, Doug defended Christianity Today’s slanderous obituary of Ole. Reporter Daniel Silliman wrote about Ole, “He never stopped being a hustler.” In his final years Ole was mostly bedridden. On rare occasions he would speak to the press. What was the hustle? Silliman and the Duncans were not present when Ole apologized on various occasions to people he hurt. According to Pete Evans, the elders of the home church got together after the book came out and decided they didn’t want to respond to the Duncan’s allegations, to turn the other cheek and to not respond. Additionally, no-one wanted a back-and-forth social media war with the Duncans. Ole agreed with them and never defended himself, despite numerous friends begging him to do so. Evans says that Trinity Foundation suffered financially for over a decade because of the Duncans continuous slander and that Ole personally kept it going by donating his own money to the non-profit organization. While the Duncans use their “testimony” to establish “cult-expert” credentials, Evans worked undercover in a real cult armed with a hidden camera to capture video for Inside Edition. His experiences are told by a couple of AP reporters in chapter 3 of the book, “Broken Faith: Inside One of America’s Most Dangerous Cults”, by Mitch Weiss and Holbrook Mohr. There are people that have left Christianity that attended Trinity Foundation. Unfortunately, that can also be said about churches across the globe. It is our prayer that people will return to Christ like doubting Thomas. Read more

Guest Bios Show Transcript https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9GDwRlUn5Q Is Mark Driscoll a victim of vindictive leaders? Or is he an unrepentant narcissist and liar, who refuses to take responsibility? In part two of this podcast with former Mars Hill Executive Elder Sutton Turner, we discuss the narrative Mark Driscoll has been crafting for eight years. This is one in which Driscoll claims he’s a victim—that leaders at Mars Hill had set a trap, and Mark left before they could destroy him. In this podcast, you’ll hear Robert Morris, pastor of Gateway Church in Texas, help shape Driscoll’s narrative early on. Just six days after Driscoll abruptly resigned, Morris platformed Driscoll at a Gateway conference. And he likened those criticizing Driscoll to Christians who shoot their wounded. You’ll also hear disgraced Hillsong founder Brian Houston do something similar. In an interview played at Hillsong’s 2015 global conference, Houston sympathetically responds as Driscoll tearfully claims to be the target of a trap by Mars Hill elders.  But Sutton Turner—an eyewitness to what happened at Mars Hill—tells the other side of the story. Turner gives facts and testimony that call into question everything Driscoll is purporting. Similarly, former Mars Hill Elder Miles Rohde gives reasons he believes Driscoll’s latest narrative is fiction. But perhaps most gripping is hearing Miles and Sutton, who clearly loved Driscoll and Mars Hill, express their heartache over what’s happened and their warning should Driscoll continue on his path. Listen to Part One of “Mark Driscoll: The ‘Trap’ & The Truth” Listen to Inside the Driscoll ‘Cult,’ Part One & Part Two This Weeks Guests Sutton Turner Sutton Turner was Executive Pastor, Executive Elder and Board Member of Mars Hill Church from 2011 to 2014.  He, Mark Driscoll and Dave Bruskas served together leading the church. Sutton has over 30 years of experience leading companies as CEO across US, Qatar and Abu Dhabi, as well as two stints in full-time ministry with Mars Hill and Celebration Church. Sutton is married to Marci Turner of 25+ years and has three kids. They live in College Station, Texas and he is currently CEO of Life Bridge Management, a real estate company with over 50 employees. Miles Rohde Miles Rohde was one of eight elders who investigated formal charges against Mars Hill founding pastor Mark Driscoll in 2014. He participated in the Lead Pastor Residency Program at Mars Hill and was planning on planting Mars Hill Spokane when Driscoll abruptly resigned. Instead, he planted Redemption Spokane, where he’s still pastoring today. Miles and his wife, Pam, have been married for 25 years and have two children. Show Transcript SPEAKERS MARK DRISCOLL, JULIE ROYS, SUTTON TURNER, MILES ROHDE, ROBERT MORRIS, BRIAN HOUSTON JULIE ROYS 00:01 Is Mark Driscoll a victim of vindictive leaders who simply wanted to take over Mars Hill Church? Or is he an unrepentant narcissist and bully who refuses to take responsibility? Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And in part two of my interview with former Mars Hill executive elder Sutton Turner, we discussed the narrative Mark Driscoll has been crafting for eight years. Ever since abruptly resigning from Mars Hill in 2014, Driscoll has claimed he’s the victim, the leaders at Mars Hill set a trap and Mark left before they could destroy him. In this podcast, you’ll hear Robert Morris, pastor of Gateway Church in Texas introduce Driscoll at a conference just six days after Driscoll resigned. And despite the fact that Driscoll refused to submit to a restoration plan by the Mars Hill elders, Morris says nothing about Driscoll’s sin. Instead, he urges everyone to welcome Driscoll and Morris likens criticizing Driscoll to the church shooting its wounded. You’ll also hear a similar narrative in 2015, in an interview between Driscoll and Hillsong founder Brian Houston. But you’ll also hear the other side of the story, as both Sutton Turner and former Mars Hill elder, Miles Rohde give their perspective. And you’ll hear their heartbreak over a brother who they say has refused to repent from his sin. This is such an important podcast with lessons for both leaders and congregants. But before we begin, I want to thank the sponsors of this podcast, The Restore Conference and Marquardt of Barrington. I’m so excited to announce the next Restore Conference, June 9 and 10th, at Judson University in Elgin, Illinois. Joining us for this amazing two-day event to restore faith in God and the church will be many leading abuse survivor advocates. These include Wade Mullen, Scot McKnight, Mary Demuth, and Kyle James Howard. I’ll be there as well. But by far what makes this gathering so special is you the survivors, allies, activists, and church leaders who truly desire to see healing and reform in the church. For more information just go to JULIEROYS.COM/RESTORE. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity, and transparency. That’s because the owners there, Dan and Kurt Marquardt, are men of integrity. To check them out, just go to BUYACAR123.COM. Again, joining me on part two of this podcast about what really happened at Mars Hill, is Sutton Turner. Sutton served on staff at Mars Hill Church from 2011 to 2014. First as a general manager and then as an executive pastor, executive elder and board member. You’ll also hear excerpts today of my interview with Miles Rohde, a former elder at Mars Hill who now pastors Redemption Spokane. But we begin with a clip of Robert Morris introducing Mark Driscoll at the Gateway Conference on October 20, 2014. This is just six days after Driscoll abruptly resigned from Mars Hill, refusing to submit to a restoration plan by his elders and abandoning his congregation. ROBERT MORRIS 03:15 I want to introduce you to a friend, a good friend of mine. And I’ve been speaking with him for several months now. He’s going through a difficulty. And most of you probably read about. I know the behind-the-scenes story. He was supposed to speak at our conference. It was publicized that we canceled him. It’s not true. We did not cancel. When speaking to Mark Driscoll. We did not cancel him. He and I decided together that he was going to step out of ministry for a season and get some healing. He asked me, could I come to the conference and just attend? And I thought that was very big of him to just come and be ministered to. Again, I want to say a couple of things. First of all, I want you to know that everything you read on the internet is not true. And there are some pastors, myself included and some others that you would know that were speaking into his life, and he’s listening. And most of what you read is not true. Some of it is he did make some mistakes. But here’s what I figure. We’ve got two choices. One is we could crucify him. But since someone’s already been crucified for him, the other choice is we could restore him with a spirit of gentleness considering ourselves less we are also tempted. It’s very sad that in the church, we’re the only army that shoots at our wounded. And I want you to stop it. I really do. Thank you. I’d like for you to show your love for him. I’d like for you to just welcome him. Mark, would you stand up? This is Mark Driscoll JULIE ROYS 05:23 Unbelievable actually, we can’t listen to all that applause because it goes on and on, like, the love for Mark Driscoll. And I’m gonna play the clip of what he said when he got up there. But I just wanted to play that introduction by Robert Morris, because I think it’s spiritually abusive. I think it crafts a lie. And I think Robert Morris knew that, because like he said he was privy. So, you were privy to everything. What do you hear? And how do you respond to what you just heard? SUTTON TURNER 05:55 So, when you hear Robert Morris that they want to restore him, like There’s pastors at Mars Hill Church that wanted to restore Mark Driscoll. But restoration is the third or fourth stage in the process. We have to have repentance and reconciliation before that before you rebuild somebody back and basically rebuild trust in restoration. And so, I just, I think it’s so well, I mean, it’s typical of an ARC church, to say that, in my opinion, and having served at an ARC church in the past, and I would also say that what Robert says to the men that investigated Mark and found him unfit for ministry, it’s a big push back to those men. It’s in your face, like someone with great character like Miles Rohde, that you didn’t do the work. You didn’t meet with the people that sinned, you can’t read your Bible, and you don’t know what First Timothy says. It just undermines what little accountability we were trying to put in place at Mars Hill. Now granted, that’s the last place that you would say that there was accountability. But there was an attempt at accountability at Mars Hill. And it we failed, right? Because I would say, we failed because the person wasn’t restored. It wasn’t redemptive. It didn’t bring glory to God in that process. Because I’ll tell you like Mark Driscoll repenting and reconciling with all those people and then being restored to ministry, would have been amazing, it would have been awesome. And I think that in the heart of every elder, that that’s what they wanted to see. That’s why they were going through and listening to all these painful conversations that they had to have with people that had been sinned against. So, when I hear Robert Moore say restored, I’m just like, death. JULIE ROYS 07:58 Well, is this classic DARVO, right? Deny attack and reverse victim and offender. So, he’s basically saying those elders who I think served with integrity in what they did. They’re shooting their own wounded. They’re the bad guys. Driscoll, who has just abandoned his church is the victim, and let’s all create sympathy using scripture, which is the most perverse thing. Scripture to create sympathy for the man who really was at the center of all of this pain and caused so much of it, and yet, he’s manipulating them to feel sympathy for really the perpetrator. And it showed a path to Mark. Six days after he resigned. Yeah, it showed a path to Mark on how he can return to ministry by being a victim, and by shooting the guys that investigated him. He does it on the Daystar. He does it with Brian Houston. He repeatedly he did it at his own church. I mean, he just repeats the same, I’m the victim. I’m the victim. I’m the victim. Those elders were out to get me it was a trap. It was a trap. And by the way, you can’t question that because God told me it was a trap. Oh, and yeah, I that I was in ministry, and I would have people tell me, God told me, and I was like, no, no, no, don’t use that. Because you can’t even discuss it, you know? Like, okay. But let me play what Mark said. And when he actually got up on stage, there at Robert Morris’ church. MARK DRISCOLL 09:33 Yeah, for me, I’m in a season of just healing up praying, asking the Lord Jesus through wise counsel to show me any blind spots where I can grow. And as pastor appreciation month I just want to say that Jesus, Jesus really appreciates you and appreciate your family. And if you think of anything, just pray for my family. I think there’s a lot I could say that might make me feel better. I don’t know if it would make me look better, but I don’t think it would make Jesus look better. So, I won’t say anything other than, just pray for my family. We’ve had a very trying season and just trying to figure out how to be a good pastor to my family first,. We all know that’s the most important thing. And would you mind if I shared a story or two? Is it okay? Like, I’ve cried a lot lately, that a rough season for the family, I guess you could take a seat. And for those of you I would just say, don’t overlook your family as first ministry. And for me would just really appreciate your prayer for our family. We’ve got five kids, three boys, two girls, ages eight to 17. And we’ve moved three times for safety issues. People arrested at our home, death threats, address posted online, all kinds of things. And more recently, it’s gotten very severe. We came home from break there was rusty nails all over the driveway. We had a night where the kids want to sleep out in the tents. And I got a call that my address was posted online by the media. And so, we went out of town for a few days came back. The kids said, no, we got to sleep in the tent. So, I didn’t sleep. But we were in the tents all night. And I woke up in the morning at about 6;30 or so and huge rocks about the size of baseballs come flying it my kids, 8, 10 and 12 years of age. Call the police flee into the house for their safety. A few days later, I think it was, I don’t even remember, the media flies overhead with a helicopter and it’s trying to flush this out for a story and, and that night, we’re hiding in the house. My eight-year-old son comes down and he’s wearing a military jacket. He’s loading up his airsoft rifle. And he looks at me, and he says, hey, Dad is this is this jacket bulletproof? I just start crying. I said, why is that little buddy? He said, well, it’s bad guys in the helicopter come to shoot the family, right? He didn’t have any concept of media coverage. He thought it was bad guys coming to kill his family. And he was going to defend his sister. And so, praise God, he’s finally sleeping in his bed again. But it’s been a while to get him to do that with night terrors. And so, there’s just a lot going on for our family. I appreciate Pastor Robert and the team here. I just want to come here to sing, to pray, to learn, to grow, to repent, to heal, and God is surrounding me with some great pastors and friends. And if I could just say anything, it’s every pastor needs a pastor. And, and you pastors, your family needs you to be their pastor. So, thank you. JULIE ROYS 12:34 Again, kind of hard to hear that. I can’t imagine at the time with these wounds so raw for everybody at Mars Hill, hearing Mark say those things, which of course, he’s talking about things happening to his children, you know? I mean, wow! I mean, as a mother, when I hear something like that, if I didn’t know a little bit more, I would probably be I mean, it does. It elicits a lot of empathy for the children for the family. Is it true what he’s talking about? SUTTON TURNER 13:07 Okay, so I live down the street from Mark. He lived on, let’s just call it an acre and a half, probably. incredibly tall pine trees. I mean, we’re talking in diameter and 40 feet tall, and incredibly thick. It was like a forest behind his house. The place where he told me because I asked him I was like, Okay, so where did this specifically happen? Oh, they parked right here. Okay, so we’re talking 100 feet from where the tent is. And unless these rocks are able to go sideways around because you can’t throw it over. Because we’re talking 40-50 feet trees. So, it was just those are the types of stories that to say that they’re unbelievable, when you hear it, you’re like, oh, super empathy. But then like me, I’m like, wait a minute. So how did this happen? Where did they park the car? So, they threw it, and it went through all these trees and to hit like, it’s just astounding, if you don’t know where he lived. Also, there was a hospital with a heliport within two blocks of his house. There were helicopters flying over all the time because it was the first flight responders in Edmonds. So, like so some of the details that he leaves out to elicit empathy and to tell his side of the story work, but if you don’t know all the details, then you’re like, oh, I’m feel so sorry for him. I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe that these elders did that to him. JULIE ROYS 14:52 Classic kind of move to create empathy for yourself and to bolster yourself and that narrative of being harassed and abused. He was on a podcast with Carey Nieuwhof in 2020, wasn’t it? And one of Carey’s top podcasts of the year. And I remember when that happened, you sent me a text. You’re like, oh, my word listen to this. And I’ve reached out to Carey. He took it down. SUTTON TURNER 15:20 He took it down. JULIE ROYS 15:21 Finally, but it wasn’t after my reporting, which I reported soon after that. SUTTON TURNER 15:27 I called the day that it was released because I was so shocked. And he said, well, I had no idea of the background of it. And I said, Okay, so are you gonna let me come on and tell my story? But the only difference is, you won’t get as many hits with me being on the podcast, as you did with Driscoll. And that’s the key. People do it to build their own platform. They’re using Mark. And Mark is glad to do that because it helps him build his story. But I said, like, and I sent him all the information, not all the information I produced, but I gave him a synopsis. Well, I had no idea that he was under church discipline and formal charges. And that’s the thing that continues to happen and will continue to happen. JULIE ROYS 16:09 Let me push back on that. Carey is a church leader. This stuff was public by then, all of us knew. I mean, there’s no excuse for that. And after I published the articles on what was happening at Trinity Church, and the things that he was doing, 24/7 surveillance of ousted congregants, you know, who are out of favor with him, this loyalty scale from one to zero or whatever, how loyal you are to Mark determines your access to him. I mean, this is cult like stuff that’s going on. He has no elders, no accountability. Then he supposedly put elders in. I mean, it’s a joke. And by the way, Robert Morris helped him relaunch and stayed on that board at his new church for the longest time. And Larry Osborne continued having him come to Sticky conferences for years and years and years when all of this was out. It took, and again, it wasn’t information that wasn’t known. I will say the rise and fall of Mars Hill, took the information that was readily available. Of course, there was a lot more detail and really, really well done. I think Mike Cosper and CT did a fantastic job. But I’m just saying, if you didn’t know by that time that Mark Driscoll had serious, serious character issues and problems and hadn’t made things right with the people he hurt, then you weren’t paying attention. And so, what it took, though, and this is what I found over and over and over, is it takes public exposure. It’s public pressure. But not for a second do I buy that these people who continued platforming Mark Driscoll didn’t know. SUTTON TURNER 17:44 You’re probably right. I’m from the standpoint of giving people the benefit of the doubt, assuming that Carey didn’t know the details, and see what I think is Carey listens to something like Robert Morris, okay. And he doesn’t read anything that Warren has done. Throckmorton, or you’ve done, he just takes the story that Mark is creating. And he’s a victim, and we need to empathize with him. And he’s working on things, and his family has been abused. And they believe that line and they don’t hear the other side of it, which is all the people that are lined up to sit down with Mark Driscoll and talk to him and have a repentance and reconciliation meeting. And by the way, that line is massive, massive. Me being with you today, I bet you I get 10 people that reach out to me over the next week, whether it be on social media, or whether it will be on my website, and they’ll reach out and say, hey, I heard you with Julie Roys. There’s something that you did in 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, that I have not been able to get over and we need to talk, and I’ll need to set up a zoom, we’ll talk, and we’ll work on some type of reconciliation. But Mark’s never done any of that. Because you know why? Because it’s really hard. I mean it’s really hard work. And it’s emotional and its draining, and you have to empathize with the person that you sinned against, and you have to really understand how you hurt someone from their side of the coin. And that’s the work that Mark doesn’t still does not want to do because he doesn’t see that’s it. JULIE ROYS 19:30 Well, I appreciate your heart. I appreciate giving benefit of the doubt. I guess my where my skepticism comes in as I reached out to Larry when he was platforming Mark, I got no response. Carey Nieuwhof when you reached out to him, did he change or was it from what I saw, it wasn’t immediately he left that up for it wasn’t SUTTON TURNER 19:51 It wasn’t immediate it was oh, I’m sorry. I did not know. JULIE ROYS 19:55 Yeah, but he didn’t take it down again till the public pressure. So that’s where here’s the thing that I’ve heard repeatedly from victims over and over and over again. They said, Julie, it’s not it’s not what James McDonald did. It’s not that there’s a James McDonald it’s not that there’s a Mark Driscoll it’s not that there’s a John MacArthur, there’s not that there’s a Ravi Zacharias. It’s not that, you know, all of these people, it’s not that there’s, there’s people in these positions who do horrible things. That’s not the point. What has hurt me so much, has been the body of believers, that when I have said something, have not listened to me, and have not fought for justice. And what I have found is that so many of them are cowardly in their responses. And that’s why you know, maybe beating an old drum here, but I’m gonna keep beating it. Because until the Christian community stands up and get some courage, and some integrity in the way that they hold each other accountable, this is not going to change. SUTTON TURNER 20:53 I was one of those people that they need to stand up against. So, I’m not going to sit here and be holier than thou. I sinned a lot against a lot of people that I need to and have reconciled with and will continue to the day I die. Because some people it takes a long time to get over and be able to process that hurt. And that tragedy that happened in their lives. And so, it could be it could be 20 years from now, and still have someone that says, yeah, 28 years ago, this happened. And you’ve got to be willing to meet with them when they’re ready, not when you’re ready. JULIE ROYS 21:31 Well, I appreciate that. And again, let me just say on the record, it’s not that I don’t believe in restoration, I do. Not necessarily restoration to leadership, some of these guys are permanently disqualified. But restoration to the church, restoration relationships, healing, there’s grace for everybody. None of us have committed the unforgivable sin. But as you said, there needs to be repentance. And while we’re on this, and you’ve mentioned it, and I think it especially now needs to be brought up again, because Brian Houston, who is the founder of Hillsong, who himself has now stepped down, but who is also signaling that he’s relaunching in ministry. He had Driscoll on. And I think it’s worth revisiting that discussion. So, I have a short clip from their interview. And again, this was so this was about a year later, this was in 2015, when Brian Houston had Mark Driscoll come on, and he prerecorded an interview. And then this was played at the big Hillsong conference that they did in Sydney, Australia in 2015. BRIAN HOUSTON 22:44 So, in your resignation letter, you detailed a fair bit about mistakes you had made, and offenses that you had caused. And did you feel like that was received by people? MARK DRISCOLL 22:57 I never got to say goodbye to the church and the people. And so, what went public was, uh, it was actually the resignation letter that went to the legal governing board that was in authority over me. And so, I know, under the circumstances that there wasn’t a way to do that that would have been clean or easy. I don’t have any criticism of the board. I think for the people that meant there wasn’t closure. And I didn’t, we didn’t get to say anything. And so, and we didn’t expect to resign, I met with the board. There was a whole list of things that were charged by current and former leaders and there was an internal governance struggle and threats of legal action. And it got very complicated. And a lot of it was anonymous through the internet, so you don’t know who is saying or doing what. And so, I invited the board to do a full examination, interview anybody anything. And we would submit to whatever verdict that they determined. That went I think about eight weeks, we met Friday and Saturday, October 10, and 11th. I remember because the 11th was my birthday. And so, Grace and I were present with the board, and they said, we see in your history of leadership, less in more recent years, but particularly in the past, pride, anger, and domineering leadership style. That would be the three exact words they used. We don’t see anything disqualifying. These are areas we want you to grow. We want you to return to leadership of the church soon. They wanted to do some cleanup internally. We want you back on January 4 in the pulpit, give you time to heal, things to cool down and for some changes to be made. We agreed to that. I sent in a go forward plan. And then we went home to have birthday cake with the kids. I think it was on Monday night I was in the bedroom Grace was in the living room. And so, we told the board and told the kids, come back and resume preaching and try and love and serve and fix what was a struggling church. and God had provided a way for us to do that as volunteers. And so, our plan was to come back as volunteers. And then on that Monday night, I was in the bedroom, Grace was in the living room. And He spoke to me, and He spoke to her in a supernatural way that neither of us anticipated or expected. And so, Grace walked in. And she said, I feel like the Lord just spoke to me and said, what we’re supposed to do. And I was like, I feel like the Lord just spoke to me and said, that we’re supposed to, it’s not what we wanted. It’s not what we’d agree to, and it’s not what we have planned for. And so, I asked her, well, what to the Lord, say to you?, because I didn’t want to influence her. And she said, (We’re released from Mars Hill.) So, she said, well, what did he say to you? And I said, the Lord revealed to me that, you know, a trap has been set. There’s no way for us to return to leadership. And I didn’t know what that meant, or what was going on at the time. And I said, he said, we’re released, and we need to resign. So, you know, this is not what we anticipated. And a lot of people thought, you know, maybe he’s got another plan. We didn’t, we didn’t know what we were doing. And Grace fell to the floor, and she was just sobbing uncontrollably. And I’d never seen my wife like that she was devastated. JULIE ROYS 26:48 Your response to that? SUTTON TURNER 26:49 So, it’s similar to other people that have platformed Mark. They refer to the 25 formal charges as mistakes, you know. So, Brian is minimizing Mark’s own activity in the reason why there were 25 formal charges brought against him that found him disqualified. I also find it remarkable when I listened to this, that Mark couldn’t remember the three things that he was charged with. He totally botches it, and can’t even recall, you know that it was quick tempered, arrogant, and domineering in leadership. He got domineering, and leadership. And so that, and then if you if you notice, Mark puts this quote in here, “and there was an internal governance struggle and threats of legal action.” The threats from legal action, were only from Mark, telling people not to say anything. I got that, and a lot of other people got that, that were on the investigating. And this is post Mars Hill. This is 2015, that that happened. In this internal governance structure? No, there’s no internal governance structure. There was not. It was just Mark; you’re not going to be in leadership. And you’re going to go through a time of restoration. The idea that he was going to go back, Mark wanted to come back. Actually, during the investigation, Mark thought that he was going to preach literally three weeks after the meeting that they had that weekend of the 10th and the 11th. So, he thought that he was coming right back. That’s one of the reasons why he was so surprised. That’s one of the reasons why I’ve documented in the notes on how he was just aggressive to the board at that point in time. But this whole idea that there was an internal governance structure. No, that was not the case. The problem was, they started to realize we no longer can just do exactly what Driscoll wants to do, based upon the information that they had gone through with all of those interviews. And so those are the things that I hear. And it’s kind of a progression, you can put this on a timeline and see Mark’s story evolve. And obviously now he’s added adultery to this because remember, like when he met with Robert Morris, six days later, there wasn’t a trap, but it just grows over time. And I’ll tell you, like, people have asked me to work for Driscoll and what you saw, and Mark has an amazing ability to tell himself something over and over again, that he will then believe is true. Like I’ve seen it happen so many times that he will repeat. Like I am sure that in his mind. You put him on a lie detector test today on the kids getting thrown rocks to their tent, and he will test out I guarantee you he’ll flatline that and pass that polygraph test because he said it so many times, it’s now true. And I saw that so many times over the course, like he would tell himself well, I didn’t know the information on Result Source. And I was like, then like, no, no, no, I can show you the emails that Jamie was sending you about the information. You had a meeting with Mike Anderson. Like, you knew exactly what you were doing. But he’s told himself so many times that he’s able to say, well, I never knew anything. And he thinks, again, just like in the clip that you played from this past weekend, that he can stand in front of Jesus and be blameless on these things. JULIE ROYS 30:38 I did ask Miles about the most recent like you said this, this story has grown. This is the first time ever, that Mark Driscoll has claimed that the leaders at Mars Hill were planning on accusing him of adultery. There were some plots from what I understand you had received a text that, that if you didn’t resign, some things were going to happen. Is that is that accurate? SUTTON TURNER 31:01 Who knows where those texts were coming from? They could have been from any country in the world, right? Yes, they’re, they’re scary when you get those texts. And you have to weigh, you have to count the cost at this point in time. So, at the time, there were so many people trying to get Mark to resign, trying to get me to resign, but it was outside pressure. And so, the key here is to not put all of these things because Mark does this. In his statement to Brian Houston, he’s putting together the things that were happening on blogs, on top of these honorable men that were doing the investigation. And that’s not fair. That’s not fair. Like those guys didn’t write those blogs. Those guys didn’t do any of those things. Those guys were investigating 25 formal charges of being disqualified from ministry. That’s what they were doing. And so, to say, I mean, you and I both we can get on Twitter, and we can just scroll through it, we can find hundreds of lies that are out there. And at this point in time, there was a lot of those lies that were out there about me, about Mark, about the church about lots of things, but that’s cluttering the discussion. What he is saying with his adultery claim is, is those investigating elders, many of those that he met with in the summer of 2015, after he had resigned, that then told him that there was a nuclear option that they had discussed using Mark’s words, that was going to blame him for adultery, on Grace, and was going to get him out of the pulpit. And that’s just crazy. So, to me, adding the social media and critics and then adding these honorable elders in, I don’t think it’s fair. JULIE ROYS 33:01 Yeah. And let me just, I feel a need to speak to the honorable bloggers because I mean, it’s just such an easy target to talk about the media or the bloggers or social media and how awful they were. I will say this Warren Throckmorton had he not blogged what he did, and he sourced it well. Janet Mefferd, if she hadn’t spoken up about the plagiarism. I mean, there’s a number of people. And this was kind of the beginning of holding church leaders accountable, bypassing the gatekeepers. Like this didn’t come through CT initially. This didn’t come through World Magazine, even whose done some great investigations. It came through bloggers; it came through people on social media holding accountable and had that not happened. I’m not sure any of this would have come to light. SUTTON TURNER 33:50 As you know, Warren and I have talked many times; told my story to Warren many times. He and I have totally reconciled. I have apologized to him because I attacked him during those days in a vicious, horrible way. And it was sinful, and I needed to own that sin towards Warren. But he did a very honorable job. I mean, literally, if it wasn’t for him on the Medford thing, that because to him, the plagiarism is a huge issue to him. He’s got a real moral compass on plagiarism. And that’s why he followed up on that. He was like, wait a minute, this isn’t right. And if he hadn’t really there’s a lot of chain of events that might not have happened if he hadn’t started with that initial one. JULIE ROYS 34:38 And he’s an academic, so it makes sense that he would. I want to play what, what Miles told me his response when he heard these allegations on the 23rd again, that there was a plot and his response and what he thought MILES ROHDE 34:56 I was stunned because it completely just floored me, that he would be so bold to say that when that was absolutely not true. In the meetings, that scenario he had, I know with many people, when probably a lot of those were very difficult to have. But when it came to those who are investigating, I know of a few of us who had meetings at Panera that were primarily, again, this was after he resigned, their concern for him. How was he doing? How’s the family doing? So, he did ask about traps, but we I remember saying there was no such thing, no such thing. And so, the allegation that the nuclear option was going to be accusing him of adultery, it’s shocking, absolutely shocking, that he would say something like that. JULIE ROYS 35:50 So, Miles was shocked just like you were shocked. And he also expressed some concern for Mark Driscoll’s soul in citing some of the stuff that you did about what he said about standing before Jesus. And I asked Miles, if there’s one thing that you could say to Mark Driscoll right now, what would it be? Take a listen, MILES ROHDE 36:16 When I heard him say in that sermon that, that he’s ready to meet Jesus, it’ll be a great day for him, I was concerned. It is for those who are redeemed for sure. But before every tear is wiped away, there’s going to be an account of all that is done. And that won’t be a great time. And so, I am worried for his soul. So that’d probably be the thing that I tell him if I could have, just a concern for your soul brother. If you are too, brother, because none of this stuff will matter, in the end. It’s not right. JULIE ROYS 36:54 And have you ever heard repentance from Mark Driscoll about this like true repentance? MILES ROHDE 37:00 I haven’t. JULIE ROYS 37:01 I can see on your face. You feel that concern, too. SUTTON TURNER 37:06 Yeah, I mean, we served together, you know? I mean, my family was super close. My girls were super close with his girls. We went on vacations together; I would have considered him a friend. And it’s sad. It’s sad. I still love Mark. Also, that’s the thing. I still love Mark Driscoll. He’s still my brother. I want to see, the reason why I’m doing all this is to not only to highlight that, but maybe also maybe that there’s a change in him. I told you earlier, like, how glorifying would it be for Mark to reconcile with all those people and for, you know, for the hurt, that he participated in for that to be redeemed and reconciled, and there be a restoration to take place with some of these people? You know, I mean, there was 41 Elders this summer, that signed a letter that we published in CT, to try to actually warn that his current church that he’s disqualified, and to alert them of what happened in the past. And from what we hear, we’re not there. We’re not elders, we have no jurisdiction, like nothing. We’re just Christians like, going, hey, other Christians, you might be in not a good place, you might be lied to. And I just I have seen people be hurt, that are in the church, because I’ve reconciled with them. And I’ve heard their stories. And I’ve heard how it affected their kids, and all the difficulties that they’ve had on going back to church after leaving Mars Hill. Some people haven’t gone back to church, and it’s just horrible and crying with those people. And to think that there’s new people that are in those situations going forward. It just It breaks my heart. It really does. And I don’t want it to keep happening. JULIE ROYS 39:05 And it continues to happen. I’ve talked to a number of families there at the Trinity Church who have been horribly wounded. I’ve talked to the family members of Driscoll’s own family, his in laws who have been completely cut off because they didn’t toe the party line with Mark Driscoll. I’ve talked to the former head of security and another security person there at the Trinity Church. In fact, if you haven’t heard those podcasts, I would encourage you go back and listen to those. It’s chilling. I would say Mark Driscoll has not been chastened or humbled. He’s gotten more bold, and he’s gotten more brash, and he’s determined not to make the mistake he made at Mars Hill and submit himself to any accountability which is a scary place for any one of us to be, and because all of us need accountability, all of us need our brothers and sisters speaking into our lives. And so, it is a scary thing and Scripture warns about it. I hope right now, if there’s people listening who are going to the Trinity Church, I hope you take these warnings to heart because Scripture is very clear that there will be false teachers out there. And there will be people pretending to be one thing and be another. And there is an awful lot, you know, you know, a tree by its fruit. And if you look at the fruit of this tree, there’s some issues. SUTTON TURNER 40:24 Julie, also, too, you know, I work for Vanderbloemen for three years after, most recently, and they are an executive search firm for churches, helping pastors and churches and find them each other. And I will say through that experience, I see hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of churches that I worked with, not from a ministry basis, but from a business basis. And there are a lot of Mark Driscolls out there. So, this shouldn’t just apply to people in the Trinity Church Some of the things that they’re maybe read about that happened at Mars Hill might be applicable to their local church, it might not be a mega church, it might be. And so, I hope it’s illuminating. And by the way, there’s some amazing pastors out there like Miles, that are loving their people and serving their people and serving the Lord and doing an amazing job of being a shepherd. Don’t get me wrong. But there are some bad pastors out there that are hurting people. And so, I only say this not only for the people in the Trinity Church today, but people that are in similar churches as the Trinity Church. JULIE ROYS 41:41 Well, and speaking of Vanderbloemen, it reminds me of all the reporting I did on Andy Wood, and Vanderbloemen was very involved in the investigation, which they’re not really an investigative firm. I mean, it’s crazy that they were hired to do that. And clear to Andy Wood of the many charges before they even talk to, to victims. So that’s really an amazing investigation that you can do that you can know before you’ve even talked to any victims that a man is innocent of the charges. SUTTON TURNER 42:11 And I’ll say this on that subject. You look at what the guys did, the elders did at Mars Hill, by talking. They went, two elders went to talk to victims. They took notes, and they listened. And they interviewed those people for as long as they wanted to talk. Okay? That’s, it’s an enormous undertaking. And unfortunately, it doesn’t sound like from what I’ve read, and what you’ve reported on that Vanderbloemen did that. And unfortunately, that’s the only way, in my opinion, to do a formal investigation of a pastor, and it’s exhausting. And you have to pray for those people that are doing that investigation. And to me, those need to be local elders in that local church that know those people and know the circumstances that are around that. That’s my opinion. JULIE ROYS 43:08 Well, I would have liked to seen a third party that understands spiritual abuse very well, like Grace, come in and do that. And the other thing that I appreciate about Grace is that when they do an investigation, they will only do it under the agreement that that report will be published. And so, there’s just incredible accountability. SUTTON TURNER 43:29 And you know that there’s some churches that don’t have those people that are, whether they’re volunteer elders, or whatever their polity doesn’t allow that. And so, some places like Grace are needed to come in because that accountability structure just doesn’t exist. So, like if, for example, with Mark Driscoll today, there’s no accountability structure. So, somebody would have to be brought in from the outside to do any type of investigation, because there’s no structure of accountability whatsoever. JULIE ROYS 43:59 Well, and I’ll say this, and we probably need to wrap this up. We could talk so long about this. There are different ways of holding accountability. Some are within the church themselves, and internal, some are external. And we can debate the validity of all of those. But I’ll say this, it seems to me that what Mars Hill did, there was clearly even though these men had reason, and even, as you said, the fear of crossing Mark Driscoll and despite all of that, they came back with a report they did, and we see Mark not chastened. And so, my hope and prayer is I would love to see him repent as you’ve expressed. But in the meantime, I would like to warn, be the watchman and warn people away until that happens. Thank you so much Sutton for being willing to speak to me and be so open and share your heart and the truth of things and I want to thank you especially for your humility in admitting your part. That is so rare and yet so necessary in the church. So, thank you. SUTTON TURNER 45:06 Thank you. JULIE ROYS 45:07 And thanks so much for listening to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And just a reminder that we’re able to do our podcast and all our investigative work at The Roys Report because of support from people like you. If you appreciate our work here at The Roys Report, would you please consider donating to help us continue? To do that just go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. Also, just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcast, Google podcast, Spotify, or YouTube. That way you’ll never miss an episode. And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks so much for joining me today. I hope you were blessed and encouraged. Read more

Guest Bios Show Transcript https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6trjiHLh-0c Since his abrupt resignation from Mars Hill Church in 2014, Mark Driscoll has claimed he was the victim of a vindictive plot. But last week, Driscoll dropped a bombshell. He claimed that Mars Hill leaders were planning to accuse him of adultery if he didn’t resign. In this week’s podcast, Sutton Turner—one of only three former executive elders at Mars Hill—joins me to set the record straight. Turner says Driscoll’s claim about the so-called “nuclear option” is pure fiction. Plus, it impugns the character of the men who loved Driscoll and courageously sought to lead him to repentance and restoration. Divulging new accounts revealing the extent of Driscoll’s bullying and rage, Turner paints a picture of a man who refused accountability and abandoned his congregation. Yet, instead of owning what he did, Driscoll crafted a false narrative that he’s been editing for the past eight years, Turner says. And in this narrative, Driscoll is the victim, not the predator—and the victims are the bullies! Pictured at Mars Hill Church, l-r, Dave Bruskas, Sutton Turner, Mark Driscoll, and James MacDonald (Sept. 2012) Also adding details about what really happened in 2014 and beyond is Miles Rohde. Miles was one of eight Mars Hill elders who investigated the charges of bullying, intimidation, and arrogance against Driscoll—and found him guilty. Miles has never talked publicly about his experience. But given the new claims Driscoll is making, Miles said he felt it necessary to defend the integrity of the men with whom he served. This podcast is a powerful cautionary tale about the importance of good church governance, the pitfalls of celebrity, and the absolutely devastating impact of narcissistic pastors. This Weeks Guests Sutton Turner Sutton Turner was Executive Pastor, Executive Elder and Board Member of Mars Hill Church from 2011 to 2014.  He, Mark Driscoll and Dave Bruskas served together leading the church. Sutton has over 30 years of experience leading companies as CEO across US, Qatar and Abu Dhabi, as well as two stints in full-time ministry with Mars Hill and Celebration Church. Sutton is married to Marci Turner of 25+ years and has three kids. They live in College Station, Texas and he is currently CEO of Life Bridge Management, a real estate company with over 50 employees. Miles Rohde Miles Rohde was one of eight elders who investigated formal charges against Mars Hill founding pastor Mark Driscoll in 2014. He participated in the Lead Pastor Residency Program at Mars Hill and was planning on planting Mars Hill Spokane when Driscoll abruptly resigned. Instead, he planted Redemption Spokane, where he’s still pastoring today. Miles and his wife, Pam, have been married for 25 years and have two children. Show Transcript SPEAKERS JULIE ROYS, SUTTON TURNER, MARK DRISCOLL, MILES ROHDE JULIE ROYS  00:04 Since his abrupt resignation from Mars Hill Church in 2014, Mark Driscoll has claimed he was the victim of a vindictive plot. But last week he dropped a bombshell. He claimed that Mars Hill leaders were planning to accuse him of adultery if he didn’t resign. Today, two former high level Mars Hill leaders join me to set the record straight.   Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And if you’ve been watching the news, you know that Mark Driscoll stunned just about everyone last week when he made a claim he’s never made before. Speaking to his congregation at the Trinity Church, Driscoll said that church leaders at Mars Hill were going to use a nuclear option against him if he didn’t resign in 2014. That nuclear option was a plan to falsely accuse Driscoll of adultery if he didn’t resign. At least, that’s what Mark says.   Well, joining me today is Sutton Turner. Sutton was at Mars Hill when everything imploded in 2014. At the time, he was one of only three executive elders at Mars Hill, and he had a front row seat to everything that was happening. You’ll also hear today from Miles Rohde. Miles was one of only eight elders at Mars Hill who investigated the charges of bullying and intimidation against Mark Driscoll. And Miles was at one of those meetings at Panera where Driscoll claims he learned of the plot against him.   This is going to be an eye-opening podcast and I’m so glad you’ve joined me. But before we dive in, I’d like to thank the sponsors of this podcast, The Restore Conference and Marquardt of Barrington. I’m so excited to announce the next Restore conference June 9 and 10th at Judson University in Elgin, Illinois. Joining us for this amazing two-day event to restore faith in God and the church will be many leading abuse survivor advocates. These include Wade Mullen, Scot McKnight, Mary Demuth, and Kyle James Howard. I’ll be there as well. But by far what makes this gathering so special is you the survivors, allies, activists andJULIEROYS.COM/RESTORE. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity, and transparency. That’s because the owners there Dan and Curt Marquardt are men of integrity. To check them out, just go to BUYACAR123.COM.     Well, again, joining me today is Sutton Turner. Sutton served on staff at Mars Hill from 2011 to 2014. First as a general manager and then as an executive pastor an executive elder and board member. And Sutton has done something that Mark Driscoll has never done and that is he has owned and apologized for the role that he had at Mars Hill. And he’s gone back and reconciled with people. And so, Sutton, I just really appreciate that you’ve done that. I appreciate the integrity that you’ve walked this whole season with. And so, thank you so much for taking the time and for joining me.   SUTTON TURNER  03:07 Thanks, Julie. I appreciate the opportunity to talk about this.   JULIE ROYS  03:10 And we’ve been talking about doing a podcast together for a really long time. So, I’m glad we’re finally making that happen, although not so happy about the circumstances under which we’re doing this podcast. My understanding is when you heard this allegation coming from Mark Driscoll it hit you pretty hard, right?   SUTTON TURNER  03:29 Yeah. And I think about the men that were elders at these Mars Hill churches that served so well during an investigation. I mean, like, pastors investigating their pastor. Many of the guys that investigated Driscoll were people that Mark led to Christ, and they looked at Mark as a father figure, and not only as a pastor, but a father figure. And that was one of the reasons why I just was like, you know what?, I can’t stand by and allow these statements to stick in this narrative. To stick because it hurts some really good men that are still leading churches today, small churches in the Puget Sound and other areas that are serving God and serving their people. And I just, I was like, you know what?, I’m no longer a part of ministry and church leadership. And I feel like I have the ability to say, wait a minute, I was there and let me communicate what actually happened.   JULIE ROYS  04:32 Isn’t it kind of sad though, that you almost have to be out of the evangelical celebrity machine ministry before you can speak? Although I will say as I mentioned in the open, Miles Rohde, who is a former pastor at Mars Hill, also one of the elders who investigated Mark Driscoll, he did speak with me and I’m going to be playing clips of our interview that I had with him earlier this week. Just really appreciate him being willing to speak as well. And he pastors, one of those churches that was supposed to be a satellite of Mars Hill and right when everything blew up, he had a church planting team ready to plant this church in Spokane. And they ended up planting. It’s still a church, not Mars Hill Church, but wonderful what’s happened, and I know there’s been a lot of redemptive things that have happened as churches spun off from Mars Hill that were campuses there.   I know many of the folks listening probably have heard clips of what Mark Driscoll said. To listen to the full context, you’d have to listen to what is almost an hour-long sermon. He’s still giving very long sermons, which is his signature, I suppose. He’s there at the Trinity Church in Scottsdale, Arizona, and he gave this sermon on Nehemiah on October 23. And, again, if you want to hear that whole thing you can, it’s still posted online, last I looked, but I’m gonna play a four-minute clip of what he said, and then we’ll unpack that together. Take a listen.   MARK DRISCOLL  06:02 Some years ago, we were in a season where massive media firestorm lots of conflict and controversy. I said okay, investigate everything. I know I’m not disqualified. I know who I am. I can’t wait stand before Jesus. It’s gonna be a great day for me. Not that I’m perfect. But I know who I am. And I know who he is. And we were asked to return, and I’ll share something with you I’ve never shared. I don’t know if it’s a good idea or us both, said you’re released, you need to resign immediately. And God told me a trap is set. He didn’t tell Grace that. So, she came in. She’s like, God just spoke to me. I was like, God just spoke to me. And she’s I said, what did you hear? She said, we’re released. I heard were released, that strap was set. So, so we walked away, didn’t defend ourselves. Took 18 months, didn’t do social media didn’t do public ministry. Just wanted to heal up and be with my family, get them into safety in a very dangerous season of our life.   And so during that time, I met with some of my critics and enemies, one on one or small group. People that had been friends, people who claimed to be Christian, some who were pastors, some who still are pastors. And I asked him, I said, God told me a trap was set. So, I asked them, do you know what that might be? And these people that we have known, said, yeah, the nuclear option was we were going to accuse you of adultery. This was at Panera multiple meetings at Panera. Like, you guys discussed accusing me of adultery? You know, that’s not true. I’ve been faithful to my wife my whole life; I adore my wife. I love my wife, and she loves me. We’ve been faithful to each other. We’ve been open our whole marriage about any struggles we’ve had, because we know that every married couple has some hardship to go through. And we have never been dishonest. But we have never done that. We’ve never done anything remotely like that. They said, yeah, that’s why we kept it as the nuclear option. I was like to get me why? They said to get you out of the pulpit. They said, because we knew that if we accused you of adultery, and enough of us signed the open letter, that ultimately there would be such a media firestorm that you would have to exit ministry, exit preaching God’s word for probably a year, while a full investigation was done. During that time, we could take over and lead and be in charge and then we figured one of two things would happen either you would come back, but we would be in charge. Or you would never come back, and you’d be done forever.   I came home I told Grace, it’s like, oh my gosh. Multiple people told me that to my face, on separate occasions and days. I want you to be, if I’m going to be your pastor and I love you, I promise you this, I will always tell you the truth. And I want you to love and honor and respect Christian leaders and pastors. Don’t assume the worst, assume the best. And don’t believe everything you hear and don’t contribute to the gossip that just takes lies and gives them life. The preacher, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, he once said, he said a lie can get around the world before the truth can get its shoes on. And today, every algorithm and every social media platform exists to send bad things about God’s people as fast as possible, whether it’s true or false.   JULIE ROYS  09:52 Wow. So much to unpack there and even watching your response as you’re listening. It’s emotional, isn’t it?   SUTTON TURNER  10:00 Yeah, and every time I hear His voice, it’s bringing back a lot of a lot of really, really bad memories. So yeah. And when he’s talking about those men, these were the best men that I’ve ever known in my life. And for him to say, you guys discussed adultery. This is exactly the reason why I released in January, all of the notes of all of the investigative meetings, from August of 2014, through the time that Mark resigned. They’re amazing notes, I took out the elders names, and I replaced them with numbers, because who said what is not important. But I did think that someone taking time to read through what these elders did and how they were praying for Mark and how they wanted Mark ultimately restored. They wanted to see him repent. They wanted to see him reconcile, but they wanted him to be restored. And that never happened. And then for him to say that those men were discussing adultery. It’s just a flat lie. I mean, like, I have every meeting note. And let me just tell you, there was none. When he talks about a nuclear option, that was a word that I used in early 2013, when we were talking about setting up the board of elders, and the nuclear option was basically all of these churches being separated in independent churches, which actually is what happened. These churches did, but that was the nuclear option. And that was around an investigation of one of the three of us that were executive elders. If we were found guilty of formal charges, and we were having to be removed from our position. That was what that was.   And when he talks about an investigation would have to be launched, there was already an investigation of 25 formal charges, that disqualified Mark Driscoll based on arrogance, domineering, and what was the other one? quick temperedness. And that’s what he still doesn’t acknowledge today, he was found disqualified. And the people that investigated him and had over 20 or excuse me over 40 different interviews with people that were directly sinned against. That’s the information that they did. They had full investigation. And that’s why I produced all of those notes, so, that don’t take my word for it. Read the elders of the church that investigated Mark Driscoll. Read their own words, read how they wrestled with this horrible thing that they had to do. And to go through and read Mark’s response to being formal charges. Read how he blows up, read all of those things, and see for yourself, make your own judgment. Don’t allow Mark Driscoll to sit there and say that he can. Sorry, like for anybody to be as arrogant to think that they can stand in front of Jesus. I’m sorry, like all of us fall short of the glory of God and Jesus, is sinful life. We all have fallen short. So, for anybody to me to say, I can’t wait until the day I stand in front of Jesus and tell him how good I am. I mean, it’s just It’s remarkable. It’s shocking to me. It gets me so upset around those men, like Miles Rohde. I mean, the reason why probably Miles was able to reach out to you,  he had a long history of military career. That guy’s not scared of anybody. And I’ll tell you, he’s dang sure not scared of Mark Driscoll. And that’s why he probably responded. Other of us. I know, I was terrified of Mark when I worked there. And most of those guys still eight years later, are probably terrified of Mark as well. And that’s one of the reasons why I’m still nervous to talk to you. But I know that I’m not in full time ministry, and I feel like that I am able to talk with you and share what happened.   JULIE ROYS  14:36 Yeah, well, and Mark has threatened legal action. He’s even bragged about, you know, I’ve seen the notes from the Trinity Church, even where he’s bragged about having this war chest of millions of dollars available to sue people if he needs to. And so that threat of lawsuit from what I hear, it has been something that’s been persistent and is always there in the background. Although It’s been more threat than actual action up until this point.   But let’s go back and I would like to kind of retrace some things from 2014. One because I think up until 2014 and maybe is fall, people are a little bit more clear on that. But what happened afterwards, to me is really a part of this story that hasn’t really been told that well. The rise and fall of Mars Hill that podcast which has been so popular and done so well has done a great job of kind of taking it to there. But Mark’s relaunched. He’s at a church in Scottsdale, Arizona. He’s getting back on the speaker circuit. He was just shown in a picture with Steven Furtick, who was out there on the Elevation tour, and the two of them you know, took a picture together, what great buddies they are. These disqualified pastors get up and spin a narrative and then they’re back. And I think this is an important story to tell because it’s not just Mark, it’s a lot of people, although Mark probably typifies it in a way few do.   So let’s go back to 2014, and the events immediately leading up to Mark’s resignation. So, there were accusations of plagiarism. There was a scheme to pad book sales that came out Result Source. There was news that he had trolled online discussion forums under the guise of William Wallace II, I think, was his foie name and he lambasted male lesbians and fie men. I mean, it was just kind of Mark on steroids on those forums.   Acts 29 and August 2014, kicks Mark out of the church Planning Network. And then on August 22, 2014, Warren Throckmorton publishes this letter by 21 former Mars Hill pastors accusing Mark of some of the things you said; persistent sinful behavior towards others, characterized by this pattern of abusive and intimidating conduct. And then we have nine current pastors at the time, at Mars Hill, writing a letter to their fellow elders saying Mark has a pattern of bullying and calling him to step down. And I have to say one thing I am so appreciative to the Mars Hill elders for doing is actually moving forward on some of these. It’s sad to say, up until this point, unless a pastor had a moral fall, you couldn’t get rid of him. It was like this, this idea that just your character, you’re such a nasty person, and you’re such a bullying person, you do not exhibit the character of Christ. Even though there’s those things are written in Timothy and Titus, and what the qualifications of a pastor are, that he shouldn’t be quarrelsome, he shouldn’t have outbursts of anger. Even though those are there, that was rarely called upon to disqualify a pastor. But let me just pause there and ask you since you had a front row seat, you were in this inner circle with Driscoll, the executive elders, were you, Dave Ruscus and Mark. Did you see these characteristics and qualities in Mark, the domineering the bullying?   SUTTON TURNER  18:08 Oh, repeatedly, sadly, many times. See in my role, all of the central staff reported to me so everybody, we had 200 some odd employees in the central staff resurgence, all of those things, Mars Hill books, Mars Hill music, everything like that reported up through me. And then I reported directly to Mark, he was my boss. I also sat on the board with Dave and Mark. So, we were the three that were on the board, and we had four board members that were outside. And anytime that Mark went to speak, I was there. I lived down the street from Mark. I would typically meet him at his house and his executive assistant, and we would drive to wherever he was preaching. I’d be with him the whole time. They’re there at this wherever we were preaching, and then I would come back. So, I mean, you could say during that time period between 2011 and 2014, nobody spent more time with Driscoll than I did. Dave and I were the only ones to have one on one meetings with Mark during that three-year period of time, we had to isolate him because he was so harsh on staff members that we had to literally relocate an office to house Mark. And then Dave, and I would go there as well, on the days that we met. So yeah, I saw a lot of that. Yes, there was a lot of accusations that were during it really started 2013. The formal charges, the 25 formal charges are listed. And I’ve actually in my notes that I published, pulled some of those items when the investigating elders literally asked Mark about each one of those charges. And many of those you will read, he says, oh, yeah, I did that. Oh, yeah, did that he admits to the sin.   So yes, I saw some. And I’ll just give you an example to give you from that. We were at Ballard. That was one of our churches, our 15 church locations. The oldest church location, and it was eight o’clock. So, we had an eight o’clock service. So typically, sometimes we would do five to seven services. Mark would preach five to seven services on a weekend, and we would go to different churches, typically. The eight o’clock service at Ballard was very young. A lot of young people would come, there was no time limit on the outside of it. So typically, he could preach for as long as he wanted to. And one night, we did a call to baptism. It was an incredible response to the Gospel; a lot of people wanted to go and get baptized. During the day at Ballard, they had run out of towels, and shirts, because we would provide shirts and shorts to people. So, when I saw the response, I was backstage trying to find towels and things. The campus pastor and some of the other people were running. Mark, when he realized what was going on, you know, we’re playing music, people are getting baptized, Mark grabs somebody by the throat against the wall, and says, and I’ll clean this up, because there was a lot of cuss words. He was mad at the person for not having enough shorts and enough shirts. And I’m about to rip your head off and excrete down your neck. And this is full up against the wall was somebody that was actually a pastor of the church. Those are the types of activities. So, when people say, why were you scared of Mark? Like, like, Yeah, I mean, you would be scared. And this is also the person that you saw terminate people, like, I mean, so. So.   JULIE ROYS  22:15 I’m just trying to wrap my head around this. There’s an incredible move that the Holy Spirit, people are getting baptized coming to Christ. In the midst of that, that’s how Mark behaves. I mean, this is it’s, it’s mind numbing, like, I mean, I just, I’ve been in moves of the Holy Spirit, maybe not quite that dramatic, but I just can’t I can’t fathom that. You’re so full of the moment of what God’s doing, and the love of God and the grace of God and to behave. I mean, it makes you wonder, why does he even? Yeah, that’s, that’s just shocking to me. That’s shocking to me.   SUTTON TURNER  23:02 Yeah. Saw lots of that kind of stuff. Because I was, you know, one of those people that was super close to Mark and saw him react to people,. He had a massive temper. Still does, I’m sure. That’s why one of the charges was quick temperedness and abusive language. That’s a specific example that I witnessed. There was many, many others. But that’s kind of an extreme example of what we saw all the time. And that’s why, for a lot of people, they don’t understand why there was such fear on staff, incredible fear, and a culture of fear. And so, I give you that as an example.   One of the things that you were talking about, as we look towards the investigation of 2014 is how did the investigation happen? Because a lot of churches might have charges or allegations against their pastor, but nothing ever happens. If you go back to 2011, 2011, I had just arrived. Jamie Munson had just left. I was first the general manager and then was asked to take Jamie’s role as executive pastor, and Result Source was signed during that time period. And by October of 2011, I was shocked that Result Source could have been approved by a church board.   JULIE ROYS  24:25 And Result Source again, this is a company that bought like thousands and thousands of Mark’s books so that his new book, Real Marriage, so that that book would get put on the New York Times bestseller list. So, it’s really a way to manipulate yourself into being a bestseller.   SUTTON TURNER  24:42 Totally buying the New York Times bestseller title.   JULIE ROYS  24:46 And using church funds.   SUTTON TURNER  24:48 Oh, absolutely. And so, I was shocked at that, coming from the outside and corporate world. I’m like, there’s got to be authority and accountability somehow that this doesn’t happen.   So fast forward the spring of 2012, I set up a new board. I asked Mark, who would you be accountable to? Because I know that there’s, I mean, the current board, he was not going to be accountable to them. All those guys worked at the church and all those guys, most of them he had led to Christ. Like, there was not going to be any accountability in that group. And he said to me, someone with a larger church and a bigger platform. Those were the only people that I said, okay, and not knowing how big a church John Piper, so somebody like John Piper? He goes, no, I would never be accountable to Piper. Okay. And so, I literally went down a list. I didn’t know many of these people, but I went for him. And I was thinking, okay, these guys, and so put those together in a board of accountability. Okay? So those are four outside board members, and then the three of us.   Fast forward. So that was the spring of 2012. Fast forward 12 months later, I realized that yes, we had this outside board. But those guys were not participating in an ongoing basis to be able, if there was ever any allegations against Mark, and there started to be. Dave Kraft first came out with the allegations, in that early part. I was like, Okay, we have to put together a group of people that are going to do an investigation of one of the three executive elders. So, including me, including Dave Ruscus, and Mark. And so, I formed what was called the board of elders. And we went together, and we put together this group of elders, and they were lead pastors of the different churches, Mars Hill churches. So, they’re internal to Mars Hill. And they were led by somebody that was not only on the board of elders, but he was also on the board of accountability with Mark and Dave and I. And so like, he had one foot in the local church, he was a volunteer elder, which I thought was very important that he was not on staff. So, he would not have, you know, some of those issues. And so, we formed that board of elders, the spring of 13. And really, that’s what is the group of men that went together in 14 that did the interviews of 40 people that investigated the 25 formal charges, and that found Mark disqualified on those three items.   JULIE ROYS  26:11 Several things. There’s so many things that come to mind, actually, when you speak . Most, most people their eyes glaze over when it comes to church governance. And I get that. It’s not really that exciting or sexy, but it is so super, super important. When you talk about the outside elders, the board of what was the Board of Overseers and accountability. That’s what was. That reminds me of a lot of these ARC churches right now. Association Related Churches, they have other mega church pastors who are supposedly holding the pastor accountable. Which is a joke, because they’re not there. And also, are their sympathies going to be with the celebrity pastor because they’re one? and they are big mega church pastor. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s really a bizarre governance model. But it’s become, you know, something that’s used in a lot of these churches.   SUTTON TURNER  28:27 Absolutely. In August of 14, okay? So, this is literally the month that the Board of elders is about to start the investigation. Mark is on sabbatical, okay? He had been on sabbatical for two months. Acts 29 just cuts us out of being an Acts 29 church. I think it was like the 14th of August of 2014. I get a call. I was actually on vacation. Vacation in the same place that Mark was, and I got a call from James McDonald, who was a part of the board of advisors and accountability for the whole time since 2012. He called me, said I need to resign. I was like, you can’t resign right now. Any other time. We need you to be here and help us through this time period. And he said, I will quote, “I can’t stay on this board because I don’t want my elders to do the same thing to me that they’re doing to Mark Driscoll.”   JULIE ROYS  29:27 And that does not surprise me because one James was every bit the bully, and every bit as arrogant as Mark. In fact, I had people tell me who knew both of them that James McDonald was kind of like the older brother to Mark and when the two of them would get together, which we know from some of their antics at the Strange Fire conference that John MacArthur had, you know them in the parking lot. It’s just two megachurch pastors in the parking lot passing out, you know, flyers and books. And I mean, it’s just bizarre.   SUTTON TURNER  29:55 So, I hate to say it, but I was there.   JULIE ROYS  29:58 Oh, you were?   SUTTON TURNER  29:59 I was in the car with Mark and Dave. We met James at Strange Fire. And that was on a dare. We were at Act Like Men in Long Beach California.   JULIE ROYS  30:11 Which was James McDonald’s big thing.   SUTTON TURNER  30:13 Which was James McDonald, but it had Matt Chandler and it had Larry Osbourne and I mean, it was the who’s who.   JULIE ROYS  30:20 And it was Act Like Men. I mean, quite frankly, the spirit of those was to me the spirit of William Wallace II, wasn’t it? I mean, it was sort of this, I mean, promoting almost toxic masculinity as biblical. Not always. I mean, it was it was tempered with protect your wives and serve them, but also very over the top, it seemed. But go ahead. Yeah. So, you gotta dare.   SUTTON TURNER  30:45 We were having breakfast. We had future Mars Hill, lead pastor interns with us with us. Big long table. James is, you know, bigger than life holding court with all these young pastors. And James had a relationship with MacArthur and said, you know, wouldn’t it be funny Mark, if we went over and dropped in on Strange Fire? And it was like a light bulb in Mark, like a dare.   Big brother Darren, the little brother. And he was like, and he turned to his executive assistant and said, don’t we have a couple of boxes of books? And he was like, yes. And he goes, I’ll go sign books, let’s go. And literally, we got up and headed that way. And Dave Brusque, and I don’t want to speak for Dave, I’ll say for myself, that was one of the most embarrassing, like, if I look back on foolishness, and sinful behavior that I participate in, right there, like there was not a better example of some of the foolish sinful behavior that I participated. And I have to own that. Like, and I’ve tried to own that as much as I can, by doing stuff like this and meeting one on one with the people that I’ve offended and sinned against. At the same time need to communicate some of the sinful behavior and the foolish behavior that I did with Driscoll so that people can see what is now happening eight years happened way back then. Yeah. And not that I don’t think Strange Fire deserved being pushed back on. But there’s a way to do things and showing up in the parking lot is not the way that I would suggest doing that.   JULIE ROYS  32:26 So, let’s go to, we’ve talked now about the investigation that came, and it was led by eight elders. Interestingly, though, they weren’t independent elders, in the sense that normally, you’d like to get as many independent elders as possible who aren’t on the payroll, because I mean, I’ve seen it firsthand. Like I’ve been threatened when I was at Moody by a trustee member. You know, we’re going to tell the President about this?, or we’ve told the President about this. And so, there is a fear of blowing the whistle or of trying to hold accountable because you’re gonna lose your job. But these men, bravely from everything that I’ve seen, did step up, and did do an honest investigation. And so, we’ve mentioned Miles Rohde, who was one of those eight, I have spoken to him. And he describes the results of what they got and what their heart was, when they delivered the results of that. So, take a listen.   MILES ROHDE  33:26 The last meeting that I remember having was letting the board know what our findings were, which were quick tempered, arrogant, and domineering. And then we’ve listed a potential plan for him to receive some counseling and care, as well as work with those who will be older than him, that he respected, who are outside of the church, who would serve as a mentor and as a kind of a coach of sorts, through reconciliation. And that’s what we presented, it’s much more detailed. It was very hope-filled because we took I Timothy 5:18 very seriously that there was persistent in these sins in which we found him to be, that he was to be rebuked publicly, before the church, and then brought into a process of restoration over a course of time, which was not determined at that time. And then he resigned and made it all moot.   JULIE ROYS  34:26 Well, let me just ask you, was there any desire to get rid of Mark on that board?   MILES ROHDE  34:33 No, there wasn’t a desire. There was a desire to protect the flock. And there was a desire to see what the Lord had done in and through Mark and in and through Mars Hill, to be done again, the Lord to do that, and to even tell a better story than in the first 18 years. Nobody had an axe to grind. Nobody was saying that he needs to go indefinitely or, you know, to kick him out, but that he needed to be removed, so that the process of healing for the church and for his own soul can be allowed to take place. And we weren’t using the disqualifying word at that time. But I think his actions of resigning the way he did proved, in my opinion, from that point, that was disqualifying for someone Miles is not willing to enter into a process that is obvious for the health and protection of the church, as well as his own soul proved ultimately to be disqualifying.   JULIE ROYS  35:40 So according to Miles, the heart of the elders, was restoration. There was no plot, there was no trap. In fact, that doesn’t seem to make sense for me, because what I’ve seen is everybody understands at a big mega church like this, especially with the kind of platform and even Driscoll used to say, I am the brand, right? And he was the brand. And if he leaves, everybody understands, we’re not sure this thing survives without our charismatic leader, right? I mean, was that an understanding of the board?   SUTTON TURNER  36:19 If you read the notes, from these men at the time, just kind of like what Miles was saying, the day before the formal charges were sat down with Mark  and read, and where Mark blew up. One of the elders says, I want him to hear it, that we love him. And that it’s for him to see us and not for him not to see us as his enemy. I really want this to be expressed to him tomorrow. Like, these guys really loved Mark. And they wanted to see him healthy, and in a healthy place, and they wanted to see him restored. And by the way, you have to also understand the context of Mars Hill. Mars Hill took church discipline very, very seriously. And you can’t leave a church-on-church discipline. That was the that’s what Mars Hill believed. That you had to stay in and work through those issues before you were able to leave Mars Hill church, or Mars Hill church would not give you like a bill of good health or whatever you want to call it.   JULIE ROYS  37:34 And what do you think of that today?   SUTTON TURNER  37:35 Oh, it’s ridiculous. I mean, everything. It was so controlling, and just over the top. Oh, my gosh.   JULIE ROYS  37:44 I mean, that’s the same thing I heard. I mean, I know John MacArthur’s church, when Eileen Gray, you know, when they excommunicated her for simply wanting, you know, her husband out of the house, who was abusing her children. And then she gets discipline for it. She wasn’t allowed to leave the church, when she asked because she realized this is ridiculous, I’m gonna leave, that she wasn’t allowed. And Harvest had similar things. I mean, it’s just how church discipline is used as a club. But the double standard, I think, is what you’re getting to.   SUTTON TURNER  38:17 Absolutely. So, Mark, which would never let somebody leave the church in the history of Mars Hill on church discipline ever. Like that he would leave, basically on church discipline is shocking. And I honestly think, and this is my opinion, it’s not in the notes. I don’t believe that anybody really thought that he was going to quit. Because it was so foreign to the culture, especially in the eldership that somebody would leave that’s an elder, on church discipline like that, that would just not even occur. And of course, it occurred in an historic way. And Mark now says that God, he uses the God card, God told him to leave and now he had to use the God not only told him to leave, but he told him, that was a trap. And now we’re adding on. So, by the way, this story first started, so Mark called me that Sunday, the 12th, October 2014. He called me and said, you know, I talked to Larry Osborne, and he just doesn’t feel like that we’re gonna be able to get out of this. And, you know, we went on, basically, he was saying that Larry had told him what had happened in the conversations with the BOO, which wasn’t supposed to happen. And then secondly, he told me that, you know,   JULIE ROYS  39:44 Board of Overseers and Advisors.   SUTTON TURNER  39:46 That was the first time he used the word trap, you know, just feels like a trap. But it was not like there’s a trap. Oh, and then fast forward. The first time I heard Driscoll using that was the same month in October at Gateway Church. I listened to Mark and I’m like, there’s a trap?, where did this start? And that was one of the reasons why I released all those notes is because this story continues to evolve, for Mark to be the victim, and I just want real information out there for real people to read and go, okay, this is total make believe.   JULIE ROYS  40:31 This concludes part one of my interview with Sutton Turner. But in part two, you’ll hear Robert Morris and Mark Driscoll at the 2014 Gateway conference just six days after Mark abruptly resigned. And you’ll hear the crafting of a narrative a narrative that’s very sympathetic to Mark. But as Sutton says, it’s very far from the truth. You’ll also hear 2015 interview between Mark and Hillsong’s Brian Houston. And in this one, it’s quite clear, Mark believes he’s the victim.   MARK DRISCOLL  41:00 Lord revealed to me that, you know, a trap has been set. There’s no way for us to return to leadership. And I didn’t know what that meant or what was going on at the time. I said, we’re released, and we need to resign. So.   JULIE ROYS  41:17 You’ll also hear more from Miles Rohde and what actually happened in those meetings between Mark and Mars Hill leaders at Panera, and you’ll hear the heartbreak both Miles and Sutton feel, not just for people still being hurt by Mark Driscoll, but for Mark himself. This is a powerful story, and I believe it has so much to teach us about leadership and accountability in the church.   Again, thanks so much for listening to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And just a reminder that we’re able to do this podcast and all our investigative work at The Roys Report because of support from people like you, if you appreciate our work here at The Roys Report, would you please consider donating to help us continue. To do that just go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. Also, just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcast, Google podcast Spotify or YouTube. That way you’ll never miss an episode. And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks so much for joining me today. I hope you were blessed and encouraged. Read more

