Clergy Sexual Abuse: An Appeal to the Pews

With so much negativity in the world, I far prefer to write about happy topics, like road trips and salsa recipes, and good books. But not today. Today I need to talk about something no one wants to think about: rampant sexual abuse in the church. It’s a subject I care deeply about, and unfortunately, it’s been in the news a lot lately. Church leaders, broadly speaking, have failed to address the problem, so I’m making an appeal to the pews. It’s well past time faithful believers raised their voices in outrage. So if your heart can take it, let’s talk.

But first, let me say that this topic may be especially distressing for some people. If sexual abuse is part of your story, especially if it occurred in a religious context, feel free to opt out. This topic is uncomfortable for anyone, but it can be triggering for the wounded. I never want my words to cause harm.

For my new readers, a bit of my background might be helpful. Why do I care so much about this topic? Three reasons:

• First, I love the church. And because I love the church, I’m also deeply disappointed by what I see in American evangelicalism. The American church is in crisis, bleeding members at an alarming rate. There are many reasons for this trend, but one is simply that the church no longer looks much like Jesus.
• Second, I was raised in Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) churches. As testament to my fundamentalist bona fides, the King James Version Bible of my youth is autographed by both Bob Jones, Sr (yes, I’m that old) and Jack Hyles. If you know, you know. I wrote about my experience escaping the IFB cult here, with profound gratitude to Jesus and my husband, Roger for rescuing me. I know fundamentalism intimately; I’ve spent my entire adult life leaving it.
• Lastly, my husband and I spent 14 years at a residential children’s home, Cookson Hills Christian Ministries, parenting children whose families were in crisis. I estimate that at least 75% of the children in our ministry had been sexually abused. I know firsthand how sexual abuse shatters a child. To be candid, I’m writing this post because I’m angry. Why are the good folks in the pews not raising holy hell?

When good people stay silent in the face of evil and injustice, they are complicit. But because I was once a part of a religious system that was a breeding ground for abuse, I understand how hard it is to see clearly when you’re in the middle of it. Faithful people stay in these systems precisely because they are true believers. They follow their false shepherds because they believe that, in doing so, they are being faithful to Christ. It’s insidious. So my appeal to the pews is one of pleading, not anger. I reserve my anger for the false shepherds. For the sheep, I want to offer some practical actions every church member can take to hold church leaders accountable.

The Tip of the Iceberg

Let’s start by looking at the scope of the problem. Here are a few of the cases that have been in the news this year:

