Church Too Often, #ChurchToo
Originally published July 2018
“Nothing is hidden that will not be revealed, and nothing is secret that will not be made known. So then whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms will be proclaimed from the housetops.” Luke 12:2-3
Batten down the hatches; this is going to be a long post, and I’m relatively certain it will serve to streamline my friends list. I keep praying that someday I’ll receive a burden that doesn’t cost me so much to express, but that day is not today. Starting friend count at time of this post: 1667. This should be interesting.
Earlier this week, a local megachurch pastor was fired for unspecified sexual misconduct with women in his congregation. The only thing that surprised me about this was how long it had taken to happen. The signs, in my opinion, were glaringly obvious, to the point that I actually sat down one day this past May and drafted a letter detailing each and every one of my myriad concerns about his behavior. I threw the letter away and resolved to pray for him instead. I had made the unfortunate choice to express my concerns to a friend who was singing his praises. She issued me a scathing rebuke for slandering the Lord’s anointed and promptly blocked me on Facebook. That’s about how well these types of conversations generally go. I’ve had too many of them.
“Don’t air out the family’s dirty laundry” is a particularly insidious directive when backed by spiritual authority. If the family’s laundry is dirty in the first place, it ought to be cleaned, not stuffed back in the drawer. No one is going to come to us for healing if we’re the ones actively inflicting the wounds.
“But the church is already under so much scrutiny; why would you give them any additional ammo?” is another regular retort. I’ll tell you a secret: They already know. Rampant, widespread abuse in positions of authority is one of the reasons why we are under so much scrutiny in the first place. Maybe we should stop behaving badly and calling it holiness. That might help. The Bible has a pretty clear and unapologetic standard for the conduct of church leaders. They’re to live above reproach. The question should not be, “Was his offense really bad enough to get him fired or incarcerated?” The question should be, “Was his conduct good enough to represent the heart of Christ as a leader in this community? Is his pattern of behavior above reproach?” If it’s not, it’s actually unloving to even the pastor to allow the sinful behavior to go unaddressed.
Sadly, too often it seems that no matter how devastating the impact of the scandal, no one ever seems to learn the lesson. I’ve got a few skeletal ideas about potential places to start.
Lesson #1: Pastors are not meant for pedestals. There is no magic infallibility imparted to them upon ordination as leaders in their churches. In fact, the opposite is true; the devil puts a big old target on their back. He’s a shrewd opponent. Why bother with individuals when you can take down their leaders? And since the dawn of time, one of the most effective strategies in his playbook toward that end is sexual sin. It was true with Samson and with Saul. And I’m sorry, but if David, the man after God’s own heart, was not exempt, then none of our superstar pastors are either. We ought to be in constant prayer for their protection and discernment. We ought to be making sure they’ve got accountability partners and measures in place to prevent even the appearance of misconduct. It’s pretty easy to debunk a false allegation of sexual assault if you can easily say that you’ve never been behind closed doors with a woman besides your wife. Yes, I support the Mike Pence rule, and yes, my feminist friends will probably hate me for that, a point I am more than happy to debate and even potentially change my mind on at a later date, should the evidence be compelling enough. At this point, it is not.
The point is, wisdom. We need more of it. Pastors are just as human as the next guy on the street, Set them up for success. Take them off your thrones. That spot’s supposed to be reserved for Jesus anyway.
Lesson #2: When women report abuse, thorough interrogation is the appropriate response. But the women themselves are not the appropriate subjects of said interrogations. Don’t turn a blind eye and say something lame like, “I’m waiting for all the evidence to come in before I form any opinion.” First of all, you’re lying. There will never be a time when you have all the evidence. That never stopped you from forming a solid opinion of Harvey Weinstein. I’ll let you in on a little insider’s secret: the evidence is not going to magically come to you; you need to seek it out yourself. And you need to do so aggressively. The pressure should be on the alleged perpetrator to prove his innocence, not the other way around. Many of you will want to fight me on this point and will tell me about that one guy you met who was falsely accused, to which I will respond by telling you about those millions of women and girls who, according to actual federal statistics, never saw justice for the crimes committed against them. Operate according to the statistical probability of a false allegation, which is really stinking low-somewhere between 2 and 10%. That would leave you a 90% chance that she’s telling the truth. So when that’s the case, why doesn’t anyone act like it?