Guest Bios Show Transcript https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnFRUZwmjZE What is it like to be a person of color in a predominantly white evangelical church? Does fitting in require someone to change their behavior, appearance, and speech? And if so, what does that say about the church? In this latest podcast, Julie explores these issues with Jenai Auman. Jenai is a survivor of spiritual abuse in an Acts 29 church. She’s also a certified trauma support specialist and has a unique ministry, writing about healing, hope, and the way forward for survivors of religious trauma. Jenai also is Filipina American—and spent more than a decade worshiping and serving in a white evangelical church in Texas. She says she has seen how persons of color face discrimination in overt and subtle ways. Speaking vulnerably and lovingly, Jenai shares what it’s like to live as a person of color in a predominantly white church. And she offers insights into how white Christians can do a better job of loving and embracing persons of color in their midst. This Weeks Guests Jenai Auman Jenai Auman is a Filipina American writer, artist, and storyteller who writes on belonging and the goodness of God from a trauma-informed perspective. Drawing from her biracial upbringing in the American south, 17 years in church ministry, and education in behavioral health, she writes on healing, hope, and the way forward for those who have experienced abuse and trauma within the church. She lives in Houston, TX with her husband and two sons. You can connect with Jenai across social media @jenaiauman. Show Transcript SPEAKERS JULIE ROYS, JENAI AUMAN JULIE ROYS  00:04 What is it like to be a person of color in a predominantly white Evangelical Church? Does fitting in require someone to change their behavior, appearance, or speech? And if so, what does that say about the church? Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And joining me today is Jenai Auman. Jenai is a survivor of spiritual abuse in an Acts 29 church. She’s also a certified trauma Support Specialist and has a really unique ministry writing about healing, hope, and the way forward for those who have experienced religious abuse and trauma. Jenai also hosts a private online community called Wilderness Forum. This is a safe place for other spiritual abuse survivors to process their stories and find healing. In this podcast, we’re going to talk about Jenai’s journey. We’ll discuss how she came to Christ and then got involved in the Reformed church movement, and then had one of the most painful experiences in her life when she became the target of spiritual abuse. But we’re also going to talk about her unique experience of growing up biracial in Texas, and serving in the white Evangelical Church, and how being an abuse survivor has opened her eyes to other problems in the church, like how we treat and marginalize persons of color. I know this is going to be a challenging and important discussion, and I’m so excited to have Jenai on this podcast. But before we dive in, I’d like to thank the sponsors of this podcast, The Restore Conference and Marquardt of Barrington. I am so excited to announce the next Restore Conference, June 9th and 10th at Judson University in Elgin, Illinois. Joining us for this amazing two-day event to restore faith in God and the church will be many leading abuse survivor advocates. These include our beloved speakers who have joined us before, Wade Mullen, Scot McKnight, Mary Demuth, Lori Ann Thompson and Nagmeh Panahi. But we have new voices joining us as well, like trauma informed soul care provider Kyle James Howard, Sudanese Christian activist Meriam Ibrahim, and my guest on today’s podcast, Jenai Auman. Yours truly will be there as well. But by far, what makes this gathering so special is you – the survivors, allies, activists, and church leaders who truly get it or want to get it. For more information go to JULIEROYS.COM/RESTORE. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity, and transparency. That’s because the owners there, Dan and Curt Marquardt, are men of integrity. To check them out, just go to BUYACAR123.COM. Well, again, joining me today is Jenai Auman. Jenai is a Filipina American writer and artist living in Houston, Texas. And as I mentioned, she’s also a survivor of religious trauma, and hosts a private online community called the Wilderness Forum. So, Jenai, welcome, and I’m so glad you could join me.   JENAI AUMAN  03:13 Thank you so much for having me.   JULIE ROYS  03:15 Well Jenai, as I mentioned, we’re going to get into what your experience was growing up as someone who’s a person of color in white evangelical space, and I really want to explore that with you. But I also want to tell your story, because I know there’s a lot of people listening who have never probably heard of you or what you’re doing. I know your kind of new on the scene. And let me just start with how you got here, which really starts with your faith story, and growing up there in Texas, in a non-Christian family. Correct?   JENAI AUMAN  03:49 Correct.   JULIE ROYS  03:50 So, you grew up, your mother was kind of nominally Catholic, is that right? And your dad?   JENAI AUMAN  03:55 My dad, he did actually grow up in the church. And then he left the church years before I was born. So, he, I would say, was functionally agnostic all throughout my upbringing.   JULIE ROYS  04:08 So, you didn’t go to church at all growing up? I mean, did you have any church experience?   JENAI AUMAN  04:13 I mean, I think I can count on two hands, the number of times I went with my grandmother, my dad’s mother, who was a part of a nondenominational church. It was actually kind of a charismatic, nondenominational church with a lot of Pentecostal roots. And then I remember going to youth group with a friend of mine at her church throughout like middle school. And so, until the time that I turned 17, that is largely my experience with any sort of organized church gathering or church service.   JULIE ROYS  04:46 Then when you turn 17, there was a major life event for you. Your grandmother passed away, right?   JENAI AUMAN  04:53 Yes. So, she was the one, my dad’s mother, she was the one who made sure that I knew at least pieces of who Jesus was. And of course, I was a kid. So, I got, you know, some of the smaller stories and heard kind of peripheral about him. But when I lost her, really I, I literally got in my car one day, I was a new driver, got in my car and just drove to the church that she was a part of, so that I could really so that I could feel connected to her. And over the course of just being a part of that community, I did eventually come to a believing faith.   JULIE ROYS  05:31 Isn’t that something? I mean, I’m thinking from your grandmother’s perspective, she probably prayed for you, she probably wanted so badly for you to come to faith. And it’s encouraging for me to hear stories like that, because we don’t know the legacy that we leave. And the older I get, I just think, even after we pass away, that legacy can make a difference. It’s so sweet that you’re tearing up.   JENAI AUMAN  05:55 I was not expecting to cry. I should have known.   JULIE ROYS  06:00 Oh, she must have meant a great deal to you.   JENAI AUMAN  06:03 Oh, so much. I actually I as you were speaking, I thought, I think it’s almost her birthday. She’s been gone for 20 years now. And just the impact that she had on my life. I mean, I almost forget that she sowed those seeds so long ago. Whenever you kind of walk through the hard waters, and just the trenches of like spiritual abuse, most recently, you almost forget the origin story of faith. And so, hearing it from you, like being reminded of it right today is just actually a really huge grace. So, this is a gift.   JULIE ROYS  06:36 Oh, that’s so sweet to hear. So, tell me about that church, because as I understand, like that church was very multicultural, which, in Texas, that’s, I mean, a wonder, in some ways, right?   JENAI AUMAN  06:49 So atypical. It was a multicultural, I would say, egalitarian church. But there were also some power dynamics and spiritually abusive dynamics there. But I tend to look back on that experience very fondly, because it was the first found family I’d ever had. And whenever you kind of come from a really hard family of origin, and all of that kind of that cocktail of hardship and trauma, you’re found family kind of means a lot to you. And to this day, that church still means a lot to me. My husband and I were married in that church. And I had a lot of, you know, we call them Auntie’s in the churches, Black sisters who were mentors to me, but also like other white leaders, and pastors. And so, it was a very unique experience, particularly in the Texas south.   JULIE ROYS  07:41 When you say found family, what do you mean? That’s not a term I’m used to.   JENAI AUMAN  07:45 It’s a term that’s pretty typical among those who have had or weathered like childhood trauma. But whenever you feel like your family of origin, that there’s a rupture there that you’ve never felt secure within, or that you’ve ever felt connected to, one of the things a lot of people look for is, you know, we find our found family later, or redeemed family. The family of God, that kind of grafts you in, and where you do experience that security and that stability, and that attachment. And I would say, apart from my grandmother, who I was securely attached to as a child, the first church I came to faith in was kind of that first found family that I felt a greater sense of belonging that I had not yet felt elsewhere.   JULIE ROYS  08:29 I liked that term, found family, and I’m learning you know, as I’m in this space, more and more, I learn, but this is not where my training was in, right? And I know you’re trained as a trauma specialist, and probably have a lot of language that I don’t. So, I mean, this is completely a learning journey for me. And I appreciate people like you that share your stories and help us learn. It almost seems like you went from a multicultural church, egalitarian church, that somehow you became part of, I’m trying to figure this out, because you go from that to part of a very white reformed, which is very complementarian. Right?   JENAI AUMAN  09:11 Totally the other end of the spectrum.   JULIE ROYS  09:14 Right. So, I’m complementarian for those who aren’t familiar with that term, kind of the other end of the spectrum where women are considered complementary to men and don’t serve in say pastoral positions or any teaching of men. So how did you end up from that church to getting caught up in the reformed movement?   JENAI AUMAN  09:35 So, my husband and I, we moved from our small town in Texas, which is about 80 miles, it’s really close to the Texas-Louisiana border, about 80 miles east of Houston. We moved from that area to a Houston suburb, and the church we landed in originally is a sister church to that multicultural church. And so, we were a part of that church for a few months, and we became very connected to the young adult ministry going on there. And whenever you would see the Sunday services, it was very typical of what I experienced in my hometown. And then you went to the youth group and the young adult services, and that was the reformed. Like they, for some reason, were housed under the same church. But that young adult youth pastor was the one who was sent out to go and plant a church. And so, he planted a church in the inner city. And he partnered with the Acts 29 network in order to make that happen. And so, it didn’t feel like it was a big transition at the time. Only later, whenever the church plant became like an actual church, and the governance was more shaped, I realized this is a very different church. And whenever visitors were coming, I realized this is not as diverse as what we had previously experienced.   JULIE ROYS  10:54 Before we started recording, you were saying, how your name, Jenai, is a Chinese name, even though your Filipina right? But you wanted to be Britney, as a kid.   JENAI AUMAN  11:05 I would have given anything to find my name on like a coffee mug at like a souvenir shop or keychain or something. I just wanted a normal name that I could find elsewhere.   JULIE ROYS  11:16 I mean, you have a beautiful name. I think Jenai is gorgeous. Yeah, I always wanted a different name. I had the name of Julie; everybody has Julie right? But yeah, I mean is that even part of it, of this idea of code switching, wanting to fit in, wanting to be instead of experiencing where, hey, we love that you’re Filipino? What is that like, to be on sort of that side of things?   JENAI AUMAN  11:45 I also want to say like I know, it’s a normal thing for so many people to feel like they don’t fit in. It’s just I have learned how hard and how difficult it is to fit in when you don’t look like you fit in and when you don’t even have a name that fits in. And so, I would say that like code switching, because I am biracial, and I have a Filipina mom who speaks English, but it’s very, it’s broken English. You can obviously tell she has an accent, and she’s had that accent all of my life. And I feel like I’ve always had to move between the spaces, and to adjust a little bit so that I could better communicate to whatever culture I was existing in. Whatever the predominant culture was is the way I kind of chameleoned myself to be a better communicator in that space. So, code switching in and of itself. And if anyone doesn’t know what Code switching is, it’s essentially moving between cultures and becoming a better communicator. But code switching becomes negative when it is required for belonging among a predominant culture. And so, in order to belong to the majority culture, you have to deny some of the truth, the culture that you’re inherently a part of. So, code switching isn’t inherently bad. It’s just awful whenever it becomes kind of the password to, you know, resources and belonging, and it’s really kind of nefarious in that way. So, code switching has inherently just been a part of my life growing up because I had a very multicultural household and a non-Christian multicultural household for one. And then I would go to schools, and in public school, it was predominantly white. And almost everything I would say almost every single one of my classmates were a part of a local church. It’s a Texas south. So, the question is normally what church do you go to? Not if you go to church at all. And so, I’m kind of not in the American Evangelical culture as a kid, but I’m kind of rubbing up against it for all of my life.   JULIE ROYS  13:59 By the way, I had friends who were from the south and they said, if you live in the south, people talk about you if you don’t go to church. If you live in the north, people talk about you if you go to church.   JENAI AUMAN  14:09 Yeah. Oh, absolutely.   JULIE ROYS  14:11 Yeah, I kind of understand that as a churchgoer, in the north. It’s reverse of that but go ahead.   JENAI AUMAN  14:16 It was not atypical for me to hear someone call me a heathen because I didn’t go to church. Like I’ve heard that. Sometimes it was a joke, but sometimes under the joke, it was like the truth, and they were taking a dig at you. As a kid, you just hear it as a joke. But as an adult, you’re reflecting back on and I’m like that was actually really ugly to hear.   JULIE ROYS  14:38 Really didn’t bring you any closer to Christ.   JENAI AUMAN  14:41 No, it didn’t. It didn’t. It took my grandmother dying for me to come to Christ. It didn’t at all happen because people took digs at me or dunked on me, by virtue of just my upbringing. But I think because that was the environment I grew up in, being in a predominantly white space even after having experience multicultural spaces and evangelical spaces, being in a predominantly white space did not feel like new territory. It just felt like I’ve done this before. And I’ve learned how to do this before really well, because that’s what it took for me to survive and for me to belong, for me to kind of prove myself that, hey, I belong in this space. I’m only half white, but I hope I’m white enough to exist in this space.   Julie, it’s so funny, even now I can tell that I am suppressing my southern accent. Because I grew up a Filipina kid with a southern accent. And that was one of the first things that had to go whenever I came to Houston because it was like, the effect of being a Filipina American with a southern twang was just so I was just so I felt so otherworldly. I remember that being a part of our early church planting conversations. But I felt like as a Filipina American existing in this space, it was kind of the same song, you know, 20th verse. I’ve done this before. This isn’t my first rodeo. And I think I was welcome. I think everyone truly believed that they welcomed me in that space. I don’t think anyone, and I don’t think I knew how to teach them how to make space for all of me, because I had never made space for all of me, if that makes any sense. I think a lot of people really do want to welcome ethnic minorities into their spaces. I don’t think they know how.   JULIE ROYS  16:39 I think that’s very true. I think there’s huge blind spots. And we don’t know what we don’t know sometimes. Can you give us specific where you felt like, I can’t reveal this about myself?   JENAI AUMAN  16:52 I remember, we were at our former church when the 2016 election was going on. And I feel like that was absolutely one area where I thought I don’t know if it’s safe for me to talk. I mean, I have a mother who immigrated to the United States in the 80s. And the rhetoric around immigrants, even within the American Evangelical Church, even within a church where I felt love and belonging, and that that same sense of found family, I realized, my mom can’t visit with us on Sundays when she comes to visit our home because I don’t think people would be welcoming to her. And so, I just don’t share that. And no one ever asked. I think everyone, sometimes they would know that my mom was coming to stay. And they would say, well, why doesn’t she come to, you know, our church gathering on Sunday? And I think I would normally just say she’s busy. And I didn’t have the emotional capacity to say, hey, you’re not really a welcoming people to ethnic minorities, and it’s not safe for her to be here.   JULIE ROYS  17:58 That’s heartbreaking. To hear that.   JENAI AUMAN  17:59 It’s awful, and especially when they also preach grace in belonging and being grafted in. It’s like, but do they really believe it?   JULIE ROYS  18:11 I have a daughter in law who’s Hispanic, which has been a wonderful experience for our family, and learning where things come across and hurt her. And I think my political stance has changed over time. And certainly, things that I probably would have been much more hardline conservative on, I’m much softer on now. I don’t think a lot of my beliefs have changed, but the way I hold them has changed a lot. And I think the rhetoric though, the rhetoric surrounding immigration, and I will say even back in the days when I was working at Moody Radio, super, super conservative. Even listening to conservative talk, I was appalled by what I heard. And that’s one okay, even if you go I don’t I think I’ve removed a lot of the stuff from a long, long time ago that I used to blog about just because it’s, you know, more political, not very relevant. But yeah, I always thought on immigration was the one thing that I was like, how does this square with like the Old Testament welcoming the stranger? The how does that jive? And I understand, you know, I know there’s people listening who, you know, we need borders, and we have to have some Yeah. Okay. But put yourself in the shoes of somebody who has immigrated. Do they feel loved? Do they feel welcome? Do they feel like we value them, and we want their contributions because what they bring to the table is so incredibly necessary? Do we want to be an all-white space? Do we think we’re better? Do we realize how superior this sounds? I mean, the whole thing. It’s appalling. And I’m so sorry.   JENAI AUMAN  19:50 No, it’s ok. I mean, I wish if I have a moment I would love to say this. My mother became a citizen. So, she did everything right. And to this day, like there are people who will mistreat her or be ugly toward her. Even though she followed the rules. Like how much is enough? Like what is enough to belong here, after you’ve checked all the boxes? But the thing I think what so many people don’t know is, you know, when Christ says to love the least of these, to like care for the widow and the orphan, and those who are going without, for the hungry, and for the thirsty, I don’t think people understand like, especially within the Philippines, how much need there is. So much need and the reason why she left and why she emigrated was to take care of her family. To this day, I mean, 30, almost 40 years later, she is sending money to her family in the Philippines, because they just don’t have the access to resources that people in the United States do. And of course, like I believe in legalities, and you know, being cautious and safe. I’m also for people being able to take care of the kids in their very own country. And I know that just by some stroke of luck, had she not emigrated, I might be one of those children as well. And so, that’s really what I hope a lot of people know, is that they’re not here to take any power. They’re just here to, so many immigrants are here just to take care of their families. That’s baseline.   JULIE ROYS  21:23 And that’s so common for an immigrant to be sending back money to support their family. And if I were in their shoes, if my kids were starving, or if I you know, if my family members weren’t able to have the basic necessities, would I want to do everything I possibly could to do it for them? Absolutely. And for us not to recognize the blessing that we’ve been given through no merit of our own. We just happen to be born in a country where yes, there’s been some wonderful things done and people did earn it and did build something beautiful here. But at the same time, we were born into blessing. And if we don’t understand that, and if we don’t have a heart to give that to others, I just, wow! I mean, that’s, that’s like a Christian ethic. So, if you’re missing that, you’re kind of missing the gospel.   JENAI AUMAN  22:13 Yeah, it’s just loving your neighbor.   JULIE ROYS  22:16 And that’s the second most important, second most important commandment. Okay, well, we’re going to come back to that. I just want to pause it for a minute and continue your story. So, you were 11 years at this church plant?   JENAI AUMAN  22:29 Yes. From 2009 to 2020.   JULIE ROYS  22:32 So, you go from, from this church with , what was your youth pastor, to plant this, this Church in Houston. Eventually, you go on staff for like the last, what, three years that you were there, and things kind of went sideways, it sounds like. And once you came on staff, I’m wondering too, how much of this was just, you know, you see, behind the curtain, right, you begin to see how the sausage is made? It can be disheartening but enlightening process. So, tell me about that.   JENAI AUMAN  23:09 Yeah, so we planted this church in 2010, in the ‘urban core of Houston’. Like we went to the inner city. But then in 2012, we become ordained deacons, and we serve as small group leaders within the church for six years. And this is prior to me going on staff. And so, I felt like I kind of knew, I had like the DNA of the church kind of like, I got the church, I understood what we were trying to do.   And by 2013, though, our founding pastor left. It was incredibly sad. We were told that he had health issues. And so, I thought, okay, great, well, at least he’s going to get help, the help that he needs in another state. So, we are without a pastor for a year and another pastor comes in. We interview several, and another pastor comes in from the Dallas area, from a very known A29 church in Dallas. And because our church was so tired and so worn out, we were just grateful to have another leader at the helm. That was, I believe, 2014. And then three years later, in 2017, I come on staff. I at this point, I know the people on staff very well. It’s a very small staff of six or seven people. Most of them I had been to their weddings or held their kids or they helped my kids. It was very, very tight knit. Even with the lead pastor, his wife and I were friends, our kids were the same age. Like, I would have said I’d known them for a very long time.   But everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong. The first day started with yelling during a Bible study. It was right before like Christ’s likeness on the book of Luke and the Bible study was supposed to, the idea of the Bible study was. It was my first day, so what we’re going to do is build cohesion as a support staff. None of the pastors were there. It was a male Executive Director and many support staff, females. And we were going to do this Bible study. And I just thought, like, if it’s cohesion that we’re looking for, but it’s yelling before we even pray or read, there’s yelling.   JULIE ROYS  25:27 What was he yelling about?   JENAI AUMAN  25:28 So, this is a volunteer staff Bible study. It started an hour technically before work started. And so, I got to work 55 minutes early, but five minutes late. And another female coworker was a minute late after me. And that is kind of what triggered him. And I had known this man for a while. I helped him and his wife kind of decorate their house. We traded so many personal conversations. This was really it was shocking. I thought I must be reading the room incorrectly. Either that or is this normal? I don’t know.   JULIE ROYS  26:11 So, you’re yelled up for being five minutes late to work.   JENAI AUMAN  26:15 And the yelling went on for like 10 minutes. So, it wasn’t like a time saving maneuver. It went on for a while. And so it was, it was a mess. But after 10 minutes, we read Luke one. And we talked about Luke one together. And I’m pretty sure I didn’t say anything else for the rest of ,at least for the rest of the Bible study, I didn’t say anything else. And so yeah, that was day one. And from there, it just kind of that was the foundation upon which everything else was built and started crumbling and falling apart.   JULIE ROYS  26:48 Wow. So, the spiritual views. I know, part of it was it sounded like you were given unrealistic expectations. And when you didn’t reach these unrealistic expectations, it sounds like they came down pretty hard.   JENAI AUMAN  27:05 Yeah.   JULIE ROYS  27:05 I mean, was that kind of mixed with some sort of spiritual rhetoric? You know, you’re just not committed enough or how did that abuse play itself out? Besides Oh, my gosh, you come five minutes late, and you get yelled at for 10 minutes?   JENAI AUMAN  27:20 Yeah, the essentially embarked on a very, it was a multimillion-dollar capital campaign that started just after I came on staff, and I was doing the accounting and the finances. I was doing communication, social media, internal and external communication, all communication with members. And I was doing facility maintenance and administration. Gosh, Benefits Administration for staff, HR, like all of those things, it’s multiple departments. And at some point, I start pushing back and saying, I can’t have my job description change again. You can’t add anything else to that, like I, this is a full pot. At some point, like, I’m going to boil over and this is just not going to work anymore. And whenever I would push back, typically, I would, oh, gosh, I remember putting so much emotional energy into any sort of not even a confrontation, but just a discussion about like, Hey, I understand that I came to the staff with a lot of preconceived notions that maybe were wrong on my part, but here is where I feel like I can’t trust myself with you and how you oversee my work. But here’s my hope in moving forward. And realizing that  anything that I said or did was perceived as I hate this person’s leadership. And I thought, that’s not what I said, though. I don’t think anyone ever used scripture against me to me in a conversation. But then you would hear the Sunday sermon, and realize this is really, I mean, it’s all correct. But it also feels really pointed to what’s going on behind the scenes with the staff. And I am super confused. Or I would hear personal stories that I would share during our staff communication about we would ask each other how our family lives are going, and just realizing some of these personal communications that were just between us as a staff ended up in the sermons as well. As if like, my story was cannon fodder for what needed to be written that week, in addition to the conflict, and I just thought like, I feel like I am a part of the like, the sermon is for everyone, but I definitely felt like there were fingers pointed at me, also, and so I know that some people in their stories have scripture overtly used against them to their face. I don’t think mine; I think most of the instances where I experienced spiritual abuse was very covert.   JULIE ROYS  30:03 Yeah, the overt stuff is so much easier. The covert stuff is a little more insidious and crazy making. It is crazy making and I’ve heard that before from other people. Like, I know a former longtime elder at Harvest Bible Chapel when he left, and then he listened to James McDonald sermon. And he’d like describe something he said he didn’t even describe it accurately. You know, that’s what he said to me. But, but yeah, it was like, Oh, my word, that’s me! That’s how he’s painting me. Oh, my word! And really, as an evil person. And that was him. And yeah, that makes it unbelievably difficult. And I think too, I don’t know what it’s like to be a man. But I will say as being a woman, I think we naturally look to our male pastors, as you know, often we ascribe them maybe more authority in our life than we should. But it’s natural. Like I’ve been there. And I’ve been there where it takes a really long time for me to say, Wait, what he did was wrong. That was not okay. And the way he treated me was not okay. Yet. In the back of your mind, you always have, oh, I really want their affirmation. I really, and it’s so very damaging to the soul.   JENAI AUMAN  31:16 And the thing is, is I got that affirmation so often. A few months later, we had a different meeting. It was my pastor at the time, he was on a sabbatical when I came on staff. And when he came back from sabbatical, his first day back, before we, like really start working together, we had had a blow-up staff meeting where I realized, oh, the conflict is more than just one Executive Director. It includes the pastoral team, and everyone kind of jumped on this lead pastor and had so many thoughts to say, and this is just my first time in this dynamic, thinking, what’s going on? And later in the day, he would say, hey, he came up to me personally and said, hey, I am going to upset you. I’m just letting you know, there’s going to be times where I let you down. And I’m going to need you to give me grace. And I thought, well, of course, that’s what we do. And only later would I realize I don’t think he planned to mistreat me; I don’t know. But I think he knew that there were deficits in his life that he was unwilling to acknowledge. And instead of like correcting and like growing in those areas, the expectation was for me to just kind of grin and bear it. And that became the tenor of the entirety of my time there.   JULIE ROYS  32:34 And it’s hard to be a good boss. Especially if you start something or if it’s really, you’re passionate about it, you give tons and tons of hours to it. You work overtime, you sometimes work on weekends, you can’t expect your employees to do that. I mean, you really can’t. And yet, yeah, that’s common. That is common.   JENAI AUMAN  32:55 And the flattery, which was a part of it too, you’re really good at your job. I’ve never, I’ve never been told I was bad at my job. I was so good at my job. But when things kind of started crumbling and falling apart, and I was burning out, like burning out in glorious flames, I was crying. I remember telling them, like, you keep telling me, I’m good at my job. And I keep telling you, there’s too much of my job to do. Can’t you understand? Like, if I’m doing such a good job, can you see it’s killing me because there’s too much on my plate? And they just couldn’t see that. They thought if you could knuckle down and do it, then you must be able to do it. And it was the culture of just do more, be more, try more. It was never like you’re enough to begin with.   JULIE ROYS  33:47 So, you ended up leaving, and I’m sure that was a grueling process.   JENAI AUMAN  33:54 It was.   JULIE ROYS  33:55 And when you left, my guess is you lost a lot of that community.   JENAI AUMAN  33:59 Every single person. I think maybe one to two friendships exists still from that church, after 11 years.   JULIE ROYS  34:09 It’s brutal. Awful. I’ve been through it a couple of times. I was at Moody Radio for over 10 years. One or two that I’ll still maybe be friendly with. But you know, for the most part, I’m a pariah there because I blew the whistle on what was going on there. We’ve had stuff go on at our church where there was mishandling of sexual abuse. Now we’re in a house church. Fortunately, I will say I think maybe the maturity of the people you know more those relationships have stayed. But I think the more dysfunctional a system is, the less people are able to continue those relationships because that system sees you as disloyal. Wants to label you as a slanderer or gossip or you know, they have to somehow vilify you to minimize your voice because God forbid people believe that what you’re saying is true. And they actually have to repent of something. Yeah. And so, you become the problem instead of them acknowledging the problem. I listened to a podcast where you said, it’s a relational wilderness. Yeah. And it’s so painful to be in that wilderness. And yet, in that wilderness, is where you began writing, I think, for your own healing.   JENAI AUMAN  35:30 Yeah. Oh, yeah.   JULIE ROYS  35:31 And yet it became a balm for other people. So how did that happen? It sounds like it happened completely organically.   JENAI AUMAN  35:38 It did. So, we left our church in, actually the meeting that I had with my elders when I, they kept saying transitioning out, like we’re transitioning you out of your role. And it’s my husband who works in corporate America who said, where are they transitioning you? Nowhere. They’re firing you. They’re getting rid of you. They’re just making it look pretty. In that meeting that we had, it was the very first Monday of COVID lockdown.   JULIE ROYS  36:06 Oh, wow.   JENAI AUMAN  36:07 I know, it was. So, I think to some degree, everyone was entering a very relational wilderness. I don’t think I was alone in that. But with the distance, there was also an increased silence. So, I think people actually tried to connect and call one another. That did not happen with me. So, it was like lonely and quiet.   And this is the kicker. My transitioning out because I was the Administrative Manager, and my name was on all of the bank documents and passwords. And I had all of those things, I had a very long transition out. So, I was working for two more months after I was technically fired. And I remember thinking, I’m not, I’m not happy that the pandemic’s here, but I’m really happy that I don’t have to open the church building and smile, like pretend to be happy for all of these people, while inwardly I’m dying.   And so anyway, we left our church and I actually tried to apply for, I can’t tell you how many jobs I applied for in the middle of 2020, which was the worst year that anyone could have ever tried to transition or find work when everything had just shut down. And I was so despondent or disheartened. And I just felt like, my resume is loaded for ministry. I don’t think I want to do any sort of ministry work anymore. But any of these corporate jobs, like I just feel like I don’t fit either. Like I don’t, I never fit at my church. And I don’t fit in the corporate world because I don’t have a corporate resume. And so, I thought, like, I turned to my husband, I said, what would it look like if I just tried writing? And do you think we have the finances to give me some time to be able to do that? And my husband who is a saint, literally, he should be canonized the day that he dies. He said, Yeah, do it. Like I have no qualms, you should do it. That was August, or September of 2020. And then I was I thought, like, well, how does one become a writer? What do you do to do this? I’ve always been a fairly creative person. I liked doodling and drawing and loved art in school. And so, I thought like this is just another creative endeavor. Let me try to put pieces together that this time the pieces are words, to help really me make sense of what was happening.   And as I started putting those pieces together and just kind of sending them out on Instagram, I realized it resonated with other people that they may not have experienced spiritual abuse, or that might not be the word that they identify with, but they have also felt like a pariah, having been divorced and feeling like they don’t fit within the church culture, or dealing with a chronic illness and feeling so misunderstood within the churches or misunderstood particularly with the mask mandates and saying, like I can’t go to a church building, if people aren’t wearing masks, because if I contract it, I will be in peril. A lot of people started connecting with the work, I think, just in a variety of different ways. And despite my using spiritual abuse and religious trauma, it reached a lot of other people. It reached people who are deconstructing which that’s never been a term that I’ve heavily identified with, I think, because I didn’t grow up in the culture. I didn’t feel like there was very much to tear down. But I started reaching people and they started reaching out and sharing their stories with me and I thought there’s a lot of hurting people out here. And I get it, I get it. I really do. So, I just started connecting with them and just hearing their stories and realizing like in my being able to hear their story and that some of them hearing mine, there was actual healing happening. Like that was almost the hands and feet of Jesus at work even online.   JULIE ROYS  39:59 I think that’s very true. And I know I’ve heard that even about this podcast where people can hear stories that it just becomes so healing and so affirming, like to have somebody validate your story and validate your experience is huge. And I think there is so much healing in coming together. And you started an online, like a private online community, right? How did that come about?   JENAI AUMAN  40:22 I just realized, there’s a lot of people who want to connect with other people. And so, in the beginning, a lot of them were messaging me. And over the course of time, I realized this is I wish I could connect this person with this person, because I think they would really like each other, or this person with this person. And I realized I’m not going to give each other their information. But I thought if they would want to join a private space where they could naturally connect with one another, and I didn’t have to necessarily be a mediator, they could do that. And so, I opened it’s an on the Discord app, or the platform where you can kind of create like a server, which is essentially just chat rooms. And yeah, they’ve connected with each other online. We kind of have some ground rules where like, what is shared on Discord stays on Discord. But sometimes they’ll share their stories of how their churches have hurt them. But then other times, they’ll talk about like cooking recipes, or like other different things. It doesn’t necessarily have to be hard things all the time. Or they’ll talk about, you know, some beautiful photo that they saw, or they took or anything fun. So, it was just kind of like a private space where they could just meet others, where they didn’t have to explain over explain themselves, like they were meeting other people who just got it.   JULIE ROYS  41:37 Hmm, that’s interesting you say that, because that’s how we started in 2019. How the Restore conference got started was just, I mean, I’m a journalist, but I met all these people in reporting on what happened at Harvest Bible Chapel and then reporting what was happening at Willow Creek. And, you know, I’m in the Chicago area, and I just met person after person. Actually, we met in person, prior to Harvest, was like the big first investigation after the Moody one that I reported on. And we did get together and prayed together and prayed that there, you know, that there would be repentance for those who were living in sin and leading. So, we already had some community there, but I knew there was there was just so much hurt. And so many people who were disconnected from the church, and it was just kind of like, wow, we just need a space where like, people can gather, and so that first I remember that first one in 2019. So powerful. And it’s funny, because I was like, well, we have to have people there, you know, to pray for people because they’re so hurting. So, I recruited several people that I knew, just mature believers who loved and knew how to pray for people. And we had prayer ministers. And what I found out is now the prayer ministers were there, like they’re sitting next to you, you know, and people were just ministering to each other. It was just this glorious community. Because of COVID, we couldn’t meet again till 2022. And you came. I didn’t know you in May. But you came and were part of this. And interestingly, I will say the first one was almost I’d say 75-80% Chicago area people. The second one, there are people there from 44 states and two provinces of Canada. So, the way this has grown as a movement, I mean, despite the fact that we had to take three years off, because of COVID. It has been amazing. We have another one coming up June 9th and 10th. People can mark their calendars now. We’ll be announcing more about that soon. But yeah, there were some things you loved about it. But you also had a critique for it. So, let’s start with the good. Before we get to that, what did you see happening there that that you loved that you thought was beautiful?   JENAI AUMAN  43:55 Yeah, I will say personally, probably the most impactful thing that I experienced was the people that I had connected with online, I got to actually hug some of them that I had become friends with. Which is so funny. I laugh about this all the time. In middle school when the internet was kind of coming of age and your teachers and your parents are telling you don’t meet people, don’t give out personal information, don’t meet people on the internet. I feel like that’s all I do now is meet people on the internet. But getting to hug the necks of friends and just like laugh with them. There was one night we were at the restaurant at the hotel and the laugh, I was laughing so hard, I was crying, and I just realized I have not done this, I think, in years with people who my defenses could come down a little bit. We were just laughing and being silly. It was that was meeting the people there was inarguably the most beautiful thing. And then hearing the stories. I mean getting to hear from you know experts like Dr. Diane :Langberg, Dr. Scott McKnight. I mean, all of these titans whose books actually all their books came out in 2020. Almost as if God knew that I needed those books like the months after having left our church. And gleaning their words and getting to hear them articulate them, to me, in person was a gift. Getting to hear Lori Anne Thompson and her story in person. And both her ferocity and her gentleness and seeing it like in her person. I thought like, that’s what I want to embody. Like I want to I don’t want to lose my gentleness. But I also know that there’s a fire within me that it’s been kindled within me. Because I know what justice is now after experiencing so many injustices. And so, getting to experience and hear their wisdom and receive it in person was a gift, a huge gift, a really big gift. And I left feeling full  after the Restore conference.   JULIE ROYS  46:05 Well, even though I couldn’t be there in person, which was painful, but I got to meet with people. The same sort of thing, people that I’ve sources for my stories, like, you know, they feel like sisters, by the time you’re done, yeah, I mean, you get close, and to be able to meet them in person and to be able to meet, like you said, there’s, there was a dinner we did on Thursday night before the conference with people that I’ve never met, that, you know, had become close through Twitter through that community. It’s amazing. I mean, this is the most beautiful redeeming thing, I think, on social media, if some of this stuff going on. I mean, for all of the horrible things that happen on social media, God is using it, you know, and it’s so beautiful to see.   And one thing I heard from a lot of people, too, that they love, is that the speakers, usually speakers come and go, and speakers stay, because they love you. They’re part of you, you know? This is their community, their people. I mean, it’s just, I love it. I absolutely love that.   You did have a critique, and it’s one that we’re going to address. And I think we’re going to do a lot better this time. But it’s a huge blind spot that we’ve had, which is regarding the fact that there wasn’t more diversity. We did have some persons of color. But you’re right, it was predominantly white. And I think, you know, it’s interesting, because I was just talking to Nagmeh Panahi yesterday, and we were talking about the overlap between abuse and spiritual abuse in the church, and then the persecuted church, you know? and how there’s a similar experience going on there. And I think the same thing with marginalized persons. I think there’s an overlap. And I think there’s a natural empathy for those who’ve been through abuse to be like, oh, oh, this is how you feel? Okay, I get it. Because, you know, I’ve kind of been there. But talk about that, and why how we failed, how we can do better, why it’s important.   JENAI AUMAN  48:01 I didn’t share this within the story of my former church because I wasn’t alive to it yet. But a few months after I had left that church, I connected with a coworker who was still a friend, who also had left that church, she resigned. And  she told me, I know that your story and all that you experienced and what they’ve done to you, I know that you believe it was largely a gender issue, and nothing else. But she said, you were also the only minority on staff, and I don’t want to overlook that. And she’s a white woman. And she had to point this out to me. Like I had so erased myself, and that part of my identity, that I couldn’t see it anymore, but she saw it for me. And I realized, oh, yes, the only woman of color on staff was the one that was forced out while everyone else was kind of given other opportunities, and I was not.   And so, as I was kind of coming alive to that reality, and like registering for Restore, and really excited to be a part of that, I’ve got my ethnic heritage, kind of on undercurrent in the background, and back to thinking, you know, how would my mother feel in this environment? How would she receive any sort of, like speech or talk on power? And how would she respond to the pieces of advice that we are given or that we hear or and I would just think like that, this lands on people of color differently. It’s almost like it’s hard to hear about power dynamics and being taught about power dynamics from a white person or a white evangelical when, like generations of our family’s history have suffered under those power dynamics. And so, I think it’s just different. What was said was true, absolutely 100% true. But I think whenever especially when you’re talking to African Americans whose generational trauma exists because of marginalization and of slavery and racism, I just think discussions of power and power dynamics lands on these populations differently.   You are also like not telling them anything that they didn’t know. But it’s kind of like whenever we tell people, you know, after having experienced spiritual abuse, you need to use your voice and stand up. But you can’t kind of say that to a Black person or an Indigenous person or a person of color, when using their voice often gets them into further harm and abuse. And we’ve seen the news stories. So, it’s almost like you have to approach the conversation differently, or understand that we can have these conversations, but there’s also limits to our knowledge. And so like, I know that, you know, my lane only speaks to this and the limitations of my knowledge, exclude these things. And I don’t I believe everything that was said was said with wisdom during the conference. I could just see; I would be interested in hearing what African American and like sisters in the audience like what they would think and hearing from their voices as well.   As a biracial person, and I’m kind of toeing the line of like, I’m pretty sure it would be heard like this, or I’m pretty sure these lands differently, but hearing from my Black sisters and their thoughts on that, like, I know that they bring a different wisdom to the table on how especially how power dynamics and trauma just lands. I mean, when we’re talking about spiritual abuse, and how scripture is used to justify atrocities. I mean, that was the entire slave movement, and how churches were complicit in that and how the SBC was even created and branched off because they wanted to justify slavery. We have to acknowledge that spiritual abuse. It’s new to the modern-day conversation, but it’s not at all new as an ideology or method. It’s been in practice for a long time. It’s just remained unnamed and unhealed for a very, very long time.   JULIE ROYS  52:22 It’s sad to say, but I mean, I think it’s true that until you’ve been through something like that, you just don’t get it. And I’m not saying that it can’t be gotten because I think it has to, and I know we I know there were pastors there who have never been through it and just wanted to experience and hear how people who have been spiritually abused or sexually abused in a religious context, how that feels for them and understand their experience. And I’ve heard back from some of those pastors who were just like, wow, that was hard. Because they said, like, I kind of felt like, can I tell people I’m a pastor? Because they’ve been hurt by religious authorities, right? I mean. And I get that, and I really want pastors to be there. I know, we had like a number of seminarians there too, and that heartens me because I think it begins to end when we begin to understand how things happen. And like you said, even that A29 church you were in, they probably weren’t meaning to be abusive.   I’m so glad for people like you and Kyle Howard, and, you know, other voices really speaking into some of these issues, who also understand abuse. I think it’s super helpful. So, my commitment, I think you’ll see a very different lineup. Not different. There’s a lot of people coming back to the next Restore who were at the last one, but there’s going to be a lot more diversity at this year’s conference. And hoping you know, you can be a part of it, too. Yeah. I love what you’re doing. And know you have a book coming up, right?   JENAI AUMAN  53:56 Yes, it’s being it’s currently being pitched right now. So, we’ll see.   JULIE ROYS  53:59 That’s an exciting process.   JENAI AUMAN  54:01 It is. Really, the hope is that the book just makes it into the right hands. It doesn’t need to make it into all the hands, just the right hands of the people who need it. And as far as Restore, I want you to be encouraged that the work  you’re doing matters. And I think probably the most encouraging thing is hearing that you are willing to learn and grow. I think that’s all we really want to hear from our pastors is that they are willing to learn and grow and we don’t hear those things. And it’s not that we expect anyone to be perfect. It’s just that they are willing to make incremental, small changes that point to goodness. And even with the next Restore, I’m not expecting it to be perfect. I’m expecting it to just be faithful.   JULIE ROYS  54:43 You know,  before I let you go, I do want to give you just an opportunity. I think one way obviously that you’ve mentioned we can change is just by having those voices upfront in our churches, in our conferences, in everything we’re doing, to really intentionally do that. And I think it does have to be intentional because we have to understand that we’re in a cultural context. And it takes effort. Like we don’t mean to exclude diverse voices, but how many friends do we have of color? You know? And unless we like do that intentionally, it’s probably not going to happen.   So what are some things that we can do, if we want to really grow in this area and become a space, whether it’s in the church, or just our relational gatherings, whatever, to really welcome those voices and understand a little bit better, and allow someone like you, someone who’s biracial who comes in, to fully be who they are, without having to accommodate our cultural context?   JENAI AUMAN  55:50 Yeah, I think I mean, any change starts with the person. So, I was just talking to another friend of mine. And what she said was essentially, like, you need to start looking for voices in your personal life, who you’re willing to listen to. If not a friend that you can connect with, then like, what are you reading? What, what authors are you reading? What information are you allowing to impact you? There’s so many great books by biopic individuals that speak beautifully of theological truths and God’s goodness. And they are the ones they are the voices that I’ve been primarily learning from lately. And in doing that, you start to kind of gain empathy, and you gain language, because you’re understanding their language that they’re writing with.   And if you do have a friend, like connect with them, ask them like, how can I learn more? When you have to be brave, you have to bravely ask like, how do I make space for those who don’t look like me? How do I make space? How do I ask questions without being awkward? Is it okay to be awkward? How do I ask like about their ethnic experience? And how can I make it safe for them to share? Because so many of them do not know that it’s safe to share with people. And so really, learning what it is to become a safe person who’s willing to hear hard truths is kind of priority numero uno. Learning how, how can I not become defensive when another person who does not look like me communicates their story, and it kind of pings the guilt within me? I think that’s a lifelong work. So that’s a lifelong work for everyone. That’s a lifelong work for me. But I think it is a work worth doing. I think it’s learning to love your neighbor.   JULIE ROYS  57:46 Absolutely. It is. And if we don’t learn it, this side of eternity, you know, we’re gonna be spending the rest of eternity with every tribe, every nation, every tongue, right? I mean, so you better we better get used to it now. Because we’re gonna have an awful lot of diversity in heaven. I just appreciate you, Jenai. I appreciate your voice. I appreciate your theological grounding, which I’ve heard in a lot of what you’ve written, and a lot of what you’ve spoken. And I just appreciate your gracious heart and helping us grow. So, thank you.   JENAI AUMAN  58:16 Thank you so much, Julie. I really I really enjoyed this today. So, thank you.   JULIE ROYS  58:20 Yeah, me too. And thanks so much for listening to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And just a reminder that we’re able to do this podcast and all of our investigative work at The Roys Report because of the support of people like you. If you appreciate our work here at The Roys Report, would you please consider donating to help us continue? And this month we’re especially looking to increase our monthly supporters so we can expand our coverage. If you sign up to give $25 a month or more, we’ll send you our new clear glass Roy’s Report mug. And we hope that every time you use it, you’ll be reminded to pray for us and our work to promote truth and transparency in the church. To sign up and get your mug just go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE.   Also, just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcast, Google podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. That way you’ll never miss an episode. 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Guest Bios Show Transcript What do you do when you realize you’ve been abused by your church? Do you appeal to the denomination? Do you speak up publicly to seek justice, even if you suspect the majority won’t listen? In this second of a two-part podcast, Lori Harding tells what she did in this situation. She recounts returning to her former church—the well-known Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida—and asking the church to right past wrongs. In this podcast, you’ll hear how her church responded. And you’ll hear part of an interview I conducted with current Coral Ridge Senior Pastor Rob Pacienza. You’ll also hear what happened when Lori asked for help from her denomination, A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians (ECO). I’ll read an email Lori received from the senior executive with ECO, after she told him details of how a church in his denomination treated her. Though Lori didn’t get the responses she’d hoped for, she says she has experienced freedom simply by refusing to be silenced. And that in itself has been helpful. Because this interview brings Lori’s story full circle, you may want to start with part one. This is an extremely eye-opening podcast, with insights on celebrity church leaders, NDAs, and spiritual abuse.  This Weeks Guests Lori Harding Lori Harding is an MDiv graduate of Knox Theological Seminary, an ordained pastor, and former Associate Pastor and Executive Director at Grace Community Church in Boca Raton, FL. Working in ministry for the past fourteen years has given Lori ample opportunity to see firsthand the devastating effects of patriarchy, narcissism, and abuse within the church. She currently advocates for abuse victims and works to expose the realities of church abuse. Lori resides in Fort Lauderdale, Florida with her husband and enjoys spending time with her family. Show Transcript SPEAKERS DEBBIE VIVEROS, JULIE ROYS, ROB PACIENZA, LORI HARDING, ATTORNEY DAVID GIBBS JULIE ROYS 00:03 What do you do when you realize you’ve been abused by your church? Do you appeal to the denomination? Do you go back to the church seeking justice? Do you speak up publicly? Even if you suspect the majority won’t listen? Welcome to the Roys report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And in this podcast, I continue my interview with Lori Harding, someone who faced these difficult questions following alleged spiritual abuse at two Presbyterian churches. The first is Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. This is the church where Dr. D. James Kennedy pastored for decades before his death, and it’s where Billy Graham’s grandson Tullian Tchividjian pastored for several years before news broke of Tchividjian’s sexual misconduct. Harding served under Tchvidjian and says she was wrongly fired and ostracized by the church for simply questioning Tchividjian and raising financial questions. She also served at another church where she says she was fired for noting a vast wage disparity between her and the senior pastor. If you missed our first podcast, I encourage you to go back and listen to the first one before continuing with this episode. That said, this is an extremely eye opening podcast. And you’ll hear what happened to Lori when she declared freedom from the forces that sought to silence her. And you’ll find out what happened when she went back to Coral Ridge, urging the church to right its past wrongs. We’ll get into all that in a moment. But first, I’d like to thank the sponsors of this podcast, Judson University, and Marquardt of Barrington.** Judson University is a top ranked Christian University providing a caring community and an excellent college experience. Plus the school offers more than 60 majors, great leadership opportunities and strong financial aid. Judson University is shaping lives that shape the world. For more information just go to JudsonU.edu.** Also if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity and transparency. That’s because the owners there, Dan and Kurt Marquardt are our men of character. To check them out, just go to BuyACar123.com.** Well, again, you’re about to hear part two of my interview with Lori Harding. Lori is the former women’s ministry director at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. She also formerly served as the associate pastor and Executive Director at Grace Community Church in Boca Raton, Florida. We pick up our interview after Lori has described why she believes she was spiritually abused by both Coral Ridge and Grace Community Church. So Lori reached out to her denomination the Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians or ECO. And she heard back from the senior executive with the CEO Dana Allin. And as you’ll hear, Allin didn’t deny Lori had been wronged. But he didn’t offer any help, either. I have that email from Dana Allin, who’s the executive with the CEO. And he wrote you on August 10, 2021. My guess, but again, just a guess, is that an attorney advised the session not to engage. “On the surface, it seems wrong, and I understand your frustration,” because you had reached out and, and told him what your experience was. “But there are a lot of times in disputes when parties engage with each other, it only makes matters worse, more messy and more complicated, especially in employment issues. I’m good friends with an employment attorney in the church. Certainly it seems right and biblical to want to work it out. It can often create more complexity and liability by having a bunch of back and forth between the parties involved.” And then he says, “as this lawyer explained it, I understood why sometimes it’s better just to let the attorneys for each party handle the disagreements.” So you’re going to your denomination and saying this is what happened. “Is this okay with you?” You know, “Is it okay that they gave me an NDA? Is it okay that they presented things this way? And Dana, saying, ‘You know what? Maybe it’s just best you let it go.'” LORI HARDING 04:19 Yeah, JULIE ROYS 04:20 Let it go. LORI HARDING 04:21 I mean, he’s saying, you know, “On the surface, from everything I can see, it looks like it was wrong. It was handaled wrong. But I can’t do anything.” JULIE ROYS 04:30 So, you had a day, which you call your declaration of Freedom Day. One of the letters you wrote was to your denomination. What did you tell your denomination? LORI HARDING 04:44 There’s a technical term for it, but basically I renounced my ordination. One of my highest values is integrity. And I think you and I talked about this. And its, integrity is not just a matter of morality, although that’s what a lot of people think of when they think of integrity. But integrity is really referring to wholeness. And that’s a huge value for me. So living on the outside in congruency with who I am on the inside. When I signed that NDA, the reason I immediately regretted it and felt crushed by it was because I was out of congruency, if you want to say. I felt in my soul, that I was not a person of integrity anymore. And because that is such a high value for me, every minute of every day, I felt the weight of that. JULIE ROYS 05:39 NDAs to me, they’re soul crushing, because it puts a, I mean, this is part of the reason we have a First Amendment. It’s part of the reason I’m a journalist. I believe so strongly in people being able to use their voice. And it completely shuts down their voice so that they can get a severance that they already earned. LORI HARDING 05:57 Yeah. JULIE ROYS 05:58 If you’re gonna give them something extra, that’d be one thing. But it’s just to get what you already earned. And that’s what’s so frustrating. And I’ve been on that side. Thank God, you know, as a journalist, I saw that and I was just like, mm-mm, there’s no way I’m signing that. But had I not been, might it have been different? Yeah. And you don’t know on which side how you’re gonna respond. Declaration of Freedom Day. So one letter goes to the ECO. One letter went to Grace, because you’re saying you violated the NDA in what you’ve said, in what that email that Rob had sent the pastor. And then you also wrote an email to Rob Pacienza. Would you be willing to read that email that you sent Rob? LORI HARDING 06:46 Sure. I wrote this in August. I said, “Good evening, Rob. I hope this note finds you well. I’m sure you recall the evening Peter and I agreed to meet with you at your request. It was a brave thing for you to do, to ask for my forgiveness with no excuses or defense. I remember vividly being physically shaken by the deep trauma I’ve been holding over the course of the prior year following that horrific meeting on March 13, 2014, in Tullian’s office. When I say physically shaken, you may have noticed my entire body shaking as you talked. You offered to answer questions, but I could barely speak. I asked nothing. The single most transformative word you gave me was, ‘there was nothing wrong with you. You were well.’ Fast forward. It has been seven years. You apologized for your part. And I’m grateful for that. But the church and session was responsible for the out of control behavior of the pastor and at least two elders stood by and watched. The week after I was fired. I had to walk into a seminary class at Knox, not knowing who knew what. Clark Cochran sat at the front of the class. Ashamed and humiliated, I chose a seat in the back row. I never sat in the front section of a seminary class again. My family lost every relationship we had built over the years. We were shunned by everyone except four of my closest friends. My extended community abandoned me, Kim Crandall, Lauren Larkin and the Droping Keys community. No one believed me. No one listened. Peter has never been to church again, and will never go back to a church as a result of how we were treated. You might recall he was a deacon at the time. No one called him or reached out to him. I could go on, but I won’t. My purpose for writing this letter is to make a request of you as a senior leader at CRPC. I have never had closure on what took place. What happened to me was public. The Women’s Bible study group was told I was not well. That was public. Staff was told I was not well. That was public. I faced an onslaught of judgment from a group of 20 plus devout liberate fans who deserted me. That was public. In light of those wrongs, I humbly request an apology from CRPC in word and a monetary demonstration of repentance. Please do not hear this as a demand. I make no demands whatsoever. Far from the demand, this is a call for closure to something very painful in my life that was wrought at the hands of the church I loved and served. In a church that now has the ability to make things right and do what is good. The reason for the request for repentance in the form of a monetary amount is to signal a demonstration of the words of repentance. You could call it a lived theology, a sign of goodness, a demonstration of the gospel. Sidenote, you might recall that an NDA was presented and Peter and I made the decision to forego the monetary settlement offer and not sign the original agreement. I will close with these words from Scot McKnight and his recent work, “A Church Called Tov.” He says, ‘The church can only witness to the truth of Jesus by seeking justice, serving with humility, operating transparently and confessing and lamenting failures. In a healthy Tov culture, leaders will avoid denial and spin in favor of finding and telling the truth even when the truth is painful.’ This request presents an opportunity for the church community of CRPC to serve with humility, confess and lament failure and bind up the brokenhearted. My hope is that she rises to meet it.” JULIE ROYS 10:20 Rob did respond. You had a phone conversation. And how did that go? LORI HARDING 10:28 I have to say I had zero expectation, honestly of anything happening. I was honestly surprised that he responded. But he did pretty quickly in a text. We’d set up a phone conversation. We had that phone call. At the beginning of the call, I let him know that I had someone with me, and that he was on speakerphone. And the purpose was to be a witness of this conversation, and to take notes for me. And so it was about a 45 minute conversation. He was very gracious. He was kind. I mean, after the call, my friend and I were commenting just how struck we were by how gracious he seemed and how caring he seemed. And he was asking good questions. So, you know, we we did a little chitchat, and then we jumped into it. And he asked me specifically, “what were you thinking in terms of an apology? What would that look like?” And honestly, Julie, I had not even gotten that far in terms of what I was thinking for an apology, or the monetary demonstration, I just really was not expecting anything. And, and I was going to be okay with that. And so he kind of caught me off guard when he asked that question. So I just, you know, kind of off the cuff was talking, you know, through some things out of what that might look like, you know, again, for me, because it was public, it had to be some kind of public apology. So would that be social media on the website, from the pulpit, or maybe directly to those communities that were most affected by the news by what they said about me? I just listed those as options. We talked about them, I threw them out. And so you know, I think he was taking notes. I don’t know. But then he asked about the monetary part of it. And again, I just, you know, I think he was the one that mentioned the, my original NDA, and, you know, maybe that was a starting place. And I said, Okay, that would be a good starting place. I said, and he said, “are there other things?” And so that’s when I began to list the other things. So healthcare premiums, my, I was receiving a scholarship through Coral Ridge and Knox partnership. So a part of my seminary was being paid by Coral Ridge. So their portion I had I said, you know, that could be covered. He had shared with me that he and his wife had received counseling after the Tullian situation became, you know, got exposed. And so he and his wife received some counseling. He said they were in counseling for a year. So I put a modest amount, not even like a full counselor’s fee, but our copay, you know, so it was a small amount really. JULIE ROYS 13:00 That was around September, and then you don’t hear anything for a month. And so you you sent an email in September, following this conversation. And you did list two months severance, which was, you know, $6,700. Two months of continuation of insurance of Cobra, which would be $2,000. Loss of salary when unemployed for five months: $17,000. Cobra premiums for five months $5,000. $800 for your Knox scholarship, because the church had been paying And then counseling you at $3.400. So it was a total of $34,752. Then you don’t you don’t hear for a month. And then when you do hear you got an email from Rob’s assistant. Correct? LORI HARDING 13:51 [Yes] JULIE ROYS 13:52 Essentially, he’s offering you what, because there were there were two documents that were attached to this email. LORI HARDING 14:01 Right. JULIE ROYS 14:01 What were those documents? LORI HARDING 14:03 Right, Andrew Nichols, his executive director responded and said that they had the session met and this was what they decided. “If you agree, sign the two documents attached.” It was a very cold email. And then his closing was, “All further communication about this matter will go through me. Do not speak to Rob anymore.” That was interesting. But anyway, so the two documents that were attached was an an NDA, for exactly the same amount as the original NDA from 2014 and a W-9 form. JULIE ROYS 14:39 So basically, they’re giving you the same thing Tullian gave you in 2014 LORI HARDING 14:44 Correct. JULIE ROYS 14:45 The exact same amount LORI HARDING 14:46 Exactly. JULIE ROYS 14:47 And tied to an NDA. LORI HARDING 14:49 Correct. JULIE ROYS 14:50 Okay. Well, as I said at the beginning of the podcast, I did reach out to Rob Pacienza to get his side of the story. And he did agree to an interview. And sitting in on the interview is Attorney David Gibbs. And in the clip that I’m about to play, Rob argues that you were fired for bad performance, that the church never defamed or maligned you. And he takes exception to the idea that you were a victim. In fact, he says the church was generous with you, and gave you time off, as you referenced earlier in this podcast for a personal issue and gave you that time off with pay. So here’s Rob Pacienza, again, explaining why it is that you were fired. ROB PACIENZA 15:36 She just wasn’t a good employee. I don’t think it was anything personal. You know, I never because the way it ended the way it did. And she never really gave us a chance to reconnect until you know, most recently when she wanted to collect her severance last year, I think there was just a lot going on in her life that just didn’t allow her to focus. It was hard for her to connect with other employees. And it became more of a distraction than anything else. Even though like I had said back in 2012, we had given her time off, which is, in my recollection, I don’t know if we’ve done that for any other employee, give them you know, time off and continue to pay them. So in my opinion, I felt like we were more than generous with her and it just just wasn’t a good fit for her at Coral Ridge.** And, you know, I hope the best for her. And, you know, Julie, you might not know this, but I filled out a reference for her for future employment. I actually talked to her future boss that she was eventually later terminated at that church as well. I don’t know the reasons for why she was terminated from that church. But I got on the phone with that pastor for a good 30 minutes and gave her as glowing a report as I possibly could. I wanted her to really end well. So I know you had mentioned in your I know, you had mentioned to David that she was somehow publicly defamed. That’s terribly inconsistent with me reaching out to her former to her former boss but future boss at the time and giving her a recommendation and giving her an endorsement. And she had even reached out to me said, “would you be willing to talk to you know, this pastor?” So, terribly inconsistent that we were publicly defaming her but then willing to get on the phone with her, you know, for future employer and an endorser and give her a glowing recommendation.** Obviously, as you know, she came back in 2021, wanting to collect her severance, but then it was interesting, it turns into way more than that, and that’s really where I struggle with the victimhood here. You know, you look at 2012, giving her time, paid off to deal with her personal family issues, writing references for her giving her endorsements, and then claiming now in 2021, that somehow she was a victim. She not only asked for severance and money for counseling, she asked for us to pay her and you might not know that she asked for us to pay for her master’s degree. And that really just didn’t sit well with me. I go, a victim wanting to collect severance and money for counseling, I get that. But wanting us to pay for your master’s of divinity degree? I just went, “I don’t know where the victimhood is in that.” But I could be wrong. Maybe that’s something true victims do ask for, for further education. I just to me, that was always a head scratcher to me and just didn’t sit well with me.** Like I said, the severance, the counseling money I get if she truly was a victim, which I don’t believe she was, would request that. But if somebody’s claiming victimhood, asking for us to pay for a graduate degree, I just didn’t get.** Anyway. I told Lori, I said, “I’m a man under authority. I’m Presbyterian. I can’t just make this decision on myself, by myself. I need to go to our session.” I brought her entire request, everything, I think it was like $40,000 to $50,000 to the session. The session, our elders said, “No. We will give her the severance that we offered her back in 2014. But nothing more.” She like every other employee that is terminated from Coral Ridge will have to still sign the, the severance agreement. As you know Lori was very upset that not only did she not get the full financial amount that she requested but that she would still have to sign the Separation Agreement, severance agreement. And that’s kind of where we are today. So, ATTORNEY DAVID GIBBS 19:59 And Rob, ane more thing, just ‘cuz I talked to you briefly, you had some civil conversation with her where you apologized or had a conversation in say 2015, 2016. Maybe let Julie kind of hear your recollection of what that was all about. ROB PACIENZA 20:15 Yeah, no, that’s good. I appreciate that. David. Yeah, I think we were at like a meeting with other ministry leaders in South Florida. And I forget exactly what I said to her, but just apologized for how things ended. I know Lori’s using that as some admission of guilt. At the end of the day, I’m a I’m a I’m a pastor, I’m a Christian. I think I have apologized to every single employee that I’ve had to let go. Was it right to let the employee go? Yes. Is it justified? Yes. But does my heart still break that things ended the way they did? So that’s unfortunate she’s using that as some kind of admission of guilt or that apology should now turn into a public apology. That had more to do as one human being to another human being or in this context, one Christian to another Christian, just saying, “Sorry, how things ended.” I never want to see employees end in that way. I wish it weren’t the case. But it is what it is. JULIE ROYS 21:16 The other voice that you heard on, there was David Gibbs. That’s the attorney for Rob and the church. A couple of things. I mean, there are some inaccuracies in what he said. You did not request $40,000 to $50,000. You requested $35,000. You didn’t ask for the church to pay for a master’s degree. Just $800 for this scholarship, correct? LORI HARDING 21:40 Correct. JULIE ROYS 21:42 Okay. But the key issues are whether or not they had just cause to fire you. And whether it was a performance issue. I mean, were you surprised that that that’s what he said? LORI HARDING 21:56 So surprised. I mean, that first comment, “Lori wasn’t a good employee.” And that is so hurtful hearing that. I mean, that’s the first time I’ve heard it. So you’re getting like my, like gut reaction. I’m shocked by that, quite honestly, I never had an employee evaluation at Coral Ridge. I was there almost six years–never had an evaluation. But I was promoted three times. So I guess that says something. Never, I just never had heard that before. So that’s brand new information to me. That I, “had a hard time connecting with other employees.” I mean, that is so astonishing to me. If, I don’t know, people that know me, I think that that’s what they would say if they had, you know, one of the words would be like, just Uber relational. That’s just who I am, which explains why I was in ministry positions. I mean, if you can’t connect with others, why are you in a ministry position? Why would somebody place you in a ministry position? So that just for me, that does not add up? I never I’ve never heard that before. You know, he, he contradicted himself when he said that he gave me a glowing report with the pastor for a new position. That was actually Jason Whitener. And I remember Jason told me he did speak with Rob by phone. But according to Rob, in that clip, he gave me a glowing report. But yeah, he just said I wasn’t a good employee. So he’s saying that he spoke to you know, Jason Whitener for 30 minutes and gave a glowing report. But yeah, “I wasn’t a good employee.” So I don’t understand. That, that’s confusing. Yeah, I mean, paying for the master’s degree. Oh my gosh, I would, I wouldn’t have had the nerve to ask asked for that. I would never have expected that. I mean, that’s, that’s interesting to me. JULIE ROYS 23:42 Well, and I should mention the documents that I’ve referred to and your email with with your requests, it’s all listed in that email which you’ve shared with us. I’m going to post all of those to our website so if you just go to JulieRoys.com, podcast tab right there, you can see all of this documentation. But it does seem like the two main things again are whether you just had bad performance and they had just cause. It is interesting, I did get, you forwarded me an email from Kim Crandall who was that friend who had that conversation with Tullian that seemed to have precipitated the firing or at least came very close to when it happened. She wrote wrote you after things came out with Tullian, “There are so many things that I want to say that I’ve wanted to say for a long time.” And she says, “First I want to start with I’m sorry. While I thought I was doing the right thing with the whole DK,” which was the name of the the ministry. What was that called? The Dropping Keys ministry, which was the ministry that you were involved in. “I realize now how I allowed myself to listen too much to others instead of using my own wisdom. Over the past year before Tullian’s fall, while I was able to start seeing some things more clearly. I am sorry that I did more listening to him than I did to you. I regret allowing him to have that kind of influence over me. It was wrong and destructive in so many ways. I’m sorry, you were hurt so badly. Please forgive me for throwing away our friendship the way I did.” And and you included your response, which was, “I forgive you without reservations.” And, “Let yourself off the hook. Jesus did.” Very gracious interaction between the two of you. I did ask Rob, “Do you have any HR reports showing that there was poor performance?” And he said they didn’t do any. And I did ask for specific examples in our conversation. And he said he could not remember a specific example other than kind of the the general description he gave.** There was this claim that there was no defamation. And this is always a very difficult thing, right? Because you hear rumors, you don’t necessarily hear things directly from people. But I did reach out to a name you’d given me Debbie Viveros, who was serving as a Bible Study leader I guess there at Coral Ridge, and had sat under you and your leadership. And she described for me, and I’m going to play a clip from our conversation, how she found out when she asked somebody, a staff person about what had happened to you and why you were leaving. So I will let her speak for herself on that. And also about you and your performance there. LORI HARDING 24:48 Dropping Keys DEBBIE VIVEROS 26:37 I don’t remember what day of the week Lori got fired. It was like I think aThursday or a Friday, and then there was Bible study that next Tuesday. And so I came to Coral Ridge and ended up parking next to Dwayne Mellor, who was the outreach Pastor, I believe. And I saw him in the parking lot. And we chatted on the way in. And he made the comment to me that, you know, “Lori wasn’t well.” They were going to take care of her. And I think I commented that it was difficult and confusing. And then I went into a leaders meeting because we had a meeting, prior to the Bible study, actually, starting every week. There was a pastor there, Adam, and then the new worship leader’s wife had come into that meeting. And she previously had been in no women’s ministry meetings. And what was expressed was that Lori was, you know, no longer there. I don’t really I don’t really remember, but, “she wasn’t there.” And it had, “it was nothing immoral, and nothing illegal.” I was just wondering, it’s not illegal, it’s not immoral. What is it? Like what what else is there that you would remove somebody from ministry that was very well loved? JULIE ROYS 27:46 No indication from your vantage point, because what I’ve been told by Rob Pacienza is that Lori was, just couldn’t get things done and really wasn’t good at herjob. DEBBIE VIVEROS 27:56 From my vantage point, Lori got things done. And I mean, I felt cared for, for sure. I felt cared for in the ministry. And I feel like everybody loved her. JULIE ROYS 28:07 So when she was fired, DEBBIE VIVEROS 28:10 I was shocked. I was shocked. I think a lot of us were shocked. I had no indication at all that she wasn’t competent at her job. And there was no clear like replacement or anything. It was all kind of in limbo. And it was, remained in limbo for several years, I think, in terms of a women’s ministry leader. JULIE ROYS 28:30 So it seemed unplanned, from your perspective, DEBBIE VIVEROS 28:33 it seemed completely unplanned. From my, it was, right, like it was in the middle of a Bible study. Like, I don’t remember what week and I don’t remember what study but it was in the middle. Like, it was in, like the middle of this Bible study semester. I mean, it was hard. It was hard. JULIE ROYS 28:51 Again, that’s Debbie Viveros, describing how it was communicated to her what had happened. A lot of questions, obviously, surrounding your firing there. But also saying that she thought you you did a a pretty great job, And people loved you. You wrote Rob an email after you got basically the same deal that you had gotten from Kellyanne and wanting you to sign NDA. You said, “no way. Not going to sign it.” But then you sent Rob an email. Would you read that email that you sent to him? LORI HARDING 29:26 Yeah. So this is the email that I wrote to rob after I got that NDA and W-9. I said, “Rob, I am both stunned and saddened by an email I received from your executive director on Friday. I am stunned at the sterile tone of the email. I am stunned at your intent to silence me. I am stunned at the lack of pastoral care given in response to my original appeal where I admitted vulnerability regarding how all of this has affected me and my family. I am stunned that I did not hear back from you directly, regardless of the outcome. I am stunned at the insensitive way you passed me off to your executive director. I am stunned that your executive director made no mention of an apology. I am stunned that although you shared with me how you and Jen received 12 months of counseling for the trauma you both experienced, you chose to offer me $0 for counselling. I’m stunned at your assumption that I would sign an NDA. As I said in my reply to the email from your executive director, I will not sign an NDA. I am saddened that an appeal to Coral Ridge for goodness landed on deaf ears. I am saddened that like so many other churches today Coral Ridge sought legal protection, not gospel reconciliation. I am saddened that given the opportunity to rise up in the name of goodness and on behalf of the gospel, Coral Ridge chose darkness, not light. Chose position and power, not people. And chose unkindness, not love. I am saddened that the elders of Coral Ridge have forfeited an opportunity to extend mercy and grace through this situation. It is the same mercy and grace each of you have received. I am saddened that you assumed I was more interested in the money. It was never about money. It has always been about seeking justice, telling the truth and healing from the trauma inflicted upon me and my family, by the leadership of Coral Ridge. Hear me when I say I could have at any point sued Coral Ridge for slander. That was never my intent. And it’s not my intent now. It will never be my intent. I will be closing the door to this chapter of my life, not through any help on the part of Coral Ridge, but through your rejection of goodness and truth. Clearly, your clarion call to be culture shaping Christians did not inform your decision. JULIE ROYS 31:43 Really heavy. LORI HARDING 31:44 Yeah. JULIE ROYS 31:46 I know, obviously, from that email, but also from our conversations that this has profoundly affected you emotionally, spiritually. How have you processed what has happened within the church? LORI HARDING 32:07 Well, I have sought counseling. And so that has been very helpful. And also pursued some other forms of, you know, healing that have really, really helped me. And I do feel like I’m in a much stronger place now and have great clarity, not just about what happened, but about who I am, who I want to be in the world going forward. A lot of really good clarity about that. So, I’m really grateful for the place that I’m in right now. But in large part, that really came from, like I said, a couple of resources. I mean, you know, kudos to Laura Barringer and Scot McKnight on their book, “A Church Called Tov,” giving a picture of not only the reality of what’s going on, but a picture of what could be. And that was really the appeal that I was making toCoral Ridge, this picture of goodness, of kindness. That it really is possible. This is not like, you know, a fairy tale. It really is possible that you can do good and be kind and exhibit “Tov.” And rather than the world looking and saying, “You’re a horrible church. You’re horrible leaders,” what would actually happen is people would say, “Thank you. Thank you for in the real world, giving us an example of what Tov looks like, of what kindness and justice looks like.” We see it so rarely in the church these days. It almost never happens. So, very appreciative of that. And then I just wanted to read something, if you would permit me from Wade Mullen’s book called, “Something’s Not Right.” That book has been so instrumental. And I read this right before my kind of declaration of Freedom Day. And he writes, “An action that might surprise everyone would be to open all the windows of the darkened house until every nook and cranny is covered in light, so that all the damage can be seen. It is to surrender to that light, even if it means there will be no possibility of retaining or regaining legitimacy. It is to put every possible contributing factor on the table for inspection, even the system itself, and to be willing to recognize that perhaps it cannot be fixed, and that something new must be created in its place.” I just think that’s such a powerful, you know, a powerful quote because we’re certainly talking about you know, a church. But I’m when I read that, I put myself in there. That being willing to put everything out there and expose it to the light, which is why I’m, you know, one of the reasons why I’m doing this podcast, to expose truth and light and some form of justice. Will I experienced justice from either of these churches? No. I don’t expect that. But it is what should be. Right? It is what should be based on truth and light. You know, it’s difficult reliving all of this. But I feel very, I guess proud, which not in a non-humble way, but proud of the work that I’ve done getting to that day where I was able to take back my voice, to give myself back agency, and to choose how I am going to be in this world, you know, a person of integrity, a person that stands for justice and truth, not just for myself, but for others. I mean, how else can you live? JULIE ROYS 35:46 I want to thank you for the courage that you’ve exhibited, your willingness to speak out, to try for justice. I mean, I have names in my head right now, just thinking of people who have tried for justice and not gotten it. It’s hard to watch people who have already been hurt, and it always falls on the victim. LORI HARDING 36:11 This is the fallout from this kind of spiritual abuse. The connection to God is strong. And so, questions arise and when you can’t get answers, or when you can’t see past. And I just have to say, through no fault of mine, or through no fault of anybody else’s, if they’re in that place, if they find them in that themselves in that place, “It’s okay.” I want to say like I raise that flag and say, “It is okay. Ask away. Do whatever you have to do to find your peace and your healing. And don’t let anybody tell you, ‘you’re not doing it right.'” JULIE ROYS 36:53 Well, thank you. Those are powerful words. I appreciate it. And I appreciate you being willing to speak out and to speak with me. So thanks again, Lori, LORI HARDING 37:01 Of course, thank you for the opportunity to talk with you. JULIE ROYS 37:04 And thanks so much for listening to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. If you’d like to connect with me online, just go to JulieRoys.com. Also just a quick reminder to subscribe to the Roys Report on Apple podcast, Google podcast, Spotify or YouTube. That way you’ll never miss an episode. And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about this podcast by leaving a review. And then please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks so much for joining me today. Hope you have a great day and God bless. Read more Documents Email from Dana Allin to Julie Roys – Aug. 10, 2021 Email from Lori Harding to Rob Pacienza – Aug. 17, 2021 Email from Lori Harding to Rob Pacienza – Sept. 2, 2021 Email from Lori Harding to Rob Pacienza – Oct. 2, 2021 Email from Kimm Crandall to Lori Harding – Nov. 15, 2015  