• Robert Morris, pastor of Gateway Church in Dallas, TX (weekly attendance 100,000) resigned after a woman alleged that in the 1980s Morris had sexually abused her more than four years, beginning when she was 12. In a separate incident, Gateway Church settled a lawsuit earlier this year against five of its pastors for covering up the sexual assault of a girl under the age of 12. The suit alleged that after church leaders became aware that an unnamed church member had sexually assaulted the girl, they failed to notify the girl’s mother of the assault and failed to report it to authorities.
• Tony Evans, 74, pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Church in Dallas, TX (weekly attendance 10,000) stepped down temporarily for an undisclosed “sin” that he committed years ago. He declined to be specific, even with church elders and his family at first, but stated he had “committed no crime.”
• Jonathan Elwing, 43, pastor of Palm View First Baptist Church in Palmetto, FL resigned after being arrested for the purchase of multiple images of young children being sexually assaulted. Further investigation found he was also producing the child pornography. He is currently facing 18 felony charges, including two for sexual assault of a child after police found numerous images of him raping a 2-year-old. Elwing had served as a youth pastor in other churches, and he was a foster parent. He was a member of the Conservative Baptist Network (CBN) of the Southern Baptist Convention and had been vocal in his opposition to the SBC establishing a database of known abusers in their churches.
• Paul Pressler, 94, so revered in the Southern Baptist Convention that his larger-than-life image is enshrined in stained glass, died June 7. His death was not even mentioned at the SBC annual meeting a few days later in Indianapolis. That’s because Pressler, co-architect of the “conservative resurgence,” seen as saving the SBC from liberal drift, had been credibly accused of decades-long sexual abuse of young men. His predatory behavior was an open secret during his years as a Texas judge. The SBC settled a lawsuit against Pressler for an undisclosed amount because the details were so horrific, they did not want them to become public. Pressler’s stained glass image was quietly taken down in 2019 after his predatory behavior was publicly disclosed. The SBC’s response has been silence and denial, not repentance and lament.
• Zachary King, 47, executive pastor at LexCity Church in Lexington, KY, was arrested July 1, 2024 for rape and sexual abuse of a minor. He is facing six charges, including for rape and sodomy of a 15-year-old girl. Two weeks after the arrest, LexCity Church permanently closed its doors.
• Luke Cunningham, youth pastor at Turning Point Community Church in Lubbock, TX (2016-2020) and Lakeside Baptist Church in Granbury, TX was arrested on two counts of violent sexual assault of a child.
• Christian Baumgarth, 27, teacher and coach at First Presbyterian Day School in Macon, GA is facing up to two decades in prison after being convicted of possession of child sexual abuse material.
• Tony Cammarota, pastor of Stonebriar Community Church in Frisco, TX was terminated on July 7th after confessing a “moral failure” to church leadership. This one happened just days ago, so details will find their way into the public domain soon.
• Bobby Hawk, pastor of EPIC Church, Blue Springs, MO resigned after six women accused him of sexual abuse when they were teens or pre-teen. No charges have yet been filed, but local police confirmed that the matter is under investigation.
• Bryan Crabtree, 35, youth pastor at Sulpher Springs Christian Church in Middletown, Indiana was fired after he confessed to police that he had sexually abused a minor girl for several years. The abuse began when the girl was age 14.
• Bruxy Cavey, pastor of The Meeting House, one of the largest churches in Canada, resigned in 2022 after being arrested for sexual assault. Three other pastors were subsequently credibly accused of sexual misconduct, two of which were convicted. The scope of the sexual abuse scandal caused the church to lose its insurance coverage. The church announced recently that it will be suspending nearly all activities due to its inability to obtain insurance coverage.
• Mark Sellers, 49, an employee of Summit Crossing Community Church in Huntsville, AL was fired following his arrest for sexual solicitation of a child.
• Mike Bickle, founder of International House of Prayer in Kansas City, MO (IHOPKC) is facing multiple allegations of clergy sexual abuse “spanning several decades.” The ministry officially cut ties with Bickle in December 2023. The investigation is ongoing. In May 2024, Forerunner Church, affiliated with IHOPKC, held its last service. Various other ministries affiliated with IHOPKC are being wound down.
• Stephen Sweet, 74, pastor of Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church in River Edge, NJ, has been charged with 21 counts related to child sexual abuse. The alleged abuse happened over a period of five years.
• Kanakuk Kamps, a multimillion-dollar global enterprise headquartered in Branson, MO, has been the subject of ongoing investigations of sexual abuse. One of the counselors, Pete Newman, admitted to abusing numerous boys over a period of years. In 2010, he was sentenced to prison for two life terms, plus an additional 30 years. Despite the lengthy sentence, he is eligible for parole this September. In spite of Kanakuk’s claims that new policies ensure campers’ safety, allegations of abuse and coverup continue to surface. In 2022, the National Center on Sexual Exploitation included Kanakuk on its Dirty Dozen, alleging “decades of child sexual abuse by Kanakuk Kamps have been swept under the rug by the organization.” Kanakuk CEO and Board Chair, Joe White, used non-disclosure agreements to effectively silence victims for years. Nancy French has been reporting on the Kanakuk abuse investigations for more than three years. See her website for more details.

