The Roys Report

Much research has been done to address individual trauma. But what happens when trauma is collective—when an entire congregation, for example, is betrayed by a pastor they trusted?

In this edition of The Roys Report, Kayleigh Clark, a pastor and a pastor’s kid, discusses the impact of communal suffering, which church leaders often overlook.

Kayleigh, a doctoral student at Kairos University, is completing her dissertation on congregational collective trauma and paths towards healing and restoration. And what she’s learned is ground-breaking for churches that have experienced pastoral abandonment or moral failure and are struggling to recover.

As was explained in the popular book, The Body Keeps the Score, unhealed trauma—if unaddressed—will manifest itself as physical and psychological ailments in our bodies. Likewise, unaddressed trauma in the Body of Christ will also manifest as corporate dysfunction and pain.

But as Kayleigh explains in this eye-opening podcast, this doesn’t have to be the case. Healing is available. But it requires congregants and spiritual leaders who understand trauma and don’t try to charge forward before the congregation has healed.

Given all the unhealed trauma in the church, this is such a relevant and important podcast. It’s also one that discusses dynamics Julie knows all too well, as someone who’s in a church with others who’ve experienced deep church hurt.

She discusses her own experience in the podcast, which could be a prime case study.

Kayleigh Clark is founder and director of Restor(y), which exists to journey with churches on the hope-filled path of healing and restoration. She completed a Master of Divinity at Northeastern Seminary and is currently a Th.D. Candidate at Kairos University with a focus on the interplay between psychology and theology. Kayleigh and her husband, Nate, love exploring the outdoors with their son near their home in Rochester, New York. Learn more about Restor(y) online.

[00:00:00] Julie: Much research has been done to address individual trauma, but what happens when trauma is collective? When an entire congregation, for example, is betrayed by a pastor they trusted. According to my guest today, the impact of communal suffering is often overlooked, but the body of Christ keeps score.

[00:00:22] Julie: 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 Kaylee Clark, a pastor and a pastor’s kid who’s well acquainted with the beauty, joy, pain, and heartache that exists within the church. Kaylee also is a doctoral student at Kairos University, and her dissertation work focuses on congregational collective trauma and paths towards healing and restoration.

[00:00:50] Julie: She also is the director of ReStory, a ministry to help churches heal and embody the hope of Jesus, especially after experiencing a devastating loss or betrayal. I had the pleasure of meeting Kaylee about a week ago, and I was so excited by her insights and the work that she’s doing that I was like, you have to come on my podcast.

[00:01:10] Julie: So I am thrilled that she can join me today, and I know you’re going to be blessed by this podcast. I’ll get to my interview with Kaylee in just a minute, but first, I’d like to thank the sponsors of this podcast, the Restore Conference and Mark Horta Barrington. If you’re someone who’s experienced church hurt or abuse, there are few places you can go to pursue healing.

[00:01:30] Julie: So, Similarly, if you’re an advocate, counselor, or pastor, there are a few conferences designed to equip you to minister to people traumatized in the church. But the Restore Conference, this February 7th and 8th in Phoenix, Arizona, is designed to do just that. Joining us will be leading abuse survivor advocates like Mary DeMuth and Dr.

[00:01:50] Julie: David Pooler An expert in adult clergy sexual abuse. Also joining us will be Scott McKnight, author of A Church Called Toe, Diane Langberg, a psychologist and trauma expert, yours truly, and more. For more information, just go to Restore2025. com. That’s Restore2025. com. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington.

[00:02:17] Julie: 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.

[00:02:37] Julie: Well, again, joining me today is Kaylee Clark, a pastor and doctoral student who’s studying congregational collective trauma and the paths to healing and restoration. She’s also the founder of Restoree and she’s a wife and mother of a beautiful baby boy. So Kaylee, welcome. It’s just such a pleasure to have you.

[00:02:56] Kayleigh: Thank you. Thank you for having me. It’s an honor and a pleasure to be with you today.

[00:03:00] Julie: Well, I am just thrilled to have you on our podcast and I mentioned this in the open, but We talked last week and I was just like, Oh my word, everything that you’re doing, your work is so important. And it’s so where I’m living right now.

[00:03:15] Julie: And I know a lot of our listeners are living as well. And so I’m thrilled about it. But as you mentioned, your work is, is unique. We’re going to get into that, but I am just curious, this whole idea, collective trauma, you know, ministering. To the church. How did you get interested in this work?

[00:03:33] Kayleigh: Sure. Um, so I am fourth generation clergy.

[00:03:37] Kayleigh: So great grandpa, grandpa, my dad, and then me. So are all pastors. Uh, and so I’ve just always known the church, uh, pastors have also been kind of my second family. I’ve always felt at home amongst the church and amongst pastors. Um, but when you grow up in the parsonage and other PKs will know this, uh, you are not hidden from.

[00:03:58] Kayleigh: The difficult portions of church and the really hard components of church. And so then when you add on to that, becoming a pastor myself, you know, my eyes continued to be open, uh, to some of the ways that church can be a harmful place as much of it as it is a healing place. And I began to kind of ask the question, well, well, why, um, what is going on here?

[00:04:21] Kayleigh: Um, particularly because when I served and we’ll get into more of this, I think, but when I was serving in my first lead pastor, it’s. So I’m a really young, I was like 27 when they, or 28 when they entrusted me when I first lead pastorate, which is kind of wild. And so they kind of threw me in and what they do with most young pastors is they kind of throw us into these dying churches.

[00:04:44] Kayleigh: And so, right, it’s a small. Church with, you know, it’s dying, it’s dwindled in numbers. And so this is my first kind of lead pastorate. And, you know, I read all the books, I’m a learner, I’m a reader. I, you know, I know how to do all the things. And so I’m reading all of the books on how to revitalize a church and raise a church up from it and all those things and nothing is working.

[00:05:06] Kayleigh: Um, and it started to kind of really raise my attention to, well, maybe there’s something else going on here. Um, And, and maybe we’ve been asking the wrong questions when we’ve been approaching the church. Uh, and so, uh, again, I’m a learner, so I was like, well, I’m just going to go back to school. If that was the only way I knew how to figure this out.

[00:05:25] Kayleigh: So I landed in a THD program that focused on combining the studies of trauma theory with theology. Um, and my undergraduate degree is in psychology, so it felt kind of like a merging of my two worlds. Um, and it was there that I encountered collective trauma and. Really in an interesting way, studying, um, more like childhood development trauma.

[00:05:46] Kayleigh: But anytime I looked at it, all I could see was the church, um, and seeing the ways in which there might be a bigger picture. There might be a bigger story going on here. And maybe there’s some collective congregational trauma underneath the, these dying, uh, declining churches that we just aren’t aware of.

[00:06:04] Julie: So, so good. And this is the thing that, that just stuns me. When I, I, I do an investigation and the top pastor gets fired, sometimes all the elders step down, but the church, it’s, it’s unbelievably rare for one of those churches to thrive afterwards. And I, and I think so much of it is they think, Oh, we got rid of the bad apple.

[00:06:29] Julie: And they have no concept of how that toxicity, one, you know, the toxic, often bullying way of relating and everything was, was taught and learned and trained throughout. But then there is that trauma and, and I just, I think of Willow Creek Community Church, I went to their, it was like a midweek service where they were going to deal with, Supposedly, the women who had been sexually harassed and abused by Bill Heibel’s, the previous pastor, and they didn’t even name it.

[00:07:08] Julie: They didn’t name what had happened. They didn’t go into what had happened. They didn’t apologize to the women. The women became like this amorphous something out there, the women, you know? Um, and, and then they talked about, they had a repentance time, like we’re supposed to repent for his sins. It was the most bizarre, unhealing thing I had ever seen.

[00:07:27] Julie: And I couldn’t imagine how after something that dysfunctional, a church could go, okay, we’re back, you know, reach the lost, you know, seeker sensitive church. It was just bizarre. Um, so, so much of your work is, is resonating with me. And again, We’ve seen a lot in and it’s really important is dealing with individual trauma and which is super important work.

[00:07:53] Julie: Um, and my last podcast with Chuck DeGroat, we talked a lot about that. We talk a lot about that on a lot of podcasts, but we often don’t address again, what’s this collective trauma that, that, you know, that it actually has a social aspect. So talk about why is it important that we begin addressing collective trauma and not just individual trauma, though, you know, obviously we each need to heal as individuals, but collectively as well.

[00:08:24] Kayleigh: Yeah. So collective trauma is a newer field, even in psychological studies. So it’s, Not as old as individual trauma studies, and it actually became more popular through the work of Kai Erikson, who’s a sociologist. He’s not even a psychologist, but he studied collective trauma in kind of what he refers to as unnatural disasters.

[00:08:43] Kayleigh: And so these disasters that are experienced by communities that have a human, like, blame component. So it was due to somebody’s negligence due to somebody’s poor leadership due to somebody’s abuse, and it’s on a community. And so Kai Erickson notes the, the social, he calls it the social dimension of trauma or collective trauma.

[00:09:03] Kayleigh: And what he, he details there is that collective trauma is anything that disrupts and ruptures the, uh, relationships within a community. Distorting and taking apart their, uh, he calls it communality instead of community, but it’s their sense of, like, neighborliness. It’s their sense of being together. It’s their, Their shared identity and their, their shared memories are all now distorted.

[00:09:26] Kayleigh: And so I think when we’re speaking specifically about the church, and when we’re looking at religious trauma and congregational trauma, we need to remember that the church is first and foremost, a community. And so sometimes I think that’s missed in our kind of American individualism. You know, a lot of people kind of view spirituality as this individualistic thing, but the church is a community.

[00:09:48] Kayleigh: And so when we come together as the body of Christ, you know, when wounding happens, when trauma comes, it breaks down the relationships within that congregation, which really. is what makes it a church. The relationships are what make that a church. And so when trauma comes in and disrupts those and starts causing the divisions and the distrust and the he said, she said, and the choosing of sides and the church splits and all of these things have these ripple effects on the community.

[00:10:19] Kayleigh: Um, and they really are, are traumatizing. And so what happens is that if we don’t deal, if we’re only dealing with the individual trauma, In part, that’s usually dealing with people who have left the church, right? And so usually the people who are seeking individual healing from their religious trauma, who are able to name that, who are able to say, I went through this, have often stepped outside of the church.

[00:10:42] Kayleigh: Sometimes just for a season, which is completely understandable. They need that time away. They need time to heal. They’re, they don’t, feel safe. But what we’re missing when we neglect the social dimension of religious trauma are often the people who stay are these congregations who can’t name it yet, who can’t articulate that what they’ve gone through is religious trauma, who who maybe are still trying to figure out what that means.

[00:11:07] Kayleigh: Often it means that we’re missing, um, you know, these, these the church that I served in, you know, isn’t one of these big name churches that’s going to get, you know, newscasted about. And they can’t necessarily name what happened to them as religious trauma because nobody’s given them the language for it.

[00:11:25] Kayleigh: And so we’ve often missed these, these declining churches. We’ve missed because we haven’t remembered that Trauma is communal that trauma is relational. And so we need to, yes, provide as much care and as much resourcing as we can for the healing of individuals, because you can’t heal the community if the individuals don’t know.

[00:11:44] Kayleigh: But we really need to remember that the community as a whole. impacted, and that especially when we’re talking about the church, we want to be able to heal and restore those relationships. And to do that means we have to address the social dimensions of the religious trauma. And so

[00:12:01] Julie: often the people that, that stay aren’t aware of what’s happened to them.

[00:12:08] Julie: Are they not even aware they’re traumatized?

[00:12:11] Kayleigh: Right, right. Yeah.

[00:12:13] Julie: Yeah. You introduced this, this concept, which is great. I mean, it’s, it’s a riff off of the book, The Body Keeps the Score, which, you know, um, just an incredible book by, uh, Dr. Vander Kolk. But this idea that the body of Christ keeps the score.

[00:12:33] Julie: Describe what you mean by that, that the body of Christ keeps the score when there’s this kind of trauma that it’s experiencing.

[00:12:40] Kayleigh: Sure. So you kind of alluded to it earlier when you were giving an example of the removing of a toxic pastor, right? And then just the placement of a new pastor. And so often what happens in these situations where there’s spiritual abuse or, um, clergy misconduct or any of those things that’s causing this religious trauma, the answer seems to be, well, let’s just remove the.

[00:13:00] Kayleigh: Problem person. And then that will solve everything. Um, well, what happens is we forget that trauma is embodied, right? And so you can remove the physical threat. Um, but if you remove the physical threat or the problem person, but this congregation still has this embodied sense of trauma in which they perceive threat now.

[00:13:23] Kayleigh: So they’re reacting to their surroundings out of that traumatized position, because that’s what the collective body has learned to do. And so you see this, um, It’s a silly example, but I use it because I think people see it a lot. So you have a new pastor come in and the new pastor has a great idea, at least he or she thinks it’s a great idea.

[00:13:46] Kayleigh: And it probably has to do with removing pews or changing carpet color. Okay. And so they present this, what they think is just a great harmless idea. And the response of the congregation is almost volatile and the pastor can’t figure out why. And often, unfortunately, what pastors have kind of been taught to identify is that they must just idolatry.