Guest Bios Show Transcript What do you do when you’re wrongly fired by a megachurch—and denied any severance unless you sign an NDA? Then, years later, you realize what you experienced at that church was spiritual abuse? That's what Lori Harding says happened to her at the the famous Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. And in this edition of The Roys Report, Harding tells her complete story. Coral Ridge is the church formerly pastored by Dr. D. James Kennedy. But after Kennedy died in 2007, Tullian Tchvidjian—Billy Graham’s grandson—became the pastor at Coral Ridge. And it was as a part of Tchvidjian’s inner circle that Harding said she was pressured to accept the unacceptable—and to overlook financial irregularities. When Harding didn’t, she was fired. And because she refused to sign an NDA, she got no severance. But about a year later, news broke that Tchvidjian had been involved in sexual misconduct with several congregants. The church fired Tchvidjian. And the new pastor, Rob Pacienza, who had been involved in Harding’s firing, came to her privately and apologized.  Harding then went to another church, where she says she endured spiritual abuse again. But this time, she complained to the denomination. And she went back to Coral Ridge and Pastor Rob Pacienza, and asked for them to right the wrongs done against her. In this first of a two-part podcast, you’ll hear Lori’s eye-opening account of what happened to her at both Coral Ridge and Grace Community Church in Boca Raton, Florida. And you’ll be challenged to consider issues of spiritual abuse, NDAs, and celebrity leadership. This Weeks Guests Lori Harding Lori Harding is an MDiv graduate of Knox Theological Seminary, an ordained pastor, and former Associate Pastor and Executive Director at Grace Community Church in Boca Raton, FL. Working in ministry for the past fourteen years has given Lori ample opportunity to see firsthand the devastating effects of patriarchy, narcissism, and abuse within the church. She currently advocates for abuse victims and works to expose the realities of church abuse. Lori resides in Fort Lauderdale, Florida with her husband and enjoys spending time with her family. Show Transcript SPEAKERS JULIE ROYS, ROB PACIENZA, LORI HARDING JULIE ROYS  00:03 What do you do when you’re wrongly fired by a mega church and then denied any severance unless you sign an NDA? Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And my guest today, Lori Harding. says this happened to her not once but twice. And the first time she alleges it happened was in 2014, when she was on staff at the famous Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church. This is a church formerly pastored by Dr. D. James Kennedy. But after Kennedy died in 2007, Tullian Tchividjian, Billy Graham’s grandson, became the pastor at Coral Ridge, and Harding worked under Tchividjian as an executive assistant and then as the director of women’s ministries, and she says it in 2014, she began noticing financial irregularities and began asking questions. This led to tension with Tchividjian and then suddenly, Harding was fired and to get any severance Coral Ridge required that Harding sign an NDA or non disclosure agreement. Harding refused and she got nothing from Coral Ridge.** But in 2015 news broke that Tchividjian had been involved in sexual misconduct with several congregants, the church fired Tchividjian and the new pastor fired Tchividjian and the new pastor Rob Pacienza, who had been involved in Harding’s firing, came to her privately and apologize. And this is where it gets interesting. Rob Pacienza is still the senior pastor of Coral Ridge and the CEO of D. James Kennedy Ministries. And he now says that that apology in 2015 was not an admittance that he or the church did anything wrong. And this is relevant because in 2021, Harding came back to Coral Ridge seeking a public apology and compensation for what had happened to her. But what she got was an offer for the same severance as she had gotten from Tchividjian in 2014, which again, was tied to an NDA, and Harding again refused.** In this podcast, you’ll hear Harding’s entire story, and it’s a doozy. It involves alleged spiritual abuse, not just to Coral Ridge, but at another Presbyterian Church where Harding later served on staff. And it involves the Presbyterian denomination in which Harding was ordained, which she says, did nothing when she complained about the alleged abuse. Plus it highlights important issues like churches forcing employees to sign NDAs. And we’ll get into issues of wage disparity between men and women in the church. We’ll unpack all of this in a moment.** But first, I’d like to thank the sponsors of this podcast, Judson University, and Marqaurdt of Barrington. Judson University is a top ranked Christian University providing a caring community and an excellent college experience. Plus the school offers more than 60 majors great leadership opportunities and strong financial aid. Judson University is shaping lives that shaped the world. For more information, just go to JUDSONU.EDU. Also if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity and transparency. That’s because the owners there, Dan and Kurt Marquardt, are our men of character. To check them out, just go to BUYACAR123.COM.** Well again, joining me is Lori Harding, the former women’s ministry director at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. She has also formerly served as the associate pastor and Executive Director at Grace Community Church in Boca Raton, Florida. She was an ordained minister with the Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians and she holds a Master of Divinity from Knox Theological Seminary. So Lori, welcome, and I’m just so glad you could join me.   LORI HARDING  03:50 Thank you, Julie. Really glad to be with you.   JULIE ROYS  03:52 So just to give some context, you became a believer as an adult around 40, my understanding, right? So how is it that you ended up becoming a believer at 40 and then your connection with Tullian Tchividjian’s church and how you ended up there?   LORI HARDING  04:12 So it kind of a funny story. My son wanted to get his religion badge for Boy Scouts. He was a Boy Scout at the time.  A religion badge. I guess at the time, it was a thing. Yeah, crazy. Yeah, so we, you know, hopped on over to the local church, it was a Methodist Church. And it was there that within about six months I had a, I’ll just say I use the word faith experience. It’s not very Christiany. But I like using that term because a lot of people can understand that even outside of the Christian faith. So had that experience. My son also had a similar experience there. So anyway, we spent about five years there, and the only reason we left there was well, the teaching wasn’t, I don’t know what you might say, deep. But really, it was because my son had met some friends, a group of young men from Tullian’s church, went on a missions trip with them and really got connected. And as a parent, you know, you want to support your kids in their faith journey. So we left the Methodist Church and went over to the church plant that Tullian was preaching at, teaching at.   JULIE ROYS  04:18 A religion badge? And you first came on staff at Tullian’s previous church before Coral Ridge, New City Church around 2008. You initially were on staff as like an executive assistant. Is that right?   LORI HARDING  05:32 Yeah, I had volunteered there for a while. We were really happy. You know, with the church. We were meeting a lot of other families with kids around the same age as our son. And so you know, wanted to just help out, so volunteered and then we dropped him off to college. And when I came back, started a permanent full time position at the church and just administrative role.   JULIE ROYS  05:50 So then, when Dr. D. James Kennedy passes away, huge ministry, huge church, Coral Ridge Presbyterian, Tullian, who’s Billy Graham’s grandson again, he takes over the pastorate there and the two churches, which is interesting, you know, the thought of these two churches merging very different in their DNA, didn’t go particularly well, from what I understand. But you transferred then and went on staff at Coral Ridge Presbyterian. And initially, you were executive assistant for a man named Scott Spell. What happened there?   LORI HARDING  06:28 For me, that’s still a mystery, quite honestly. And the way it all went down. I went on vacation. And that first night I was away with my family got a call from Scott Spell, that afternoon, probably 5:30. And he told me that he had just been fired. I had no idea. I was completely shocked. Devastated, really. Cried all night. We were close. We had a very good working relationship. I really appreciated him. And he didn’t say much. And I’m wondering, I don’t know if he had an NDA. I’m wondering if he did, maybe? I don’t know. But yeah, it was a real shock to the system, I guess. I had seen several people fired in a similar fashion. But you know, we were close. And I had worked for him for a couple of years.   JULIE ROYS  07:13 And I asked that, because it’s kind of foreshadowing, because from what you’re telling me, as you saw a number of people go, kind of mysteriously, what was sort of the buzz when some of these folks left?   LORI HARDING  07:27 Yeah, I mean, I refer to it as the Christian mafia. That’s the best term I can, because it’s just kind of under the cover of night, you know? One day they’re there. And the next day, they’re just gone. And, you know, kind of excommunicated. I use that term loosely, but just separated from community. You know, often we were given a narrative that was, of course, in favor of the church, and of Tullian. And that it was that person that left, that they were the problem somehow. There was something that had happened with them, or that was wrong with them, or it was initially a pretty shocking experience. I guess you just get used to that. And I think that’s what happened for me. I just kind of got used to it at first as a fairly new Christian. It was shocking to me, really, that this has happened, this kind of behavior was happening in the church.   JULIE ROYS  08:16 And so then you moved from Scott is no longer your boss, Rob Pacienza, who’s now the senior pastor at Coral Ridge, but at that time, he was executive director there, you became his executive assistant. Was that working relationship, was that a good experience? Or what was that like?   LORI HARDING  08:34 Yeah, it was a really good experience. You know,  I liked Rob. He was very different from Scott, but I liked him. I appreciated him. He had moved from the Director of Outreach, I believe that was his position. So it was a promotion for him. So yeah, we had a good, real good working relationship I felt.   JULIE ROYS  08:52 And then you become Tullian’s assistant. Again, now we know a lot about Tullian that we didn’t know then. But at the time, he was a rising star, very charismatic leader, engaging speaker. I’m really curious what that was like being the executive assistant for Tullian, what your relationship was like, but also what Tullian was like at that time?   LORI HARDING  09:16 Again, we had a good I felt a good working relationship. And he was, I’ll say, you know, pretty instrumental, in my husband coming to faith and having that experience and getting plugged into the church, which had not been the case. So we were in a community group with him. He and his wife did not lead it, but they were part of it. And so that was special, you know, there was definitely that I think being close to the charismatic one, you know, there’s that and so.   JULIE ROYS  09:45 And you were in the inner circle then.   LORI HARDING  09:47 Right I mean, the executive office was Rob and Tullian and myself and one other executive assistant, who was originally she was the original assistant for Tullian. So it was the four of us, you know, doors closed and expansive executive suite. I mean, so in the early days, you know, it was very volatile, the merge was very volatile, a lot of just unhappy people. And it created havoc on staff, the staff was slashed. The music department was pretty much done away with. When I say the music department, I’m talking about, like the traditional choir. Tullian was very much moving away from anything that was traditional. And if Coral Ridge was anything, Coral Ridge was traditional. And so very much moving away from all of that.  So it did create, while maybe many of us felt like that was the right direction, it was still very volatile. And so you never knew what was going to happen in that office. There was always stuff happening. I mean, I was kind of backed into a corner by a deacon. My associate Lana, the other assistant was also backed up into a wall by an elder. Just people very angry and upset. So you just never kind of knew what was gonna, was gonna happen. I mean, honestly, we kind of felt safe being in that part of the church.   JULIE ROYS  11:04 So you’re in this, this inner circle, you’re seeing things too. Probably a side of Tullian that other people aren’t seeing. And I remember talking to you about this, that you felt like Tullian was changing over time. Describe that change and what you began to see and the kind of culture and environment that that began to nurture.   LORI HARDING  11:29 One of his personality characteristics is he uses humor. And you could probably see that in his preaching. And he has a unique sense of humor, and one that kind of mocks people and you know, cuts people down. He used to say, we tear people down so we can build them up.   JULIE ROYS  11:44 Do you know who else said that?   LORI HARDING  11:47 Who?   JULIE ROYS  11:48 James McDonald.   LORI HARDING  11:50 Really?   JULIE ROYS  11:51 He used to say, “Sarcasm is my love language.”   LORI HARDING  11:53 Yeah.   JULIE ROYS  11:54 And the mocking. Yeah, it’s similar.   LORI HARDING  11:57 You know, and that’s just not something I was used to. So, you know, again, it’s that frog in the water, right? I mean, at first, I was shocked by it. I was like, you know, oh, my gosh, like, this is a pastor, but, you can just kind of get used to it. And then when he would say, you know, if you don’t have a sense of humor, then you don’t get the gospel. So essentially saying, you know, like, the problem is you. If you can’t laugh at this. And so, you know, being in that office, I would laugh. It was a very awkward situation at first for me, because I just felt in my gut in my spirit, that that’s not okay. But that was just kind of the general way that Tullian operated. But it you know, it was probably in a couple years after that, when we got to Coral Ridge, he started publishing more books. He started speaking, you know, nationally, and sometimes internationally. He started a, well, not he but the church started a conference ministry called Liberate, I don’t know if you’ve heard of that, but Liberate conference. And so that was an annual conference and all of the buddies, you know, I call them the Reform Theo Bros, would, you know, head down to South Florida and have a great time hanging out with Tullian. And so, you know, it was kind of in the midst of all of that, where I think people would say, and I observed, you know, some changes. He was not in the office a lot. He was, well, I say, just kind of getting out of control. You know, you just never knew, like, when the phone rang, what might what it might be, you know, he had a history of speeding and you know, tickets and just mayhem really. It  just always seemed to be something surrounding him. So that was you know, a lot of that was just us managing that from the inside.   JULIE ROYS  13:40 And nobody’s saying to Tullian at this point, this is not okay? You know, as a brother in Christ this is not okay. This culture is not okay. None of that’s going on? People looking the other way? Or just don’t see it? And it was Driscoll time too.  Mark Driscoll was and that was his whole shtick to that he was the you know, edgy. The cussin pastor. And that was, that was like, Cool. Like, if you could accept that then that was cool. And if you couldn’t accept it, you’re just too uptight.   LORI HARDING  13:53 You know, I don’t know if any of the elders were speaking with him or if Rob was speaking with him about these things. You know, he was just the cool guy. You know, he was the bad boy in Christianity. And reformed Christianity at that. Right? So but he was the bad guy, you know,  kind of the bad boy that could get away with stuff because he was Billy Graham’s grandson. Right? You’re too uptight. You don’t get the gospel.   JULIE ROYS  14:33 You don’t get the gospel.   LORI HARDING  14:34 So yeah, so he had the holy jeans, you know, he didn’t wear a robe. He you know, hewas working out so you know, his muscles and you know, tattoos and just all the cool things, you know? So,   JULIE ROYS  14:46 Interesting.   LORI HARDING  14:47 and the cool kid on the block for sure.   JULIE ROYS  14:49 So then your job morphs to, well I shouldn’t say morphs. He wanted you to take this job as women’s ministry director. There had been a lot of people come and go, and for sake of time, we can’t go into a lot of it, but it sounds like there were some things that happened that started to create some tension in your relationship with Tullian. But kind of the last straw from my understanding is that you were looking at the finances, and you were supposed to have a scholarship for a women’s conference coming up. You discovered what, that money was, was just not there or something?   LORI HARDING  15:28 Yeah.   JULIE ROYS  15:28 Tell me about that. And what you did when you saw this financial irregularity, we’ll call it.   LORI HARDING  15:33 Right. Yeah. So as director of women’s ministry, I created, you know, had the budget. The budget was a fiscal year, a calendar year. So we had done the budget last June. And so now it’s spring, fast forward, and I’m planning for the retreat. And the monies that I had set aside were to offset expenses for women that, you know, couldn’t otherwise afford to go on our annual retreat. So I’m doing the planning. And I think my question initially was just of the finance director, you know, how do I go about accessing and distributing these funds? So it was just more of like procedurally, how does this work and, and that was when I was told that the money wasn’t there. And I was told, I don’t know if this is true or not. But I was told that there was no cash flow. That the cash flow didn’t allow for that. I was devastated because I had specific women on my list that I was intending to help get to this retreat. At the same time, I was noticing, because I had been down in the executive office. And I noticed that in Tullian’s office, there was a new suite of leather furniture. And it was right before the Liberate conference. And so the Liberate conference, I don’t know if people can understand this. But being a large church and having this conference ministry, it was very much about the, you know, kind of how we look right? And so, you know, there was a green room. So Tullian’s office was, quote, unquote, the green room, so everybody would gather there, and there was, you know, food and, you know, frivolity and conversation, you know, as everybody was flying in. It was a very exciting kind of time, because the people that were coming into town, were not no-names. These were all the top names at the time, in evangelical Christianity, boys, men. So I asked that question, I requested a meeting with the finance manager and just asked the question, you know, how is it that we don’t have the cash flow for this retreat for the women, but we have this new suite of furniture in Tullian’s office? I never got an answer. And whether that was a right question to ask. I just asked because I needed to understand where the cash went. Because I’m not an accountant. But if you have a budget, and you have, you know, $10 to spend and five are set aside for a specific thing, and then you’re told well, no, not really. To me, that’s a problem. So I think it was a fair question.   JULIE ROYS  18:03 And then you had a discussion with Tullian about it as well.   LORI HARDING  18:08 No, I never got that far. It never got that far. I mean, what I think happened is that the finance director went back to Tullian and told him.   JULIE ROYS  18:21 But you don’t know?   LORI HARDING  18:22  And I don’t know.   JULIE ROYS  18:24 Okay. You did share with someone who was a friend, that you were having some of these issues and kind of confided in a friend and she was from out of town. We know now, because she’s told you. Describe what happened there. And from your understanding, how maybe that contributed to what suddenly happened to you, which is your firing.   LORI HARDING  18:45 Right. I was actually resistant to taking that position. Because I’ve been around the church, I’d seen directors of women’s ministries come and go, and it was not pretty. And I actually had told Tullian, in the beginning, I didn’t want that position. I ended up taking it. But one of the things I asked Duane Mellor for was their unwavering support.   JULIE ROYS  19:05 Duane Mellor, who’s the director of inreach and outreach at the time.   LORI HARDING  19:08 Right. He was my direct manager. And so I requested support. I want to have backup, because, you know, in a large church, in a church like Coral Ridge, money, money talks, and people can, you know, get their way. And I didn’t want that to happen. I just I could almost see the writing on the wall.** So there was an incident that did happen, and I did not get their support. And it was, it was a minor thing. It was indicative. And because I had asked from the onset for that support, and the decision that I made was actually a decision that was backed by Duane, and so for them to not support me, after that, it was very frustrating and it created a lot of tension, awkward conversations, a lot of self isolating. I mean Duane wouldn’t talk to me, Rob stopped talking to me. I mean, it was very difficult. It was a very difficult time. So as the conference approached in February, Kim and I, and a couple of the other women, we were having these conversations via email, because we were going to get together to plan some ministry.   JULIE ROYS  20:14 Kim’s your friends from out of town, right?   LORI HARDING  20:16 Yeah.   JULIE ROYS  20:16 Okay.   LORI HARDING  20:17 Yep. And so we had a separate ministry, these four women, and we were going to meet several times, throughout Liberate, to talk about the ministry. Anyway, I had shared very vulnerably with them in email. And I don’t know if it was over the phone, or if it was in person at Liberate. But at some point, she shared, Kim shared that information with Tullian.   JULIE ROYS  20:43 And you get summoned to Tullian’s office. And because of some of the tension that’s been building, you had an inkling, this is what was going to happen, right? You’re gonna get fired.   LORI HARDING  20:56 I was asked literally the day before to come to a meeting at four o’clock the following day. And that day before, I didn’t really put it together, but it was the next day throughout the day. I don’t know, I just started getting, I just started thinking about how this went down with other people, and started maybe connecting some dots. And then that was when I thought it was really that afternoon. And I was actually sitting in a seminary class across the street, and I was pulled out of the seminary class to go to this meeting. It was probably around lunchtime, and I started to think, am I getting fired? And I actually texted Tullian and asked him.   JULIE ROYS  21:29 Did he respond?   LORI HARDING  21:30 No,   JULIE ROYS  21:31 So you come into a room. It’s Tullian, Rob Pacienza was there. Duane Mellor was there. The head of HR was there as well. Was there anybody else in the room?  no,   LORI HARDING  21:31 No.   JULIE ROYS  21:44 How did this meeting go down?   LORI HARDING  21:46 One of the things I did as I was driving back across the street to the church, I called my counterpart because she was the executive assistant in the office as well. Because I wanted her to come into the meeting with me. And she didn’t answer. She didn’t call when I got to the parking lot. Her car was gone. So they vacated the premises, but basically, so that nobody was, you know.   JULIE ROYS  22:08 I can imagine. I’m just sort of picturing pulling in, everybody’s gone.   LORI HARDING  22:13 Yeah,   JULIE ROYS  22:13 You’re summoned to this meeting, you know, the heart must have been pounding.   LORI HARDING  22:17 Yeah, that’s exactly what happened. So we parked at one end of the building where those offices were. So when you pulled in, and there, you know, there’s no cars. I mean Tullian’s car was there. Yeah, so you know, I’m walking in now I’m completely, you know, my heart’s pounding. I don’t know what to expect. And, you know, you’re basically ambushed. I mean, that’s the best way I can describe it, because you have no idea what’s coming. I came in, I sat down. You know, the four of them are, you know, in that like a semi circle, and I’m sitting on the sofa. And, you know, in the beginning Tullian seemed calm, and was just starting to explain that I was getting fired. I don’t know, I don’t even know how there wasn’t a lot of chitchat beforehand. He was very, you could tell he was uncomfortable telling me this. Like I said, we had a good relationship. So, you know.  I don’t want to say this was hard for him, because I don’t I just don’t want to go that far. But I guess maybe at the time, it would have been. I don’t know. But he told me why I was getting fired. And it was because–he listed three things. I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves, but three things. And his tone and demeanor changed when I pressed him for more why. Those aren’t reasons to say that, you know, one of the things was my theology was wrong. Well, you don’t fire somebody because they don’t maybe have complete, you know, lockstep with your theology. So I just kept pressing him, you know, why? Why? I was looking at Duane.   JULIE ROYS  23:55 But you were in lockstep with his theology at that point, weren’t you?   LORI HARDING  23:58 That is the funny thing. When I would tell, you know, when I would tell people what happened, why I was fired, I said, I can only tell you what I was told. And that was one of them. But at the time, I mean, I’m active on Twitter, I was retweeting his stuff. I mean, I was pretty much mimicking straight up Tullian theology.   JULIE ROYS  24:17 And you’re in seminary, it’s Knox Theological Seminary, where you are going which is across the street, like you said, it’s reformed. It’s in the same vein theologically, and I know a lot of people have talked about Tullian. Really, his preaching was almost getting antinomian which is a word that probably most people don’t know and I only know because some people have written articles about it and I’ve read them. But basically this idea that once you become a believer, you don’t necessarily have to strive not to sin. Like sin is no big deal and you know, it’s you don’t necessarily become more like Jesus, and makes total sense. It’s kind of like this grace covers everything. So just keep sinning like crazy, which Tullian was doing at the time. I mean, nobody knew it. But now we know that he was having, I don’t even want to call them relationships because some of these relationships, sexual relationships, were with congregants. So that’s abuse. That’s clergy sexual abuse is what that was. And this is going on at the time. Again, nobody knows at this point. But you’re being brought on the carpet by a guy who’s committing adultery and clergy sexual abuse. I don’t even call it adultery because it’s not. It’s much more serious. It’s preying on your sheep. And that’s what was happening. So what were, there were two other things, right?   LORI HARDING  25:40 Yeah, so my theology was wrong. I had made an idol of transparency. And   JULIE ROYS  25:47 So that’s because you’re asking about the money, like you want transparency? Is that it?   LORI HARDING  25:51 Um, no, I don’t think that. I think that he was referring to my, just who I am. I’m just very honest and open and real, and out there. I mean, my husband and I split up during my time working in that executive office. And I told the staff, you know, I took some time off. And I told them, I wrote a letter to the staff. And I said, this is why. I’m not afraid, I’ve never been really, to just be who I am. I mean, if we can’t be real as Christians, I think that’s what people don’t like about Christians is the hypocrisy. Right? So I was in that way authentic. And I think that’s what he was referring to.   JULIE ROYS  26:30 And there was one more thing?   LORI HARDING  26:32 That I was not well.   JULIE ROYS  26:34 Not well.   LORI HARDING  26:35 Yeah.   JULIE ROYS  26:35 Why were you not well?   LORI HARDING  26:36 He never said. I mean, I pressed him. As the meeting went on, I was pressing for more answers, and he was getting more agitated. Red faced, neck muscles bulging, like, you know, like he was he was definitely getting frustrated with me, because I wanted more answers. Those were not satisfactory answers to me because they weren’t true. And if I was really not well, and this was something that I was asking, if I’m not well then help. Tell me what are you talking about and help me! How can you know as my pastor, you’re not just my boss, your my pastor, my family’s pastor. And if you’re saying, I’m not well, wow! There are a lot more conversations we should be having. Even if you still intend to fire me. There’s a big elephant in the room. How can you say something like that?** So, you know, if anybody’s experienced something like that, it’s devastating. I mean, I think that that was the one comment over and above all three, that was most traumatic, because you have somebody speaking for God, as if they are God sitting in a chair telling you that you’re not well. That has very deep and lasting implications.   JULIE ROYS  27:52 And they offered you a severance. And my understanding what was it two months severance? And it was tied to a  non-disparagement agreement, an NDA?   LORI HARDING  28:06 Yes.   JULIE ROYS  28:07 You go home. And you basically told them what, I’m going to think about it. You go home, to think about it over the weekend. Didn’t the head of HR, reach out and give you some instructions about what you should and shouldn’t say on social media, which is this is just classic.   LORI HARDING  28:24 I mean, the whole thing was, it was such a new experience. And just so out there for me. It was just every step of it was shocking. But yeah, the next morning, I started getting text messages and then find the emails from the HR director telling me to get off social media, which I hadn’t said anything anyway. So I’m not really sure what she was talking about. But yeah, get off social media. When I didn’t respond to that, she called my husband while he was at work Friday morning, tell your wife   JULIE ROYS  28:51 And you weren’t you weren’t posting at this point? So it’s not just a job. We’re talking about your entire community. You’re talking about your your faith community, your friend community. I mean, it’s the church community becomes everything so often at these churches.   LORI HARDING  28:53 I mean, I was posting but I wasn’t saying anything about that. I was free falling. I was devastated. I had a friend that found out on Thursday night. I got in my car. I drove home. I called my husband first thing. One of the deacons, his wife was a very good friend of mine, she found out from him because they immediately sent a letter out to the elders and the deacons. And she just showed up on my doorstep, and I just fell into her arms. And she stayed with me until my husband got home. And so, you know, my world has just been rocked. And by the way, the HR director, Deanna, we were very good friends. My husband and her husband and she and I got together regularly for holidays. And they were in our community group. I mean, so itwas very difficult. All my friends, my vocation, you know, my heart, I mean, it was just it was all of that, everything. Since then I’ve come to understand that this is why I do talk about this is when churches start talking about, “Welcome home, we are your forever family!” No, I’m sorry.I don’t I don’t like that language because of that. Because I’ve just seen it over and over. I mean, it’s not just me, you know, we hear about these stories all the time. Where’s your family when this happens?   JULIE ROYS  30:23 So tough. And it should be I mean, I will honestly say, I’ve left two churches, where one they actually had me come up and, and they blessed me. And they prayed for us, because they realized that we just theologically didn’t agree, and we love them. But we couldn’t stay. Another church, we left and it’s been harder, but I’ve stayed, you know, good friends with good friends. So it doesn’t have to be that way to be, you know, and these are some of the signs of unhealth in churches, when something like this happens, as I mentioned, in the open, then it came out. You know, what was going on there with Tullian and there is also I’m going to be playing a recorded interview that I did with Rob Pacienza, who has a very different narrative of what happened. But we’ll table that for now. You’re fired in 2014, 2015. This becomes national news. So I remember this when you know, the headlines that Tullian Tchividjian, Billy Graham’s grandson, is involved in sexual misconduct. And then as time went on, it became more and more. What was that like for you? Hearing that Tullian and this man you had had on a pedestal, and then had done this to you that he was actually involved in this kind of grave sin?   LORI HARDING  31:45 So many emotions, I felt validated, you know, I, but I was angry. How could this happen? Who knew? If people saw him spinning out of control, you know, just all those just all those questions, of course, I was concerned for his family, three kids, his wife, you know, the church was going to be decimated. Just so many people were hurt within multiple acts of abuse, adultery, whatever, you know, however, you want to frame that? I think clergy abuse is the right assessment. So yeah, just the fallout was huge. It was huge. So you know, I was just trying to hold on probably like everybody else, watching the news, waiting to find out more. I had several conversations with Kim with his wife at the time, she was, of course devastated and going through literally hell on earth. So yeah, it was a really, really traumatic time for a lot of people. And, you know, look, I was not the only one fired in that manner. You know, I was one in a pretty long list. And so I’m sure other people that have, you know, been through a similar situation, were probably feeling the same thing. So some people reached out to me, I reached out to some other people. And this was this actually happened before his I think, before he was exposed, but I ended up making lists of people that I wanted to contact and tell you tell them how sorry I was for . . . and I know that it’s, it’s not something that’s intended, but when you’re on the inside, and you’re hearing that narrative, and it’s from the pastor and your leaders, and you’re hearing the reasons why they are right, and this person is wrong, you believe that you just believe that and I did. And so, so many people after that happened to me, you know, my eyes were instantly opened. And I just just had a list of people that I, you know, ended up getting back in contact with.   JULIE ROYS  33:37 Who had been fired.   LORI HARDING  33:38 Yeah. Yep. Who had been fired and so many were gracious. Some were not so gracious, which is fine. I get it. And every week more information was coming out, I mean, just for a while just didn’t seem to stop that whole summer was just an onslaught of more news.   JULIE ROYS  33:56 So a very significant conversation happened when Rob Pacienza reached out to you. You guys ended up meeting. Describe that meeting.   LORI HARDING  34:06 So he texted me out of the blue and I was shocked and of course, my radar went up. I had not talked with him since that day, I was fired and he was sitting in the office. And he, I asked him, what he wanted. He said he wanted to meet with me and with my husband. I asked him for what purpose. And he said I want to ask you to forgive me, but I’d like to do it in person. So I agreed and my husband I met him at a local restaurant one evening. I was shaking the whole time. I mean, talk about The body–your listeners might know this book–The Body Keeps the Score.   JULIE ROYS  34:39 Yes.   LORI HARDING  34:39 I had no knowledge of that of any of this kind of, you know, kind of that connection between trauma and I was just trying to survive you know, quite honestly, find a new job and survive. But that entire meeting, my body was physically shaking. When we got to the car, I was sitting next to my husband and my legs, our legs were touching and we got in the car. My husband said your leg was shaking the whole time. I was, I had to fight back the tears. It was very emotional and very, I would say, even though it was good in terms of him asking for forgiveness, it was still traumatizing for me to have to relive that.   JULIE ROYS  35:17 What did he ask for forgiveness for?   LORI HARDING  35:19 This was after Tullian was exposed.   JULIE ROYS  35:22 Right.   LORI HARDING  35:22 He’s telling how much of Tullian’s behavior he knew about. I don’t know, I have no idea what he knew and what he didn’t know, as the executive director there. But I imagine it was traumatic for him and for his wife. And now, you know, he’s executive director of this church and trying to steer it and all those things. So he specifically asked me to forgive him for not standing up for not saying anything.   JULIE ROYS  35:46 When you were fired?   LORI HARDING  35:48 Yeah, yep. And so we both said we forgave him. But I think one of the most important things for me that he said was, “You were fine. There was nothing wrong with you. You were well.”  And, you know, I think I pretty much lost it when he said that, because for a year I was constantly questioning myself, “Is something wrong with me?”  It’s a very, you know, pastors listen, you know, when you say things to people in your care, you have to understand how powerful that is, because you are literally speaking for God. And so to have to hear that, and, you know, to spend that year just questioning that, and even after that, it just rings in my ears. It still does, even though I know I was fine. I know my gut was right. My radar was on point. You know, I was fine. I was not the crazy one. But when yoru’re told that specifically, you just believe it. You internalize that. So it’s taken a long time to kind of get over that.   JULIE ROYS  37:08 It’s huge. I mean, pastors are father figures. The father is our representative, right? That’s the closest we get to understanding God. And I think for women, you know, I’ll speak for myself. And I don’t even think I’m as prone to it as some. But I’ve had that experience, you know, and the pastor, wanting his affirmation. I remember, because I’m a strong personality, and I’ve been on staff at a church, and I’m a woman. It is, it’s tough. And you want so much that affirmation of the pastor, I remember the first time a pastor actually blessed me it was–I’d  become Anglican at this point–and he blessed me and put oil on my forehead before I lead worship. I used to lead worship a lot. And I like it was huge, just to receive that blessing from from a pastor’s voice. I don’t put as much stock in men as I used to. I mean, that is a blanket statement against men, but just like mankind, I think we need to look to Christ. And there can be a real idolatry and we need to be careful. But I think you’re right, that is absolutely huge. And given what happened to you. You were kind of like, I’m never going to serve in the church again. Right. Like, I’m done. I’m done   LORI HARDING  38:36 I’ll never ~work~ in a church again. Yeah, all right. Never work in a church again. And yet you ended up on staff at another church, a Grace Community Church in Boca Raton, Florida. You started off as what the communications director there? You know, I mean, that’s maybe a little bit easier. Like it’s not a pastoral job. Yeah, and that’s how I justified it. No, I justified it by saying it’s an administrative type position meaning like backroom office. I can be at my desk. I can do my work. I don’t have to, I’m not involved in ministry. I’m not here on Sundays. I can just do my job. And so that’s kind of how I justified it in my mind. And I love that job. For the first four years. I’m a creative person, I got to explore design. I love professional development and training and learning. So I took advantage to hone my skills and learn more about that and I just, I just loved it. I loved every bit about it.   JULIE ROYS  39:37 So you become Director of Outreach Engagement. Then you get your MDiv with your spare time. I guess you’re from Knoxville like but that’s something you had started when you were at Ceoral Ridge. You’re ordained by   LORI HARDING  39:51 Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians.   JULIE ROYS  39:53 Known as ECO it’s a Presbyterian denomination. It does affirm women in pastoral roles.   LORI HARDING  40:00 Right.   JULIE ROYS  40:01 So you’re ordained by them. And then you’re promoted to associate pastor slash Executive Director. And it’s my understanding that a consultant had come in and said that the Pastor, Jason Whitener, senior pastor there, good at preaching, not necessarily so good at leading the staff. So you are given this role. And now you’re you’re kind of directing the entire staff except for the the senior pastor. Is that correct?   LORI HARDING  40:28 Correct. Yeah. So as I was functioning as executive director and also Next Steps Pastor,   JULIE ROYS  40:36 Okay. So, from my understanding, you get a modest raise for, well, you know, I mean, you were in the mid 60s, and you went to like $76,000. And this is kind of in the early days of you assuming this position, you receive a financial balance sheet. You forwarded this financial balance sheet to me, and there were some eye opening things on there. So, again, you’re making $76,000. You find out that Senior Pastor Jason Whitener is making $145,000, so almost twice what you’re making. You find out that the youth pastor who is under you, who I’m guessing is a man, is making $75,000. So he’s practically making what you’re making as an executive level pastor. Had he been there, like, forever?   LORI HARDING  41:31 He had been there, I want to say five and a half years. Now, when I became executive director, he had already been let go. And so did the next person you’re probably going to mention.   JULIE ROYS  41:42 Okay.   LORI HARDING  41:42 They were not on staff anymore.   JULIE ROYS  41:44 But they were making, youth pastors making 75 grand. Director of Music was making 90 grand.   LORI HARDING  41:51 Yeah.   JULIE ROYS  41:52 How’d you respond to this information?   LORI HARDING  41:55 So it was a hefty role. And that was my justification for beginning that conversation about salary. And so when I became associate pastor and then took on this executive director function, there was not going to be any increase whatsoever. Jason never even mentioned it, honestly, I had to bring it up. And that really began a series of difficult conversations. And it wasn’t just that. It wasn’t just, you know, finances and money. Although that’s what they have said that it was about. Well, you know, one of the things he had told me, and he said this several times throughout their conversations about money was that I wasn’t trusting God, because he had moved down to Florida to accept this position as senior pastor without knowing how much he was going to be making. And it was a very subtle, but clear to me message that, you know, you just, you need to trust God, you need to just trust God that we’re going to take care of you. I don’t know, I come from a staffing and recruiting background in the world and the corporate world. And, you know, I would never advise a candidate to accept a position without knowing how much they’re going to be making and what they’re meant. You know, I mean, that’s,   JULIE ROYS  43:06 He’s making 145 grand.   LORI HARDING  43:08 Right! Easy for you to say. So, but, I mean, that’s honestly, that’s spiritual abuse. Again, you’re using God, to manipulate a situation to shame somebody you had, this is a person in your care again, it wasn’t just my boss, he was my pastor. And now you are saying, it’s as if God is saying to you, you’re not trusting me simply because you want to know what you’re going to be making in your new position. It just . . .   JULIE ROYS  43:40 Well, it makes conversations that in the working world are expected. It’s a struggle when you’re in ministry, and at least my experience, is nobody minds sacrificing when we’re all doing it together.   LORI HARDING  43:55 Yeah.   JULIE ROYS  43:56 But when it becomes difficult is when some are sacrificing, and some are not. And so you made a very difficult decision in the midst of this. You wrote a letter resigning from a portion of your job, right? Not the whole thing.   LORI HARDING  44:11 Yeah. I don’t know, right or wrong, it was the best decision I could make that I would give up that executive director portion of my job, if it meant that we could get back on track. And in my mind, I thought, you know, it doesn’t have to be forever, either. Maybe this is just a temporary pause. So we can just figure it out. This was a brand new role for Grace. Jason had never had an executive director in his years of ministry. And maybe we just needed to figure out some things, you know, and so for me, and also, I knew I would have to give up that $7,000 attached to that, but I was okay with that that meant giving, you know, kind of like I said, getting back on track. That was what was important to me. So I sat down, I wrote that letter. It wasn’t a rash decision. It was a very intentional. I put a lot of thought and prayer into that.   JULIE ROYS  45:00 So then the session meets. Session is the equivalent of an elder board at a lot of other churches, but in Presbyterian Church, they’re called sessions. It meets and you’re told, we’ve just accepted your resignation for everything. You’re, you’re done here, right?   LORI HARDING  45:17 Yeah.   JULIE ROYS  45:18 So how did you find out that you were fired?   LORI HARDING  45:20 So they had to have a session meeting first to, by majority vote, to basically uninstall me. And so that happened that Monday.   JULIE ROYS  45:28 What was communicated as to why you were leaving the church?   LORI HARDING  45:33 You know, you can imagine this didn’t make a whole lot of sense. I had just been ordained in November and installed in December. And this is now the end of February. March 2 was the day I had the meeting where I actually was fired and presented with an NDA. But, so you know, it doesn’t add up, I’m sure in the congregation’s eyes, people that don’t know what’s going on. My gosh, you know, we just had this big celebration, you know, I mean, this was a happy thing, right? For Grace Community Church, to have an additional pastor on staff, and to have a woman pastor on staff. So you know, I received so many emails and phone calls from women. Like, “that’s awesome, Way to go, we’re so happy to have you, a woman in this role.” So it was a very celebratory time. And so now to have this happen, it was I can imagine confusing. So somebody pressed the issue on the Zoom call. And one of the elders said it was due to finances, salary, you know, my concerns about my salary.   JULIE ROYS  46:43 Which is partially true.   LORI HARDING  46:45 Partially true.   JULIE ROYS  46:46 But here’s the thing. You had signed an NDA. Correct?   LORI HARDING  46:52 Right.   JULIE ROYS  46:52 So why did you sign an NDA this time? And did you consider that as a violation of that NDA?   LORI HARDING  47:01 I regret signing it. I’ll say that. I did not sign the NDA at Coral Ridge. My husband and I decided we wouldn’t, because honestly, it wasn’t a lot of money. The stakes were a little higher this time. And we were in a different place. And honestly, it was just a financial, it was an economic decision. Think about it, too. I’m an ordained pastor in a denomination that’s pretty small. Where am I going to go? Honestly. So my job prospects, my vocational prospects seemed grim to me, seemed slim. Anyway, all that considered, we decided to sign it. Immediately, I regretted it.   JULIE ROYS  47:42 I’ve read the NDA, it says basically, you can’t say anything about why the person left, what happened, any of the circumstances leading up to it. I have yet to meet somebody who felt good that they signed their NDA. So I’ll just put that out there. People are doing this, it’s become so common, but why churches are asking for NDAs it’s concerning to me concerning to a lot of people. There’s a whole NDA free movement, trying to get these to not happen. And that’s part of the reason we’re talking is because I think your story is representative of what’s happening to a lot of folks. After you left, you decided to go public on Twitter. And at this point, it’s clear that you felt that that NDA had been breached. And so you could speak freely about what had happened. And you tweeted, and I quote, “I haven’t spoken about this publicly. And I’ll be saying more in the coming weeks. The cliffnotes version is this. I was fired from my position back in February, at a called congregational meeting, the members of Grace Community Church voted to quote, ‘support my request’ unquote, to resign. Funny thing is, I never resigned. I was fired. A session meeting was called under the cover of night and without my knowledge. The next morning, I was called into an office, fired and presented with an NDA. It’s been hell. The spiritual abuse wrought by Christian leadership in this situation is deep and wide.” After you tweeted that Pastor Jason Whitener, obviously saw the tweet and saw a conversation going on between a pastor and you on Twitter and felt that he needed to address it privately. And so he sent an email to another Presbyterian pastor, apparently, to counter your tweet. And I’ve obtained that email from Pastor Whitener. And this is what he writes. He said, “I don’t want to get in an online war with Lori. So I haven’t put out a public response but simply want to reach out to you to say that just about everything she put in that post is simply not true. She was very unhappy with her compensation that totaled about $105,000 as a first year pastor and that displeasure carried over into her attitude in the day to day. She submitted a letter of resignation from the executive portion of of her position. The elders accepted that as a full resignation. And she confirmed that in signing the agreement, which clearly stated this was a resignation. We gave her $30,000 severance, which we felt was very generous. There was never any pressure or coercion for her to sign that document and each step of the way, we made it clear we could bring in the presbytery to oversee the process if she’d prefer.” This pastor forwarded this to you. Why did he do that? And what was your response when you received that?   LORI HARDING  50:30 He had told me that he was contacted by Jason and I was honestly shocked.   JULIE ROYS  50:35 A couple of things in there, though, your compensation totaling $105,000. Your effective salary was $76,000, I believe. But then there were some car expenses, some social security, all these things put together. And I guess there is a way to come up with $105,000. Your severance was not $30,000, was it?  The actual severance amount of that was about $12,000, right?   LORI HARDING  50:38 Correct.   JULIE ROYS  50:38 I mean, the other things were   LORI HARDING  50:57 M-mm [No.]. healthcare premiums, some study time.   JULIE ROYS  51:07 Yeah. So I mean, definitely, the numbers aren’t exactly what they were. I did reach out to Pastor Jason Whitener. And at first one I reached out to him was was just for an interview. And he wrote, “I considered Lori a genuine colleague, confidant and friend during our five years of serving together, and I personally am very gladly advocated in every way for her to be called and approved in the position of associate pastor.” But then he said, “Lori submitted her resignation from the executive responsibilities of her role, which were the majority of the position and the primary reason we called her as an associate pastor.” And I don’t want to get into these these weeds again, I mean, we’ve kind of done that. But then he offers to respond in written form. So I reached out to him again and said, “Hey, I would love to record an interview with you if you’d be willing. But if you’d like, I can email questions.” And then he responded, that what he really liked to do is be in a live part of this interview together and be a part of the podcast together. So I did reach out to you and said, “Lori, how do you feel about that? Because Jason has offered this.” You didn’t want to do that? Why?   LORI HARDING  52:17 I am okay, very okay with saying no to things that are not going to be good for me. You only have to be through one of these situations to know how traumatizing that can be when you are having to confront the same person that is lying that, you know, I’m just going to say spiritual abuse, I mean, to be in any kind of phone calls zoom call, face to face would just be traumatic, and not something I’m willing to put myself through.   JULIE ROYS  52:53 Well, I communicated that back to him, I sent detailed questions to him and said that you weren’t willing to be on with him live in a recording. He wrote back, “I would have been glad to sit with you and Lori on a balanced podcast where you moderated discussion, and I’m able to immediately provide the alternative side of the story instead of hearing from the side Lori shares. It would be helpful for your listeners to know that I would have been willing. I’m surprised to see that you have predetermined to continue to go forward with a story without knowing me and having the full picture when I offered to be part of a dialogue with both of you. This is telling to me, given the fact that you’re proceeding with a podcast with Lori, with or without the other side of the story, as well as the nature of the questions that you sent make a number of pointed accusations against Grace and me personally. I’m not going to provide further comment on this, other than to say that Grace, and I humbly and respectfully deny any allegations of any wrongdoing whatsoever with respect to Lori Harding.” Let me just say, from my perspective, I didn’t predetermine anything. And actually, Grace’s response wasn’t the number one determinant on whether or not, or even this part of the story on whether or not we went forward with his podcast. But you did send me a number of documentation that convinced me your story was worth telling. And things checked out. I would never ask someone who said that they’ve been through trauma to face that person again, that allegedly did that to them. I’m not making a judgment statement on that. I’m just saying that’s not something that I would do. That’s my response to Jason. Although I did tell him, I’m still open to recording. We’d love to hear your side of the story. I do ask pointed questions, because I do not want anyone to say, “There were allegations made about me. I didn’t know or have an opportunity to respond to.” So I do ask very specific questions. But let me ask you, how do you respond?   LORI HARDING  54:51 I mean, one of the first things that kind of jumps out to me is that, you know, I think he’s accusing you of imbalanced journalism. Uh, you know, I think that’s unfair to say that, but he says, I think it’s telling Well, you know, I think it’s telling by the response. I mean, why not? Why not answer the questions? If you have nothing to hide, or if your interest is a balanced presentation, it doesn’t surprise me, I don’t think because this is a pattern of we have to continue with the narrative, we have to circle the wagons, I wish that he would have answered the questions because you were trying to give him an opportunity, right to kind of set the record straight, so to speak. So you know, it’s too bad that he didn’t take you up on that. But I think that’s telling.   JULIE ROYS  55:37 So in the aftermath of what happened at Grace, you discovered the survivor community on Twitter. And I know a lot of that community as you listened to this podcast, and it’s become an incredible community. I just think of the conference we have annually, where we actually get to see each other face to face. And it’s, it’s so amazing, because there are just deep, profound relationships in that community. And you started reading some books, like “A Church Called Tov.” And I think, Wade Mullen’s book, “Something’s Not Right.” Fantastic books. But as a result, you began to think of this in different terms, in what, you know, your whole experience in the church. How did that begin to crystallize for you?   LORI HARDING  56:33 It was, you know, again, I use the word crushing, but it really was. And so spent the summer really this that March, April, May, June, trying to find help, you know, trying to find information, trying to listen to people maybe that had had similar experiences, I say, now I’ve completely re curated, you know, my Twitter, who I follow, and my followers because it has so much become the survivor community. And it’s been hugely helpful for me as I’ve pursued healing. That’s how I discovered these resources, A Church Called Tov and Something’s Not Right. And along with some other really helpful podcasts, and you know, books. And so I, just over a period of time I miss a couple of those couple of months, I began to connect the dots between what just happened to me here, and what happened to me at Coral Ridge. And prior to this, I didn’t understand I didn’t know really about spiritual abuse. I just knew what I had experienced it and how experienced and how devastating it was for me. As I started to read and listen, I began to be able to have language to explain how I felt why I felt why my body was shaking for an hour straight in that chair at that restaurant with Rob Pacienza. It all began to make sense. I mean, everyday light bulbs were going off. Oh my gosh, that’s why this that’s why this that explains this. You know, so, you know, it’s not we know, it’s not just Jason and it’s not just Tullian. So yeah, all those dots just getting connected for me. Where I could name it. Right? What happened to me at Coral Ridge was spiritual abuse. There is no question in my mind about that. What happened to me at Grace is definitely spiritual abuse. The most senior executive at the denomination I was ordained in became familiar with what was going on and although he really didn’t want to say too much about what happened leading up to me being fired, but he said, “most definitely what happened after that was wrong. What happened to you was wrong.”   JULIE ROYS  58:39 Well, that ends part one of my podcast with Lori Harding. But in part two, you’ll hear the communication Lori just alluded to. I’ll read a very telling email from Dana Allen, the senate executive with the Presbyterian denomination to which Lori belonged. You’ll also hear what happened to Lori when she went back to Coral Ridge, asking for closure and for the church to write some of the wrongs against her. And you’ll hear Pastor Rob Pacienza, the senior pastor of Coral Ridge, explain why he believes Lori’s firing was justified and why he apologized to Lori in 2015.   ROB PACIENZA  59:13 I forget exactly what I said to her, but I just apologized for how things ended. I know Lori’s using that as some admission of guilt. I think I have apologized to every single employee that I’ve had to let go. Was it right to let the employee go? Yes. Is it justified? Yes. But does my heart still break that things ended the way they did?   JULIE ROYS  59:34 You’ll hear the rest of that explanation by Rob Pacienza in part two. You’ll also hear an eye opening account of what happened from the perspective of a former women’s ministry leader at Coral Ridge. And you’ll hear the impact all of this has had on Lori. And why despite the fact that it sometimes seems futile, she continues to speak out. As always, you can find a transcript of this podcast at my website, JulieRoys.com. I’ll also post all of the documents referenced in this podcast at my website as well. And if you’d like to support the work that we do, please go to our donate page, JulieRoys.com/donate. Also just a quick reminder to subscribe to the Roys Report on Apple podcast, Google podcast, Spotify or YouTube. That way you’ll never miss an episode. And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks so much for joining me today and for caring about truth and justice. Read more Documents Grace Church – Staff Salary Information for 2020 – Document Date: Jan. 14, 2021 Email from Jason Whitener to Pastor Keith – Dec. 7, 2021 Email from Jason Whitener to Julie Roys – Aug. 2, 2022 Grace Church - Salary Terms of Call - As of 2020 Email from Jason Whitener to Julie Roys – Sept. 16, 2022 Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church - Non-Disclosure Agreement - October 1, 2021 Grace Community Church - Non-Disclosure Agreement - March 2, 2021

Guest Bios Show Transcript https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fp0ljJr38FQ Is all sin equal? Can you call out wickedness in someone else—or is that judging? And what does it really mean to “err on the side of grace”? If you’ve heard some of these lines, and perhaps been silenced by them, this latest episode of The Roys Report is for you.  Joining me is Rebecca Davis, author of the Untwisting the Scriptures book series. And in this podcast we discuss her latest book in the series, addressing wolves in the church, hypocrisy, sin leveling, and righteousness. Honestly, there couldn’t be a better time for this book. With all the abuse and corruption in the church, we need to know what the Bible really says. So often Scripture is taken out of context. And it’s twisted by people with a vested interest in protecting themselves, or their prized institutions, to silence whistleblowers.  Rebecca does a masterful job of revealing why you, as a child of God, have a right to speak out — and why some sins are more egregious than others, especially when committed by leaders. This Weeks Guests Rebecca Davis Rebecca Davis is the author of over 20 books for children and adults, among them the Untwisting Scriptures series. Rebecca’s personal ministry includes serving as a spiritual coach through Immanuel prayer ministry while acting as a compassionate witness to people’s hard stories, helping those who are in or coming out of abuse, untwisting Scriptures that have been used to keep people in abusive situations, and offering hope through Jesus Christ. She writes about these things on her blog, https://heresthejoy.com and in her books, drawing from her more than 40 years of study of the Scriptures. Show Transcript SPEAKERS JULIE ROYS, REBECCA DAVIS JULIE ROYS  00:04 Is all sin equal? Can you call out wickedness in someone else or is that judging? And what does it really mean to err on the side of grace? Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys, and if you’ve heard some of the lines that I just mentioned, and perhaps been silenced by them, you’re going to really benefit from today’s episode. Joining me is Rebecca Davis. And if that name sounds familiar to you, it may be because this is the fourth time I’ve had Rebecca on my podcast. She’s the author of The Untwisting the Scripture series of books. Other books dealt with untwisting the scriptures regarding patriarchy, emotions, and the notion of giving up your rights. And now Rebecca has a new addition to the series addressing wolves in sheep’s clothing, hypocrisy, sin leveling, and righteousness. And honestly, there couldn’t be a better time for this book. With all the abuse and corruption in the church, we really need to know what the Bible really says. So often, Scripture is taken out of context, and it’s twisted by people with a vested interest in protecting themselves or their prized institutions, to silence whistleblowers. And Rebecca does a masterful job of revealing why you, as a child of God, have a right to speak out. You don’t have to be perfect to point out sin, and that not all sin is equal. I can’t wait to unpack this super helpful book with Rebecca.   But first, I’d like to thank the sponsors of this podcast, Judson University and Marquardt of Barrington. Judson University is a top ranked Christian University providing a caring community and an excellent college experience. Plus, the school offers more than 60 majors, great leadership opportunities, and strong financial aid. Judson University is shaping lives that shape the world. For more information, just go to JUDSONU.EDU. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity and transparency. That’s because the owners there, Dan and Curt Marquardt, are men of character. To check them out, just go to BUYACAR123.com.    Well again, joining me today is Rebecca Davis, an award-winning author of several books on sex abuse in the church. She’s also the author of a four-part series, Untwisting the Scriptures That Were Used to Tie You Up, Gag You, and Tangle Your Mind. Again, her latest book in this awesome series addresses wolves in the church, hypocrisy, sin leveling and righteousness. And I’m so excited to discuss this book with you, Rebecca. So welcome.   REBECCA DAVIS  02:41 Thank you so much, Julie, I really appreciate your having me on.   JULIE ROYS  02:45 Well, and I have to say I think this latest book, book four in your whole Untwisting the Scripture series, I think this is my favorite one. And maybe that’s just because of the space that I live in. I am among wolves half the time with my reporting. And I just man, this just hit on so many levels. I think things are relevant to so many of us who have faced abuse or abusers in the church or corruption, and you did an excellent job. So well done.   REBECCA DAVIS  03:16 Thank you. I was going to subtitle it Righteousness and Wickedness. So, then I got very specific with the topics. But that’s the basics of it. That’s how all the topics came together.   JULIE ROYS  03:26 Well, and it’s a fantastic book. And I should mention that we’re offering your book as a premium this month. So, if you give $25 or more to The Roys Report this month, we’ll send you a copy of Rebecca’s book, which we’re just so grateful to be able to do, and you gave us a great deal on it. So, we appreciate that.   REBECCA DAVIS  03:42 Glad to do that. Yes.   JULIE ROYS  03:44 So, I mean, it’s interesting, your book is broken up into four sections. And it’s sort of bookended by what I would say is like your identity in Christ and really understanding who you are. And I remember when I first saw that I’m like, does this really fit? And then as I read it, I began to see why you did that and why it’s so important. So let me just start there. You know, why was it important to you, to root this book, in a believers identity in Christ?   REBECCA DAVIS  04:17 I definitely want to start and end on the positive and it is so beautiful. It’s so beautiful, who we really are in Christ. But so much of the false teaching that’s gone on in the church has brought believers down to a level of being equated with the wicked, being equated with the wolves. And so, it was very important to me to show believers you are not equated with the wicked in the scriptures. You are not equated with the wolves in the scriptures. This is who you really are, as the scriptures have explained.   JULIE ROYS  04:54 One of the ways this is related and maybe a major way this is related to abuse in the church, and we’ll get into the sin leveling and all that. But there’s sort of just this well, we’re all just filthy, awful people. And so, if one person happens to be a little more filthy and awful than another, it’s no big deal. There’s not this expectation of righteousness, of beauty, of you know, the nobility of a human being created in God’s image.   REBECCA DAVIS  05:26 In this world, you don’t say that. You don’t say that person is just a little more filthy and awful than this person. You say everyone is equally filthy and awful. Except you, the one who comes to leaders with a complaint against someone, you’re obviously more filthy and awful than the person you’re coming with a complaint against, because you’re coming with a complaint that sort of defines you. So otherwise, if you don’t say anything, then we were just all equally sinful. Now, do they ever actually put this into words, the way I just did it so clearly? No. But everything they teach leads to that conclusion, their sin leveling as you said.   JULIE ROYS  06:10 Well, let’s go to the second part of your book, which again, deals with this idea of sin leveling. And I hear this all the time. It’s like every time I publish a story, say about a pastor who just committed adultery or something like that, then I’ll get well, all of us are sinners, who’s going to cast the first stone, you know? This idea that all of our sins are equally bad. And so, it shuts down the conversation. Like, we’re not even allowed to call out this pastor for what he did because we’re all guilty, right? Again, all of these sins are equal, what is wrong with that kind of thinking?   REBECCA DAVIS  06:50 It’s unbiblical, and it’s illogical. How about that?   JULIE ROYS  06:54 That’s, that’s great! We can just stop right there.   REBECCA DAVIS  06:58 So, I do go to the Scriptures, and look at various scriptures that people use to try to force sin leveling this concept of all sins are equal. That’s what sin literally means on us, and what those scriptures really mean. And then I look at other scriptures that clearly teach that sins are not equal. And also, I talk about how any justice system, that is actually just, will treat sins differently. There’ll be different punishments for different types of sins. And we are all sinners is used as an excuse-to-excuse egregious sin. We do things wrong; I do things wrong. Julie Roys does things wrong. But we are talking about hypocrisy, which is one of the things I focus on in the book. Obviously, it’s in the subtitle, and how doing something wrong and then coming back to the Lord to repent of it is different from doing something wrong and covering up and hiding and presenting yourself as a leader, a godly leader, and keeping your sin hidden and secret. I’ve written about that several times how there are different degrees of these things.   JULIE ROYS  08:16 So, the verse that I see pointed to a lot, or the passage, and I alluded to this already, is about casting the first stone with the woman caught in adultery. There’s also James 2:10, which says, whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles in just one point is guilty of all of it. So, unpack that scripture for us.   REBECCA DAVIS  08:37 You know, it’s funny about the woman caught in adultery scripture. It’s when we’re exposing the sins of people who are like the Pharisees that people use the Scripture. It’s such a different context than what actually happened because Jesus did expose the sins of the Pharisees, and Jesus bowed down to the woman caught in adultery, which is what you are doing when you expose the sins of the Pharisees and what I do in my work, because I’m bowing down and listening to the people who have been sinned against in sexual ways or have sinned in sexual ways. And yet their sin has been covered up and hidden. And we are bowing down to them to listen to them, to listen to their stories, and then to expose the sins of the Pharisees. So that story is like exactly the opposite of what people are trying to accuse us of when they use that accusation.   JULIE ROYS  09:38 And James 2:10, by saying that we’re guilty of breaking all the law, that doesn’t negate the other parts of Scripture. Yes, we’re all guilty before Christ.   REBECCA DAVIS  09:49 We all need His forgiveness. We all need his salvation, all of us do. But that’s not saying that all sins are equal. That verse just doesn’t work for that.   JULIE ROYS  09:59 There actually is a distinction made in Scripture very clearly. I mean, obviously, throughout the whole Old Testament, there’s a whole litany of different punishments meted out, according to what you did and the severity of it. We come to the New Testament, and even in the New Testament in stories that Jesus told,  there’s differences. You bring up Luke 12:47-48, the servant who knew the masters will, and didn’t get ready, will receive a worst beating than the one who didn’t know.   REBECCA DAVIS  10:32 So, it is clear that there are degrees of punishment, there are levels of punishment, which strongly implies that there are degrees or levels of sin.   JULIE ROYS  10:42 So, in your book, you also address this notion that Christians should embrace, and this is, you know, again, words of Paul, where he said, I’m the worst of all sinners, at least that’s how it’s translated in most of our Bibles. And I didn’t know this, maybe this because I’m really I never really listened to C.J. Mahaney. I just wasn’t running in those circles at the time that he was really prominent. But this is something that he would say all the time. And I hear it all the time. And it’s always really chafed against me. And so, I would really love for you to address this whole issue of, hey, we’re all just the worst of sinners. And that’s how we should we should view things and if we’re really pointing out other people’s sins, it’s actually just showing how self-righteous we are.   REBECCA DAVIS  11:32 Yes, and C.J. Mahaney popularized it, but it’s gone way beyond him. C.J. Mahaney was associated with the Sovereign Grace Ministries. And there was a huge child sexual abuse scandal in that group of churches that was dealt with in large part with that accusation. We are all the worst sinner we know. So how dare you bring an accusation against someone else? Because that means you think that you’re not as bad a sinner as them. And how dare you think that. So, what I did with that was I went to the passage in Timothy, Paul was writing to Timothy, when he said, God have mercy on sinners, of whom I am, and the NIV New International Version translates this, of whom I am the worst. So, people conclude Paul was the worst of sinners, Paul call himself the worst of sinners. So that means each of us must be the worst of sinners, to ourselves.   But then I went in this chapter, meticulously to look at the words the Greek words being used, and the Greek word there’s protos. And that Greek word means first, it doesn’t mean worst. And I looked at what, how it was used everywhere else in the New Testament, and sometimes it means first in time or space, which isn’t what it means here. Sometimes it means first in importance. And we can go back to the prodigal son for this one, because in the prodigal son story, the father said, bring the protos robe, and put it on him, which means the robe of primary importance, the best robe, the most important robe. And so, I make the case that Paul is saying, I am of primary importance. God had mercy on me as a sinner. He, through the death of Jesus Christ, had mercy on sinners, of whom I am of primary importance. And I said, why would Paul say that? Then I go on to say that Paul is making a case that he is an example a prototype for us. And I go through the rest of the passage to explain all that. And this is very true, that Paul was a prototype, because he was the first vicious, Christian killer that was brought to faith in Jesus Christ. His transformation was astounding. And it was unbelievable, literally unbelievable to the Christians at first. They needed to have some time to be convinced of it. So, he was saying, I’m a prototype of how great the salvation of our Lord Jesus Christ can be. Which is very different from saying, I mean, it’s completely a different message from saying, I am the worst of sinners. And then I also talk about pronouns and how just because Paul said something doesn’t mean that we all are supposed to say the same thing. Paul was a prototype, we are not. So, we can study that and say, yes, Paul was a prototype for us of the salvation of Jesus Christ. And how amazing and marvelous it is, and how transforming it is. That’s it just a completely different message than the worst of sinners message.   JULIE ROYS  14:52 Well, and it’s interesting to me too, because Paul also sets himself up as an example elsewhere in Scripture and says Follow me as I follow Christ, right?  So he’s setting himself up as a model, obviously, if he thought his primary identity was as the worst of sinners.   REBECCA DAVIS  15:08 Right, and I talked about that, yes.   JULIE ROYS  15:11 This is something and maybe this is because I grew up Armenian, which I’m not really Armenian anymore, although I don’t know that I fit all the theological categories of being a Calvinist either. But one of the things I love about the way that I grew up is that it was very much ingrained in me that we are called as Christians to do good works, which is scriptural. It’s like to be transformed so that we can be salt, so that we can be light, so that we make a difference. It’s not, I am called to be a Christian, so I can know how lousy I was as a sinner. Although I heard someone say once and I’m not going to say who because now, this pastor has been very much disgraced. But he used to say that I’m going to evangelize like an Armenian and worship like a Calvinist, you know? That the whole idea that, yes, we should have that appreciation; that deep, you know, like, I don’t deserve the grace of God. But at the same time, we should understand that we are called to make a difference and to look different. And I think when we get this mentality that we’re just the worst of sinners, then we don’t, I mean, you point this out, and I think it’s so good that we live in despair. And it’s like this idea of being righteous. It’s not even an expectation anymore.   REBECCA DAVIS  16:32 Yes, when I studied the book of Romans, and I’ve studied it several times, but I saw four responses that I realized made an acronym: hypocrisy, apathy, rebellion, or despair. Despair is just one of them. And I write for people who have been spiritually abused. Especially when people have been spiritually abused, despair is a huge part of the response. Like this is not what Jesus talked about. Can this be real? Is Christianity real? And of course, that means some people walk away. And that’s where my heart is. I want people to see who Jesus really is, what the Word of God really teaches so they won’t walk away. They’ll walk away from the hypocrites, but not from the real Jesus. That they’ll walk to the real Jesus and find him who he really is.   JULIE ROYS  17:20 And as you mentioned, one of the chief proponents of this was C.J. Mahaney, that became just a fertile ground, then for abuse in the church. And you write I think, this is so good. You say this will develop a perfect petri dish environment for breeding abusers with hardened consciences who can then take advantage of the ones with sensitive consciences. Unpack that a little bit how this idea that you’re the worst of sinners, leads to that kind of environment.   REBECCA DAVIS  17:52 it ends up being this ridiculous hypocrisy that they can stand up in front of, they can stand up at the podium, and on the platform and say, I’m the worst of sinners. But then when they are challenged about something that’s going on, either in their lives or under their watch, they won’t receive an accusation. And they will instead point the finger at the person bringing the accusation. So, an abuser, like let’s say a pedophile is looking for fertile territory, which happens all the time. They will look at an environment like that, and say, oh, I see, since they teach this worst of sinners thing. As long as I if I get caught, as long as I act like, I’m sorry, then I will get away scot free. And the person making the accusation, who is still wanting me to be held accountable, will be the one who’s accused of not forgiving and you know, bitterness and all the things.   JULIE ROYS  18:55 And that is what happened in this particular case. I mean, you talk to witnesses, and they say, Yeah, CJ, when he was confronted, was very prideful about it, and did not own it and still hasn’t owned it. And really, the Christian community hasn’t really dealt with sovereign grace at all. I mean, it’s just been really sad.   REBECCA DAVIS  19:15 Some people have tried to certainly but that’s an unfinished story.   JULIE ROYS  19:20 It is an unfinished story and kudos to those who have uncovered it like Brent Detweiler, Rachel Den Hollander. A lot of people have written extensively on it.   You bring up another thing that we hear an awful lot of because we’re talking about hypocrisy, but people will say, well, we’re all hypocrites, right? I mean, none of us live up to our own standard of righteousness. Just being a Christian means that you’re a hypocrite because you have to admit that you’re a moral failure, right? And in particular, you talk about an article that was written by David Baker in 2018, addressing at that point, Bill Hybels’ sex abuse scandal that came out with him. And he wrote this article on hypocrisy and Bill Hybels. And it was absolutely awful. And I will let you unpack why it was so off.   REBECCA DAVIS  20:12 Well, I think if I remember correctly around that time, 2018, I was wanting to address the we’re all hypocrites, topic. And then it’s like he handed it to me on a silver platter.   JULIE ROYS  20:24 It’s this slow pitch, and you’re just all keyed up to hit.   REBECCA DAVIS  20:28 I was so ready, I thought, oh, this is perfect. So, what I did, and I believe I had five points, but I don’t have them in front of me. I could look them up. But maybe it’s in front of you.   JULIE ROYS  20:39 This is why you have to buy the book; we’re not going to unpack the whole thing. We don’t have time for all that.   REBECCA DAVIS  20:43 But I did. What I did was I said, let’s look at what Jesus said about hypocrites. Because Jesus had a lot to say about hypocrites. And he laid it out. So, I said hypocrites are bam, bam, bam, bam, bam, five things. And it was, I was using the Scriptures where Jesus is addressing the Pharisees, and the scribes, the scribes, Pharisees, the lawyers, so forth, that that group of people. And I kept saying, if this describes you, then you are a hypocrite. So, it’s not to say there aren’t any hypocrites, or it’s not to say, well, if you’re reading Untwisting Scriptures, you get away scot free. But to say, this is what describes a hypocrite.  And so, let’s take that application and see if it fits us. Be honest before God, but not just to say every one of us is a hypocrite. If I tell my children not to do something that I then do, then maybe I’m, I’m committing some sort of hypocrisy there. But let’s analyze what living in hypocrisy means, as opposed to doing something that we shouldn’t do, and then being sorry about it. This is very similar to the sinner and saint thing we were talking about a few minutes ago. Jesus was calling them hypocrites. If we’re all hypocrites, then we are in big trouble, and the Holy Spirit doesn’t have any power. But we don’t have to live that way. That’s a big part of what I emphasize, we do not have to be that.   JULIE ROYS  22:17 isn’t a lot of it. And you do outline several qualities. But one is that we think that the rules that apply to other people, we don’t equally apply them to ourselves. And that really gets into your next chapter, which is on the plank in our own eye. Because what Matthew 7 says, it talks about you don’t take the log out of your own eye, right? But take the speck out of your brother’s eye, but you don’t apply the same standard to you that you apply to him; you do the very things you accuse him of doing. And so here we have Christian leaders, it seems to me who are doing worse things than often those that they’re calling out and justifying it. I mean, that is, is it not, like the definition of hypocrite?   REBECCA DAVIS  23:04 Yes. Or keeping it a secret. I mean, sometimes they’re justifying it like it’s when the financial things like the preachers and sneakers, things of how they dress on stage. They justify it. But when it’s stuff like adultery, then they just hide it. They don’t try to justify that. Not yet anyway, that I’ve heard of, but it is very similar.   I have heard so many stories from people who’ve been trafficked, for example, to pastors or they know people who’ve been trafficked to pastors, that these will often be pastors who preached so hard against homosexuality and against teenage fornication, and then they themselves are committing pornography issues and going to trial prostitutes and things like that. I mean, just really terrible things. So, they are living as hypocrites on purpose.   JULIE ROYS  23:58 Well, one of the things I like that you do in your book is that you give excerpts from, say, letters or emails that you’ve received from people who have had some of these tactics used against them. And for example, when it comes to this issue of taking the log out of your own eye, the plank out of your own eye, an abused wife, for example, writes, I was told for a very long time by many fellow Christians, that all sin is equal, and my sin in the marriage was no different from his. And I was always told to remove the proverbial plank from my own eye, and never worry about the speck in his eye.   REBECCA DAVIS  24:41 Yeah, it’s terrible. And that’s one more example of sin leveling. And so, I do go to that scripture and talk about what did Jesus mean, who was he talking to? What was going on? So, in that chapter, I don’t shy away from the Scripture. I don’t say, well, Jesus said that but we’re going to ignore it. I actually want to go to the Scripture, what was he talking about? What did he mean? Who was his audience? And unfold it, and also compare it to other scriptures. One of the things that I’m teaching in this book, that’s been a passion of mine for many years, because it just opened up so much understanding for me, was the understanding about pronouns and the audience. Who is the audience that’s being written to when the Scriptures say, You, like the epistles of Paul? Or the Gospels, when they’re saying you or when they’re saying me? We? Does it always mean the reader? No, it doesn’t always mean the reader. Let’s look at who the audience is, and then analyze, do you fit in that audience or not?   JULIE ROYS  25:51 Right. And what I think you just explained so well in your book is that it’s often the victims of these hypocrites, who have the sensitive conscience. And so that’s why these sorts of manipulative arguments work so well, is because so often it’s the victim, who has that soft heart.   REBECCA DAVIS  26:19 Yeah, so I’ve written elsewhere about the conscience. It hasn’t gone into a book yet, maybe it will eventually. But the seared conscience, the pure conscience, that there are several different descriptives for the word for the concept of the conscience in the New Testament. And I’ve dug into that. And I remember using Mark Driscoll as my vehicle for one of the discussions about conscience.   JULIE ROYS  26:48 Seared conscience, perhaps?   REBECCA DAVIS  26:51 Yes. And also, just what is it? What does it mean? Because this is what I see. The people with the seared consciences who can so easily describe themselves as the worst of sinners, or, or, you know, I’m such a hypocrite. They easily do that, get the accolades for being so humble, and then they can point the finger at the people with a sensitive conscience. And that’s, you know, kind of gaslighting when they do things like that.   JULIE ROYS  27:22 The third section of your book talks about how to kind of make sense of all of this wickedness and the wolves in the church. And, it’s been hard, it’s been hard for me, it’s been hard for I’m sure a lot of the people listening who have been victims of abuse from the people that they least expected to abuse them. It’s just extraordinarily painful and difficult. How do we make sense of all of these wolves in the church? Pastors? Christian leaders?   REBECCA DAVIS  27:58 A reader wrote me this question, is this, when Jesus talked about wolves in the church, and some other people talked about it, Paul? Are they saying that it’s a common occurrence? And I said, well, let’s look at the Scriptures. And I looked at Ezekiel and the Gospels, and where Paul talked about it to the Ephesian church. And I concluded, I believe it is a common occurrence now. Part of that is because people have been so gullible and not on guard, because he says they’re going to come. But people have not been on guard and have not understood, have not, I guess, have not believed, when Jesus said wolves are going to come or they think, well, it’s over there, it’s over there. Instead of saying, it’s in our midst. And it is incredibly well disguised. The wolves are so well disguised. It’s paradigm shaking. When I first learned about it, I was really laid flat. And I actually give a very personal, I tell a very personal story in the book, as one of my chapters, about how laid flat I was learning about all this. So, I had to come to the Lord over and over and over about this because it felt like it was going to, none of it was my own personal experience, because this is not my personal experience. It’s the stories I’ve heard from others, and I just felt like it was going to completely overwhelm me, and I wouldn’t survive. But the Lord brought me through it and taught me through it and strengthened me through it. And I was able to come to a place of solid ground on the solid rock, of Jesus Christ, to be able to proclaim the truth about it and stand in it.   JULIE ROYS  29:54 Well, and in talking to sex abuse victims, especially those who have been abused by Christian leaders. Talking to Lori Anne Thompson. I remember that. I mean, I was it was just emotionally devastating. Yes, it is. It’s so hard to hear that or other victims who maybe weren’t victimized by Christians, but then when they reported it, like at Liberty University, the things that happened to the victims that I’ve talked to. I mean, it’s just so hard that people who claim Christ could treat a victim that way. And yet, you’re absolutely right. I mean, you talk about this, Ezekiel talked about these priests that were not who they were supposed to be. That they were actually feeding on the sheep instead of protecting the sheep. Yeah. And I think of Hophni and Phineas, who are Eli sons, right? And they were supposed to be the priests who were standing between man and God, and were, you know, representing him. And instead, they stood there, and would rip people off who came to bring their gifts. They would abuse those who came.   REBECCA DAVIS  31:01 They were abusing the women.   JULIE ROYS  31:03 Exactly. They absolutely were, and there was judgment for that. But that’s, I mean, that’s in the Old Testament. Then we come to the New Testament, and we were warned by Jesus about the wolves in sheep’s clothing. We see it all throughout Scripture, we know that the human heart is wicked.   REBECCA DAVIS  31:20 And I’ve written about this before. I think it was in book number three, where I talk about Jeremiah 17:9. Is that the reference for that the heart of man is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked who can know it? And I make the case, I hope, compellingly that this is not talking about the heart of born again, children of God. It’s talking about the unredeemed heart. And it is so much and a bridge too far for so many people to wrap their minds around the thought that someone who has proclaimed the Word of God with such power with what they would have thought was such spirit anointing, and people have come to the Lord under their ministry, that that person is really serving the devil in some fashion.   JULIE ROYS  32:15 But they’re not actually Christians.   REBECCA DAVIS  32:16 They’re not actually a born again, Child of God. There’s so much cognitive dissonance with that, that you feel like your head is going to explode. And I know because I’ve been there. And some of the people that I looked up to so greatly and John MacArthur would be one, because years ago in the 1980s, one of his books was very helpful to me. And I don’t even know now if he wrote it, maybe somebody else wrote it.   JULIE ROYS  32:44 That could be. Yes, yeah. Many ghostwriters.   REBECCA DAVIS  32:49 But to wrap your mind around that, and to come to terms with that, it’s critically important. I believe it is so important for anybody who wants to live and walk in integrity. But it’s hard. It’s very, very hard. And when I’ve given my testimony about this before, which I’ve written about a few times, I’ve said I would rather walk in a difficult truth than embrace a comfortable lie. That’s what I chose. And I hope and pray when I write, I hope and pray that many, many will choose a difficult truth over a comfortable lie. That they will be that they will want to walk in truth, even if it is very, very hard.   JULIE ROYS  33:32 A common admonition that we hear from Christian leaders when somebody comes out and they admit some sort of sin or they’re caught in their sin, or say, to bring it to the current events right now, Matt Chandler getting up and admitting that he had had an inappropriate online relationship. So, there was a tearful Matt Chandler, who came out and made a statement. One of the things that we’ll often hear in the midst of this, as we’re trying to process what to make of this, and really trying to be fair, but also discerning. But we’re told that we need to err on the side of grace. Obviously, grace, hugely important to a believer. We’re saved by grace, right? We want to extend grace. We want to be gracious people. But that admonition at this time, is that helpful? And if so, what does it really mean?   REBECCA DAVIS  34:32 All right. So that’s one of the chapters. It’s called Don’t Err on the Side of Grace.   JULIE ROYS  34:36 See, you sound so judgmental. No, I’m kidding.   REBECCA DAVIS  34:40 Yeah, that’s me. This was another teaching of the Sovereign Grace Churches. I don’t think I mentioned that in that chapter. But anybody who came out of the Sovereign Grace world will definitely recognize that as a Sovereign Grace teaching. And I’m sure many other churches have taught it too because it sounds so good. They talk about how we need to err on the side of grace. If we’re going to make a mistake in our judgment, let’s make a mistake being kind, and sweet and gentle rather than being judgmental and harsh. Except I say, I think really what that’s talking about is let’s err on the side of being gullible, rather than erring on the side of being cynical.   Of course, as you can imagine, if you haven’t read the chapter yet, that I’m going to talk about how, what good deceivers, many abusers are. They’re very, very good at looking like they would never do such a thing, or it’s the victim who’s crazy for sure, see how she’s crying? It’s obvious she’s crazy. Or how very, very sorry they are, when irrefutable evidence is brought forward. How very, very sorry, they are, and oh, now I understand how bad that was. And I will never do that again.   So the desire is to err on the side of believing the person, believing the alleged abuser. And this was the chapter that brought the most emotional response to my early readers because I send out the book to some early readers to get responses from them. And I included several of their responses in that chapter that they were saying, so this, this, I’ve experienced this issue of erring on the side of grace, but it’s always for the abuser. It’s never for me, it’s never for the victim. It’s always for the abuser. What’s that about? And then I explain grace isn’t even what they’re talking about, biblically. That the way they use the term grace, it’s like kindness or giving the benefit of the doubt. But that isn’t what biblical grace is. Biblical grace is the transforming love of God, coming into our lives, to transform us by the power of the Holy Spirit, to live lives that are gracious and good before God and before man. Lives that are flowing out with love, and discernment and wisdom. All of these things that are the fruit of the Spirit that God talks about. That’s what grace is. His transforming power.   So then I detail a few things that what is grace going to look like in the life of a believer? What will grace look like and go through some of that. But it’s not going to look like being gullible. Because we are warned, we are warned to watch out. And so, we need to be wise, we need to be discerning. We do not need to be gullible. And I talk about being wise as serpents and harmless or innocent as doves that’s talking about living the lives of purity. But being wise as serpents talking about living lives of discernment. We want to live lives of purity and discernment at the same time, which is very possible, and not being gullible and not being cynical. People can lean toward one or another, but they need to be aware of those two possibilities and not go to either one.   JULIE ROYS  38:11 Actually, holding somebody accountable can be a grace for them, right? And I’ve heard this said about James MacDonald, for example. Former elders saying we gave him grace upon grace upon grace. And really, when they’re talking about those graces, it’s like we asked him to get help. We asked him to repent, we call them on account on these things. Obviously, there wasn’t enough of that done. I don’t think a lot of the elders knew what was going on. But again, that discernment is so important, and it can be a grace, and you point out, you know, you quote  II Timothy 3:12-13. In fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evildoers and imposters will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. And I love that word imposter there is used in the translation. I know we’ve talked about hypocrites, the actual word for hypocrite, the Greek word, is actually a word that means actor. So, we’ve got deceivers, we’ve got actors and, and there are scriptures, a lot of scriptures that talk about and you point out testing the spirit, right? Talk about discernment. We’re not to be gullible. For example, when we’re looking at, I mean, I’m just thinking about this because it’s what just happened, you know, with Matt Chandler. It’s like, going through the history of things that have happened over the years. Has there been the fruit of repentance, which isn’t that we’re sorry. It’s not whether we feel bad for it. The fruit of repentance is a changed life, is changed action. Are we seeing change over time that when we say we’re sorry for something, that there’s a difference in the way that we live? All of us screw up. But is there a difference?   REBECCA DAVIS  39:59 Yes. In this book I do talk about that word repentance and how the Greek word metanoia used in the New Testament is really about a change of mind that results in a change of life. It actually involves changing direction. And I talk a lot about what that actually looks like. It’s not so much about tears. In fact, it’s not really at all about tears. It’s about the total transformation of the mind and heart so that the life looks different.   JULIE ROYS  40:31 I love that, when you talked about metanoia, because when we think of repentance, we do think of sorrow, and you have to be sorry over your sin to repent. There’s no doubt that that’s there. But there’s also that almost a positive calling to a new way of living.   REBECCA DAVIS  40:45 Absolutely. It’s a positive calling, looking forward, rather than back. Looking back definitely needs to happen, but it’s primarily about looking forward.   JULIE ROYS  40:55 And as we said, all of your book, again, it’s bookended in who we are in Christ, is bookended in really what our view of sin is and of the Christian life is, and I really appreciate that because I do think our theology, and I don’t talk a lot about theology, a lot of people want me to, like, call out bad theology. I’m not a discernment blogger, I don’t do that. But at the same time, I do think our theology is really, really important.   REBECCA DAVIS  41:23 So important.   JULIE ROYS  41:24 And we can’t cover everything, you know, for time that’s in the last section of this book, but you come back to C.J. Mahaney and, you know, this reformed gospel centered movement, which has some positive aspects to it. But I’ll just say, C.J Mahaney, Mark Driscoll, Acts 29, John MacArthur, a lot of them are in sort of, in this reformed camp. You can find abusers in practically every denomination there is, but I do think there is, as you call it, the miserable cycle. An overemphasis or a wrong emphasis can sometimes give. So, talk about that if you would just unpack that miserable cycle and how it’s kind of tied to some of this community, which I’ve heard from some reformed folks who say, well, that’s not even proper Reformed theology. So, I’ll let you address that.   REBECCA DAVIS  42:27 You’re talking about the last chapter; it’s called Look to the Cross More: A Response of the Gospel Centered Movement. And then I work off of a letter that someone sent me about it, and she did refer to the reformed or gospel centered movement. And so, I did some research on the gospel centered movement. And I thought something really core is being missed here. So, the steps are looking at our sin and feeling miserable over it, then looking to the cross and feeling thankful for what Jesus did. And then being motivated by that gratitude, to go out and do good works for the Lord. And then I say, the cycle continues in a miserable way, because then you start thinking, this motivation is, is motivation of the flesh, because the Holy Spirit isn’t at work in this picture in this cycle, and then I start feeling unsatisfied, or like, I’m worn out, and then I start feeling disgusted with myself. And then I can see what a sinner I am. And then I look to the cross more. And I’m thankful for my forgiveness. And it just keeps on going like that. It’s like you can’t ever get out of the rut. You can’t ever get off that hamster wheel. And so, I take that, and unpack it with the gospel that Jesus presents, and show what it really should be. And I wanted to end the book with that one, because what it really is, is so beautiful. And it was so encouraging to me to consider what’s really going on when we live a life that isn’t just about looking to the cross more and being thankful for forgiveness, but it’s actually living in the power of the resurrection. Which for some reason, doesn’t get talked about enough. That the power of the resurrection is the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ in me, the hope of glory. And when I live in that power, then I’m living a life that is energized from within. There’s an engine inside.  I’m not pushing and pushing and pushing. I’ve got the internal engine, which is the Holy Spirit, to move forward in the grace of Jesus Christ.   JULIE ROYS  44:48 And as you so beautifully unpacked, Scripture is so full, and Romans is so full of declarations of freedom from sin, of not being under condemnation. And yet so often, sadly, as Christians, we live in that. But that is not, that is not the normative Christian life to be to be living in that.   REBECCA DAVIS  45:11 And people with sensitive consciences especially this is a lot of who I write to. They can feel like, if I don’t stay in that place of condemnation, and they wouldn’t use that word, but that is what it is, then I’m going to become proud. I want to help them understand you can actually get out from under that dark cloud of condemnation without being proud. You can actually live and walk and move and act in the power of the Holy Spirit, and still recognize that that’s where your power is coming from. You can still live in his strength in his power. So, it is a beautiful thing. The Gospel means good news, and the good news of Jesus Christ is actually very beautiful and wonderful and empowering.   JULIE ROYS  46:00 Well, and I appreciate that about so much of your book, even though you’re dealing with heavy topics, heavy things,  the hope that’s in it, the calling to your freedom to a better life in Christ, while dealing with again, things that we sadly are dealing with in the church, which is these wolves, the hypocrisy. But there is a calling to righteousness, there is a calling to regeneration. And I hope it not just for us individually, I hope and pray for that for the church. That we can see some regeneration,  some life coming out of what appears to be right now just a lot of devastation.   REBECCA DAVIS  46:40 Yes, that is my prayer. So much darkness and devastation, but the Holy Spirit is at work in the lives of his people. And it is my privilege to participate in that. And it’s my privilege to partner with you in it.   JULIE ROYS  46:56 Well, and I feel the same way. It is a privilege to work with you. And again, thank you so much for writing this book. And thanks for taking the time. Just really appreciate it.   REBECCA DAVIS  47:05 Thank you so much for having me, Julie. I really appreciate it.   JULIE ROYS  47:08 And thanks so much for listening to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And just a reminder that we’re offering Rebecca’s latest book on Untwisting the scriptures as a premium for donors to The Roys Report. If you’d like to support our work and get a copy of Rebecca’s book, just go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. Also, just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcast, Google podcast, Spotify or YouTube. That way you’ll never miss an episode. And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about this podcast by leaving a review. And then please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks so much for joining me today. I hope you were blessed and encouraged. Read more