Let me stress that this is just a sampling of the news stories about clergy sexual abuse so far this year. Several of these have broken in the last 60 days. (Oddly, Texas megachurches grabbed a disproportionate number of headlines.) And it’s been this way for decades. Remember Bill Hybels at Willow Creek? How about Ravi Zacharias or Bill Gothard? Remember how people minimized and excused Josh Duggar’s sexual abuse of his sisters? To this day, the stench of sexual abuse and coverup lingers over Sovereign Grace Ministries, Liberty University, Harvest Bible Chapel, Willow Creek, the Southern Baptist Convention, and so many other once-esteemed churches and ministries.

Case in Point

It’s worth directing special attention to the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), the largest protestant denomination in America, both for the scope of its sexual abuse problem and the indifference of its response. In February 2019, the Houston Chronicle published “Abuse of Faith,” a six-part investigative report detailing a culture of abuse among SBC church leaders over a 20-year period. Of the nearly 400 credibly accused church leaders, 260 were convicted or struck plea deals, leaving at least 700 victims as collateral damage. Knowing how few sexual abuse victims ever report the abuse, you can know with certainty that these horrific numbers represent only fraction of the true picture.

So, what’s happened in the SBC in the five years since their dirty laundry became public? Almost nothing. Following the release of an independent investigative report two years ago, the SBC formed a task force to create resources for churches, publish a database of abusive pastors, and develop a funding plan for implementing abuse reforms. At their annual meeting this June, the task force reported it had been unable to fulfill its mandate, except that they had created a training curriculum. Responsibility for implementing reforms now rests with the Executive Committee, which has steadfastly resisted every effort to do so.

Instead of taking action to address their sexual abuse crisis, the SBC Executive Committee has actively worked to prevent prosecution of sexual abuse cases. Baptist News Global reported in October 2023 that the Executive Committee, along with Lifeway Christian Resources and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, filed an amicus brief in a case brought by a woman alleging sexual abuse by her father. When the amicus brief was reported in the Louisville Courier-Journal, some members of the Executive Committee knew nothing about it. In the ensuing firestorm, no one was eager to step up and claim responsibility. The accused man was a lay leader in an SBC church, but otherwise the SBC had no direct stake in this case. Baptist News had this to say when the amicus brief became public, “That SBC officials would take any action to oppose an abuse victim seeking justice has horrified the abuse survivor community and its allies and undone any goodwill resulting from the independent investigative report released two years ago.”

Fruit of a Poisonous Tree

When churches announce that their pastor has been arrested or has been fired amidst allegations of sexual misconduct, they often try to rally congregational support and sympathy. Instead of facing the incident as a call to repentance and lament, they characterize the exposure of the incident as an attack from Satan. It’s not. These incidents are the very predictable fruit of a poisonous tree whose tap root is often bad theology. We should want evil deeds to be brought into the light.

If you don’t have any experience with extreme fundamentalism, you may wonder why I included that personal detail at the beginning of this post. Let me explain. Fundamentalists are all about authority and submission. In a word: patriarchy.

Some defend patriarchy as biblical. In my experience, patriarchy, at its best, holds hands with misogyny. At its worst, it is a deeply misogynistic system, made even more toxic in a wrapper of spiritual language. That manifestation of patriarchy is completely incompatible with the way Jesus treated women and children.

The most extreme fundamentalists teach that pastors are “God’s anointed.” To question the pastor is to question God, because he is God’s proxy. In their authority structure, men are just below God, followed by women, and lastly children. From birth, women are taught that submission is godliness. Women must submit not only to their husbands, but to any man. Children must instantly obey any adult. In abuse situations, the woman is consoled that her suffering leads to holiness. It takes zero imagination to see why these environments are breeding grounds for abuse. Women and children have no voice, no power, no autonomy. If you can bear it, watch the recent docuseries Shiny Happy People to see this bad theology in action.