[00:14:11] Kayleigh: They just have the past as an idol for them and they need to kill this golden cow. Right. And so it becomes this theological problem. Sure, there might be cases where that is the truth, but often I would say that there’s, um, a wonderful. So another great book on trauma. It’s more on racialized trauma, but it deals a lot with historical trauma is, um, rest my Mac mannequins book, um, my grandmother’s hands and in it, he addresses this historical trauma that is embodied and he quotes Dr.

[00:14:42] Kayleigh: Noel Larson, who says, if it’s hysterical, it’s probably historical. In other words, if the reaction to the thing happening doesn’t seem to match, like it seems out of proportion, either too energized or not enough energy around it, it’s probably connected to some kind of historical trauma that hasn’t been processed.

[00:15:03] Kayleigh: And so we see this a lot in churches who are having a hard time being healthy and flourishing and engaging with the community around them. And. The reason why is often because they have this unhealed trauma that nobody’s given them language for. Nobody’s pointed out, nobody’s addressed for them. Um, and so it’s just kind of lingering under the surface, unhealed, unnamed, and it’s informing how they believe, how they act.

[00:15:33] Kayleigh: Um, and so this is really What I mean when I say the body of Christ keeps the score is that the body of Christ has embodied this trauma and it’s coming out in their behaviors, in their actions, in their values, and our pastors are not equipped to address it from a trauma informed perspective. They’ve only been given tools to address it from maybe a theological position, or this kind of revitalization remissioning perspective.

[00:16:02] Kayleigh: That often doesn’t work.

[00:16:04] Julie: There’s so many things I’m thinking as as you’re talking. I mean one. to come in and do something. And then because people react to, I mean, basically that’s shaming them. It’s guilting them to say, Oh, you have an idol or what’s wrong with you that you can’t get on board. And the truth is they don’t know what’s wrong with them.

[00:16:23] Julie: They, they don’t. And, and they’re hurt. And all they know is you just, they’re hurt and now you’ve hurt them. So now they don’t trust you. So way to go. Um, but I’m thinking maybe because we brought this up and I don’t mean to beat up on, on Willow Creek, but I’m thinking about. When the new pastor came in, and I don’t think he’s a bad guy, um, you know, they, they were bleeding money.

[00:16:45] Julie: Obviously they, they did not have the resources they did before. So one of the first things they did was they centralized, which meant the campus pastors weren’t going to be preaching anymore. They were going to be pumping in video sermons. Here’s the pastor that people trusted on these campuses. Now, that person’s not going to be preaching, which then of course, all of them left.

[00:17:06] Julie: They ended up leaving and the trauma you’d now it’s trauma upon trauma. And it just seems like, especially in so many of these churches, you bring somebody in and they want to move somewhere like, right. They want a thriving church. What they don’t want to do is be at a church and sit in your pain. And yet.

[00:17:27] Julie: Unless that’s done, I mean, can these churches, I mean, can they move forward? I mean, what’s going to happen if you come in and you don’t? slow down and say, these people are hurting and I need to, I need to be a shepherd. Then that’s the other thing. It’s so many of these mega churches, and I know this isn’t unique to mega churches that this happens, but I, it’s the world in which I report so often is that these mega churches are very mission vision, five year plan oriented and what they’re not capable of doing.

[00:17:59] Julie: I think so many of these, you know, and they always bring in the, the pastor. That’s a good orator, maybe not a shepherd at all. In fact, some of these guys even say, I’m not a shepherd, which that’s another, yeah, I mean, but, but to actually, they need a shepherd at that point. Right. I mean, these, these people need it.

[00:18:20] Julie: So, I mean, again, what, what do they need to do? And what happens if they don’t do some of these things?

[00:18:28] Kayleigh: So the thing that I have really been drawn to, especially as I study Jesus, and I look at what it means to be trauma informed in the pastorate. So I, I do believe that God is still working through pastors.

[00:18:39] Kayleigh: Um, in fact, there’s a really beautiful section of scripture in Jeremiah 23, where God is addressing abusive shepherds and God’s response is, I will raise up new shepherds. So God still wants to work through shepherds. There is still a place for a pastor. The problem is, is I don’t think we’ve taught pastors how to lead out of a posture of compassionate curiosity.

[00:19:03] Kayleigh: And so if you follow Jesus and you look at the way that Jesus interacts with hurting people, it is out of this beautiful, humble posture of compassionate curiosity. And so I was always struck by like, he asks the blind man, what do you want me to do for you? And it always seemed like a. That’s a strange question.

[00:19:20] Kayleigh: Like, he’s blind, Jesus. What do you think he and often it’s preached on, like, well, we need to be able to tell God what we want. And that’s maybe some of it. But I think it’s also the truth that God knows that it can be re traumatizing to somebody to tell them what they need and what they want. Right? So what we learned when we studied trauma is that it’s not.

[00:19:40] Kayleigh: So especially when we’re talking trauma caused by abuse is that abuse is so connected to control. And so what has often happened to these victims of religious abuse of spiritual abuse is that they have had control taken from them entirely. And so when a new pastor comes in and tells them, this is what you need to get healthy again, and never takes the time to approach them from this.

[00:20:02] Kayleigh: posture of compassionate curiosity, they can end up re traumatizing them. Um, but our pastors aren’t trained to ask these questions. And so, so often if you read, you know, and they’re well meaning books, you know, they’re, they’re trying to get to what’s going on in the heart of the church. They’re trying to get back to church health, but so many of the books around that have to deal with.

[00:20:23] Kayleigh: Asking the church, what are you doing or what are you not doing? And trauma theory teaches us to ask a different question. And that question is what happened to you? And I think if pastors were trained to go into churches and ask the question, what happened to you and just sit with a church and a hold the church and, and listen to the stories of the church, they, they might discover that these people have never been given space to even think about it that way.

[00:20:52] Kayleigh: You know, where they’ve just, they’ve had abusive leaders who have just been removed or they’ve had manipulative leaders who have just been removed and they’ve just been given a new pastor and a new pastor and nobody’s given them the space. To articulate what that’s done to them, um, as individuals and as a congregation.

[00:21:09] Kayleigh: And so if we can learn to, to follow Jesus in just his curiosity, and he asks the blind man, what do you want me to do for you? He, he says, who touched me when the woman reaches out and touches him. And that’s not a, it’s not a question of condemnation. That’s a question of permission giving. He knows that this woman needs more than physical healing.

[00:21:28] Kayleigh: She needs relational healing. She needs to tell her story. And by pausing and saying, who touched me? He provides a space for her to share her story that she’s never been able to share with anyone before. And I think if we were to follow that Jesus, as pastors and as leaders, we would begin to love the Bride of Christ in such a way that would lead to her healing, instead of feeling the need to just rush her through some five year plan to what we think is healing and wholeness, and what actually may not be what they would say is what they need.

[00:22:02] Julie: So many things you’re saying are resonating with me. And part of that’s because, uh, like I said, we’re living this. Um, I, I told you last week when we talked that our, our house church was going on a retreat, first retreat we’ve ever had. We’ve been together a little over, well, for me, I came in about two years ago and I think they had been meeting maybe eight or nine months before then.

[00:22:29] Julie: Some of the people in our group, Um, don’t come out of trauma. Um, you know, one of our, one of the couples in our church, uh, they’re like young life leaders, really just delightful, delightful, delightful people, but they haven’t lived the religious trauma. One couple is, they’re from the mission field and they had a great missions experience.

[00:22:55] Julie: The only trauma they might be experiencing is coming home to the U. S. The truth is they love the mission field, right? Um, and then. The remainder of us come from two, two churches, um, that, that had some sexual abuse that was really, you know, mishandled and the trust with the leaders was, was broken in really grievous ways.

[00:23:19] Julie: Um, and then there’s me on top of having that, um, living in this space where, I mean, I just report on this all the time. And so, but one of the beautiful things that happened in this, in this group is that it did have leaders when we came into it and it triggered us. Like, you know, and for us it was like, oh, here’s the inside group and the outside group.

[00:23:47] Julie: Like, we’re used to the ins and the outs, right? And, and we’re used to the inside group having power and control, and the rest of us just kind of go along with it. And, and we’re, we’re a tiny little group. Like we’re 20 some people, right? But, but it’s just, and, and we’re wonderful people. Wonderful people.

[00:24:02] Julie: And yet we still like, it was like, mm. And um, and so. The beautiful thing is that those leaders recognize, like they didn’t fully understand it, but they said, you know, I think we need to just step down and just not have leaders. And I didn’t even realize till we went on this retreat what an act of service and of love that was for them to just say, were laying down any, any agendas we might’ve had, any even mission or vision that we might’ve had.

[00:24:35] Julie: And for one of, you know, one of the guys, it was really hard for him cause he’s just like, Mr. Mr. Energy and initiative. And, and he was like, I better not take initiative because like, it’s, it’s not going to be good for these folks. Um, and on the retreat. So then, I mean, it was, it was really a Holy Spirit.

[00:24:54] Julie: experience, I think for all of us, because there definitely was a camp that was like, okay, we’ve had this kind of healing time, but can, can we move forward a little bit? Like, can we, can we have some intentionality? And then there were part of us that were just like, oh my word, if we, if we, if we have leaders, why do we need leaders?

[00:25:12] Julie: We’re 20 something people. Like we can just decide everything ourselves. And, and there really was somewhat of an impasse, but it’s interesting. The things that you said for me, And it was funny at one point. They’re like, can’t you just trust? And, you know, kind of like, what, what are you guys afraid of? You know?

[00:25:29] Julie: And the first thing that came out of my mouth was control control. Like we’re afraid of control, um, or I’m afraid of control. Um, but what was so, so. Huge for me and I think was one of those again, Holy Spirit moments was when, you know, I was trying to like make a point about power dynamics, like you don’t realize power and like we have to be aware of how power is stewarded in a group like this because everybody has power.

[00:25:59] Julie: If you don’t realize as a communicator the power that you have, like I’m aware now that because I can, I can form thoughts pretty quickly. That I can have a lot of influence in a group. I’m aware of that. And so, you know, there was even like a part where I was leading and then I was like, I can’t lead this next thing.

[00:26:17] Julie: I’ve been leading too much, you know, and then we, and then we gave, we, somebody had a marker and we gave the marker to, to, um, one of the guys in our group who’s fantastic guy. And, um, And at one point, so, so anyway, I was talking about power and, and one of the guys was like, well, I don’t, I don’t really see power.

[00:26:35] Julie: I don’t need. And I’m like, you have it, whether you realize it and you have it. And what was huge is that one of the other guys that sort of a leader was a leader was able to say what she’s talking about is real. Everybody has power. This is really important. And he was quite frankly, somebody with a lot of power in that group because he has a lot of trust, used to be a pastor.

[00:26:57] Julie: Um, and for him to acknowledge that for the rest of us was huge. And then this, this other guy, I mean, he said at one point, Oh, well, you know, so and so’s holding the marker right now and he has power, doesn’t he? And I was like, yes, you’re getting it. That’s it. That’s it. Thank you. Because he’s like, you just reframed what we said and I wouldn’t have reframed it that way.

[00:27:22] Julie: Like I wouldn’t. And I’m like, yes, exactly. It’s like, and it was like, it was like the light bulbs were going on and people were starting to get it. Um, and then another key, key moment was when one of the women who, you know, wasn’t, you know, from our church where we experienced stuff, who said, can you, can you tell me how that, how that felt for you when we used to have leaders?

[00:27:46] Julie: And then for people to be able to express that. And people listened and it was like, and I was able to hear from this guy who felt like he was, he had a straight jacket, you know, because he, he like wants to use his, his initiative. Like he, he. You know, and God’s given that to him. It’s a good thing, you know.

[00:28:07] Julie: And all I can say is it was just an incredible experience, an incredible moment, but it would not have happened if, and now I’m going to get kind of, it wouldn’t have happened if people cared more about the mission than the people. And they didn’t realize the people are the mission. This is Jesus work. He doesn’t care about your five year plan.

[00:28:41] Julie: He doesn’t care about your ego and the big, you know, plans that you have and things you can do. What he cares is whether you’ll lay your life down for the sheep. That’s what shepherds do. And what I saw in, in our group was the willingness to, for people that have shepherding gifts to lay down their, you know, not literally their lives, but in a way their lives, their, their dreams, their hopes or visions, everything to love another and how that created so much love and trust, you know, in our group.

[00:29:22] Julie: And we’re still like trying to figure this out, but yeah, it was, it was hugely, it just so, so important. But I thought how many churches are willing to do that, are willing to, to sit in the pain, are willing to listen. And I’m, I’m curious as you go in now, there’s so much of your work has become with ReStory is, is education and going into these churches.

[00:29:52] Julie: You know, normally when this happens, And you told me there’s a, there’s a name for pastors that come in. It’s the afterpastor. Afterpastor.

[00:30:00] Kayleigh: Yes. The afterpastor.

[00:30:02] Julie: How many times does the afterpastor get it? And does he do that?

[00:30:07] Kayleigh: So the problem is, and I can tell you, cause I have an MDiv. I went, I did all the seminary.

[00:30:11] Kayleigh: I’m ordained. We don’t get trained in that. Um, so, and there is, um, like you said, so you use this guy as an example who has the clear. Initiative gifts. So they’re what would be called kind of the Apostle, um, evangelist gifts in like the pastoral gift assessment kind of deal. You’ve got the Apostle, prophet, evangelist, shepherd, and teacher.