Guest Bios Show Transcript https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fp0ljJr38FQPsalm 23 is a powerful psalm, reminding us that the Lord is our shepherd. Yet for those who have been hurt by their earthly shepherds—their pastors—the Psalm can sound trite or even off-putting. And sadly, this reality often keeps victims of religious trauma from the very Scriptures that can provide healing. In this episode of The Roys Report—Julie explores this issue with K.J. Ramsey, author of The Lord is My Courage: Stepping Through the Shadows of Fear Toward the Voice of Love. Though K.J. experienced a loving shepherd growing up, she and her husband later served in a toxic church with a narcissistic and abusive pastor. This experience left K.J. with deep wounds—and an aversion to much of Scripture. Yet she found a safe place in Psalm 23. And as she began reading and studying the passage, she began hearing the loving voice of Jesus. She also began to realize that some of the things she’d learned about the passage were false. In this podcast, K.J. tells her journey of pain and trauma—but also of healing and renewed intimacy with God. K.J. also shares insights from her training as a trauma-informed counselor. She explains how stress leaves many of us in states of dysregulation, but how the Holy Spirit functions as a “coregulator,” bringing us back to health. Tune in for a fascinating and rich discussion on these important themes. This Weeks Guests K.J. Ramsey K.J. Ramsey is a trauma-informed licensed professional counselor and writer whose work offers space to see every part of our souls and stories as sacred. She holds degrees from Covenant College and Denver Seminary and is the author of This Too Shall Last. Her writing has been published in Christianity Today, RELEVANT, The Huffington Post, Health Central, Catalyst, and Fathom Magazine on the integration of theology, psychology, and spiritual formation. She and her husband, Ryan, live near Denver, Colorado. Connect with K.J. online at kjramsey.com and across social media @kjramseywrites. Show Transcript SPEAKERS – KJ RAMSEY, JULIE ROYS JULIE ROYS 00:03Psalm 23 is meant to be a comforting Psalm reminding us that the Lord is our shepherd. It for those who have been hurt by their earthly shepherds, their pastors, the psalm can sound trite or even scary. Yet my guest today, a survivor of church hurt, seeks to redeem that. Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And joining me today is KJ Ramsey, author of The Lord Is My Courage. It’s a deeply moving and powerful book by someone who’s experienced some of the best and the worst that the church has to offer. Though KJ’s first experience in the church was with a loving Shepherd, she and her husband later served in a mega church with a narcissistic and abusive pastor. KJ tells her story in the pages of her book, while walking us through the truths and deep comfort found in Psalm 23. KJ also brings her training and experience as a trauma-informed counselor into her writing, and she opens up windows of understanding and healing while exploring the landscape of fear, trauma, and faith. Courage is not the absence of anxiety; KJ writes in her book. Instead, it’s a practice of trusting we will be held and loved no matter what. This is such a profoundly healing and needed book and I’m so excited to have KJ join me. But before we dive in, I’d like to thank the sponsors of this podcast, Judson University, and Marquardt of Barrington. Judson University is a top ranked Christian University providing a caring community and an excellent college experience. Plus, the school offers more than sixty majors great leadership opportunities and strong financial aid. Judson University is shaping lives that shaped the world. For more information just go to JUDSONU.EDU. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity, and transparency. That’s because the owners there, Dan and Kurt Marquardt, are men of character. To check them out, just go to BUYACAR123.COM. Well, again, joining me is KJ Ramsey, author of The Lord Is My Courage. She’s also a trauma-informed, licensed professional counselor. And as I’ve mentioned, she’s also a survivor of religious trauma. So, KJ, welcome. It’s such a pleasure to have you join me. KJ RAMSEY 02:29It is an honor to be with you. JULIE ROYS 02:30Well, thank you. And I should mention that your book is our premium for the month of August, The Lord Is My Courage. So, if you give a gift of $30 or more to The Roys Report in this month, we’ll send you a copy of KJ’s book as a thank you. To do that, just go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. And KJ, I should mention that your book was recommended to me from someone I highly respect, Lori Anne Thompson, and she says, Julie, you should read a book, I read the book. So, I did. And I have to say I wasn’t disappointed, probably because I report so much on spiritual abuse and religious trauma. And that, again, is the context of a lot of your book. But it’s also something that I’ve lived through. We actually had to leave our church pretty recently, because there was cover up of some abuse, and we’ve been going to a house church. So, I can kind of understand that whole process of really wrestling with those sorts of things. And really feeling like the church has let you down and trying to wrestle with you know, where’s your faith in the middle of that?, and I and I know that that’s something that you just wrestle with, honestly, in this book. So, I just want to thank you for writing it and for being so open about your process. KJ RAMSEY 03:47Thank you. Yeah, and thank you for being a safe place for survivors to talk about our experiences, honestly. We need it so badly. JULIE ROYS 03:57Yeah, well, and I’ve heard that from so many people that this podcast has been helpful to them, because it’s like, I’m not crazy. And this is a common experience and okay, because when you’re in the midst of it, I mean, that’s part of it, right? That you are kind of wrestling with that. In your book, you walk us through Psalm 23, phrase by phrase, and it’s really, really helpful, helping us hear God’s voice instead of maybe a lot of the voices that we’ve heard in the past. And I want to dive into that. But I also mentioned that as you go through this book, you’re revealing parts of your story. And I know you’ve told that elsewhere, but I think for a lot of folks listening, they’ve never heard it before. And so, I’d like to kind of start there with you telling your story. And my understanding is you grew up in a home where you went to church a lot, your parents, their faith was very important to them. Describe that experience. Was that positive for you? KJ RAMSEY 04:53Yeah, it’s in retrospect, mixed, you know? It’s got a lot of goodness and also somethings that set me up, I think for what happened in my adult life. But I talked about in the book, I was almost born in my church parking lot. Very, very involved. My dad was an elder in our church, I grew up in the Presbyterian Church in America. And we in Michigan, I’m not on the Dutch Reformed side of the state. And, yeah, church was my life. And I went to a small, Baptist independent fundamental Baptist School, which was very different in norms and rigidity of belief than the church that I went to. And so that tension brought up a lot of questions throughout my growing up years. But there was a lot of chaos and trauma in my family growing up, and so there’s a lot of experiences where my emotions were not tended to, and where I did a lot of having to take care of myself and shut down a lot. And I think that those experiences, that I now would call religious trauma, were the beginning of being primed to be in a system where that would happen more intensely and be exploited later. JULIE ROYS 06:25Well, and that’s part of what we’re going to get into. But I know too, it wasn’t just a spiritual journey. There also was a really physical component. You develop this autoimmune disease, and that really impacted your understanding of yourself maybe and how you view God and how you thought he viewed you. So, can you describe that a little bit? KJ RAMSEY 06:44You know, as a trauma therapist now, in addition to the genetic component of the way that I’ve inherited a lot of really messed up genes from both sides of my family that predispose me to disease. And I have actually now, seven conditions. There’s been a lot in the last year. It’s been my diseases that have actually woken me up to how I am already loved by God, and that my body has very wise things to say about my environment. And in the book, I talk a lot about how it was like a parallel experience, the learning to listen to my body and advocate for her fierce truth and her wholeness. That was the same process that happened in our church, of seeing like there’s an autoimmune disease of the Body of Christ happening here. An autoimmune disease, the body’s immune system attacks its own cells and tissues, and in the church, in spiritual abuse and religious trauma, that is the very same thing that’s happening. The institution attacks its own members, and its own health. And it was learning how to listen, and how to endure gaslighting. How to be resolved to seek wholeness in my physical body that allowed me to seek that in the institutional body and leaving that as well. So here a little there. JULIE ROYS 08:19Yeah, there is a lot of parallel and even the same way that in the beginning with your autoimmune disease, a lot of people didn’t listen to you, didn’t think anything was wrong. You’re the problem, there isn’t a problem. And I mean, all those things are so common in spiritually abusive systems. And it’s never one person. It may have started with one person, but it becomes a disease. And everybody seems to be affected by and participates in, sadly. And that’s a good way of putting it. I mean, it’s a really good parallel. And your spiritual abuse story kind of starts with your husband getting a position at a mega church, and . . . KJ RAMSEY 09:01A church that wanted to be a mega church. JULIE ROYS 09:04Clarified. A mega church wannabe. And that’s, again, just even that impulse to want to be large, that impulse to want to be great. So opposite of what Jesus says that you want to be the greatest be the least, you want to be the leader, you want to be great, serve. All of these things are so opposite and yet so prevalent in the church. How long were you there and described that experience a little bit. KJ RAMSEY 09:30Yeah, we were there for five years. Probably about halfway through, started running my counseling practice there. And so, we both worked on site. And while I was my own boss, I was also exposed to the subtleties of the shaming and domineering that have been in the environment, you know? The conversations in the hallway and hearing yelling happening down the hall. JULIE ROYS 09:59Which is really conducive to a counseling environment where you’re talking with someone about their most intense or deeply personal things and you’re hearing yelling through the venting of your church building. KJ RAMSEY 10:14That story in the book where there’s like a family meeting going on downstairs with the elders and the staff members, and I’m in a counseling session upstairs. And I can hear through the floor vet like, oh, my goodness, this meeting has clearly gone wrong. Not exactly great rapport with my client. But in the in the actual day to day, it’s such a confusion to clarity story for us. And you know, in the book, I detail more stories of abusive things that were said from the pulpit, or the way that different conversations that would happen, where we’d be more, more than subtly shamed. But I think what’s really hard is in a church like that, because of the distance between the people in power and those in the pews, most people, I think, have abdicated their sense of discernment around whether their leaders are truly healthy, and whether this system is healthy. But it’s really only in close proximity to the people who wield their power and hoard their power, that you begin to be treated like a threat and an enemy, when you speak up about the ways that people need to be more respected and known and protected. And so, it’s a long process, in my opinion, to come to from confusion to clarity around toxicity in a setting like that, because partly because it means relinquishing your dream. JULIE ROYS 11:57relinquishing your dream, risking your job, your security, I mean, all of those things. It’s really huge. And you talk about there was another pastor on staff, Josh, who spoke up. And I tell you, again, when you speak up in one of these systems, there is no problem you are the problem. And so, Josh, pretty much got tossed although he did stand up for himself in a bit. I know that was really painful for you to see and to experience. And I believe it was on your eighth wedding anniversary that you guys left. Yeah. And I love it when you leave because they throw you a big party and they make you feel not. KJ RAMSEY 12:38They probably wanted to put us in front of the church and like pretend like everything was bad. People were like, I won’t use the language I would normally use but no, you’re not touching my body and pretending that we’re hugging and we’re happy with each other. JULIE ROYS 12:50And I’ve talked to people who have had to go through that. KJ RAMSEY 12:53Yes. So, traumatizing. JULIE ROYS 12:54There’s severance, and then there’s an NDA on top. And they have to go and pretend at a party up to make sure everything’s okay to the congregation. Thank God you didn’t have to do that. KJ RAMSEY 13:04I said no to that. JULIE ROYS 13:06But you ended up leaving. And this is the context for so much of your book that it’s really helpful. Driving up to visit, what it your parents or Ryan’s, your husbands? KJ RAMSEY 13:17My parents in Bozeman, Montana. Yeah. JULIE ROYS 13:19Okay. Your parents in Montana, which is gorgeous, by the way. I’ve been to Montana for the first time this year. And I was like, oh, so nice. Yes, of course, you’re in Denver now. So, I’m in Illinois, I’m outside Chicago. So either place beats where I’m at. No mountains here. But you find yourself with your parents living in their basement. And it’s out of that, that the Psalms become really rich to you. What was it during this time that drew you into the Psalms in general, but even Psalm 23, in particular, because that’s what you really walk us through in this book. KJ RAMSEY 14:00We’re like driving through Wyoming. Ryan’s driving, I’m in the passenger seat, I open up my Bible, and I just start reading. And I’m like, David experienced this, David experienced being exiled from his community, and express that God was angry, furious, full of rage on his behalf. And he not only says that God is his refuge, but his rescue. And it was like the seed of a new story for us where it wasn’t that we were being exiled, but that we were being rescued from this place that we thought was our future. And we lost everything. So, it was in that wilderness of like, we’ve lost everything, we don’t know what our future looks like, we don’t know what vocation looks like, we don’t know how we’re gonna pay for anything, that we started to experience this new honesty with God, and this shepherd that comes to find out us out in the wilderness. And I became over the next year, really amazed by the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand. And in Mark it says that he had compassion on them, on the crowd, for they were like sheep without a shepherd. And I felt this deep resonance. Like A) that has been me that has been us. And those are the people that Ryan and I care about. Our people are the people who feel like sheep without a shepherd. People who shepherds neglected them, peoples who shepherds devoured them, who attacked them, assaulted them. These are the people Jesus says He cares about and that he moves toward, and he meets their need. He feeds their hunger and makes a miracle out of nothing through a little boy’s offering that doesn’t feel like enough, and it becomes more than enough. And later, I come to find that that’s actually Jesus deliberately enacting Psalm 23 with the crowd. So, my way to Psalm 23 was through this whole, like, a lot of Scripture wasn’t safe for me anymore. And I had to learn how to trust. Jesus says, My Good Shepherd, when all the shepherds had really failed me. And it was astounding, he sought me. JULIE ROYS 16:21I know my experience has been with things I love, like you said, some of the scripture was really toxic to you at the time, I used to love modern worship music. I can hardly listen to it anymore. So, I’m finding myself just give me a hymn, please. I would much rather sing a hymn where, you know, nobody’s getting any royalties on this. But we have to come back. And this has been, I mean, I don’t mean this toward any disrespect to those who are deconstructing because I think there is a deconstruction that’s necessary to separate us from evangelical culture and all of the baggage, and what is Jesus? what is real? I think that’s, that’s really, really good. But I’ve seen a lot of people then just cut themselves off entirely, from God, from the word. And that’s our healing. So, I love that, that you’re bringing us into the scripture in this book, and again, specifically Psalm 23. And we don’t have time, I wish we could go through the whole thing. But you know, that’s why you wrote a book. Podcasts aren’t meant to replace the book. But I want to just go through some of it. You break it up into three sections, the first section is blessed. And that’s the first three verses of Psalm 23. So, I’m just going to read it and then we’ll pick out some cool stuff from it. The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his namesake. Let’s just start with the Lord is my shepherd. And I mentioned this at the top. But for a lot of people, a shepherd is not safe anymore. When you’ve had a bad shepherd, that can seem you know, trite, or it can seem even worse than that. It can seem actually a little bit scary. So, you know, how can we trust Jesus? I mean, speak to those who have been hurt and are right now like, hmm, I don’t even know if I want a shepherd right? They’re feeling very weary. KJ RAMSEY 18:27Yeah. And I would say how you feel makes sense. Because there are a lot of wolves in sheep’s clothing, and the harm Israel. I came back to church, my mind really wanted to be there. Because it had for my whole life up to that point, been my safe place at my place of joy, my place of deepest community. My mind wanted that again. But I would step into church and within 15 minutes of sitting in a pew, I was having either a panic attack or my disease symptoms would flare intensely. And I treat trauma professionally. And I was like, I can’t do that. Like I cannot force myself to basically not listen to what my body is saying. My body is saying, I do not feel safe here. And so, I stepped away for the purpose of healing, for the purpose of helping my body learn how to feel safe in general, with spirituality and with God again and with people again. So that maybe one day I could come back to church. And I will say I am still in the process of coming back. Like I am a member of my church. I am confirmed Anglican now. And I still can’t go to church every Sunday, because of the healing process of trauma. I still, sometimes I’m too triggered to sit through a whole service. And I’m like actively working on healing. So, I hope that gives people some encouragement that like, it’s okay that it takes a really long time. JULIE ROYS 20:04I mean, I’ve been wrestling with this, does it have to look different? I mean, we have found a great deal of safety in a different structure. And I know the first time I came to the house church that we’re going to know I just the person who invited me said, what do you think? I’m like, well, this is going to grow. You realize that, right? And already, we’re breaking into two groups, because we’ve grown, and we want to stay small. So, you know, we’re, we’re splitting and not splitting, you know> Well, actually, we don’t care about using the right language. Don’t say splitting, say multiplying, whatever. But, but yeah, I mean, I, I really, really believe that we need to rethink all of that. And that’s maybe another discussion. But I think we need to give ourselves a little bit of space to say, you know, maybe church for me during this season means something different. Maybe it means, you know, meeting with friends, meeting with other believers in homes. KJ RAMSEY 21:08For me to step away, as part of my healing with the body of Christ, and part of my like, being able to trust Jesus as my good shepherd, again, that did not fit in my family systems expectations of what it means to be a person of faith. That did not fit in what my personal expectations were of what it means to be a person of faith. And there’s a dissonance there that I think we have to honor and just because it feels dissonant to do something different doesn’t mean that that is bad, it might mean that’s what you most need. So, you had to go back to trusting the shepherd. Again, it’s, I think, the experience of spiritual abuse, the experience of religious trauma, greatly dishonors the body’s need for safety, soothing, and respect. And to experience Christ as our good shepherd, the Shepherd who, like we’re shown in Psalm 23, seeks us, refreshes our souls, gives us rest, prepares a table before us in the presence of our enemies. To experience that, your body actually has to experience a sense of safety. And if you’re going back to church and being triggered all the time, if you’re experiencing a lot of anxiety on the way there and panic attacks afterwards and crying all the time afterwards, and feeling shut down when you’re there, perhaps not even remembering what was happening. You can’t listen to a sermon. I mean, side note, I don’t really listen to many sermons anymore. White men preaching still really hard for me. I think it’s important. It’s the key to being able to experience Jesus as a good shepherd is to listen to the sounds of your own body telling you that you don’t feel safe. Because your safety is going to be, your safety is something Jesus actually cares deeply about and is seeking. And to follow Jesus as your good shepherd means to follow him into goodness and life for your physical body. And sometimes that means stepping away, and it means going to trauma therapy, and it means reading poetry on Sunday morning underneath the tree, instead of going into another place that’s going to be too much for you, means getting coffee with somebody who you actually experience as respectful and dignifying of your story. It looks so many different ways. JULIE ROYS 24:01You write, one of the most common dynamics that keeps sheep from lying down in green pastures is what author Philip Keller calls the butting order. Domineering older sheep maintain their position as leader by butting other often younger sheep from the best grazing ground. The other sheep mimic what they see, shoving around those below them in the batting order. Again, sounds like a lot of churches that folks have been on, and this does affect us, neurologically. And you explain this really clearly. Would you kind of go through some of that kind of the neurological response that we have when this sort of thing happens because it triggers some fear, right? KJ RAMSEY 24:45Yeah. And pretending like we’re not afraid doesn’t do anyone any good. So, I’m just going to start there. Your body, your nervous system is a stealth surveillance system. It is always scanning for how safe you are. It’s scanning within you, interiorsection that’s called. It’s scanning outside of you relationally, between you and other people, your environment, sounds, everything. And when we do not have enough cues of safety, when we have more cues of danger, like threat to our life, threat to our safety, than we have cues of safety, goodness, connection, respect, enough food. When we have more cues of danger than safety, we sink into states of stress. And states of stress begin in fight or flight. Goes into freeze, shutdown. But the translation is when we’re in a spiritual system, where there is not adequate safety, whether you have named that or not, whether you are fully cognizant of that or not, your body knows that you’re not safe. If you have not been adequately respected, soothed, seen by your leader, or by the people around you, your body knows. And your body, when you are around most people, and you are in that environment, is not relating to them from a place of calm and connection and expectation of hope. But from stress, from fight or flight, from what neuro theologian Jim Wilder calls enemy mode. It’s very hard because we expect church to be our safe place, and we want it to be our safe place. But like, often our bodies are telling the truth about that we don’t feel safe, and that this pastor that we love, their preaching is actually an asshole, sorry. And like, it is really arrogant, you don’t actually feel cared for. And your body knows that. And so that also happens to be contagious, like when, when any of us are in enemy mode or in the state of stress, the strongest nervous system in any room wins. And stress tends to be contagious. And so if I’m relating to you from a place of stress, and from scarcity of a scarcity of safety, but I’m not sure where I stand with you, and I’m not sure if there’s enough room for me and my voice, so I’m really anxious and nervous about this conversation happening right now, that’s going to actually signal to your nervous system that you should be afraid too, and that you should be powering up and trying to take up more space too. And it’s this vicious cycle where stress creates more stress. And without naming that stress and discharging it, we become a spiritual place of fighting and shutting down and fawning, faking, that we actually love one another and that we’re family, when really we treat one another like we’re enemies to conquer or control. JULIE ROYS 28:05And that’s where we need a shepherd right? We need someone to rescue us. We are helpless in that state. And so often, I think especially in evangelicalism, it may be mixed in with, you know, the American, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. We’re kind of in this mode that we’ve got to do something to rescue ourselves. And I know for me, one of the most profound spiritual experiences I had come at the end of trying for several years to reach God and dealing with depression. And it was in the midst of that when I just gave up that the Holy Spirit met me in such a profound way that even now when I think back, this is like 30 years ago, not knowing if God existed at that point and him reaching down and me knowing His presence in just such a tangible way that I won’t go into the whole story. But I mean, it was it almost had to be him rescuing me because I’m such an activist, that if I had rescued myself, I’d continually think I’ve got to do it. And that was one of those kind of flag on the hill reminder, whatever. I mean, it’s like I look back and now I know the Lord is my shepherd. He rescues me, not me. KJ RAMSEY 29:22Absolutely. Yes. And that is actually what we know of how the nervous system works, is that when we are very shut down, when things are dark, when we are overwhelmed by our lives, when we are very disconnected from the reality we wish was true but don’t really feel as true, we actually need something called co-regulation, to come back to feeling like ourselves and feeling that our faith is true and real and that God is good, and that we are loved. Co-regulation is the experience of another person’s presence coming toward us with safety and empathy in such a way that it, like I said, fear is contagious. Love is contagious too. And that presence of love offers our nervous system room, almost physiological hope, to come back to life, to come back to the place where neurologically, we can access the parts of our brain and nervous system that allow us to connect social engagement system. That allow us to have perspective and think critically and change our mind, the prefrontal cortex. So that’s knit into the way God made us to be soothed. It’s actually the experience of someone coming toward you. And that someone can be Jesus Christ Himself, that someone can be the mystical experience of the spirit, that someone can also be just someone sitting with you and saying nothing, but physically being there, while you are distraught, can look so many different ways. But that’s, we all actually were made to be shepherded. And the Holy Spirit, so is our co-regulator. The Holy Spirit is our absolute co-regulator. And because of our union with Christ, we have the spirit within us, always. So, I think our faith, our whole life’s task is to realize the present indwelling of the Spirit with us now, and how real that is that I am never alone. You are never alone. There is actually always a spirit inside you who is seeking your good and the very same spirit that raised Christ from the dead lives in you and is giving you what you need to rise from every small death in your life. That is true. And that’s our task. That we get to experience that is true. And your body is going to be the vehicle that helps you drive there. Like your body is going to be the means of experiencing the spirit is true, not solely your mind. JULIE ROYS 32:30So good. So good. Well, let me go to the second part of Psalm 23, which is the next portion that you deal with in your book. I’m just going to read it again. Because it’s so good. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for You are with me, your rod, and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows. You describe I mean; we’re talking about the darkest valley, you describe not just a really dark valley with what you experienced at church, but you even alluded to this earlier. Your health has been a really, really dark valley. How do you walk through this dark night, as you put it, and I like this, you said, you know often in evangelicalism, we’ve been taught that our faith is kind of like a kite that helps. I’m sorry, it just sounds so cheesy, but a kite that helps us rise above you know, the valley. It’s not really like that, is it? KJ RAMSEY 33:36Yeah, in Psalm 23, where it says that God leads us through the darkest valley is the way that that works. In the landscape in which this song was written in Israel, is that a shepherd will lead their sheep through these dark crevices almost, in the earth, where there’s like a little stream that passes through, like a ravine, you know, and that bandits and predators are hiding in this dark valley. It’s not a big, dark, open space. It’s like going through the middle of this area that feels threatening and ominous. But the point is that the Shepherd has been through the dark valley before, the shepherd knows the way and it’s also the only way to the water the sheep need. It is the way to the water. And it is the way to the open grasslands and higher country that the sheep will need to be nourished and to rest. So, the only way to the life without lack is through the darkest valley. Part of the argument of my book is that courage is a practice. And I like that it’s a practice because that means that we can actually get better at anticipating that the Shepherd does know the way through. And that the dark valley doesn’t actually last forever. You do come out on the other side, and there will be water that you need, and there will be nourishment. And I found in my own life, thinking about sickness, I recently started high dose immunoglobulin infusions. IVIG for these new diseases that I have, and it’s, it’s really serious, it’s really hard. After my first infusion, I spent four days straight in bed. It was very sad; it was very heavy. And I’d have to do this every three week. And I was thankful laying there that I know, this won’t last forever. This feels like it will last forever, I feel afraid that this is going to be my whole life now. I feel afraid that all of this darkness is going to overshadow all the light that I’ve worked so hard to enjoy and cultivate in my life. But I know from experience, that the shepherd never leaves me here. So, I’m going to trust that and I’m just gonna let the dark be dark this week. And I know that the water that I need is coming. And I’m okay. Like I’m not looking forward to my next treatment in a week. But I know that the shepherd always brings me out, the shepherd always brings me through. I think that’s the practice of courage. It’s like learning to anticipate I can actually trust you God, because you do bring me through. And that this is the path that brings life. Just like the cross is what brought our salvation. The dark valley actually is what we have to walk through to get the water that we really need. And we’re thirsty. JULIE ROYS 36:51There’s a part of Psalm 23 that we’ve heard as kind of embracing discipline. And that is the part about the rod and staff. It’s weird because it says it comforts us and, you know, I remember, I’m old enough to remember when there was a paddle at the front of the classroom. KJ RAMSEY 37:11There is a paddle in my principal’s office, for sure, and it was used on me. Yeah. JULIE ROYS 37:18I don’t know. I saw enough people paddled in front of the whole class, which How humiliating, that I think that was enough of a deterrent for me. But the rod, seeing the paddle up there was not comforting to me. You say, that’s really not the right understanding. Which is funny because I’ve heard this in umpteen sermons about Psalm 23. So, what is that really about? KJ RAMSEY 37:41You’ve heard the This is God’s rod of discipline is because God loves you? JULIE ROYS 37:46Which is biblical. I mean, that’s in Hebrews. I mean. KJ RAMSEY 37:49it is biblical. Yes. But that is not actually what Psalm 23 is about. So, in, you know, I came to this passage with an open heart and an open mind, knowing that I would find a lot as I studied. And so, in my study of Psalm 23, and both in studying the Hebrew and in reading lots and lots of commentaries and books, I came to find out that the rod and the staff are, the rod in particular is actually about the shepherd protecting the sheep from external threats. The rod would almost never be used against the sheep themselves to discipline the sheep. The rod is often like, has spikes on the end, like a piece of like a club, almost, that’s got almost like a mace kind of thing that the shepherd could throw to attack an oncoming like a lion or a bear that’s out to get the sheep. So, you’re rod and your staff, they comfort me, number one, your rod comforts me because you are willing to protect me and stand up for me when I am being attacked. That is the picture of our shepherd. And then the staff is actually often used as an assurance of the shepherd’s presence. So, the staff, a shepherd would lay across their sheep’s shoulder not like I’m gonna hit you with this staff. Because you dumb animals aren’t listening to me, but like, I’m gonna gently lay this across your shoulders so that you remember I’m here, I’m with you. I’m walking with you. And yes, sometimes the shepherd will use the hook of the staff to separate sheep who are fighting from one another, to pull a sheep out of briars where they’ve been stuck. But all of these features of a rod and a staff are more about protection from external threats and assurance of continual presence. And that is something I had never learned in my whole lifetime of knowing Psalm 23. And I find, frankly, really beautiful. JULIE ROYS 40:06It’s pretty cool. KJ RAMSEY 40:06This is not about discipline. JULIE ROYS 40:08You also talk about spreading a feast before me. And you talk about the feast really for you at a certain point in your life where church had become kind of scary. After you left that church, your husband took another job at a church. And that ended up being kind of a megachurch wannabe, too. And I tell you, what, once you’ve been through one of these, yeah, the alarms like you can’t you can. KJ RAMSEY 40:29Hell no, we’re not doing this. JULIE ROYS 40:32Absolutely right. Like, what am I thinking? So, but you talk about just meeting with friends, and I love that you talk about, because Psalm 23 isn’t just about being a good shepherd or about the Good Shepherd. It’s about being a good host. Talk about that. KJ RAMSEY 40:49Yeah. Well, again, something I never learned my whole life was about Psalm 23. When David writes that you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, you prepare is about a host giving a lavish feast. In that culture to show your abundance, you wouldn’t like buy something fancy, like fancy car, fancy horse, I guess. Like that version of like external wealth. You would actually invite everyone you knew to a lavish feast, where there was more food than anyone could possibly eat. And that was how you showed that you had experienced God’s blessing in your life. And the verb you prepare, it’s saying like spreading and preparing a table. And in that culture, theologian Kenneth Bailey talks about that is work only a woman would do in that culture at that time. So, David is consciously showing us that God is like a woman who prepares a beautiful, lavish feast for her guests with attention to every detail and greets us and welcomes us to that table. There’s a nurturing element to this Shepherd host that we’re being shown in the passage. JULIE ROYS 42:23You just made a ton of Theo bros really, really uncomfortable. KJ RAMSEY 42:26They can take it out. I know, I know. I know I did. But it’s in the text. And it’s actually what’s really interesting is, Jesus does the same thing. So, in Luke 15, Jesus is basically elaborating on showing the fullness of Psalm 23 in the parable of the Good Shepherd, and what I call the good woman, Kenneth Bailey does too. But the lost coin, and also the prodigal son or the good father. And first he shows that he is like this Good Shepherd, who seeks the lost sheep who leaves behind the ninety-nine to find the one. But the parable directly after that is this woman who says Jesus is saying, God is like a woman who loses her one silver coin in her house, and she rummages for it. She gets down on the ground to find it. First of all, Jesus is saying, you can be lost right inside God’s house. He’s also saying, I am like this woman who searches so hard for her coin. And when this coin is found, which by the way, a coin can’t help itself be found. A coin can’t cry out. A coin is so inert and lifeless that it requires its owner to seek it and find it and make that return what is possible. So even when we have like, no ability to cry out or to come back toward God, God is seeking and finding us. But um, I just to get back to the female aspect here. It is in the Scripture. And I am not somebody who’s just pulling things out of my butt. And even saying it in that way, it’s gonna piss people off. But this is what theologians have said before me, and they will say after me. I just come to the Scripture as a student, and see that if this is in the story of the Good Shepherd, from Psalm 23 to a thousand years later, in Jesus Christ describing his own heart for the lost, then why do we not honor the way that God nurtures us and seeks us and prepares a table for us? Why are we so afraid of what Jesus clearly was not afraid of? And what are we missing by being so up in arms about the femininity of God. So, you can be mad at me, Theo bros, I don’t really care. JULIE ROYS 45:15Well, and, you know, God encompasses both masculine and feminine. It’s clear throughout Scripture, KJ RAMSEY 45:21God is neither male nor female. JULIE ROYS 45:25Not to get off on a tangent. But I mean, if God gave us an image of himself, right, in the image, he created them male and female, He created them. So, there’s something about male and female that reflects the image of God. KJ RAMSEY 45:37Both. JULIE ROYS 45:38We have forgotten that. And now do we relate to God as our mother? Well, you know, I would argue in relation to us, he is masculine, because he always initiates, we always respond. KJ RAMSEY 45:48Although wisdom in the spirit is often talked about in feminine terms. So absolutely Godhead, I would like to retract what I said about not caring, I do care. Frankly, I don’t care to please Theo bros. But I do care in that, I grew up with the inheritance of the feminine aspects of just identity being subservient to men. And frankly, I think the way that we have taught one another to disrespect female intellect, female emotion, female intuition is very part of why systems of abuse continue to be perpetuated. This hierarchical way of relating to one another, the fruit is toxic. So, I do care. I carry because when we diminish the image of God, when we diminish who God is, as Father, Son, and Spirit, who is neither male nor female, we also diminish ourselves. And we diminish the dignity of our genders and how we get to show up in the world. And we create a context in which more abuse is going to happen. So, I do care because I think that they are perpetuating systems of abuse. And my story is part of the fruit of their desire for certainty and control. And I say they need to repent. JULIE ROYS 47:30Amen. KJ RAMSEY 47:30I just got really angry, but like, it goes together, those go together. JULIE ROYS 47:35They do and when you look, it’s misogyny. And if you look at the root of misogyny, where is it? Right in the fall that God will put enmity between the woman and the serpent. And misogyny is from the pit of hell, it’s evil. It’s diminishing part of God’s image in us, which is women. KJ RAMSEY 47:53And Satan often works in the cloak and disguise of light. And so, I think Theo bro folks, who are bad at statements like this, need to do a deep listening process with the Holy Spirit about perhaps what you are doing is a grand, you’re being used by Satan to create more enmity between men and women. What if your desire for certainty around this and your need to correct people like me is actually a great tactic of Satan to keep us from loving one another? I hope that you will consider that. JULIE ROYS 48:42I hope so too. Although I’ve not found a lot of openness to reflection in that group. KJ RAMSEY 48:47No, I haven’t either. But I don’t usually go off that much. But you know? JULIE ROYS 48:52I went there with you. So, I mean, we’re there together. KJ RAMSEY 48:54Thank you. JULIE ROYS 48:55You’re welcome. And I will just say what you just described, though, about this, you know, back to the table thing is a beautiful part of community, which has been found, you know, I would say I’ve seen it. I saw it at the Restore conference. When survivors come together, it’s so powerful. KJ RAMSEY 49:18Yeah, some of our friends who are in there in the last chapter of the book, they were there. And, yeah, it was so meaningful for them to get to be around other survivors and feel seen and heard and understood. JULIE ROYS 49:32Well, I have very vivid memories actually of a dinner the night before and a dinner the night after, with so many survivors, and I’ll never forget it. It’s just so powerful. And so, we’re doing another one. Stay tuned. We’ll have a date pretty soon. But let me just go to the last we’re not going to have time to go through, because of time, you know, we’re gonna have to cut the third part and folks, you’re just gonna have to like get the book because it’s that good. But the last part of Psalm 23, the last verse so good, surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord, forever. I have always thought of this. And I think it’s right to think of it this way, as a longing for Heaven, to be with Jesus to be one to be in his presence, which now we do see through a mirror dimly, right? Then we will see face to face. There is a part of the Kingdom of Heaven is not yet, but I love that you bring you really bring home that the kingdom of heaven that Jesus with us, His indwelling, is now. KJ RAMSEY 50:42It is now. JULIE ROYS 50:43What does that meant to you, as you’ve walked through your valley and everything else? KJ RAMSEY 50:48There is nothing that can separate me from the love of God and Christ. There’s nothing. There is no pastors words spoken over my character, or my husband’s character that can separate me from Jesus. There’s no trauma that causes triggers that can separate me from Jesus. There’s nothing. Even if my perception of my relationship with God is one of great distance, ontologically, I am always connected to Jesus. The spirit is what resides at the bottom of my soul, and I cannot change that. And I find that the more that I trust that that is true, the more that I treat myself like someone God loves that much to dwell within, God loves enough to go through the dark valley of the cross himself, to allow his body to be brutalized, to be exiled, to go to the pit of death. All of the things. God loves me that much to be a high priest who knows every human weakness. I can treat myself like I am worthy of love and worthy of care worthy of a shepherd who sees me and hears my cries and actually comes and seeks me out. I can extend that to myself. And it’s in the physical experience of what that can look like, of responding to my symptoms of stress, as cries for connection to God. That is the place where truth becomes tangible. And where belovedness becomes my birthright and my sense of belonging in my every day. And I just love, I think, something that I find so beautiful in, I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. It’s using this language of the Holy of Holies that like this dwelling is this tabernacle. And when Paul talks about that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, it’s picking up that same language as the Psalm and the word that Paul’s using there is niyas and it’s the Holy of Holies. Like you are actually the holy of holiest places already. Your physicality is where God already dwells. And that is an affront to those who have swallowed a lot of Gnosticism cloaked as Christianity, but it is actually true – your flesh is not your whole substance. It’s not your whole body; your breath, your bones, your emotions, this is where God actually dwells. And in learning to treat yourself and others like the dwelling place of the Most High God, you will come to experience love and kindness. You will move from like we talked about earlier that enemy mode into connection because God has made you his friend. God has not only made you a friend, he’s chosen to make you his home. Hopefully, the safest place in your life is your home. I mean for a lot of us that become untrue, or it wasn’t true as we were growing up, but if you think about getting to rest your head on your pillow at night. This is, you know, come back home, at the end of the day, at end of workday to the safe place where there’s food, and there’s shelter. Like God has made you the place that he dwells. And he is your dwelling. And that is already true, here, and now. And we get to experience that, as true as we practice that presence and as we truly shift in our stress, to let God soothe us, and let others do this too. And it’s a wonder my life has changed. It works like I experienced so much joy in the Good Shepard’s presence through practicing physical embodied contemplative prayer, all of these kinds of things like I am changing. JULIE ROYS 55:59I can see why you became an Anglican. We actually came from Anglican Church, that was our last church, which we loved the embodied part of the experience and the sacramental Incarnate Christ in us. KJ RAMSEY 56:14I love that. I will say, I am really not okay with the Anglican Church’s response to the stories of survivors right now. And I’m seeing the ACNA just repeat the same institutional protection that the SBC did, and others are doing as well. And personally, I can’t be complicit in continuing that. And so, I don’t, I don’t think it’s my long-term home, because I’m not seeing the leadership of the ACNA repent, quite enough. And that is sobering and sad. But I think it’s important to say out loud, because I’m unwilling to like lead other people into a place where I don’t believe they’re truly safe. I think there’s some really great priests out there, mine is one of them. But I think the ACNA has some real repentance to do. JULIE ROYS 57:07It does. It does. And we knew it a lot of the players. And it’s been hard. But I know it’s, it’s an experience that probably at least three quarters of the people listening to this podcast have. And so, we’ve been through it, we’ve been through it, and we go through it together, and we get to be the body of Christ together and to comfort each other. You can’t understate the importance of that. And so, I thank you for, for your book. I thank you for your spirit for sharing that with us. And I know that can be a really difficult thing, especially struggling with the autoimmune disease. And I know that just creates a real hardship on top of that but praying for you for your healing and for your strength. And just great to meet you. So, thank you. KJ RAMSEY 57:53It’s so good to meet you. Thank you for what you do. JULIE ROYS 57:55And thanks so much for listening to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And just a quick reminder that KJ’s book, The Lord Is My Courage, is our premium for the month of August, and if you give a gift of $30 or more this month to support The Roy’s Report, we’ll send you a copy of KJ’s book. To get your copy and to donate online just go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. Also, just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcast, Google podcast, Spotify, or YouTube. That way you’ll never miss an episode. And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks so much for joining me today. Hope you have a great day and God bless. Read more

Guest Bios Show Transcript https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSdvKw8aeqk In 2016, imprisoned Iranian-American Pastor Saeed Abedini became the focus of a worldwide #SaveSaeed movement. But according to his wife, Naghmeh Abedini, Saeed was a fraud and an abusive husband. Yet because the Christian world idolized marriage and wanted a hero, Naghmeh says leaders suppressed the truth.  Featuring a powerful talk from the recent Restore Conference, in this podcast Naghmeh Panahi addresses the idolatry evident among some evangelical leaders that has led them to cover-up abuse in the church. For years, Naghmeh didn’t fully recognize Saeed’s abuse and she explains why. She also unveils the ways Christians pervert marriage. Instead of viewing it as an institution God created to protect the family, they use it to protect abusers. Most notably, Naghmeh says well-known Christian leader and CEO of Samaritan’s Purse, Franklin Graham, repeatedly ignored Naghmeh’s pleas for help. And instead of protecting Naghmeh and her family, Franklin urged her to reconcile with Saeed. Yet Naghmeh, a brave truth-teller, uses her voice to confront evil and confront the powerful.  With abuse rampant in the church today, this is such an important podcast for those who care about victims and care about the family. This Weeks Guests Naghmeh Abedini Panahi Naghmeh Abedini Panahi made national news in 2012 when she publicly advocated for the release of her then husband, Saeed Abedini, who was imprisoned in Iran for his Christian faith. Through Saeed’s imprisonment Naghmeh was not only able to bring worldwide attention to the plight of the persecuted Christians, but she was also able to proclaim the Gospel to millions of people worldwide by speaking to governments, human rights groups, and major news outlets. When it came to light in 2015 that Naghmeh had been abused throughout her marriage by her “hero” husband, the Christian community turned on her. Though Naghmeh was judged, abandoned, and rejected by the Christian community, she trusted in Jesus to be her defense and to fight her battles. Naghmeh’s story is a story of God’s amazing rescue and restoration. Show Transcript SPEAKERS JULIE ROYS, NAGHMEH PANAHI JULIE ROYS 00:04 In 2016, imprisoned Iranian American Pastor Saeed Abedini became the focus of a worldwide safe Saeed movement. But according to his wife, Naghmeh Panahi Saeed was a fraud and an abusive husband. Yet because the Christian world idolized marriage and wanted a hero Naghmeh says leaders suppressed the truth. Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And in this podcast, you’ll hear a powerful talk that Nagmeh gave at a special dinner event at the recent Restore conference. In it Naghmeh explains why she didn’t recognize Saeed’s abuse for so long, and she unveils the ways Christians pervert marriage and instead of viewing it as an institution God created to protect the family, they use it to protect abusers. Most notably Naghmeh says well known Christian leader and CEO Samaritan’s Purse, Franklin Graham, repeatedly ignored Nagmeh’s pleas for help. And instead of protecting Nagmeh and her family, Franklin urged Nagmeh to reconcile with Saeed. With abuse rampant in the church today, this is such an important podcast for those who care about victims and care about the family. And I’m so honored to be able to share it with you. But first I want to thank the sponsors of this podcast, Judson University and Marquardt of Barrington. Judson University is a top ranked Christian University providing a caring community and an excellent college experience. Plus, the school offers more than sixty majors great leadership opportunities and strong financial aid. Judson University is shaping lives that shaped the world. For more information, just go to JUDSONU.EDU. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity, and transparency. That’s because the owners there Dan and Kurt Marquardt are men of character. To check them out, just go to BUYACAR123.COM. Well, again, you’re about to hear from Naghmeh Panahi who has a story of abuse, and then betrayal from top Christian leaders. And in case you missed it, I first broke Naghmeh’s story in a series of podcasts last fall. But in this message from a dinner at the Restore conference, Naghmeh tells more details of her story. And she addresses head on the idolatry in the church that’s compelling leaders to cover up abuse. Naghmeh is an incredible warrior for survivors and someone I’m proud to call a friend. Here’s Naghmeh Panahi. NAGHMEH PANAHI 02:45 I kind of came into the public eye once I went to prison. And what people didn’t know, was that and what I didn’t know at that time, was that I had been caught up in an abusive marriage. And so, I, you know, I came to know the Lord, I, you know, got saved out of Islam, and right after September 11, I felt like, you know, I’m gonna go serve the Lord. And in I’m going to change the Middle East by sharing the gospel like, you know. I remember when President Bush was talking about sending soldiers into the Middle East, I was thinking, you know, I’m gonna be God soldier, and the only way to change Iran, or, you know, the more radical countries, is the love of Christ and the gospel. So, in my mind, you know, in my 20-year-old mind, 27-year-old mind, I thought I could, you know, change, you know, all of that. But God in His amazing goodness had me go to Iran right at the beginning of a revival of a house church movement. So, I got caught up, I was right in the center of one of the largest house church movement in Iran. And so I was, I met my husband who was very charismatic. And we, I was the pastor’s wife to thousands of new converts from Islam, and, you know, all of that. But, throughout our marriage, I knew something was wrong, but I couldn’t really pinpoint it. I thought marriage is hard. It’s just a hard marriage. And so, I don’t want to go into too much detail. You know, my life even though in Iran, we were pretty well known because we were leading one of the largest house church movements. I wasn’t really in the public eye, at that time. I don’t think like the early 2000s there was much social media, or I don’t remember really being on social media. And we came to America. I had my daughter in 2006, and my son in 2008. And I pretty much lived a very quiet life, and I liked it like in Boise, Idaho. Just worked with a mom and was a slave, my husband and work and he, you know, he believed he was a pastor and work should be just ministry. And there was no you know; he should be making money in ministry. So, I was the one working and raising our family. And he was really depressed being in the American culture and all that. So, he started going back to Iran soon after my son was born. He kept traveling back and forth. At that time, I didn’t realize he was in an adulterous affair with someone in Iran. So, so long story short, on one of his travels, he’s arrested for what the Iranian government said his Christian faith, and I fasted for about six months before everything blew up pretty much. That’s where my private life became public. I didn’t want publicity at all. And so, I was thinking if I pray and fast, God’s just going to release him. And soon after he was arrested, I got in contact with a group called ACLJ. And, and then I contacted the State Department, and they, we kind of decided to keep it quiet, and see what happens what the Iranian government would do. And within six months, it was obvious he was going to get like 10 years imprisonment, and that they were going to kind of play the hostage game. That he knows he was an American citizen, there was a nuclear deal. It was, you know, so we figured they’re not going to let them out. So that’s when we decided to go public First Fox News did an article to kind of see how famous it was, like how many people would read it. And so, after the article was released, I guess millions of people were like reading it. And were like, really interested because I got a call from Hannity. And that was the first TV program I was in was with Hannity. And it was interesting, because hear I was talking about my husband who was imprisoned for his faith, and like, really serious stuff. But I was very stoic. I looked at my interview, I had no emotion, because what happened was, I couldn’t fly to the Fox News headquarters. So, I had the camera crew come to my house. And so, I was like, there was light, you know, there was like, I could hear Hannity in my ear. I wasn’t really talking to the person. Even though on TV, it looked like me and Hannity were like talking, I was just talking to a camera, and I was hearing his voice in my ear. So, it was from like, a working mom, you know, it just to TV. It was just like, so overwhelming. But something happened at that time, that really, I didn’t realize it; that God was putting me on a journey of freedom. So, what people don’t know, the night before Saeed was arrested, I was crying out to God because I called, because he had traveled to the country of Georgia with a girl. And I had begged him not to, and I begged him not to stay in the same hotel as her. So, I called when it was like, two/three in the morning. And she answered, so I just was like, lost it. And he said, you’re crazy, you need to see a psychologist, you lost your mind. And I believe it. Like, the abuse had brought me to a point where I no longer trusted my feelings. I thought, I am crazy. I am depressed. I am a sick person. I even getting angry over a husband staying with someone else in a hotel, I was questioning myself and not that. But I remember thinking, like there’s nothing I can be upset about. Like, I could have no emotion in that marriage. If I was upset, I was an angry, you know, abusive person. If I cried, I was trying to manipulate him. Like I had to be completely stoic. And so, I just remember thinking, I can’t even be upset about him being in a hotel room with a girl and I’m the problem? And is this going to be my marriage for the rest of my life? Because at that time, I believe you just don’t divorce that’s just not an option. So I went to my bathtub, and I was just crying like God is this I didn’t even ask for a rescue. All I said was, God, this is really what you want from me? Since I was saved out of Islam at age nine, I’ve had a passion to reach Muslims. And I would share the gospel with refugees in my city. And after I was married, and came to America again, I realized my marriage sounds so similar to these Muslim women. How is this possible? I’m trying to give them hope, like come to know Jesus, but I’m like, but my marriage is the same way. Like it makes no sense. I remember thinking that, but I cried in my bathtub, and I just said God, is this what you want from me? And like two hours later, I got a call that Saeed was arrested. And me and my shallow narrow thinking I thought, God this is what I get? like I’m already like pretty broken. And I get now one of the worst governments in the world has arrested Saeed? Like I’m not going to be able to stand up to the Iranian government the bully. They don’t answer to anyone. But what God was doing from that moment of his arrest, he was building my confidence back in him. Because I remember that first interview with Hannity, people are saying, you’re so well spoken. And you’re so you know, people were saying positive things about me. And I thought, wow, like, this is the first time someone’s saying like, anything positive, because my husband had been, I believed I was the ugliest person. I was, like, I was probably fifteen pounds lighter than now. And I was covered with makeup because he was just like, if I woke up in the morning with no makeup up he’d be like, so I was just covered. I just felt like I was ugly. He chose what I got, like clothes. He’d be like, oh, you’re wearing that he actually would pick out my outfits. And so, anything like hanging out with family, friends, all of that was control. And so, for the first time, I was making decisions, and I was speaking, and people were saying, you know, you’re doing like, wow, you’re well spoken. I remember ACLJ and Fox News. Like, they gave positive feedback. So, I basically I was on media every, some of you might remember I was on Fox for like three days a week, where my kids thought I was working for Fox News. And then they’re like, Mom, are you working for a news station now? And then from there was like CNN, and then you know, and then it became such a big story, because here, Iran’s holding hostages, and we’re making a nuclear deal. And a lot of like, there was a Marine that had been in prison in Iran for three years. And his family was like, how did you bring this to light because we’ve been like, shut down to talk about this? But long story short is, all of a sudden, I was given this platform to share the gospel. You know, President Obama flew to Boise, and I met with me. I met with Trump, I met with heads of states of different governments. I spoke in front of the Congress, and every single time, God reminded me that at age nine, when I had become a Christian, and my parents were still Muslim, I had been given a Bible and I had read the verse in Psalm 2 that says, today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will give you the nations as Your inheritance. And God reminded me. Like I’m giving you the nations to preach the gospel. And I remember being at the United Nations in Geneva. And I had all these translators, and I was given a platform to talk to all these ambassadors about Saeed’s imprisonment. But I got to share about the gospel. He’s in prison because he believes Jesus Christ came into this world to die for us. And so, every single opportunity sitting with Obama and Trump and whoever I spoke at the German parliament, Dutch parliament, European Parliament, all of it , it was an opportunity for me to share my faith. So, at that time, I could see how God was using Saeed’s imprisonment for me to give me the desire of my heart, which has always been evangelism. So, my story is not just about abuse, people want to put you in a box and be like, you know, you’re an abuse advocate. No. If I had to, like label myself, I came out of Islam, I have been passionate about sharing the gospel to Muslims, whether it’s been refugees in my city, going to Iran, and being arrested and threatened to be killed gunpoint for my faith, and experiencing persecution there. And then God giving me a megaphone for the persecuted church. It’s interesting, because for 5-6 years I served in Iran, I saw the Iranian government kill and imprison Christians. And I have friends that were killed for their faith. And years later, God gave me a megaphone to call out the Iranian government. Every meeting they went to at the UN, I was there like tapping on their shoulder. The Iranian president was visiting New York, and I happen to be staying at the same hotel, and I ran after I mean, they were just like, she is everywhere, you know? I was just like, everywhere, anywhere that Iranian government was, I was there, and I knew they couldn’t arrest me. I’m like, in Europe, and I’m in America. And I’m uncovered and I’m a woman talking to these in Iran, a woman isn’t supposed to lift their eyes to look at a man. So here I’m like, calling out the Iranian president in his face in New York, you know? Like, why are you guys persecuting Christians? So, all of this being said, God, from the moment Saeed was arrested, I couldn’t see it, but that was God’s rescue of me. And another thing God did, I became very politically involved, mainly with the GOP kind of, and a lot of big names kind of came alongside me like Franklin Graham. I mean, just a lot of the Christian names became, I was given platforms at like mega churches. We were just talking about speaking at a church in Florida, the family was saying about the pastor, and I was like, oh, I spoke at his church and it’s like, I didn’t know Do that at that time, but it was like a really big church of like 10,000 people, I think, maybe 30,000 now. But I was given platforms to speak at, like, really big events. Looking back now God was allowing me to see these celebrity pastors and leaders, because at that time, I would kind of sense something, but I didn’t know what was wrong, because I come from Calvary Chapel world. And so, I would be going to a green room. And then I was treated like separately, like, I don’t, you know, and then a lot of these pastors didn’t like to interact with the flock. You’d go speak and then you’d leave. And it was just kind of the way they treated the people. I was visiting a church in California Calvary Chapel. And I remember I wanted someone my pastor’s wife knew from Boise that was a janitor at that church to come eat with us. And the pastor was just like, we don’t do that. You know, it was just like, you had a certain table that you know. So, I picked up on things that was like, this is not supposed to be Christianity, because I’d grown up in a way in the house church. And in the house church, being a Christian is not, you don’t get a book deal. You don’t get a platform. It’s like if you’re like, I’m a Christian, you die. So, no one’s like trying to be a famous pastor in Iran. In a house church, you don’t really get much, you actually lose a lot. So, for me, I could kind of see the difference. But what happened was within the last year of Saeed’s imprisonment, he got a smartphone inside of the Iranian prison. And we were just talking last night with Scott and my friend Melody that our internet wasn’t working well on our phone. And we’re like, but Saeed had like perfect Internet, in the worst prison in like the world. Because I was like, God, why? Because I was trying to get him out, and yet, he could get on social media. He was like, could get access to like my Amazon account. He was like he was on the internet in one of the worst prisons in the world. And I’m thinking why? I think it was because now looking back, God was giving me a glimpse, this man has not changed, but fame has actually got, he’d become worse. But I couldn’t understand that people were praying for Saeed as a persecuted Christian, but he was looking at how rich we could become off of it. And, before even realizing it was abuse, God was revealing verses to me that friendship with the world is being an enemy to God. And so, I thought, I can’t I’ve always like, I left America, you know, there’s, you hear about a lot of the persecuted church and all these countries, but rarely does someone come out of those countries and then goes back. Like, I came from America back to Iran as a Christian, after September 11, when there was talk of war into one of the most radical countries. Becoming a follower of Christ, for me, it was all about giving, not receiving anything. And like Christ had already given me everything when he saved me out of Islam. So, for me being his follower, was always about giving, not taking. And so, for me when Saeed was like, talking about private jets and million-dollar houses, and I was to be honest, having like, been on a lot of private jets, like with Franklin Graham, you kind of start justifying it. Like, well, I can be a Christian and have all this too. But within me, the Holy Spirit was like no, friendship with the world, that’s not what you should be pursuing. Friendship with the world is being my enemy. And so, through the phone calls, I could see that there was a desire for fame and money, and I didn’t want to be a part of that. But I didn’t know how to do that. I’d always been taught to submit to my husband. But he was through the phone calls. So, I was kind of struggling with that and saying people are praying for him, but he’s really wanting to like we should have been Christian multimillion, like we had booked deals and movie deals, and this was like the perfect story. And so, I was I thinking like, what, what do I do with this? But he was calling me names from inside the prison. I couldn’t understand. He was calling me a whore, Jezebel. And he would say, you know, don’t think when you go out to speak, people are clapping for you. They’re clapping for me. And later, I realized that he was seeing the confidence. I was not the girl I was before he went to prison. And that was really scaring him. And so, he was trying to push me down so he could still, you know, control me. But he pushed me so bad because I was not sleeping. I was writing articles for like Washington Post and all these or I was on the news, I was traveling, I was like trying to get him out of prison. But he kept pushing me to a point where I finally broke. I would tell him if you do not want me to travel, I won’t travel. If that’s what’s bothering you. He would be like, no, you need to travel, and my name is alive in the media and to get me out. So, I was stuck. If I traveled, he got mad at me. If I didn’t travel, he got mad at me. And so, he pushed me so hard, I finally confessed to a pastor. I was speaking at a really big church in North Carolina. And I told the pastor finally I broke down after I’d spoken at the church and prayer meeting, him and his wife took me out to dinner. And I confessed and I said, I don’t understand. Here’s Saeed’s text messages from prison. And you know, the pastor was shocked. And I said, I finally just told him everything. And he looked at me, he said, do you know I’m not just a pastor, I’m a doctor. I’m actually a doctor in psychology. And he said, You’re an abused wife. And so that diagnosis was finally given to me because like, you see things and I know a lot of you that have gone through church abuse, you kind of sense stuff, but you’re taking Tylenol, you’re like, I don’t know and then someone’s like, it’s cancer, and you need to do chemo. This is serious stuff. This is not just little Christian problem of you know, of a normal problem that a Christian marriage has or a church has. This is like a bigger issue of abuse. So, when he diagnosed that I did search on the internet, I couldn’t sleep that night. I searched up what abuse was, and I had all the signs every sign of abuse, from physical to isolation to you know, all of it. And I was flying back to Boise. And on my way, I was stopping in like Texas somewhere. And I sat down, wrote like an email saying to my close friends, that I’m an abused wife and Saeed has been contacting me from prison. That was the first time, and I closed my laptop, I went to Boise. And by time I got there, I was getting calls from ACLJ. from Franklin Graham, I was constant calls, like constant calls from Christianity today, from like, just my phone was blowing up. And I was like, to realize that it’s been leaked to media, and within like a three-hour flight, two-hour flight, it was like all over. And at that time, I was upset because I felt shame. I didn’t want to embarrass my husband. Like I was just pouring out my heart to a group of Christians. But I see that it also as God’s goodness, because within six weeks after the abuse stuff came out, then Saeed was released. God did not allow him to be released as a hero Christian. And you know, just his perfect timing. I was just starting, I spoke everywhere. And I associated with all sorts of people. One of them was the Olsteen’s. And, you know, now I would definitely be more careful. I just didn’t understand that there was abusive, and you know, the whole prosperity gospel. Anyone that gave me a platform I spoke. But I was told I didn’t have enough faith for Saeed to come out of prison. But it’s interesting, the timing happened, actually, when God unveiled the truth. And then he was released from prison. And people think, because it was so close, people think Saeed came out of prison, and then I said, oh, I’m going to his wife. Because I was like cheating on him. So, I wanted to like, but the timing was not that way at all. The abuse came out, and then God released him. Because at that time, President Obama was still president. And I believed 100% that it was going to be like the 1970s hostage crisis. That when the President changed, I think was Reagan that became president, that the hostages were released. So, I thought, for sure it’s going to happen when we have a new president. And Iran is going to be afraid of new policy. And that’s when it’s going to happen. But it didn’t happen within weeks of this stuff about abuse coming out. So, Saeed didn’t come out as a hero because the abuse stuff had come out. Not widely so a lot of people don’t know, because not a lot of Christian media wanted to touch it. Not a lot of secular media really touched it. I think Washington Post did a story, I think Huffington Post, and some others more secular did some stories about abuse. And then that was it. It wasn’t like, you know, big but I just want to share with you things that I had to understand, because I didn’t really talk about this until recently. And the reason I talked about it more openly is because I saw, and I didn’t know much about Julie Roys. When Julie shared a report about Ben Courson and coming from the Calvary Chapel world. That’s a really big name; Ben and Jon Courson are big names. So, when I saw that story, I shared it and then I got attacked for being a gossip and negative and then I went into a shell again because I just was coming out of my shell. And I went back in my shell, and I thought, God, should I just not be touching this? Should I just mind my own business, you know? And that’s when I, through a lot of prayer and fasting, I felt like no, keep talking about it. And then I talked to Julie about Franklin Graham, and she did the story. But it’s a really hard road of talking about abuse. So, I had seven years of shell and meditation of what happened because it was pretty traumatic. Because the difference of having the support, of close to a billion people, were reached about Saeed’s story. ACLJ was tracking all the data, like how many people were reading about it. And even I was told the reason Trump wanted to meet with me was because it was like one of the main topics on the internet. Like, you can kind of track what’s popular. It was so the contrast of having every Christian of every background supporting me to completely being rejected by the Christian world. And, you know, I felt like my first stone was when I, when Franklin called me and I shared this, and he asked me if I was cheating on Saeed. When I was pouring out my heart about this is what happened and that the only thing you could say, are you cheating on Saeed? Not I’m sorry, this has happened to you. It’s like an accusation. And I’ve talked to my friend Melody. I kind of grew up in the purity movement. So, it’s for someone who’s never dated anyone we never held hands with anyone who was faithful to my husband to this day, I haven’t dated seven years, six years after the divorce. I’ve been focused on the Lord like for that accusation. It was really heartbreaking to be labeled. Cheater, or someone who did it for fame and money, you know. And so that was pretty devastating. So, I got all sorts of accusations thrown at me. So, I withdrew from social media, and I was processing Lord, what happened? And just at that moment, I didn’t know when but I that moment, I felt like God’s saying, to me, the cries of many have reached me. And he allowed me that’s why every time I share about abuse, I get attacked. I recently shared about John MacArthur, like I do share Julie’s stuff, and I get attacked. Every single time I go back to what the Lord had me walk through. I walked through being abused. And then I walked through being mistreated by the church for a reason. That’s my story. I can’t deny it. And he allowed me that journey, that suffering for a purpose, and to be a voice for that, you know, and so it’s not the most popular, it’s what got Jesus in trouble was calling out the religious leaders. But I do believe he, he took me through that journey for a reason. So, what was shocking to me and what came to light to me and recently, like, I’m so glad, like Sandy and Paul are here. I got involved with their church, when they went through this stuff with Calvary Chapel, Houston. But I realized through my stuff, I started understanding abuse of others. Not just spousal abuse, but abuse of pastors and how the church treats you. Like, when you talk about it, you’re treated as untouchable., I went from being very touchable. I was one. I mean, I was invited to speak at big event, every single week. Like, for the rest of my life, I could be speaking at these big, big events and you know, to we don’t want to touch her. And at that time was heartbreaking. But God’s like I’m protecting you from wolves. They’re not touching you now, because you’re talking about abuse. So, the wolves are running away from you. Even though it hurts, but I’m protecting you from those who were trying to benefit from your story. Because imagine is Saeed would have come out and the abuse hadn’t come out. There was a lot of wolves out there that really wanted to benefit from the story of the persecuted pastor. But once the abuse stuff came out, I became untouchable. But it was pretty shocking, going from being very touchable, sitting at table with presidents and famous Christians, to we don’t you know, no texts, no calls. But it helped me see how the abused are treated not just in the spousal abuse, but in church abuse, you know. And how they’re not believed. They’re called liars, all sorts of accusation are hurled at them. And they’re silenced by saying you’re bitter, you’re angry, you’re unforgiving. This is not love, you know, just love, and move on. And I want to share with those of you who might, you know, have experienced abuse – one thing that touched my heart because I had to reevaluate my relationship with God. Like, why did God allow this all? I wanted since I was nine years old was to share the gospel. I went to Iran sharing, like, why would he allow me to get caught up in this? And one thing that I learned through this journey about the heart of God that I want to share, before I close is, 1) he revealed to me about Sabbath of all things. God revealed to me that he had touched an institution that was no longer serving. God created institutions for our benefit. Marriage, church, to protect, to nourish. And the same way with Sabbath. It was made for man. And so, when the institution becomes oppressive, it’s not doing the function that it was supposed to do. And so, God revealed to me I did not, I did not come to this world to die for marriage. I came to die for you. You matter more to me than an institution. If an institution falls apart, if an organization falls apart, if a marriage falls apart, it’s okay. I was so afraid of divorce. I did not actually divorce my husband, even though he cheated on me. He beat me. You know, I had every ground for divorce, but he actually divorced me the moment I drew boundaries to bullies, you know, to abusers. The moment you draw boundaries, and you say this is no longer acceptable, I was no longer his slave. So, he actually filed for divorce. And I was in tears because my biggest idol was never, by God’s grace, has never been money or platform or anything, but my biggest idol was marriage. I wanted my kids to grow up with a mom and a dad. And they didn’t really get that because Saeed went to prison when they were three and four. And they never got that. Because soon after he came out, he divorced he moved on, he brought the girl he was cheating on with to America. I lived with her for a while. It was devastating to me because marriage was such a big deal for me. In order to save my marriage, I did everything. To get away, I got out of book deals, I sold everything I had, I got out of a book deal, movie deal, I got out of every single deal that would have made us rich. And I went to a very simple life back in Boise, Idaho. And Saeed was not happy when he came out of prison. 88 And so for God to just reveal his heart to me that you are so much more than an institution. If an institution falls apart, so what. You’re more important. And I think that’s true about churches. That’s true about marriage. That’s true about any ministry. Like the Ravi Zacharias or the Franklin like, you know, the Samaritan’s Purse and all of that. One thing people are always confused about. And I want to close with.. I mean, there was there’s been a lot of revelation through the seven years, but a lot of people are confused, because they’re like, but they are doing so much good work. Well, I want to compare something. If you remember Matthew 7:22-23, Jesus doesn’t really care about big works. In the last days, many will say to the Lord, like I prophesied in your name. And it could be prophecy in terms of telling the future or prophecy in terms of being good teachers, there’s two kinds of prophecies. I, you know, I cast out demons did miracles, and what does Jesus say? I never knew you. Get away from me. Like Jesus does not want to associate with these kinds of people. And what does he call them? Those who practice lawlessness. So, what do you think is the law that they’re not practicing? We see in Matthew 25:35-45, where Jesus actually separates the sheep and the goat. And he actually says what a true believer would do. He calls the sheep. He says, you know, you fed me when I was hungry, you gave me water when I was thirsty, you clothed me, you visited me when I was in prison. He lists things that are like small jobs that no one really saw. Only a true believer would want to do these menial jobs that doesn’t get any it’s actually about giving than receiving. You’re, you’re helping, you’re feeding someone, you’re not receiving from the sheep, you’re actually giving. So, it’s like the feeding you know, giving food, giving water, giving clothes, visiting someone who’s sick, giving of your money and your time. You’re not benefiting. As a true believer these are the things Jesus lists as a true believer, it’s things that are as a follower of Christ you’re giving, you’re not really receiving and then what does he’s the people that he casts away and says, get away from me are people that say, and then these people are very humble. They’re like, Jesus, but we didn’t see you to give you water or food and they’re like you did it to the least of these. So, what’s a true mark of a follower of Christ is when you do it to the least of these that you’re not getting anything back, but you’re the one giving and no one’s seeing it. You’re doing it according to the way that the Bible tells us to do it. You’re not getting any glory from man. No one knows that you did that. I mean, it’s so hard, it requires a daily death to yourself to give, and then not let anyone know. To give sacrificially like the lady that you know. And I just have to say, and throughout the years, God had me practice these verses. Where I had a little bit of a saving, that it was kind of it was my idol, I was kind of relying on even after the divorce, and I read the verse where Jesus feeds the five thousand. But he tells His disciples, He says, they’re like, oh, these people that are needy, send them away. He’s like, no, you feed them. It’s on you. And, you know, they gave Jesus everything they had, and he blessed it. So, there’s a lot of stories, but I do want to share this; following Christ is hard. I had to give up that saving. And it was really, really hard to obey this. That you feed them because I had abuse women coming to me. And I was like, oh, I have my savings, oh, I’ll be praying for you. Like, I know, you need a lawyer right now, or you need a house or like, but God’s like No, give you give, when it’s not tax deductible, when it’s not seen. And so that’s the mark of walking with Christ is actually the cross, and I just want to close with this and encourage you. It might seem, it’s really a hard road of continual death to self, of not getting the glory. You know, John the Baptist said, I must decrease, and he must increase. that decreasing of self-take, you know, there’s so many times I’m like, take the last seat. You know, I have to tell myself like, don’t try to be you know, die to yourself, become less. It’s a daily reminder to myself to be less, to hang out with the least of these. I would rather hang out, a majority of my time is, with hanging out with least of these, then, you know, I don’t really like platforms. I really don’t like, really, my heart is really what Julie and what she does, and the attack she’s under. So, I told her, I’m like, I will do this. It’s, you know, but I wanted to do this. But I don’t really enjoy platforms, you know. I’m at a place, you know, I’m the executive director of, you know, Tahrir Alnisa. That was two years ago. I closed it down. I don’t receive any donation. And even when it was open, I never touched the money. It went to other things. Never got $1 from that money as a salary. So, but all of this to be said is, it’s a death to self to continually be like, as a follower of Christ. I’m to give, I’m not supposed to benefit from the sheep, I’m supposed to give feed the sheep not you know, benefit. And so, it’s a daily death and calling out abuse is extremely hard. I go through his condemnation, self-condemnation. Every time I speak out, I struggle, I cry. I read people’s words that are online. And I try not to, but it gets to me. And then I’m like, but then I go back, God, you had me walk through the journey of abuse for a reason. So, I’m not going to be silent. And you are going to, you know, sometimes it’s overwhelming. You’re like, I’m not going to be able to change anything. But I’m supposed to be a voice and I might not see a change in the church, but I’m going to be faithful to what you know, God has walked me through. There’s a reason he had Saeed’s story becomes so big, and then he unveiled the abuse. And so, he was not just it was just not about domestic abuse. It was about how the church handled it, it was about a hero, Christian hero, it was about a pastor, it helped so many things that needed to come to light. And so, I keep going back to that God allowed this to come to light for a purpose. And because he allowed me by His grace, to walk through that suffering, to be able to understand the suffering of others, like Sandy and her husband, and other people who’ve gone through church abuse and spiritual abuse, then it’s worth it. If I am able to connect with the broken and understand and sit with the broken like that’s where I actually find soothing in my life. It’s when I’m actually sitting with the broken. That’s where you know I have deep communion is with the broken. So, if that’s where it’s brought me, then it’s worth what I you know, in so what I’ve gone through. And again, it was pretty extreme. It was like high of people’s praise down to like you are a cheater and adulterous and you’re this and that, all sorts of accusation from my closest friends at that time and my biggest supporter. So, I just want to encourage you. We all have walked through stuff. Don’t be discouraged. Keep speaking out. It is very hard because a lot of times we don’t see fruit and we feel condemned. Like why am I just caught talking about like, why am I causing drama in the body of Christ by talking about this? I’m just going to mind like, I’ve made that decision so many times, I’m just going to mind my own business, live with my like, you know, just live a peaceful life in Boise with my kids and I’m not going to talk about this anymore. And then something comes up. I’m like, I gotta share about John MacArthur, like, I got, I can’t do this like, and then I keep going back. There’s a reason God gave me and it’s touching the untouchables. It’s touching things that, it’s Matthew, what we’ve talked about in Matthew. It’s giving to the least of these and that’s what differentiates true follower of Christ, the goats versus the sheep, the sheep versus the goat. So, I hope you’re encouraged. I’m glad this is over. Thank you. JULIE ROYS 40:41 Well, again, that’s Naghmeh Panahi, speaking at a special dinner at the Restore conference. And I so appreciate that word from Naghmeh. One thing I’ve learned about Naghmeh in the past year is that she’s a fighter, and she’s a truth teller. And that’s what we’re called to be in Scripture, right? As Paul says, in Ephesians 5:11, have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. So, I want to thank Naghmeh publicly for using her voice to confront evil and to confront the powerful. And I want to encourage all of us with her admonition to do the same. I would ask, too, that you consider supporting The Roys Report. We can continue to do our work of reporting the truth and restoring the church only as you enable us to do it with your prayers and financial gifts. And in August, we have a great premium for those who give a gift of $30 or more. We’re offering The Lord is My Courage by author and trauma informed therapist KJ Ramsay. KJ also is a survivor of spiritual abuse, and in this book, she walks through Psalm 23 phrase by phrase, exploring the landscape of fear, trauma, and faith, that’s so common for those who have experienced religious trauma. To give a gift and get KJ’s book, just go to our website, JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. Lastly, I want to encourage you if you haven’t already, please subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcast, Google podcast, Spotify, or YouTube. That way you’ll never miss an episode. And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks so much for joining me today. I hope you were inspired, encouraged, and blessed. Read more