Lesson #3: “But she’s a whore, and he’s a pastor” (or any variation of that sentiment, regardless of how sanctified the language) is an unacceptable response straight from the pit of hell. First of all, predators target vulnerable or broken women for that very reason. The power dynamic creates a perfect cover behind which these guys can way too easily hide. The more broken or rough around the edges, the greater the red flag for abuse. Well-loved and well-valued women don’t often end up with quite as much baggage. We are called to help those who carry it unpack it, not to throw it in their faces and scream, “Unclean!”
Here’s the point at which I should probably insert the disclaimer that I acknowledge, celebrate, and praise God for the thousands of amazing churches that do this stuff well and respond as Jesus would. I don’t know where I’d be if the good Lord hadn’t brought me to one of them. Please interpret this paragraph as the equivalent of the #NotAllMen hashtag. I see you, good churches. You shine brightly, you do great work. You make Jesus proud. But we need more of you, and that’s not going to happen if we continue to eviscerate anyone with the audacity to point out to us that we have a malignant tumor in our body that needs immediate and aggressive treatment. Until we draw a line in the sand and say “no more,” the way the Southern Baptist Church did last month when they finally addressed the rampant misogyny in their leadership. And it shouldn’t take 2000 women signing a letter to do it. And the women shouldn’t be called vicious names or accused of slander and disunity when they do. I work with a lot of victims. They’ve been badly harmed. I want to invite them into the arms of the body of Christ and promise them they’ll find healing there. But with the current epidemic of systematic misogyny and inexcusable ignorance regarding abuse patterns and psychology within the church, too often I find myself worrying these women will only experience further harm.
Lesson #4: If men don’t step up to the plate, get this under control, and fulfill their obligation to protect women, then no one should be in the least bit surprised when women turn to things like feminism to defend themselves. There’s this thing called bodily safety. It’s kind of a basic human need. If people don’t find it in the church, they’re gonna go elsewhere to find it. When the men of Israel wouldn’t man up and go to battle with Sisera on behalf of their people, Deborah stepped up and got the job done. It seems to me like Christian men have two options: Do your job, or step aside and we will. I’ll most assuredly be called a number of names for saying it that bluntly, but at this point, I don’t really care. It’s true. I wish it weren’t. But it’s time to acknowledge we have a problem, and it’s time to fix it. The Bible has all these admonitions about personal accountability and removing planks for eyes and such that seem relevant here.
Do I think we will ever attain perfection this side of heaven? Of course not. But we can do a heck of a lot better than we are right now. We can care for victims AND pastors by insisting that our churches have detailed policies and procedures for both preventing and responding to allegations of abuse. We can insist that every allegation of abuse be immediately reported to law enforcement and investigated by an external source. We can insist that the accused be disallowed from attending services with the alleged victim pending the findings of the investigation. We can rediscover the concept of godly public repentance. David openly mourned his sin. He didn’t call in an expensive damage control legal team and silence people with hush money.
Lesson #5: Yes, I believe in forgiveness. I’m a single mom of two kids by two different men. I’ve struggled long and hard against my own sexual sin. I’ve confessed it and suffered the consequences of it. I also know the unspeakable joy and gratitude of the undeserved grace that’s found on the other side of true repentance. Cheap grace is no grace. As Dan Allender puts it, “The work of restoration cannot truly begin until a problem has been fully faced.” Going soft on sexual sin is like treating cancer with a bandaid. You’re not helping anyone when you do it.
The point is that we can and must do better. The following is a non-exhaustive list of support for the intensity of my claims. They’re in random order. Some have hyperlinks. Some don’t. There are about a hundred more I may or may not add in the days ahead. Just had to start somewhere. God, give anyone who reads this grace to bear with whatever shortcomings I display throughout. You know I’m tired. This is messy territory. I’m trying to be kind and to honor people and to communicate that repentance will only serve to bless us as a church. The goal is not condemnation. It’s restoration. We can’t have it until we clean out the wound. That part always hurts. But it’s time.
In 2004, Douglas Goodman, pastor of the 2nd largest Pentecostal church in Britain, was convicted for assaulting four women between the ages of 17 and 32 in his church. He was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison.
Just prior to his arrest, Goodman and his wife, having achieved celebrity status in their congregation, participated in an appreciation day thrown in their honor, wherein the congregants dubbed them “King and Queen of the church.” (I guess that makes Jesus the admin assistant?)