[00:30:34] Kayleigh: And right now there’s a lot of weight kind of being thrown behind the Apostle evangelist as kind of the charismatic leader who can set the vision. And so most of the books on pastoral You know, church health and church are written kind of geared and directed that way. Um, so we’re really missing the fact that when we’re talking about a traumatized church, what you really need is a prophet shepherd.

[00:30:57] Kayleigh: Um, you need somebody who can come in and shepherd the people and care for them well, but also the prophet. The role of the prophet is often to help people make meaning of their suffering. So if you read closely, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, particularly who are two prophets speaking to people in exile, what they’re really doing is helping people make meaning of that suffering.

[00:31:17] Kayleigh: They’re helping people tell their story. They’re, they’re lamenting, they’re crying with them. They’re, they’re asking the hard questions. Um, and they’re able to kind of see between the lines. So prophet, Pastors who have kind of that prophetic gifting are able to see below. They’re able to kind of slow down and hear the actual story beyond the behaviors, right?

[00:31:35] Kayleigh: So the behaviors aren’t telling the whole story, but we need eyes to see that. And so the problem, I would say, is that a lot of well, meaning pastors simply aren’t taught how to do this. And so they’re not given the resources. They’re not given kind of the, um. this like Christian imagination to be able to look at a church and say, okay, what has happened here and what healings take place here?

[00:31:59] Kayleigh: Um, the other problem is, you know, we need to be able to give space. So denominational leaders need to be able to be okay with a church that maybe isn’t going to grow for a few years. And I think that is whether we like it or not. And we can say all day long that we don’t judge a church’s health by its numbers.

[00:32:19] Kayleigh: But at the end of the day, pastors feel this pressure to grow the church, right? To have an attendance that’s growing a budget that’s growing and. And so, and part of it is from a good place, right? We want to reach more people from Jesus, but part of it is just this like cultural pressure that defines success by numbers.

[00:32:36] Kayleigh: And so can we be okay with a church that’s not going to grow for a little while? You know, can we be okay with a church that’s going to take some like intentional time to just heal? And so when you have an established church, um, which is a little bit different than a house church model, it can be. A really weird sacrifice, even for the people who are there, because often what you have is you have a segment of the church who is very eager to move forward and move on and and to grow and to move into its new future, and they can get frustrated with the rest of the church.

[00:33:15] Kayleigh: That kind of seems to need more time. Um, but trauma healing is it’s not linear. And so, you know, you kind of have to constantly Judith Herman identifies like three components of trauma healing. And so it’s safety and naming and remembering and then reconnecting, but they’re not like you finish safety and then you move to this one and then you move to this one.

[00:33:36] Kayleigh: Often you’re kind of going, you’re ebbing and flowing between them, right? Because you can achieve safety and then start to feel like, okay, now I can name it. And then something can trigger you and make you feel unsafe again. And so you’re now you’re back here. And so, um, um, Our churches need to realize that this healing process is going to take time, and collective trauma is complicated because you have individuals who are going to move through it.

[00:33:57] Kayleigh: So you’re going to have people who are going to feel really safe, and they’re going to feel ready to name, and others who aren’t. And so you have to be able to mitigate that and navigate that. And our pastors just aren’t simply trained in this. And so what I see happening a lot is I’ll do these trainings and I’ll have somebody come up to me afterwards and go, Oh my goodness, I was an after pastor and I had no idea that was a thing.

[00:34:18] Kayleigh: And they’re like, you just gave so much language to my experience. And you know, and now I understand why they seem to be attacking me. They weren’t really attacking me. They just don’t trust the office of the pastor. And I represent the office of the pastor. Okay. And so sometimes they take that personally again, it becomes like these theological issues.

[00:34:38] Kayleigh: And so helping pastors understand the collective trauma and being able to really just take the time to ask those important questions and to increase not only their own margin for suffering, but to increase a congregations margin for suffering. You know, to go, it’s going to be, we can sit in this pain.

[00:34:58] Kayleigh: It’s going to be uncomfortable, but it’s going to be important, you know, learning how to lament, learning how to mourn. All of these things are things that often we’re just not trained well enough in, um, as pastors. And so therefore our congregations aren’t trained in them either. You know, they don’t have margin for suffering either.

[00:35:14] Kayleigh: Um, and so we need to be able to equip our pastors to do that. Um, and then equip the congregations to be able to do that as well.

[00:35:20] Julie: So good. And I’m so glad you’re doing that. I will say when I first started this work, um, I was not trauma informed. I didn’t know anything about trauma really. And I didn’t even, you know, I was just a reporter reporting on corruption and then it turned into abuse in the church.

[00:35:38] Julie: And I started interfacing with a lot of abuse victims. who were traumatized. And I think back, um, and, and really, I’ve said this before, but survivors have been my greatest teachers by far, like just listening to them and learning from them. But really from day one, you know, it’s loving people, right? It really, it like, if you love and if you empathize, which You know, some people think it’s a sin, um, just cannot, um, but if you do that and, and that’s what, you know, even as I’m thinking about, um, within our own, our own house church, there were people who weren’t trained, but they did instinctively the right things because they loved.

[00:36:28] Julie: You know, and it just reminds me, I mean, it really does come down to, they will know you are Christians by your love. You know, how do we know love? Like Christ laid down his life for us. He is our model of love and, and somehow, you know, like you said, the, in the church today we’ve, we’ve exalted the, um, what did you say?

[00:36:49] Julie: The apostle evangelist? The apostle evangelist. Yeah. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Um, we’ve exalted that person, um, you know, And I think we’ve forgotten how to love. And too many of these pastors don’t know how to love. They just don’t know how to love. And it’s, it’s tragic. Because they’re supposed to be I mean, the old school models, they were shepherds, you know, like you said, like we need apostles, we need evangelists.

[00:37:16] Julie: But usually the person who was leading the church per se, the apostles and evangelists would often end up in parachurch organizations. I’m not saying that’s right or wrong. I think the church needs all of those things. Um, and, uh, But yeah, we’ve, we’ve, we’ve left that behind, sadly. And there’s nothing sexy about being a shepherd.

[00:37:37] Kayleigh: Yeah, no, I, all, all of the Apostle, I mean that, well, the whole thing is needed, um, and it’s most beautiful when we just work together, and, and when they can respond to each other. So, I mean, me and you’re an example in your house, you’re a visiting example of this. You can’t, even if just listening, you have some clear Apostle evangelists in your group, right?

[00:37:54] Kayleigh: I mean, Um, right? And so you have these people wired for that, and yet they’re able to, to learn and respond to some of the people in the group who have more of those prophet shepherd tendencies. And so I think that that’s really what, and that’s loving, right? So we should go back. It’s just loving one another and learning from one another.

[00:38:17] Kayleigh: And knowing when to lean into certain giftings and to learn from others giftings. This is why it’s the body of Christ. And so when a component of the body of Christ is left out, we can’t be who God’s called us to be. And so when we neglect the role of the shepherd and neglect the role of the prophet or minimize them, or see them as secondary, then we’re not going to do called us to be.

[00:38:44] Kayleigh: You know, we may need all of it to come together to do what God has called us to do. God is working in this church. He’s worked all through this church. He has established it and called it, and He’s going to use it. But we need to be learning how He has built it and how He framed it. For me to love one another and not elevate one gifting above another.

[00:39:07] Julie: And it’s interesting too, you mentioned the office of the pastor. Um, I know as we were discussing some of this, we have one guy who’s very, I mean, actually our entire group, and I think this is probably why we’ve been able to navigate some of this. It’s it’s a really spiritually mature group. A lot of people.

[00:39:26] Julie: who have been in leadership, um, which sometimes you get a lot of leaders together and it can be, you know, but this hasn’t been that way because I think people really do love the Lord. Um, and they love each other. Um, but one of the things that was brought up, um, is Is the pastor an office or is it a role and have we made it into an office and, and what we realized in the midst of that and I, you know, I, I’m like, well, that’s really interesting.

[00:39:57] Julie: I would like to study that. And I find there, there’s a curiosity when you talk compassionate curiosity, I think there’s also a curiosity in, in people who have been through this kind of trauma. There’s a curiosity in, okay, what, what did we do? that we did because everybody said that’s how we’re supposed to do it.

[00:40:18] Kayleigh: Yeah.

[00:40:18] Julie: Yeah. Do I really have that conviction? Could I really argue it from scripture? Is this even right? And so I find even in our group, there is a, there is a, um, there’s a curiosity and maybe this is because we’re coming through and we’re in, you know, I think a later stage of healing is that now we’re like really curious about what should we be?

[00:40:44] Julie: Yes. Yes. What should we be, like, we, we want to dig into what, what is a church, what should it really be, and what, why, how could we be different? Of course, always realizing that you can have the perfect structure and still have disaster. Um, it really does come down to the character of the people and, and that, but, but yeah, there’s a real, Curiosity of, of sort of, um, digging, digging into that.

[00:41:10] Julie: And, and let me just, I can ask you, and, and maybe this will be a rabbit trail, maybe we’ll edit it out. I don’t know. Um, , but, but I am curious what do, what do you think of that idea that the, the pastorate may be a role that we’ve made into an office and maybe that could be part of the problem?

[00:41:27] Kayleigh: I think that’s a lot of it.

[00:41:28] Kayleigh: Um, because when we turn the, the pastorate into an office, we can lose the priesthood of all believers. So that I think is often what happens is that, um, you create this pastoral role where now all of the ministry falls on to the pastor. And so instead of the pastor’s role being to equip the saints for the ministry, which is what scripture says, the scripture describes a pastor as equipping the saints for the ministry.

[00:41:56] Kayleigh: Now the pastor is doing the ministry, right? There’s, there’s just all of this pressure on the pastor. And that’s, that’s where I think we start to see this. The shift from the pastor being the one who is, you know, encouraging and equipping and edifying and, you know, calling up everybody to live into their role as the body of Christ where we’ve seen.

[00:42:19] Kayleigh: You know, I have a soft spot for pastors. Again, I’m like, they’re all my relatives are them. I love pastors and I know some really beautiful ones who get into ministry because that’s exactly what they want to do. And so what has often happened though, is that the, the ways of our culture have begun to inform how the church operates.

[00:42:40] Kayleigh: And so we saw this, you know, when, when the church started to employ business In kind of the church growth movement. So it’s like, okay, well, who knows how to grow things? Business people know how to grow things. Okay. Well, what are they doing? Right. And so now that the pastor is like the CEO, people choose their churches based on the pastor’s sermon, right?

[00:43:00] Kayleigh: Well, I like how this pastor preaches. So I’m going to go to that church. Um, so some of it is. So I would say that not all of it is pastors who have like that egotistical thing within them at the beginning. Some of it is that we know that those patterns exist. But some of these men and women are genuinely just love the Lord’s people and then get into these roles where they’re all of a sudden like, wait, I, Why, why is it about me and others, this pressure to preach better sermons and the person down the road or, you know, run the programs and do all of these things instead of equipping the people to do the work of God.

[00:43:38] Kayleigh: And so I think it’s, it’s about, and right, I think it’s happened internally in our churches, but I also think there’s this outward societal pressure that has shifted the pastor from this shepherding role to the CEO office. Um, And finding the, like, middle ground, right? So again, like, we can swing the pendulum one way and not have pastors.

[00:44:05] Kayleigh: Or we can swing the pendulum the other way and have pastors at the center of everything. But is there a way of finding, kind of, this middle ground where people who are fairly calm and gifted and anointed by God to do rich shepherding can do it in a way that is Zen sitting that church that is equal famous saint that is calling the body of Christ to be what it is called be.

[00:44:27] Kayleigh: And I guess I’m, I’m constantly over optimistic and so I’m convinced that there’s gotta be a way , that we can get to a place where pastors can live out of their giftings and live by their callings and live out of their long dreams in such a way. That leads to the flourishing health of the church and not to its destruction.

[00:44:45] Julie: Yes. And, and I think if it’s working properly, that absolutely should be there. They should be a gift to the church. Um, and, and sadly we just, we haven’t seen enough of that, but that is, that is, I think the model. Um, let’s talk specifically, and we have talked, or we might not have named it, um, but some of the results of this collective trauma.

[00:45:08] Julie: in a congregation. Um, let’s, let’s name some of the things. These are ways that this can, that this can play itself out.

[00:45:17] Kayleigh: Sure. So when we’re talking about congregational collective trauma, one of the main results that we’ve talked about kind of in a roundabout way is this lack of trust that can happen within the congregation.

[00:45:27] Kayleigh: And this can be twofold. We can talk about the lack of trust for the leadership, but it all also can be lack of trust. Just, In the congregation itself, um, this often happens, particularly if we’re looking at clergy misconduct that maybe wasn’t as widespread. So I think this is some of what you’ve kind of talked about with Willow Creek a little bit, and I’m, I wasn’t in that situation, but I’ve seen it other places where, you know, in our system, the denominational leadership removes a pastor.

[00:45:56] Kayleigh: And so what can happen in a system like that is that denominational leadership becomes aware of abuse. They act on the abuse by removing the pastor. And what you have happening is kind of this, um, Betrayal trauma or this, you know, bias against believing. And so because the idea that their clergy person who they have loved and trusted, you know, shepherd them could possibly do something that atrocious.