Guest Bios Show Transcript https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrLrIUkMsHo When you give to a church or nonprofit, how do you know your money is being well spent? How do you know if leadership is truly being held accountable? In this session from the recent Restore Conference, veteran journalist and MinistryWatch president Warren Cole Smith answers these vital questions. As Warren explains, the evangelical church has been completely incapable of policing itself. In scandal after scandal, elder boards often protect their pastors rather than holding them accountable. And many Christian organizations are so invested in celebrity pastors and megachurches that they look the other way too. So, how do you know if your church or nonprofit is being governed well and handling its money appropriately? One tool is to follow the work of Christian journalists. Reporting the unvarnished truth, so corruption and abuse can be exposed and dealt with is a major reason The Roys Report and MinistryWatch exist. But there’s another crucial component—and that’s educating donors and supporters to detect the red flags and take action. Tune in for his insights on how to detect financial and governance disasters before they make headlines. This Week’s Guest Warren Cole Smith After several years of growing the Colson Center’s reach and impact by creating partnerships with key Christian leaders and strategic Christian organizations around the country, Warren is now the President of MinistryWatch. Warren previously served as Vice President of WORLD News Group, publisher of WORLD Magazine and has more than 30 years of experience as a writer, editor, marketing professional, and entrepreneur. Show Transcript SPEAKERS WARREN COLE SMITH, JULIE ROYS JULIE ROYS 00:04 When you give to a church or nonprofit, how do you know your money is being well spent? How do you know if leadership is truly being held accountable? Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And in this episode, veteran journalist and president of Ministry Watch, Warren Cole Smith, answers these vital questions. As Warren explains in this message from the recent Restore conference, the evangelical church has shown itself completely incapable of policing itself. As scandal after scandal has shown, elders often protect their pastors rather than holding them accountable. And many Christian organizations are so invested in celebrity pastors and mega churches that they look the other way. So how do you know if your church or nonprofit is being governed well in handling its money appropriately? Well, one way is following the work of Christian journalists reporting the unvarnished truth so corruption and abuse can be exposed and dealt with, is a major reason The Roys Report, as well as Ministry Watch, exist. But there’s another crucial component, and that’s educating donors and supporters to detect the red flags and take action. And that’s what Warren does extremely well in this podcast. So, I’m so excited to share it with you. But first, I’d like to thank the sponsors of this podcast, Judson University, and Marquardt of Barrington. Judson University is a top ranked Christian University providing a caring community and an excellent college experience. Plus, the school offers more than 60 majors great leadership opportunities and strong financial aid. Judson University is shaping lives that shaped the world. For more information, just go to judsonu.edu Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity, and transparency. That’s because the owners there Dan and Curt Marquardt are men of character. To check them out, just go to buyacar123.com. Well, again, you’re about to hear a talk by Warren Cole Smith, on how to detect financial and governance disasters before they make headlines, and before some church or Christian organization misuses your money, Warren is the president of Ministry Watch. He’s also a senior fellow at the Coulson Center, and former vice president of World News Group. Here’s Warren Cole Smith. WARREN COLE SMITH 02:37 It’s a real pleasure to be here today. It’s just an honor to be in a room like this with folks that care about issues that I care about that we care about here at Ministry Watch. And so, I’m just really, you know, kind of, I just feel in awe to be in your presence. And also, in the presence of some of the other speakers here today, many of whom I have interviewed for stories that we’ve done in Ministry Watch, and/or actually had them on the podcast and read their books. And so, to be in their company is really humbling. So, what I’ve been asked to talk about today, though, is something maybe a little bit different from what the other speakers are talking about. We’ve been talking a lot about sexual abuse and sexual harassment, and Paul Coughlin will be on later to talk about bullying and toxic leadership, and of course, they all kind of relate to each other. But I’m specifically going to talk about money. Avoiding financial and governance disasters. And I hope that by the time I’m through, you might be able to see not only the importance of thinking about governance and financial issues as it relates to Christian ministries, but also the relationship that it has to the other issues that we’ve already been talking about today, but we’ll continue to talk about throughout the rest of the weekend. The thing that I’d like to do to get started is just to mention that boy, there have been a lot of scandals in the church lately. Bill Hybels and Willow Creek Church, Bill Gothard, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, of course, has already been mentioned today, Jerry Falwell, Jr, and Liberty University, Brian Houston, Carl Wentz, and Hillsong Kanakuk Ministries, the Southern Baptist Convention. If you want to generate a headline, the accusation, an accusation of sexual abuse in a ministry or a church is almost sure to do that. In fact, I would say based on the lineup of speakers here this weekend at Restore, I would hazard a guess that concerns about sexual abuse and toxic leadership, bullying and harassment, energize many of you in the room. And if that is why you are here, I want to affirm your concerns. Sexual harassment and sexual abuse are horrible, and we should stand against these behaviors. I know that some of you are survivors and others of you are survivor advocates. And I applaud you for your courage in these efforts. Courage being what CS Lewis called the rarest of the Christian virtues. And I see it in abundance here in this room, and I’m just really grateful to be in your presence. I share this affirmation. So, you won’t think that I am trying to diminish the importance of your efforts when I say that in some very important ways, sexual abuse and sexual harassment in the church are affects; they are consequences. They are fruits and not roots. And if that’s true, or if there’s any truth in that, you might be asking, so what’s the cause? And I think that part of the cause is, or part of the answer that question is an answer that doesn’t generate as many headlines. And when it does generate a headline, it’s often quickly ignored or forgotten. And that cause is money. More specifically, the love of money, not money itself. On the one hand, this assertion is probably not terribly surprising. Some of you may know that sex, money, and power, at least in my world, are sometimes called the devil’s triangle. The Bible in ! John 2:16 refers to this triad as the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Lust of the flesh, of course, being sex, the lust of the eyes, covetousness, and acquisitiveness. In other words, money. And the pride of life often is talking about some of the toxic leadership issues that we’re dealing with this weekend. So, at a minimum, I think that we evangelicals should be spending as much time understanding and uncovering financial fraud and organizational leadership issues as we spend on sexual abuse and other issues. But I should say that there’s also another reason. The Bible, as I’ve already alluded, says that the love of money is the root. And most of us, miss translate or misquote this verse. Bible doesn’t say the love of money is the root of evil, it says all sorts of evil. And I think that’s a pretty important distinction. Many of the sins that we see in the church find their root in a love of money. And I’m not talking about or merely talking about the love of money that we see in the prosperity gospel. We’ve already talked about the prosperity gospel this morning. And there’s no question that it’s a scourge on evangelicalism. Prosperity preachers such as Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar, Paula White, and others are perverting the gospel in some pretty obvious ways. But my guess is that most of you in this room, already see that perversion for yourself, you can diagnose it. I am much more concerned today, with unpacking some of the scandals that I just mentioned a few moments ago, especially those that were related to sexual abuse and harassment and helping us understand that the root cause of these scandals is not sex at all, but power and money. Specifically, in all the cases that I’ve already mentioned; Bill Hybels and Willow Creek, Bill Gothard, Ravi Zacharias International Ministries and so on, the common pathology was not sexual misconduct, even though sexual misconduct was certainly the presenting issue, a symptom in all of these cases. No, I would argue that the presenting pathology was transparency and accountability. Once again, we should admit that these are pretty unglamorous ideas to talk about, but I hope you will see why these issues should be a vital importance to Christians, especially those of us who care about the peace, purity, and unity of the church of Jesus Christ. So, with that context, let me just say it plainly, transparency and accountability are the instruments of truth seeking and truth telling. Transparency and accountability are the two essentials non-negotiable ingredients when it comes to the restoration of the evangelical church. Now, of course, these two words transparency and accountability can mean a lot of things. On the purely tactical and practical level., they mean that Christian nonprofits should release their form 990s to the public. There’s a trend among Christian ministries that we’ve actually written about a good deal at Ministry Watch, that this trend is for ministries to claim to be churches in order to receive an exemption from that disclosure requirement because churches are exempt from filing their form 990s. Now I should say that this practice is not new. Controversial and sometimes outright fraudulent organizations have been claiming the church exemption for many, many years. It’s been a common practice, for example, among televangelist and the prosperity gospel preachers. In fact, from 2008 to 2011, Senator Charles Grassley investigated six televangelists. Some I’ve already mentioned; Benny Hinn, Eddie Long, Joyce Meyer, Kenneth Copeland, Creflo Dollar and Paula White-Cain. The investigation was necessary, in part because their organizations were not transparent in their dealings. The organizations that they lead, spent money on mansions, lavish lifestyles, and private jets. In fact, I wrote an article for World Magazine called What Would Jesus,Why? that actually listed more than two dozen jets owned by these prosperity gospel ministers. Now though other organizations are following the terrible example of these prosperity gospel preachers. Some of these organizations are those that I would have told you five years ago, were exemplars, ministries that set the standards that were above reproach. Alas, I can no longer say that is true for organizations who now hide behind the church exemption as an excuse for a lack of transparency. And some of these names I’m sad to say you probably know. There are organizations like Cru, formerly known as Campus Crusade for Christ, the Navigators, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, the Willow Creek Association now called the Global Leadership Network, Gideons International, Ethnos 360, formerly known as New Tribes Mission, Precept Ministries, Dennison Ministries, Voice of the Martyrs, Missio Nexus, and of course, the now defunct Ravi Zacharias International Ministries. Many of these organizations have made this change in the last five years. And at least two of these organizations, the aforementioned RZIM and Willow Creek have had, of course, major scandals in recent years. Indeed, RZIM, at least in its previously known form, is no longer in business at all. I have so far heard of no scandals at the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Cru, or some of the others. And I rejoice in that. But let me repeat, evil thrives in darkness. My recommendation to these organizations and others considering the church exemption, walk in the light as He is in the light. That should be the only option for us as leaders of Christian organizations. To make this point even more explicitly, though, I would like to pause for a moment on RZIM. We think of it, of course, at least in part, as a case of sexual abuse. And of course, it was that, but I would assert that the seeds of that toxic tree were actually planted back in 2014., when RZIM stopped filing its form 990s with the Internal Revenue Service. When that happened, we stopped knowing who was on the organization’s board. We stopped knowing how many members of the Zacharias family were in the key leadership positions. We stopped knowing how much money RZIM spent on activities, such as, for example, legal fees. Think about that for a moment. And Ravi Zacharias, his own travel, that might have revealed problems long before they became fatal. So let me say again, evil thrives in darkness. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. It should therefore come as no surprise whatsoever that when RZIM chose to conceal its financial information from the public in 2014, that scandal quickly followed. And less than a decade later, of course, that scandal proved fatal to the ministry. These words transparency and accountability also mean that board members should be independent. They should not have financial or familial arrangements with the organization they are supposedly governing. This lack of independence is a flaw that we saw at Mars Hill at Kanakuk at RZIM at Liberty University and elsewhere. And once again, I’d like to pause for an example in this time from Mars Hill Church. I did a lot of reporting that ultimately resulted in Mark Driscoll leaving Mars Hill Church, and that church ultimately dissolving. One of the early warning signs at Mars Hill was a lack of independent board members. The number of elders there floated around a bit, at least during the couple of years that I reported on them. But there were about 35 elders when I was doing my reporting for World Magazine. And of those 35, more than 30 of them were on the staff of the church, they were on the payroll. That meant that they had a direct financial conflict of interest. Their duty as elders to hold Mark Driscoll accountable conflicted directly with their role as employees, employees that Mark Driscoll could fire if he didn’t like the messages that they were bringing him and in fact, he did fire several of them. I should also mention that even if all of Mars Hills elders had been independent, it would still have been much too large a board. Having a board that is too large is as bad as having a board that is too small. Large boards make it difficult for individual board members to speak out in meetings. Dissident board members have a hard time making themselves heard and have an even harder time mustering the support they need from other board members to affect change. This was a big part for example of the problem at Liberty University. The salacious headlines related to Jerry Falwell Jr. disguise the real problems were on the board. Liberty’s board remains too large. It has 33 members, and in the recent past has had as many as 41 members, much too large for efficient decision making or for dissenting voices to be appropriately heard. Picture their board by the way. Opinions vary about the optimal size of a board. According to the Corporate Library study, the average board size of for-profit organizations is 9.2 members. Some analysts think that the ideal size is 7. At Ministry Watch, we recommend that ministries have 7 to 11 board members. Secondly, Liberty’s board is for the most part what is called a pay to play board. It is made up mostly of either big donors, of Christian celebrities, or pastors of big churches who have the ability to use their platforms as a bully pulpit to promote Liberty. Using their influence, for example, to recruit students, or giving among alumni and other donors. Now, most nonprofit boards exhibit some degree of this pay to play phenomenon and it’s not always a bad thing. Big note, big donors, and opinion influencers such as pastors are often people who care deeply about the institution. They want to make commitments even sacrifices for the organization. They invest their dollars, their time, and their reputations. But boards especially boards of large and complex organizations such as Liberty, or as RZIM ultimately became, they’re supposed to do real work. Sometimes that work is complicated, technical and time consuming. It requires real professional expertise, not people who will merely rubber stamp staff recommendations. Now I’m sure the vast majority of Liberty University’s Board members were well meaning people and care about the school. But being an effective board member of a $750 million a year enterprise requires much, much more than merely having good intentions. The bottom line here is hard to say especially hard for me because I know some of the board members and they’re good people. But it must be said, the failure of Liberty University was not just a failure of Jerry Falwell, Jr. It was a failure of the Board of Trustees. And I would also add that that’s often the case, whenever we see scandal in large and even smaller organizations. Liberty University’s trustees failed the school students, faculty, administration, and parents. They failed donors and alumni. They failed to hold the one member of the Liberty staff that reports to them. The one member. Like, you got one job guys. Right? They failed to hold the one member of the Liberty staff that reports to them to the biblical standards of leadership, or even to the standards that every other member of the Liberty community must live up to. If Liberty is to experience true healing and positive path forward, Jerry Falwell Jr, should not be the only person who departs that organization. All or a substantial number of Liberty’s board members should follow him into retirement. Now, for those who think these kinds of issues are not solvable, or too esoteric, or you know, let’s face it, just plain boring, or those of you who might get discouraged by all the negative examples, let me offer a positive one, and that’s from the American Bible Society. Now, the American Bible Society is one of American Christianity’s grand old institutions. More than 200 years old, founded in 1816. It has helped finance hundreds of Bible translations over the decades and even centuries, and has a 45,000-volume collection of Bibles, the largest outside of the Vatican. But in the early 2000s, the American Bible Society ran into a number of difficulties, I will not recount them here. If you’re interested, I did a lengthy article, again for World magazine on the American Bible Society around 2014, that itemized many of those problems. The key point that I want to make here is that during the era of the troubles, sounds like I’m talking about Ireland doesn’t it, the ABS had 72 board members. The board was far too large and badly misaligned with the historic mission of the organization. Now, in my view, I should be plain, I think the American Bible Society still has issues. For example, it has an endowment of $750,000,000.00. Three quarters of a billion dollars. Now, some of you might have seen that verse in Scripture about building a bigger storehouse. Right? Well, I think that this sort of qualifies. In my view, in an era with so many urgent ministry needs for a Christian ministry to hoard that much money, and not deploy it in ministry activities, is unbiblical, and arguably immoral. That said, I will also say that the organization has come a long way, and now has about 20 board members. Still too large, but a huge reduction from its high of 72. The organization also has had more stable leadership and a clear focus in recent years. It has not arrived at the destination yet, but it is definitely moving in the right direction. Now, if you’ll allow me to sort of pause, I have a couple of personalized notes here, we might even call it shameless self-promotion. I’d like to talk a little bit in this side trip about the indispensable role that journalism and whistleblowers have played in exposing evil and helping to enhance transparency and accountability, both in the cases that I’ve mentioned and many more that I have not. Said plainly, in a fallen world, with so many competing, sometimes synergistic financial incentives and disincentives, it is foolish to expect ministries to police themselves. The temptation is just too strong for board members and others in leadership to look the other way when wrongdoing and irregularities occur. And the bigger and more powerful the institutions become, the greater to keep quiet, that temptation becomes. Now I should also say that we can’t count on the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. The ECFA does good work. But it is not a watchdog organization. The membership is too small. If you’re a bad guy, you can just not join and nobody cares, right? And members pay dues to the organization. This means that the ECFA is not really independent. They have a financial disincentive to police their own members. In fact, in every case that I’ve mentioned today, I believe there might be one or two exceptions. neither the government nor the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, nor denominations, nor the boards of trustees of these organizations brought the stories into the open. Indeed, these institutions that I just mentioned, were largely either absent or impotent. In some cases, such as Mars Hill Church, Willow Creek and Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, the boards were arguably some would say, I say definitely, complicit in the wrongdoing. RZIM was a member of the ECFA the entire time it was engaged in its wrongdoing. The ECFA finally kicked them out after everything that we now know became public. But that was far too late. Instead, Christian journalists played a key role in each of these stories. Journalism ended up being vital, essential, in part because one of the pathologies of the evangelical church today is exactly what I just said. It has grown incapable of policing itself with anything resembling biblical structures of church polity. And just a quick little factoid, I’ve been covering the evangelical church for a long time. There’s a church growth expert named Elmer Towns who estimated in 1970, there were only about 20 mega churches in the United States. That’s a church with more than 2000 members. And of those 20, virtually all of them were members of a denomination. Today, there are at least 3000 mega churches in the country. And 25%, at least are not members of any denomination whatsoever. So, there’s really been a groundswell shift in church governance and church polity over the last 20 or 30 or 40 years. And I think that it’s really important that we understand that, and we act appropriately as evangelicals today. So, I don’t want to belabor this point too much. But I would say that I have much more to say on this matter, as you might imagine. And it’s one of the reasons why I’m delighted, you know, to be here today and cooperate and collaborate with The Roys Report on many stories, and with Julie Roys. I just really want to affirm and honor her and her work. And once again, at the risk of shameless self-promotion, let me mention that I recently did a speech at the National Meeting of the Evangelical Press Association, titled How Journalism Can Save Evangelicalism. No hubris in that title, right? And if you want to dig a little more deeply into this issue, I commend that speech to you, which you can hear and read on the Ministry Watch website. But let me also say that we journalists can’t do our jobs without whistleblowers. Without courageous people who stand up and step up with their stories. I know some of you are in the audience today. And it humbles me to be in the same room with you. We will be hearing from some of you this weekend. Some of you are here because you have stories you’ve never told. And you think that maybe by being here, you might learn how to or to whom, to tell your stories. So, to all of you that might fit in either of those two categories, and those of you who are here standing in solidarity with them, let me just say, thank you, and God bless you. We hear you; we believe you. But let me also say that as a journalist, it is my job to do more than merely hear you and merely believe you. I have to tell the truth in ways that are credible to my readers. It’s not enough for me to believe; you have to help other people believe you. And that’s where journalism comes in. We ask hard questions. Sometimes we even have to ask hard questions of survivors. In fact, often when a whistleblower comes to me, whether it’s financial fraud, sexual abuse, toxic leadership, or whatever, the first words out of my mouth are often, I believe you, but I’ve got to ask you some really hard questions so that I can help others believe you too. And that’s the ground rule that I usually go in with, with all of the stories that we write that involve whistleblowers. It’s a kind of a tough truth, a tough reality of the world that we live in today. So, if you’re a whistleblower, or contemplating being a whistleblower, I just want you to keep that in mind. If you come to someone like me, or Julie, and we have to ask you tough questions, it’s not because we don’t believe you. It’s not because we don’t trust you. It’s because we have a job. If we’re going to move the needle in these cultural conversations, we’ve got to make people who believe us, who now do not believe us, and this is the process by which we have to go through to make that happen. So, with that, let me kind of close my presentation today with some practical suggestions. At least I hope you will find them to be practical suggestions. Some of them are maybe almost pedantic in their commonness, but I hope that maybe taken together, you will see them as a way forward in the way that we can maybe move the needle in some of these cultural conversations. The first suggestion that I have for you is to get a copy of the 75 Red Flags document that has been produced by Ministry Watch. It’s available for free on our website, if you just go to Ministrwatch.com, and type in the numeral 75, it’ll pop right up on the search engine. It’s a list of 75 questions, which is why we call the 75 Red Flags, that you should be asking if you want to give money to a Christian ministry. Or if you’re a ministry leader, and you are kind of wanting to take a deep dive into your organizational culture. It’s absolutely free. And again, it’s on our website. The second thing that I would like to recommend is that you should get a copy of the financial statements of any organization that you plan to give money to or that you might currently be giving money to; no exceptions. Even if you have no idea how to read a financial statement, ask for it anyway. You will learn a lot about an organization by how they respond to that request. And next, do not give any money to a ministry that does not release its form 990 to the public. I know that’s a pretty absolutist point of view, but it is a view that I have come to believe is so vital. I’ve just seen so many scandals, and whenever you know, the scandals occur, everybody says, you know, Ravi Zacharias, how could we have known, you know? Willow Creek? I mean, you know, these guys were leaders, and they were well respected. And I’m like, you know what? all you gotta do, the signs were there all along! But we ignored them. We said that this is the exception. Well, guess what? It’s not the exception. So, make no exceptions. If an organization doesn’t release its form 990 to the public, don’t give money to them. Next, check the Ministry Watch 1000 database. We have the financial statements of the thousand largest Christian ministries in the country at the Ministry Watch website. Again, I know this sounds a little bit like shameless self-promotion, but I think there’s a lot of really good information there that you glean. This is a screenshot of one of the pages of one of the ministries there. We give them a donor confidence score, should you give to them with confidence? Should you give with caution? Or should you withhold your giving from them? We run a lot of those ratios for you. So, you can find out whether an organization is worth your support. Okay, next is look for independent board with 7 to 11 board members. Is that the magic number? Well, as I’ve already said, No, that’s not the magic number. But we have found that having either too many or too few board members is a problem. And an independent board to reiterate, is one with no financial, relational, familial conflicts of interest. Not an employee, not a contractor and not a family member. Next, give to an organization that has a clear biblical statement of faith. Now, having a biblical statement of faith doesn’t guarantee that there won’t be fraud there. I mean, you know, Ravi Zacharias was an apologetics guy, right? I mean, his doctrinal statement was probably pristine. But at a minimum, you should start there. A recent survey by Grey Matter Research, found that the favorite ministries of evangelical Christians are often not Christian ministries, and in some cases, such as UNICEF, are organizations that are actively in opposition to Christian ideals. Next, expose the evil deeds of darkness. If you see something, say something. And finally, make no exceptions. Your financial support is your leverage. If you’re going to give to a ministry, even if they violate the rules, then you may as well not have any rules. Don’t say, well, I know that Ravi Zacharias doesn’t release its form 990s to the public, but well, come on. It’s Ravi Zacharias. To which I would say, exactly. So, in closing, I have one more thing that I’d like to leave you with. We live in a broken world. Most evangelical Christians know that. We know we need Jesus to save us from that brokenness, from sin, from death, from hell. These ideals have been drilled into us if we’ve been raised in the evangelical world. And by the way, these ideas are true. But they’re not the whole truth. They tell us what we have been saved from. They don’t tell us what we have been saved for. Scripture tells us that we have been reconciled in order to be reconcilers. We have a ministry of reconciliation in this beautiful but broken world. We are participating with God in the repairing the restoration of this world. And one of the ways that we do that is to tell the truth. The truth always sets us free. The truth never doesn’t set us free. Telling the truth is an act of love. That’s why we ask hard questions. That’s why we speak up. Because telling the truth, let me repeat that, it’s an act of love. So, it’s my prayer that something that I said today will help you to love well, in this beautiful but broken world. Thank you very much for your attention. I’m grateful. JULIE ROYS 36:29 Well, again, that was Warren Cole Smith speaking at this year’s Restore conference. And just a reminder, you can find the transcript of this podcast at our website, just go to Julieroys.com and then click on the podcast tab. Also, if you’d like to support our podcast, just click on the Donate tab at our website. And in August we have a great premium for those who give a gift of $30 or more. We’re offering The Lord Is My Courage, by author and trauma informed therapist KJ Ramsey. KJ also is a survivor of spiritual abuse. And in this book, she walks through Psalm 23 phrase by phrase exploring the landscape of fear, trauma in faith that’s so common for those who have experienced religious trauma. This is a fantastic resource. So again, to donate and to receive The Lord Is My Courage, just go to julieroys.com, and then click on the Donate tab. And I want to mention that at our donate page, you’ll see our financial reports for the past two years. And you can see exactly how we spend the money you give us. We take stewarding your money extremely seriously. And we’re completely transparent about how we do that. So, I encourage you, if you’ve never done this before, please click on our financial statements. Take a look at how we spend our money. And I think you’ll feel quite comfortable about giving to The Roys Report. And lastly, if you haven’t already, please subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcast, Google podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. That way you’ll never miss an episode. And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks so much for joining me today. I hope you were blessed and encouraged. Read more

Guest Bios Show Transcript https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6SgkWJ9cmQ&mc_cid=5d513aee59&mc_eid=UNIQID Narcissism, power through fear, and false narratives. These are some of the qualities of toxic churches. But what about truly good—or, in the Hebrew, “tov”—churches? What do these churches look like? And how do you become one? In this session from the recent Restore Conference, world-renowned New Testament scholar Scot McKnight unpacks what it means for a Christian community to be truly good.   After seeing multiple churches succumb to abuses of power, sexual abuse, and spiritual abuse, Scot realized the church needs a better blueprint. He described that vision in A Church Called TOV, coauthored with his daughter, Laura Barringer—which this talk expands on. Scot addresses the celebrity culture rampant in our churches. “The church has one celebrity,” he says. “His name is Jesus. Everyone else is called a servant.” He develops how empathy counters narcissism; grace counters a power-through-fear culture; and putting people first counters the institution creep so common at many large churches and Christian organizations. If ever the church needed someone to describe a way forward, it’s now. This Week’s Guest Scot McKnight Scot McKnight is a professor of New Testament at Northern Seminary in Lisle, Illinois. Scot has been a professor for nearly 40 years, is the author of many books, a preacher, and a blogger at Christianity Today. He is an ordained Anglican deacon and attends Church of the Redeemer in Highwood, Illinois. Scot has been married to his high school sweetheart, Kris, for 47 years and they enjoy long walks, gardening, and birdwatching. He is the father of two children and two grandchildren. Show Transcript SPEAKERS SCOTT MCKNIGHT, JULIE ROYS JULIE ROYS Narcissism, power through fear, loyalty, and false narratives. These are just some of the qualities of toxic churches. But what about truly good—or TOV—churches? What do these churches look like? And how do you become one? Welcome to The Roys Report—a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And in this podcast, you’ll hear a message by world-renowned New Testament scholar Scot McKnight from the recent Restore Conference. Scot and his daughter, Laura Barringer, are the authors of “A Church Called TOV.” TOV is the Hebrew word for “good.” And after seeing multiple churches succumb to abuses of power, sexual abuse, and spiritual abuse, Scot realized that the church needs a better blueprint. And in this enlightening talk, Scot describes that blueprint. Scot addresses the celebrity culture rampant in our churches. “The church has one celebrity,” Scot says. “His name is Jesus. Everyone else is called a servant.” Scot also talks about how empathy counters narcissism; grace counters a power-through-fear culture; and putting people first counters the institution creep so common at many large churches and Christian organizations. I absolutely loved this talk, unpacking what it means for a Christian community to be truly good. And if ever we needed someone to describe a way forward, it’s now. So, I’m extremely eager to share this talk with you. But first I’d like to thank the sponsors of this podcast, Judson University and Marquardt of Barrington. Judson University is a top ranked Christian University providing a caring community and an excellent college experience. Plus, the school offers more than 60 majors great leadership opportunities and strong financial aid. Judson University is shaping lives that shaped the world. For more information, just go to JudsonU.edu. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity and transparency. That’s because the owners there Dan and Kurt Marquardt are men of character. To check them out, just go to BuyACar123.com. Well again, you’re about to hear a message by Dr. Scot McKnight, author of A Church Called TOV and a world-renowned New Testament scholar. Dr. McKnight is also a professor at Northern Seminary in the Chicago suburbs, and he has a blog called Jesus Creed that’s hosted by Christianity Today. And as you’ll hear in a powerful open to his talk, Scot has a very soft heart towards survivors who have courageously told their stories. DR. SCOT MCKNIGHT I would like to have everybody stand up. This is not going to be charismatic. So don’t worry. I’m a professor, we don’t do things like that. I would like standing applause for the courageous women and men who have told churches, the truth. I actually wrote down a bunch of names, but I won’t use those because I’ve seen some of them in here today. We believe you. We believed you. And we still believe you. You have told the truth, at great risk to yourself, to your reputation, to your church. And we applaud you for that. Thank you. After putting off months of pestering by my daughter to write something about what happened at Willow Creek long ago, I had sprung upon her at a Christmas vacation site that I had an idea for a book, and she went crazy about it. The issue was finding a publisher who would take this sort of thing; we did not want to write an expose of churches, but we realized that an expose was involved if anything redemptive was ever going to be said. So, we had to tell some stories, and it was not hard finding stories. In fact, there were way too many stories. And since Laura and I have published A Church Called Tov, well, since then, we’ve heard hundreds of stories of church abuse, and almost all of it spiritual abuse or power abuse. We haven’t been confronted or told that many stories of sexual abuse. They tend to go to therapists, and into more serious avenues for telling. But at one time, we were receiving three to five stories a week of churches and leaders, men, and women, but mostly women who had been abused in their churches by powers. And we want to speak into this situation, and we want to make a difference, as it were. We wanted to speak redemptively about this topic. So, in the process, I began to observe, and Laura began to observe and Kristen, my wife, who’s with me, we’re always together in these things, we began to observe traits of toxicity in churches. Things like narcissism, and power through fear, and institution creep and loyalty and false narratives. Unwillingness to tell the truth by people who simply want people to confess their sins, and find forgiveness, but when they’re confronted with their own sins, are unwilling to confess their own sins. It’s been, for me, a really disappointing disheartening dimension of this entire story, is the number of pastors who are unwilling to admit their fault. Which is beyond is grace. That’s what we teach. So, we observed these toxic cultures. And I one time on a blog post that went viral and went through the halls of Willow Creek, mentioned that what churches need is goodness. Well, I teach Bible, you know, and I teach seminary students, and I thought I’d be kind of cool and use the Hebrew word because it’s a nice word, Tov. Well, they all started using the word Tov everywhere. And it was a Tov baseball game, and it was a Tov day, and they wrote a Tov paper, and they wanted a Tov grade on their paper. So, I thought, well, this is, this is kind of cool. This words a bit catchy. So, we came up with the idea that the book would be called A Church Called Tov, and the publisher said, we don’t use Hebrew words in titles. Well, I’ve dealt with publishers before a few times. And I said, well, I said, I think this one works. No, we don’t use Hebrew. I said, Alright, just take it for a while and use it in your office for about a week or read the book before you tell me whether you think Tov works. And within two weeks, they thought Tov was a great word for a title. So, publishers don’t always win. And I did a word study on this because I found that people resonated. Yeah, churches need Tov, don’t they? Goodness, they need what is good. So, I looked at the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, and looked at the New Testament, which is written in Greek, so it’s not using the word Tov, but behind some of the words is Tov. And I just started to map this out as a sort of a template for me to think about all these toxicities in churches, these marks of toxicity, and how Tov can counter those toxicities. And what Tov would look like against that toxicity. And studying the Old Testament we realize that God alone is Tov. This is said numerous times in the Bible. We sing songs about this. You know you are good. Don’t we sing that that song? We don’t say Tov, but we should, but we will learn. One of the things I like about the Bible on the word Tov is how Tov is connected to the word beauty, and it can be translated as beauty or excellent. So, when God creates in Genesis chapter one is a chapter of Tov, you know? God makes the sun in the darkness and the light and all these things. He says, It’s Tov, it’s Tov. He says this six times, and then when he’s all done, God says, It’s Tov Meod. Very good. And he looks at himself and he says, look what I’ve done? That’s pretty cool. It’s beautiful. And throughout the Bible, when the word beautiful is being used, that word Tov is behind it. Creation is Tov. Music is Tov. Good words are Tov. Sermon sometimes can be Tov. Children can sometimes be Tov until they’re teenagers, right? And yards can be Tov, and paintings can be Tov and what people wear can be Tov. That’s why I’m standing behind this thing. I’ve never been accused of Tov on that. Tov is active, it is something we do. The Bible says that we are to chase Tov, and to flee from Rah, evil. So, the Garden of Eden had a tree of the knowledge of good Tov, and evil Rah. And so, the Bible teaches us over and over to chase Tov, and we began, we sang a song that had this running after Tov, that’s the paraphrase of this expression in the book of Psalms. Jesus is someone who taught us to do Tov, your good works. Paul talks about good works. Peter talks about doing good in the public sector. James is big on Tov, and John, so everybody knows that Tov is important. Now here’s a really odd thing that I discovered. Evangelical Christians are really nervous about the word Tov. There’s only one Bible verse, they know, with the word Tov in it. There is none Tov, no, not one, and they memorize it in the King James version, all long ago, and we’re nervous about saying, I just want a mature to be good. We’re a little nervous about that, then we can’t be good. And yet, the Bible says, because of the transforming power of the Spirit, that God is capable of taking Rah people. He’s taking ordinary people and making them Tov. And when you encounter a Tov person, like Mr. Rogers, right? You say that man is Tov. And my daughter was fond at finding stories for our book. And I finally told her there are no good stories about anybody who’s alive. And she said, why? I said, just wait a few years. Because we’ve experienced this at the most profound level in our family. What we thought was Tov turned out not to be so Tov. So, they had to be dead. So, we fastened upon Mr. Rogers. Nobody says he wasn’t Tov. The people who worked with him said many people said he was the most Christ like person they ever encountered in their life. And he was Tov, and a reporter who went out to get him writes a story about him and said that man on TV is the man at home and the man in the workplace. He didn’t abuse his power ever that we know of. Tov people are those who discern that something’s not right. That’s a pretty good title for a book if I do say so. Tov people because they have encountered so much Tov, and matured in Tov, are the ones who when something’s not right, they recognize it. Those are the people who need to be on your elder board, and your deacon boards and churches, Tov detectors, because they see when things are not right, Tov people have the capacity to recognize and resist evil. You know, the ultimate judgment of God, according to Jesus a few times in parables, is that when God looks at us in the final judgment, He will use one-word Tov. We translate this well done. But behind it is just one little Greek word you. And the Hebrew word was Tov. The final judgment is your Tov. No finer word in the Bible. The gospel is made up of two words, message that is Tov. The good news. We preach a gospel about Tov. That’s why it’s so important for us to begin to refashion churches and transform churches in the direction of Tov. So, we recognize these toxicities in churches. And our goal was to challenge and counter the toxicities with marks of Tov. So, empathy, which is a profoundly important category of Christian love and compassion. Empathy counters narcissism. One of the singular marks of a narcissist is incapacity to understand the skin of another person. Narcissists are so self-absorbed, and so concerned with themselves, they cannot even comprehend what other people feel. Empathy. Grace counters a power through fear culture, which we found as a second mark of toxicity. And grace is the capacity to make someone safe in their place and location in their church, in their ministry. So that the powerful people who have grace as a mark, do not abuse people in those situations. They do not humiliate them. And they do not use words that shame other people. Because they know what grace is. Grace is a power of God at work in us to make us grace giving people who can forgive and understand and reflect empathy. In a Tov culture that counters toxicity cultures, we counter institution creep. That sense that people have, and Wade brought this up this morning, is that when people want to start telling stories, and coming forward, they know it’s going to damage the reputation of the church, and church powers like that. Because now they have a person in a position that they’re afraid to tell the truth. But in a Tov culture, we put people first. And putting people first means knowing their names and knowing their stories. So that when they come forward with a story, we say we know who you are, we value who you are. We don’t care about the institution. We care about you. Tov cultures. Tov cultures tell the truth, and they do not propagate false narratives. The oddest thing about the book that Laura and I wrote is it began when I was reading a book about how the German pastors responded to the Nazis and to the Holocaust after World War Two. I’m fascinated by World War Two. My favorite theologian was killed during World War Two, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. But I was fascinated by this topic, how did those pastors respond to the Holocaust? And as I read this story, I began to take notes. And it became the chapter in our book called False Narratives That Churches Tell. DARVO is one of the expressions that is used for these kinds of false narratives. But it’s about silencing. It’s about demonizing. It’s about weaponizing. It’s about turning themselves into victims. All these things took place with the German pastors who would not take any responsibility for the Holocaust. So, they were complicit the whole time, with the German Christian movement, it was called. Christian shouldn’t even be in the sentence. It was so vicious. Tov cultures and churches and leaders tell the truth. They’re not brutal, but they’re unafraid of telling the truth. If someone has a sexual relationship with someone in the church that’s inappropriate, and it can be spiritual abuse, it can be inappropriate. They don’t say they’ve been called to another setting. They tell the truth. Because this forms a culture that says we’re going to value truth in this church. Tov cultures do the right thing at the right time. And so, they oppose loyalty cultures. So much of what we heard so often Laura and I, in emails and text messages, I mean, people will write long messages to me. They’re texting me. Do they not know that thumbs are hard to type with? I’m too old for that sort of thing. I mean, I don’t know how they do this sort of, and it would be long stories, but it was constantly this loyalty is that I felt loyal to this church. And therefore, I didn’t tell the truth. And I didn’t pursue justice. Here’s my definition of justice. It is to do the right thing at the right time. Not 30 years later. Tov is to do the right thing at the right time. This word justice in the Bible is connected to the word right all the time, righteousness, tsedeq dikaiosune, etc. So, Tov cultures do the right thing at the right time. So that when something happens, the first decision made is often determinative of where this is going. What do they do when the story first comes forward? We have too many sad stories about that. We also have a culture, a toxic culture that is inebriated with celebrities. We turn pastors and leaders in churches and musicians into celebrities. The church has one celebrity; His name is Jesus. Everybody else is called a servant. That’s the right word. And I’ve often been asked to write about leadership culture. My stinging email that goes back to him, always says, I’m more interested in followers than I am in leaders. We’ve got a leader; his name is Jesus. And we need to nurture followers of Jesus. And as we follow, even the apostle Paul, who some people think has a pretty healthy ego or beyond. The apostle Paul said, imitate me. First Corinthians 11:1. As I follow Christ. That’s the only person worthy of following, are those who are following Jesus in an attached, in attending, an abiding way. Instead of developing celebrity cultures, and I think that we have an intoxication with this in evangelicalism that is profoundly unhealthy and is damaging to the church. We need to nurture a service culture. And I tell my students, and I tell my pastor friends with whom I talk about these things, that you need to be involved in some kind of service to the homeless, and you can’t tell anybody about it but your spouse, and don’t ever use it in a sermon illustration. Because you’re gonna get applause for it. And then it’s not service. It’s called glory. And that’s not what you’re doing it for. You will learn in the humility of service, what true service is really about. And only in keeping it quiet, do you genuinely learn what service is. Because the minute, I agree with that, totally. Anybody who is involved with this realizes that service like this has lessons to teach in its own way. But the minute you spring out of it and start using it, then you really get yourself in trouble. I’ll say a little bit more about that in a minute. And finally, this is a pet peeve of mine. You may not agree with me, but I’m right. And I have the platform right now. So, I’m gonna say it and that is I don’t like leader as a term for a pastor. I like the word pastor, and pastors, pastor people, they don’t preach sermons. They pastor people, which means nurturing Christ’s likeness, or crystal formati in people who are in their flock. Leaders have people who follow them. Pastors have people who are growing in Christ’s likeness with them. And I think that when we started in the 80s, you know, people didn’t talk about pastors as leaders until the 80s and 90s. It became an intoxicating culture of trying to be a leader and the business world began to influence it. I just saw a study that Kristen passed on to me this last week, maybe this week. We no longer have short term memory. That they did a study of people who come to leadership conferences of all sorts. The correlation between people who attend leadership conferences and narcissism is really high. That was all I needed to hear. I love that statement. Because I think we want to nurture pastors who pastor and nurture Christlikeness in people, not those who are leaders. So, a Tov culture raises up Christ likeness, as what a pastor is calling is about rather than leadership. Okay, now, that’s a summary of Tov, of what we’ve written so far. And I want to spend the rest of the time with the book that Laura and I now have at the publisher, called Tov Unleashed. And yes, we got Tov in the title again. At first, they thought, do we need it again, and now they really think it’s a good title. And we have integrated in this book strategies about transformation of church cultures, because this is the problem that we’re asked. Here’s the most common question, what can we do in our church to help it transform into a Tov culture instead of a toxic culture? So, this is what we worked on for our next book. And I’m a Bible guy. So, I was always drawing it back into biblical categories. And not just organizational culture, a category of Edgar Schein who has a great book on this. So, I will give you some of those categories now. But the first thing I want to say, just as kind of a preface to this, is that there’s three words that that can be used interchangeably, that we distinguish: change, shift, and transformation. All right? You change a church, when you change the worship leader, or the person who plays the drums. You shift the culture when you move the piano from one side to the other. And I have a pastoral student who said to me, do you know how you move a piano in a church from one side to the other? one inch a week. And at the time, it’s over there, no one will have noticed. But if you try doing that, from there to there in one week, you may lose your job, he told me. Transformation is pervasive. Culture is so thought in churches, that you can’t just take a pastor and remove them and put someone else in that spot and change the culture. It’s not going to happen. It’s deep and penetrating. And it’s the result of long-term conversations with many people over a long time about many topics that forms into a culture that is capable of making people comfortable or uncomfortable. And David Brooks said this, that is amazing how the environment of a workplace, and I’ll just use culture, can make people who fit into that culture. And if they don’t fit into that culture, they get bounced. That’s the power of culture. And you can’t just say, we’re going to have a three-week series of sermons on church culture, and we’re going to completely change everything. Nothing’s going to happen like that. So, transformation is a really big category. And I want to talk about that today. Let’s use the image of a peach tree. Now, I don’t know a whole lot about trees. So don’t hold me accountable for anything I say. But I’m right, basically. And that is there’s soil, there’s a trunk, there’s branches, leaves, and fruit. We want good peaches. People who come to church on Sunday and sit in pews just care about mostly about the fruit that drops from the tree. But that fruit is produced by a tree. The tree is the culture. And underneath that culture is soil that you and I probably know nothing about. And in toxic church cultures, this is what we’ve discovered to be characteristic of the soil – ambition. Now ambition is not terrible, but in the right hands, ambitions fine. Pride, which is never good. Competition with other pastors. Who’s got the biggest church, who’s got the biggest budget, who’s got the most people on Sunday morning, who’s got the biggest house. These pastors talk like this at times. I’ve been in tables when they’re doing this, taking notes, looking for an illustration for a book. Greed, greed. Dominating power. These are the things in the soil underneath the grass that you can’t see, that is actually producing toxic fruit in the tree. And you can’t just dig up all that soil. You have to know and discern it. And then you have to replace it with good soil and good nutrients, so that instead of the works of the flesh, growing on your tree producing toxic fruit, you will have the fruit of the Spirit that will produce love, and Tov and kindness, and grace, and all the things that Paul talks about in Galatians, chapter five. But it takes work to discern that, and it’s going to take a lot of conversations that are combined with listening, genuine listening to what people in the church are actually interested in, and what they’re looking for. And what the leaders are,. It can’t come from top down. To transform a church is going to take a lot of conversations between a lot of people. I talked to a pastor recently, who told me that he changed his church culture. But he didn’t. But he he was very humble about this. It was a great conversation. He said from a gospel culture to a kingdom culture. I was not at all happy with how he was using those terms, because I’ve written on both of those terms. And he was using both of them wrong. And I was ready to pull out a lecture. But instead, I listened because I know what he wanted. Over here was this sort of see how many people we can get on Sunday in a gospel culture. And in the kingdom culture, he wanted to find he wanted to nurture a culture that would produce Christians who not only embraced Jesus, but they served people during the week and got involved with justice and compassion. And they began to fill the community with Tov and goodness. So, I thought that’s a pretty good idea. I said, how’d you do it? He said, I didn’t tell anybody this. But for two years, we went to every passage in the Gospel, we met every other week as leaders in his fairly large church of 80 to 100 people every other week meeting. So, we went through every passage in the gospels, to catch a vision for how Jesus does it. He says, That’s kingdom. And he said, by the time we were done, everybody was convinced because the Scripture is so clear of how Kingdom-shaped Jesus is. I thought, that’s pretty good. That’s pretty good. Then I said, then what did you do? He said, then we met with people for three years. And we just talked about what we’re thinking about, and we got their feedback. And we didn’t go public in the church for five years. And then he said, it took three more years for the church to settle into the new culture. So, he says, I would tell people it takes eight years to transform a church culture when people want that to happen. Edgar Schein says it takes seven years to change a business culture when the leadership is totally convinced and everybody’s on board, which is a little bit of a warning, isn’t it, about what we’re talking about here? There are three approaches now to transforming your church or your business, or your group into Tov. And I want to talk about those quickly, and then give you the seven marks of or seven habits that you can develop, that can help transform a church. These are habits and practices of transforming culture. The first approach is to transform the church culture. And I’m going to talk about what you have to have to be able to make that happen. But almost no one that I’ve talked to in the last three years was in a position to make that happen. So, the second approach is to withdraw into a pocket of Tov inside the church, and say they can do what they want, but we are going to be committed to Tov with one another. And they form a small group that begins to nurture Tov, and I can tell you a toxic leader, when they hear about it, Tov are going to say that’s divisive. And it is. Praise God. Tov is divisive at times. The third thing is to leave. And you have to be wise about how long you’re going to stay and fight for change. Set time limits. I’ll talk to people about this for one year. Set realistic expectations, if you’re going to stay, and even form a pocket of Tov but try to transform the church. Set realistic expectations. And your expectations should not be a revolution in your church toward Tov, because it’s not going to happen. Unless you’re really lucky. I don’t know where that’s ever happened. And I think one of your most important realistic expectations is simply to be heard. And if they hear you and they hear enough people, maybe some changes can be made. And I would also say then, which leads to the third point I’ve made is, don’t be afraid to walk away. I believe in the church, but I do not believe in toxic church cultures. I don’t believe they are the church. So, we want to be involved in transforming church cultures to Tov, and I want you to know, it’s really hard work. And the odds are against us, sad to say. So here are the seven practices. The first one I’m nervous about talking about because Diane is sitting right there, and she’s gonna correct me, okay? So, I’m gonna use the Bible. Alright. That’s all I got. Okay, the first is power. This is the elephant in the room. And I just want to say this, I’ve had 12 pastors say to me tell people that if they aren’t in power, or connected to people in power, it’s not going to happen. Power is necessary for the church to be transformed. There are four prepositions connected to power that I want you to be aware of. The first is power over. This is the way of Rome and Babylon. Its domination. And when a church is toxic, many times there are dominating toxic powers at the top, who are dominating with that power over other people. And the only thing, we heard this yesterday, and I think he’s right. The only thing that power people like that listen to is power and Twitter. No, that’s true. Because it’s about reputation. They don’t like that. Okay. But that’s a trump card that you. I shouldn’t have said that. That’s, that’s a card you use later. Okay? Power over. Power over, power to. Now this is the power to influence someone. all right? I have power over my students that I could use. I have power to influence them. Influence can be good, and it can be bad. I can say stupid things that are abusive, that they will propagate in their churches if they think they should do what I do. But power to is something that we all have. Diane has a lot about this in her book. We have power to influence other people. Now this is where it starts to get Christian. When we have power with people. When people with power on the platform, share that platform with other people, that’s power with because who gets to speak on that platform gets a little bit of glory and strength and power. And that platform has to be shared, or it becomes aggrandized and that’s where you go toward narcissism. Okay. So, power with. But the ultimate form of Christian power is power for another. Jesus said, when his disciples were totally wrong. You know, they wanted James and John put up to it by their mother, wanted to sit at the left and the right of Jesus in the kingdom of God, you know, double VPs. And Jesus says, no, that’s not the way it works with our people. The Son of Man, he says Mark 10:45 did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many. So, giving away power, sharing it and giving it away to empower other people, is the ultimate form of Christian use of power. It is the power of the leader to empower other people to become all that God has called them to be. And when people do that, they can’t be narcissists, because they’re surrendering power all the time. All right. Seven minutes left. The second thing, so the first practice is this, we have to practice Tov power, learning to share power, and use it for the sake of other people. The second practice is to focus on forming Tov character. We value skills and performances on platforms that create personas. Persona is not character. We need to value character and Tov people recognize character. And they know when something’s not right. They look at a person and they say there’s something off. I tell church boards that are hiring people, for every lawyer on your search committee, you need two psychologists, because psychologists are skilled at perceiving character. Just between you and me lawyers aren’t. Some of them are. So, for those lawyers in the room. I used a stereotype I know I’m not supposed to do that, but too bad. Okay, so we need to focus on character development, and hire character before skills. Yes, of course, someone has to sing, has got to be able to sing. But if they don’t have character, then we got to forget the voice and find the character. Jesus said a good tree, Tov tree, produces Tov fruit. Bad trees don’t produce Tov fruit. We want Tov trees. Third, we need to discern our church culture. Now, this is something you’ll have to go onto the internet. And you can find all kinds of tools that are used to assess character, and even group dynamics and group character. Churches need to go through a process of an honest investigation of the character of that church culture itself. And then churches that aren’t willing to do this, run from them. I know church cultures that have gone through these tools, and told people, they have to put fives for all their answers. And if they didn’t, they wouldn’t keep their job because they had to sign their name to their evaluation. I mean, this, this is a church. Truth telling should be a part of a church. I’ll move on. Fourth, you need to build a coalition for Tov. And this is where I talked about conversations with people and listening to one another. You can’t just download Tov into a community. It’s going to take a culture formation, and that’s conversations with one person after another, and listening to one another, to where you can build this up to where there’s ownership, and the people in the entire church eventually saying, this is what we believe at this church. This is the way we want to live. And I know this happened with this pastor I was talking to, and it took him eight years to convince everybody, and it wasn’t even a persuasion. It was an attempt for people to see what they had to offer. And could they do that? Fifth be the example. One pastor told me he is working at transforming the church culture with others. He said, I realized that I could not ask people in the church to do something that I had not already done. He served in a homeless kitchen for one year without telling anyone except his wife. He said I realized I cannot ask people to be involved injustice in our community if I’m not doing the same thing myself. We need to elevate examples of Tov in our churches, and fewer examples of success. You see the difference? Tov character. So, Mr. Rogers is Tov. He didn’t do as well as Sesame Street. But Mr. Rogers was Tov, and his show is Tov. Even though he wears weird clothes. Sixth, we need to trust God, we need to trust God. Tov is a transformation of character. God is at work in us. God’s grace is at work in us. The Spirit of God has the capacity to stir up within us, responses of Tov to people over time, eventually build a character that’s Tov. And you’ve met people who are Tov. And it’s because of God’s grace in their life, that people are Tov, and you want to be like them. And the final habit or practice, is to take one step at a time. The goal is not in a sense is not going to be reached by we’re going to become a Tov church, it’s that we are, you don’t say this from the pulpit, probably, we are terrible at hospitality when people come to our church. We have to work better at this. And we need to become a culture that is hospitable. And we are unresponsive to the needs in our community. Nobody in the community even knows who we are. And we are going to become a presence, not so that we can be known as a presence, but because we want to impact our community for Tov, and we want to be there. And you don’t do it in order to just get them in your church and get more money. You do it because you want to serve your community, one step at a time. Find a weakness and begin to work on it. And you can do this by developing by discerning the kind of culture that is in your church. I’m pretty realistic about this. And I want to be honest with you, it’s discouraging, two years of nasty letters in my inbox. No, I don’t like that. You know, it’s awful. But I want to be a part of a solution, or at least take steps toward a solution. And so, I’m going to encourage you to be someone committed to becoming Tov and then helping in your family for people to become Tov. And then maybe spreading out a little bit further. But I want to tell you that this is hard. This is a revolution in the church of character. And our church is not characterized by character formation. It’s characterized by enumeration of butts in seats, bills in the plate, baptisms in the water and buildings on the campus. And that’s not Tov. What’s Tov is Mr. Rogers. What’s Tov is Jesus. Someone who when you were with them said, I want to be like that person. That’s what we need to foster in our churches. Let it begin with you, in your small world of just trying to impact around you for Tov. And when you see that something’s not right, you will have a witness to speak up. Like the many who have spoken up in the last few years in the church. Courageous, mostly women who’ve said enough is enough. I’m going to be a part of the solution. JULIE ROYS Man, that is so good. I love Scot’s challenge to be TOV right now—in our families, in our workplaces, and yes, in the churches or other Christian communities we belong to. That is so important. But if we’re honest, it’s hard, too, right? It starts with being like Jesus ourselves. And so I just pray: Lord, help us to be more like you, to have your character and your heart. Just a quick reminder, if you’d like a transcript of this podcast just go to our website: Julie Roys, spelled Roys, dot com, and then click on the podcast tab. Also, if you’d like to support our podcasts, just go to Julie Roys dot com and then click on the donate tab. And I want to mention that in July, if you give a gift of $25 or more, we’ll send you a copy of Russ Meeks’ new book: Ecclesiastes and the Search for Meaning in an Upside Down World. This is a fantastic book, dealing with issues of abuse, trauma, and forgiveness through the lens of the author of Ecclesiastes. So again, to donate and get the book, just go to Julie Roys dot com, slash donate. Also, if you haven’t already, please subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. That way, you’ll never miss an episode! And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then, please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks for joining me today! I hope you were blessed and encouraged. Read more

Guest Bios Show Transcript https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-I-w6rPMy5M How should you respond when a survivor reveals their story? What does he or she need in that moment? And can we avoid common mistakes that compound a survivor’s pain and trauma? All too often, pastors, Christian leaders, and congregations respond to abuse survivors in the worst way possible. They employ something called DARVO—Denying the abuse, Attacking the truth-tellers, and Reversing the Victim and Offender. In this insightful and pastoral talk at the Restore Conference, author and survivor advocate, Wade Mullen, explains a better way. Put simply: survivors need people who will listen actively to their stories and respond with truth and sincerity. It seems common sense—even easy. But as Wade expertly describes, there are often “walls of denial” to overcome, especially if we’re responsible or complicit with the abuse in some way. Using the simple acronym, SCORE, Wade outlines a godly way to respond to survivors. We refuse to deny, attack, and repeat the lies of the perpetrator. Instead, we Surrender. We confess. We own. We recognize. And we empathize. The steps are incredibly simple, but they’re not easy. They require authentic repentance—something that can be excruciatingly painful. Yet, for the survivor, it is profoundly healing as Wade has seen over many years of ministry and advocacy. This Week’s Guest Wade Mullen Wade Mullen, Ph.D., is a professor, researcher, and advocate working to help those trapped in the confusion and captivity that mark abusive situations. His personal experiences and ongoing research enable him to write with both care and expertise. He is the author of Something's Not Right: Decoding the hidden tactics of abuse and freeing yourself from its power. Show Transcript JULIE ROYS How should you respond when a survivor tells you their story? What does a survivor need in that moment? And how can we avoid common mistakes that compound the survivor’s pain and trauma? Welcome to The Roys Report—a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And no doubt, abuse and responding to survivors has become a key issue in the church. But too often, pastors, Christian leaders, and congregations respond in the worst way possible. They employ something called DARVO—denying the abuse, attacking the truth-tellers and reversing the victim and offender. But in this insightful and pastoral talk at the Restore Conference, author and survivor advocate, Wade Mullen, explains a better way. Put simply, survivors need people who will listen actively to their stories and respond with truth and sincerity. It seems pretty easy and common sense. But as Wade expertly describes, there are often “walls of denial” to overcome—especially if we’re responsible or complicit with the abuse in some way. Too often, people repeat the lies of the perpetrator. Or, they excuse the abuse—or minimize its impact. They justify, compare, deny, and do anything they can to avoid taking ownership. But there is a better way. Using the simple acronym, SCORE, Wade outlines a godly way to respond to survivors. We refuse to deny and attack and instead, we Surrender. We confess. We own. We recognize. And we empathize. The steps are incredibly simple, but they’re not easy. They require authentic repentance—something that can be excruciatingly painful. Yet, for the survivor, it is profoundly healing. I’m so excited to share Wade’s message with you. But first, I’d like to thank the sponsors of this podcast—Judson University and Marquardt of Barrington . . . Judson is a top-ranked Christian University providing a caring community and an excellent college experience. Plus, the school offers more than 60 majors, great leadership opportunities, and strong financial aid. Judson University is “Shaping Lives that Shape the World.” For more information, just go to JUDSONU.EDU!  Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity, and transparency. That’s because the owners there—Dan and Kurt Marquardt—are men of character. To check them out, just go to BuyACar123.com.   Well again, you’re about to hear a message by Wade Mullen on the power of truth and sincerity. Wade is the author of Something’s Not Right: Decoding the Hidden Tactics of Abuse—and Freeing Yourself From Its Power. For 10 years, he served in pastoral ministry. And for five years, he led the M.Div. program at Capital Seminary and Graduate School in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He’s now a full-time researcher, writer, consultant, and survivor advocate. And we were thrilled to have him speak this year at Restore. Here’s Dr. Wade Mullen. WADE MULLEN Dr. Marie Fortson, whose work I commend to you, including her book is nothing sacred tells the story of a woman in her 30s, who started meeting with Dr. Fortune. As the woman was piecing together some of the abuse she experienced as a child, inflicted upon her by her uncle, Dr. Murray fortune was her pastor at the time. And the woman got to a place of wanting to confront her perpetrator. And she was frustrated that she couldn’t do that, because he was no longer living, not uncommon. So she decided she wanted to tell her father, who was the brother of her uncle. She wasn’t particularly close with her father, that Dr. Fortune helped walk her through what it might look like to tell him and what kind of response she might receive. And the woman decided she needed to do the truth telling, just for her, with or without any acknowledgement of the truth from her father. So she wrote him a 12 page letter and mailed it to him. He received the letter and got on a plane and went to her immediately. And the first thing he said to her was, I’m sorry, I didn’t protect you. I didn’t know he was abusing you. But I knew you were struggling when you were 8, 9, 10 years old. I knew something was going on. And I didn’t bother to take the time to find out. I wasn’t there for you and I should have been your father. That’s my job. Then he said, I know you spent money on medical bills and counseling, how much did you spend that she told him and he said, there’ll be a check in the mail when I get home. In this 10-minute conversation with her father, Dr. Murray fortune points out that this woman received more than most survivors of abuse, receive in a lifetime, an opportunity to tell her story to someone who mattered. A pastor who was able to support her in that process, an acknowledgement of the truth, a sincere apology, and awareness of the impact and an offer of generous restitution. And weeks later, Dr. Marie fortune said that she met with a woman, and it was clear to her just how critical this was she had a journey that she still had to walk. But this was an important step. This morning, I want to share some of what I am learning about the healing power of truth, and sincerity. I’ll briefly discuss the importance of facing the truth, that how it can be helpful for someone else to hear our story. And not just here, but to actively listen to it. And then I’ll spend most of my time discussing how people who matter to us, such as our faith community can participate in our healing by acknowledging the truth, instead of maintaining illusions. A number of years ago, I met with a church leader in his office and shared concerns I had related to the church’s mistreatment of others. And that I had reached a point over the course of a couple of years of deciding to file some written complaints. And I remember being asked the question, Where did this root of bitterness begin in you? Maybe you’ve been asked that. Where did this anger come from? And I didn’t quite know what to do with that. until sometime after that meeting, I decided to take an inventory of all the times I felt angry over the years after seeing others mistreated. So one evening I started writing, I was angry when, and I would name an incident. I was angry when and I would name another incident. And that continued well into the night. And seven pages later, I realized I have every right to be angry. I ought to be angry, everyone ought to be angry. In a way I was telling myself the truth, facing all of it in that moment, and it was eye opening and validating which gave me the moral clarity and the moral courage. I needed to keep taking the stand. Sometimes people will use normal, understandable and justified emotions against you. That somehow anger over injustice is wrong in and of itself. Or empathy for the suffering of others is a sign of instability and weakness. But when Nehemiah heard the outcry from the people of Jerusalem and how the vulnerable were being mistreated, the text says he became extremely angry. We need leaders and people in positions of authority, people who matter to us to get angry over abuse and to grieve over its impact. We see that modeled by Jesus Himself. And when when others try to gaslight you, to get you to doubt what you know to be true, telling the story to yourself, for the first time or revisiting it can bring validation when others try to invalidate and discredit. And sometimes the story of what happened to you needs to be expressed to yourself before you’re able or willing to express it to others. I’ve spoken to abuse survivors who have found it helpful, for example, to write a letter to the person or people who betrayed them, even if they decide not to send the letter, writing it to themselves, in a sense was helpful. And I recognize that for some, there are traumas that cannot so easily be put into words. So some use art or music or dance to express their experiences. And for some, no expression is possible. Until more much work is done to get to that point. One of the things I’ve learned is that there is no blueprint to healing. It is a process that is highly contextualized. It looks different for different people. But however it is done, I believe facing the truth is an important step toward healing. I recognize that this can be difficult for a number of reasons, it might be hard to put all the pieces of your story together in a way that makes sense and isn’t overwhelming, because the destruction is so widespread and complete. To sort through all the lies, you’ve been told to find the words to describe your experience to go through the process of reliving trauma. But it’s a story that’s that that is important. If it can somehow be told, they can also be healing for the Truth to be told to someone else who matters. Even sometimes, if that story isn’t received with righteousness and compassion. I have spoken with a number of survivors of abuse who decided they were going to tell their story, for instance, to institutional leaders who betrayed them, fully expecting based on prior experience and the experience of others, that the truth would not be acknowledged by those leaders. But they were doing it because they needed to for themselves to be able to speak truth to power. Others find ways to whisper truth to power, because it’s not safe to speak it out loud. So they learn to engage in small, everyday acts of resistance. But ideally, there can be an opportunity, not just for the Truth to be told, but for your story, to be really heard by a compassionate witness, and by those who might be in a position to help because they have resources and or the authority to act. The experience of being listened to can be a powerful agent of healing. I remember the first time my wife and I told our story in an unrest, unfiltered way, the order a couple we were visiting for support and advice, responded at the end of our telling, by pointing out how it was clear to them that until that point, we had never been given the opportunity to share our story to someone who would just listen to someone who would just hang with you. And they wanted to give us that space. So the listening I’m talking about is an act of listening. I’ve been in settings where someone in a position of authority, he’s told the story of abuse, the hope is that the people listening to the story will do something. But it’s as if the story itself is a threat. So the person either reacts strongly to try to shut the story down, or retreats deep inside themselves. They’re there but they’re not really there. It’s a passive and absent listening that treats the words of the survivor and their story, as if they are weightless, meaningless, ineffectual, which sadly then becomes apparent over time as no action is taken. And that can be very hurtful. John Steinbeck wrote and unbelief truth can hurt much more than a lie. What’s needed is active listening. Active listening requires a willingness to understand and a desire to understand. I’ve spoken with some survivors who have had the experience of reporting, misconduct or abuse that they’ve experienced to leadership. And they realized later, they didn’t even want to know. They didn’t want to hear. They didn’t want to understand the character Atticus Finch and To Kill a Mockingbird said you never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view. until you climb inside of his skin and walk around it. That’s active listening. It’s a response that says, I want to hear your story and understand it as much as I’m able, I believe you, this should have never happened to you. It is not your fault. And yes, I do think those things can be said, you can choose a side, the Bible causes us to stand with the oppressed and the vulnerable in the wounded. Now telling the truth to someone else is difficult, because you do not know how another person or a community will respond to your story. And one of my hopes is that the work that is being done by so many of you to shine a light and to be a light in this world will cause the numerous walls that prevent survivors from ever, ever telling to crumble, that the many shadows cast by institutional betrayals that cause people to keep their stories hidden, will be dispersed by the light. And that churches and church leaders will become safer, more compassionate and more understanding and more willing to take a moral stand, even if it means giving up their own power. I think of those leaders who have resigned in protest, because they could no longer be complicit with a system that perpetuated abuse and cover up, who are willing to say to those who have been abused, I will join you in suffering, I will stand with you in the fire. Not only does the truth need to be faced and told and heard and listened to. But it also needs to be acknowledged by others, especially by those who contributed to the harm or failed to prevent it. And this is where I want to slow down and park for a bit to present some ways in which I think institutions and communities can contribute to the healing of survivors by acknowledging the truth. And I want to start with how words can serve to acknowledge the truth instead of maintaining illusions. And I know sometimes people distinguish between words and actions, and that what really matters is action. And I understand what is meant by that distinction. But communication is an action itself. And one of the most difficult yet perhaps most significant actions a person or an institution can take is to speak the truth and love to name it. Some choose to die rather than tell the truth. Dr. Judith Herman conducted 22, in depth interviews of victims of violent crimes, and published her findings in a paper titled justice from the victim’s perspective, which you can find online. She found that what victims want is not revenge. I’ll say that again. Because I think it’s important. She found that what victims want is not revenge. She writes an entire section titled The myth of the vets vengeful victim. But what they want is validation. From those closest to them, like family members, and from the community. They want the truth to be acknowledged, not just by the perpetrator, but for bystanders to acknowledge the truth as well. Which makes sense because the betrayal by the community and by the institution is as harmful, if not more harmful than the betrayal by the perpetrator. And there are two categories of truth that are important to acknowledge. The first is the basic facts of the offense, what happened. And the second is the impact on the victim and their world. And by world I’m talking about someone’s internal world, and their external world. So their sense of identity, their agency, the things they value, their faith, and also their community, their network of support. These are the things that are deeply impacted by abuse. And these are the two categories of information that are filled with deception. Until the truth is finally acknowledged, the basic facts are denied, obscured, excused, and then the impact is minimized, justified or outright denied. And I think in order to understand the significance of acknowledging the truth, you have to first understand the impact of deception. When I’m listening to survivors tell their story and describe what they need or desire for the future. One of the most common desires is for people to see through the deception and for the lies to be exposed. Words are carriers of meaning, like the wind that carries seeds or pollutants. The meaning carried by those words can deliver death and destruction, or they can deliver life and beauty. When I last spoke at this conference a couple years ago, I went through a number of tactics that abusive person or institution might use to gain control over another person. How you can be simultaneously charmed and dismantled and how various forms of deception can be used to gain and exploit trust. And I want to briefly describe some of the defenses that might be put up when there is an opportunity to acknowledge the truth. In order to show you how significant that acknowledgment is, because I believe the winds of deception are fiercest and most destructive when truth Is close at hand. It’s what survivors often have to face and overcome in order for the truth to be established. By now many of you have probably heard of DARV). It’s an acronym coined by Dr. Jennifer fried, and I recommend her work and her book, blind to portrayal how we fool ourselves. We aren’t being fooled. But DARVO stands for Deny Attack Reverse Victim and Offender. Each of these responses can take various forms, and for the person who faces them. It is like encountering a fortress of shifting was like navigating an ever-changing maze to try to get to the truth. It’s the cunning and clever strategies of deception that Ephesians four speaks of that tears down in contrast, with a speaking of truth and love that restores and builds up. These deceptive strategies become learned over time by a person who hides the truth. And they develop a flexible, ever evolving script, like actors on a stage that can be altered for different audiences in different situations. So they might respond in intimidating and threatening way attack. Those who they perceive to have less power than when they get in the room with those with greater power, such as their board, they may act like a helpless lamb, who’s being victimized by people who are just jealous or bitter or disgruntled. Some have described their attempt to identify the truth like nailing Jello to a wall. You expect and you desire truth to be in a solid state, especially in the church. Yet the deceiver is constantly changing it into a form that is hard to contain. And they may even use scripture to aid their deception. The spiritual abuser uses the Bible as a collection of lines they can add to their script of deception, which only adds to the complexity and confusion. So the first wall and I’m gonna present four different walls of denial. The first wall that might be put up before the truth is acknowledged, is just an outright denial. It’s not true, never happen, it’s categorically false. Or that outright denial might take the form of silence. Silence is a type of deception, when it gives others the appearance that there is nothing to be said or made known. And it is sometimes an active attempt a strategic PR response to deny that certain truths exist. And sometimes the pursuit of truth ends right there, sadly, because there’s nothing left to do. But if you get past that first wall of denial, perhaps because more evidence comes to light, and the basic facts can no longer be denied. Then the second wall you might encounter is a wall of excuse. Now, I want to say that there are legitimate excuses. And there are legitimate denials, and there are legitimate justifications. But a person who is intent on deceiving other people and hiding the truth will weaponize those types of communication. So the second wall is a wall of Excuse an excuse says yes, this happened. But the person or institution in the wrong should not bear any personal responsibility. Perhaps the most commonly use excuses to deny intent. So the boss accused of sexual harassment says I never meant to make anyone feel uncomfortable, or do anything they didn’t want to do. Or a dark moment came over me. Or I stumbled into sin, or mistakes were made each of these frames abuse as accidental in some way. Knowing that we are quick to excuse a person who unknowingly or without malice causes harm. And adding to the difficulty for the survivors when the community accepts and then mirrors these this these excuses. And that’s what I see I happen sadly, often with each of these walls of defense and the attacks and the reverse of victim offender, the community here sometimes the only narrative they hear is coming from the more powerful people and then they mirror that and so their survivor is not only facing what people who are in the wrong and need to make amends are saying but what the community is then mirroring back to them. And so people say have we all made mistakes Who are we to judge? There, he’s human like the rest of us. Or someone might seek to excuse themselves from responsibility by denying they had any ability to act a different way. They were stressed, they were on medication, or they were grieving, or going through a challenging season. In other words, they did not have the power to make a different decision. As an aside, I think one of the things we need to understand is how a person in a position of power and trust like a pastor becomes dangerous when they can no longer steward that power with integrity, but choose to hold on to the power regardless. A third type of excuse is the one that shifts agency. So this is the classic blaming of another, it says, I am not the primary agent of harm. So the person of the wrong points their finger at someone else, we see this type of excuse at work and the very first recorded confrontation of human wrongdoing, in which God asked Adam, did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from? And Adam replied, The woman you gave to be with me, she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate. So then God asked Eve, what is this you have done? And you’ve said it was the serpent he deceived me and I ate both Adam and Eve deny agency as a type of excuse. And it’s interesting that God did not seem to accept that. If you get past that wall, the wall of excuses then you might encounter the wall of justifications. And let me just stop here and say that it is it is very difficult to face these. And it and because it is difficult, it is easy then to accept them. It is easy to say okay, because you’re in a battle. And it’s hard. But if you get past that wall, the wall of excuses, then you might encounter the wall of justifications. The difference between an excuse and a justification is that an excuse focuses on something about the wrongdoer. While justification draws attention to something about the wrong itself. So we excuse actors, and we justify actions. When it becomes undeniable that abuse has occurred, and irrefutable that a particular person or group is at fault, then the goal of escaping penalty might be sought through the use of justification. And there are two common forms of denial that seek to justify wrongs, a denial of victim and a denial of injury. Think of it as a kind of scale. And when a deceiver attempts to justify abuse, they put the victim metaphorically speaking on that scale, what I call the victims scale. And then they add to that scale claims about the victims background, their attire, their personality, their motives, to push them down the victim scale. So when people look at this scale, they blame the victim. The victim should have known not to have been alone with him, or the victim should have done more to resist, or they brought it on themselves, or they somehow deserved it. And then they say, well, they’re not a “true victim.” Not only might the victim be placed on a scale, but so might their injury. I call this the injury scale. If the victim scale brings attention to something true, exaggerated or fabricated about the victim, so others look at the scale conclude they’re not innocent, either. The injury scale brings attention to something true, exaggerated or fabricated about the injury. So others look at that scale and say, it’s not a big deal. This particular approach to justification attempts to minimize the gravity of the harm. Perhaps the most telling sign harm is being minimized is when a person begins their defense with the words well, it’s not like I fill in the blank. And that again gets mirrored when people say, well, it’s not like he fill in the blank, or he didn’t actually fill in the blank. And what follows are comparisons to what the person speaking believes constitutes quote unquote, real abuse, or real trauma, and terribly hurtful statements are made and these statements put the injury on the scale, and then weigh it against other injuries deemed more serious in an attempt to build a case that favors the abuser. In our attempts, attempts are made to suggest that no serious harm was done, and that too much is being made of the situation. And I think we see this often in cases of spiritual and emotional abuse. Both the victim scale and the injury scale use deception to distort the truth to tip the scale, so that when people look at the situation as defined by the abuser, they end up saying to the victim, you’re not a victim. or get over it, it’s not a big deal. And few strategies of deception are as harmful and as disorienting to victims and as dangerous to communities as those that seek to find justifications for actions that should never be justified. A legitimate justification for abuse can never be found. They do not exist. A person is not abused because of the way they dress, or where they were at the time or how they spoke. They were abused because a perpetrator chose to abuse and they weren’t betrayed by leaders who didn’t prevent the abuse or respond well to disclosures. Because those leaked, because the victim didn’t tell their stories soon enough, or because they were too upset, or too fill in the blank. They were betrayed, because people in positions of trust and authority chose not to use their authority for the good of those under their care. There’s no justifications for that. Now, if you make your way past the wall of justifications, you might encounter the wall of comparison. And this is the fourth wall of denial. This is where you encounter what I call complex deception. Now, in a sense, all deception is complex. But what I mean by complex is that a single statement might tell multiple lies, because the defense is based on making false associations. So there are numerous ways in which this happens. Think of it as a web with many different possible points of connection, especially if the deceiver is Biblically literate, and theologically articulate. So for example, someone might say, this is a witch hunt, or Jesus was falsely accused too, or she’s a Jezebel. And there are numerous ways in which this presents itself. But these comparisons promote two lies at least at the same time. One, the victims are the true evil doers and deserve condemnation. And two that the abusers and those in the wrong are the true victims and deserve support. So one statement can tell multiple lies. Or they might compare themselves to those who have committed worse offenses, or to cultural norms and standards and say something like boys will just be boys, on and on. These are the walls that a person sometimes has to face and navigate before the truth is even acknowledged. And the person or institution who uses these defenses, insists that the survivor carries the shame. So the person or people in power can maintain an appearance of legitimacy. Threatened legitimacy threatens identity, and threatened identities–shame, and that shame is placed on the survivor. When a person or institution takes a defensive posture in order to hide the truth, that those defenses those denials, can be followed by an attack against the person who is seeking the truth. So this is the A in DARVO and think of how upside down this is the survivor who takes the step to tell the truth, not out of vengeance. But out of a desire for justice, and safety, safety for themselves. Safety for others, is subsequently seen as a threat to be attacked, instead of a helpful voice to be cherished. The person speaking the truth ends up being condemned by the community. And these attacks can take a variety of forms. I went through a number of those attacks in my talk a couple of years ago. And one of the points I made is that a survivor can tell their story with the hope of being met with light, but instead is met with darkness. And they then become a target of the same kind of dismantling tactics that the perpetrator used, attacking their sense of reality, or ruining their identity, cutting them off from support. Only now there’s a team of people, perhaps even a powerful institution, engaging in those kinds of attacks. And then it follows that if the truth teller is seen as the one in the wrong, then the person or institution might begin to claim to be the victim. So they’ve reversed the roles of victim and offender. And this is incredibly effective, in part because in my experience, and I understand this is just my experience, but I’ve seen those in the wrong get to this point. And when they begin to describe what they want, what Justice would look like for them. They’re not as interested in a in a discovery and an acknowledgement of the truth. They are interested in seeing the truth tellers punished and they promote their victim role they sell it in an effort to invite condemnation on truth teller others. So they might even claim they’re under attack from the devil. Think of what that communicates to the survivor, and the implications of that. And the kind of response that might invite from a community who now sees truth tellers as agents of evil. So someone who has gone through this and has already suffered abuse, they’ve reached a point of understanding what happened to them, they’ve reached a point of telling it to those who matter. Think of what it’s like then to receive a response like DARVO. And maybe in all of that there is some kind of a concession where the truth is partially acknowledged. But it’s not sincere. It’s not offered in the interest of truth and out of a concern for the abuse. But as a way of calling a scandal and disarming those who are fighting for justice. It can be very difficult to face this kind of opposition to the truth. And you might be thinking, Well, why even put yourself through this? Well, part of what I’m trying to show is why advocates and church leaders with moral courage are so desperately needed. No survivors should have to face these walls alone. And yet they often have to, we need each other. As I bear the burdens of another and walk with them, someone needs to bear my burdens. And we gather strength and courage from standing together. But if you are going to do that work, if you’re a pastor, or you’re an elder, you’re separate of the flock, you’re called to do that work, whether you signed up for it or not. And when you engage in that work, you will be combating evil. Walk in with your eyes wide open. So what does it look like when the truth is acknowledged with sincerity. And I want to end with this. The acknowledgments should be unambiguous and straightforward. Elizabeth Heydrich wrote, truth makes its best entrance into the world, when it appears in bold and simple majesty. Another acronym that you can remember, and this is for assessing acknowledgments of truth, like an institutional apology is the acronym SCORE. So I write about this in my book, but it stands for Surrender, Confession, Ownership, Recognition, and Empathy. And I want to walk you through this briefly. The hardest step is to give up the desire to defend and attack those in the wrong have to surrender legitimacy, and exchange it for what will undoubtedly feel like shame. When I analyze statements of institutional apology, I often observe what remains, when every blame every excuse, every justification, self-promotion is crossed out. And at times, nothing remains. In some cases, one or two sentences of acknowledgement and remorse or all that is left because many are just unwilling to surrender their defenses. And a survivor shouldn’t have to navigate all of that. By the way, an apology is not an opportunity to be a model for others, or to get a pat on the back. That might happen. But forget about that. It’s an encouragement that I give to institutional leaders, when they reached that point of saying, Okay, we need to make a statement, and we need to apologize, we’re willing to do that. And I caution them against turning that into a moment of self-promotion. It’s a time for lament, not celebration, if you’re going to honor someone honor the victims and the truth tellers. And part of the reason is because that might not be all the person of the wrong needs to apologize for. But seeing the celebration from others, from the vantage point of the survivor, can put wounded people in a bind, because if they don’t accept the apology, they can appear bitter, unforgiving and unreasonable. So James says, He goes through this process of being humbled, turn your laughter to morning and your joy to gloom. So I think people just need to sit in the brokenness for a while. So after that surrender, there needs to be a confession. Surrender paves the way for a confession, and I believe each rung must be rightly named. So it’s not an affair when a pastor preys upon an adult congregation. It’s a dark clergy sexual abuse and it’s an abuse of power. Now that naming might require a period of listening or inviting investigation. Those who are serious about Confession will not avoid a truth seeking process because they know that healing is not possible until the wounds are properly named and assessed, and you might need others and institution might need others with more insight to do that assessment. And so they need to submit to that kind of process before there can be a confession. Because confessing is acknowledging what you know to be wrong. Submission. That often precedes confession is like going to a doctor and saying, Doctor, I know I have a problem here in my neck. But I did some research online and think it’s just because I slept wrong. The doctor will say, no, stop doing your own research, you need to submit yourself to the professionals. Because while the problem might be in your neck, the source of the problem is an underlying condition. But once you have a clear picture of what’s true, then a confession can start with the words, we were wrong when. And then that content can continue that naming for as long as it needs until every offense is named. The confession serves as a mirror that reflects back to the wounded and the community. All the actions that produced hurt a mirror that too often victims have to hold up in order to get people to understand and respond and it’s a very heavy mirror. In fact, a confession might need to become more than just a mirror that reflects what is known to be wrong, but a spotlight that acknowledges both exposed and unexposed wrongs. When confronted or exposed, surrendered people are more likely to voice a number of confessions that match or exceed the number of truths presented in the exposure, because they desire the truth. And that’s authentic Confession. Confession is short chains as long as the truth remains undiscovered. So one of the most critical steps is for the truth to be fully acknowledged and fully named. Then after confession is ownership, this is the O, the abusive person or organization must acknowledge their active role. So passive statements like “mistakes were made” seek to avoid shame by avoiding ownership. Shame as the settling and covering characteristic like a morning dew on grass. And one of the worst tricks of the abuser and their enablers is to use manipulation to make sure the shame only covers and settles upon the victim. This is why ownership is important and necessary, it says to the victim, you are not at fault. You never were, and you never will be. Therefore those in the wrong should take ownership by saying something like we take complete and full responsibility for and then they name that. Another way a person demonstrates ownership is by inviting accepting or imposing consequences on themselves. For example, a church board that covered up abuse might resign in recognition of the gravity of that betrayal. And how important it is that a community be led by those who have not betrayed trust. And then the R is recognition. So out of ownership should flow recognition, just as specific wrongs were named, specific harms should be identified. So leadership might say, we recognize that our actions resulted in . . . and then that continues for as long as it’s needed. So if confession and ownership say we acknowledge the legitimacy of our actions, recognition says, and we will take upon ourselves all the shame and blame over the impact that our actions had on others, we see it, we recognize the damage. It is at this point that the walls of defense are being removed, the lies are being extinguished. And the scope of the severity of the abuse is clearly seen and acknowledged, and the wounded and their wounds are faced instead of shunned. And remaining is in a sense, metaphorically speaking, the solitary bridge across which those in the wrong must walk. And with vulnerability say in effect, we will claim the shame we’ve asked you to carry but was always ours to begin with. And we will surrender the legitimacy we’ve tried to claim for ourselves, but was always yours for the start. And that’s vindication. Vindication is not vindictiveness. Vindication is setting someone free from burying blame and carrying shame that isn’t theirs to carry and creating a path for them. To be restored reputational Lee relationally. To help transform what was broken. Dr. Judith Herman wrote, beyond acknowledgment, what survivors sought most frequently was vindication. They wanted their communities to take a clear and unequivocal stand in condemnation of the offense. Community denunciation was of great importance to the survivors because it affirmed the solidarity of the community with the victim, and transferred the burden of disgrace from victim to offender. And then last, the E stands for empathy. Once the individual organization has finally absorbed the truth of their wrongdoing, and the gravity of their wrongs, and when that is sincere, then as a byproduct, perhaps they will feel the weight of the hurt, and the shame. No, they are defenseless, and at the mercy of others, and must begin the difficult work of restitution and restoration. They feel it, they get it. And out of that broken place of surrender, and confession, and ownership and recognition, and empathy, mighty merge words like we are so so very sorry. We lament. And the words will not weigh light in the hand because they’re insincere. But they will mean something, they will bring a measure of hope, and perhaps healing. And then those words do need to be followed up with sustained action. And hopefully, at this point, a survivor can be saved to answer questions like, What do you need? And a good principle of restitution is to give them whatever is asked for. I’ve never seen an unreasonable request. And it may not be what others expect. It may be some kind of memorial, like a garden to honor survivors. And it may be money to cover counseling costs and medical bills. But whatever it is, that restitution should be generous, generous, and part of what I’m trying to do is encourage people in positions of authority to raise the standards when it comes to this. Zacchaeus gave up to four times what he took from others. And Jesus didn’t say come on Zacchaeus you got to pay up or else. It was his desire. And that’s a sign of true repentance. And I do believe this can happen we can see this more and more and authentic repentance that replaces cover up and lies. My hope for you is that you will experience some measure of the healing power of truth and sincerity in all its boldness and simplicity. It’s an honor to be with you today and to share with you thank you. JULIE ROYS Well again, that was Dr. Wade Mullen speaking at this year’s Restore Conference. And just a reminder, you can find the transcript of this podcast at our website. Just go to www.julieroys.com and click on the podcast tab. Also, if you’d like to support our podcasts, just go to our website and click on the donate tab. And I want to mention that in July, if you give a gift of $25 or more, we’ll send you a copy of Russ Meeks’ new book: Ecclesiastes and the Search for Meaning in an Upside Down World. This is a fantastic book, dealing with issues of abuse, trauma, and forgiveness through the lens of the author of Ecclesiastes. It’s an incredibly helpful book and I’m so excited to be able to offer it as our premium this month. Also, if you haven’t already, please subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. That way, you’ll never miss an episode! And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then, please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks for joining me today! I hope you were blessed and encouraged.   Read more