Julie Roys, an independent journalist whose media outlet The Roys Report is a go-to resource for religion news, has spent years reporting these sexual abuse cases. It would be easy for Julie to become jaded. No doubt, she sometimes reconsiders her career choice. But instead of despairing, she said on a recent podcast, “I believe we are experiencing a move of God to purify his church. We’re seeing a new reformation.”

Yes, God is purifying the church. In fact, he’s been at it from the very beginning, when he walked among us. Think for a moment about the people who found in Jesus a well of patience, mercy, love and compassion. The tax collector. The prostitute. Little children. Barren women. The blind, the lame, the chronically ill. The Roman centurion. The seeking Pharisee. The rough fisherman. The migrant. The atheist zealot. The rebellious son. Now recall who moved him to flip tables in the synagogue. That’s right — men in religious robes who exploited the vulnerable in the house of God. He reserved his harshest words for the religiously smug, calling them “unwashed cups,” “white-washed tombs,” and “den of vipers.” When confronted with sexual abuse in the church, flipping tables is a holy response.

An Appeal to the Pews

It’s abundantly clear that many evangelical leaders have no interest in rooting out the sin in their own camp. Too often, they are more concerned with protecting the celebrity pastor’s brand and keeping the money flow intact. They care more about “restoring” the exposed wolves than binding up the wounds of the victimized sheep. It’s time for the sheep to hold them accountable.

No church is immune from a sexual abuse incident, but good churches put thoughtful safeguards in place to protect their congregations. To the faithful believers in the pews, I implore you to actively engage with your church leadership around this issue. Here are four practical actions every church member can take to help address the clergy sexual abuse crisis.

1. Don’t Look Away

I know this is a hard topic. I didn’t want to write it and you didn’t want to read it. Sometimes I scroll right past one of these articles in my news feed because it churns my stomach and interrupts my sleep to read another tragic story. I get it.

But as members of the body of Christ, when one member hurts, we all hurt. We are “to bear one another’s burdens” and “weep with those who weep.” Let your heart ache in solidarity with those who suffer.

2. Get Angry

There’s a reason we refer to victims of sexual abuse as “survivors” — many don’t survive the trauma. And yet, it’s easy to get numb to these horrific actions. News reports sanitize the accounts so as not to shock and offend readers. That’s probably a good thing. But when you read that a man was arrested for possession of CSAM, does something in your brain recoil, or do you just glide right over that sentence? If they spelled out the details of what that Child Sexual Abuse Material contained, you’d want to vomit.

For example, I read multiple reports of the incident involving Jonathan Elwing (mentioned above). Most of them default to legal terminology “capital sexual battery” of “a child younger than 12.” That sounds pretty bad, but not as bad as the truth. He raped a 2-year-old toddler and filmed it. If we’re going to “weep with those who weep” we need to see beyond sanitizing language and let ourselves be deeply outraged by these horrific acts.

In her book We Too, Mary DeMuth says this about anger:

All great movements of history are fueled by anger at injustice. Abolition, labor reform, the right to vote, child welfare, the civil rights movement–all started with a kernel of anger toward something people perceived to be wholly unjust.

We Too, page 195

3. Pray

I agree with Julie Roys: God is purifying his church. Pray for that purification. Pray for conviction and repentance. Lament for those who have been harmed. Pray for the blinders to come off. Pray for light to shine in the darkness. Pray for healing and restoration of the wounded. Pray for church leaders to have humility and wisdom. Pray for the law enforcement officers who can never unsee the images they have to see. Pray that the church would be a safe place. Pray that Jesus would be honored in our sanctuaries.

4. Ask Questions

Make an appointment with your pastor or elder, and let them know you’d like to understand what steps your church has taken to protect its members against sexual abuse. They may be surprised by the question, but good churches will welcome the conversation. Here are some questions to ask:

• What safeguards does our church have for protecting members, especially children, from sexual abuse?
• What is the authority structure of our church? Is the senior pastor also the Chairman of the Elder board?
• What vetting processes do we use for employees? What about volunteers?
• Does our church have written governance policies? If so, may I have a copy?
• Does our church use Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) with employees and/or volunteers?
• Does our church have policies against nepotism?
• Are there any women on the leadership team?
• How would the church handle an allegation of sexual abuse?
• Would you ever employ someone who had been convicted of sexual abuse?