[00:46:24] Kayleigh: That idea is too devastating for them to internalize. So it feels safer to their bodies to deny it. And so what can happen is you can have a fraction of the church. that thinks it’s, you know, all made up and that there’s no truth to it. And they began to blame the denominational leadership as the bad guys or that bad reporter that, you know, the

[00:46:45] Julie: gossip monger out there.

[00:46:47] Julie: It’s so bad.

[00:46:48] Kayleigh: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So you have this split. Now, sometimes it literally splits and people will leave. Um, but sometimes they don’t and they all stay. And so you have these fractions of people who believe different things about what happened. And so now there’s, there’s a lack of shared identity.

[00:47:08] Kayleigh: So I would say one of the key components of collective trauma in a congregation is this mistrust, which is often connected to a lack of shared identity. And so they can’t really figure out who they are together. What does it mean for us to be a community to get there? Um, and so trauma begins to write their story.

[00:47:27] Kayleigh: And so when we talk about the embodiment of trauma, one of the ways that that works in individuals, and this is like a mini neuroscience lesson that many of your listeners are probably aware of, because I think you have a very trauma informed audience. Audience, but, um, you know, that it, it makes us react out of those fight, flight, or freeze responses.

[00:47:46] Kayleigh: And so that happens individually, right? So something triggers us and all of a sudden we’re at our cortisol is raised. We’re acting out of the, uh, you know, those flight flight places that happens communally too. So a community gets triggered by, you know, a pastor again, having what they think is just a creative idea, you know, but maybe it triggers that time that that pastor.

[00:48:09] Kayleigh: Had a creative idea that was, you know, and ran with it without talking to anybody and just like wield the control and manipulated people. And now, all of a sudden, this pastor who thinks they just have this innocent, creative idea is now seen as manipulative. And what are they going to try to do behind our backs?

[00:48:27] Kayleigh: And what are they going to try? And, and. What are they going to take from us? Right? And so trauma, trauma takes from people. And so now they’re living kind of out of this perpetual perceived fear, perceived threat, that something else is going to be lost. And so when you have a congregation that’s constantly operating out of, you know, this fight, flight, or freeze response.

[00:48:52] Kayleigh: Collectively, I mean, how can we expect them to live out the mission that God has given them? Um, you know, they’re not, they’re not there. They’re not able to, um, they’re not able to relate to one another in a healthy way. And so we, we see a lack of kind of intimate relationships in these congregations, right?

[00:49:09] Kayleigh: Because so the Deb Dana, who has helped people really understand the polyvagal theory, when we’re talking about, um, trauma talks about your, your, um, Nervous system, your autonomic nervous system is kind of being like a three rung ladder. And so in this three rung ladder, you have the top rung being your ventral bagel state, which is where you can engage with people in safe and healthy ways.

[00:49:32] Kayleigh: And then you move down into kind of your sympathetic nervous system. And this is where you’re in that fight flight freeze and then dorsal bagels at the bottom. And in those two middle and bottom, you can’t build these deep relationships. And again, deep relationships are what make a church a church. And so if you have a congregation that’s stuck in these middle to bottom rungs of this ladder, they’re, they’re fight, flight, freeze, or they’re withdrawing from one another.

[00:49:54] Kayleigh: You’re, you’re losing the intimacy, the vulnerability, the safety of these congregations to build those kinds of relationships. And so I would say that, that distrust, that lack of shared identity and that inability to build deeper kind of relationships are three kind of key components of what we’re seeing in congregations who are carrying this collective trauma.

[00:50:16] Julie: And yet, if you work through that together, like I will say right now, I feel a great deal of affection for, for everyone. Uh, in our house tours because we went through that chaos together, but also it was, it was an opportunity to see love and people lay down their lives for each other. So to, to be able to see, I mean, you begin writing a new story instead of that old story that’s been so dominant, you know, that you have to tell, you have to work through.

[00:50:50] Julie: Yeah, you do. And, and, and you have, you do. I love where you say, you know, people need to, to hear that from you. Yeah. I think that’s really, really important for people to have a safe place. But then at the same time, you can’t, you don’t want to live the rest of your life there. You don’t want that to define, define you.

[00:51:09] Julie: Um, and that’s, that’s what’s beautiful though, is if you work through it together, now you, you’ve got a new story, right? You’ve got, you’ve got Dodd doing something beautiful. Um, among you and, and that’s what he does.

[00:51:23] Kayleigh: That’s why we call our organization Restory. Um, it is a word used in trauma theory and in reconciliation studies to talk about what communities who have experienced a lot of violence have to do is they have to get to a place where they’re able to, it’s exactly what you’re talking about with your house churches doing is you guys have kind of come to a place where you’re able to ask the question, who do we want to be now?

[00:51:45] Kayleigh: And this is this process of restorying. And so what trauma does is in many ways, for a while, it tries to write our stories. And for a while, it kind of has, because of the way that it’s embodied, we kind of, it has to, right? Like we have to process like, okay, I’m reacting to this. trigger because of this trauma that’s happened.

[00:52:05] Kayleigh: So how do I work through that? You know, how do I name that? How do I begin to tell that story? And so we, and we have to tell the story, right? Because I mean, trauma theory has been the dialectic of traumas, but Judith Herman talks about is it’s very unspeakable because it’s horrific, but it has to be spoken to be healed.

[00:52:22] Kayleigh: Right. And so with this trauma, it can be hard to speak initially. But it needs to be spoken to be healed. But once we’ve done that, once we begin to loosen the control that trauma has on us. Once we’re able to speak it out loud, and then we can get to a place individually and communally where we can start to ask ourselves, Who do we want to be?

[00:52:45] Kayleigh: And who has God called us to be? And no, things are not going to be the way they were before the trauma happened. I think that’s the other thing that happens in churches is there’s a lot of misconception. That healing means restoring everything to the way it was before. And when that doesn’t happen, there’s this question of, well, well, did we, did we heal?

[00:53:06] Kayleigh: And we have to remember that we’re never going back to the way it was before the trauma happened. But we can begin to imagine what it can look like now. Once we begin to integrate the suffering into our story, and we begin to ask those helpful questions, and we take away the trauma’s control, now we can ask, who do we want to be?

[00:53:24] Kayleigh: And we can begin to write a new beautiful story that can be healing for many others.

[00:53:29] Julie: A friend of mine who has been through unspeakable trauma, I love when she talks about her husband, because they went through this together, and she often says, he’s like an aged fine wine. You know, and I love that because to me, no, you’re not going back to who you were, but in many ways who you were was a little naive, little starry eyed, a little, you know, and, and once you’ve been through these sorts of things, it is kind of like an aged fine wine.

[00:54:01] Julie: You have, you’re, you’re aged, but hopefully in a beautiful way. And, you know, I, I think you’re way more compassionate. Once you’ve gone through this, you’re way more able to see another person who’s traumatized and And to, you know, reach out to that person, to love that person, to care for that person. And so it’s a beautiful restoring.

[00:54:26] Julie: And we could talk about this for a very long time. And we will continue this discussion at Restore,

[00:54:33] Kayleigh: um, because

[00:54:34] Julie: you’re going to be at the conference and that was part of our original discussions. So folks, if you wanna talk more to Kaleigh , come to Restore. I, I’m, I’m gonna fit you in somehow because , I’m gonna be there.

[00:54:46] Julie: you’re gonna be there. But do you just have a wealth of, uh, I think research and insights that I think will really, really be powerful? And I’m waiting for you to write your book because it needs to be written. Um, but I’m working on it. , thank you for, for taking the time and for, um, just loving the body.

[00:55:07] Julie: And in the way that you have, I appreciate it.

[00:55:09] Kayleigh: Well, thank you. Because, you know, when I heard about your work and your tagline, you know, reporting the truth, but restoring the church, you know, I was just so drawn in because that’s what we need. The church is worth it. The church is beautiful and she is worth taking the time to restore.

[00:55:24] Kayleigh: And I’m so thankful for the work that you’re doing to make sure that that that happens.

[00:55:28] Julie: Thank you. Well, thanks so much for listening to the Roy’s Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And if you’ve appreciated this podcast and our investigative journalism, would you please consider donating to the Roy’s report to support our ongoing work?

[00:55:47] Julie: As I’ve often said, we don’t have advertisers or many large donors. We mainly have you. The people who care about our mission of reporting the truth and restoring the church. So if you’d like to help us out, just go to Julie Roy’s spelled R O Y S dot com slash donate. That’s Julie Roy’s dot com slash donate.

[00:56:07] Julie: Also just a quick reminder to subscribe to the Roy’s report on Apple 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.

[00:56:29] Julie: Again, thanks so much for joining me today. Hope you are blessed and encouraged.

If you’re like a lot of folks, you look put together on the outside. But inside, there’s a constant churn of unprocessed shame, anger, or grief. Little by little, you’re becoming disconnected from who you really are.

But professor, author and licensed therapist, Chuck DeGroat, says it doesn’t have to be this way. And on this podcast, he invites listeners to take the journey to true healing.

You may know Chuck as the author of his very popular 2020 book, When Narcissism Comes to Church. But in his newest book, Healing What’s Within, Chuck opens up about one of the most traumatic experiences of his life—when he got fired from his job at a church.

Chuck did what a lot of us do when we’re experiencing excruciating pain—he pushed it down and soldiered through. After all, he had a family to support and career to salvage.

But eventually, that trauma began to manifest in his body. And he found he could no longer ignore the pain—or rely on his means of coping. He had to confront the profound disconnection he felt from himself, from others, and from God. 

With the heart of a caring pastor and expertise of a licensed therapist, Chuck shows the way to hope and healing for the deep wounds within your soul.

Chuck DeGroat is Professor of Pastoral Care and Christian Spirituality at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan, and a faculty member of the Soul Care Institute. He is a therapist, speaker, consultant, pastor, and author of several books including When Narcissism Comes to Church: Healing Your Community from Emotional and Spiritual Abuse. Chuck is married to Sara and has two daughters. Learn more at www.chuckdegroat.net

SPEAKERSCHUCK DEGROAT, JULIE ROYS

JULIE ROYS  00:04If you’re like a lot of folks, you look really put together on the outside, but on the inside there’s this unprocessed shame, anger, or grief. Little by little, you’re becoming disconnected from who you really are. But my guest today says it doesn’t have to be that way. 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 professor, author, and licensed therapist Chuck DeGroat. You may know Chuck is the author of his very popular 2020 book, When Narcissism Comes to Church, but in his newest book, Healing What’s Within, Chuck talks about one of the most traumatic experiences of his life when he got fired from his job at a church. And Chuck did what a lot of us do when we’re experiencing excruciating pain, he pushed it down and soldiered through. After all, he had a family to support and a career to salvage. But eventually that trauma began to manifest in his body, and he found he could no longer ignore the pain or rely on his means of coping. He had to confront the profound disconnection he felt from himself, from others and from God friends. If you’ve been through trauma and today you’re feeling not okay, this episode is for you, and I want you to know there is hope.

JULIE ROYS  01:21

I’m going to get to my interview with Chuck in just a moment. But first, I want to thank the sponsors of this podcast, the RESTORE Conference, and Marquardt of Barrington. If you’re someone who’s experienced church hurt or abuse, there are few places you can go to pursue healing. Similarly, if you’re an advocate, counselor or pastor, there are few conferences designed to equip you to minister to people traumatized in the church, but the RESTORE Conference, this February 7th and 8th in Phoenix, Arizona, is designed to do just that. Joining us will be leading abuse survivor advocates like Mary Demuth and Dr David Pooler, an expert in adult clergy sexual abuse. Also joining us will be Scott McKnight, author of A Church Called Tov, Diane Langberg, a psychologist and trauma expert, yours truly, and more. For more information, just go to RESTORE2025.com.

JULIE ROYS  02:15

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 Marquart, are men of integrity. To check them out just go to BUYACAR123.COM.

JULIE ROYS  02:42

Well, again, joining me today is Chuck DeGroat, a professor of pastoral care and Christian spirituality at Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan. He’s also the founding executive director of the Clinical Mental Health Counseling program there at Western and he’s a licensed therapist, a spiritual director, and a faculty member with the Soul Care Institute, and he’s written several books, including his latest, Healing What’s Within. So Chuck, welcome. I’m just so thrilled you could join us. Thank you. It’s a privilege. Julie, well, and thanks so much for writing this book, which I believe it releases in just a few days. Are you excited?

CHUCK DEGROAT  03:17

I am excited. You know, I think this is my maybe six go around with writing, and so the anxiety and the pressure just isn’t what it used to be in terms of, will this succeed? But this is a book that came from a pretty deep place and is written for the folks who I’ve worked with over the years who have experienced trauma, the kind of trauma that imprints itself after the abuse, the harm. I’m hopeful for that, that it offers some pathway to healing, invitation to healing for folks.

JULIE ROYS  03:58

I think it will. It was a fantastic book. I know for me, I found so much of it relevant, so I really appreciate it, and I know so many people listening are in different states of healing from trauma, and so I really think this discussion is going to be exceptionally helpful for them. And I should mention too that we’re offering your book as a premium for anybody who donates to The Roys Report. So folks, if you want any info on that, just go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE and we’ll be really eager to get this book in your hands. But Chuck, as you mentioned, this book comes from a really personal place for you, and you reference it throughout the book that you got fired from a church, and that was a very traumatic experience. And you tell some of it in your book, you don’t tell a whole lot of it. Of course, the journalist in me wants to know more. So what can you tell us about that experience and how it impacted you?