Despite the concrete evidence that had led to his conviction, church members refused to believe the charges, claiming they were “made up to discredit him.” While leaving court, Goodman was ambushed by crowds of supporters, many of whom followed him to his new church (He had run the first church into financial ruin) called “Victory 2 Victory,” where he is now listed on the pastoral team, as if nothing had ever happened.
The victims, on the other hand, were ostracized, blamed, and shunned. When they complained to church elders, they were asked to leave the church as though they themselves were the guilty ones. A detective involved in the case reported, “The victims are really messed up,” claiming that some have even “ made half-hearted attempts to commit suicide."Steven Sitler was a 19-year-old student enrolled at New St. Andrews College in Moscow, ID. Jamin Wight was enrolled at Greyfriar’s Seminary, also in Moscow. Both institutions were founded by Douglas Wilson, pastor of the town’s Christ Church. As neither institution provides any kind of housing, students are routinely encouraged to make living arrangements through Wilson’s student boarding network among Christ Church congregants. Both Wight and Sitler did exactly that. And both Wight and Sitler sexually abused young girls in the homes of their host families.
Between the years of 2000 and 2003, Jamin Wight, who was 24 at the time, groomed and sexually abused Natalie Greenfield, the 13-year-old daughter of his host family. Like many victims, Natalie bottled the trauma and didn’t tell a soul until, at age 17, she began suffering flashbacks, insomnia, stomach ulcers, behavioral problems, and panic attacks, and she finally confided the abuse to a friend who encouraged her to tell her parents what had happened. In August of 2005, she revealed her painful secret to her parents, who made a police report the very same day.
Court records show that both Doug Wilson (Natalie’s pastor) and Peter Leithart (Wight’s pastor at nearby Trinity Reformed Church and Dean of Graduate Studies at New St.Andrews) were made fully aware of the crime in August of 2005. Throughout Wight’s trial, he remained in official “good standing” at his church, where congregants were not informed of the presence of a predator in their midst for over three months.
Records also show that both Leithart and Wilson fought (unsuccessfully) to keep their conversations with Wight about his crimes off the court record. In later email exchanges with Natalie, Wilson claims his attempt to keep things quiet was motivated by a desire to “protect her mom from appearing negligent.”
Throughout the case, Natalie’s family was essentially shunned from the church. Wilson wrote letters both to the court and to the police minimizing the gravity of Wight’s offense. He expressed that Wight was “not a sexual predator.” He referred to the relationship between Wight and Natalie as “secret courtship.” He made numerous references to how physically mature she was for her age. Her tried to guilt her out of pursuing thorough action against Wight, claiming it would reflect poorly on her mother and asking, verbatim, “Why would you want to hurt your mother like that?”
Here’s how Natalie characterized the experience: “My ex-pastor has proven that he will go to great lengths to discredit me and take away my voice, and, though I would love to simply let this go and leave it behind me as I move forward with my advocacy, I can’t. The rate of secondary abuse in churches is nothing short of a tragedy. Victims of abuse often remain silent and avoid going to their church leaders because of the fear that they will be shamed, disbelieved, encouraged to go back to their abuser, or otherwise mistreated, and they are fearful with good reason.”
Jamin Wight was sentenced to 4-6 months in an Idaho prison. His abuse of Natalie Greenwood ripped apart a family, made a mockery of the church, and should have served as a sobering admonition to everyone involved about the extreme importance of preemptively instating policies and safeguards to prevent further abuse and to ensure compassionate church response and care for the victim. But that’s not what happened in Moscow.
Enter Steven Sitler, who, by the time he enrolled at New St. Andrews, had already victimized several children in his homechurch in Colville, WA. Blissfully unaware of his predatory nature, a family in the Christ Church network welcomed Sitler into their home with open arms. At the time, they had six children under the age of 10. It didn’t take long for Sitler to strike.
When the victim named the abuse to her parents, her father immediately, confronted Sitler, who confessed to touching one of the victim’s “private parts more than once.” The father immediately called Doug Wilson, who advised him to contact the police. (Even a broken clock is right twice a day.)
Meanwhile, Sitler retreated to Colville and hired a top notch attorney, Dean Wullenwaber, who coincidentally (or not) also happened to be the official legal counsel of New St. Andrews and a member of Christ Church. I don’t think I should have to spell this out, but for the sake of clarity I will: This means that when the victim arrived in court, she was forced to watch a man from her church, a man with incredible influence over all of New St. Andrews, stand and defend her abuser and try to discredit the severity of the harm done to her. Please think about that for a minute before proceeding.