Guest Bios Show Transcript https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjPAeY0573g Does anyone truly recover from spiritual trauma? After being ravaged by the church or a church leader, can a person ever be the same? Those gut-wrenching questions were recently posed by author and speaker, Lina Abujamra, at the Restore Conference—a session featured on this edition of The Roys Report. “It’s been 9 years since I survived my spiritual trauma,” she said. “It left me changed. I’m not the same person I used to be.” But then, with brutal honesty, Lina describes her transformation from ambivalence and hiding—to trusting once again in Jesus. “I know why deconstruction has become so popular,” she admits “Sometimes it hurts too much to try to heal.” Lina calls us to face the hurt and the pain—and to admit our need for Jesus. In doing so, we don’t become the person we were. But we do become a person with a reconstructed faith, a faith not based on any Christian leader or institution, but on Christ alone. This Week’s Guest Lina Abujamra Lina Abujamra is a pediatric ER doctor, now practicing telemedicine, and founder of Living With Power Ministries. Her vision is to bring hope to the world by connecting biblical answers to everyday life. A popular Bible teacher, podcaster, and conference speaker, she is the author of several books including Thrive, Stripped, Resolved and her most recent book, Fractured Faith. Lina ministers to singles through her Moody Radio show, Today’s Single Christian, and is engaged in providing medical care and humanitarian help to Syrian refugees and others in disaster areas in the Middle East. Her ministry also provides spiritual retreats for women at The Hope Ranch. Learn more about her at www.livingwithpower.org. Show Transcript SPEAKERS LINA ABUJAMRA MD, JULIE ROYS JULIE ROYS Does anyone truly recover from spiritual trauma? After being ravaged by the church or a church leader, can a person ever be the same? Welcome to The Roys Report—a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And those gut-wrenching questions were recently posed by author and speaker, Lina Abujamra, at the Restore Conference. “It’s been 9 years since I survived my spiritual trauma,” she said. “It left me changed. I’m not the same person I used to be.” But then, with brutal honesty, Lina describes her transformation from ambivalence and hiding—to trusting once again in Jesus. “I know why deconstruction has become so popular,” she admits “Sometimes it hurts too much to try to heal.” Yet, Lina calls us to face the hurt and to face the pain—and to admit our need for Jesus. In doing so, we don’t become the person we were. But we do become a person with a reconstructed faith, a faith not based on any Christian leader or institution, but on Christ alone. This is such a raw and accessible message and I’m so excited to share it with you. But first, I want to take a minute thank the sponsors of this podcast—Judson University and Marquardt of Barrington. Well again, you’re about to hear a message by Lina Abujamra on recovering from spiritual trauma. Lina is a popular Bible teacher, blogger, and founder of Living with Power Ministries. She’s also the author of Fractured Faith: Finding Your Way Back to God in an Age of Deconstruction. And, she’s a pediatric ER doctor, who was born in Lebanon and is deeply involved in humanitarian aid to Syrian refugees. She’s someone I’m proud to call a friend. And I think you’re going to moved and helped by her powerful message. Here’s Lina Abujamra LINA ABUJAMRA MD 00:04 On January 12, 2010, a catastrophic magnitude seven earthquake struck Haiti at 16:53 local time. The epicenter was near the town of Leogane approximately 25 kilometers west of Port au Prince, Haiti’s capital. By January 24, at least 52 aftershocks measuring four and a half or greater, had been recorded. An estimated 3 million people were affected by the earthquake. Death toll estimates ranged from 100,000 to 160,000. The government of Haiti estimated that 250,000 residences and 30,000 commercial buildings had collapsed or were severely damaged. I went to Haiti two weeks after the earthquake. On January 21, I boarded a plane with a handful of doctors and flew down to Haiti to help provide medical relief wherever it was needed. I am not unfamiliar with pain and devastation. I was born in West Beirut, Lebanon and grew up in the 70s and 80s. I lived through some of the worst of the civil war in West Beirut. I have seen war and devastation, yet I was unprepared for the magnitude of pain and destruction that I saw firsthand in Haiti. An entire city had been pummeled by the earthquake. The smell of rubble permeated the air. The more time I spent on the ground treating the wounded the more I started to sense an odd pattern of emotions; a mix of panic and ambivalence emerged from the ground. The panic I understood. People’s homes were lost, their loved ones were missing. The sense of loneliness and isolation clung to even the youngest of the patients that I cared for. That was expected. It was the ambivalence that puzzled me. Over and over again, I observed a sort of detachment, almost like an invisible wall. Blank stares, far away gazes, a standoffish stance with an obvious message. Don’t step any closer to me, stay right where you are. An invisible wall surrounded many of the wounded. It would be some time before I began to understand that ambivalence is a common protective mechanism for those of us who have endured deep trauma. It took me living through my own trauma to finally understand the comfort that ambivalence offers. Traumas darkest secret is that it strips us of our defenses. It makes us vulnerable. We become easy targets, we become exposed. Ambivalence is the easiest protective mechanism against trauma. If we act like it doesn’t matter, perhaps we’ll start to believe it. Or perhaps everyone else will. If we convince ourselves we don’t care so much, perhaps it won’t always hurt so much. I was there once. I tried that strategy. It worked for a while until it didn’t. In 2013, I left my church. I told my story at the last Restore Conference. I later wrote a book about it called Fractured Faith. I started the writing process using ambivalence as my shield. But eventually that shield became too heavy for me to keep on carrying. Dropping the shield became my saving grace. The Sunday I left my church began the slow deconstruction of my faith. Little did I know at that time, how deeply the decision to leave my church would affect my life and my faith. Honestly, if I could have foreseen the pain that would come from that decision, I don’t think I would have left. If I could have predicted how isolated and abandoned I would feel in the years to come, I might have ignored my conscious and gone with the flow. Instead, I chose to lean into disruption. My conscious had overruled the status quo. Still ask anyone who has tried it. It’s never easy to embark on a different road even if that road is the right one. I’m more convinced today than ever that leaving that toxic environment of my church was the right thing to do. But that knowledge did not make my decision to leave any easier. It also doesn’t make being here being here any easier. I thought of a thousand ways I could get out of today’s talk. I’m ashamed to admit I even hoped that the controversy around Julie Roys would lead to the cancellation of the conference. I almost blamed COVID. Who can argue with that? Some days the idea of being back here has felt like opening up the coffin on a corpse one would rather leave dead. Other days I’m quite aware that there is no corpse of the past. A corpse might actually be easier to handle. Rather what those recovering from spiritual trauma or any abuse for that matter learn is that that corpse is more like the squirrel that I just got living in my attic. Its presence is noisy enough to remind me that it is quite alive and very much living in the attic, unwilling to evacuate my home, my space, my soul. Unleashing the truth about past trauma can be too jarring, too messy to attempt. Many choose to remain hidden. I don’t blame them. Ambivalence is a welcome retreat to the emotional havoc of facing the truth. But some speak up. They wake up one day tired of hearing the scraping in the attic. They open the attic doors and let the light in. At first the glare hurts but eventually the wounded feel their way towards recovery. We feel our way towards recovery. But does anyone truly ever recover from spiritual trauma? I’m not sure that recovery is the right word. Perhaps transformation is more like it. It’s been nine years since I survived my spiritual trauma. It’s left me changed. I’m not the same person I used to be. I went to church last Sunday morning. I did my best to skip it. I waited until it started before leaving my home. I told myself I didn’t need to go. That I was being legalistic by insisting I go. That God loves me whether I go to church or not. I told myself that I deserve to rest, that I was too tired from the busy work of serving God in need of a real Sabbath for once. Instead, I got in the car and drove the mile to church. Maybe the two texts my nephew sent me asking about my whereabouts tipped me towards going. Or perhaps I knew the truth that if I skip this Sunday, I might never go back. So, I shuffled myself in at the last minute, 20 minutes late and slouched in my seat on the last row. I’m no longer comfortable sitting in the front. I looked around me at people I once thought I understood. Who are these people? I wondered? Why are they even here? Do they know what happens behind the scenes in churches? And how could they not know? I’m annoyed by the little things now. When everyone raises their hands at the same time I’m tempted to put my hands down. When they sit in group formation I become suspicious. When did I become so cynical? I try to listen I really do. But I’m so distracted by everything and everyone. I glanced at my watch again. Only 10 minutes have passed. I don’t know how I make it to the end. But eventually it ends. I beeline to the door grateful for the small reprieve of sitting in that back row. Why do I do this to myself week after week? Why do I keep on showing up? I used to go to a restaurant in South Florida on a regular basis. It was run by an English lady whose husband was the cook. He made the best chicken curry I’ve ever had in my life. Every time I went I ordered the curry and was never disappointed. Until one day I ordered a chicken curry and when it arrived it had a different consistency than usual. I didn’t say anything because I figured it was a fluke a one-time mishap. I came back the next week and again the chicken curry was subpar. I asked if the cook had changed but was assured that no the same cook was in the back, but something had shifted. This went on for weeks until one day the owner of the restaurant asked me how the curry was. After remaining quiet for so long and perhaps hopeful for a change, I decided to speak the truth; it’s not so great, I told her. Something has changed with the chicken curry. I fully expected her to apologize maybe offer me a free meal and work on improving that chicken curry the next time I showed up. The very opposite took place. The woman’s face turned bright red, and she started to lecture me. How dare I critique the curry? What did I know about curry? Who did I think I was to say anything about the curry? I apologized quickly to her and told her I was likely wrong. That perhaps the cook was just tired today to let it go. She became even angrier when I suggested that the cook had the problem. She became unstoppable in her tirade, confident in her own ability to judge the curry, intent in her accusation of my ignorance of all things curry. I didn’t have a word for it back then. But she was gaslighting me. I’m not sure what the tipping point was in that conversation, but I finally snapped. I couldn’t take it anymore. I stood up to leave and told her I was shocked that she had responded that way. She remained unapologetic, and I simply walked out. Call me a dreamer. But to this day, I still cannot believe that she’s never tried to stop me. It’s been six years, and I’ve never gone back to that restaurant. I have vowed never to return in this lifetime. I confess that my resolve has weakened a couple of times. There are days that I think about the curry; how incredibly good it used to be. I really miss it. I long for the days when I used to show up for that perfect bowl of chicken curry. I’ve asked myself if maybe I had overstated the whole incident. But then I remember why I stopped going for the curry. I picture that old English lady, and I remember why I can’t go back. I’ve noticed that trauma can make people a little bit irrational. You start telling yourself things that don’t always make sense. English people can never be trusted. The curry there was disgusting anyway. If anyone I care about ever dares to go into that restaurant again, they’re strangers to me. And yet, as painful as it is to admit it, I missed the old English cook’s curry. Some days I wish I’d never said anything about the curry on that fateful day. Some days, I wish I had the courage to walk back into that restaurant and forget any of the problems ever took place. Some days, I tell myself I’ve made a mountain out of a molehill. On those days when I missed the curry the most, I replay the English lady’s words in my head, and I know with certainty, no curry is worth the pain I went through. No meal deserves that much pain as a condiment. Does anyone ever truly recover from spiritual trauma? I’m not so sure that recovery is the right word. Perhaps transformation is more like it. After the Haiti earthquake, most of the buildings were too pummeled to be recovered. The only way forward was to reconstruct them. The old rubble needed to be cleaned up, new structures needed to be rebuilt. It takes a lot of courage to rebuild. It’s easier to choose ambivalence, it’s easier to move away. I can understand why so many people leave evangelicalism and Christianity after being wounded by the church. I can understand why deconstruction has become the language of the wounded. Sometimes it hurts too much to try to heal. Healing takes time. It takes conviction and a refusal to give in to the lies; both the lies thrust at us by the world around us and the lies we ourselves create in our own hearts and heads. It takes passion and perseverance; it takes stillness and silence. It takes well I wonder if the only way forward is by divine intervention. I suppose you can say it takes a savior to rebuild one’s soul from the ground up. It took a while for me to accept the idea that I’d been a victim of spiritual abuse. Compared to so many others, my story seems so underwhelming. I mean, nothing really bad had happened to me. I wasn’t sexually abused. I didn’t have a big faceoff with the abuser. In fact, I left the toxic environment I was in out of my own volition and as quietly as possible. But for the longest time leading up to my breaking away, I had been positioned very close to the fire, perhaps too close to leave as an innocent bystander unaffected by the shrapnel and aftershock. Spiritual trauma is hard to describe because it’s so hard to define. It comes in a variety of shapes and forms. It varies from person to person and cannot be boxed into a one size fits all. But one thing it always carries with it is a deep sense of grief and shame. I suppose simply put spiritual trauma happens when those we trust the most become the ones who hurt us the most. It’s almost always the result of an event or events that threatened to damage our core spiritual values and goals. Spiritual trauma sucks every bit of resource out of us. Our time every minute of every day becomes focused on analyzing and over analyzing the abusive situation. Spiritual trauma sucks our emotional margins, our zeal for God, even our souls. But even more importantly, it’s our innocence we lose through the process. Spiritual trauma is painful, and it is real. One of my favorite people in Scripture is a woman without a name. She is referred to as the woman with the issue of blood. She was a woman who was hurting and had gone for help to those who are supposed to help her. Instead, for years, she had been traumatized by the healers around her. She was a victim of a system that sucked every bit of resources from her until she had nothing left to give. Her story is mentioned in three of the Gospels, but I like the rendition in the Gospel of Mark the best. We’re told, there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for 12 years and who had suffered much under many physicians and had spent all that she had and was no better but rather grew worse. She had heard the reports about Jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment. For she said, If I touch even his garments, I will be made well, and immediately the flow of blood dried up. And she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. And Jesus, perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him, he immediately turned about in the crowd and said, who touched my garment? And his disciples said to him, you see the crowd pressing around you and yet you say, who touched me? And he looked around to see who had done it. But the woman knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, and fell down before him and told him the whole truth. And he said to her daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your disease. What an interesting little account we’ve been gifted in the pages of Scripture. Here was a woman who had suffered trauma after those she trusted the most, became the ones who hurt her the most. Stripped of all of her resources, she had nothing left. I wonder how long she had clung to the ambivalence that came from hiding before she bravely ventured out to find Jesus. How many nights did she stay awake, trying to talk herself out of showing up on that day? Did her faith in God flounder? Did she feel the suffocating breathlessness of the never-ending lonely nights? Did she agonize over how abandoned she felt by those she thought would be there for her? How many excuses did she run through until she had none left until her only option was to try? Hiding is never helpful. Yet hiding from others is the best way we know to protect ourselves from more pain. Hiding from others is the only way we know to keep functioning. I’ve often felt like the woman with the issue of blood torn between the desire to hide in my shame and the desperate need for healing and help. It’s only when the pain of my shame became too heavy to bear that I mustered enough momentum to move into the light. Ultimately, it’s pain that moves us into recovery. Pain is an incredible gift. C.S. Lewis, a man who had experienced so much pain in his life, understood that. He once wrote that God whispers to us in our pleasures. He speaks to us in our conscious, but he shouts to us in our pain. He said that pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world. See, pain awakens us to our need. Pain tips us to the light. My pain was the tipping point that moved me back into the light. Like the woman with the issue of blood, I crawled my way back to healing under the watchful gaze of all the rotten physicians and the righteous accusers. I guess another way to say it is that the woman with the issue of blood eventually became broken enough to risk finding healing with Jesus. Does anyone truly recover from spiritual trauma? I’m not so sure that recovery is the right word. Perhaps transformation is more like it. Over the last few years, I’ve learned that it’s the most broken that have the most hope of recovery. It’s when you reach a desperate place of brokenness that you finally find the courage to run to Jesus for healing. The problem with so many Christians who are deconstructing is that we’re still looking to others for answers. We’re still looking to some form of church or cultural leadership for answers. We’re looking to influencers to hand us our healing. We’re waiting for our abusers to wake up, to change, to repent, to be held accountable in some way as they very well should be. But don’t hold your breath. We’re hoping our therapists will guide us back to the light and they are indeed instrumental in in doing so. But no one can offer us what they don’t have. For some things, only the miraculous will do. The disciples didn’t even notice the woman who had reached out to Jesus for healing. Their eyes, their minds, their attention, were elsewhere, anywhere but on the one who needed help the most. They were too busy with the work of the ministry to notice the heart of the ministry. They were so focused on the size of the crowd that they missed the one who was hurting. They were so caught up with what seemed urgent that they missed the divine. Only Jesus saw her. Only Jesus had the power to heal her. Three years ago, on a cold January day in Chicago, I finally hit rock bottom. I finally reached that place of brokenness. I had tried every other means to find healing and had come up empty. I talked about my pain to everyone who would listen. I had dissected every detail of my story with my therapist. I had read every tweet about deconstruction and every deconstruction account reported by Julie Roys and others. I had even written and preached about my pain. I had reached out to every garment except the only one who could heal me. Eventually, when I hit rock bottom, I realized that I was missing the key piece to the puzzle. I needed Jesus. It was through Jesus; it was Jesus through his word. Yeah, the Bible that pulled me out of that pit and set my feet back in a broad space. It sounds so Sunday school, but it’s the honest to God truth. It wasn’t a church that saved me. It wasn’t a pastor that rescued me. Although they did play a part in my reconstruction. It wasn’t my own efforts that led me to my haven of rest. It was only Jesus. It’s always been only Jesus. All I needed to do was to stop long enough and risk reaching out that touching the hem of His garment. And just when I thought that the journey was about me, finding my way back to God, I discovered that all along, he had already made his way to me. It all sounds so simple now. We like more complicated answers. We like well delineated three step processes. For me recovering from spiritual trauma wasn’t a formula. It was a process where I eventually became broken enough to finally realize my desperate need for the Savior. This very savior that I had accused of not caring, of abandoning me when I needed him the most, of allowing cruel men to get away with evil, was the one that I turned to at my lowest. I was finally willing to strip my protective coat of ambivalence and step into the light. His light. Thus started my reconstruction process. Today, the American church is indeed broken and has left many many wounded along the way. Our Christian leadership has, by and large, massively failed us. Christian institutions don’t have the answers not even by a mile. Evangelicalism doesn’t have the solutions to our problems. Our pain is deep, our divide is wide. We’re living in the most divided era of the American church in modern history. Like our country, the church has become divided among political lines into progressives and traditionalists. Even deconstruction is being interpreted along party lines. We have an argument for everything. We are ready to fight anyone. Perhaps it’s time to change. You might be thinking that not all churches are bad that only a few of the big and famous ones are. You need to wake up. War leaves no victors only victims. There is a war raging on Christianity. And much like the war in Ukraine, even though only a few of the major cities have suffered the most damage, ask any Ukrainian and they’ll tell you the honest truth. Their entire country has been devastated by the war. There are no safe areas. Many have left the church today, and are refugees, homeless survivors, victims who are not sure what the future looks like for them. The American church is broken. But it is only when the American church becomes broken enough and desperate enough for healing that it will finally be ready for a reconstruction. The American church needs healing. We need healing. We need reconstruction. We need Jesus. Does anyone ever truly recover from spiritual trauma? I’m not sure that recovery is the right word. Perhaps transformation is more like it. Today I am not the same person I used to be. Most Christians forget what the gospel message really is. We forget how deeply God loves us. We forget how accepted we are. We forget that we belong. We forget that we cannot eradicate the power of God’s love. We can’t ignore the extent God will go through to reach us. We forget the cross where Jesus laid down his life for us so that we might live. Sometimes you have to reach your lowest in order to find out what’s true. That God loves you and that nothing, nothing can separate you from the love of God. That as you drag your way back home fearful of the price you’re going to have to pay for leaving, battered and worn out and aged and sorrowful. The last face you expect to see is the tear drenched face of your father who never stopped waiting for you to come home. I’d always thought of myself as the older brother in the story of the prodigal. I lived by the rules. I didn’t cause any trouble. I looked obedient to outside appearances. Like the older brother, I worked so hard and felt nobody noticed. Like the older brother I started to resent the Father. Didn’t he see all the hard work I did for him? Wasn’t he aware of the pain that had been inflicted on me? Like the older brother, I missed that my father’s presence was the fruit to be enjoyed. That unhindered fellowship with my father was the only source of my comfort. Somewhere in the middle, I jumped ship. I wandered from home, I quit going to church. I landed in a pigsty. When I came to my senses, I saw that I was much more like the prodigal. I turned my heart from my father’s love. I took what I could, and I ran. The grace of God is manifested in that moment in the pigsty when you finally realize that the worst life in your father’s house will always exceed the best life away from his presence. God’s grace is that moment, when you hear a whisper in your heart, the whisper that beckons you to come home, and God’s grace is manifested in that moment of reckoning when you understand that it’s time to go back home. I hadn’t made it to church in six months. Hardly anybody noticed. I hid it with my travel schedule and my professional responsibilities at the hospital. My life sounded noble, but I was drifting. I was hurting. My soul was parched for God. I felt dislocated and unanchored. I had talked to my counselor about it, and the pastor at my new church had caught on to my ways, but he hadn’t pressed me on that matter. One day, a friend I respected emailed me to invite me to join a Christian writers group. I was thrilled as many of the writers in that group were people I admired. A couple of days later, though she emailed me again with a condition. The board wants to know where you stand on the church thing, given your history with church hurt. Are you part of a local church? Some things don’t make much sense to others, but that was my moment of reckoning. I can’t explain to you why that encounter was the tipping point to cause me to get out of the pigsty and start making my way back home. But it was the nudge that I needed to settle the matter. I had not found answers outside of the church. My heart was tethered to the God I was wrestling with. I was too tired to do anything but let go. And just as clear as I could hear it God’s whisper came through to my thick head. Will you just say yes to me on this? Just say yes, was all God was asking me to do. Just say yes. It was such a small thing in the big scheme of my life, a quiet whisper where I was hoping for a tsunami. But if you ever heard God’s whisper, it’s an unmistakable thing. The Christian life usually boils down to your yeses. From the moment of salvation, God stands at the door of your heart knocking, only you can open the door, only you can take that one step. Only you can say yes to God. We tend to complicate the Christian life. We overthink surrender, we look for signs, we wait. We gesticulate while the Christian life really boils down to one word. Yes. Yes, God, I’ll forgive the person who has hurt me. Yes, God, I let go of my anger. Yes, God, I’ll go to church again, even when I don’t understand anyone there. Yes, God, I’ll trust you in the waiting while we watch and see what happens to those who have hurt us the most. Yes, God, I’ll do whatever it is you asked me to do. Your future and mine depends on our willingness to say yes to God. And our yeses hinges on our belief in the goodness of God. God isn’t asking fora perfect performance. He’s not even asking us to prove our love for Him. He’s simply inviting us into His presence, where we’ll find the rest we’re looking for. It’s our heart He’s interested in. Your story is far from over. God specializes in turnarounds. He did it for the prodigal. He did it for me. And he’s waiting to do it for you. I’ve been asked to come to this conference for a reason. I don’t believe in accidents. I don’t believe in serendipitous luck. And I certainly don’t believe that I’m a famous enough speaker for you to have come to this conference because of me. The glorious truth you cannot escape is that God is reconstructing your faith. God has not failed you. He’s been right there all along, waiting for you to come home. And he’s holding up a sign that says, Welcome back to me. Pray with me please. God we come before you now humbly in awe of how good you are. God, even as I share those reflections that I wrote this week, I’m so aware of how high and how low our emotions go. Even in thinking about this concept of healing and coming back to you, Father, there are people in this room right now who struggle with what I’ve said. God, we want vengeance. We want justice. We want the truth to come out. We want it now. And God you have created us with that desire, that is not an accident. So, we recognize that you are a God of justice that you do not forget, you see all things. You know, and you hold those accountable, who are to be held accountable. So, God in acknowledging that we understand that it is to you that we let go our anger, a God who is able to bring all things to light and to right. God, there is safety and understanding that there’s security and there’s freedom in knowing that you are indeed a just and a merciful God. Lord, I ask that as we come to you today for healing, you would indeed do that. You are the great physician. You didn’t even have to run any diagnostic tests on the woman who touched you. Lord, you were the essence of healing, and you imparted your power on her. We ask for the same divine intervention, the same miracle that would happen today, God as we come to you for healing, barely able to touch more than the hem of your robe. And yet, we’re here God. Maybe this is our reaching out to touch the hem of your robe. So that it is your goodness that we look to. God even as we pray this, we recognize our own sin. Lord, I think about all of the ways that I’ve reached wrong conclusions about your goodness about who you are. Father, even this week thinking that you’d forgotten about my plight or that you weren’t aware of the things that were happening in my own life circumstances, Father. Every day all the time is a battle, to trust your goodness. So, Lord, we recognize that we are sinners indeed, but we also recognize that you long to restore us. So, God that’s what we asked for today, for a miracle of restoration of healing. God we ask for your goodness to be so obvious that not a man not a woman would leave this place untouched. In Jesus name I pray, amen. JULIE ROYS Well again, that was Lina Abujamra speaking at this year’s Restore Conference. And what an important message that was. It’s so, so hard—after we’ve been hurt by those who claim to represent Christ—to say yes to Jesus and to trust again. But that is the only path to healing. I’m reminded of the words of Peter in John 6. “Lord, to whom shall we go? You alone have the words of eternal life.” Well again, you’ve been listening to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And if you’d like to support podcasts like these, please go to Julie Roys, spelled ROYS, dot com, slash donate. Again, that’s Julie Roys dot com, slash donate. And in the month of July, if you give a gift of $25 or more, we’ll send you a copy of Russ Meeks’ new book: Ecclesiastes and the Search for Meaning in an Upside Down World. This is a fantastic book that deals with the issues of abuse, trauma, and forgiveness through the lens of the author of Ecclesiastes. It’s an incredibly helpful book and I’m so excited to be able to offer it as our premium this month. Also, if you haven’t already, please subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. That way, you’ll never miss an episode! And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then, please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks for joining me today! I hope you were blessed and encouraged. Read more

Guest Bios Show Transcript https://youtu.be/T1FyhUCjnxEIt’s perhaps one of the most painful questions that survivors ask: Where is God when there’s abuse? Or, where was God when I was abused? In this powerful message from the Restore Conference, internationally recognized trauma expert and psychologist, Dr. Diane Langberg, seeks to answer this difficult question. But she openly admits, "I don’t know why God allows abuse. He hasn’t told me. And, believe me, I've asked." She also says: “I have for 50 years seen God’s work . . . and I have learned something of His character.” Then, Dr. Langberg reminds us that there is no evil we have known that God hasn’t also known. We often think, “But if He loved me, He would not have let it happen.” But Dr. Langberg reminds us that God let horrific abuse happen to His own Son. This Week’s Guest Dr Diane Langberg Diane Langberg, Ph.D. is globally recognized for her 50 years of clinical work with trauma victims. She has trained caregivers and church leaders on six continents on how to recognize and respond to trauma and the abuse of power in a healing way. Her most recent book is Redeeming Power: Understanding Authority and Abuse in the Church. Show Transcript SPEAKERSJULIE ROYS, DR. DIANE LANGBERG JULIE ROYS 00:04It’s perhaps one of the most painful questions survivors ask, where is God when there’s abuse? Or where was God when I was abused? Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And what you’re about to hear is one of the most powerful messages I’ve ever heard. Dr. Diane Langberg, an internationally recognized expert on trauma and abuse attempts to answer that painful question of God and abuse. We’ve often heard it said, God is great, and God is good. But how do we put that together with abuse happening to innocent victims? This is the second message Dr. Langberg gave at the recent restore conference. And at one point, Dr. Langberg freely admits, I don’t know why God allows abuse. He hasn’t told me. But she also says, I have for 50 years seen God’s work and I have learned something of his character. Then Dr. Langberg reminds us that there is no evil that we have known that God has not also known. We say but if he loved me, he would not have let it happen. But Dr. Langberg reminds us that God let horrific abuse happen to his own son. This is a heavy message for sure. But it’s also filled with so much hope and I feel honored and privileged to be able to share it with you. But first I’d like to thank the sponsors of this podcast, Judson University, and Marquardt of, Barrington Judson University is a top ranked Christian University providing a caring community and an excellent college experience. Plus, the school offers more than 60 majors great leadership opportunities and strong financial aid. Judson University is shaping lives that shaped the world. For more information just go to Judsonu.edu. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity and transparency. That’s because the owners there Dan and Kurt Marquardt are men of character. To check them out. Just go to buyacar123. com. Well, again, what you’re about to hear is a message on Where is God when there’s abuse? by Dr. Diane Langberg. Dr. Langberg is a globally recognized psychologist with over 50 years of clinical experience with trauma victims. She’s also an author whose trained caregivers and church leaders on six continents on how to deal with trauma and abuse of power in a healing way. And just a quick note, we’re offering a devotional book by Dr. Langberg as our premium for the month of June. So, if you’d like to support our work and receive an outstanding book that has been a tremendous blessing to me personally, just go to Julieroys.com/donate. Here’s Dr. Diane Langberg. DR. DIANE LANGBERG 03:03The title I was given, in case anybody’s noticed, for this talk is where was God, where is he when there’s abuse? And just for the record, my first response to the request to speak on the subject was to think and say that anybody who agreed to talk on that particular topic was grandiose. And then I said yes. And my first honest answer is I really don’t know. My second answer is this. He has taught me some things along the path he sent me down completely unknown to me 50 years ago. 50 years ago this year, so maybe I do have a few things I can tell you. My first steps along that new path were in 1972. I had a master’s degree and was working on my doctorate. I was the only female in the program. Trauma was not a clinical category until eight years later in 1980. I met with Vietnam vets when I first started out. And I also met with women and girls. And I was working in Christian practice part time and the women would ask to meet with me because I was female; certainly not because I knew anything. Over time, it dawned on me that the women and the vets had the same symptoms. And I decided there’s actually more than one kind of war zone in the world. I knew something about military war zones because I’m the daughter of an Air Force colonel who was in one of the lead planes dropping paratroopers in World War Two. But I knew nothing about war zones in homes and schools and churches. I heard very disturbing stories about domestic abuse, sexual abuse, rape, incest, and yes, trafficking. Though it was not a word at that time any more than trauma was. I went to a supervisor for some help, and he told me that women sometimes tell these hysterical stories, and your job is not to get hooked by them because you see if you do, you will be contributing to their pathology. I chose to listen to the women and not the supervisor. And of course, eventually, I began to hear familiar stories of like mind from men as well. Victims were my teachers, not the books, not the doctorate, and clearly not the supervisor. Victims, and they still are, after 50 years, I am still their student. It’s been the honor of my life to do that. Most of them eventually would ask me the big question. Where was God? I believed that he was present because he says he’s present everywhere. I believed he was with us. I believed he wanted healing in some measure for everyone. But I did not know what to say about where he was when they were being abused. Some of them for many, many years. One question. That question ran deeper through the years as I encountered deep and horrific suffering. Sorry, I have a contact lens that is not behaving. And I encountered it across the globe. When I was nine and ten years old, my family lived in Japan. And I still have extremely vivid memories of visiting Nagasaki and Hiroshima and seeing the shadow left by a girl of about nine years old, who was jumping rope when the bomb hit and killed a quarter million precious people. They were disintegrated. I have stood in a church in Rwanda full of bones, a place of expected refuge, locked in and then slaughtered. I have visited Poland and stood in Auschwitz and then Ghana. I have been to Cape Coast Castle, where 1000s of precious human beings were forced through the door of no return. Human beings created in the image of God, loved by Him treated like trash to get rid of. Where was God? Where is he now in the current ugly life destroying crises of today? Somewhere along the line of these 50 years, I told God one day that I was quitting. I’d had enough. I told him I didn’t want to do it anymore. I told him I didn’t understand him. And I couldn’t bear it. I was at the time, however, reading through the prophet Isaiah, and I came across these words in chapter 45, where God is speaking, I will go before you. Now listen, before you mean before you get there. And I will make the rough places smooth. I will shatter the doors of bronze and cut down the iron bars. I will give you the treasure of darkness and the hidden wealth of secret places so that you may know that it is I the LORD your God who calls you by your name. And that day, he began to teach me. First note he goes before. You think about that in this context of your life and what’s happened. The worst places, the terrifying places , the evil spaces and places that broke your heart and continue to do so. Wherever you have been. He says he went first Have you been crucified, rejected, left to die, if not physically, then at least emotionally, spiritually and crushed by someone in your life? He went before you. Have you been pushed aside and not believed? He has been there. He spoke, he told the truth, it was brushed aside, and he was told to shut up. Sound familiar? Have you been treated like trash, stripped of your dignity? He became trash. Or perhaps you have been humiliated, scorned, laughed at, and he has gone before you. The places where we think he is absent because we cannot even see a tiny sign of him; those are the places to which he has gone before us. He’s there. He’s in the darkness that you have faced, the pain that you carry, the absence of hope, humiliation, and shame. And the next thing he says is, I will make the rough places smooth. Let me help you get rid of the potholes, He says. The places that perpetually trip you up in your life. I can shatter the doors of bronze and the iron bars that lock you in and imprison you, destroy your freedom. Understand, he is not saying those things are not there. He is not saying they won’t happen. He is saying that he is the way in those places, and he has gone before, and he is truth, and he is light so that you can see what is really true. And discern the lies of other people, which they have poured into your mind. Lies about you lies about him. He’s saying I want you to learn the truth, that it is not your fault. I have taught that what comes out of a person comes from the heart of the person who does it. It does not come from the person it is done to. It is not coming from the person they are hurting. Rape comes from a rapist, not the victim. Child abuse comes from the perpetrator, never the child. He’s saying I don’t want you to carry the burden of their lives. And then he says this, I will give you the treasures of darkness. That phrase always fascinated me, and a hidden wealth of secret places so that you will know that it is I the LORD, dear God, who goes before, who calls you by your name. You know abusers don’t really care what your name is, you notice that? They just want to use you as a thing. They don’t name you and they do not get to say who you are. The one who goes before you names you. The one who goes before you is himself the treasure in the darkness. The one who cuts through the iron bars in your life and makes the rough places smooth. That one goes before you. He goes with you, and he calls you by name and he gives you a title of honor. He gives you a new name. No matter what has been done to you, you are the well-loved daughter or son of the King of kings. That is your identity. You will never encounter hatred or abuse that he has not borne. The destruction of prisoners in Auschwitz, the destruction of precious people in the so-called House of God of Rwanda, the killings and rapes in Ukraine. The abuse and humiliation and destruction you have mourn, you will encounter no evil, no humiliation, and no shame that has not touched him first. He also knows something of the weight of the great silence of God. When we long for God to protect us. He too has asked God, the God of the universe, why did you forsake me? Didn’t you ask that? Why did you not hear me? This is Jesus talking to God. Jesus has borne the full weight of the great silence of God. He was there before you. And He longs to greet you in those places that you most want to avoid. He will greet you with his scarred body. He goes before you, and he waits. You know what he does while he waits? He knocks on your door. I want you to think about that. He doesn’t force his way in. That’s what the abuser does, right? He knocks. He says, Behold, I stand at the door, he’s on the outside, and I knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I’ll come in and have supper. I knock, he says, he does not force his way and he doesn’t push. He stands, He knocks, and he waits. To push oneself into the life of another is a form of rape. He does not do that. It means to sneak in and steal, when you force yourself into a person’s life space. He knocks and he waits for your invitation, for you to open the door from your side, not his. And if you open the door, he just wants to have supper. How utterly unlike an abuser of any kind. Open, I will come in and I will share your dinner. And just to give you a peek, here’s a bit of what he might say to you over supper. Being an astute of course and observant psychologist, I am aware that everybody sitting in this room is a human being. I suspect that means different things to each of you, some good things, some precious and some painful. But let me tell you what it means in the eyes of God that you’re a human being. One you were deliberately created by God, and you bear his image. You’re here on purpose. You’re not an accident. I don’t care what humans did. You’re not an accident. You were knit together by the hands of the Father in your mother’s womb. Whether she liked the idea or not. And no matter how she got that way. He knit you together, you’re his handiwork. He who knit you loves you. You are precious in his sight and nothing on earth can take that away. No wrongdoing to you, no suffering, no mistreatment, no abuse, no disbelief can erase those truths. You may have been treated as worthless, but you are not. You may experience abuse, but you are precious to him. You may be ignored, but he sees you. The truths that I have stated cannot be undone. Not by any perpetrator. Because they are eternal truths. Perpetrators are not eternal. We say if he loves me, he would not have let it happen. He let it happen to his precious son who went before you. It happened to him, and God went silent and dark. He has gone before you. It is also true that he created you for Himself. He who knocks and waits actually wants you. He longs for you. And he not only created you, that longing is something that he has expressed in many ways. You may feel like trash, but you are treasure to him. Nothing can remove or destroy that truth. No abuse can make that untrue. That is also true if we’re honest that each of us must admit that we are hungry human beings right? Hungry for care, for love, for esteem, for kindness. Our Lord said something very strange to human ears. He said blessed are the hungry. So, if you’re hungry today for some good things, He says you’re blessed to be hungry. It doesn’t feel very good to be hungry. It doesn’t feel like a blessing. We would say, Blessed are the satisfied. We do not think of hunger as a desirable state in which to live. So, what does he mean? Well, first of all, hunger happens to be a sign of life, it means you’re not dead. He Who created us made us hungry. When you think about it, Adam and Eve lived in the middle of plentiful food. That was only necessary if they got hungry. Otherwise, why would they need food? There was food for the body in the garden. It was beautiful, food for the eyes, and God was there, which meant there was food for the soul. Hunger is a sign of life. And many of you here are hungry. It’s a sign of health. Because hunger draws on us to seek food. A dead person doesn’t feel hunger and does not desire anything. Hunger is meant to drive us to that which will feed us and help us live. Hunger, of course, as we see all around us, can also lead us to ingest poison. Any of you who have followed stories of famine, know how starving people will do things like start eating dirt, just to put something in their bellies. Some of you have been hurt and abused by powerful but starving souls who eat anything in their path, and they picked you. Proverbs 27:7 says that to the hungry person, every bitter thing is sweet. That means they’re all mixed up, right? Many of us have attempted to fill ourselves with things that were in fact bitter and poisonous to our souls, in order to quiet our own cravings and hunger. People use drugs, people use fame, they use pornography, they use wealth, they use powerful positions to stuff themselves. Many of you here have experienced great pain because hungry people have wrongly used you for their food, for their eyes, for doing what makes them feel powerful. Go back to Eden; there are still hungry people, but they’re also well fed. And God has alerted them to what was poison. And then this serpent guy comes in. And he basically says, Did God really tell you not to eat? Well, it’s of course, not what he said. God had told them to eat freely, and to avoid poison. Those were his instructions. But the poison looked good, you see. It was pretty, it fed the eyes and promised wisdom and fed the ego, and they chose to feed the body and you know, lots of people who live like that. Lots of people in the church who live like that, and it brings death. And what is God’s first response to hungry human beings who deliberately, against his say so, inject poison? Does he leave them to die? No. Does he abandon them for those who will listen? No, he pursues them. He says to each of you and to me, where are you? I want to find you. And in his response, he tells them of the relentless nature of his pursuit. God says, one will come someday who will crush the head of the deceiver, the one who tells us that poison is good for our souls. God says He will pursue us through the seed of the woman. Out of her self-inflicted deadness, He has brought us eternal life. Out of their ingesting a poison, He has brought us the bread of life. And so began God’s relentless pursuit of us in this veil of soul making and so it continues down through the years. He is pursuing the souls of men and women; he is pursuing you. And every person listening to me is an object of his loving but relentless pursuit. You, each of you, without exception, are of great value to him. You are the treasure that he seeks. All of this teaches us about the character of God that he’s wooing, pursuing. He’s the God who goes after each of us tirelessly. He pursues the hungry, the thirsty, the needy, the abused the poor. He woos the helpless, the frightened, the hopeless. He actually even pursues the satisfied by bumping their worlds until hungry, they find themselves also seeking. We hear of his pursuit through the parables of Jesus. He went to buy a field, so he might have the treasure that was in it. He sweeps the house looking for a coin and scours the hillside looking for lost sheep. He’s relentlessly looking for you. It is God’s nature to pursue. He cannot exist apart from his longing for you. You can’t separate them. Both are eternal. The hunger in God is not predicated on your behavior, your beauty, your success, your purity or your excellence. It is not based on anything in you. His hunger for you, he is pursuing of you, is simply who he is, and it cannot be changed. It will never die or fade. It is eternal because He is eternal. You are the treasure that He seeks. You are the one he loves and longs for perpetually. These truths also mean that any hunger that you feel, any restlessness that causes you to seek, is good when it is an instrument in the hands of God to drive you to himself. He longs for you to crave to desire to be dissatisfied. So that those uncomfortable and frightening experiences will drive you into his arms. Do not be afraid of your hunger. Its God given. He put it there so you would long for him. We think soul hunger is a problem to be solved. The hunger is not the problem. The hunger is actually a sign that you have life in you. The problem is that you and I, along with every other human being, are easily seduced. To believe there is nothing to eat, or to ingest poison, rather than to allow hunger to drive us after him. The pursuit of God, for your soul, is present and alive and active in your hunger. We don’t like hunger. That means feeling needy and incomplete and dissatisfied and vulnerable when we prefer full and complete and satisfied. Sadly, we will often settle for dirt rather than allow hunger to exist. That’s what perpetrators do; they settle for dirt. Even more sadly, we can be led to believe that the dirt is in fact beautiful and leads to wisdom. Silly creatures, we are, to prefer dirt to God Almighty. So, I can’t answer the questions that you have. I don’t know the answers. I don’t know why God allows abuse. He hasn’t told me. Believe me, I’ve asked him. I can’t answer the question, where exactly was he while I was being abused? Why did he let it happen? And where is he now as I suffer deeply and for a long time with the reality of that abuse and the ways that is infected my life like a poison? But I have learned this. He goes before us. Whatever you’ve had done to you, however you’ve been treated or trashed, He goes before. He has gone before for those who have been raped and abused. He has gone before for slaughtered Ukrainians. He has gone before us for the women brutally raped by ISIS. He has gone before the slaughtered Rwandans and the trafficked slaves at Cape Coast Castle. I have over 50 years seeing his work, not mine, His. and I have learned something of his character. None of us has gone somewhere where he has not already been. That’s impossible for it to happen. None of us can find darkness where he has not visited. There is no darkness that does not also hold the treasure of him. He is the treasure in the darkness. He went to hell. That’s about as dark as it gets, I think. He is our wounded scarred for eternity Lord. You understand that any scar that you have, and carry will be gone. His will not. Secondly, none of us has experienced abuse, hatred, trashing and humility that he himself has not known. He waits for us in those places, he has gone ahead of us. He wants us to know that what has been done to us will not triumph and he will be eternally scarred. And with that, so scarred hands, he knocks on the door, your door, asking entrance, longing to use his wounded body to heal your broken hearts and minds. You see, he is the treasure in your darkness, not just the darkness. I close with a poem by Amy Carmichael, you might have read for decades. Yet listen now. Oh, listen with a wandering olive tree and the white moon that looked between the leaves and the gentle earth that shuttered as she felt great drops of blood. All torturing questions cease in him who girds his soul to listen there. There only there, can we take heart to hope for all lost lambs. I even for ravening wolves. Oh, there are things done in the world today would route up faith. But for Gethsemane. For Calvary interprets human life. No path of pain. But there we meet our Lord. And all the strain the terror and strife die down like waves before his peaceful word. And nowhere but on that awful cross, and where the olive grows along the hill, can we explain and accept the unexplained, the loss, the crushing agony and hold us still. And nowhere is there a clearer vision given which pierces of bewildering providence and opens windows on highest heaven where we can see suffering omnipotence. There is a verse in Hebrews we’d like you to take with you. Chapter 12:3, consider him, him with the scars. Him who has gone before you. And consider means to ponder him to study him to examine him. Consider him who endured such hostility against himself from ruined creatures like us, so that you do not grow weary and lose heart. May God bless you. JULIE ROYS 33:34Wow, such powerful words and such an important reminder. It is so easy to lose heart and so easy to think God has forgotten us. But his son reminds us of God’s deep, deep love for His children. God has not forgotten. God sees and he will in the end gather us into his arms and wipe every tear from our eyes. Again, that was Dr. Diane Langberg speaking at the Restore conference, and you’ve been listening to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys, and if you’d like to support podcasts like these, please go to JulieRoys.com/donate. Also, just a reminder that if you give a gift of $25 or more in June, so you just have a few more days, we’ll send you a copy of Dr. Langberg’s devotional book, In Our Lives First. Also, if you haven’t already, please subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcast, Google podcast, Spotify or YouTube. That way you’ll never miss an episode. 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Guest Bios Show Transcript https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPa0mbgV30M Bullying is a huge issue in schools and workplaces. But what do you do when your bully is a pastor or leader of a Christian organization? Do you give a gentle word and turn the other cheek? Or, do you stand up and fight? On this edition of The Roys Report, we’ll hear from Paul Coughlin, a best-selling author and nationally recognized anti-bullying expert, as he speaks at the Restore Conference. In this eye-opening talk, Paul explains what makes bullies tick—and how to respond if you’re the victim of a bully. According to Paul, 85-percent of the population are not inclined to bullying. They’re generally nice if you’re nice to them. And if you give a gentle word, they’ll turn from their anger. But the other 15-percent are malevolent. They’re bullies. And being nice and gracious just makes things worse. What’s even more alarming: stats show these bullies do the most harm in professions that attract nurturing personalities. These include medicine, teaching—and ministry. Paul systematically peels back the spiritual manipulation and common deceptions that allow bullies to have free rein. This Week’s Guest Paul Coughlin Paul Coughlin is an author, an international speaker and the founder and president of The Protectors, which is dedicated to helping schools, organizations and communities combat bullying. His books include No More Christian Nice Guy, Raising Bully-Proof Kids and 5 Secrets Great Dads Know. Paul and his wife, Sandy, reside in central Oregon and have three teenage children. Learn more about Paul and his organization at www.theprotectors.org. Show Transcript SPEAKERS JULIE ROYS, PAUL COUGHLIN, SOLOMON ASCH SPEAKER 2, SOLOMON ASCH SPEAKER 1 JULIE ROYS 00:05 Bullying is a huge issue in schools and workplaces. But what do you do when your bully is a pastor or leader of a Christian organization? Do you give a gentle word and turn the other cheek? Or do you stand up and fight? Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And today you’re going to hear a message from Paul Coughlin, a best-selling author and nationally recognized anti bullying expert. According to Paul, most of the population are not bullies. They’re generally nice if you’re nice to them. And if you give a gentle word, they’ll turn from their anger. But studies show about 15% are malevolent. Paul says they’re bullies and being nice and gracious just makes things worse. What’s even more alarming is that these bullies do the most harm and professions that attract nurturing personalities. These include medicine, teaching, and ministry. And this eye-opening talk from the recent Restore conference, Paul explains what makes bullies tick and how to respond if you’re the victim of a bully. Paul does an awesome job of peeling back the common deception and spiritual manipulation that allows bullies free rein. I think you’re going to benefit so much from this presentation. But first, I want to thank the sponsors of this podcast, Judson University and Marquardt of Barrington. Judson University is a top ranked Christian University providing a caring community and an excellent college experience. Plus, the school offers more than 60 majors great leadership opportunities and strong financial aid. Judson University is shaping lives that shaped the world. For more information just go to Judsonu.edu. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity and transparency. That’s because the owners there Dan and Kurt Marquardt, are men of character. To check them out, just go to buyacar123.com. Well, again, what you’re about to hear is a fantastic message by Paul Coughlin from the recent Restore conference, Paul is an author, international speaker and the founder and president of The Protectors, a group dedicated to helping organizations combat bullying. His books include No More Christian Nice Guy, Raising Bully-Proof Kids, and Five Secrets Great Dads Know. Here’s Paul Coughlin. PAUL COUGHLIN 02:33 It’s great to be here. I have been a big fan of Julie’s for years. I used to be the editor of a newspaper, and I was a reporter, written eight nonfiction books. I know how hard it is to get to the facts. And it’s even harder to get to the truth. Well, a little about the Protectors here. We started out with adolescent bullying. I thought there must be a faith-based solution. And there wasn’t one. So, we created one. And I’m very glad to say that we have I have witnessed more than 8000 students publicly apologize for bullying and related behavior, including racism. So, we’ve been very fortunate to be part of that. And then we moved into workplace bullying. Done some work with the Baltimore Ravens football team. Main things we do with the Ravens is forgiveness work. There is something wrong with football culture. And the Ravens know it. It’s why we come in. And now we’ve been asked to come into the theater of spiritual abuse. Bullying and spiritual abuse go hand in hand, they’re often one of the same. We’ve been asked to be part of some of the former members of Mark Driscoll’s church in Arizona, working with some of them, including a family member. We’ve been also asked to go into the survivors of Applegate Christian Fellowship, which I know a lot about in Southern Oregon. I’m from Southern Oregon. I met my wife there, Sandy. So, I know a lot about Applegate. And you know what’s really sad? What just happened in there and I had an opportunity to speak earlier with Sandy and Paul. She’s part of the survivor group as well. You know, the sad thing is? There are more people who attend the survivor group than who attend an average church service. It ought not to be. Well, we’re here to talk about bullying, spiritual bullying. First, let’s talk about what it’s not. Bullying is not when you expect someone to fulfill their job description and you call them on it. Bullying is not expecting people to live up to a certain set of circumstances, responsibilities, and duties. So, when you call people on the carpet, who need to be called on the carpet, that isn’t bullying. Bullying is the new B word. We are calling bullying things that really aren’t bullying really sad, right? Because when it comes to people who are abused, roughly 75% don’t tell anyone. They suffer in deep silence. And so, when it comes to churches and schools and related organizations, when it comes to bullying, many people within administration, teachers, and so forth, they’re going down rabbit trails that really aren’t leading to bullying, that’s conflict, misunderstanding, miscommunication, that type of thing to people who can’t get along. All the while we should be spending precious resources, helping that kid come forward, helping the bystander come forward in schools, and churches as well. What bullying is, is really an imbalance of power, an imbalance of power. And bullies have great acumen when it comes to power. They’re very good at two types, real and perceived power. And in fact, they will tell you things that they think they know about you, but the kind of power that they have over you, which isn’t true. But because most people are not serial bullies, roughly 15% of a population tends to be malevolent. Because the vast majority 85% of people would never think about setting up another person. We don’t figure out the game. They’re gaming people. They’re gaming people, and they do that, in part through perceived power. So, it’s the superior use of power with the intention to harm another person. It’s not a one off. Multiple times, and for no justifiable reason, though they think it is justifiable to harm another person. Getting your feelings hurt every once in a while it hurts. Bullying abuses the harm. Paul made that distinction in one of his letters to the Corinthians. What I wrote, may have hurt you, but I didn’t harm you. It’s a very important distinction. Superior use of power with the intention to harm another person multiple times and for no justifiable reason. But there’s another portion to it that we need to add. There’s a lot of definitions about bullying. We include the following attribute. Audacity. Audacity means to take bold risks in a rude and mean way. Evil carries within itself, the seed of its own destruction. Evil carries within itself the seed of its own destruction. And when it comes to bullying, and when it comes to spiritual abuse, especially from an authority figure, that seed most of the time, is Audacity. It is their undoing. We need to accelerate that undoing because serial bullies don’t change. They say they change they don’t change. Even while holding a Bible in their hand, they are lying to you. All liars aren’t bullies, all serial bullies lie. It doesn’t matter if they have a Bible in their hand or not. And Sandy and Paul, I think we saw an example of this audacity there at Applegate Christian Fellowship, where I used to attend. There was a very fateful Sunday service. And some of you might be familiar with the video. I know more than just Sandy and Paul are where the leader of the church and his son John and Ben through the former wife under the bus. They said some of the worst things about that young lady. And let’s just say that even if they were true, you don’t say those things out loud. You keep them private. But they didn’t. It was an audacious thing that they did. And I believe it was the beginning of the undoing, because they’ve been doing a lot of audacious things. And I know people who have attended that church for over 20 years; they were there since the founding of the church. And one in particular, it was that event that audacious that bridge too far., that they said, timeout. This is wrong. More than saying it’s wrong. It’s a Popeye moment. They just said I’m going to do something about it. They made a big error. When you upset the women of a church, when you upset your wife, watch out. I think we saw that audacity there. And it’s important we point that out. When we view people, other people, we roughly view them one of three ways. When we have conflict, and we believe people are above us socially, we often express jealousy and envy. When we believe people are roughly equal, we express in conflict, usually anger. It’s hot, but it dissipates. That’s not bullying. That’s just conflict. Bullying comes from this. Where we express disdain and contempt toward people who we think are inferior, not important, not as valuable, not as loved, not as especially circled by God anointed, fill in the blank. That is where much of abuse comes from, and both the Hebrew and the New Testament forbid disdain and contempt because the father of life knows what it leads to. I was scheduled to speak in Rwanda on the 25th anniversary of the genocide. And I was asked to speak about the connection between bullying and genocide. In order to get to genocide, and we saw this with the Nazis as well, it starts with bullying. Bullying, sexual harassment, racism, genocide, all have this in common. In order to justify the assault on the other person, we must turn them into a less than, and they do it with great acumen as they get older. We must fight that as people of faith. Why do bullies do what they do? They do what they do because most are not motivated by self-hatred. They’re motivated by hubris. They’re motivated by arrogance. And one of the people who has pointed this out is Dr. Roy Baumeister. This article is in Scientific American. He asked the fundamental question, do people turn violent due to self-hate or self-love? We’ve been led to believe through the, to some degree cult of the self-esteem movement, that people do bad things because they feel badly about themselves. But that concept has really been challenged with recent and actually data that has been around for a lot of decades. We just don’t want to believe it. But your average bully hasn’t been abused any more than anyone else. The people who have low self-esteem are targets. They’re the ones who struggled throughout life. They’re the ones who have a hard time making lasting adult relationships. They’re the one with trust issues. They’re the passive aggressive ones, and they’re the ones who struggle with resentment. Resentment is the leading negative emotion that tethers people to drug and alcohol abuse. They’re the walking wounded, not the bullies. Because when you look at when bullies bully, when we look at the words they use their facial expression, the tone that they use, it is not one of brokenness, it is actually one of pleasure. It is pleasurable to dominate and to control another human being. I just gave you part of the definition of sadism. Why do they do what they do? Baumeister finishes his article this way, people who bully regard themselves as superior to others. Low self-esteem is found among victims but not among bullies themselves. We have been hoodwinked. By the way, what three groups have high self-esteem? Drunk drivers, racists and bullies. I would say high self-esteem is not serving our nation well, in that regard. In fact, in some Asian cultures, they don’t even have a word for high self-esteem. It isn’t something they value. I think our inability to spot a serial bully is similar to our inability to spot pedophiles, 20 something years ago or so. So, we believed for example, that pedophiles all of them had been abused, sexually abused. At the most 25%. We had this belief that pedophilia was a crime of opportunity. It isn’t. It’s a crime of habit. A pedophile will take a job with a church in a youth group across the country to get access to kids. Evil doesn’t look like evil. Bullying, and abuse doesn’t look like bullying and abuse. We’ve been hoodwinked and we need to wake up. As I said earlier, most serial bullies are narcissists. And this comes from the book The New Science of Narcissism. It’s a pretty cool book and it outlines three kinds of narcissists. We have the grandiose narcissist, which tends to attract people in politics for example, I will not name names. And then you have the wounded narcissist. And they tend to be attracted to the entertainment industry. And then we have a mixture of the two by far when it comes to ministry, the kind of narcissist who is attracted to ministry is going to be the grandiose, without a doubt. They’re the ones who create the most problems, and they’re also among the most to do a lot of harm. Does anyone want to take a guess which vocation that a bully does the most harm: medicine, teaching, ministry. That’s because they attract the nurturing personality, which is a blessing from above. The problem with the nurturing personality, most of the time, it doesn’t know how to handle a bully. And when you put a spiritual veneer upon it, it’s even worse. Well, if you just a general word turns away wrath, and if you’re just the nicest person in the world, it’s going to melt their heart and transform them. It doesn’t work. Again, you’re dealing with the 15%, not the 85%. They do a lot of damage. They have a lot of things in common. One of them is antagonism. All narcissists are antagonistic. And I believe I saw this at Applegate. When I attended there, it was the biggest church in Southern Oregon, by far. It’s where the cool kids went, right? So, he just went out to Jacksonville, he just followed all the cars. You got to an amphitheater; it was beautiful. But I was really disheartened by what I heard. I would hear multiple times, putting down the locals in the country. They would make fun of the locals for saying that the music was too loud, and the parking was too bad. And it was awful. And they would put them down over and over and over for complaining. I’m thinking, you know, people move out to the country to get away from traffic, to get away from noise. Hey, what about inviting them and not throwing them under the bus as well? I mean, I wondered to myself, would these people once they heard the message, would they be less or more likely to attend Applegate? There’s no way they would. But in the mind of people who have some degree of narcissism, their antagonism is justified. And it gets even worse in the church. Because the best antagonists do it with a smile on their face. They do it with a lilt in their voice. I used to say to people when I attended there, did you hear what was said? They didn’t hear what was said. If you saw a transcript of what you had said, you’d say, well, that’s kind of a mean thing to say. But it was said with such winsomeness that they didn’t catch it. And chances are you have someone in your life who has done that as well. The best bullies are the ones who do it, not with a snarl, but with a smile. They’re the ones who do most of the damage. They tend to be charming, at least at first, but it’s fleeting. It’s fleeting. People grow tired of the narcissistic personality and persona. And eventually they wear off because studies show initially they’re wonderful in a group. They do well, but their star fades. And I used to think in regard to some of the megachurch pastors who have been accused of abuse, that they were a victim of an insular culture. I no longer believe that with my work. anti-bullying work. I believe they want insular culture, because they don’t want to mingle with the average person. The average person they think is below them. If I have time, I’ll talk about my private dinner with Mark Driscoll. They believe they’re especially touched by God with special revelation. I saw this at Applegate, I started with their end times message or so called and times message. I wrote a book in response to that. They don’t look like bullies in public. They’re very good. I was there when they bought the radio station. I heard sermons on Sunday that let me tell you did not line up with behavior on Monday. And I’m being kind. They are very good at kissing up and kicking down. They kiss up to people who they think can give them something and they kick down to people in order to keep them under their thumb. They do not have integrity. Integrity is more than avoiding sin. Integrity means really to have balance. So, if the foundation over there were a little higher than that foundation, we would say this building lacks structural integrity because it’s out of balance. Integrity speaks to wholeness, not just avoiding sin. So, they’re very duplicitous, very duplicitous, and we must know that when we are contending with them, and we’re dealing with them. But one of the major characteristics that they have is arrogance. They often think that they are the fourth person of the Trinity. That’s how important they are. Lack of humility. It’s really what brings us into that arrogant world. So, I did have a private dinner with Mark Driscoll. And this is going to be equally as shocking. I was there to possibly partner on an anti-bullying effort. I just turned it up to 11. Yes, God has a sense of humor and and and irony. Indeed. I’m about as charismatic as Bob Newhart, right? So, I was surprised by how common he was. I expected something remarkable, even kind of memorable. I got a bunch of slogans. They just heard slogan after slogan after slogan. It’s like, you know, you’re a big name. Aren’t you supposed to be interesting? I didn’t say it, but that’s what I was thinking. And the one word that came to mind was glib. And by the way, glibness is a characteristic of narcissism and superficiality as well. The only good thing about the meal was that he paid for it, and it was a very good steak. So okay, that’s part one. Part two, how to stand up to a bully. You are contending with the 15% not the 85%. The usual rules don’t work with bullies. They don’t. To be nice, to be gracious, it makes things worse. They take your gentle spirit, your forbearing spirit, and they use it as a kind of utility. It has a lot to do. But the medievals called the sin of CA Pittacus, or the sin of the wolf. And the ninth level of Hell is reserved, I believe in Dante, for those who commit the sin of CA Pittacus and people are not burned, they’re frozen. And in Dante and the medieval thinkers, and we really need to keep this on our spiritual radar, what they told us is there’s a certain kind of person who only sees the value in other people in regard to their utility, what they can be bargained with what can be bartered for. So, people are only valuable to that kind of person in as much as what they can give them. But the problem is, they’re really good at the spiritual slogans, and they’re able to hide their nefarious plans through Bible words, and we need to change them. I’ve worked for two people who were both elders and deacons at churches that I went to. Serial bullies, absolute serial bullies, and one of them, we made the mistake of going to the church Applegate and those of us in the office were like, we can’t take this anymore. We need someone to intervene. Oy vey. So, we did get someone to intervene. We needed a Doberman Pinscher. We got a cocker spaniel. And when they walked through the door, I realized it’s over. He had already worked them. They were they were, you know, yucking it up all that kind of stuff. And we saw a very different behavior out of my boss when someone from the church was there. And it’s very similar to what Julie reported upon about that Florida radio station down if you remember that what she reported upon there? Where the workers thinking they’re being good Christians. Well, we’re going to try to work with this person and go to them privately and do that. The same thing happened there. When we did the same thing. And then after that guy left, who by the way, left his wife when he started a church in Hawaii, and ran off with the wife of another pastor there. The after he left, the screws were turned even harder on us, because we were dealing with the 15% not the 85. Narcissist don’t listen to peace, love and understanding. This is what they listened to. And please keep it in mind, power and consequences. What kind of power and consequences can you bring into their life? That is their love language, speak it regularly. Speak it regularly. You must have a bigger stick than them or they will not listen to you. I’ve been recording our conversation. I have a hidden camera on me. You didn’t notice it. Now you’re really looking. We rent out undercover equipment to targets of serial bullying, because we actually believe what the Bible says. That we are to be shrewd and wise as a serpent and innocent as a dove. This is how you beat them. This is how you get them. This is how you expose them. You must be a few steps ahead. Give up the usual Christian script that you have been given. They don’t follow it. And by the way, being wise as a serpent, I have heard countless sermons on what it means to be innocent as a dove. Have you ever heard one sermon on what it means to be wise as a serpent? Why is that? We are out of balance. Evangelical culture is uneven. I believe when it comes to abuse, it doesn’t mean to, but it tends to favor the abuser. I love what I think it was Henri Nouwen, I could be wrong. He said that the wisdom of serpents is that of the children of darkness, but minus the malice. And we get this in Luke chapter 16, don’t we? With the parable of the shrewd Manager, which we don’t read, because it’s not part of the NGB the Nice Guy Bible. Alright? The Nice Guy Bible, we only read the sweet stuff, as if the psalms are only full of sweets. Have you read the Psalms? Good Lord above? Lamentations? others? Revelation? It is a troubling scripture, Luke chapter 16. I believe it’s 16th parable of the shrewd manager. And he says something to the effect of I want you to be streetwise smart, but for what is good. Right now, there are children suffering from adolescent bullying, and they’re going to their teacher, they’re going to the administrator, they’re going to their parents, and they’re telling them but there’s no evidence. Here’s the evidence, wire that kid up and check with local statutes. Well, you say, well, I may not be illegal, I don’t know check with local statutes. They change. I’ve read them. Some of them allow for audio. Some of them don’t. Let’s say they don’t allow for audio. Let’s use the wisdom of serpents. Bring in a lip reader. Don’t admit the audio, bring in a lip reader to find out what that kid was saying to your kid, or to another kid or to the secretary at the church. Wisdom of serpents, very important. I was talking with Warren Cole Smith, what brought Driscoll down because his he had had a bad reputation for a long time. But what brought him down? And he told me it was documentation. It’s just there comes a point, you just can’t say anything you want. There comes a point, you have something that is black and white in front of you, and you can’t explain it away. Video is wonderful, except its full color. Chances are, you’re never going to change that serial bully. It’s just not going to happen. And it’s often a fool’s errand. If you don’t have a bigger bat than them, they’re just not going to listen. And when it comes to bullying, we need to remember something in standing up to bullies. And the Greeks had a great expression. They said only the gods are courageous in isolation. Only the gods are courageous in isolation. There’s a really cool study the Solomon Asch Conformity Experiment, has anyone familiar? I’m not gonna steal the thunder from this video. But it’s really funny and interesting, but it’s also telling let’s see if this works. SOLOMON ASCH SPEAKER 1 28:17 The experiment you’ll be taking part in today involves the perception of lengths of lines.. Your task is a very simple one. You’re to look at the line on the left and determine which of the three lines on the right is equal to it in length. All right, we’ll proceed in this order, you will give your answer. SOLOMON ASCH SPEAKER 2 28:35 Only one of the people in the group is a real subject, the fifth person with a white t shirt. The others are confederates of the experimenter and have been told to give wrong answers on some of the trials. The experiment begins uneventfully as subjects give their judgments. Two, two, two, two, two. But on the third trial, something happens. Two two, two, two, two. The subject denies the evidence of his own eyes and yields to group influence. Asch found subjects went along with the group on 37% of the critical trials. But he found through interviews, that they went along with the group for different reasons. One, one. They must be right. There are four of them and one of me. This subjects yielding is based on a distortion of his judgment. He genuinely believes that the group is correct. One, one, one, two one. I know they’re wrong, but why should I make waves. Two. In this case, the subject knows he is right, but goes along to avoid the discomfort of disagreement with the group. Here the distortion is at the level of his response. Two, two, two, two. In the previous experiment, the naive subject stood alone against the group. In this variation, Asch gave the naive subject a partner, here seated in the third position, who also gives the correct response. One, one, two, one, two. With a partner, yielding drops to only 5% of the critical trials compared to 37% without a partner. PAUL COUGHLIN 30:32 Isn’t that something? You know, Jesus sent the disciples out one by one initially. It wasn’t only till later he sent them out in two by two and what was the warning? Send you out like sheep among wolves. Be wise as a serpent, and innocent as a dove. Oh, by the way, I’m from Oregon. That looks like it was old. That was filmed in Oregon last week with those guys. Some pretty groovy looking dudes. Keep on truckin. Does anyone remember keep on trucking? It dates us, I know. But it means a lot. Yeah, when we have someone standing by our side, what does that mean? Don’t go it alone. You’re gonna get courage. You know, courage is almost as contagious as fear. Psychologically. If we go alone, and we, you know, movies are made of it, of course, right? That that lone person standing against the crowd, it’s a wonderful thing. It’s a beautiful thing. You have to be particularly wonderful, amazing person to pull that off. Most of us aren’t that amazing. Only the gods are courageous in isolation. We see this in Gethsemane, by the way. No, we need someone standing by our side. If you suspect you’re working with a bully, do not grant them access to your personal life. They want info and intelligence about you, and they will use it later against you. At the church that I went to I finally said to my wife, I said do not talk to him after church, because I would hear things three months later that weren’t really true. But he would say them anyway, to get me on my heels. Do not give them information about your life. If you need to just fog them. In the anti-bullying world, it’s an answer without an answer. You know, Jesus only answers something like five questions directly in the entire New Testament and entire Gospels. The majority of the time he doesn’t answer the question. He’s mute. And he asks a question of his own. By the way, when he was mute before Pontius Pilate, that was a capital offense, that was offensive, you could be killed for not answering. Jesus was not nice, he was good, huge difference. Niceness is almost always a knee jerk reaction to people pleasing. And then also, like Chicago voters push back early and often. Push back early and often. The sooner you push back against the bully, the better your life is going to be. The chances of changing them are so small, that it’s not worth your time and your energy. And if you’re older and you got kids and and a spouse, it’s gonna affect your family. It’s gonna affect them. More and more people are actually being sued for bringing someone into an organization, so now we’re talking about churches, for example, who have a tattered past, but when we hire them anyway. You could be opening yourself up to some legal consequences that you weren’t aware of and hiring for example, we can ask the following questions, how do you take criticism? What are the three of your Achilles heels? Tell me about the achievements that you’ve accomplished with others. That’s important because they don’t like sharing the limelight. And they don’t really think about other people as much as they should. They’re not humble. They’re not team players. You might be able to ferret them out with those questions. There’s a great resource that I highly recommend to all my administrators and schools and teachers. It’s called Necessary Endings by Henry Cloud. It will save you your lower intestine. He has a lot of scripts that you can follow, how to set up a meeting where you have strong parameters, to where you can get to a viable solution to a problem and sometimes as they say in the book, prison does people good. Prison does some people good. I’ve experienced bullying myself. My parents are Irish immigrants. My mom was probably bipolar. Not exactly sure. She never went to the doctor type of thing. So, I know I know abuse. And I’ve had a sibling who piled it on as well. I know what it’s like not to want to live another day. Never tried to take my life. I remember waking up as a kid going, I guess I was meant to live. I wasn’t looking forward to it. I’ll tell you that. So, I’ve done some healing. And one of the main things that we can do is realize that you are not crazy, and you need other people to give you an amen. Chances are, unless you’re an incredibly out of this world person, you’re not going to do it on your own. We need other people in our lives to help us, but we don’t need just anyone. We don’t need people who have knowledge. We need people who have wisdom. Wisdom is knowledge that is appropriately applied to the matter at hand. And when it comes to abuse when it comes to the 15%, the rules are different. They’re not the standard rules that Paul lays out in much of his writing because Paul, the wise man that he was, isn’t writing to the exception, he’s writing to the rule. He doesn’t have time to write to the exception, though sometimes he does. Wolves in sheep’s clothing, for example. So, he does write to it, but he spends most of his advice on the 85% because he should. There are the 15% it’s very different. So, when it comes to bullying in the ministry, which is what I was asked to speak about, there is a profound difference. Men tend to get angry, and leave. Women tend to stay and medicate. So, in the nearly 20 years that we’ve been doing this, of course, we start with adolescent bullying, but we’ve expanded, our advice in most cases, most of the time for women more than men, is get out if you can. Because you will, you might, you might probably experience the same level of damage as soldiers returning from war. You know, PTSD,. We’re dropping the D, which stands for disorder, right? And so, we’re seeing more and more, it was never a disorder, it’s an injury. There’s nothing wrong with the person in that case. So be very careful. Be very careful. I’d love how in America, we’ve been able to make health care a little more portable, so you’re not married to a job to get health care, you know, so that’s a great move. So, if at all possible, really see, it may not be worth your time. By the way, when I speak in schools, to young ladies, I do think this world is harder on women than men. I’ve seen it myself, I’ve seen it done to my mom, to my sisters. People may have tried to do it to my wife, and that would not go down well. My wife could teach assertiveness training classes. But I think it is harder, you have a more accommodating spirit. And that is a gift from God. It gives the world flavor and texture and leaven. And there are malevolent people who want to take advantage of that spirit. So, I speak to students in school; the girls, I’ll say, you know, no is one of the most spiritual words you will ever say. Your no is true, because you said it true. You don’t need an Amen, you don’t need the other person to agree with you, you know is true, because you said it’s true. And if other people don’t go along with it, you don’t want them in your life. I call it opening a can of Jesus. We need to speak the truth in love which I think is opening a can of Jesus. But I don’t think we allow our daughters to do that. We need to change that. Because I see them on the other side of getting bullied. You’ve been lied to, and you’ve been gaslit. And one of the ways they do it is through redefining words. I spoke at Harvest Academy, probably six months or a year maybe after disgraced James McDonald and his and the nepotism that was there, right? I was there I was there afterward, speaking at the school, speaking with the people who run the school administration, they looked like they had been through a war. In fact, during the teacher presentation, I said serial bullies should never be allowed back into ministry into leadership ever. They don’t change. And what was remarkable is the teachers who looked like they’d been through a war, and I didn’t mean for this to be the case, but it did happen. I saw people physically shake when I said that. I thought man, I may have messed up. So, I was talking to the principal afterward and I said, did you see that? She said, Yeah, I saw it. And she said no one in some level of authority has actually ever told them that. What I spoke to them wasn’t knowledge. It was wisdom. If I It said knowledge I would say a gentle word turns away wrath. That’s knowledge but it’s not wisdom for the 15%. One of the ways that he had gaslit people is and I heard about him yelling down hallways and screaming at people. He would say, I’m not angry, I’m passionate. Bullying 101 gaslighting, you see someone in front of you who is a volcano, and they call themselves passionate.. Gaslighting it’s on purpose. Again, not all liars are bullies, but all serial bullies lie every one of them. Forgiveness is complicated. When I worked with the Baltimore Ravens, I’d give out this little booklet called How do I forgive by Everett Worthington, Jr. Highly recommend this very small little booklet and he talks about how forgiveness I mean, we are we’re commanded to forgive. That is a booger. How do you forgive a serial abuser? He says that a forgiveness is like two scoops of ice cream on the same cone. One is emotional forgiveness. You actually have warm feelings toward the other person. The other one is decisional, decisional. He said that he believes, he’s a Christian psychologist, that in order to fulfill the commandment that we need decisional forgiveness, we were not required to have warm feelings toward the person who abused us. And then I love with Martin Luther King said, there’d be no protectors without King. He felt that forgiveness was a process. I’ve been speaking a lot mostly in North America across the world. And I have met people who have the gift of faith. And I’ve met people who have the gift of forgiveness. I don’t have either one of those things. I want to fight someone if they do something, right? I’m not saying it’s right. But I don’t have those gifts. But I love those people when I meet them. They’re not simplistic. They’re simple. Simple is a virtue. Most people I don’t think have that. So, forgiveness is a process. It doesn’t happen overnight. For many of us. We’ve been given a mixture of the secular and the sacred when it comes to advice against bullying. Does this ring a bell? Consider it all joy. That was told to me by a pastor two days after my mom died in horrible circumstances. All is forgiven by the blood of Jesus. Forgive and forget. We’re not supposed to judge. absolutely not true. Have you read the book of Proverbs? Only a fool doesn’t judge. I think what we’re being told here is we’re not to condemn. I think that’s left to God and God alone. Ultimate condemnation. It’s not up to us. Don’t question God’s anointed. We should see the best in people not the worst. I’m so happy that these people these Christians do not dictate American foreign policy. We would be always speaking another language some of these people. A gentle word turns away wrath. It didn’t with Hitler. We are never told from that scripture that it’s the only thing that turns away wrath. A weapon can turn away wrath as well. That is knowledge not wisdom. Heap burning coals upon their head, turn the other cheek. I have before you an article I wrote for ACSI. It is the most tortured scripture in the theater of bullying. Turn the other cheek. It has to do with a generous spirit. It doesn’t have to do with accepting abuse. And then finally, let’s keep in mind that we have been tethered to our abusers, unfortunately. Through some very bad spiritual advice, we’ve been told that we are somewhat responsible for their spiritual transformation. They experienced it in the workplace, in the name of Christians, for example, we would have we would have Bible studies. And does anyone want to take a guess? But the really the only Bible study was that we had? Slaves obey your masters. Well, that sounds good, but I don’t think I’m a slave. And then we were told that we were part of his spiritual covering, and part of his blessing. So, I left my job. He said, well, I can’t bless you or give you my covering. And I said, that’s fine, because it never existed in the first place. That was one of the few things that shut that very big mouth of, of that person. So, in a strange way, we’ve been tethered and please know that you are not responsible for their spiritual transformation. That is between them and their Lord. And then we are targeted from bullying. The problem is, people who are targeted, the bully just doesn’t respect. And you probably aren’t going to get them to respect you. By pleading with them, you’re certainly not. You might get some respect by putting up strong boundaries. You probably will but that too may not change them either. I did want to say a word about anger. We believe in the church; anger is always sinful. That is completely not true. I remember Timothy Keller opening my eyes when he was saying some of us are sinning when we don’t get angry. And then I think for abused people, I would encourage you, and I’ve gone through this in my mind, there comes a point, it’s not anger anymore. It’s indignation. Indignation means much to grieve. You’re probably grieving after the first hit, you know, after the first thing you’ve had time for things to settle down, it’s probably not anger, it’s grief. And we treat those things very differently. And what I would encourage you to do, and I needed to do it is be better to yourself. Because we who fall on the 85%, we tend to be nice, and we tend to go after ourselves. Be good to yourself. Father, thank you. I thank you personally, for this. It is a sacred moment, to be able to speak into the lives of other people. And it has been my hope and prayer for months, that it would be wisdom, not knowledge, that it would put a courage into the soul of the people here, many of them on the receiving end of abuse. You did not give us a spirit of timidity, but power, love and self-control. We know that you are merciful. We know that you love us. But what we also need is hope. Hope is more important than love when it comes to beat up people. We need hope that tomorrow, the next day or the next month, could be better. And Lord, you have created a universe, you’ve created a world where we are the hands and feet of hope as well. So, I pray that we would come together, we would move past our own worlds and our own selfishness, and that we would minister to one another, and that we would provide that hope. Because without that hope all dark omens become possible. So, thank you, Lord. Help us be your hands and your feet in this incredibly important time. And please keep your hand upon this conference as well. And for months to come for those who are here. It’s through your son we pray, amen. JULIE ROYS 47:21 Well, that was an eye-opening talk by author and anti-bullying expert Paul Coughlin. And I want to affirm what Paul said about hope. I do believe things are changing, more and more bullies are being called to account. But as I’ve often said, this is a marathon, not a sprint. So, I think we really need endurance as we continue to expose bullying and abuse and work for reform in the church. Speaking of which, I want to ask for your prayers and support as we continue our work here at The Roys Report. I know a lot of conferences sell their conference talks; we’ve decided not to do that. But instead to offer these talks completely free of cost. But of course, ministry requires resources. And as I often say, we couldn’t do any of the work that we do at The Roys Report without your support. So, if you’d like to give to this ongoing work, please go to JulieRoys.com/donate. Again, thanks so much for listening to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And if you haven’t already, please subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcast, Google podcast, Spotify or YouTube. That way you’ll never miss an episode. And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks so much for joining me today. I hope you were blessed and encouraged and equipped to stand against bullies. Read more