CHUCK DEGROAT  04:57

You know, I was 33 at the time in 2003 and I felt like it’s over, I’m done. And I do know that word got out, I’m this pastor attempted to sort of blacklist me. And so I went through a lot of these things that I hear today when I work with pastors, frankly, right? And I think the challenging thing about that is a lot was going on inside of me, and I talk some about this, but I was also a pastor and a therapist, and people looked at me and they said, Oh, you’re handling this so well. We’re so proud of you. When the reality was is that I was a mess, and I really needed someone to say, you must be overwhelmed, exhausted, angry, confused, and I didn’t really have that. So I sort of put my head down and pushed forward and that actually magnified the trauma, because we know that trauma compounds in aloneness when we’re in isolation, which eventually led, as I talk about, to a 2012 hospitalization. But that’s what a lot of us do, and I knew better to some extent. I was a therapist. I had some of the tools, and yet, so many of us who go through situations like that feel isolated. We didn’t have The Roys Report back then, and really very little advocacy, right? And so I’m heartened today that people can tell their stories, that there is advocacy, not for everyone, obviously, right? But I mean, some people still find themselves alone and isolated in these things. But the book, in a sense, is reflection, and I have chosen in the past not to center my own story, but I was encouraged by the publisher, like there are parts of this that I think you need to write  for the readers this time.

JULIE ROYS  06:53

This what is so I think difficult for folks who experience religious trauma is that often accompanying their religious trauma is being cut off from your religious community, from your faith community, and so you are so incredibly alone. Like you get fired from your job, you can retreat to your church, right? You get fired from your church, and you are so so alone.

CHUCK DEGROAT  07:20

You don’t want to go into the grocery store, the local grocery store, if you’re seeing someone, right? ,

JULIE ROYS  07:25

It’s tough. It is so so tough. And I’ve experienced that, and I know probably the majority of people listening to this podcast have experienced it. So this is going to be so incredibly relevant. So in your book, you take us to Genesis 3, where Adam and Eve just sinned, and God comes to them in the garden, and he asks them three questions. And these three questions become sort of the outline for your book. And the first question is, where are you? Can you explain why this question is such an important question for those who are experiencing trauma to consider?

CHUCK DEGROAT  08:02

Just to back up for a minute. It felt to me really important to tell this story in a way that highlighted God’s kindness, God’s presence. Because the story right before that is of this slithering serpent that sort of sidles up to Adam and Eve and asks the question, Did God really say? and really what I’d say is, he targets the hearts of Adam and Eve. He deceives them. He harms them. It’s a story of wounding, harm, deceit, abuse. So some of your listeners, a lot of your listeners’ stories are right there in that story, and with that, with that harm, with that deceit, with those questions, with the confusion, can I can I trust God? Can I trust what God has put in me, worth, belonging, goodness, purpose, all these good things? Do I have to go it on my own? And so that’s where the story begins. And I think that’s where I found myself too. I guess I’m on my own. I’m not sure that I can trust you God. I feel so much shame and self-contempt myself. I guess I’m on my own. And for so many of us who are survivors of abuse, spiritual abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, and more neglect and other forms of harm, there are profound questions. One of those big questions is, where is God in the midst of it? And oftentimes because our abusers sometimes sound so much like God and come in sort of a spiritual cloak or robe or whatever, we can sort of conflate our abuser with God. And so it’s stunning to me that from the very beginning, God moves toward Adam and Eve, who are clearly in a sympathetic nervous system storm, who are covering up and running away, hiding all the stuff right that I do with a kind where are you? And God is out on his walk, the walk that God would take with Adam and Eve every day, like I miss you, and so there’s this immediate movement of kindness. And I know for every survivor of abuse, that first movement toward them, that first person who’s kind, who believes, who listens and believes right, is so important. So I really do see something, finding my way back to the story has helped me recover my own sense of God’s kindness and mercy in the midst of pain and harm.

JULIE ROYS  10:29

It’s interesting, and this is kind of sad, but I’ve never revisited God with Adam and Eve in the garden and thought of it as  like you’re saying, sort of a curiosity and a sadness, but also an invitation. I think I’ve often thought of it, and maybe this says something as kind of a gotcha moment. And that’s how I felt about it. But I love the way that you say, this is an invitation, yet one that a lot of us don’t take. So talk about that and why we tend to suffer in this isolation, not just because of our situation, but also because of our own choices.

CHUCK DEGROAT  11:16

Yeah, yeah. The reality is, I think it’s a story of disconnection, right? Adam and Eve find themselves East of Eden, and they’re going it on their own, and God is moving toward them. But as is often the case for a lot of us who’ve experienced harm, we’re sort of hunkering down, moving away and for many of us, we live in habitual, what I call habitual disconnection and self-protection for years. I always think I should have known better. I was a trained therapist in a really good orientation, relational orientation toward therapy, where I had some good, vulnerable friendships. I was a pastor who’s now out of ministry, obviously for a season, but I had started teaching in a counseling program during that time, so I had counselors around me, and yet, at the same time, I was living in a kind of habitual disconnection. And what’s scary, Julie, is I could, this is scary to say out loud. I could look the part and dress the part. I could invite people on silent retreats. I could offer them an invitation to relationship, to vulnerability, all the while, like I’m doubling down. That’s the part of it that I think for those of us who, even those of us who think we’re on a good journey, a self-aware journey, to realize how we can hide from ourselves and hide from other people. When I did finally find another job in ministry in San Francisco, the way I went in, like I went in with this kind of fierce determination to do it well. I’m gonna do this so well that there’d never, ever be an opportunity for them to say, well, I’m not entirely sure what I think about Chuck or we’re not sure whether we want him here, and that eventually took its toll on my body. You know, Bessel van der Kolk wrote that best-selling book, The Body Keeps the Score, and my body kept the score, and I end up in a hospital in Mexico while on vacation, thinking that I needed a routine gallbladder surgery. But they go in and they discover that my body is septic, and what the doctor eventually said to me, through a translator, was, we don’t see this in 40-year-olds. We see this in 60–70-year-olds, what’s going on inside of you. So, my body had absorbed and hadn’t metabolized and worked through the trauma, and it sort of pushed it down or repressed it, right? And it became the storm within me.

JULIE ROYS  13:48

Hearing you describe it, I didn’t realize in the book that this event happened in 2003, the hospitalization was 2012; we’re talking nine years of this festering inside of you. And you’re right. I think we’re starting to get a little more aware of how important our bodies are and taking care of our body that this is what God’s given us to incarnate, to live in this world. But we do often do such a bad job of it, but it is our dashboard. And you talk about the idea of our body being a house, and we can either live at home in our house, we can either relax in our house. Or you talk about different states, sympathetic storm, or a dorsal fog. Those were somewhat new terms for me because I don’t live in the mental health world. Talk about that.

CHUCK DEGROAT  14:44

So, this was the really important turn for me. After I wrote this book on narcissism in the church that came out in 2020, and there are a number of folks, Diane Langberg, Wade Mullen, Scott McKnight, Laura Barringer, together. We were all, by the way, really, for one another. And it was a kind of a season where you’ve played a prominent role in bringing these conversation to light in a variety of ways, centering these stories of survivors. These books that talk about these various dynamics, and people at Astoria to write some sort of follow up to it? Or I said, I don’t really have a follow up to that, but I’m mindful that abuse is what happens to you, but trauma is what happens within you. And I had to go on a particular kind of healing journey. So what I wanted to do is write a book that speaks to that healing journey. And the reality is, is that two people could go through the same experience of harm, which is to say, they could serve on a staff with an abusive pastor but process it very differently. The trauma can look very different. One with care and some practices and things like that can come away very resilient. Another might isolate and self-medicate and come out even more traumatized.

CHUCK DEGROAT  16:07

So part of what I’m inviting people to do is to notice number one, when I call the dashboard their feelings. This is the work of folks in the religious trauma arena, paying attention to your thoughts, your feelings, your body, your behaviors. And as you said a little earlier, interpersonal interactions and relationships, you know. So I’m not going to the grocery store anymore because I’m afraid that I’m going to run into some of the leaders in the church. It’s really important to point to, but as I get a sense in my work of what’s happening on this dashboard. So I’m working with someone, and they identify 7 or 10 or 15 things, some of them yellow, some of them red on the dashboard. Like red, meaning a glaring warning light. Those are often indicators of what’s happening beneath the surface in the engine that we call the autonomic nervous system. And the two main areas there that I like to refer to as number one sympathetic the sympathetic nervous system, which I call storm, the sympathetic storm within, where you go into perpetual fight or flight, or even a kind of fawning appeasement that we often see survivors of abuse go into. Like this kind of people pleasing, or what I call fine. So there are four F’s, fight, flight, fawn and fine. Fine being this kind of desperate, clinging to someone, help, help, help. I don’t know what to do. And we can live here. I lived in this kind of sympathetic storm for years. When that gets to be too much, we go into fog, which is to say our bodies are like this is just too much. I can’t do it anymore. I need to shut down. And for some of us, and I did this as well, we start to self-medicate. It’s too much. I feel like too much anxiety in my body, but when I have that glass of wine or two at night or three or five, that seems to make it go away. Or when I lose myself in shows or shopping or pornography or whatever the case may be. When we self-medicate, we get sucked into this dorsal place in our nervous system, this parasympathetic place that I call fog. And frankly, a lot of the folks that I work with who are survivors of abuse of some kind, are on this hamster wheel of sympathetic storm and dorsal fog, and they can’t get off. And so the invitation, as you pointed to, is to come home. God gave us this resource of this kind of home place in our nervous system, where we can feel grounded and connected and alive and aware in ourselves. But so many of us live far from home, as I say, and so the book is an invitation back to home, back to connection with ourselves, with others, with God. I can talk more about that inner resource. But as you know, because you work with so many survivors, and I do too, many of us find ourselves for days, weeks, and even years, on that hamster wheel of storm and fog.

JULIE ROYS  19:01

Oh, we do but I have seen and have witnessed that kind of coming home. I went on a hiking trip this summer with two survivors who have become incredibly dear to me, and it was just so beautiful, because I think all of us had come to this home, and were in such a really good place, not that we’ve arrived. I don’t think this side of heaven we ever arrive, but it’s just so beautiful to witness and to be in. I think when you can be together and share and feel that home together even. I mean, it’s such a beautiful, beautiful gift. But I’ll find at the same time, like the fight the fly, I mean, that stuff, man, I can get triggered on social media and I’m in fight mode. Man, oh my gosh, I’m right there, and I’m just like, Wait, what am I doing? Or I’ll have a friend be like, Julie, what are you doing? And I’ll be like, all right, all right, because it’s there’s certain things that can trigger you and just pull you back.

CHUCK DEGROAT  20:04

Yeah. You’re right, you know? And I think what’s beautiful is that God designed us, not just spiritually, but physiologically, to experience what I call the physiological still waters and green pastures within. You can come to a place of such connection with God, with others, with your own self, because the healing from trauma is about reconnection with yourself. You know, these thoughts, these emotions that we talked about, these body sensations. People who’ve been traumatized will say, I I’ll ask them how they’re feeling, and they’ll say, I don’t know how I’m feeling, I guess I’m just mad. I just want things to change, and we get disconnected from these inner experiences.

CHUCK DEGROAT  20:47

So part of the work that I do in the room is inviting them to pay attention once again. Oh, I’m so much more angry than Oh, but I’m ashamed too that I never did anything or said anything. I was at that church for 10 years, and I knew that the senior pastor was so harmful, and so now there’s shame, and I’m feeling it my body. I’ve had these stomach pains for years, and I thought that I  just needed to change my diet, you know? And I noticed that I came in the back door of the church, not the front door, because I didn’t want to see the senior pastor. Like we could live in this space for years and years, all the while disconnected from what’s really going on within.

JULIE ROYS  21:27

And it’s such a terrible place to live. But the invitation is there. Second question that God asks in the garden is, who told you? What’s the significance of that question?

CHUCK DEGROAT  21:42

This is a question that invites us to go a bit deeper and to look at our own stories. And as I’ve done this work, and I get into some attachment theory in this section, I get into how we begin to pay attention to those emotions and bodily sensations and other things that lead us to the depths of our own stories. But the reality is that, as I do this work, and for me as well, so many of us who found our way into abusive systems, found our way there for some reasons that are related to our family of origin. Like we learn to neglect ourselves in particular ways, disown our needs in particular kinds of ways, to take abuse or harm in ways that we didn’t even realize that it was happening to us. And we learned not to trust our gut instincts that would say, get out of this! This is harmful to you. This is hurtful to you. So we learn to cut ourselves off. This is often the tougher work  when you’re doing this kind of recovery work for survivors in particular, there’s that first place of sort of figure out, like, where am I and what choices do I need to make right now for my own, perhaps even my own safety, and for the first steps of my own healing. But invariably, we have to go to that deeper level to ask, so how did I end up there in the first place, and why? And often this, as you know, because you talk to so many survivors, that comes with so much shame, like I did it. I made this choice. I’m the one. I’m responsible. I should have known better. When the reality is, I’m working with a man this week, and I said, but these are the waters you’ve been swimming in your whole life. Like you’ve only known murky waters and fish that bite, you know? And so, of course, you’re going to find your way to a church where you’re swimming in murky waters and senior pastors who bite.