For whatever mysterious reason exists, Wilson became something of an advocate for Sitler during this time, functioning as his only confessor and primary counselor. Between the time of his arrest and the day of his trial, Stitler met with Wilson for six “counseling sessions.” Such support and guidance was, inexplicably, not available to the victim.
While all of this was in play, Sitler also confessed the names of some of his other victims to an anonymous source, who took the information to the police. Sitler’s home church in Colville, upon learning of the news, did the prudent thing and immediately warned their flock, sent their congregants a three page detailed explanation of the situation, and offered counseling and support to Sitlers victims.
Wilson, on the other hand, did not write any letters to his congregation. He didn’t reach out and extend comfort or support to the victims. He did, however, manage to find the time to write a letter (on Christ Church letterhead, no less) to Judge John Stegner on Sitler’s behalf, writing,
“I would urge that the civil penalties applied would be measured and limited. I have a good hope that Steven has genuinely repented, and that he will continue to deal with this to become a productive and contributing member of society.”
This might be a good time to clarify that Sitler is a convicted, level III sex offender, (officially diagnosed as a “fixated pedophile,” which means he has regular fantasies of raping pre-pubescent children.) He has admitted to molesting over 25 children in a seven year span of time.
In September of 2005, Sitler was sentenced to a life term in an Idaho prison. After serving 20 months of his sentence, he was released on probation. Just six short weeks later, he was arrested on voyeurism charges. He did some more time and was eventually released and declared “repentant,” as determined by none other than Doug Wilson, who welcomed him back into the congregation.
In 2010, a 23-year-old New Andrews student approached the elders at Christ Church and asked for their help in finding her a husband. (I know. Just keep reading.) Ever so helpful, they dug deep to find the cream of the crop, a beacon of good moral character and integrity; they initiated an introduction to Steven Sitler. The two were engaged after their second date, but because Sitler was a seasoned sex offender with lifelong probation, they had to seek the court’s permission to marry.
As part of this process, and because the couple admitted that they wanted to start a family (problematic to have children around level III sex offenders), the DOC requested further psychological evaluation. The results raised concerns for the professionals. But they didn’t raise concerns for the church apparently. What do mental health experts know anyway? Mr. Wullenwaber once again stepped up to the plate and successfully argued his client’s case, and shortly thereafter, Doug Wilson officiated their wedding, during which he asked God to “bless them with children.”
Blessed they were. They conceived a baby boy a short time later. A few months into the baby’s life, Sitler began failing his polygraphs and was ultimately removed from his home after the court found that he “had contact with his child that resulted in actual sexual stimulation.”
When pressed on the matter of his failure to inform congregants of the predators in their midst, Doug Wilson responded, “I’m a pastor; I cover up sins for a living.” (Theologically troubling statement considering the Bible’s very clear instruction that only the blood of Christ can cover up sins and that Christians are called to expose darkness, not create or make peace with it.)
It’s possible that maybe he’s issued an apology somewhere, and if he has, I would be happy to consider it and respond accordingly. But at this point, he doesn’t seem to think he’s done anything wrong or that any of the criticism of it is valid but rather born of a duplicitous desire to leverage tragedy for power, “’These people are taking a tragedy and using it to advance a petty political agenda,’ he said.
Pastor Wilson still inhabits the pulpit of Christ Church every Sunday, where you are likely to encounter Steven Sitler. The people you won’t see are his victims. Theories abound as to why.Earlier this month, Pastor Mark Darling, one of the founding members of the multi-campus Evergreen Church in Minnesota and lead pastor of The Rock in South Minneapolis, formally submitted his letter of resignation after an independent investigation found him guilty of sexual misconduct with multiple women in his church.
This is not the first time Darling has faced such allegations. Women complained 17 years ago, but the church leadership let those complaints fall by the wayside, and the women were shamed for coming forward.
Says one victim, “I often wonder how differently life would be for survivors if the church had acknowledged their pain, prayed for them, encouraged them, and offered to lay down their lives to protect them from further abuse. I encourage churches I visit to live this biblical truth," she wrote.