Guest Bios Show Transcript https://youtu.be/ovjUkR4_RZ8 How do you heal when you’ve been hurt and traumatized by those who profess Christ—when both Christians and church seem incredibly unsafe? In this episode of The Roys Report featuring a message from the Restore Conference, professional psychologist Dr. Philip Monroe addresses trauma, healing, and barriers to helping others going through the healing process. Maybe you’ve experienced trauma and you feel stuck. You feel exhausted from trying to answer the “Why?” question. And though you may need human connection, all you want to do is isolate. Or maybe you’re in a helping position. Your spouse is experiencing truma, or your friend, or someone you’re pastoring or counseling. You want to help, but everything you’ve done seems to backfire. If any of those describe you, you are going to benefit from Dr. Monroe’s message. He addresses these issues head-on, drawing on his decades of clinical experience and biblical wisdom. This Week’s Guest Phil Monroe Philip Monroe, PsyD is a psychologist who leads Langberg, Monroe & Associates, a private clinical practice in the greater Philadelphia area. He is the Taylor Visiting Professor of Counseling at Missio Seminary where he and Dr. Diane Langberg founded the Global Trauma Recovery Institute. In addition, he provides direction to the Trauma Healing Institute at American Bible Society. His personal and professional musings may be found at philipmonroe.com.  Show Transcript SPEAKERS JULIE ROYS, MARY DEMUTH, VIDEO, PHIL MONROE JULIE ROYS 00:05 How do you heal when you’ve been hurt and traumatized by those who profess Christ when both Christians and the church seem incredibly unsafe? Welcome to The Roy’s Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And today you’re going to hear another outstanding message from the recent Restore conference. It’s by professional psychologist, Dr. Phillip Monroe, on trauma and healing and barriers to helping others going through the healing process. Maybe you’ve experienced trauma and you feel stuck, you feel exhausted from trying to answer the why question. And though you may need human connection, all you want to do is isolate. Or maybe you’re in a helping position, your spouse is experiencing trauma or your friend or someone you’re pastoring or counseling. You want to help but everything you’ve done seems to backfire. Friends, if any of those describe you, you’re going to benefit so much from Dr. Monroe’s message. He addresses these issues head on drawing on his decades of clinical experience and biblical wisdom. I’m so excited for you to hear from Dr. Monroe. But first I want to take a minute to thank our sponsors, Judson University, and Marquardt of Barrington. Judson University is a top ranked Christian University providing a caring community and an excellent college experience. Plus, the school offers more than 60 majors great leadership opportunities and strong financial aid. Judson University is shaping lives that shaped the world. For more information, just go to Judsonu.edu. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity and transparency. That’s because the owners there Dan and Curt Marquardt are men of character. To check them out, just go to buyacar123.com. Well, again, what you’re about to hear is a message on trauma and healing by Dr. Philip Monroe. Dr. Monroe leads the private clinical practice Langberg, Monroe and Associates. He’s also the Taylor Visiting Professor of Counseling at Missio Seminary, where he and Dr. Diane Langberg founded the Global Trauma Recovery Institute. Here’s Dr. Monroe. PHIL MONROE 02:22 A traumatic event can last just a second or two. Or it can be that slow burn over decades. No matter the length of time, no matter the length of time. It’s not what happened, it’s the experience and the effect it has on us. That tsunami that devastates every part of our lives. Trauma doesn’t just devastate individuals, though, does it? It devastates families, communities, churches. That is what trauma does to us. And it leaves us with two enduring unwanted legacies. The inability to answer the why question. Why did this happen? Most of us who have gone through a traumatic event and have this enduring legacy experience in our lives, we are left with that haunting question. It comes out in different ways. But it’s basically trying to make sense of the insensible. What happened? What really happened? Is that really what happened? And you know, behind that question of why is almost always self-condemnation. What did I miss? What did I do? Could I have done it differently? We’re trying to make the nightmare turn out different. There’s a second enduring question that we’re left with. And that is, how do I get out of this hell? There’s got to be a way out. There’s got to be a secret door. A technology a treatment, something that will get me back to some place before this trauma happened. And for some of us, of course, it’s a lifetime. So, there’s no getting back to, but we see other people who seem to have a peace that we don’t have, and we want it. And so, we vacillate from asking the why question, to finding out where is the secret door out of this hell that we have? That is the challenge we have in recovery. You know, it’s interesting. In the church, we haven’t talked about it very much, have we? It’s only a recent thing. It sometimes begs the question why? Why haven’t we talked about trauma and its enduring legacy? It’s actually not a very rare thing. Most of us in our lifetimes, we will experience earth shattering events that change the course of our lives. So why haven’t we talked about it? Maybe it’s because we really love the redemptive redemption stories. We love the happily ever after, the get to heaven moments. And it’s a lot harder for us as individuals and as a church family, to sit with the scars and the wounds that we bear in this life. The good news, of course, is we’re all here. That means we’re talking about it. We are in unprecedented times. Thanks be to God, right? A lot of work to be done yet. A lot of work to be done yet. This gives us some hope, but we have some work. So, in this presentation, we’re spending today a little bit more on the educational side, and that’s something I love. I’m an academic, and an educator, but I recognize in this room, some of you are not necessarily here because you’re learning how to help others, but you’re trying to find some stable ground yourself. You’re more than welcome. And when we look at the last passage that I want to look at, at the end, you’ll see why. You are the future for us as a faith community. Some of you are the helpers, the allies. Maybe you’re in church ministry, maybe you’re a mental health professional. We’ll be speaking to you today, primarily. Some of you, of course, are both. Well, how are we going to proceed in this talk? I’m going to take a few minutes to go through what is trauma, move to how do we heal, and then we’re going to look at some of the challenges we have on that healing journey, right? I’m going to use very simple language. There’s a lot of wonderful writings, academic research, clinical work on trauma. I’m not going to replicate that. And there’s a reason for that today. We need simple language that we can communicate to anybody about the nature of trauma, and how we go about the healing journey. We’re not going to be simplistic; we are going to be simple. And the reason is, is we need to cut through the confusion that trauma brings in our lives. So, we’re going to talk about it rather simply. But I hope you’re left with some things that you can practically do, and things that you can know about yourself as a helper that will help us along the path. This talk is talking about barriers and challenges. But I’m going to give you a hint about what the answer is for us helpers. We helpers tend to be the biggest barrier and challenge in the process of healing. There’s a lot to know, I’m all for knowing more. There’s a lot of skill out there. I’m all for developing our skills. But you heard from Dr. Langberg. It is the character and the personhood that’s most likely going to do damage to other people, not what you know and what you can do. So, with that, I want to start with a short video. It’s about a minute long. And I want as you watch this video, just to take in, what are you noticing about not just the words that they use, but the affect of the video and what surprises you? VIDEO 09:18 What do you think of when you hear the word trauma? You might think of terrible events like violence, abuse or disaster. When we hear the word trauma we often think about cause, but trauma is actually the effect of events like these. Trauma is a wound of heart and mind that causes deep suffering, that leaves us feeling overwhelmed and disconnected. And it takes a very long time to heal. It hurts every part of us, our relationships, our bodies, our thoughts, and our faith. Often trauma sends shockwaves through entire families and communities. And because suffering is part of the human experience, we are all vulnerable to trauma. But God is with everyone who suffers. God feels our pain with us, and God wants to help us heal. That is why we have hope. Whenever there is trauma, healing is always possible. PHIL MONROE 10:29 What did you notice? What did you notice about this? I know the ending is a point, a pointer to healing. But in the beginning, what did you notice? We often, when we go through events that are traumatic, start comparing right away. This event doesn’t seem like it should have this much impact on my life, right? Or maybe it’s not as bad as what somebody else went through. How many of you have gone through terrible suffering and some friend says, at least? And whatever they say next, doesn’t matter, because it’s going to be painful, hurtful and wrong. Trauma is an experience; it leaves a lasting deep wound of the heart. And it reverberates and shatters our lives. It makes it difficult for us to connect to ourselves, connect to others who care about us, and of course connect to God. There’s no comparison in this, is there? Simple language right, to understand what is trauma? A little bit more detail, of course. What creates this experience is usually some horrific event that happens. It creates horror in us. We have found our voices have been silenced. We don’t know how to escape from it. We can’t seem to use our God given voice power, ability to make a difference in what’s happening to us. Many times, a traumatic event is like watching a car crash in slow motion. It’s happening. We can’t believe it’s happening. And it seems there’s nothing we can do to stop it. As a result of this kind of thing, we find that we are re-experiencing this event. Remember that why question? Why question we keep reliving parts of it maybe through nightmares, through intrusive thoughts, through other feelings. We keep re- experiencing. And of course, no one wants to re-experience trauma. So, what do we try to do? We try to shut it down, we numb, we try to not think about it, not feel what we’re feeling. We can numb in all sorts of ways; throw ourselves into work, we can throw ourselves into various things that will stimulate us away; can be drugs, and alcohol or sex, or anything that causes us not to have to remember. But you know, the numbing doesn’t really work very well. So, it leaves us always on alert, hyper vigilant, looking for it, expecting it. We remain in that state as if it can happen at any second. And in fact, it feels like it’s happening at any second because we are still re-experiencing it. It’s not just in our heads, our whole bodies are affected. Maybe you’ve even seen this very simple diagram to understand what happens when we are triggered into a trauma re-experiencing. Ever seen the hand/brain analogy? Your two hands are two sides of your brain, right? That brought together. But let’s look at this one lobe of your brain. Well, we have the corpus callosum. That’s the part that kind of helps you know where you are. Hopefully you know that you’re at Judson University today. Hopefully you’re thinking about what you’re going to have for lunch, and who you’re going to talk to. You’re aware of your present surroundings. Your mid brain represented by your palm is that part that is processing what’s going on. A lot of our emotional processing is in this area. And again, this is very simplistic right? Your brain stem is the part that’s really more of the reaction, you don’t have a lot of control of your autonomic parts of your body and your brain, right? Well, when you are feeling good and connected, you’re able to look around, you’re looking for people to connect to, to feel safe with, you’re actually feeling pretty good. You can make eye contact. But when a trigger happens, this part of the brain goes offline, the thinking part the processing and you’re flooded with emotion. And in that time, when you’re flooded with emotion, some of us go into fight and flight mode. It can be everything from I’m going to clean my entire house right now because I have to do something because if I stopped for a second, I’m going to fall into a pit. Others of us are running and running from people trying to isolate. If that continues, it often goes into a place where we freeze. We lock up, we fall into that pit. Later on, when we’re not feeling that and our frontal lobes and our corpus callosum comes back online, we’re able to talk about what happened. But all of that cognition, those words, don’t really help us necessarily avoid that reaction again. That’s what’s happening with us. That is what trauma is for us. And guess what? When we go through this, it leads to a couple of things. One, we feel shame. We feel as if not just that something bad happened to us; is that we are bad. We are desecrated. We are contemptible. This is what shame does to us as an enduring reaction to what’s been happening to us. The second thing that happens is spiritual struggles. You cannot have a tsunami wave strike your life in your community, and not question everything. Spiritual struggles start with the questioning, and a discontent with the answers that you once were able to come to. This is especially true in our churches, right, the answers about what we think about what God cares about or what the church cares about, or anything that has to do with our spiritual understanding. We will go through this discontent and rethinking through those things. And the question, of course, is, are our church communities’ safe places for that to happen? Are we allowed to have uncomfortable questions? Are we allowed to bring our complaints to God? To ask him where were you? Why have you abandoned me? Do the dead praise you? )Psalm 88) Rather sarcastic words, right? Are we allowed to do that? I want to say one more thing about what is trauma before we move into how do we heal and that is most of us have experienced actually two injuries, not one. There’s the first injury of the thing that happens to us that starts us in this trauma experience. The second injury was mentioned by Mary, which is when those around us who love us, tell us it’s not happening. That tell us it’s not important. Tell us to be quiet. Tell us that we must be confused. That second injury for many people is the most damaging injury. We can somehow put our heads around the fact that somebody wanted to hurt us. But it’s really hard to put it around that our whole community thinks that we should just go away and be silent. So that’s trauma. The question is, how do we begin to heal, and the hint of this healing starts with connection, reconnection. Watch this next one minute video. MARY DEMUTH 18:17 When something terrible happens in our lives, it can cause a deep kind of suffering, called trauma. Trauma overwhelms our ability to make sense of what happened to us. So, we try to run away from it, or hide it away, or pretend we’re fine. Trauma makes us feel alone, like no one can ever understand. And no one can help us, not even God. But no matter what we’ve been through, God truly does understand. And people can help. When we open up to others and God about what happened to us, and how our trauma makes us feel, we can begin to heal. Like a physical wound, trauma takes a long time to heal, and it will leave a scar. But when we bring our trauma into the light, it does get better over time. And day by day, we can reconnect with others and with God, we can experience less suffering and more comfort, and we can find peace. PHIL MONROE 19:19 The one thing I want you to notice in that video is the necessity of connection as part of the healing journey. We rarely can find the peace and the healing we need when we are isolated. I think that’s what draws us to a conference like this right? We need to know that somebody else also sees, somebody else has also been there. And maybe a few steps ahead of us and it gives us hope and encouragement that it’s possible to continue to write the narrative of our story, to begin again. Part of the healing journey is a reversal of the trauma experience. So, think for a moment, what does trauma bring? It usually brings confusion, chaos, isolation, horror, disorganization, ugliness into our lives. If we are going to begin the healing journey, then we need to be thinking about how do we reverse some of those experiences? Where do we find the beauty, the predictability, the order, the power, as experiences? And that’s going to be something that we need to do over and over again. A hint to those of you who are trying to help people heal, you cannot control somebody into recovery. You may have beautiful ideas for how they should function, what they should do next. Lovely, but you cannot become a dictator. A dictator is how they were hurt. A benign dictator is no better than one who had ill intentions. Brene Brown uses a term called near enemy, maybe you’ve heard this term, you know? Where we are pursuing a good thing but using a tool to get there that actually causes the damage. Control is the near enemy of healing. So, this common pattern, and I’m not going to spend much time on this, you can read Dr. Langberg’s book on counseling survivors of sexual abuse. And even if that’s not the nature of the trauma in your life, or the person you’re trying to help, it has the same pattern. To heal, we begin first by finding ground. This means finding a way to stabilize the things in our life, putting back that predictability, finding places for beauty, finding places to begin again, right? The good things that help us sleep, eat properly, right? Find a few safe people that we can relate to. That’s the beginning of the healing journey. And of course, that will continue on. But as we are then able to feel more grounded, we’re able to start processing what happened to us, talking about it, trying to understand where the narrative we were given about it is wrong and needs correction, how to re-experience life, this side of trauma. And as we go through that process, we will then start finding ways to reconnect, to step back out into our communities. Again, I’m simplifying something there. But that’s the general trajectory of the healing journey. It is a repetitious pattern. Think about this, if you blew out your knee, and you needed to start with PT, you wouldn’t get there in a day, would you? And it would hurt awfully. At first, you wouldn’t see much progress. And you’d wonder why am I going? It just hurts more. And if you have a good person leading your PT, they are going to try to minimize the pain and show you the micro growth that you’re on. You wouldn’t know though yet where it will end. Will I be able to run again? Will I be able to play basketball? Will I have full range of motion? What’s coming? I don’t know yet. But that’s part of the journey that we’re on in healing, right? So, think about this, whether you are a survivor or a helper. How do we walk together in this journey? Well, this is where we want to start talking about some of those barriers and challenges. So first, I want to talk to those of you who are on the healing journey. Again, lots of books that you can read, lots of helps out there. I’m not going to repeat those. I want to give you three simple things that are really hard to do. Number one, increase your self-compassion and your acceptance of the journey that you’re on, that you never wanted to be on. You remember that first question we asked? We asked the why question we often come back to what’s wrong with me, what am I doing wrong? There must be something about me. Self-compassion is rather foreign to most people who are going through the journey of recovery from trauma. The more you can do that, the more you accept what’s happening inside your bodies, the more that you can accept the things you can and cannot do right now, the place that you’re in. Acceptance and self-compassion of the new features in your story that you never wanted, but you’re beginning to develop, right? Again, this is what you can help with a friend, if you’re a friend, how can I help and encourage that self-compassion? It’s so easy to go to the beat up. And you know what we helpers sometimes encourage that beating up. You know, if you just dot dot dot, right? Why don’t you do this? This idea that, you know, you obviously just aren’t taking care of yourself, right? So, start with self-compassion, acceptance. Part of that acceptance is accepting the fact that you’re on a grief journey. Again, a grief journey that you never want it to be on, but you must acknowledge and go through. That means allowing those waves of grief to hit you, to recognize them, to name them for what they are. And they can come in surprising ways. You might even find them more surprising after you’ve made some healing. I think I’m better. And then one of those waves of grief hits you in the back when you’re not noticing, right? Acceptance. That’s right. This is what happens in the recovery process. The second thing I want to tell you to do is to be thinking about curiosity. Do you know when we have shame, we rarely have curiosity about ourselves, because we just want to cover up and hide. It’s people who struggle with shame, sometimes even struggle just to look themselves in the mirror. But can you begin to have curiosity about yourself? What makes things 10% better? What makes things just a little bit better? You know, a little bit better doesn’t seem like much; it might not seem like even enough, right? But if I can make 10% today, and I can do that again tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, then that curiosity will actually result in fruit that helps you recover more quickly. Obviously, you need a friend to talk about that. What worked? What helped? What made that better? What took me out of that spin that I was in that spiral down and help pull the parachute? Can I find that again? Curiosity about yourself. The third thing I want to say to you about sort of this healing journey is that recognition, and this may be a little controversial, but that you’re seeking justice, which is an absolute good thing, is discrete from your healing journey. Sometimes justice seeking delays your healing journey, right? Because it puts you in places where people are going to say and do awful things to you about you. This is not to say you should not seek justice at all. Justice is something that’s deeply connected to God’s heart. It’s a good thing. But it is not the same thing as your own healing journey. And we need to separate them, because in this life, we may not see the justice that we’re looking for. And we don’t want those who already stole from us, to steal more from us by not responding well. Again, that’s conversation that you’re going to need to have with those who are walking with you. How do I navigate the seeking of justice, and my own healing? So those are some of the challenges for those of us who are on the healing journey. I want to now turn to those who are the helpers. You’ve heard me say this already. But we tend to be sometimes the biggest challenge, the biggest barrier. So, I’m going to give you three things as well, that I want you to think about, to help remove those barriers that we create. The first one is I want you to think about this as your number one job. Listen, listen, listen, listen, learn and lament. This is your number one job. It is not so much what you know, but who you are with that person that you’re journeying with. So, listen to them. They are the expert, not you. They are the expert on what’s going on inside their bodies, what’s going on in their communities, what’s going on, and how they relate to the world. Listen to them. Learn. Learn what helps. Stop talking. Listen. You know, sometimes we see that it’s really hard for us to listen and not say stuff. I used to train counselors regularly. And we would give them a 10-minute time to just start listening to somebody in the class, one of their classmates talk about something going on their life. Many of them found that waiting 10 minutes without saying anything was like asking them to leap across the Grand Canyon. I can’t do that! I’ve got to jump in there, I’ve got to save them. Be a student of suffering, of resilience, of growth that’s happening in them. Be a student of your temptations to talk. The second thing I want you to do is like the first. Slow down. We get into a rush. We get into a rush to get to healing. It’s for good reasons. We want people to not be in pain. We want to help them. And so, we start explaining, exhorting, instructing, encouraging. But we’ve all been in that place where we are a mess, right? Where we are in confusion. And it’s sort of like that Charlie Brown where the parents are wha, wha wha, wha, wha. And it’s just words. What drives you to speak when you should listen? I want you to think about that for a minute. I’m going to give you a few seconds of silence. Think about that moment recently, where somebody was in pain, and you felt the urge to say things. What drove that? Oftentimes, what we say in that matter, in that moment, is more for ourselves than for the other person. It’s to comfort ourselves, it’s to help us ground ourselves. We think we’re speaking for them. But maybe it’s for us. Maybe it reveals that we really have an urge to be a messiah, to be a savior, to be a fixer. Sometimes that’s because we haven’t figured out how to fix stuff in our own lives. So, if I can help you have less chaos, I feel better about myself. Frankly, that’s what drives most of us to be leaders in the church. We’re trying to solve things for other people. So, it solves things for us. Sometimes, it’s because we like the feeling of being in charge. We like the power that we’re given when somebody’s really hurting and they just say, you point the way. It makes us feel special. So, listen, learn, lament, slow down. The third thing I want to tell you, as a helper has to do also with you but with the whole community. I want you to start asking the questions about what in our communities are we erecting as barriers to people’s healing? The first barrier that I want to identify is actually something you might think oh, no, I don’t have that problem. Prosperity theology. Now we know about what some people call prosperity theology. If you tithe a little bit, you’ll get a whole lot of money back. We have many other kinds of prosperity theologies. If you do these things, you will have a more peaceful life. Do you know Psalm 23? It’s a favorite right? We should know it. We know from wading through the valley of the shadow of death to still waters, isn’t that lovely? a table spread before you with a feast. Do you know what’s in that Psalm? Enemies who want to kill you! They got spears behind you! Imagine this, you’re having a nice feast. Great food looks behind you. Oh, bow and arrow spears. Those people want to kill me. Right? So, guess what? One of our theologies is we don’t do well with understanding what life looks like in the struggle. What does faith look like when you’re full of fear and panic? We often think well, if you’re full of fear and panic, then you’re not having faith. I don’t agree. What does faithful living look like in the midst of despair? A third of our psalms are lament psalms that bring these messy, difficult questions to God and say, you need to answer this. Where were you? Why did you abandon me? Psalm 89, you broke your promise to me. Things that we often say, you shouldn’t be talking that way to God, that’s complaining. Seems like God invites our complaints. Does our faith community allow for that kind of community lament? When’s the last time your community has done a public corporate lament? I asked this question last week at another community of faith or conference where there was quite a few represented, they did a poll. It was kind of interesting technology. I think I had about 130 responses, and about eight people said their church had ever had a lament service. And these were all church leaders. We don’t know how to do this. All right? When’s the last time your congregation even talked about trauma and the enduring effect on people? When’s the last time it studied what repentance really looks like for those who have harmed others? When was the last time it studied the Scriptures about what forgiveness really looks like and what it isn’t? When’s the last time we talked about God’s heart for injustice. And not just the ones out there that are in some other country or in some other community, but here in our community. When’s the last time we talked about what a shepherd of the sheep should look and sound like and be like? As Dr. Langberg says, it’s not feeding on the sheep. So, if you’re interested in going further with helping your community to start these conversations, those two videos that you saw, and a number of other free resources are on a website that you can download and play in your own community and have these conversations. TRAUMAHEALINGBASICS.ORG, is where you can get them. There is a guide to how to lament, how to ask some basic helpful questions to someone suffering, how to examine converse about what trauma is, and how we heal. They’re free. There’s a few different languages but mainly English. I would encourage you to go there, TRAUMAHEALINGBASICS.ORG. Free for you. They’re made by the Trauma Healing Institute, and I’m not selling anything, I don’t get any benefit from you doing that. So, I want to conclude here with just a final word to those of you who are saying okay, so there’s healing out there. There’s some things that we can do. We need better guides along the way helpers. But it’s so discouraging because the journey is so long. I want to tell you two things about God’s heart for you. And they both come from some passages in the Old Testament. The first one is to point you to what’s going to happen in this life or the next. It comes from Malachi and I’m going to read it to you now. The Lord of Heaven’s army says, The Day of Judgment is coming burning like a furnace. On that day, the arrogant and the wicked will be burned up like straw. They will be consumed, roots, branches, and all. But for you who fear my name, the Son of Righteousness will rise with healing in His wings, and you will go free, leaping with joy like calves let out of the pasture. On the day when I act you will tread upon the wicked as if they were dust under your feet, says the Lord of Heaven’s armies. God’s heart is making this right. It will happen. You will be free. Healing is coming. As we wait for that day, I want you to remember there’s something that he’s calling you to do as well. And this I want you to go to Isaiah 61. You might be well familiar with Isaiah 61. Isaiah 61 is that you know, passage where Jesus actually quotes this in the gospels, of course, as in his ministry when He says, The Sovereign Lord is upon me, anointed me to bring the good news right? to the poor sent me to come for the brokenhearted proclaim, that captured will be released and prisoners will be freed, to tell those who have mourned, that the Lord’s favor has come. You’re familiar with this, you know, the exchange, beauty and replace of ashes, oaks of righteousness. He’s going to do these things. But look at verse four, we often stop at the end of verse three, because it seems like the ending point. They (You) will rebuild the ancient ruins, repairing the cities destroyed long ago. They (You) will revive them, though they have been deserted for many generations. If there is a resurrection and redemption of our church, it’s not going to come from the healthy. Those who will rebuild the church, are those who have gone through the healing journey. It is you. If we’re going to have something good built, it is those who know, who bear the scars, like our Savior bears the scars of trauma, rebuilding the city. There’s work for all of us to do. Thank you for your courage in coming, for showing up, not giving up. May you have encouraging conversations, reminders of hope to know that you’re not alone. You have not been forgotten. And that healing is possible. Thank you. MARY DEMUTH 42:00 Thank you so much, Dr. Monroe, we really appreciate your words. And especially that idea at the end, of those who are going to rebuild are the broken ones, the ones who have walked through the valley of the shadow of death. I kind of just happened to think that maybe in this room, we are seeing the seedbed of revival. But it’s not as he said, going to come from the top, it’s going to come from the grassroots warriors and brave folks like you. So, I’m humbled to even just be a part of this gathering. Another thing I thought of when he was talking was, and he definitely shared this point. But what wounds you is what heals you. Many of you have a relational wound based on what you have experienced, right? You’ve been wounded in negative community. And I really, really wish that God would change the pathway back to healing because what I would like to do when I’ve been hurt by somebody is to isolate myself, and to if this is what community is like, then I’m never going to be around those yahoo’s again, right? I’m not going to do that. So, I isolate. But isolation breeds contempt, isolation, you will never heal in isolation. So, when you’ve been wounded in negative, horrible, horrific community, I don’t know why, but the Lord says, I want to restore you through safe, beautiful, amazing community. I was talking to some folks last night, who are here in this room. And they were talking about how the most Christ like and most amazing friends that they have made because of this wound that they have. And it was such a conundrum. Because, you know, you don’t want that wound in the first place. But that wound has allowed you to find safe people who truly genuinely follow are scarred and loving and amazing savior. And so, there are some benefits there. And I would just encourage you while you’re here to test some waters of some safe folks, and to begin that tiny journey and I don’t say to just rush right in and I’m one of those rush right in sometimes but don’t rush right in. Test the waters. See someone be trustworthy and faithful and they are going to be what is a part of your healing journey. JULIE ROYS 44:29 Well, that’s Mary DeMuth, an author and host of The Restore conference, following Dr. Philip Monroe’s message on trauma and healing. And you heard Mary allude to a conversation she had the night before the conference with some abuse survivors. I happened to be with Mary at a dinner the night before Restore with about eight or nine abuse survivors, and it was just an amazing experience. There were people there who maybe only knew each other from Twitter, or maybe an article they had read. And yet, there was this incredible bond and love and impact that they had had on one another, and it was just really a taste of heaven. And so, I just want to encourage you as Phil did as Mary did, there is beautiful Christian community and often it is with those who have likewise been hurt or wounded in some way. But there is hope and there is healing in Christ. Well, thanks so much for listening to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And if you’d like to connect with me online, just go to Julieroys.com. Also, just a reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcast, Google podcast, Spotify or YouTube. That way you’ll never miss an episode. And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. Again, thanks so much for joining me today. I hope you have a great day and God bless. Read more

Guest Bios Show Transcript https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qk9yaABPCEs Abuse has become epidemic in the church—and so has cover-up. But what causes abuse in the church? And how can we stop it? In this special episode of The Roys Report, author, psychologist, and trauma expert, Dr. Diane Langberg, answers these questions with uncommon insight and clarity.  In the opening session of Restore 2022, Dr. Langberg explains how God gave people power so they could be living, breathing representations of Him. Yet too often, we misuse this power to exploit the vulnerable. Or, we excuse and cover up others' abuse, believing we need to protect a church or leader for the sake of the kingdom. It’s a horrific pattern that’s being repeated again and again in the church. And as Dr. Langberg explains, it all begins with deception. We deceive ourselves, believing our sins aren't consequential and our complicity with sinful systems is excusable. And then we become blinded to the wolves in our midst.  “You will not see wolves clearly," Dr. Langberg states, "unless you tend to your own wolf-like character or tendencies. You will excuse them.” Dr. Langberg's message could not be more timely or more needed. This Week’s Guest Dr Diane Langberg Diane Langberg, Ph.D. is globally recognized for her 50 years of clinical work with trauma victims. She has trained caregivers and church leaders on six continents on how to recognize and respond to trauma and the abuse of power in a healing way. Her most recent book is Redeeming Power: Understanding Authority and Abuse in the Church. Show Transcript SPEAKERS JULIE ROYS, DR. DIANE LANGBERG JULIE ROYS 00:04 Abuse has become epidemic in the church and so has cover up. But what causes abuse in the church? And how can we stop it? Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And if ever there was a time that the church needed restoring, it’s now. There has been scandal after scandal after scandal in the church, multiple high profile Christian leaders have fallen. And now there’s the Southern Baptist Convention’s report revealing sexual abuse and cover up on a massive scale throughout the nation’s largest Protestant denomination. How can abuse, the preying on the most vulnerable, happen within the church, the place where the sheep should be the most protected? Well, that was the focus of Dr. Diane Langberg’s powerful opening talk at the recent Restore Conference at Judson University. As Dr. Langberg explains, God gave people power to be living breathing representations of Him. Yet too often, those who profess Christ misuse this power to exploit the vulnerable and witnesses, believing they need to protect a leader or a church, cover up the abuse. It’s a horrific pattern that’s being repeated again and again and again in the church. And as Dr. Langberg explains, it all begins with deception. On this special edition of The Roys Report, we’ll hear Dr. Langberg’s powerful and insightful message. But first I’d like to thank the sponsors of this podcast, Judson University and Marquardt of Barrington Judson University is a top ranked Christian University providing a caring community and an excellent college experience. Plus, the school offers more than 60 majors great leadership opportunities and strong financial aid. Judson University is shaping lives that shaped the world. For more information just go to Judsonu.edu. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity and transparency. That’s because the owners they are Dan and Curt Marquardt, are men of character. To check them out, just go to buyacar123.com. Well, again, what you’re about to hear is the opening message of the Restore 2022 Conference by Dr. Langberg. I think of Dr. Langberg as the matriarch of the church survivor community, and as you’ll hear, she speaks with an uncommon authority and wisdom about abuse, power and godliness. Dr. Langberg is a globally recognized psychologist with 50 years of clinical experience working with trauma victims. She’s also the author of numerous books, including a devotional that we’re offering this month to anyone who gives a gift of $25 or more to The Roys Report. This devotional was written specifically for counselors, but I found the insights are profound and they apply broadly to anyone who served in ministry, or any kind of helping role. So, I think you’re going to find it extremely helpful. If you’re interested in getting that book and supporting our work at The Roys Report, just go to JulieRoys.com/donate. Here’s Dr. Langberg. DR. DIANE LANGBERG 03:21 I am a Christian psychologist, and I’ve worked within the Christian community actually for 50 years this year. I am a lover of Jesus and His word. And I believe he called me to the work that I do. I believe it’s his work. And it’s been a great privilege to do but it is also a grievous work. For I have seen many, many people who have been oppressed, raped, trampled underfoot, abused and battered in Christendom. So today I want to consider the issues of power, deception, abuse and the church’s response, because we sadly know that the abuse of power does indeed exist in Christian homes, congregations and churches, and has often been covered up. We did not and do not want to believe that such things exist in Christendom, and we are easily convinced that, of course, it never occurs in the homes represented in our pews and never never within our church. Sadly, it has taken the secular media and the courts to make it abundantly clear that abuse is in all such places and has been perpetrated and or covered up by some who we have held in high esteem. I am grieved that it is taken the media and the voice of God’s people, not the voice of God’s people who have dragged this to the light The word power means having the capacity to do something, to have an effect, to influence people or events, to have authority. It comes from the Latin word which simply means to be able. All people created in the image of God, who is the God of all power, gave us power. And so, people have power, even our little ones. Anybody who’s had a baby knows that a hungry infant screaming in the middle of the night when you want to sleep more than anything else can get two grownups out of bed. That’s called power. This God who is faithful and loving, and true, and a refuge made it so that we are made by him for the purpose of replicating his character on His earth. We are to illuminate who he is; we are to make his likeness manifest. So, our God given power was given for the purpose of unveiling the power of God by seeing it in each other. When you sit with others, you are in essence to be a living, breathing model of the character of Jesus Christ. That’s our call. Power presents in many forms. Verbal power means using words to define or manage or control situations, and often people. It can also include silence. Withholding words can often be very powerful, especially when someone really needs them to be said. The silent treatment can be crushing, and we feel shut out. Words in silence can both of course be used for good but also for ill. Verbal power, our words, are meant to bring a blessing. And I know there are many in this room who have been around people whose verbal power was used not to bless, but to crush. Our Lord is called The Word. He uses verbal power to bring light and truth and love to us; we are to do the same. Emotional power can be demonstrated in empathy or comfort or love. Obviously, it can also be seen in rage and fear and condemnation; can be used to control or silence another. I mean we will have the experience of taking someone else’s emotional temperature before we decide what to do. Shaming someone who’s afraid grieving can crush them. Perpetrators often use seemingly good emotions in order to ensnare another. The most obvious form of power, of course, is physical. The bigger and stronger have power over the smaller and the weaker. It can also be a physical movement without words. So, somebody can curl their fists and make you afraid, even if they don’t touch you. It’s a threatening physical movement with a message. And if you hit a spouse once, then just raising your fists has incredible power. It can also be a physical presence, which can fill a room. A strong personality that can control a room, a company and sometimes a nation. Knowledge is a kind of power as is position. You think about sitting in the doctor’s office at some point. And you went to find out what’s going on and what your symptoms are about. And the doctor runs some tests and he’s not only going to give you the results, and interpret them for you, he’s going to tell you what he thinks you ought to do about it. Depending on the outcome, given his knowledge and his position, you probably will listen, and his words could turn your life completely upside down. And because of the knowledge and position, you will follow that, even if it’s going to make you sick. Doctors, professors, pastors, teachers all have the combined power of knowledge and position, which can be used to bless or be used to abuse others. Sometimes it is used to appear to bless so that they can abuse. There’s financial power. If I threaten you with your salary or your job, if you speak the truth, you’ll probably shut up. I can refuse to give you access to our accounts that we extensively share. I can promise money if you will do something wrong and will withhold it from you if you do not. Financial abuse and threats exist in many marriages. Silence and absence are types of power. Silence about wrongdoing, a failure to speak truth, can do tremendous damage. The church has sadly been silent, and care and support and comfort has been absent for many, most actually victims. Power can bless or manipulate, it can control. The silence of human beings has done that in many, many arenas, not just individuals, but also to organizations and to nations. And spiritual power, using God’s words, his house, his name, to control, to manipulate, to intimidate leads to very confused minds, trampled hearts, and a fear of the God who is meant to bless. Obviously, power is a gift from God to humans, with the purpose of blessing other humans and blessing his world, demonstrating his character. But power has been used in highly destructive ways that destroy parts of the image of God in human beings, and that blaspheme God, often leaking down through the generations. We are all frail; we are all finite. We often see vulnerability as weakness. Vulnerability is the flip side of power. All of us came into this earth extremely vulnerable. And all of us still are in some ways. As much as we might try io hide it. Our capacity as humans to be wounded is constant. You have the possibility of being wounded until you die. There’s nothing you can do to make that never happen again. It’s terrifying. Sadly, we have often blamed the vulnerable for the wounding that people have done to them. You know, if only you’d done this or if you had not done that it never would have happened. The exploitation of the vulnerable tells us not about the vulnerable, but about the exploiter, not the wounded. God is very clear that what we do to others comes from within us. He has said that what comes out of a person comes from the heart of the person, not the one standing in front of them. Whether it’s evil thoughts, immorality, slander, pride, or whatever, those things, expose something about those who do them, not who they do it to. We are exposed as ungodly when these things show up, and we want to transfer it to the vulnerable one. If she then I would not. It makes us feel much more comfortable. But the vulnerability of other people simply tells us about them. And any vulnerable human being, someone designed by God, in their vulnerability, should be protected. Period. Jesus responds to our vulnerability is worth studying. When he encountered blindness in a man where the crowd you know, thought it was the man’s fault, and it wasn’t his fault. At least it was his parents’ fault; it was somebody’s fault. Jesus opened his eyes. And he said, no he’s not blind because of something he did. He’s not blind because of something his parents did. Actually, his vulnerability just became God’s stage for me to display God’s character to you, which is that when you encounter vulnerability, you respond in a healing way. Our Lord, the God of all power came to us vulnerable. I mean, that’s hard to put your head around. He was a newborn. Somebody had to get up in the middle of the night for him. He wore our vulnerability. It cannot be human and not be vulnerable. And our Lord, our vulnerable Lord was devoured by wolves, who viciously abused their power, to exploit him, to crush him. He endured, for my sake, and yours. If we are to be the body of Christ, then we are to be a body that follows her head, which means we are to be a refuge for the vulnerable, not a place of exploitation. But the secular and the religious news have globally exposed the fact that not only are there many wolves in the sheep fold today, but we in the name of God, have protected their place among God’s sheep, by our complicity, by our cover up, by our deceit. We have used vulnerable and individual and collective power to protect the institution of shepherding rather than the sheep. So, from what route does the abuse of power grow? The abuse of power begins internally, and it comes by way of deceit. That’s how it’s grown. You know, you go back to the beginning, the enemy desired all power. And he wanted to be like the most High. I mean actually, if you think about that, that’s pretty crazy. He was a created creature. He wanted to be like the uncreated God. He was created, not self-sustaining, but he deceived himself into believing that he could become the most high. And in pursuit of that status, he sought to obtain the subservience of humans. And he did so by what? twisting God’s word. Isn’t that what happens a lot? When the vulnerable are exploited, particularly within church circles, it is often helped along by deception, which involves twisting God’s word. And that’s how we silence people. I fear that we have, as a group, tended to select leaders, down through the decades in the Christian world, according to their gifting, not their character. Leadership in the body of Christ should not be by gifts alone, but by spiritual maturity likeness to Jesus Christ. It means demonstrating the character of Christ consistently over time, not just words. There have been some very immature leaders in Christendom, who have achieved power and status because of their gifts rather than because of their maturity in Christ. And we have watched large institutions, ones we believe successful and godly come apart when there is an exposure of ungodly but successful leadership. When someone is particularly gifted verbally and is charismatic in personality and adept with spiritual language, it’s very easy to assume maturity. However, spiritual maturity is measured by character by the fruit of the Spirit lived out in a life over and over again. You think about Jesus and the enemy. He said, (the enemy) if you throw yourself down, God will send His angels to protect you. He used the word of God to try to deceive the Son of God. Listen, the ability to articulate theological truths does not necessarily mean the speaker is an obedient servant of God. Unfortunately, the abilities and knowledge that bring ministry success, easily become ego food. If integrity of character is not the measure of a leader, then we will be seduced by the gifts. You see the work of the church is not the call to ministry, even though we think it is. Spiritual success is never measured by human outcomes. Our true work is that of manifesting likeness to Christ in all things, whether it is success or failure. Whether it is criticism or praise. If numbers and growth and praise and fame were God’s measure, then Jesus was a failure. Likeness to Christ is not to be measured by external things, but by the extent to which a person’s character bears fruit that resembles the fruit of the life of Jesus. It’s not by fame, but by humility and self-control. Jesus said, over and over again, I always obey the Father. That was his primary mission when he was here, and it is to be ours as well. We easily deceive ourselves and follow false ways, often in the name of Jesus. We follow a Christ made in our image, one who would agree with us. And he would never, of course, want our temples to be destroyed. He who cracked whips and turn tables over twice. Jesus did not walk with Rome. He did not walk with political power. He did not walk with temple leadership. And even when his disciples failed to do the will of his Father, he said again, I always do that which pleases the father. His likeness is to be seen in those of us who call ourselves his people. Consider briefly Ravi Zacharias. I suspect there’s no one here who’s not familiar with that name. Misnaming an honorary degree for the good of God’s work, seems miles away from the sexual abuse of an unknown number of victims from around the globe. It’s not, because deceit is a narcotic, and it deadens us to our own wrongdoing. We then continued to inject the poison at deeper and deeper levels without distress. It will eventually kill. Killed Adam and Eve. It brought many forms of deaths into the life and world of Ravi. His character was not one of truth. Even as he spoke of teaching truth to the world. Deceit is a powerful narcotic. And deception spreads. It’s actually contagious. If you’ve ever been in a church situation, you know that. Somebody says something that’s not true in order to preserve the organization, and then the other person says it and other people believe it, and that’s what’s the truth now, right? Or people say it to themselves when they do things that God says no to. Well, I’m very tired, you know, and I’m really working very hard for God, and I need to be fed a certain fruit in order to continue God’s work. It gets hard, however, to carry around increasing deceptions and keep them hidden. So often what happens when an individual leader does that, the system will step in and support the deceptions. Why? Because this is the work of God, and we can’t let it fall down. As the deceptions become more frequent, and the victims more vocal, they, the victims, have to be tossed out, discarded, maligned and criticized because after all, they’re destroying God’s work. We humans have been deceiving ourselves from the beginning. The disease infects us all I’m afraid. We have gotten better at it. God says that deception from the beginning is ruining his world and the people he created to be in His image. And we still continue to deceive ourselves. We want God’s work to increase and of course we do. But he is, however, the God of truth and light and there is no lie in him. His character and his work never included deception. We are never, underline the word, we are never doing God’s work when we pursue a seemingly godly goal, by way of ungodly means. What we are doing is no longer godly and neither are we. We as human beings have an apparent unlimited capacity to hide truths that are painful to ourselves. We have the uncanny ability to cover up knowing what in fact we know. We twist the truth a little. Of course, the most powerful lie is one that contains a likeness to the truth. And as a result, self-deception becomes the root of terrible evil. Tim Keller, a pastor in Manhattan, said something many years ago in a sermon on soul. Self-deception is not the worst thing that you can do. But it is the means by which we do the most terrible things. Obviously deceitfulness resides in the heart of all of us. Anybody who’s raised children knows that’s true. You don’t have to teach them how to lie. They figure it out all by themselves. For some it’s just the way to do things. I mean, some people have grown up in generations of people full of deceit. And the deceit protects us from having to face who we actually are. And deceit protects the things that we value more than we value Christ. The art of self-deception is also our ability to justify ourselves what we’ve done, you know, I speed because I’m late. Right? I know harsh words are wrong, but such and such happened today at work. It’s all deceptive stuff. You know, you hear this frequently when you work with spouses. I hit her because she, right? It’s deception. I am abusive because of the other person. That is a statement diametrically opposed to the Word of God. And over time, the deception goes another step, and the abuser uses deception to lure or to control victims. When you study the grooming of a sexual predator, you see the ways in which the abuser seduces a victim. And that deception is the foundation of what they are doing. And then of course, deception is urged on to the victim. Don’t tell anybody. Bad things will happen to you if you tell. You know, you’ll hurt God’s name and his work if you tell. The web of deception surrounding abuse and oppression is huge. It can occur in an individual. It can occur in an institution. And in a community’s life. It can occur in a nation. If you’ve ever studied Nazi Germany, you know what that looks like. Corporations hide research data. Churches protect clergy who abuse. The Rwandan genocide is a stunning example of deception. And when it’s laid out like this, it seems horrifying, but it can sneak into our lives in little bits. And it can sneak into our lives by other people trying to deceive us and giving us good, godly reasons for doing so. If the enemy of our souls can appear as an angel of light, then surely an evil human being who is in fact, mimicking him, can appear as a well clothed theologically articulate and beautiful human being. I fear we often select leaders according to gifting rather than character. Leadership in the body of Christ is not based on gifting; it is based on a spiritual maturity, the fruit of which is demonstrated consistently over time. There have been many immature leaders in the Christian world who have achieved power and status and fame because of their gifts and not their maturity. And we call it successful leadership and that God is blessing us. Jesus said beware of the false prophets who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. They look like the sheep category, and they behave like the wolf category. Jesus is not warning us against someone who does not teach the truth exactly the way we prefer. He is warning us against the teacher, the spokesperson who speaks orthodoxy but whose life is false. Somebody who talks like a sheep but is in fact a wolf. The words may be accurate or orthodox. That’s the sheep’s clothing. But the heart of that person is wolfish, looking to exploit the vulnerable by way of deception and feed the self. They attempt to look like sheep. But where you cannot see, there is a wolf. They attempt to look like sheep in order to appear to be doing something they actually are not. And they do it because they are hungry for sheep. True sheep do not eat each other. Wolves eat sheep. They are looking for isolated and needy sheep, they’re looking for somebody who’s not likely to tell, someone who’s easily overpowered. A vulnerable woman in a damaging marriage, somebody with a history of abuse, the child or teen on the fringe of the youth group. That’s who they’re looking for. People who are hurting, not known. They give them attention and drag them in their net. What a staggering contrast that is to our Lord Jesus Christ. So, what is the character that should be known in human form? From the very beginning, our God was building His kingdom, human beings created in His image, who were to bring his likeness to each other. As a result of our choice of self-rule, we of course, now live on a ruined planet. And by way of deceit, are creating greater ruin to ourselves and others. But our Lord came in the flesh to rescue us from both within our own lives, and in discerning the wolves in our midst. God is light, there is no darkness in him. And light searches and exposes and uncovers and brings health. Christ exposes us to ourselves. He shines light on the rot in our souls. He exposed the religious leaders who were operating under his name. Jesus was life, and the life was the light of mankind. You know, as Christians in bulk, we say all the time that marriage is sacred. But you know that our percentages for battering are equal to the world’s? We say sex is sacred, and yet we consume pornography to cover up sexual abuse. We see glimpses of darkness in high places and protect the position. Because we like the fame and the gifts, and the brilliance and we follow blind gods into a pit, all in the name of Jesus who is light. But light exposes. Jesus says to us to each other, as we think about relationships, Feed my sheep. Don’t eat them. You will feed them poison and poison yourself, unless you feed from roots that go deep into him. He said to Peter several times, do you love me? And at the end of that, he said, What? Feed my sheep. Exploitation is completely out of the question for anyone who says they follow Jesus Christ. There is no room for feeding on the sheep. It’s not about buildings and kingdoms and fame and honor. It’s about likeness to him. People often ask how to recognize wolves in their midst. Sort of an odd answer. But the best way to recognize wolves, in essence, is not to be one. It’s true. You ignore your impact on others, you start excusing yourself, you’re complicit in things that are not godly because it furthers the kingdom, deceiving yourself. You’re a wolf in the making. Some years ago, I was invited to meet with a group of elders in a church who were struggling over some domestic violence cases and couldn’t figure out what to do. And so, I was supposed to go in and talk about domestic abuse, which I did. And they brought several cases. But I had real difficulty with one particular case, because there were no visible bruises. So, we discussed a marriage of many years and the brutal constant, ugly verbal battering by the husband of his wife and children who lived in fear, who were shrunken, tormented, squashed by him. At one point in the conversation an elder said, I think this case is very difficult. And he was clearly somehow excusing the man who was the abuser. He had several ways of reframing and excusing him. I pushed back a little bit. And his response was, I don’t see how what he is doing is any different from what I’m doing. A little self-revelation there, he did not plan to make. He said, I scream at my kids every day. Now, on one level his screaming was of a different sort than what this man was doing. But it was on the continuum of un-Christlikeness. His excuses and self-deception regarding his own behavior is what led to his blindness, and dismissal of what was, in fact, quite horrific. So, I said to him, gently, that his excusing of his own behavior led him to excuse what was truly awful. And that the need for both of them was to repent, and truly change. Both men were grieving God, and the best gift that the elder could give God, his family and children, the church, and this man, was to fall down on his face, and lead the way of what a man looks like, who does not scream at his children. You will not see wolves clearly you see, unless you tend to your own wolf-like character or tendencies. You will excuse them. The other way to fail to recognize wolves is to measure a person in their gifting and their results not by their character. So, you know, powerful preacher, somebody who teaches excellent doctrine according to you, all that can be a wolf, can be immoral, bully, egocentric all those things. We expect these things like the elder excuses them. So, we excuse them also, because we see some of it in ourselves and we’re not too bad. That’s how you miss wolves. You have the flavor of wolf in your own life. A Shepherd does not do these things. A shepherd ever and always looks like Jesus Christ. My father was a colonel in the Air Force, six foot four and a half, redhead. And he dropped paratroopers over Normand; was in one of the lead planes. When he spent many years flying cargo ships and doing air refueling. He was a top-notch athlete and a very bright man. But he was retired when I was 13 years old. Because something was wrong with his body, and nobody could figure it out. And he couldn’t do air refueling anymore with a body that didn’t obey him. And so, he visited doctors for at least a year. And they eventually diagnosed him with Parkinson’s, but nobody was sure that’s what it really was because it was unusual. I was just finishing eighth grade. And so, we lost our way of life, he lost his occupation. And over time, his body deteriorated in awful ways. Some years later, I came home from college, so I was probably 19 or 20, for a break. And we were talking in a room, and he asked for a drink of water. And so, I got up and went into the kitchen and poured water for him. And as I was coming back into the room, I stopped at the door because I could see this still long body trying to stand up by himself. So, I waited because I did not want to rush in and ask to help if he wanted to try, it was his goal. And so, I sort of hid myself and watched him and he couldn’t do it. And he finally sat back in the chair. And I was going across the room with a glass of water to give to him. And this sentence went through my head. A body that does not follow its head is a very, very sick body. I did not know that at the age of 19 or 20, my God was using that broken body to teach me what would shape my work as a psychologist. Whenever we, the body of Christ, do not follow our head, individually or collectively, we are a very sick body. Jesus says, Follow me. I can tell you. It’s not an easy road. JULIE ROYS 40:27 Well, that concludes Dr. Langberg’s talk at the Restore 2022 Conference. It’s just one of many powerful messages from Restore that we’ll be publishing in the next few weeks. So, you’ll want to be watching for that. Thanks so much for listening to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And again, I want to mention that we’re offering Dr. Langberg’s devotional book to anyone who gives a gift of $25 or more to The Roys Report in the month of June. If you’d like to donate and get a copy of that book, just go to JulieRoys.com/donate. Also, just a reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcast, Google podcast, Spotify or YouTube. That way you’ll never miss an episode. And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it, if you’d help us spread the word about this podcast by leaving a review. And then please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks so much for joining me today. Hope you have a great day and God bless. Read more

Guest Bios Show Transcript https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLNRelP28Kg For years, Ravi Zacharias labeled her a predator and a serial extortionist. And sadly, the world believed him. But now, we know better. Ravi Zacharias was the predator in what was dubbed in 2017 as a “sexting scandal." And Lori Anne Thompson was not just the victim of clergy sexual abuse—but of a worldwide campaign to smear her name. In this special episode of The Roys Report, you'll hear what was definitely a highlight of the recent Restore 2022 Conference.  Lori Anne Thompson—one of Ravi’s multiple sex abuse victims—vulnerably shares her insights on effective victim advocacy with well-known author and academic Karen Swallow Prior. There are so many holy moments in this podcast, beginning with Prior's apology for not believing Thompson when Prior first learned of the so-called “sexting scandal.” Likewise, Thompson's insights on truth, trauma, and advocacy—borne out of years of suffering — are profound and sobering.  "There is something to bearing the cross and scorning its shame that’s stabilizing, believe it or not," Thompson says during the interview, choking back tears. ". . . For me, what that means is that you sort of bear the full cup of somebody else's wrath when you don't deserve it and do right anyway. And when you know yourself to be true, but everybody else in the globe, including people in your own home, think you're false, that the truth is solid on the bottom and it emits its own light — and that when the time is right, the truth, and the truth alone, will rise up to defend itself. You don't have to." This powerful interview not only educates, but also inspires and equips those who have been abused and their advocates to fight the evil they've encountered. It is the first of many sessions from Restore 2022 we'll be publishing in the coming weeks. This Week’s Guest Lori Anne Thompson Lori Anne Thompson is a survivor of clergy sexual abuse and has expertise about the protection of people from the ravages of poverty, adverse childhood experience, and interpersonal violence. She's also a storyteller and writes about abuse, trauma, #ChurchToo, #MeToo, justice, recovery, and restoration at loriannethompson.com.  Show Transcript SPEAKERS LORI ANNE THOMPSON, KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR, JULIE ROYS JULIE ROYS  00:04 For years, Ravi Zacharias labeled her a predator and a serial extortionist and sadly the world believed him. But now we know better. Ravi Zacharias was the predator in what was dubbed in 2017 as a sexting scandal, and Lori Anne Thompson was not just the victim of clergy sexual abuse, but of a worldwide campaign to smear her name. Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And today we’re going to hear what was definitely a highlight of the recent Restore conference at Judson University. Lori Anne Thompson, one of Ravi’s multiple sex abuse victims, took the stage with well-known author and academic, Karen Swallow Prior. As you’ll hear, Prior begins a session with an emotional apology for not believing Thompson when Prior first learned of the so-called sexting scandal. And in all honesty, many of us didn’t believe Thompson early on. I like many others read the Christianity Today article in 2017, with Ravi’s full-throated rebuttal, and I believed Ravi. I’m ashamed of that today. And I’m very grateful that the woman I disbelieved at first, Lori Anne Thompson, is someone that today I can call a friend. And not only has she forgiven me for believing Ravi, but in September 2020 Lori Anne Thompson gave me the great privilege of telling her story to the world. Some of it had been reported before by Steve Baughman, author of Cover Up in the Kingdom, and blogger Julie Anne Smith. But I received overwhelming evidence and documentation that Ravi indeed was a sexual predator, and Lori Anne was his prey. So, what you’re about to hear is very personal for me. I love Lori Anne and I’m so grieved by what happened to her and I’m in awe of her resiliency and the wisdom she’s gained through an unbelievably traumatic experience. But before we hear this powerful interview between Lori Anne Thompson and Karen Swallow Prior, I want to thank the sponsors of this podcast, Judson University, and Marquardt of Barrington Judson University is a top ranked Christian University providing a caring community and an excellent college experience. Plus, the school offers more than 60 majors great leadership opportunities and strong financial aid. Judson University is shaping lives that shaped the world. For more information, just go to Judsonu.edu. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity and transparency. That’s because the owners there Dan and Kurt Marquardt are men of character. To check them out, just go to buyacar123.com. Well, again, what you’re about to hear is the audio from a powerful session on effective victim advocacy at Restore 2022. It features Lori Anne Thompson, who now has her master’s degree in child advocacy and policy, and popular author and academic Karen Swallow Prior.   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  03:21 Well, Lori, and I’ve been looking forward if those are the right words to this conversation for a while. In the spring of 2018, I helped to lead a call for the removal of one of my denominational leaders who had been exposed for, for covering up sexual assault, for perpetuating a culture of misogyny toward women for a long, long time. And on the day that his board of trustees had been they had been deliberating and they were making a decision about what to do with this leader and whether to remove him or not, I was out of town to attend a conference, waiting up most of the night for that decision. And when the decision came, it was the decision to allow this leader to retire with a wonderful retirement package. And I was actually walking in this town I was visiting to meet a colleague, and on the way I stepped into a crosswalk and got hit by a bus. I spent eight days in Vanderbilt Hospital with life threatening injuries. And I didn’t know until later that at the very moment I was getting hit by this bus, my mind full of all this anguish over the lack of accountability for this leader, the person that I was going to meet at the very minute that I was getting hit by the bus, was in a meeting with her boss disclosing her years of sexual abuse and assault for the first time. That sounds like spiritual warfare to me. Then as I lay in the hospital, I started getting emails from people I had never heard of, people I didn’t know, strangers. Now, of course, I had received some harassment and intimidation because of my role in helping to hold this denominational leader to account. And these emails were coming from men I didn’t know who were seemed to me in a taunting way, asking me to hold another man accountable. I thought this was just part of my denominational wars. The man they wanted me to help hold accountable was Ravi. And they told me about Lori Anne’s story. Now, I didn’t know Ravi, other than being the name of a famous evangelist, he meant nothing to me. I didn’t know Lori Ann. But in these emails, the story that I understood was one in which I didn’t believe Lori. She had signed an NDA; I didn’t understand NDAs. To me, she looked guilty and these men were harassing me. I did send their emails along to journalists that I knew. They told me they couldn’t find out anything and they couldn’t do anything. And finally, the men just kind of left me alone. I’ve said this to Lori, but I want to say it before all of you. Lori, I’m sorry that I didn’t believe you. And I want to confess that, and I want to apologize, and I want to ask you to forgive me, if you will.   LORI ANNE THOMPSON  06:46 You’re really easy to forgive.   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  06:50 Thank you. So, I’ve learned a lot since 2018. And I think a lot of us are learning. And I’m so thankful to Lori Anne. I’m thankful to many other survivors, some of you are out there who have taught me so much and are teaching the world so much. And that’s not even your job to do. You shouldn’t have to do it. But thank you for helping some of us learn. Thank you Lori Ann. And so, I want to start I guess maybe where I was a few years ago. The things that I didn’t understand. What is just some basic definitions. What is clergy sexual abuse? How is it similar to other forms of sexual abuse and how is it different?   LORI ANNE THOMPSON  07:38 Okay, well, clergy, clergy abuse can operate in three possible ways. One is by financial malfeasance; I followed the work of the late Dr. Ensign Shoop. And he did research on clergy, clergy abuse, and he coined the term clergy, clerical malfeasance. Clergy being any religious leaders, anybody who operates or represents anybody in the faith. So, it could be the treasurer, the secretary, could be the pastor, it could be the worship leader, etc. And malfeasance means to do evil. And generally, in such a fashion that it destroys public trust. So, clergy abuse can happen in three possible ways. One is financial, and, you don’t have to dig very deep for seeing a fair bit of that. The other is sexual in nature. And the third is spiritual abuse. And you can’t have sexual abuse without spiritual abuse, and you can’t have financial abuse without spiritual abuse. You can however experience sexual or financial abuse, exclusive of each other, and some people are unfortunate enough to experience all three.   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  08:48 And so, in what way what are some of the dynamics that play into this kind of abuse that make it like other you know, other forms of abuse, maybe outside the church even?   LORI ANNE THOMPSON  09:01 All forms of abuse actually carry really similar characteristics and so all abuse obliterates voice choice agency. It breaches bodies, it breaches boundaries, it dehumanizes, it denigrates, it creates a situation where in high trust relationships you experience a high trust or breach of betrayal are called betrayal trauma. The difference between clergy abuse, and there are a couple things, but the main difference between clergy abuse and abuse of a trusted other is that it conflates abuse with Christ or abuse with God. And so, all abuse actually evidence would indicate that all abuse causes a spiritual wound. So, you don’t have to be abused in church to experience a spiritual wound. I experienced poly victimization as a child. So, I came to the church as an adult with a profound spiritual wound. So, I was I came into clergy abuse with a spiritual wound. But it was profoundly widened and deepened by experiencing clerical abuse and myself, and my husband both experienced financial and spiritual abuse, and then it was a doubleheader, then I eventually experienced clergy sexual abuse and another experience at the same time of spiritual abuse. And so, while all of these creates that profound spiritual wound, when somebody’s being abused by somebody who’s not a religious leader, there’s always a higher power to call upon. And so, there’s hope. But when you’re harmed in the name of hope, then there’s no hope indeed. And I know I’m telling not just my story; I’m telling the story of everybody’s everybody in the room has experienced something similar to that.   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  11:04 I want to go back to what was the sticking point for me in your situation because I, you know, again, I didn’t there was so little I understood then, about NDAs and other forms of settlements and litigations that are used to silence survivors. Can you talk about them and explain, you know, what they are, how they work and how they have become weaponized in these kinds of issues?   LORI ANNE THOMPSON  11:29 You ask some really good questions. Nondisclosure agreements, I think it’s probably common knowledge that non-disclosure agreements are supposed to be used for trade secrets, not for trauma secrets. Anyone? Litigation by itself is a traumatic experience. Judith Herman in her book, Trauma and Recovery, which is one of my favorite pieces of work as a seminal work on trauma. She talks about how going through the criminal or the civil justice system really is a pathway to potential justice, but it’s also re victimizing at the same time. When you go into, when I went to a situation where I was trying to litigate against my oppressor, and just that was super backfired, just in case anybody didn’t notice. And I’m still in a state of complete devastation, signed a nondisclosure agreement, because there’s just it’s a choiceless choice. First of all, you don’t choose abuse in the first place. And going into litigation with somebody who is a very powerful oppressor, who is backed by finances you don’t have. In my case, it was a billionaire. So, but it doesn’t matter. Like it’s just it’s, it’s more than you have, it’s more, right? And it’s more than you can pay for to emotionally for two to five more years of litigation, and there’s more costs than money, right? I still had kids to raise, and neither my husband nor I were stable. And so, you can’t fight when you’re on a balance beam. You have to have something underneath of you. And we had absolutely nothing but thin air. And so, we signed a nondisclosure agreement, which was meant to protect the offender, not the victim. And it was at the time, something we felt we didn’t have any choice in. Even though and, you know, your accusers later on say, well, you signed a nondisclosure agreement, and didn’t you get yourself a little bit of cash? There’s just no amount of money that can make up for that level of trauma. And I don’t think I need to explain that in this room. And the other thing that a nondisclosure agreement does, and abuse does the same thing. So, it’s a perpetration of the oppressor victim dynamic, or the oppressor oppressed, dynamic. So, the oppressor or the abuser says that their word you don’t your word is now your very thing that’s left, the only thing you got left to saying this is exactly what happened, is also gone. So, it’s another way to dehumanize people is to make it so that they can’t tell their story. And speaker after speaker after speaker has said that giving voice to voiceless things is part of the healing process, right? That’s part of naming and identifying what you’ve been through. So non-disclosure agreements are, they’re, they’re diabolical, and they’re an extension of the abuse and oppression that most people experienced in the first place. They ought not be.   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  14:49 So, we’ve heard some sessions about this today. But I don’t think we can talk about this enough. I want to hear from you from your firsthand experience. So, what do you see as some pathways to accountability on the part of churches, institutions, pastors, prevention, and just addressing clergy abuse? I know, that’s a big question, but it’s kind of the heart of it. So, what are some first of all, like accountability, how do we build in or create accountability?   LORI ANNE THOMPSON  15:28 Boy. Can I reframe your question just a little bit?   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  15:34 Sure.   LORI ANNE THOMPSON  15:35 I think the question that most survivors want to know is how can I hold these buggers accountable? What am I going to do about the situation? If ecclesiastical accountability worked, we wouldn’t be here. If the church held its own to account, this, this conference would not exist. And this church wouldn’t be filled with survivors of them. We would be healed, and we would be restored to the flock instead of shutting out of it. And this is where all the bad words are going through my head. You know, I think on the upside when we this happened to us, and we’re just one of millions, if not billions, of people that this has happened to. There wasn’t there’s not a lot, there wasn’t a lot of avenues for accountability. So, I did have a consultation at the time with some leaders, and they were rare. In this area, some psychologist and we sort of talked about what are the options? You can go to the board. Well, that’s a joke. The board is usually stacked in support of the offender, or the offender has so much power, the board is a bunch of full of Yes, persons, usually men because men only know how to think and speak and talk and lead and women don’t. Lost my train of thought. You could go to the board, and you can go to you could get a lawyer. You could, at the time, the only people who would listen to clergy abuse survivors were survivor bloggers. And they at the time, I mean, they were grassroot people, they’re still doing what they’re doing. But at the time, they were considered fringe. And so, it’s, it’s easy to dismiss somebody who you think, is on the fringes because, you know, they’re demonizing, they’re agents of Satan, I think they were called Daughters of Satan actually, at the time. And so that was an unattractive option. And, and the other option was to do nothing. And that didn’t seem like a possibility either. So, in the hopes of having some type of privacy, we chose to go with a lawyer. And I think the final one was also to go to the secular media to like, kapow, everything out into the open. And that wasn’t something I was willing to do either. Because, you know this, because I’ve said it from my keyboard. I’m actually an introvert. And this type of central tension isn’t comfortable for me, but that doesn’t change how history has happened. And also, my family dynamic was such that just wouldn’t be comfortable to be exposed in that way. And guess what? I was exposed anyway. I was exposed, then silenced. So those are still avenues of accountability. Clearly if it’s criminal, it should be reported to the police. But so often, even those avenues have difficulty. As Dr. McKnight had said earlier, these people really do fear the truth being told. So, telling the truth in and finding the best possible way to tell the truth in the manner in a way that protects you the most and exposes them the most is whatever that looks like for you. Those are just some possible avenues in which to do that. But the most important part is, I’m going to say this, and I mean it and it’s not going to be, I want to receive it from a heart of somebody who has not just barely survived this. Most important part is not their exposure. The most important part is your safety.   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  19:51 And when you talked about the lack of the churches and institutions holding people accountable, it really has been most of the time the journalists who have done the job. And I’ve also found in you know, because after your, you know, my interaction with your story, I learned about terrible abuses at my own institution and my own employer. Those were in the headlines for a while, again, through journalists. And I found that a key defense strategy of these institutions is to blame the liberal media for making up lies and being tools of Satan. I mean, and that’s, that’s essentially it, and so many people believe that. So, the journalists do some of the best work, and the bloggers. And yet, still, there is so much denial. But in God’s timing the truth does come out. So let me just ask this because we’re talking about the denial and the defenses, and the silence that is enforced by these documents. What do you do when people lie about you?   LORI ANNE THOMPSON  21:22 Anyone else want the answer to that question? All right, well, buckle up. I don’t think you’re going to like what I have to say. Most victims are empathic. Most victims want to belong. They want to be part of community. Most victims have some sort of vulnerability. I don’t know like being human. And when you’re lied about when you tell the truth, it’s devastating. It’s destabilizing. It can be annihilating. It can be lethal. And there’s nothing like being globally lied about to make you really uncomfortable, even sharing your name with people. So, here’s what I’m going to tell you. I want you to look at how what you should consider looking at, I’m gonna tell you what to do. When you consider looking at how did Christ answer his accusers? I don’t like it any more than you do by way of answer. If Christ be our model, if he be our king, if he be even a moral teacher that we think is worthy of following, then his example has to mean something. It is absolutely pointless in the face of a tsunami of falsehood to do anything but just quietly speak the truth. There is something there’s something to bearing the cross and scorning its shame that stabilizing, believe it or not. And when, I’m not a theologian and maybe Dr. McKnight and other people like that could elucidate what that means. But for me, what that means is that you sort of bear the full cup of somebody else’s wrath when you don’t deserve it. And do right anyway. And when you know yourself to be true, but everybody else in the globe, including people in your home, think you’re false, that the truth is solid on the bottom, and it emits its own light. And that when the time is right, the truth and the truth alone will rise up to defend itself. You don’t have to. That’s about all I have to say about that.   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  24:43 There’s a reason why they call Jesus the truth.   LORI ANNE THOMPSON  24:47 The trouble with it, the trouble with it is that so many people were crucified and told lies in the name of the truth. And so, part of this work is actually figuring out what the truth actually is. And that doesn’t look anything like what most of us learned it was; radically different actually.   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  25:10 And I just want to give praise to God and His Son Jesus for letting the truth of your situation come out, Lori Anne. I just give him the praise. You give me hope and inspiration. So, this truth coming out as long as it took, and I know it was an eternity. Doesn’t matter how many months or years and others have borne the same, but it is a form of justice, for the truth to come out. So, let’s just talk about justice. What does real justice look like in these situations? And then maybe we should talk about mercy too, because we can’t talk about one without the other. Small mission.   LORI ANNE THOMPSON  26:14 How y’all doing? Everybody need a deep breath? Oh, thanks. It’s like birthing a baby, man. It’s hard stuff to talk about. How are y’all doing? You okay? Good. Real justice. First of all, justice can come in sort of probably a bunch of different pathways, but all named for ecclesiastical pathways. There are those, whether they’re working or not, is a different thing. But I have heard of some cases where they have, and those have given me hope. And those are very beautiful. When ecclesiastical justice works, it really restores wounded places in people and restores that sense of trust and faith in the church. So, if anybody thinks that that might be a good idea, might want to use their own rules. Criminal justice is an option. Unfortunately, a lot of things that are immoral and profoundly wounding are not yet criminal. So, clergy, sexual abuse laws are important to enact. And people who have a passion and an interest in that type of advocacy are really important. There are civil pathways for justice. And I don’t need to tell anybody in the room, how costly it is to endure abuse. And so, any kind of recompense that’s possible is worthy of pursuit. I would just encourage you to get a trauma informed lawyer. I won’t make any shameless plugs, but you know who you are. And there’s also and again, this is something I find difficult to talk about, because I don’t want to sound trite. And I hope that if suffering, if suffering lends any credibility, you can just hear this through the lens of suffering, not through the lens of like, platitudes. What does divine justice look like? And I don’t think it looks absolutely anything like we think it will. And if you watch closely for divine justice, you will see that people who consume the truth than you are truth seekers and truth consumers, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. You actually have the opportunity to ripen and live in the light. Even though the light has been called, or you know, what has been darkness has been called light, you actually have the opportunity to live in the light. These fuckers don’t. And that’s what I call them in my head all the time. All the time. I would say that the injustice that we experienced wasn’t a new experience for me. I was born into a home of a sexual predator. My father is deceased now, which is mercy. Speaking of mercy, and I do mean that. He was miserable. Everybody he was around was miserable. And I don’t mean that to be trite, it is mercy he’s gone. And he raped all my sisters and made multiple attempts to do the same thing to me. And he did like nine months in prison for ruining everybody’s life. So, tell me there’s justice in the criminal justice system and oh, wait – that’s Canada. Yeah. Yeah. But only there’s one statistic that says like 3% of sex offenders are ever incarcerated. So, you know, 97% of the rest of the people who even bring that to light, much less the people who don’t, don’t ever see criminal justice occur. And so, here’s the thing about justice. And I didn’t know any of this when this happened to me, okay? So, this is all hard-earned things that have come since life fell apart, is that if you’re not going to get justice, you better become it. And that alone, is a just outcome. You. You can become a just outcome. You don’t have to get a just outcome to be just, to become a just outcome. And mercy. Let’s get to mercy. I don’t think mercy looks anything like we think it does either. Mercy is not soft soap and candy floss, and popcorn. There is a savageness in mercy. It looks nothing like welcoming an offender back into the fold so he can destroy more sheep. You all are so safe to talk to. I really appreciate that. You should never share anything, or it’s not going to be absorbed well. Don’t pour out the beauty of you in environments where it’s going to be splashed back in your face. So, thank you for being such absorbent listeners. This is hard for me. It’s not something I love to do. But I came because Julie Roys asked me to because she did something for me, and I believe in reciprocity. And because I love you.   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  32:25 One more thing I want to talk a little bit about in terms of mercy. I see you on social media where we are too often. Some of us. I want to talk about two things related to this. You are so merciful to others. The abuse survivor community, rightly, justly, understandably, is one filled with people in fight or flight mode, people who are hurt and angry and wounded and seeking healing and seeking justice and who need mercy. And I see you as one who is always merciful. To them, to others like me who don’t, who made mistakes and don’t understand, and also merciful to yourself. So, can you just talk about here does that come from? How do you do that? How do you sustain that?   LORI ANNE THOMPSON  33:25 Karen, that’s not on the list of questions.   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  33:27 I know. Pop quiz   LORI ANNE THOMPSON  33:36 All right. I’m a mom. It’s the best thing that ever happened to me. I have children. One of them is grown. And I didn’t have appropriate development. That shouldn’t shock anybody. But they have. And so, I’ve been privileged to be part of their development from you know, infancy, extreme vulnerability to a toddler that you wanted to throttle but couldn’t, to the adolescent who is awkward and gangly and extremely vulnerable, who didn’t know their identity. Who, who every move is awkward and uncomfortable, to the adult who’s becoming and learning to fly on their own? And I have a profound maternal heart. And what’s true for my children has to be true for me. It has to be. I have to have the I can’t live in an incongruent truth. Probably not. Again, the rest of you, you wouldn’t be here. So, if they’re allowed to grow and they’re allowed to become and allowed to make mistakes, and they’re allowed to not know, allowed to be in a developmental process. They need comfort if they need nurture. If they can make mistakes and be forgiven, if they can royally screw it up and have to pay the price and just start again, then so can I. No baby is born a sexual predator. Nobody is. So, we become that. And I was talking in a group with a group of clergy sexual abuse survivors, primary and secondary survivors at the hotel a couple of nights ago. And I said, there’s mercy for everybody, you know, including offenders. But hold on. Mercy does not mean trust. I will tell you that we can never be more fully human by dehumanizing anybody. I don’t care who it is.   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  36:04 Amen.   LORI ANNE THOMPSON  36:04 So, you want to be free? I do too. You’re going to have to use the tactics of liberty, not the tactics of oppression. That does not mean being naive. The Bible says it talks about you know, when I was a child, I thought like a child. It’s time for some of us to grow the !@#$%  up. Right? And that’s a developmental process. Don’t be naive. But don’t give way to cynicism, either. And that’s a process. Part of what, you know, constantly made problems for me was that I was I thought like a child, because I had developmental places where I wasn’t grown. So, all that to say, how come I’m merciful? Because I see humanity in everybody, including me.   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  36:57 Well, as someone who has experienced that mercy from you, and that ability that, you know, to experience growth and change, because you made room for it. Again, thank you. So, for those of us again, I, you know, I’m here to, to hear you and to listen, and to learn. That’s what I’ve been doing these past few years. And so for those of us who are in that space, we are learning, we are listening, we want to support, some may even want to advocate, how can we, how can we equip and empower survivors, rather than, which is my sort of natural instinct, to kind of just like, do it for people fix it? How can we equip and empower rather than try to do it for you?   LORI ANNE THOMPSON  37:55 Abuse is done to. So, abuse is something that steals voice, choice, agency, personhood. It’s not a decision. I don’t care if you wore the wrong dress, or you were in the wrong spot. Or you told your secrets, or you trusted him, or doesn’t matter. You know, what, what decision do you felt you made, abuse is never a choice. And so, the pathway out of abuse of any kind is the opposite. And Dr. Diane Langberg is responsible for clarifying and elucidating that in my life with her work. Yeah, you can’t do the same thing that it used it; it has to be the opposite. So, in recovery, survivors have to have control. They have to be heard. And sometimes that means they even just need to be able to hear themselves first. They need to be somebody, was Virginia Woolf. She’s a late author. She actually ended up taking her own life on account of the abuse, sexual abuse that she suffered at the hands of her two stepbrothers. And she is a prolific, beautiful author, beautiful woman. And she wrote a narrative where she was talking about looking glass shame. That, you know, when she looked at herself in the mirror, she felt shame because of the sexual abuse that she had endured, and perhaps some of us can relate to that. And she talks about being someone being a person to whom things happened. Anybody else identify with that? And part of the recovery process is becoming a person who makes things happen. If you do for me, then somebody else with less good intentions is also going to do for me and they’re going to do to me. And I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m okay to be partnered with when I need and want help anymore. But the very best thing that that I’ve learned to do is to be able to do for myself. If that makes sense to be able to exercise, it’s like a muscle like, Can I make a decision? I don’t think I’ve made a full-fledged decision other than marrying my current husband and having my last two children until I was in my 40s. Everything else just happened. That’s sobering people. That’s like halfway through life before you make a decision, like toddlers make decisions. No! There was no ‘no’ in an abusive environment, right? You don’t even learn to exercise that muscle of No, much less, it’s just Yes. And when you’re formed and fashioned in abuse. And I do think that Christendom, I wasn’t raised in Christendom, I came to it late in the game. Boy, oh, boy. Christendom doesn’t help the development of agency and doesn’t necessarily help with empowering individuals. Christ does. Christendom does not. I really think that part of the development process is acquiring information. And then wisdom is the application of that information, that knowledge. And so, growing both in information and knowledge, or information and wisdom, so that you can make informed decisions is really, really important.   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  41:41 Now, that’s very helpful. I mean, the Messiah Complex runs deep in many of us, and it can be hard for us to resist that urge to want to save other people.   LORI ANNE THOMPSON  41:55 There’s only one Savior,   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  41:56 I know. Yeah, amen. So, what are some other pitfalls that people who want to support for or be advocates for survivors? What are some other pitfalls that we can fall into?   LORI ANNE THOMPSON  42:08 To advocate is the root word of that is, I think it’s advocury. It’s from the Latin or old French. And it means to publicaly stand up for to defend. It has some, some legal language associated with it. What it doesn’t mean is to people say, oh, thank you for being a voice for the voiceless. Hold on a second unless they’re mute. Anybody? Advocacy means helping somebody else to find their voice, not speaking for them. So, there’s some advocates, self-proclaimed, untrained, that need to drink a cup of ‘Shut the f$%^ up’. Because it’s not theirs to say, okay? When you advocate, you lend your power to somebody else, you don’t stand in power in front of them. You partner with. To do other than that is to make them less human and an object of your action and to make them a non-dialogical inactive passive individual. And guess what also does that? Abuse. That’s a free sermon. I think that we have to deal with our own our own pain before we you know, at least the mountains of it and have some level of self-awareness and humility, before we come alongside other people and partner with them or proclaim to have answers. I think that there’s an awful lot of people that think they have answers when they really should just have questions. I think that we should probably stop doing so much aid and start doing more abiding. And lastly, I would say this, you know, wherever you see tools of repression being used, manipulation, name calling, deceit, proclamations, in my opinion, if I hear that one more time, I don’t care about your opinion. I care about yours. I’ll hear about how you feel. But I don’t care about what somebody else’s opinion is. I have had enough of somebody else’s thinking for me, thank you very much. Just give me the information and I will think it through myself. Anybody?   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  44:50 So, let’s go back to talking about, survivors. And, again, this is helpful, not just for survivors, but for people like me who want to support them. What are the phases of recovery?   LORI ANNE THOMPSON  45:12 Judith Herman, again, I have more books than hers. But she in the early days, her work really helped me have a framework because there’s, you know, that somebody wrote this quote of the maps, not the territory, right? So, you can have a map that didn’t look anything like the road you’re on, just happens to give you some sort of sense of direction. So, there’s a bit of a map for recovery in that book. And its evidence based, and I really like it. And she talks about three phases of recovery that are clearly on a continuum. There’s no like, okay, I’m on phase one and phase two, and then phase three. They intermingle and flow in and out of each other a bit. The first phase is safety and stability, developing safety and stability in your life. And that means fiscal stability, emotional stability, psychological stability, physical stability. Can you eat? Can you sleep? Can you move? Do you have employment? Do you have safe lodging? Are you physically safe? Are you emotionally safe? So, developing and keeping that and that’s primary. And then the next phase that she elucidates is grieving and remembering, and that’s where a therapeutic alliance is really important, and cannot over stress the importance of finding safe therapeutic relationships. Safe therapeutic. A pastor is a pastor, not a therapist. And grieving and remembering takes time. And it, you should have somebody licensed by a board that you can hold accountable, okay? Not a church board. Like a psychological association somewhere, some sort of backup. Somebody registered to do what they’re doing not just certified. And then the third phase is reintegration. And reintegration involves going back into the things that used to bring your life and I have probably spent two years, two – three years in each phase. I’m still heavily in reintegration, this for me, this is reintegration.   KAREN SWALLOW PRIOR  47:25 And I know I mean, just, I know so little about this, and yet just being hit by a bus and experiencing that kind of trauma to my mind and body. It really, I mean, God has used that to help me understand trauma in general, other people’s trauma and healing and how it’s not linear, right? And so, in that way, I just see it as a gift that’s helped me open up my eyes and understand all of this more. And so, I want to close just kind of on the note of this conference, The tagline or theme for this conference is Restoring Faith in God and the Church. And so, do you have a word for us on that theme? How can we, how are we, how could we help everyone here just have a little more restoration of faith and God and the church?   LORI ANNE THOMPSON  48:25 I heard Rachel den Hollander say somewhere like, you know, you don’t have faith in Christianity you have faith in Christ. And I think that for some of us, even that can be a stretch, because so much has been bound up or called Christ which is anything but. One of the last songs that we just sang before you and I came up on stage there was a line that says, you know, where there has been salvation in your name. You know, for many of us, there’s been slaughter in his name and so calling upon the name of Jesus while it’s part of the ethos of faith in Christ, can be a painful thing to do. That song also talked about having a living hope to me. And I think that it’s difficult to have faith when you don’t see it in actual action. And I just want to thank you, thank you for showing up in this space. It’s not you’re the experts in the room. You really are. These people have come to serve you and to bless you. I’ve come terrified and to be blessed, but I just want to say that your being here this is a church filled with people who have been hurt by the church, and part of your just presence here restores my faith not only in humanity but faith in faith itself. And Dr. McKnight, in his session, he opened by saying we believe you. How beautiful it is to be part of the fellowship of finally believed.   JULIE ROYS  50:37 Well, that concludes what was a very powerful interview with Lori Anne Thompson by Karen Swallow Prior at the Restore Conference. And it’s just one of many messages from Restore that we’ll be publishing in the next few weeks. So, you’ll want to be watching for that. But thanks so much for listening to this special edition of The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. If you’d like to connect with me online, you can do so at JulieRoys.com. Also, just a reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcast, Google podcast, Spotify or YouTube. That way you’ll never miss an episode. And while you’re at it, we’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks so much for joining me today. I hope you were blessed and encouraged and equipped to stand with and for the vulnerable. Read more