CHUCK DEGROAT  23:43

So we’re trying to lead people to a place of greater self-compassion and experience of God’s compassion. Because I believe God is so thoroughly for those who’ve been victimized. I think that’s really clear in Scripture. God is for those of you who’ve been hurt, harmed, betrayed, manipulated, abused. But it can be really hard when you learned at a very early age, well, it must have been my fault. I must be responsible for this. And so we get back into our stories. Who told you? is an invitation into our stories.

JULIE ROYS  23:44

And that’s especially true for victims of clergy sexual abuse, especially adult clergy sexual abuse, because they were groomed and manipulated. And it bothers me so much when we publish stories on these and they’re like, well, she was 25 she should have known better, despite the fact he was twice her age and her spiritual authority. It’s so twisted and wicked. And instead of listening to these condemning voices, you encourage people to have this as you say it, and that the art of redemptive remembering. What do you mean by that?

24:59

Yeah. I’ll talk about that in a second. Just one thing that you queued up a thought for me. So many of these women in particular, who’ve experienced clergy sexual abuse are in this fog state, this dorsal state, this parasympathetic nervous system state, because that’s what they learned. And so their bodies, they learned to shut down. They weren’t even aware, and so they weren’t complicit. They weren’t asking for it. Their body simply shut down. I know. I mean, I’ve worked with probably hundreds now, of women who’ve experienced something like this, who forget. I mean, literally, the hippocampus goes offline. There’s no narrative memory, and so there’s no capacity to, in the moment say, this isn’t a good choice. I’m not going to make this. It’s not about that at all. The body shuts down. And so there’s a place of, I think again, tremendous compassion. And then when we come to this place of redemptive remembering, I think this is about finding our way to a better story, a story of a God who cares for us and who whispers worth and belonging and purpose over us. Now, this happens in the work, I mean, I will work with clients who are like, I don’t want to talk about God at all, and we’re not talking about the Bible. Don’t bring up any scripture. It doesn’t feel safe, it doesn’t feel good, and that’s okay.

26:27

So, anyone who’s listening right now, I just want to affirm that if that’s where you are and that kind of language feels scary or unsafe, that’s okay. I do think part of this redemptive remembering, at least the way I tell this story, is there are these whispers of goodness that if you listen well and listen carefully throughout scripture, that I will never leave you nor forsake you. Nothing can separate you from my love. I long for my face to shine upon you, and I long to be gracious to you. You are always with me, and everything I have is yours. Like God’s heart is for those who’ve been targeted, harmed, abused, betrayed, manipulated. Now that may take a while. I remember sitting with a woman who she’s given me permission to tell this story about. I of course, won’t say her name, but four years in, no sense of God, you know. And I live in West Michigan, where you live in Chicago, right? And it can be very bleak in the winter here, the sun doesn’t come out for months at a time, it feels like, and we’re sitting in my office, it’s midday, and she said, I have no sense that God will ever show up again. And on this bleakest of days, a light radiates through my window. The sun comes out, and she feels it. It shines right on her, and she feels the warmth of it, and she begins to cry. She begins to bawl, right? And she’s like, he does see me! So there are moments like that that you can’t strategize or orchestrate. There are just simply moments of times where people who are survivors of childhood sexual abuse, and where we do rediscover the God who wants us to redemptively remember that,  before anything harmful happened to us, he declared us worthy and good, that we belong, that we’re loved, that there’s a purpose, that that’s first.

JULIE ROYS  28:35

As you’re talking I can’t help but think of the RESTORE Conference that we do which really was born out of just seeing so many casualties of church hurt and abuse. And one of the decisions we had to make was whether to, do we include scripture? Do we include worship? Do we include prayer? I mean, some of these things. And my feeling was, well, how can we not? Yes, these things have been re symbolized in a very awful way. We need to, though, recapture the true symbols of what they mean and, how can we talk about healing and not be connected to the source of our healing? And one of the things that we have always done is end with communion, because we are dismembered in a sense; we’re cut off from ourselves, we’re or cut off from each other or cut off from God.

29:35

Trauma dismembers us. I mean, it fractures us, right? And so the God who is dismembered, so to speak, and who suffered, remembers u in communion, which I love. We’re invited to remember, but oftentimes we think about that as like this, we’re supposed to remember something that happened back then like a cognitive exercise, yeah. I’ve had profound experiences myself and my own remembering, the fractured parts of me. I think in some ways, for me now, there’s no place safer than to be in the presence of the one who was dismembered and remembered the one who suffered and died and was raised. There’s something about that where I can feel whole again in that space. I felt that same way as I was writing this. You know, there are going to be people who may not be able to read this or need to put it down because I’m using this god language. You’re singing songs and praying prayers and offering communion. But I think we both believe that it’s a place where people can be remembered.

JULIE ROYS  30:39

Yeah, absolutely. And I just, I’ve always loved the table, because, to me, that is where all of it comes together. We come together as Christ bodied, and we’re one with him and we celebrate that oneness. And it’s just so crucially important. And probably one of the favorite things that was ever posted on social media was after our last RESTORE Conference, somebody posted their communion cup and said, This is the first time I’ve taken communion in six years, and yes, I’m keeping this cup. And that just that meant so much to me. But to hear that, and to hear that kind of healing, just beautiful.

CHUCK DEGROAT  31:21

Oh, I love that. That’s so beautiful. Yeah.

JULIE ROYS  31:21

Well, let’s talk about the third question, that God comes and says to you, and he says, Have you eaten from the tree?

CHUCK DEGROAT  31:34

So, I’ve been teaching on these questions for years, and that was one that I sort of puzzled on, because God seemed to ask two very open-ended questions, and then we come to this third one, and there’s an obvious answer. Like, Yes, I did eat from this tree. And so a number of years ago, probably 10-12 years ago, I was sitting with it, and I had this sense that God is really curious about where we take our hunger and thirst, I think. And the same God who’s curious about where we take our hunger and thirst, and Jesus came and asked over and over again, what are you hungry for? What are you thirsty for? What do you want? What do you need? And it was like those light bulb moments where it goes off, and it’s like, oh yeah, God is just curious about where we’ve gone with our hunger, because God wants us to come to the table just like we were talking about.

CHUCK DEGROAT  32:24

So for anyone who has gone to pornography or shopping or gambling or an eating disorder or some sort of religious addiction or whatever the case may be, that there’s always something underneath. There’s a hunger and thirst that we’re trying to address., through these choices that we make, through these ways of coping. Part of my job, part of our job as healers, is to get curious about the wounds underneath. Oftentimes there is unaddressed trauma back there. And you know this,  I started working in the late 90s with women who’d been harmed in the church, and which led me into the work with abusive pastors, narcissistic pastors. I started getting into assessment work with church planters and pastors. And so I started doing assessments in the early 2000s and when I first started working with narcissistic pastors, I was like, This is terrible. They are bullies.

CHUCK DEGROAT  32:24

And I think maybe a more popularized version of that question may be, How are you coping? How are you self-medicating? Where are you going to numb? I do think that, oftentimes in Christian subcultures, the approach that question is to target the thing that we’re doing, the way that we’re coping, the place that we took our hunger and to say, there it is! That bad thing that you’re doing! That’s just awful, and you have to stop doing it! Where, God, I think, is actually curious about, like, what’s stirring underneath? I’m curious about where this came from.

JULIE ROYS  34:08

That’s quite the job. I must say, I’m not sure I could do that.

CHUCK DEGROAT  34:12

We could talk about stories, the stories of the narcissistic pastors who would park in like, reserve parking for the President of the seminary that I worked at. They felt so entitled and grandiose the way they walk in. As I begin getting curious about the wound beneath, I realized, Oh, you’re using people, you’re harming, you’re platforming yourself. You’re, doing all these things that you and I have seen in spades because of all these unaddressed wounds underneath. You’re just a little boy who’s scared, wounded. Now, very few of them actually are willing to do the work of exploring the wounds underneath, because there’s just too much to lose. You know, I don’t want to lose my platform and my power and my authority. But when people are able to go there, whether it’s the narcissistic pastor or the person addicted to shopping or the person with the eating disorder, when they’re willing to explore the wounds underneath and then to get to the deeper longings that I think the communion table represents, that’s really beautiful, and I think that’s when we find ourselves remembered and reconnected in the deepest ways.

JULIE ROYS  35:28

I love some of your counseling sessions that you give us a window to. I think I’d really like you as a therapist. I remember one in particular you talk about a woman who was in an adulterous relationship, and you asked her, I don’t know the exact question, but something basically, what were you longing for? And she says, to be loved, to be loved. And your response was something to the effect of, well, of course, who wouldn’t want that? And she was so shocked by that that it really is, I mean, we have legitimate desires and to affirm the desire, to affirm the hunger, and yet, it’s like we go to the broken cisterns that scripture talks about, right? We go to these things where they can’t satisfy. I mean, we should know better, right? We’re Christians, even you said for yourself you knew better. Why do we do this?

CHUCK DEGROAT  36:29

Yea. It’s interesting in that story. I mean, this is a woman who’s also caught up, and I don’t flesh the story out in death, but caught up in systemic and structural misogyny. I would say, in a system  where there’s very little worth as a woman to be able to speak or even lead in a system like this. And she was in a relationship where she wasn’t seen, known, valued in those ways as well, right? So she found in the presence of this other man who she had this affair with, someone who really saw and valued her. And you know, back then, I didn’t really know what I was doing at the time. I just knew that every single man that she sat down with, confronted her, and told her that she was an adulteress and that she was all the words I won’t say them, but all I knew was that that’s not the way. And I was a kid. I was 31-32 and I sit down, and I asked her, can you look at me? You know, because she obviously in shame, her eyes were down, and I just said, What did you want? What were you longing for? And she starts to tear up, and she said, I just wanted to be seen and known. I haven’t felt that in years.

CHUCK DEGROAT  37:41

Now in the midst of that, I’m not saying, Well, of course, have as many affairs as you want. That’s fine. That’s not my point at all. It is to get to the deeper story of how she’s been missed. And turns out as we began to do some work together, she grew up in a family, very sort of hierarchical, authoritarian family, women should be seen and not heard. She grew up with those messages. So to be valued, to be seen, felt so good. There was a long journey for her out of that harmful system, right? Into health and healing, but it certainly wasn’t going to come through shame. And so she found a better way, I hope, through that, but I see that in Jesus, what do you long for? What are you hungry for? What are you thirsty for? A God who didn’t shame us, but whose kindness leads us to repentance.

JULIE ROYS  38:44

Exactly. And that’s exactly how he was with the woman at the well, it’s exactly how he was with the woman caught in adultery. He says, Go and sin no more, but in there, there’s that understanding, that being seen, that love, that’s always there. And I have to read a quote from CS Lewis, because as I was reading this section, it just really impacted me. Like this kept coming back to me, and it’s from the Weight of Glory, which is like one of my favorite. A sermon I believe that he gave, and he writes, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are halfhearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us. Like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at sea. We are far too easily pleased.

JULIE ROYS  39:39

So much God offers us, and yet we go to these others, these counterfeits. And I can just say, as someone who’s walked with the Lord now, ooh, 50 some years now, became a believer, very young. But I am just so grateful that even before I faced some of my more recent, traumatic things that I had learned that so much of sin is an escape from legitimate suffering, is an escape, is a means of trying to get something that we legitimately want,  that we go to those counterfeits. And so I’ve experienced the real, but you do have to sit in there, in that healing process. You have to face your addictions. You have to face the ways that you’ve coped that are not helpful. You have to face your shadows. And for you, it was interesting. You didn’t spell this out in that much detail. But for you, there was, as you put it, a religious addiction, a workaholism. I can relate to the workaholism. I might be able to relate to the religious addiction if I understood it better. I might have that too. But can you describe that and how you were able to come out of that?

CHUCK DEGROAT  41:07

I think first that quote by C.S. Lewis,  it flies in the face of purity culture. And these system structures, institutions, mental models that shut down desire, shut down bodies and emotions that keep people in harmful situations, people who are like, I shouldn’t want anymore. I shouldn’t expect any more. This is fine, right? So I think as we find our way back to the depth of our own hearts, like Jesus was not afraid of that question, and it kind of almost feels scandalous, but it wasn’t an invitation to sin, right? It was an invitation back to the depth of our own hearts, but I think  there are these counterfeit places that we go,  these empty cisterns, right? And some of them are religious, you know; some of them look very spiritual. I think I’m thinking of my own story as a pastor,  as someone who led people on spiritual retreats, for instance, right? Or we had a Fellows program, so I worked with a lot of 20 and 30 somethings who were in the city of San Francisco. And we were talking about what it looks like to be faithful followers of Jesus in the city of San Francisco. And I think a lot of people would say Chuck was such a sincere, faithful, devoted, thoughtful pastor. And I think in many ways that was a false self that I was living out of, as I put my head down and I was determined to just kind of make it, just to kind of push through and push the trauma down. Now again, it’s sort of embarrassing to say out loud. And that doesn’t mean that everything that I did was bad. I’ve looked back, I’ve talked to people, I’ve asked, Have I harmed someone? Did I harm someone in that season? Right? One of the questions that I’ve asked more than any other in all my work is, how did you experience me? with the invitation for people to name places where they felt confused or manipulated. But at the same time I think for a lot of us who have experienced this, there is that sense of, Well, I really threw myself into like I wasn’t doing those bad things that the Church describes. I wasn’t looking at pornography and I wasn’t having an affair. I was showing up to work early and putting in my long days as a good pastor and preaching sermons and leading liturgies, and all the while feeling pretty alone and unknown and invulnerable. And all the while, my body keeping the score.