A Field Test

I decided to do a field test with these questions, so I met with leaders from the two local churches I’ve called home the past 30+ years. Peter Buckland is the Senior Director of Personnel & Strategy at Christ’s Church of Oronogo where I currently attend. Randy Gariss served as senior minister at College Heights Christian Church for 33 years, then as Campus Minister at Ozark Christian College for several years. Now retired, Randy continues to be a go-to resource for churches and pastors in our network. Both men were generous with their time and candid in their discussions. I’ll share a few of their insights.

Peter and Randy both addressed the authority structure question by saying that they operate on a “shared governance” or “teams” model. There is no pyramid, where the senior minister has ultimate authority. In these churches, the board of elders has final authority. Ministry staff and elders work together and strive for consensus in their decision-making.

In addition to distributed authority, the team structure has built-in accountability and community. Again, both Peter and Randy mentioned that isolation was a red flag. In a team, the close working dynamic means ministers are likely to notice when another minister is struggling. They have strong commitments to support one another and to hold one another accountable.

I particularly liked Peter’s emphasis on helping ministers maintain a vibrant spiritual life. At Christ’s Church of Oronogo, they place a high priority on the spiritual health of the staff, through the use of spiritual formation training and one-on-one accountability.

Peter and Randy both characterized their churches as “soft complementarian” on the role of women in the church. As they interpret scripture, women may not serve as senior minister or elder, but may hold other ministerial and leadership positions. (Because my own convictions lean “egalitarian,” I favor including women on the elder board, but I understand and respect their position.) They both confirmed that women participate in elder and leadership team meetings. We talked about the “Bro Club” problem, where men are the only ones privy to sexual abuse allegations and have a tendency to protect one another. They walked through how their churches would handle a sexual abuse allegation and how their female leaders would be involved in the process.

I left these conversations feeling assured that both churches had thoughtfully developed practices and policies to prevent and handle sexual abuse situations. I encourage you to schedule time for a similar conversation with your own minister. If you do, I’d love to hear your feedback in the comments section.

An Appeal to the Pews in the Firestorm

If you belong to one of the churches or denominations currently facing a sexual abuse firestorm, this is not a theoretical exercise. You get to evaluate in real time how well your church or denomination handles clergy sexual abuse. Will you be a silent observer or will you engage your church leaders? Here are four steps you can take now:

1. Don’t Fall for Gaslighting

If you read enough of these church announcements, a clear pattern emerges. First they express complete surprise (read: denial of accountability), followed by the steps they have taken, which often include the promise of an internal investigation (read: keep it inside the church where we can control it). Next, they mischaracterize the nature of the offense to minimize the seriousness or make it appear that the victim was also to blame. Then they exhort members to offer grace and sympathy for the accused, urging them to pray for him and his family during this difficult time. They often extol the grace of God and his ability to restore sinners, wrapped in a gentle reminder that we are all sinners. Surprisingly, the victim is rarely mentioned. Lastly, they admonish members not to talk about it, because that’s gossip and will only stir dissension.

When you see these tactics, recognize that you are being bamboozled. Push back. With respect for the privacy of the victim, demand whatever details are appropriate. For example, church leaders may characterize an incident as a “moral lapse.” Left unchallenged, that wording implies a single event in a moment of weakness. If you press for more detail, you may find it was a full-fledged affair that went on for three years.

Another example: in the Gateway incident, church leaders told members that Robert Morris had “inappropriate sexual behavior with a young lady.” In fact, the victim was 12 years old–not a “young lady”–making the incident criminal, rather than merely “inappropriate.” Further details emerged that the predation continued for more than four years. If church leaders resist further disclosure, check public court records and investigative reporters like Julie Roys.