Guest Bios Show Transcript https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNHHT8_NZOAShould a woman endure abuse by an unbelieving spouse like a missionary endures persecution?  Stunningly, this is the advice offered by Dr. John Street, chair of the graduate program of biblical counseling at John MacArthur’s school — The Master’s University and Seminary (TMUS) — and an elder at Grace Community Church (GCC).  Street also suggests that wife's failure to "fulfill" her husband can cause the husband to sexually abuse his children! And he says victims should report their abuse to church leaders first, and to police as a last resort. This advice from the top counseling teacher at The Master’s is appalling. Yet it's consistent with what our recent exposés have revealed about MacArthur and his institutions.  In this podcast, Julie plays numerous clips by Street, showing his stunning views on abuse and abuse victims.  And joining Julie to discuss Street's views is Dr. Philip Monroe, a licensed psychologist and director of the Global Trauma Recovery Institute at Missio Seminary in Philadelphia.  This is a revealing and informative podcast that the church desperately needs to hear. This Week’s Guest Philip Monroe Philip Monroe, PsyD is a psychologist who leads Langberg, Monroe & Associates, a private clinical practice in the greater Philadelphia area. He is the Taylor Visiting Professor of Counseling at Missio Seminary where he and Dr. Diane Langberg founded the Global Trauma Recovery Institute. In addition, he provides direction to the Trauma Healing Institute at American Bible Society. His personal and professional musings may be found at philipmonroe.com.  Show Transcript SPEAKERS JULIE ROYS, Dr. John D. Street, PHIL MONROE JULIE ROYS  00:04 Should a woman endure abuse by an unbelieving spouse the same way a missionary endures persecution? And should she report abuse to the leaders of our church and only go to police as a last resort? Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And stunningly, what you just heard is the advice offered by Dr. John Street, the chair of the graduate program of biblical counseling at John MacArthur’s school, The Masters University and Seminary. Dr. Street is also an elder at Grace Community Church where MacArthur pastors. As you probably know, I’ve been reporting on how abuse is handled or perhaps mishandled at MacArthur’s church, and I published an expose revealing that MacArthur shamed and excommunicated a wife for refusing to take back her child abusing husband. But more recently, I published a report with numerous clips from lectures by Dr. John Street, and they indicate that teaching wives to stay with their abusive husbands is actually a policy at John MacArthur school. You’ll hear those clips in this podcast, but you’ll also hear expert advice on dealing with abuse and trauma from Dr. Phillip Monroe. Dr. Monroe is a licensed psychologist and director of the Global Trauma Recovery Institute at Missio Seminary in Philadelphia. He’s also one of our speakers at the upcoming Restore Conference, May 20 and 21st at Judson University in West suburban Chicago. And by the way, tickets are still available for what’s going to be an incredible two days of learning and healing. So, if you’d like more information on that, just go to Restore2022.com. Well, I’m so excited to speak with Phil, but before I do, I’d like to thank the sponsors of this podcast, Judson University, and Marquardt of Barrington. Judson University is a top ranked Christian University providing a caring community and an excellent college experience. Plus, the school offers more than 60 majors great leadership opportunities and strong financial aid. Judson University is shaping lives that shaped the world. For more information, just go to Johnsonu.edu. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity and transparency. That’s because the owners there, Dan and Kurt Marquardt, are men of character. To check them out, just go to buyacar123.com. Well, again, joining me today is Dr. Philip Monroe, a licensed practicing psychologist with Langberg, Monroe and Associates. He’s also the director of the Global Trauma Recovery Institute at Missio Seminary and the Taylor visiting professor at Missio. He holds a master’s with a concentration in counseling from Westminster Theological Seminary. And he has both a masters and a doctorate in clinical psychology from the Wheaton College graduate school. So, Phil, thank you so much for joining me, I’m so looking forward to our discussion.   PHIL MONROE  03:01 I’m glad  to be here as well. Thanks for having me.   JULIE ROYS  03:03 I’m really eager, like I said in the open, to get into some of these clips from Dr. John Street. But first I want to just unpack what biblical counseling is, because this is what Grace holds to. It’s what the Masters holds to. And I think for a lot of people, like there’s some maybe some folks that this is completely new to them. What is biblical counseling? If you could describe that, and then maybe contrast that with what’s known as integrationist counseling?   PHIL MONROE  03:32 Sure, biblical counseling has a lot of different types within it. So just like I’m a psychologist, and there’s lots of different kinds of psychologists who have different theories, within biblical counseling, there’s a lot of diversity. And so, there’s not one definition of it. There are some components that are probably pretty similar across the board. So, if I think about that, I think, you know, it tends to have a discipleship focus, it tends to have an advising focus. It tends to, of course, amplify the scriptures as a guiding tool. You know, it’s one person walking with another person who may have more of what we’d say a lay counselor role. Some maybe have gone through a certification process, and probably very few of them are actually licensed by a licensing board. The focus, generally speaking is how can I live as a Christian? What do the scriptures have to say about what I’m going through? I will say that biblical counseling history, though, probably has a lot more focus on the sinner side of things. So, some of my friends in biblical counseling would talk about we ministered to saints, sinners and sufferers, and I think those are categories that we can all relate to. But frequently, in some areas of biblical counseling, the focus is more on let’s get the log out of your eye. So, it’s much more about finding what you’re doing wrong, thinking wrong, believing wrong, feeling wrong and helping you to correct that.   JULIE ROYS  05:09 And so integrationist counseling, as I understand, would be sort of integrating biblical principles with psychology and sort of the best that we know from common revelation, right?.   PHIL MONROE  05:22 Right. And I would say even some biblical counselors are open to, you know, bringing in what would they say general revelation or things that are things, you know, maybe some medical information. They probably have hesitated. Not everyone now, of course, but some have hesitated to bring in anything that was psychological labeling that is secular, which is kind of interesting, because they don’t generally label the medical information as secular, but it’s equally scientific and focused. So yeah, interactionism is this idea of bringing Christian principles and the scriptures together with the best of Mental Health.   JULIE ROYS  06:00 And the Association of Certified Biblical Counselor. So ACBC, it’s my understanding that they would be more on the hard line of rejecting at least this is what I was hearing, and Dr. Street’s lectures, a rejecting of anything that smacks of secular psychology. That is really kind of vilified.   PHIL MONROE  06:21 I would say that’s generally true. I’m sure there’s some variations, of course, and not everybody would feel quite as strongly about that. But there would be definitely a suspicion. We need to check it out, bring it to the scriptures, find where the scriptures actually speak to this better, and use that.   JULIE ROYS  06:39 This isn’t my area of expertise, but I’ve seen some stuff out on the internet and read a little bit of Jay Adams, who is sort of the so-called Father of biblical counseling. I received an excerpt from a book that he wrote, The Christian Counselors Case Book, and some of it seems rather shocking. For example, there’s a case of incest. And he talks about in this case that the counselor should consider, and I quote, did the daughter participate willingly in the sin, and did she entice her father? When you talk about the log, now we’re talking about the victim needs to look at their sin or culpability, in a case of incest or abuse?   PHIL MONROE  07:22 But the irony here is, Jay may have been more influenced by his culture than he knew. Because it wasn’t uncommon, that in the early days of psycho analytic psychotherapy, that people would be thinking about young children’s fantasies, for wanting to have sex with their parents. And so, he may have been far more influenced there. But obviously, that’s an appalling viewpoint; that we would consider a child responsible for what an adult does.   JULIE ROYS  07:52 One of the clips that wasn’t reported in our initial article on Dr. Street and what they’re teaching at the Masters, but I did find it’s in one of his lectures that’s online from 2012. And I want to play that, and I want to see if you hear what I’m hearing,   Dr. John D. Street  08:09 There’s a story that I’m aware of, of a young lady. In fact, it’s written it’s entitled Glinda’s  story, and it’s about affliction by about a young girl who later on grew up to be a woman got married. But while she was young girl, her mother hated her, wanted to put her to death. Her sister despised her, her father when she was a baby left, and her mother remarried a stepfather, and the mother being a severe drunkard, the stepfather couldn’t hardly put up with her and ended up sleeping with Glenda from the time that she was four years of age. And because there was no sexual fulfillment with the mother, the stepfather ended up finding a sexual satisfaction with this young girl for several years. She is hated by her mom, hated by her sister, her mom’s a drunk, her stepfather is sexually abusing her. You can imagine the kind of life that this girl grew up in. And even in the midst of this, in her inner biography of her life, she admits to the fact that I as I look back now, I realized that even as a young girl, I had sinful tendency and  propensities even in the midst of what was happening to me. Now, you don’t hear that in a lot of abuse literature.   JULIE ROYS  09:23 You don’t hear that in a lot of abuse literature. I’m kind of glad we’re not hearing that in a lot of abuse literature. Again, he says that because there was no sexual fulfillment with the mother, the stepfather ended up finding his sexual satisfaction in the daughter. I mean, I find that shocking. My understanding is, even if you’re not finding sexual fulfillment as a man, it doesn’t necessarily lead you to having sex with a four-year-old. This is in 2012. This has been up for 10 years, this teaching from the Masters Seminary. Are you hearing what I’m hearing? Is this appalling?   PHIL MONROE  10:03 Yes, it is. No mention of rape. That’s what it was happening there – a rape of a child. Some sense of creating the sense of a because statement, right? Because of this than this, like there was no choice? That may not have been what he intended. But language matters, right? And then what’s really important, I think his main point here is, look, she’s willing to name her own sins even as a, I guess, a four or whatever young child that she had sins too. We call that a sin leveling. That somehow we just need to be able that everybody should be able to just only talk about their own sins, never their victimization. Why not talk about her victimization and how she was mistreated by her mother? It sounds like her sister abandoned by her father, raped by her stepfather. What’s the big fear we have if we name victimization?   JULIE ROYS  10:58 And that is the question and we’ve seen at Grace Community Church. I mean, I reported this horrific story of what happened with Eileen Gray, who wanted to simply protect her children from a child abuser who had admitted that he had abused her children and yet she gets discipline, Eileen for not letting him back into the home. I’m gonna play another clip and this is one where he begins by contrasting their approach there at the Masters with Minirth Meier. I’m guessing Minirth Meier, one of the biggest Christian counseling groups. They’re integrationist would that be fair to say? Okay. And so, he begins with sort of contrasting this, but then he seems to suggest, in fact, it’s not just seems it seems pretty clear that a wife should endure abuse, like a missionary endures persecution. Take a listen.   Dr. John D. Street  11:50 Now, we do agree with Minirth Meier that the Bible teaches mutual love and respect for one another, in the husband-wife relationship. But we don’t agree that the primary goal, the counselee, or the counselor working with an abuse situation, is to make personal escape and protection the essential object of their counsel. Virtually at this point, there’s no difference between integrationist counselor and the secular counselor. Both have the same goal that is ultimately saving the body. Let me suggest to you that if saving the body is the ultimate goal in counseling, to be consistent, we would have to make that the ultimate goal of Christians across the board. So that would mean a lot of our missionaries, who are in locations around the world where they are under bodily threat, we’re going to have to pull them home and put them in a protective situation, because husbands, wives, children are under bodily threat. What does that say about Christians in countries like China? Where the churches openly abused, and physically harmed? Maybe we should do everything we can to pull and smuggle those people out of China. Or in Islamic countries where Christianity is outlawed, and yet there are Christians, there, undergoing persecution all the time, some of them dying. If saving the body is the ultimate goal, then those people shouldn’t be there. We should take no risks at all. That’s the ultimate goal. What is the goal? Well, I think from a biblical perspective, we can say that the goal of biblical counseling is to be God’s kind of person, even in the midst of your trial.   JULIE ROYS  13:42 Okay, interesting clip, because, you know, at the end, he contrasts these two goals. So biblical counseling, we’re trying to make you into God’s kind of person in the midst of trial. What Christian doesn’t agree with that kind of goal? At the same time, he’s saying secular counseling, integration of counseling, they’re just looking to escape harm, you know? When it comes to abuse, is it somehow wrong to escape harm? Or is it okay to have that as our first goal to escape being abused by someone who that has been sinning against you?   PHIL MONROE  14:20 Yeah, I’m not sure where to begin. Because there’s a lot of things about that clip I could take issue with. I think there’s a false dichotomy. And it assumes that somebody who is escaping harm, that was their first option. No, they actually stayed. It’s probably their last option. They’ve been trying everything else, but very few people just want to up and leave at the moment of the first sensation of harm. So that’s an issue that’s there. The second is I agree, actually, I want to be God’s kind of person in difficult times. God’s kind of person sometimes stands up and speaks truth. God’s kind of person gives grace to somebody by saying you’re not going to treat people this way anymore. The grace of limitation, right? That’s also there. Was Abigail God’s kind of person when she decided to go against her husband’s foolishness and do something to correct that and do what is right and to call her husband a fool for not doing it? Why is the assumption that taking abuse is the right biblical thing? Well, I’ll tell you why. It’s because they have idolized marriage. That marriage is so important that anything that would attack it must be itself bad. But if you view instead that somebody attacking the marriage is the abuser, then the abused standing up and saying no more, is actually one who honors marriage more than the other.   JULIE ROYS  15:56 And this idea that that somehow it’s in the perpetrators best interest to allow the perpetrator to keep abusing. I mean, how wrongheaded is that?   PHIL MONROE  16:07 Exactly, exactly. And, you know, I have to take issue with one more thing, and they’re like, you know, comparing it to missionaries. Missionaries voluntarily go places. And yes, they may know that their life is at risk. But we also don’t say, oh, you went to some place and your life is at risk. So, you’re going to have to stay there. Missionaries come home all the time. Because they realize, you know, what?, it’s probably best that I can leave for now and come back later when it’s safer.   JULIE ROYS  16:33 Well, I think a lot of this idea of, of sort of sanctifying the husband through the wife being the sufferer. You know, Christ suffered. I mean, he even makes that that analogy at some point, you know, like Christ suffered for us. And, and I know, Eileen said in the counseling that she got from Carrie Hardy, so this does, it again, seems indicative of a larger pattern. But in the counseling she got is that she’s supposed to model how to suffer for Jesus, to her children. By enduring abuse, she’s modeling for her children, how to suffer like Jesus. Perverse that a spouse would be training their children on how to be abused victims and say nothing. Absolutely appalling. But let me just play a clip where it seems to me like this is exactly what John Street is saying. This also brings us to our First Peter passage, because again, this is not classically what you’re going to hear in a lot of abuse-type teaching, even in the Christian church today. I Peter 3:1, he says, in the same way, the Greek terminology here is you can translate this in the same way, you can translate this likewise, like what is the idea in the same way as what? Well, in the same way that he is just referred to Jesus Christ in chapter two. All right, very important words, and we’re gonna go back there in just a second. But notice this, you wives, he says, be submissive to your own husbands so that if any of them are disobedient to the word, they may be won over without a word, by the behavior of their wives. Now, who are these people? These are husbands who are described as being disobedient to the word. Now primarily, that’s a reference to an unbeliever. However, Peter states it in such a way, that it’s has a broader context to it. It could be a person who professes to be a believer who is acting like an unbeliever, okay? He could have used the Alpha prefix tupistix and say basically referred to unbeliever, but he doesn’t.  The way he describes this is any of them are disobedient to the word. So, this could be a professing believer who’s living like an unbeliever, okay? This husband. And he says that though husbands may be won over without a word by the behavior of their wives. In other words, the way you win your husband over is not by putting repent in the bottom is beer can. It’s without a word. You don’t win him over by lecturing him into righteousness. That’s not the way you win him over. And within context, here, the context is a husband, unbelieving husband, that is being harsh, and mistreating his wife. Wow! I mean, this is absolutely stunning to me. I mean, we’re not even talking about an unbeliever. He broadens this out now. So now it can be a believer whose acting like an unbeliever, which, how does that make him a believer? You know, a tree by its fruit. But anyway, these are the arguments that he’s making. Talk about this first Peter passage. What is it really saying there? Is it saying what he’s saying that we just need to submit as wives, no matter what comes at us?   PHIL MONROE  20:10 You know, it’s problematic when we cherry pick a verse and don’t put other passages to give it context and meaning. You know, Bible says, Children obey your parents. Jesus says, Those who hinder children come to Me should have, you know, be thrown into the sea. You know, we have context there. We have context with how husbands and wives are supposed to treat each other. We have places where it says, live at peace, if at all possible. But it obviously means if it’s not possible, then you don’t live at peace, right? So, it always seems good when you look at one verse, oh, this is the only meaning of it. But we have all of the other passages that tell us what God’s heart is for widow, orphan, fatherless, people who have less power. The evidence is crystal clear that those who are abusing their power are going to meet a bad end, right? Maybe not in this life. And those who don’t stand up for those who are being mistreated, they are also going to be held as complicit. So, Peter is talking about we need to obey our governing authorities, even if they’re harsh and lording it over us. But I find many of our churches more than willing to stand up to the government and say, you don’t have a right to tell us to do what this that or the other thing. So, are they going to keep that passage as well and follow it the same way they’re asking this woman to follow it? No, of course not. Because they know, it’s not this blanket cement block thing that you have to follow.   JULIE ROYS  21:57 It’s interesting that you bring that up. A lot of people have noted how Romans 13, and being submissive to authorities, was something at Grace that was taught very strongly till they wanted to object to COVID regulation. Then all of a sudden, we threw that out, we have a higher calling. But one thing I mean, maybe this stood out to me, because I’m talking to abuse victims from Grace and more stories will be coming out. But I talked to one woman who said, marital rape was not something she even knew existed. She was raped so many times by her husband, that she said she can’t even count it. She has no idea. But it was repeated. And she got the message that as a wife, it’s her job to again, fulfill her husband, submit to it, submit to him, and by this will win him over, literally, by submitting to rape. I want to know; you counsel a lot of Christian women. How widespread is this kind of understanding of what it means to be a Christian woman a Christian wife?   PHIL MONROE  23:00 I think it’s fairly large. I would say most of the biblical counselors I know do not espouse what we’re hearing here. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Darby Strickland, but she’s written book, Is It Abuse?, and she’s a biblical counselor and would stand opposed to these kinds of thinking and has articulated extremely well from a biblical point of view. But unfortunately, widely across American Christianity, there is this focus that if you’re having trouble, it’s probably on you. It’s probably your fault. And you just need to, you know, knuckle under here, and God’s going to do something amazing about it. And so, there’s very little teaching about actually God’s heart for justice. You can’t read Malachi 4 and hear how in time, those who are perpetrating these kinds of abuses are going to be ashes under the feet of a calf who’s stomping on them going out for joy. God’s heart for justice is clear. We should be teaching on it. And I think if we did more, we’d have less of these ideas. You know, what you were referring to earlier to is probably from I Corinthians 7, hey, you’ve got to do your wifely duty because you’re not allowed to withhold. But no, that passage says that the husband can’t say that he controls his own body, but she gets to say. So, I guess she can say no, you’re not going to use your body in this way. But unfortunately, we haven’t heard as much about that part of the passage. Let’s talk a bit about separating from an abusive spouse because this again became a big deal in the Eileen Gray situation. And apparently, there seems to be a policy of really advocating against it, but I will let Dr. Street speak for himself. I’m going to play a clip and then we’ll discuss it.   JULIE ROYS  24:48 Now, the big question comes at the end of this. Is it wrong for a wife to separate from her husband? Or for that matter, a husband to separate from an unbelieving wife? Yes, if her goal and purpose is to just simply get out of the trouble, I think it’s wrong. Her goal must be first to please God. She needs to be with him, or he needs to be with her in order to win their spouse over to righteousness. Sometimes it means hardship. Sometimes it means abuse, this is always the risk. Nobody wants to see that at all. But the answer is also no. If she is convinced, from a prudence standpoint, as we saw in Proverbs 22:3 and in Proverbs 27:12, that her husband is out to kill her, there’s no longer any desire for him to live as a husband with her. He basically has abandoned all of his husband’s provision, protection, that a husband is supposed to be for a wife. We would say this, a dead testimony is no testimony at all. So, I’m glad he doesn’t want abuse victims to die. But the standard that he puts up is, I mean, I just find it shocking. One, if somebody raises a hand to me, I’m gonna run. I mean, that’s like a self-protective reaction that God has given us for our own self-protection. It’s not wrong to seek your own good. And then this idea that abuse somehow is not always deadly, because I mean, I’m thinking and again, I’m not the psychiatrist, or the psychologist. I haven’t sat in your shoes, but I’m guessing there are situations where somebody has never been threatened deadly violence, but has been a violent person, and it becomes violent over in seconds, if it has the right trigger. So, I find this shocking, but I want to know from you the expert, what do you hear?   PHIL MONROE  26:58 I have one category of damage, and that is physical damage, death, cessation of life. We see in people who have experienced all kinds of abuse, and some of them have never been hands on abuse, actual damage done to their bodies, their adrenal systems are shot, their ability to be able to function around other people. This is not just something in their head, this is their entire bodies are damaged. It’s a real damage. But oftentimes, people don’t want to see or acknowledge invisible wounds that can’t be seen on the outer side of the body, or is just about whether you have life or not, right? So, damage is being done.   JULIE ROYS  27:43 You know, one thing with that, it almost seems when I was listening to this with my husband, he said that almost sounds like they’re gnostic, like the body doesn’t matter. This idea that somehow we’re divorced from it in the body isn’t a part of, you know, integrated to who we are. And that again, that’s an that’s a Gnostic heresy. I mean, are you hearing that too?   PHIL MONROE  28:03 Yeah, kind of a bobble head Christianity. There’s no body, it’s just a big head that, that has, has a lot of movement. And that’s the only thing that matters, right? But yet God gave us bodies and life, and he expected us to care for our own and each other’s. And to concern ourselves with that. You know, there’s another thing that came up in that clip, which is, you know, if her only reason to separate is to get to safety. First off that who says that’s where in Scripture does that say that’s not godly to run for safety? But guess what, there’s also usually another agenda. Usually that person wants the abuse to stop, because they know it’s harming not only them, but other people, including the abuser. And isn’t that godly?   JULIE ROYS  28:50 And the children? I mean, is it if someone’s abusive to his wife, isn’t he generally abusive to children in the environment?   PHIL MONROE  28:59 Yes. And our governments know that. They know that if children are witnessing their mother or father being abused, and it’s not being dealt with, guess what? That’s going to be reported, because those children are now victims as well.   JULIE ROYS  29:14 And they’re being trained. I mean, we know that abused children. That’s I mean, doesn’t always happen that way, thank God, and some find incredibly redemptive paths. But this cycle of violence is just being perpetrated. And it is just again, it’s heartbreaking to me, this is happening in such a prominent church. So, this whole idea of separating from the spouse, there’s also a question about when to bring in authorities, right? When is it time that this is bad enough that we need to bring in, you know, police? My understanding is that there’s a responsibility to bring in police as a first resort when there’s physical abuse, not a last resort, but I’ll let you speak to that, but first let’s listen to what Dr. Street has to say.   Dr. John D. Street  30:04 Furthermore, they talk about separate from your spouse. Because of the radical self-protective counsel given, the situation becomes so violent, the counselor is forced to insist upon  separation. Seldom is this ever an end in a reunified home. Couples grow apart as they learn to adjust to living separately, children are often put in a new school and resist going back to a new teacher. Meaning well, but encouraging wrong, parents of the respective spouses see the relief of stress because they often actually discourage any reuniting with a spouse. Of course, without that, there is not going to be any reconciliation. Then thirdly, they talk about divorcing the spouse. And the problem here is not that it’s not a biblical ground for divorce. In fact, statistics demonstrate, the University of Washington demonstrated this, just as many women are killed by divorced husbands or kicked out boyfriends. In other words, just as many women die from, from the men who they’ve been separated from as those who stay in the home. The statistic doesn’t change. And of course, I’m not endorsing live in boyfriend’s here, I’m just relating what the study indicates. But it doesn’t seem statistically to really accomplish its purpose.   JULIE ROYS  31:27 So, he’s making an argument that separating does no good. You’ve seen probably a lot of studies on this. Does it do good for a wife to separate from a violent husband and take her children out of that environment?   PHIL MONROE  31:39 The thing in a violent relationship is dangerous for a woman and the process of getting out? Sadly, there are women who do get further harmed or even killed in that process, you know. When somebody is controlling, and they start to lose that grip on control, they may react. And so, he’s trying to allude to that. I’m not sure it makes his point. No, actually, we probably need to help them get out faster and sooner. Yes, it is a complicated path. Because you don’t know when you first get out what’s going to take place. He alluded to reconciliation as the goal. Well, I’m waiting to hear conversations about repentance first, and changed fruit. Why don’t we talk more about that, then the worry about marriage ending in divorce?   JULIE ROYS  32:23 And it seems to be just a constant theme of appeasing the abuser. And you can’t appease an abuser, can you?   PHIL MONROE  32:33 No. Well, you can momentarily. And that’s why abuse continues. If I just do it a little bit better, if I just do this, maybe we’ll find that magic again that we once had. And so that’s why people end up staying. Because they want it to work. And it seems like it should be and maybe if I just do this. And so, he’s actually playing into that same deceptive thinking.   JULIE ROYS  32:57 Well, and I’ve heard it from women who have gone to the church and to church leaders who tell me, they were told well, what did you do to make him mad? What did you do to trigger, as if it’s her fault? And again, you might be able to appease in the short term. But in the long term, if you’re with a violent abuser, unless that man repents and gets help, and that takes time. And often, it requires being removed from the home for a significant amount of time, and a proven track record before you extend any trust. I mean, to put them back into the home, I don’t know this whole thing is mind boggling to me.   PHIL MONROE  33:29 Well, we’d like to skip to the end and get to the good stuff where everything’s all beautiful and peachy. But in fact, we’re missing out on the most important parts, which is, you know, we want to focus on the person who seems to be disrupting our fairy tale here, the victim. Where if we spent the same energy on the person who we want to see bear fruit of change, right?, and repentance, we’d probably have a lot more saved marriages ironically.   JULIE ROYS  33:55 Hmm. Well, let’s talk about reporting to police. Because this is a big issue, whether or not you’re required to report again, in the story that I did. There were two pastors at Grace Community Church who were cited by police because they were mandated reporters in the Eileen Gray situation. They didn’t report, they got off, it looks like probably because of statute of limitations. This actually wasn’t reported to police till two years later when the sexual abuse came out. But either way, we’re talking about abuse of children. There’s also abuse of adults, right? of spouses and what the mechanism should be. Do we go to police? Do we go to the church? How do we deal with it? Here’s what Dr. Street says. The question really comes the laws of the land, especially here in America. The laws in most states are pretty restrictive. And in talking about counselors as defining them as being responsible to report any kind of child abuse that’s going on. The question is, is that true of abuse that occurs with a spouse? Right? It does not have to be reported to my knowledge. Now, I’m not familiar as much with laws in other countries, but in this particular case, it’s my knowledge, unless, of course, you are aware that there is some imminent danger to someone, and, and you just generally have a civic responsibility to report that, so that it doesn’t result in somebody’s death. And more often than not, as a pastoral counselor, you do run somewhat of a risk in reporting some things to civil authorities, because basically, secular people with secular minds are going to take over and they’re not going to handle things in a biblical way. But we also have to remember Romans 13 and I Peter 2 that talks about the fact that God gave the secular authorities for a purpose so that there’s not general chaos in society. So, we still have to respect them, obey all of the laws of the land, as long as it doesn’t contradict directly a law of command of Scripture. So, and then beyond that, it’s up to our conscience and what needs to be reported and what doesn’t need to be reported. Okay. I’m just gonna throw that to you. What are the laws?   PHIL MONROE  36:16 He’s got a partial truth here. Mandated reporting versus permissive reporting, I think is a good way to think about. Mandated reporting is usually limited to minors and other vulnerable populations, where you don’t get a choice. You have any sense of what’s happening, you’re mandated to report. An adult who is being abused, domestically abused, you are not a mandated reporter, usually. This is where it’s partial. Like, again, there are those caveats. We have a duty to warn and protect when there is imminent risk to somebody that we can identify and you define imminent risk is that like, you’re going to get killed in the next 24 or 48 hours? Here’s another complicating factor,. An abuse victim has been coerced and controlled. As a therapist, I don’t want to come in and be a benign dictator and tell you what you’re going to do or not do and I’m gonna go to the police. I might actually be putting your life at greater risk, if we haven’t taken the steps to help you get out safely. It should be a conversation; how can we get the authorities involved? What would help? How can we get you to safety? Those should be conversations, but I can’t just violate confidentiality because an adult doesn’t want me to, even though they’re being harmed. One more caveat, though, if that adult has children in the home who are experiencing it, now I’m back to a mandated reporting experience. And now I’ve got to do that. And try to help that mother and children, you know, find a safe place as well.   JULIE ROYS  37:53 We also hear in that clip, the vilifying is a very us/them mentality. Us  vs Them. And it’s interesting to me because I talked to an abuse victim just recently, from Grace, and she was like, oh my word when I went to a domestic abuse shelter, it was the first help I had gotten in years. I had been told just to submit to it, put up with it. And so, for her it was just life giving. And she began, for somebody to label what had even happened to her, which is so horrific as abuse, because she had been trying to explain it away, was huge. But I want to play what he has to say about domestic abuse shelters. Unbelievable, really.   Dr. John D. Street  38:32 In fact, one literature says on this, a Christian psychologist writes, don’t make excuses for staying in a destructive relationship. I can’t afford to leave, I’ll never make it on my own, I have no place to go. A woman’s shelter will take care of your short term needs and the needs of your children. And we’ll put you in touch with services that will enable you to get on your feet and rebuild your life away from the harmful influence of abusive mate. Now, there are problems with this approach. Let me suggest some of them. These abusive shelters really take control of those women’s lives in an aggressive way. Many of them that I am familiar with show graphic films. The women and the children that come to those shelters of severe abuse, literally scaring them to death. And what they end up effectively doing is elevating the fear of man almost to a panic level. And of course, it’s designed with that in mind. I mean it’s designed so that they will not they’re heavily invested in not seeing that marriage work. They’re heavily invested in that. Now often when the location of a wife or family are kept from a husband, it creates even more anger in the husband, it leads itself to sinful manipulation and often precludes any kind of restoration. Furthermore, these shelters will not keep a woman indefinitely. They can’t. So now they’re forced to teach her to get a job, which involves leaving the children in a daycare center in order to support herself. Also, most of the council given in those shelters are extremely feminist and very anti marriage, or at least have a very low view of the sanctity of marriage.   JULIE ROYS  40:12 You know what I hear? I hear a pastor who likes to control the women. Not wanting to give that control over to an outside third party who might disagree with them. That’s what I’m hearing here. I’ve never been to an abuse shelter. What’s your impression of them?   PHIL MONROE  40:31 That no one wants to go to them, that they are a place of last resort, but that they are helpful. And I’ve never heard someone playing horrific videos. That would be you know, the wrong thing to play to somebody who’s just gotten out of a situation like that. What I hear here is someone who is claiming to be an expert in dealing with ABUSE, but I’m not hearing the kind of compassion for that experience. I’m not hearing the recognition that the one destroying the marriage is not the one leaving but the one who is forcing the other out. Why is there so much energy focused on the one who is getting out versus the one who is causing the problem in the first place?   JULIE ROYS  41:17 I don’t understand it either. In some of this, I’m like, this is just basic human decency. And when I felt the same way, when I heard his lectures, I was like, it made me so angry, because I was just like, there was no love. There was no compassion, there was I mean, I talk to these victims all the time. And sometimes I can’t sleep at night, because of the stories I’ve heard. And I just, I don’t I don’t hear heartbreak, I don’t even hear care or concern for them. It’s like a system he’s communicating.   PHIL MONROE  41:44 I hear a lot of focus, and not just here. But I hear a lot of focus on, right/wrong. On, what are the rules and the regulations of these things? I don’t hear either the indignation about the treatment, or the compassion for either the perpetrator or victim. It’s just about getting the right answer, not actually about recovery, which is what they’re saying they want-  recovery of the marriage. Yes, well, there are steps to that if it’s possible. But I’m not hearing that. Just concern. Don’t disrupt what God has put together.   JULIE ROYS  42:25 And lastly, I do want to address the issue of when the shoe is sort of, you know, on the other foot, so to speak. I mean, when actually men are being abused by their wives. I don’t know how common this is. And I do think it’s a little different. And maybe I’m wrong on this. But it does seem to me that when you’re being abused by someone much larger and physically stronger than you, it’s a little different than being abused. Not to say that it doesn’t happen but being abused by someone who is physically smaller than you that you could probably subdue. Not to say there aren’t some circumstances where women might be stronger than their husbands. But generally, that’s rare. But he tells a story. And in the story, it’s a man who puts up with abuse. And he, you know, Dr. Street seems to indicate that this is a good thing, that this is a noble thing. Again, following through this ethic that he apparently has, I want to listen to this and then get your feedback to it. I had a guy back in the early 90s in our church, who was a tall guy, probably 6′ 3″ or 6’4″. You know, physically fit guy, he owned his own company, did a lot of commercial work and had people that worked with him and stuff. And he had a little wife, and she was an unbeliever. And she ran some psychological clinics that basically were therapy group sessions for women who were unhappy in their marriages. They came together and what it was it was just a trash session the whole time for their husbands, which are only caused her anger to grow. And so, she was a very angry woman, even though he provided a wonderful home, beautiful place to live, had built it with his own hands and plenty of money for him. You know, as an unbelieving wife, she just she was just a hateful woman. One day, he told me or actually it was one night, he was sound asleep, and he woke up and she was on top of him, pounding him with her fists. And he had a bloody nose. And she took her finger and she pointed it right at him, and she says, one of these days you’re going to find a butcher knife planted right in the middle of your chest. That’s how angry she was. Now I knew him very well. He was a very gentle guy. You know, I’m sure that there was a sinful irritating thing that he did. But he was willing to work on those in counseling and tried to be the best husband as he could. And I know that if he physically would have done anything to her, I mean, it would have been probably pretty detrimental. But he never did. He was never that kind; he was just a big teddy bear. That’s what he was. And, but she was very angry, very violent. She would throw things at him. She would try to harm him. I think he could show you today scars, you know, on him that she has basically done. Where in any normal household, probably that spouse would have been in jail long time ago. But I remember asking him, and I’m gonna change his name, because this is still an ongoing situation. I said to him, Tom, what do you want to do? We had talked through these very passages just like I did with you. What do you want to do? And he said to me, Pastor, I want to, I want to stay with her, and win her over to righteousness. And I said, Tom, even if it costs you your life? And he said, yes. And he’s still living with her. In fact, one of the last times I saw him, he came up to me, and he said to me, he said to me, hey, guess what happened? I said, I don’t know what happened? He’s, you know, her father went to the hospital, and was dying. And she came to me kind of out of nowhere and said to me, will you go to the hospital to see my father and share the gospel with him? And he said, Well, sure, no problem. Why don’t you come along with me? Oh, no, no, no, I don’t want to go. But I want you to go. And that’s the first time he ever had any clue from her that she really even acknowledged that the gospel was worthwhile. And he was just beaming, all right? That was the greatest thing. Now, this is after several years of living with this woman. I mean, and she has made life miserable for him. So now, as a pastor, you know, I’ll die for somebody like that. I’m going to support them and help them as much as possible. The world would label them a psychological disease. The world would say somebody like that is codependent, all right, and that they have some kind of abnormal codependency with their spouse, where they’re willing to put up with this kind of hardship, you know. They’re not codependent at all. They have an overriding greater purpose than their own life even. And that is to see goodness go to that other person in terms of the gospel, and to accurately represent and live Christ in front of them. That’s an overriding concern. So as far as I’m concerned, that person is the most sanest person in the world, that they don’t have any kind of psychological disease or psychological problem. They’re really willing to put up with an injustice for righteousness’ sake. What do you hear?   PHIL MONROE  48:13 Abuse does happen to men. It may be less likely to be physical, it may be more likely to be psychological and emotional, financial, spiritual. And it’s a damaging thing when it happens to a person. So, I’m glad he actually spoke about that. But this idea of just take it for, you know, because it’s going to bring wonderful things. Actually, allowing people to sin is not a good thing, right? We wouldn’t say that about any other sin. So why do we say it here? I think it’s because we’re more invested in this institution. And we have seen the institution as mattering more than the people who are in it.   JULIE ROYS  49:00 Well, and I just can say, from, from a woman’s perspective, or even just from a human perspective, somebody to me, that just allows themselves to repeatedly be rolled over and abused, and I would tend to lose respect for that person. And I can’t imagine even the abuser respecting someone or what they believe, when they behave that way. And I’m not saying there aren’t times when we absorb the violence. I mean, there are times when we turn the other cheek. But to also allow, again, like you say, what does that do to the soul of the person who’s doing this against you? And what does it do to you? I mean, just such a toxic toxic message. And yet, as we’ve seen, this seems to be the policy at the Masters University and Seminary. Shocking. At Grace Community Church, where John MacArthur one of the largest figures in evangelicalism, who is heard by millions of people, and I’ve heard him say the opposite publicly. I’ve heard it in some of his messages to say that a woman shouldn’t just take abuse. But it seems, and I’ve talked to people who are students at Masters University and Seminary who say, absolutely, this is what’s taught. Absolutely, this is what is done when it comes to abuse victims coming to the church. So there seems to be a different public image maybe than what’s happening privately. But just final thoughts on what needs to happen now that this has come to the surface. And I saw Paige Patterson say some really toxic things about women, and he got removed from his seminary. Of course, he wasn’t maybe as in control as John MacArthur is at his church or at the Masters. But they’ve had accreditation issues in the past, where because there has been a culture of bullying and intimidation and nepotism, and all these things. What needs to happen now in the Christian community that this has been exposed?   PHIL MONROE  50:51 Well, I’m glad it has been exposed, and may help other victims and maybe future students, or current or past students who’ve listened to this and wondered, oh, this sounds different now that I’m hearing it in different light. I do think that whenever we see a person or an organization fixate on a particular type of problem, such as women leaving abusive husbands, that’s telling, and we should wonder what that means and why they’re so focused on that, to the exclusion of hearing about how to help perpetrators, how to help them repent. We seem very afraid of those sorts of things. And so, I’m grateful that they’re out. And I hope the conversations and people like Wade Mullen and Darby Strickland, and others who are in seminary settings and theological schools, who are talking about the scriptures are much richer, about the care of the oppressed, and for justice, let’s talk about that often.   JULIE ROYS  51:56 Do you think there needs to be some resignations?   PHIL MONROE  51:59 I think there needs to be some come to Jesus moments. Do I really believe these things? And I’d love to hear some people have to address that on the stage someplace where other people who are also biblically oriented Christian counselors are speaking other points of view. But yes, that that seems to be not comporting with either biblical or basic mental health.   JULIE ROYS  52:30 Well, so far, we haven’t heard any word from them. They have been John MacArthur has been quiet. The school has been quiet, the church has been quiet. But I appreciate you, Phil. Thank you so much for being willing to speak into this. And again, you’re going to be appearing at the Restore Conference coming up. So, I get to meet you in person in just a little over a month. I’m very much looking forward to that and very much looking forward to what you’re going to bring to the table at the Restore Conference. So, thanks again for taking the time for this podcast and look forward to seeing and you May 20th and 21st. Coming right up.   PHIL MONROE  53:03 Thanks for having me.   JULIE ROYS  53:04 And thanks so much for listening to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. If you’d like to connect with me online, just go to Julieroys.com. Also, just a reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcast, Google podcast, Spotify or YouTube. That way you’ll never miss an episode. And while you’re at it, I really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks so much for joining me today. Hope you have a great day and God bless. Read more

Guest Bios Show Transcript Why don’t church leaders believe victims when they report abuse? And why is the victim so often gaslit and abused instead of supported? This episode of The Roys Report presents an in-depth look at abuse recently exposed at John MacArthur’s megachurch in southern California. Survivor advocate and author, Sarah McDugal, joins Julie to unpack MacArthur’s shocking treatment of the wife of a child-abusing husband.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript In 2016, Christian author Carey Scott was the victim of plagiarism by a major celebrity—international speaker and evangelist Christine Caine. Caine reportedly copied entire portions of Scott’s book, forcing Scott to take legal action to settle the issue. Yet for Scott, the negative impact of this event lingers. Meanwhile, Caine, who never apologized, continues to enjoy the spotlight. On this edition of The Roys Report, Carey Scott shares her painful story, involving not just having her work stolen, but also being persistently bullied online.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript Are Black, Hispanic, and other people of color being traumatized in predominantly white, evangelical churches? And if they are, what’s driving it? Racism? Fear? Ignorance? Or, is it something else? Joining me for this episode of The Roys Report is Kyle Howard, a racial trauma and spiritual trauma counselor. He’s also become somewhat of a lightning rod for calling out what he sees as white supremacy in the church.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript The Association of Related Churches, or ARC, is arguably the biggest church planting organization in North America. It’s also one of the most embattled . . . with scandals involving ARC pastors hitting the news with shocking regularity. In this episode of The Roys Report podcast, former ARC pastor Jeff Thompson explains why. In 2012, Jeff says he was enamored with ARC’s model of “launching large”—of starting a church with a big capital investment, top-notch worship team, and professional marketing.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript Documents Is the turmoil at Bethlehem Baptist Church simply the result of different theological and political convictions? Or, is it due to spiritual abuse and control at the highest levels? In part two of my podcast on What Happened at Bethlehem Baptist, former members Steve and Janette Takata describe how a Bethlehem elder, Andy Naselli, reportedly disparaged and gossiped about them behind their backs.  

Show Transcript Over the past year, The Roys Report grew exponentially following in-depth investigations on several fronts—from the cultic church Mark Driscoll is running in Arizona, to pressure exerted on Naghmeh Panahi to salvage the #SaveSaeed movement, to inside reports from RZIM and John MacArthur’s ministries.  In this special ‘Best of 2021’ edition of The Roys Report, you’ll hear excerpts from our most popular podcasts of the year.   

Guest Bios Show Transcript Why is it that we have so many bullies and heavy-handed leaders in the church? Perhaps it’s because we’re addicted to leadership—and have elevated a model of leadership that has everything to do with the world and nothing to do with Jesus. In this edition of The Roys Report, Julie discusses Christians’ addiction to leadership with Lance Ford—a pastor, church-planter, and co-founder of the Sentralized Conference in Kansas City.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript Is conservatism biblical? And what are the dangers of mixing Christianity and politics? In this edition of The Roys Report, join Julie in addressing these issues head-on with Coleman Luck, author of The Curse of Conservatism. Though Coleman holds conservative theological and political views, he warns against a syncretism that’s seeping into the church.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript What does the Bible really say about gossip, bearing false witness, fear, anger, and other negative emotions? Is it wrong to speak out against another believer? Is it sinful to feel mad? In this edition of The Roys Report, prolific author Rebecca Davis joins Julie to discuss the third book in her series Untwisting the Scriptures that were used to tie you up, gag you, and tangle your mind, which deals with words and emotions.   

Guest Bios Show Transcript Did Liberty University mishandle Title IX sexual assault allegations? The school’s former spokesman says it did—and he joins Julie Roys in a special edition of The Roys Report to tell his inside story. Lamb this week filed a federal lawsuit against Liberty, accusing the school of firing him for raising objections to Liberty’s “mishandling” of Title IX allegations.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript Many churches and Christian groups have been accused of being cult-like. But what qualifies as a cult? And what are the red flags people should look for? In this edition of The Roys Report, well-known cult expert Dr. Steven Hassan joins Julie to discuss how to identify a cult and its tactics—including mind-control and authoritarian leadership.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript What do you do when Christianity hasn’t lived up to your expectations? And the church, which is supposed to be a place of healing, instead has left deep and permanent wounds? In this edition of The Roys Report, Lina Abujamra, Bible teacher and author of Fractured Faith, shares a very personal account of how her faith was nearly deconstructed.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript For years, Naghmeh Panahi heroically advocated for the release of her husband—Iranian-American pastor, Saeed Abedini—from an Iranian prison. Yet months before his release, Naghmeh revealed a dark secret: for years, Saeed had been physically, emotionally, and sexually abusing her. Yet rather than rallying to support this battered wife, Naghmeh says the Christian community attacked her. And she says some—including Franklin Graham and Jay Sekulow—relentlessly pressured her to reconcile with her abusive husband, or to even lie about what happened.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript From the fall of 2012 through 2015, imprisoned Iranian-American Pastor Saeed Abedini and his wife, Naghmeh, were the public face of persecuted Christians. As part of a global #SaveSaeed campaign, millions of dollars were raised, and Saeed was freed from prison in January 2016. Yet when Naghmeh revealed that she’d been abused by her husband, she went from being the darling of the Christian community to an outcast.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript When Jason Meyer, John Piper’s successor at Bethlehem Baptist Church, recently resigned, he claimed that a “neo-fundamentalism” had crept into the church. Others throughout evangelicalism have cited similar opposing factions in the church—white nationalists, “woke” Christians, and ex-evangelicals, for example. But what are these factions? And why is the evangelical movement—once united by firm theological convictions—now splitting apart? On this edition of The Roys Report, we explore the answers with Michael Graham and Skyler Flowers, two pastors who have authored a groundbreaking article entitled, “The Six-Way Fracturing of Evangelicalism.” Julie also presents new evidence, including leaked emails, revealing the deep divisions over racial and cultural issues at Bethlehem Baptist, which have led to major upheaval at the church.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript Natalie Hoffman spent more than 10 years at Bethlehem Baptist Church—the church where John Piper pastored for over 30 years. During that time, she says she was stuck in an abusive marriage. Yet rather than helping her, she says Bethlehem blamed and shamed her, and left her suicidal. On this edition of The Roys Report, Natalie Hoffman joins Julie to tell her story—an account that’s extremely relevant, given current events at Bethlehem.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript Have Scriptures been twisted to keep women in bondage—and to promote a patriarchy movement that’s grossly misogynist? On this edition of The Roys Report, author Rebecca Davis joins Julie to examine this movement and the Scriptures used to support it. Diving into Rebecca’s book series on Untwisting Scriptures That Were Used to Tie You Up, Gag You, and Tangle Your Mind, their talk centers on book two in the series entitled: Patriarchy and Authority.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript Twelve women have filed a civil lawsuit, claiming that Liberty University is “enabling on-campus rapes.” On this episode of The Roys Report, one of the 12 Jane Does filing that lawsuit—as well as two of her allies—tell their story spanning 16 years. Their story starts in 2005, when “Jane Doe #2” in the lawsuit was gang raped on Liberty’s campus.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript From his shuttered church in Seattle to his “cult” in Arizona, author and celebrity pastor Mark Driscoll has taken pastoral entitlement, bullying, and control to new lows. Even after Part 1 of Inside the Driscoll “Cult,” two former members of Driscoll’s security detail have much more to share.  On this edition of The Roys Report, Chad Freese, the former head of security at The Trinity Church, and his former colleague, Ben Eneas, reveal more details about the cult of personality and family business that Driscoll has cultivated.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript The cultic activities of Mark Driscoll and The Trinity Church have escalated to a whole new level. As Julie’s guests describe on this edition of The Roys Report, Driscoll is now sending cease and desist letters, threatening to sue whistleblowers. And the threat is not in vain. Driscoll reportedly has amassed a $10 million dollar litigation fund to sue whistleblowers into oblivion.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript Does the Bible really teach that Christians are supposed to give up their rights? If you speak out against someone who’s sinned against you, does it mean that you’re bitter? And is it really wrong to “take up offenses” for someone else? The short answer is, No! But as Julie explains on this episode of The Roys Report podcast, these are all examples of twisting the Scriptures to condition Christians to accept abuse.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript Sixteen women say Pastor Wayne Aarum sexually abused them. Still, he remains the president of the well-known Circle C Ranch in Western New York. In this podcast, two of his alleged victims speak out. On this episode of The Roys Report, the women—Joy McCullough and Michelle Poulsen—explain how Aarum systematically groomed them in the 1990s at both Circle C and The Chapel, a megachurch where Aarum served as the youth pastor.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript What’s really going on at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries? And what should we make of recent apologies by senior executives of the ministry? It’s been four months since Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM) announced an investigation into its culture, finances, and practices. But so far, there’s been radio silence. There have been no updates. No reports published. Meanwhile, senior RZIM leaders Abdu Murray and Sarah Davis have published videos where they apologize to Ravi’s victims.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript If a pastor or someone in spiritual authority lures a married adult into a sexual relationship—is that abuse or an affair? And can an adult engage in a sexual relationship, but not be culpable because she was manipulated by a sexual predator? On this episode of The Roys Report, Julie explores this very difficult and sensitive issue with Dr.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript Three years ago, he reportedly groomed and lured a married student under his care at a Christian seminary into a sexual relationship. Now, he’s moved to another state and is relaunching his ministry. But his victim is speaking out. On this episode of The Roys Report, Julie speaks with Katie Roberts, who was once the director of the Women’s Training Network for The Gospel Coalition (TGC).  

Guest Bios Show Transcript Why would the wife of a sexual abuser and accused pedophile like Josh Duggar stay in the marriage? And what kind of culture—or cult—produces families like the Duggars? In this episode of The Roys Report—Julie explores what some have referred to as the Duggar “cult.” The Duggars are immersed in a religious system created by Bill Gothard, a strong proponent of homeschooling and the creator of the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP).  

Guest Bios Show Transcript Why do some megachurch pastors wear shoes that cost as much as a mortgage payment? Is that wrong? Or do some pastors deserve to be rich? On this episode of The Roys Report, Julie explores this issue with Ben Kirby, creator of the hugely popular Instagram account PreachersNSneakers. PreachersNSneakers began as an online experiment that showcased photos of famous Christian leaders wearing insanely expensive sneakers and clothing.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript Is the Bible just like “Game of Thrones,” except if you don’t read it, you go to hell? And speaking of hell, does anyone really believe in a place of eternal torment? Or is that just a fable pastors preach to scare people into becoming Christians? In this episode of The Roys Report, Julie tackles these accusations raised by viral TikTok sensation, Abraham Piper.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript They’re ravaging the church and devouring the sheep. Yet instead of tracking and expelling these wolves, we’re actually helping—and in some cases—protecting them! On this episode of The Roys Report, Coleman Luck, author of Day of the Wolf: Unmasking and Confronting Wolves in the Church, explains why. Dazzled by their ability to pack auditoriums and fill church coffers, Christians often mistake spiritual wolves for spiritual leaders.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript The evangelical community in the U.K. is being rocked by a horrific abuse scandal, involving Jonathan Fletcher — arguably the leading evangelical figure in Britain for the past several decades. On this episode of The Roys Report, Lee Furney—the first survivor of Fletcher’s abuse to go public —speaks out. As Furney recounts, Fletcher groomed and abused young men who attended his prominent church in Wimbledon, England, for 30 years.  

Transcript Do women need to maintain a certain weight and aspire to look like Melania Trump to keep their husbands happy? And is “weight control” the solution to women’s marital problems? A pastor at a General Baptist Church in Missouri actually preached that on a recent Sunday morning—a sign that misogyny is alive and well in the church. On this episode of The Roys Report, Julie discusses misogyny in the church with author and speaker, Aimee Byrd.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript Love & Respect is a huge best-selling book. But instead of producing happy marriages, popular author and marriage blogger, Sheila Wray Gregoire, says it can lead to abuse. On this episode of The Roys Report, Sheila joins Julie to explain why she’s been warning couples about this book for years—and how a comprehensive study she commissioned gives hard evidence that Love & Respect is harmful.  

Show Transcript Today, she’s a retired police officer with 34 years of distinguished service. But in 1974, she was a scared, pregnant teenager. And she says Ravi Zacharias pressured her to get an abortion. On this edition of The Roys Report, Julie speaks with Shirley Steward, who says when she was 17, she became pregnant with the child of Ravi Zacharias’ younger brother, Ramesh Zacharias.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript Let’s face it. Christians—and especially, evangelical Christians—have a huge PR problem. Though at one time, society considered us the good guys, we’ve become the bad guys. So how do we live faithfully for Jesus in a culture that hates us? On this episode of The Roys Report, Julie tackles this difficult issue with pastor, blogger and author, Stephen McAlpine.  As Stephen concedes, we’ve brought some of this hardship on ourselves by behaving badly.  “It’s very easy to have a persecution complex when we’re misbehaving,” he says.  

Show Transcript The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) has been rocked by a sex abuse scandal, a federal lawsuit, and claims of self-dealing and lucrative, backroom deals. The church also is experiencing historic lows when it comes to evangelism and church planting. But one man says he’ll reform the SBC. And if he wins his bid to be SBC president, he’ll have the power to do it. On this episode of The Roys Report, Julie speaks with Randy Adams, one of four candidates vying to be president of the SBC—the largest, Protestant denomination in the country.  

Show Transcript With churches in 28 countries, attracting hundreds of thousands of regular attenders, Hillsong Global has become one of the most influential evangelical movements in the world. But lately, the church has been rocked by scandal. And in this episode of The Roys Report, you’ll begin to understand why. Joining Julie is Janis Lagata—a writer, spoken word artist, and podcaster. But what’s most relevant to our conversation is that Janis was part of the team that launched Hillsong New York City.  

Show Transcript Sadly, 2020 was a year in which scandal after scandal after scandal rocked the church. And on this best of 2020 podcast—or perhaps, worst of 2020 podcast—Julie explores several of the biggest scandals with insiders who had a front-row seat. You’ll hear highlights from The Roys Report‘s five, most listened-to 2020 podcasts. These include a podcast with an attorney who represented victims of Bill Hybels; radio host Mancow Muller telling of the depravity he witnessed as a close friend of James MacDonald; and Steve Baughman, an atheist attorney, revealing how he discovered deception and abuse by Ravi Zacharias.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript Ten months ago, Acts 29 fired its CEO Steve Timmis for bullying and misuse of power. But has the organization changed? And has Acts 29 taken any responsibility for ignoring whistleblowers for years? In this episode of The Roys Report, Julie interviews two whistleblowers who brought Timmis’ alleged abuse to light. One is Casey Smith—a former Acts 29 employee, who reported Timmis’ alleged abuse to Acts 29 President Matt Chandler in 2015, and then was fired.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript Is Christmas an elaborate hoax—or the pivotal point in human history? And can an intelligent person really embrace that God became a man? Or that a virgin conceived a child? In this episode of The Roys Report, Julie interviews atheist-turned Christian apologist, Lee Strobel, about The Case for Christmas. And she explores some of these challenging questions skeptics ask.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript What really caused Harvest Bible Chapel to fire James MacDonald? And what happened in all the backroom meetings, private conversations, and phone calls leading up to that fateful event? In this episode of The Roys Report, former Harvest elder, Dan George, joins Julie to tell the real story of MacDonald’s firing.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript Chicago radio personality, Mancow Muller, has just announced he’s leaving WLS. And in this episode of The Roys Report, he talks with me about his new mission in life: to stop James MacDonald.   Mancow says he wants to ensure that MacDonald and his son, who’s planting a new church in Chicago, don’t hurt anyone else like they’ve hurt him and his family.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript Billions of dollars that American Christians give churches, ministries and nonprofits are stolen every year. In fact, one study estimated that in 2015 alone, $50 billion was squandered in fraud! How do we stop this shocking theft of God’s money? And how do we ensure that the money we give is spent the way we intended? In this episode of The Roys Report, Julie talks with Warren Cole Smith, president of MinistryWatch, who shares riveting stories about some of the biggest conmen and Ponzi schemes the church has ever known.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript Every week, there seem to be new allegations of abuse in the Christian community. From Ravi Zacharias to Bill Hybels and James MacDonald—why are the powerful preying on the vulnerable? And what can we do to stop it? In this episode of The Roys Report—Dr. Diane Langberg joins Julie to discuss her newly released book: Redeeming Power: Understanding Authority and Abuse in the Church.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript Toxic churches that wound and devour the sheep have become far too common. But how can churches resist toxic culture and truly become “TOV” or “good”? In this episode of The Roys Report, Julie interviews well-known New Testament scholar, Scot McKnight, and his daughter, Laura Barringer—co-authors of the new, best-selling book, A Church Called TOV.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript The new revelations concerning Ravi Zacharias have shocked much of the evangelical world, but they’re no surprise to Steve Baughman. Two years ago, Steve published an exposé on Ravi, revealing a pattern of sexual misconduct and deception by the famous apologist and those around him. Yet few paid any attention. On this episode of The Roys Report, Julie interviews Steve, an avowed atheist and lawyer, and explores why the red flags concerning Ravi were ignored for so long.  

Guest Bios Have you ever had the feeling that something’s not right? The explanations don’t quite make sense. You feel guilty, but you don’t know why. You’re afraid to speak, while at the same time, uneasy about staying quiet. This is often how people caught in spiritually abusive systems feel. And on this episode of The Roys Report, abuse advocate and researcher, Wade Mullen, joins Julie  to discuss his new book on abuse: Something’s Not Right: Decoding the Hidden Tactics of Abuse and Freeing Yourself from its Power.  

Transcript Jim Spiegel was fired from Taylor University for refusing to remove a song called “Little Hitler” from YouTube. The song is provocative, for sure. But did it warrant Spiegel’s removal? And what does Taylor’s action say about academic freedom and the state of Christian education? In this edition of The Roys Report, Dr. Jim Spiegel joins Julie to tell his side of this story.  

Televangelist Benny Hinn says he’s a minister of the gospel. But according to his nephew, Hinn’s ministry is like a money-making mafia. And when you leave, you may be hit with death threats! In Part Two of her interview with Costi Hinn, Costi tells Julie his inspiring story of coming real faith in Jesus Christ—and what he went through when he finally left Hinn’s ministry. Costi says he got death threats, not just against him, but against other members of his immediate family!  

Transcript As the nephew of the world-famous televangelist Benny Hinn, Costi Hinn had a front-row seat to the inner-workings of the prosperity gospel. In this episode of The Roys Report, Costi talks about the hypocrisy and devastation he witnessed first-hand. He says money given to further the gospel instead went to $25,000/night hotel rooms, private jets, and Ferraris. And though at one time, Costi participated in Benny Hinn’s empire, Costi explains how God began to show him how anti-biblical it was.  

Transcript In most crises, there’s a hero, a victim, and a villain. But these roles are often purposefully confused by the leader caught in the crisis, as is stunningly apparent in a videotaped interview by prominent pastor and author, Bryan Loritts. So says image repair analyst Dr. Julia Dahl in Part 2 of The Roys Report podcast between Dr. Dahl and Julie Roys.  

Transcript Denial, bolstering, and transcendence. These are just some of the tactics used by embattled Cedarville President Thomas White in a well-known apology video, according to Dr. Julia Dahl, an image repair analyst.  In this episode of The Roys Report, Julie interviews Dr. Dahl, who explains in depth how leaders and organizations spin the truth to fit their self-serving narrative. Dr. Dahl also analyzes a videotaped apology by Dr.  

Transcript As a lawyer who’s represented some of Bill Hybels’ victims, Mitch Little has seen a side of Willow Creek that few others have. Why did so many look the other way for so long? What eventually broke the culture of secrecy and protection? And what lessons can we learn from Willow Creek’s mistakes? On this episode of The Roys Report, Julie explores these important questions with Mitch Little, who’s not just an attorney for victims.  

Transcript She was a member of the largest church in America and traveled the country as part of its music group. To outsiders, everything in Joy Ryder’s life looked perfect. But Ryder had a horrible secret. Her youth pastor was sexually abusing her. In this episode of The Roys Report, Julie talks with Joy Ryder—a woman who recently filed a lawsuit against the estate of the late Jack Hyles, his Indiana megachurch, college, and son, David Hyles.  

Transcript Proponents of biblical manhood and womanhood say they value and cherish women. Yet, what happens when one woman challenges their view? That’s what Aimee Byrd has done. And she’s reportedly been blacklisted, cyberbullied, and removed from a podcast she co-hosted for seven years. On this issue of The Roys Report, Aimee Byrd—author of Recovering From Biblical Manhood & Womanhood—joins Julie to discuss what’s happened to her.  

Transcript The church is supposed to be a haven for the weak and the vulnerable. But what happens when it’s not—and the powerful prey on the weak? On this episode of The Roys Report, Julie discusses the sex abuse crisis in the church with author, speaker, and abuse advocate, Mary DeMuth. Why is sex abuse running rampant in the church? How should churches respond to the problem?  

Transcript Are J.D. Greear and The Summit Church protecting someone who participated in a cover-up of sex crimes? And is their investigation of Bryan Loritts legitimate? Or, is it a sham investigation intended to obscure the facts? In this episode of The Roys Report, Julie continues her interview with two eyewitnesses who say they observed Bryan Loritts cover up the sex crimes of his brother-in-law, Rick Trotter.  

Transcript Did Bryan Loritts participate in a cover up of sex crimes at his former church? And given what he allegedly did, should he be hired by Summit Church—the megachurch where J.D. Greear, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, pastors? In this episode of The Roys Report, Julie interviews two eyewitnesses who had a front-row seat to a sex crimes case, involving Loritts’ brother-in-law and convicted voyeur, Rick Trotter.  

Transcript “You told us you would protect us like your own daughter. Where was my protection when your vice president and dean of women attacked me for being the victim?” So asks a rape victim at Cedarville University of university president, Dr. Thomas White, in this episode of The Roys Report. The student says the school failed to protect her when she filed a Title IX complaint for sexual harassment, so when she was raped, she didn’t feel safe to report it.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript Narcissists are, by definition, self-centered, and leave a path of relational devastation in their wake. So, what happens when a pastor, or church leader, is a narcissist?   On this episode of The Roys Report, Dr. Langberg joins Julie for a second discussion—this one focused on the issue of narcissists in the church. As Langberg notes, “When you put (narcissistic tendencies) in the Christian world, and add position and verbal skill, and theological knowledge and Bible language, it can be extremely harmful and extremely confusing.” So, what are the characteristics of a narcissist?  

Guest Bios Show Transcript Should a Christian leader, who sexually abused someone under him, ever be allowed to lead again? On this episode of the The Roys Report, Dr. Diane Langberg joins Julie to discuss the controversy at Cedarville University involving a professor, who was hired despite a known history of sexual abuse. Last week, Cedarville fired the professor.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript We’ve heard a lot about how to survive the coronavirus pandemic physically. But what about surviving financially? On this episode of The Roys Report, Chuck Bentley of Crown Financial Ministries joins Julie to discuss this crucial issue. Chuck offers practical steps people should take immediately to weather this storm. He also discusses an Open Letter he wrote, urging churches and Christian ministries to exercise extreme caution when considering taking government money to stay afloat.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript You’ve heard that New York hospitals are like a war zone. And in this episode of The Roys Report, you’ll get a glimpse of that war from an ICU nurse serving in a New York City hospital at the COVID-19 epicenter. Julie’s guest, Anne Frers, is a veteran nurse, working in an ICU unit that’s dedicated to COVID-19 patients at Mount Sinai Hospital in Queens.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript What do you do when a global pandemic hits and you’re the president of a college or university? On this episode of The Roys Report, Judson University President Gene Crume joins Julie to discuss how his university responded to the coronavirus crisis. They also explore the controversial decision at Liberty University to keep its campus open.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript What’s happening on the COVID-19 battlefront? And how should Christians respond to this rapidly changing crisis? On this episode of The Roys Report, Dr. Lina Abujamra, a pediatric ER doctor and founder of Living with Power Ministries, joins Julie to discuss this crucially important issue. Lina has been working long, ten- to 12-hour days, responding to those with medical issues in the midst of this pandemic.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript They’re wolves in sheep’s clothing—pastors who are narcissists, who claim to be serving God but are really serving themselves, and leaving a path of devastation in their wake. In this episode of The Roys Report, Chuck DeGroat —a professor, clinical therapist, and author of the book, When Narcissism Comes to Church — joins Julie for an enlightening discussion.   

Spiritual abuse has become a hot topic as more and more pastors and Christian leaders have been exposed as abusive or toxic. But how do you identify spiritual abuse? And how do you recover from it? On this episode of The Roys Report, I discuss this crucially important topic with Remy Diederich, a pastor and author of Broken Trust: a practical guide to identify and recover from toxic faith, toxic church, and spiritual abuse.   

Guest Bios Book-buying schemes, inflated fund-raising claims, & cures for coronavirus! It’s stunning the ways some Christian ministries are falsely raising funds and/or misusing them. On this episode of The Roys Report, I discuss these kinds of financial shenanigans with Warren Cole Smith, president of MinistryWatch.com—a Christian donor watchdog group. We also explore how the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA) was formed to protect ministries, not donors—and how the ECFA has failed over the years to hold ministries accountable.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript She’s a popular Christian author, speaker, and professor at Liberty University. But according to some bloggers and critics, she’s also a liberal, a feminist, an animal rights activist, and gay-affirming destroyer of the faith! This week on The Roys Report, I talk with Karen Swallow Prior about what she really believes (she’s none of those things)—and why it’s important for readers to  discern what the “discernment bloggers” are saying.  

The largest Protestant denomination in the country, the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), is facing allegations of back-door meetings, heavy-handed power-plays, silencing women, and trying to remove critics of President Donald Trump —all while responding to a massive sex abuse scandal.  This week on The Roys Report, Southern Baptist Pastor and longtime SBC insider, Wade Burleson, speaks with me about what’s happening behind the scenes within the denomination. Specifically, he talks about the refusal of the SBC Executive Committee to rent space for the upcoming SBC Pastor’s Conference if the conference keeps a female spoken word artist on the program.  

Last week, the church planting network, Acts 29, fired its CEO, Steve Timmis, for allegations of abuse and bullying. But now, there’s evidence that Acts 29 President, Matt Chandler, knew about Timmis’ abuse five years ago. But instead of dealing with it, he and the board fired the whistleblowers! In this episode of The Roys Report, Julie Roys talks about what happened at Acts 29 with Stephen McAlpine, an Australian pastor and popular blogger who helped bring Timmis’ alleged abuse to light.  

Melissa Ohden is someone pro-choice activists would like to ignore. Ohden miraculously survived a saline abortion in 1977. And in a new, controversial ad, she and other abortion survivors ask, “Can you look me in the eye and tell me I shouldn’t exist?”  In this latest episode of The Roys Report, Ohden shares her amazing story of survival. She also talks about the battle to change Americans’ hearts and minds about abortion, and the work she does with The Abortion Survivors Network and Faces of Choice.   

Show Transcript Ann Lindberg went public with her story of abuse by Willow Creek Community Church co-founder, Dr. Gilbert Bilezikian, less than a week ago. And since then, there’s been a firestorm of controversy surrounding her allegations and how the church handled them. This week on the The Roys Report, Ann shares vulnerably with Julie Roys about her harrowing story, which began 35 years ago.  

Show Transcript Why do so many rock-star pastors implode under the spotlight? Why do modern-day churches become so entangled in growing their brand that they lose sight of their true purpose? This week on The Roys Report, I’ll be talking with Author Kyle Strobel about how Christians have succumbed to the temptations of power. Then we’ll learn about Jesus’ seemingly contradictory path to power. To find out what Jesus’ path to power is, join us for The Roys Report.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript Is Christmas an elaborate hoax—or the pivotal point in human history? This week on The Roys Report, I’ll be interviewing atheist-turned Christian, Lee Strobel, about The Case for Christmas. Is the virgin birth really a concept that intelligent people can accept? What about the idea of God incarnating a man? Lee will be sharing new material not included in any of his best-selling books.   

Guest Bios Show Transcript Sexual abuse and coverup is not just an issue in the Catholic Church, as recent news of rampant sex abuse in Southern Baptist churches has shown. But how should churches and Christian organizations respond to allegations of abuse? And what should victims do if they want to report abuse, but are afraid? This week on The Roys Report, Boz Tchividjian joins Julie Roys to discuss this critical issue.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript Does evolution really explain the development of life? Or is it a theory in crisis?    This week on The Roys Report, Dr. Michael Behe, the so-called father of Intelligent Design, joins me to discuss why he believes evolution is fundamentally flawed. According to Behe, evolution breaks things; it doesn’t make things. And new research has made this abundantly clear.   

Guest Bios Show Transcript Should women be preachers? This week on The Roys Report, we’ll explore this question, which recently grabbed headlines, following comments by well-known pastor, John MacArthur.  When asked to give a pithy response about the preaching of Beth Moore, MacArthur responded, “Go Home,” This sparked major controversy. But what should Christians think about women preaching? And what does the Bible say?  

Show Transcript After experiencing hurt and disappointment with the church and church leaders, how do you move on? This week on The Roys Report, on a special program, we’ll hear highlights from the Restore Chicago conference. You’ll hear Nancy Beach and Wade Mullen describe not only how to survive but thrive after experiencing spiritual abuse. And I’ll tell why I believe we’re in the midst of a move of God to purify the church.    

Show Transcript When she was 17 years old, Jules Woodson’s youth pastor drove her to a remote location and sexually assaulted her. That pastor–Andy Savage–resigned from the megachurch he pastored in Memphis, Tennessee, when news of his past assault surfaced. But last week, just 18 months after stepping down from ministry, Savage announced he’s planting a new church in Memphis. And Jules Woodson is sick about it. What should we make of situations like this?  

Show Transcript Is belief in God reasonable?  This week on The Roys Report, we’re going to debate this question with Stephen Hicks, a leading critic of postmodernism. Stephen believes reason can save society from postmodern absurdity, but he argues that belief in God is not reasonable. Challenging his view will be my husband, Neal Roys, who argues that belief in God is both reasonable and necessary.  

Show Transcript An average of 11 Christians are reportedly killed every hour. In fact, Christians are the most oppressed people group in the world. This week on The Roys Report, we’ll be talking about the persecution of Christians with author and Radio host Todd Nettleton of Voice of the Martyrs. November 3rd is the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church. And I hope you can join us as we prepare for the day of prayer with this important episode of The Roys Report, this Saturday morning at 11 on AM 1160 Hope for Your Life and on Sunday night at 7 on AM 560 The Answer!  

Guest Bios Show Transcript We’ve seen the headlines and read some news stories, but what’s really going on at Willow Creek Community Church? And why did a campus pastor just resign, saying his “heart and values” didn’t align with Willow’s current direction?  This week on The Roys Report, two people with decades of experience at the church join me. They’ll report what transpired at a “Core” meeting last Sunday where Willow Creek Crystal Lake Pastor Marcus Bieschke resigned.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript Guest Bios Show Transcript When someone hurts you, and never owns his sin, or apologizes for what he did, are you obligated to forgive? This week on The Roys Report, Pastor Chris Brauns, author of “Unpacking Forgiveness,” will join me to discuss what forgiveness is—and what it isn’t. Brauns wrote his book after a devastating church planting experience with Harvest Bible Chapel.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript Spiritual abuse is ravaging the church. But how do you spot spiritual abuse? And once you’ve been wounded by a church leader, how do you recover? This week on The Roys Report, Dr. Wade Mullen, an expert on spiritual abuse, will join me to deepen our understanding of abuse and toxic systems. We’ll also discuss weaknesses in us that attract us to bad leaders.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript Liberty University president, Jerry Falwell Junior, is in hot water after several exposes charging him with nurturing a culture of fear and self-dealing at the evangelical school. But the charges against him were mainly made by anonymous sources. This week on The Roys Report, a former dean at Liberty University who’s never before spoken to the press will join me to discuss the allegations.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript “Why is the Bible full of contradictions? . . . How can God be love and yet send 4 billion people to hell because they don’t believe?” And last month, Marty Sampson, a former songwriter and worship leader with Hillsong said he’s losing his faith because he couldn’t find answers to questions like these. This week on The Roys Report, leading Christian apologist—Dr.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript When a society denies human depravity and sin, the results can be absolutely devastating. And this week on The Roys Report, we’ll be exploring what led to the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, which claimed the lives of 17 people. Joining me will be Max Eden, an author and investigator who says the shooter clearly communicated his murderous intent. But instead of expelling him, the school sought to heal him, and to correct the “injustices” that it believed caused his violence.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript How should churches minister to abused women? And what does biblical submission look like when husbands fail to love and honor their wives? This week on The Roys Report, we’ll be tackling this sensitive, yet critically important issue with Judi Noble—an abuse survivor and counselor with decades of experience ministering to abused and battered wives. Listen and join the discussion this Saturday morning at 11 a.m.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript Guest Bios Show Transcript Christians are divided over whether marijuana should be legalized. Some say the drug is an essential pain medication and even an aid in worship! But others claim it’s a dangerous, unregulated, gateway drug. This week on The Roys Report, Jonathan Merritt, who supports legalization, will be joining me to share how marijuana delivered him from chronic pain.    

A movement of Iranian women, who are risking their lives for Jesus, is taking Iran by storm. That’s according to New York Times bestselling author Joel Richardson, who joins me this week on The Roys Report to tell this remarkable story. Richardson is an internationally recognized expert on Biblical prophecy and Islam and has just finished producing a film depicting this move of God. Learn how to catch the premiere of this livestreaming event. I really hope you can join us for The Roys Report, this Saturday morning at 11 on AM 1160 Hope for Your Life and on Sunday night at 7 on AM 560 The Answer!  

Guest Bios Show Transcript Is Assisted Suicide a compassionate means of ushering the terminally ill into the next life? Or is it simply a way of pressuring those we consider a burden to take their own lives?  This week on The Roys Report, I’ll be talking about this issue with Wesley Smith, one the world’s foremost critics of euthanasia. Also joining me will be Kimberly Kuo—who has a powerful story of how her husband’s battle with cancer transformed her thinking on this issue.    

Guest Bios Show Transcript Two Churches in the Chicago area have been rocked by scandal. Now, how does the Christian community move forward? And how do those hurt by these scandals, the so-called church refugees, find healing? This week on The Roys Report, I’ll have two refugees from Willow Creek Community Church and one from Harvest Bible Chapel join me. Also joining me will be two area pastors whose churches have taken in a number of refugees.    

After this show was broadcast, Julie posted a blog that addresses very serious issues about the study in Let Us Prey and its authors. Read Post Guest Bios Show Transcript Have wolves in Shepherd’s clothing infiltrated the North American Church? And are sheep being systematically devoured as a result? Joining me this week on The Roys Report is Darrell Puls.  

Guest Bios Show Transcript President Trump is threatening to begin mass deportation roundups. While some Americans cheer these plans, others decry them as cruel and inhumane. This Saturday on The Roys Report, I’ll explore the immigration issue with both a Christian leader who believes illegal immigrants should be punished—and one who believes they should be given a pathway to citizenship. Don’t miss this important Roys Report.  

Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter claim to be neutral platforms, but are they? Hi, I’m Julie Roys. And this Saturday on The Roys Report, Eric Cochran—the man who blew the whistle at Pinterest—joins me. Eric got fired for leaking documents showing that Pinterest censored a pro-life group. But Eric says all the big tech companies are censoring conservative and Christian voices—and he urges people to speak out! Don’t miss this important Roys Report. This Saturday morning at 11 on AM 1160 Hope for your life!  

Why are even some Christians supporting pro-abortion laws? This Saturday on The Roys Report, Julie will explore this issue with both pro-life Christian, Father Frank Pavone—and pro-choice Christian, Livi Burke. Also joining me will be author and apologist, Nancy Pearcey, who will explain how personhood theory is changing how this generation views abortion. Hope you can join me, this Saturday at 11 a.m. on AM 1160 Hope for your life! Episode Guests Nancy Pearcey Nancy Pearcey is the author of the recently released Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions about Life and Sexuality.  

In this follow-up to The Roys Report on crusading bloggers, I continue my conversation with Scott Bryant, Ryan Mahoney, and Jessica Hockett—three former members of Harvest Bible Chapel who went public with damning information about the church and its former pastor, James MacDonald. We explore why publishing wrongdoing is sometimes not only permissible, but biblical, and what church members should do when they see sin in leadership. We also discuss the larger evangelical community and its failure to police itself.  

Are crusading bloggers cleaning up the church by exposing abuse and corruption–or are they spreading gossip and lowering the standards of journalism? This Saturday on The Roys Report, Julie will explore this topic with Scott Bryant and Ryan Mahoney, authors of The Elephant’s Debt–a blog critical of James MacDonald and Harvest Bible Chapel. Also joining the discussion will be Jessica Hockett, a prolific micro-blogger on Twitter.