CHUCK DEGROAT  41:12

And in the midst of that, I think it was an extended dark night of the soul, like it really felt like God had gone away. I think I’m sort of ashamed that I didn’t just name that. I talked to a therapist, of course, but I mean, in my desperation just to name like, I don’t know where you are God, but the reality is, is that, and this is the case, this is why I think I can identify with a lot of these pastors who I don’t lose my job. I already know the experience of losing my job. I kind of like the role and the authority that I have, and within this system,  I kind of like being in this role where these 20 and 30 somethings that this church see me  as a wise sage. Well, the hospital blew all that up and showed me just how unhealthy I was. And I think sometimes those are graces. You and I have seen a lot of pastors over the years fall who don’t take that as an opportunity to say, let me step away actually, and let me do my work. Like I’ve got more work to do. There are a lot of us, I think, who are self-aware, but who are still duping ourselves. And that’s what’s scary I think.

JULIE ROYS  45:01

You talk about even the necessity of vulnerability in working through this stuff. Although I have to say it’s scary to be vulnerable in a lot of these systems. I know I have been just raked over the coals for being vulnerable that I just like, now I’m like, boy, I won’t do that again. It’s really hard for a lot of us who have been burned, where you’re just like, to find those safe spaces, but you have to, have to find that safe spaces to be vulnerable to work through this.

JULIE ROYS  45:43

There’s a quote that you quote in your book of Thomas Merton, which is really, really good, and I know that probably a lot of people are facing this right now, because you talk about when you were in the midst of your trauma, you would try to reach out to God, and you didn’t feel like he was there. I think we’ve all had that dark night of the soul where we just feel like you are in this alone. God is not there. And he writes, If we set out into this darkness, we have to meet these inexorable forces. We will have to face fears and doubts. We will have to call into question the whole structure of our spiritual life. We’ll have to make a new evaluation of our motives, for belief, for love, for self-commitment to the invisible God. And when I read that, I thought of all the folks right now, and I will say,  I’m in a house church now, which thank God he gave me a safe place, and  I think we’re all kind of working through, I don’t know if I call it deconstruction, because it’s more like reconstruction. But I guess maybe you have to deconstruct or reconstruct. But we’re all evaluating things that we have accepted as true or as normative, and now we’re going, I don’t know if I’m really by that. Is that a lot of what he’s talking about? Because we see so many people going through this deconstruction process, and it’s often shamed by religious leaders. And yet, how can we not when we’ve been so thoroughly,  disappointed and hurt?

CHUCK DEGROAT  47:25

Yeah, I think oftentimes, when we talk about those processes, whether you want to call them Dark Knights or deconstruction and reconstruction, there are multiple levels right. There are the things that we believe for a long time that we’re wrestling with. I’m not sure that I can believe that anymore. There are spiritual things that we’re wrestling with in the midst of that, the things that used to feel good to us. I remember trying to pick up books that were really sweet to me in one season of life, and them just falling flat, you know? But  I think he’s also talking about psychological forces. They’re buried pain and buried shame and buried anger. A lot of it for me was, I think I buried a lot of that stuff in 2004-2005 because I wanted to find my way back into some sort of role in the church. I was teaching in a seminary, and I thought maybe I’d get a job in a seminary. I was eventually invited back into the church.

CHUCK DEGROAT  48:25

But then the reality was in the in the church that I was at out in San Francisco, I started being invited to speak at church planter conferences because of the psychological assessment work that I was doing. So then I felt like, well, I have to be the one who’s put together because I’m the psychological assessor. I’m the one. And I remember I got to be on stage with like Tim Keller and I thought, well, I don’t want to lose any of this.

CHUCK DEGROAT  48:52

So the reality is, is that I was doing the very same thing that I name in all kinds of other places and that I work with, and all kinds of other pastors now, and I had to reckon with all that, right? So those inexorable forces that he talks about,  there are things that I had to name about my own shame, my own self-doubt, my own anger, my own inadequacy, and my decision was to step away from that place in that platform. We moved to the Midwest. I took a job as a junior professor at a very not well-known seminary, and sort of I felt like part of the repentance for me, I had to certainly step into my own inner work to deal with some of that inside. But it was to some degree, stepping away from that place that has such a tug, because when we have power, we don’t want to lose that power, right? And so we stay in those places. And sometimes I think it’s the way of Jesus to forego power,  to give it away and to leave and to find your way to a place where you can finally deal with all those questions, the intellectual questions, the spiritual questions, the psychological questions that I was avoiding. I’m not talking about everyone else I was avoiding in my own heart.

JULIE ROYS  50:14

And you were able to do that because your ministry was no longer your idol.

CHUCK DEGROAT  50:18

Yeah, that’s a really good summary of it right there. It was such an idol that as idols often go, I was terrified to step away thinking I’ve already lost a ministry role once. Now I don’t only have a ministry role. I’m starting to get, like a national reputation for being someone who works with church planters and does good psychological assessments. I kind of like being the guy who looks and dresses the part of the wise sage who knows how to point out what’s wrong with everyone else. And there it is. There’s the idol. And you know, it’s an idol when you’re terrified to step away from it, because it’ll cost you so much.

JULIE ROYS  51:06

Yeah, although I would say in my work, I would say that idolatry is at the root of so much of the reporting that I have to do, or at the sin going buried for so long because the people who can speak out are afraid if they do, it will impact their ministry in some way, and it’s just no way to live. It really isn’t.

CHUCK DEGROAT  51:30

it’s exhausting. It’s a lonely place. Yeah, you’re living with a lot of lies. But it’s remarkable to me. I’m curious what you think of this. Can I ask you a question?

JULIE ROYS  51:44

Sure, yeah.

CHUCK DEGROAT  51:46

it seems to me that we’ve had this opportunity over the last, let’s just say 4,5,6,7 years – MeToo, and Church Too – and books written the reckonings happening. Your work, exposing, naming, and yet to see the number of pastors who are doubling down, and to see that sort of movement become entrenched. I was so hopeful that it might lead to some humility and a growing self-awareness, but to see that there’s actually sort of a real doubling down happening, not just individually, but systemically. Are you seeing some of that too?

JULIE ROYS  52:26

Oh 100%. I mean, what I found is, by the time the sin of a leader gets to me, they have taken, usually, people take every avenue they possibly can. They’ll go to their elders. They’ll get gas lit; they’ll get shamed. They’ll get kicked out of their church. Whatever it was, but they tried, they usually try to address it through the legitimate ways that they’ve been told this is how you’re supposed to do it. It always kills me when people say, I Timothy 5:20. For the elder who persists in sin, you’re to publicly exposed, so that others may stand in fear. And people obviously say that was really written just to the church. You’re misapplying that. And I’m like, well, the church would do its job, if it were doing I Timothy 5:20 I wouldn’t have to do my job.

JULIE ROYS  53:10

So by the time the sin gets to me, that leader is so hardened in their unrepentance, and they have done it for so long. It reminds me, quite frankly, of Romans, I, where God gives us over to our sin, and they are at that point, that really, really dangerous point. And this is why, I don’t presume to know someone’s eternal, whether or not they’re really saved. But I will say that when I see what’s happening, if I were in their shoes, I would be very fearful  for where I am at with the Lord and what’s going to happen. Because, yeah,  it is sad that there is such hardness of heart. I mean, reminds me of Pharaoh, right?

CHUCK DEGROAT  53:54

Yeah. It’s discouraging, yeah, to see this happening so broadly, especially with all the work, all the work and all the opportunity. I’ve noticed that even with pastors I’ve worked with, you’ve had so much opportunity. People have literally given you so many opportunities to step away and do your work, and you’re still going to resist, double down, recreate your ministry somewhere else. It’s so discouraging.

JULIE ROYS  54:19

It reminds me of Dave and Betsy Corning, who were long time elders. Well, he was a longtime elder. Dave Corning at Harvest Bible chapel with James McDonald. They talked about how  James was offered grace upon grace upon grace upon grace. You know, they got him, I think, Henry Cloud, to be as his psychiatrist or his therapist to kind of work through this stuff. They were constantly trying to help him deal with and again, he didn’t want that. I mean, in the end, that’s not really what he what he chose or what he wanted.

CHUCK DEGROAT  54:53

I’ve had people Julie like come literally fly here with this sort of, this sense of, like, I really want to sit down and talk to you about where I’m at, what’s going on, and I want to learn how to be more self-aware. And by the way, can I take a selfie and hold up your narcissism book and go back? This has happened multiple times now, and now I’m starting to pick up on it. But the first few times I was like, Oh, well,  how beautiful is that? And they really want to grow  and then I would hear from church staff members saying, Oh no, he just came back and doubled down, and now is using this to silence us. The insidious. It’s almost like it’s getting darker in some ways, and more insidious.

JULIE ROYS  55:39

There’s a reason it’s called the narrow path. Few find it, yeah, it is a hard row, but there’s so much at the same time I would say, what does that the verse about the way of the Transgressor is hard and the alternative is so much harder. You and your book talking about our longing to be home, and truly, I mean, in this life, we’re never fully home. We live in the here, but the not yet. Talk about the home we can experience now that so many of us don’t embrace.

CHUCK DEGROAT  56:22

I really do think this is so important for the communities that you and I are engaged in, for survivors, for those of us who are doing the work, to know that this isn’t just a spiritual journey. This is a physiological journey. I think the two go hand in hand, that when God invites us to the still waters and the green pastures, that there is a physiological analogy, so to speak, within us; a place within that God has designed our ventral vagal system, that home part of our nervous system where we can experience grounding and connection and reunion and joy and delight. And I think a lot of people have some kind of experience of this, like, oh, maybe it was a camp in eighth grade, or maybe it was as recent as yesterday. You know, when you’re reading scripture, whatever it is, like those moments where it’s like, Oh, I know. I know those moments I feel really grounded. I feel like my butt is in the chair, and God is near, and I can breathe. I’m actually breathing because a lot of the time I’m holding my breath because I’m reading all these tweets.

CHUCK DEGROAT  57:29

But I’m feeling some sense of joy and connection and vulnerability, and I want to say part of the work that we need to do, particularly for those of us who are what Henry Nouwen called the wounded healers, is to find our way home regularly, to find our way to practices, to find our way to communities that invite us there, that cultivate this lived experience of calm and curiosity and compassion and connection. So that we can do the work in a way that’s sustainable and resilient. This is as you and I were talking about before we started, it’s really wearying work. And when I sit with people and they tell me a story, like, I can go into fight and flight pretty quickly. Let’s do something about, let’s leave right now and take it and just breathe, Chuck, just come back home. I’ve got to do this. And particularly, I think about the work that you do, but you and I are connected to  there’s this vast networks.

CHUCK DEGROAT  58:33

There are a lot of people who are doing this work that have no platform, but they’re doing it quietly and beautifully and under the radar and yet it takes a toll. So it’s this invitation back to this place we call home of grounding, of reconnection. This is where I think Paul’s prayer in Ephesians that we would be rooted and grounded in love, strengthened in the spirit. This is what it’s all about for us to do the work over the long term.

JULIE ROYS  59:05

Well, Chuck, thank you. This has been just a phenomenal conversation. I feel very much like your kindred spirit and have felt that for a while. But this was just really, really wonderful. And I absolutely loved your book, and going to be recommending it to everyone. Thank you so much.

CHUCK DEGROAT  59:25

Thanks Julie. I hope you know this, because I know you get some hate mail every now and then. You are an inspiration, your courage, your compassion, and so, yeah, keep up the good work. Thank you.

JULIE ROYS  59:40

You know what I almost feel like for those listening, could you just offer a prayer or a blessing for them? For all of us?

CHUCK DEGROAT  59:49

Yeah. So, I mean, I love the old, ironic blessing. You know where God there’s this longing for God to make God’s face to shine upon us, because so many of us who are survivors or cut off from any sense of intimacy or vulnerability, so may I pray that prayer, I guess, to end,.

CHUCK DEGROAT  1:00:10

Father, Son, and Spirit, bless and keep and make your face to shine upon every listener right now. Be gracious to them. Let your countenance upon them. All the places, the stormy places, the foggy places within, where they feel disconnected from themselves and from you and from others, where they feel alone and isolated, where they’re just holding on for dear life. Give them your peace in Jesus name, Amen.

JULIE ROYS  1:00:43

Amen. Thank you again, Chuck.