2. Reject Cheap Grace

As predictable as each sunrise, press releases by the PR team handling an abuse case urge church members to extend grace and forgiveness to the fallen pastor. After all, they remind us, no sin is beyond the reach of the Father’s forgiveness. We are all sinners. Yada, yada, yada. While those are true statements, read the subtext as “Move on. Nothing to see here.”

It’s okay not to rush to forgiveness. Give it time. The body of Christ needs to sit with the pain and betrayal, needs to feel the anguish of the victim, needs to lament and wrestle with the “how could this happen.” A rush to forgiveness seeks to short-cut accountability and minimizes the harm done to the victim. Justice demands a full accounting of the wrong.

Instead of rushing to support the perpetrator, rush to support the wounded. Victims of sexual abuse face a long and winding road to forgiveness. There is no 12-step program. It’s a process that takes years. Cheap grace for the perpetrator sends a message to the one harmed that what happened to them wasn’t really that bad. Oh, Friends, let’s not magnify the pain.

3. Use Your Leverage

If efforts to get answers and implement changes fall on deaf ears, consider your leverage. Are you the director of the children’s ministry, an elder, the church treasurer? Might you be unwilling to continue to provide your volunteer services if church leaders remain unwilling to respond to your concerns? What about your tithe? Can you, in good conscience, continue to support a church that may be covering or enabling sexual abuse?

I’m going to put this as delicately as I can…if you belong to an SBC church and you are still faithfully slipping your tithe into the offering plate every week…why? What would happen if members deluged the Executive Committee with letters notifying them that tithes would be diverted to more trustworthy ministries until the promised abuse reforms were implemented? I hate to be crass, but money talks. One person may not have much leverage, but a wide-scale revolt from the pews would get attention.

By whatever means you have, work to reform the church from the inside. Resist giving in to a toxic culture, but also resist walking away without a good fight.

4. Leave

When all else fails, you have a choice to make. It’s a gut-wrenching decision to leave a church family that is woven into years of your story. But to stay when you know the church is covering and/or enabling harm is to sear your own conscience. You get what you tolerate. If we ever want to see a purification of the church, we have to stop tolerating the systems that enable abuse to fester.

If you do leave, please, please keep searching until you find a healthy body of believers. They exist, I promise. Over and over, the Bible cautions against false shepherds, but not as an excuse to throw up our hands in despair. We need each other. Paul’s words in Hebrews 10:25 speak to our time:

“Let us watch out for one another, to provoke love and good works, not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day approaching.”

Hebrews 10:25

Some Good News

Sin in the church is nothing new. In both Old Testament and New, we read accounts of men who covered their evil deeds in righteous robes. And then we read how God dealt with them. Make no mistake, God loves his church and he will not tolerate evil and injustice under a guise of false godliness.

The good news is that faithful folks in the pews are calling leaders to account, joining hands for the purification of the church. Some are flipping tables with investigative journalism. Others are binding the wounds of the broken with counseling services. Some are coming alongside churches in crisis to bring healing and restoration. Some are fighting for justice in our legal system. Others are training pastors and lay leaders on ways to safeguard their congregations from abuse. Some are equipping future ministers at seminaries. In short, some portion of the church is speaking truth to power in the midst of this crisis.

But it isn’t enough to applaud those efforts from the sidelines. Will we in the pews look away? Will we be complicit by being complacent? Or will we use our voices to protect and advocate for the vulnerable?

If you are fortunate enough to belong to a healthy church. with a pastor who shepherds well, please express your gratitude to him or her. It’s not easy to be a minister these days. Those who serve faithfully week after week don’t make headlines and can easily be taken for granted. A kind word might be welcome.

Thank you for hearing my heart on this difficult issue. I always appreciate your feedback, so please feel free to share and comment.

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