"How different mine and other victim/survivors lives would be today had Evergreen Church and pastors Brent Knox, Mark Bowen and Doug Patterson acknowledged my pain from Pastor Mark Darling's violation of me, and encouraged me. Instead I was told I was slandering Mark, at church meeting it was inferred I was unstable and I was lied about.”In 2009, Joe Barron, a pastor at Prestonwood Baptist, one of the fastest-growing churches in North America with over 43,000 members, was arrested in a sex sting after driving over 200 miles to rape a 13-year-old girl, who ended up being an undercover cop. Officers searched his car and found 10 condoms and a computer camera they said he was going to give the girl as a gift.
In February of 2018, megachurch youth leader Jordan Baird was sentenced to five years in prison for sexual relationship with a minor. While he was only charged for crimes committed against one victim, there’s a substantial list of additional girls who’ve reported allegations against him.
“The list of your victims is growing longer by the week,” said one victim’s mother during sentencing. “Some of them self-harm, and some have tried to commit suicide because of what you did to them.”
As one source reports, “According to testimony presented at trial, the girl’s family initially asked the church to bring in a third-party to investigate what took place. But the church selected Steve Dawson, a close friend of the Bairds’ who was once a co-pastor at the church who does not have a background in law enforcement or investigations.
It is suggested that Dawson left out key details he learned during his internal investigation when he was interviewed by police and refused to hand his notes over to law-enforcement officials. It is also suggested the Life Church’s law firm instructed Dawson through his investigation.
The teen’s father said he recorded a meeting with Dawson in which he told the pastor Baird touched his daughter. On the stand, Dawson said he didn’t ‘recall’ the father saying this.
The girl and her family said they have been ‘shunned’ by the church since they came forward. They said the teen’s childhood friends were ‘stolen’ from her and she was mocked and ridiculed by people she once considered family.’Many people have abandoned them to align with you,’ said Judge McCahill as he handed down his sentence. ‘They were victimized a second time by this.’”In May of 2018, Les Hughey, co-founder of a megachurch in Arizona, resigned from his position after admitting to having raped at least seven teen girls in his charge while a youth pastor at local church four decades prior.
A statement from one of Hughey’s victims: “In January of this year, I decided to tell my story... Mostly I thought it would be an interesting local story for 1 day, and then everyone would be on to other things. And I was okay with that.
But then something entirely different happened. I knew there were other victims from the same church, but I believed that all of the abuse happened roughly around the same time – the 1980’s. And then four victims from the 1970’s came forward. I was shocked and hurt, devastated really. When my abuse came to light, the church’s leaders had played naïve. They didn’t know how to navigate these waters, they insisted, and were just doing the best they could. But that was a lie. For at least a decade before they had been quietly dealing with victims of sexual abuse in that church. And they were very good at getting us to be quiet. The four victims from the 1970’s worked with the same reporter to tell their story. It was beautifully done and I was as excited for them to get to speak as I was for myself – maybe even more so. I had daily conversations with two of them women in the story, and we frequently wondered aloud: would any more victims come forward? They did.”In 2015, megachurch pastor Geronimo Aguilar was sentenced to 40 years in prison for the sexual abuse of two young sisters in his congregation, aged 11 and 13 at the time of the crimes.
"We're just very thankful, 20 years and it is finally coming out," said victim Nancy Mohr. "The hardest part is that nobody believes you or that people who have heard don't do anything."In October of 2017, Leslie Massey, a former employee of megachurch Christian Faith Center, filed a lawsuit against the church, claiming campus minister Caleb Treat sexually harassed her and other female employees and church members and that the church had created a sexually hostile work environment.
Civil complaint documents say Treat “repeatedly preyed upon female employees and church members" while he was a pastor at the Christian Faith Center in Federal Way. The complaint also accuses the church -- founded by Treat’s parents, Casey and Wendy Treat -- of "failing to take effective action to control Caleb Treat’s behavior or to protect his female subordinates.”
The lawsuit says at the Federal Way campus, Treat "victimized at least three women" before Leslie Massey filed the suit. Massey is seeking damages for loss of income and for emotional distress, mental anguish, loss of reputation, and social standing. An insider reports that Massey was essentially shunned for coming forward: “She was deeply involved in the church for years and years. It was (Massey and her family’s) religious, social and entire community, as well as her work. When this happened, it is as if they were ostracized and not really embraced after it happened.”
Create in us a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within us. Cast us not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from us. Restore unto us the joy of your salvation, and uphold us with your free spirit.