CHUCK DEGROAT  1:00:46

Thank you Julie,

JULIE ROYS  1:00:51

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 quick reminder that Chuck’s book, Healing What’s Within, is our premium for anyone who donates $30 or more to The Roys Report this month. And if you’ve benefited from this podcast, I promise you you’re going to love Chuck’s book. So if you’d like to support our work and get a copy of Healing What’s Within, just go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. Also, I really want to encourage you to come to the RESTORE Conference this February in Phoenix. We work really hard to keep costs as low as possible to make this conference available to anyone who needs it. There’s even scholarship money available if even the early bird conference rate is too much. The point is, we really want you to come and take advantage of this incredible healing experience. For more information, go to RESTORE2025.COM. And lastly, please be sure to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcast, Spotify, or YouTube, that way you’ll never 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 so much for joining me today. Hope you are blessed and encouraged.

Normally, people think of grooming as the manipulative process a sexual predator uses to lure his unsuspecting prey. But these same grooming tactics are rife in cult-like churches.

So says Mike Donahue, a child sexual abuse survivor who spent many adult years serving under popular author and youth leader, Jeanne Mayo.

On this edition of The Roys Report, Mike joins host Julie Roys to tell his tragic but riveting story, revealing shocking truths about megachurch culture.

During his childhood, Mike was abused and neglected, making him easy prey for sexual predators. These predators exploited his need for love and attention to fulfill their perverse sexual desires.

After escaping these predators, Mike found hope in Jesus and became a Christian.

Yet, instead of finding safety in the church, Mike says he found another predator: well-known author and youth leader Jeanne Mayo. Mike says Mayo exploited his same need for love and belonging—not to satisfy sexual appetites, but her craving for success and growth.

In this eye-opening discussion, Mike reveals the predatory recruitment tactics he observed in Mayo’s ministry and others, and then was coached and trained to imitate. But he also talks about his journey of discovery, and how he changed after being convicted that the way he was ministering was wrong.

Mike Donahue is a highly sought-after speaker and author on the subjects of respect, bullying, and resiliency. Over the past three decades, he has addressed more than a million students and adults in-person including across the U.S., Asia, South America, and Europe. He has written five books including Hidden Scars and his latest book, Groomed. Mike and his wife, Rachel, who are parents of five children, live in Omaha, Nebraska. Learn more at his website. 

SPEAKERSJULIE ROYS, MIKE DONAHUE

JULIE ROYS  00:04We normally think of grooming as the manipulative process a sexual predator uses to lure his unsuspecting prey. But these same grooming tactics are rife in cult like churches, so says Mike Donahue, a child sex abuse survivor who spent many adult years serving under a cult-like church leader, and today, Mike joins me to tell his story.

JULIE ROYS  00:25

Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys, and I’m so looking forward to sharing Mike Donahue’s heart wrenching yet critically important message based on his own life experience. In his childhood, Mike was abused and neglected, making him easy prey for sexual predators, and in his new book, Groomed, Mike talks about the tactics these predators used to exploit his need for love and attention to fulfill their perverse sexual desires. But after escaping these predators, Mike found hope in Jesus and became a Christian. Yet instead of finding safety in the church, Mike says he found another predator – well known author, youth pastor and conference speaker Jeanne Mayo. Mike says Mayo exploited his same need for love and belonging, not to satisfy sexual appetites, but her need for success and growth. In this eye-opening discussion, Mike reveals the predatory recruitment tactics he learned in Mayo’s ministry but was coached and trained to imitate. And he talks about how you can safeguard yourself and loved ones against those who would use religion to prey on people to build their own empires.

JULIE ROYS  01:34

I’m so excited to share this really important podcast with you, but first I’d like to thank the sponsors of this podcast, the Restore Conference and Marquardt of Barrington. If you’re someone who’s experienced church hurt or abuse, there are few places you can go to pursue healing. Similarly, if you’re an advocate, counselor or pastor, there are few conferences designed to equip you to minister to people traumatized in the church. But the Restore Conference, this February 7 and 8, in Phoenix, Arizona is designed to do just that. Joining us will be leading abuse survivor advocates like Mary Demuth and Dr David Pooler, an expert in adult clergy sexual abuse. Also joining us will be Scott McKnight, author of A Church Called Tov, Diane Langberg, a psychologist and trauma expert, yours truly and more. For more information, just go to RESTORE2025.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 Marquart, are men of integrity. To check them out, just go to BUYACAR123.COM.

JULIE ROYS  02:55

Well, again, joining me is Mike Donahue, a survivor of child sexual abuse and then of spiritual abuse in the church. Mike now speaks around the country on bullying, respect, and resiliency, and he’s also written five books, including his latest Groomed, which is a riveting memoir. So Mike, welcome, and I’m just so glad to have you join me. Yeah. Thank

MIKE DONAHUE  03:18

 Yeah. Thank you so much. It’s my pleasure to be here today,

JULIE ROYS  03:20

I have to say, Mike, when I first got your book, it’s a self-published book. And when I get self-published books, often the writing isn’t so good, the editing isn’t so good. And so I didn’t have really high expectations as I went to read this, and man was I surprised. This is a page turner from beginning to end. Just a really, really well written book. But your story, your life story,  it’s stunning all that you’ve been through. And so just such a great book, and I think it will be so helpful for so many folks, but it must have been hard. I mean, some of this is incredibly personal, talking about, abuse that you received, and yet, you talk about it quite openly, that must have been tough for you. It was a tough

MIKE DONAHUE  04:08

It was a tough summer last summer when I wrote it, to be honest with you, going through the Boston stuff where I was sexually abused by men in my life. I was involved with the sex trafficking ring from basically a newspaper in Boston. I’m not gonna say which one, but I worked for a newspaper, and we were selling subscriptions to the Globe down on Cape Cod. And the guys that were hired by the Globe, they’re the ones that hired these guys, and they didn’t know, but they were part of a sex trafficking ring, and so they preyed on my vulnerabilities. My dad had left, my mom was really overwhelmed, raising kids by herself, and my dad didn’t pay child support. We were pretty poor, and so I was looking for a job because I needed money, even just to buy clothes. And they knew who they were targeting, and they targeted me. And did all the love bombing, and all the techniques they used to pull you into their web and then did some things that were illegal.

JULIE ROYS  05:10

And we’re going to unpack all of that today, and I’m looking forward to doing that, because I think there’s going to be a lot that’s going to be very eye opening for folks that are listening. I think when I first read the idea of a sex trafficking ring using the same tactics as an Evangelical Church, that’s shocking, absolutely shocking, when you think about it. But as I read your book, I was like, yeah, yeah, it’s the same sort of thing. It’s manipulation, it’s exploitation. I should mention your book, you were able to make that available to us so that we can make it available to donors. So anybody who gives $30 or more to this ministry this month will get a copy of your book. So I’m pretty glad about being able to offer that. So if you’re interested in that, you just go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. For a gift of $30 or more, you’ll be supporting what we do here, and you’ll get this incredible resource. So really glad to make that available to folks. So you already referenced this, but your family growing up, had some major dysfunctions, some major deficits, and that set you up for predators to come into your life. Would you unpack that a little bit about what it was about your family that left you with a void that then other people sought to exploit?

06:43

When I speak in high schools, that’s what I do for a living, I always tell the kids that we’re all part of a genetic lottery, right? You get what you get. And I was born in South Boston, Massachusetts, and my dad was an alcoholic, and his history, I’m not going to get into all that, and my mom’s history, you could really get into that. And I did in the book, it’s pretty devastating. So when I landed on the planet in 1962, I was already walking into, or being born into, a really dysfunctional situation. My mom was an alcoholic, but her dad was, and he was a sexual predator. What I always say in schools, is that, you know, my mom came from a long line of abuse. So my great grandmother abused my grandfather, my grandfather abused my mom, and so when my mom had children, she  just wasn’t functional, she wasn’t emotionally functional. So she was triggered a lot by things, and I triggered her because I really miss my dad and wanted my dad around. I wanted a male figure, and she was pretty bitter at him for doing what he did to her and all that stuff.

07:48

So it just was a the perfect storm for a conflict between the two of us. And so I really didn’t have a connection with her emotionally. My mom connection was not really there, very strong. And then I was a pretty wild guy. I did a lot of crazy stuff growing up and found friends that were like me. And we did a lot of things. We self-medicating with alcohol and drugs and that kind of stuff. So when I was in eighth grade, our house burnt down. So I was accidentally caught on fire, and so we had to live in a hotel, and we were really strapped for money at that point. So I got this job with this newspaper and ended up working with these guys. And that’s when they came into my life, and they were slick, they were funny, they were everything. I was enamored by them because  they were just great guys, and they knew how to talk to junior high boys. They knew what to do to get us to laugh;  they were crude and farted,  and all this stupid stuff that boys laugh at. I just thought those guys were larger than life. And then, as they will lure me in and hooking me with that kind of friendship and relationship, I would do anything for them. And that was their plan was to get me emotionally hooked to them so they could ask of me, to do some things. And I eventually ended up being sodomized by one of them. And that wasn’t on my radar at all. I knew I wasn’t attracted to the same sex. So I was really confused by that. I was really confused by that, because I wasn’t attracted at all physically, but I was willing to do these things because of the emotional benefits that they were giving me, and I didn’t realize at the time. I’ve unpacked this now, but when I was there in the middle of it, I was really confused. Consequently, what happened was I was missing school, so they called my mom, and then she threw a fit about that. She had no idea about the sexual relationship that was happening, but she went after them, and they ended up leaving town. And so I was left without them, and with this knowledge that I had done this.

MIKE DONAHUE  08:57

And so they brought in a person that they thought was a safe person, and he was a guy in the neighborhood that was willing to be my  big brother type. And then he ended up taking his time, but he did the same thing. He lured me in emotionally; common ground stuff – like he worked on cars. He was a mechanic. He had a 57 Chevy that was really hot. We all thought we were driving around in that thing. It was all that kind of same thing. And then maybe a year into it, he asked for sexual favors. And it was the same thing. I was sodomized by him as well, and it was just a really bad deal.

JULIE ROYS  10:52

You used the term love bombing, and I know a lot of people listening probably know what that is, but there’s probably a lot that don’t as well. Would you describe what love bombing is and how that works in the whole grooming process?

MIKE DONAHUE  11:05

Well, it’s just a saturation of love at the very beginning. You know, you’re just real attentive. You’re paying attention to everything they do, say, you’re looking for vulnerabilities so you can fill that hole. I mean, it was actually coined by the Moonies, by the Unification Church back in the 70s. It’s in their literal playbook. They use the term love bombing to saturate someone with a lot of attention at the very beginning,  so you have them hooked. It’s almost like a drug dealer, right? They’re giving you the drug free in order to charge you later, exponentially. So that’s really what it felt like, was that love bombing that I received from these guys, from the newspaper, and then the other guy, Clint, I mean it just was overwhelming. And so, yeah, love bomb, it’s a saturation of love and emotion right from the very beginning of the relationship.

JULIE ROYS  12:04

And you use the word playbook as well, and I’ve heard that so much in church abuse stories that it seems like all of these church abusers, whether it’s spiritual abuse, whether it’s sexual abuse, whether it’s just bullying and, just manipulation, that they all seem to use the same playbook. And when they get caught in a crisis, they all use the same playbook. And with these guys, they use, if you love me, blank, blank, blank, you’ll do this and, and that’s something again, as we kind of fast forward, we’ll see more in your story, kind of this, using the emotional ties, the love, and then using that to extract things from people. Just really tragic and so predatory in the way that that was done.

JULIE ROYS  12:55

You made a decision, though, I thought this was really interesting in your book, where you referenced that you were hanging out with the wrong crowd, you were abusing alcohol and drugs and yet you made a decision one day that you wanted to walk away from that. What prompted you to be able to do that, to make that kind of courageous decision?

MIKE DONAHUE  13:17

Well, there was a girl involved, and she, it’s always a girl, right? Actually, it was a godsend, I mean, she was a blessing in my life. She was only in my life for like, six years, but she was my sister’s  best friend, and so she was around a lot, and I had a reputation in that town and in that area of being kind of a troublemaker. And I was hanging out with a really tough crowd. I mean, we were, we really were. We were selling pounds of marijuana out of the fort behind my house when I was in junior high. Like we were moving stuff. We worked for the some of my friends older brothers. And so when Pam came along in my life, she just brought out a side of me that was,  we would talk, and I would it started out while I was walking her home, because my neighborhood was tough, and she lives in a nice neighborhood, so I wanted her to get her out, because nobody would mess with her if she was with me. So I would just walk her out, get her out of there, and I ended up liking her. I just thought she was, she was really nice, and she treated me with respect, and she saw inside of me something bigger than what I was accepting in my life.

MIKE DONAHUE  14:25

I had an identity that I was protecting and that I found power in. I found power in that identity. And I had friends there, and I was a leader there. I was  respected in that identity. So that’s why, like, I don’t like going to schools and tell kids just don’t do drugs. It’s like, that’s the stupidest thing in the world, because it’s not about the drug, it’s about the identity that the drug is associated with, right? So I was associated with friends that love me, respect me. They were my family. They would do anything. They would take a baseball bat to your head if I asked them to.

MIKE DONAHUE  14:59

So that kind of loyalty was what I was addicted to. Wasn’t the drug so much. I mean, I didn’t mind smoking weed or drinking whatever,  but that wasn’t the issue. The issue was my friendships that was surrounding that. So Pam comes along, and we start having conversations, and these are conversations that are different than anything I’ve had with anybody. She was very intelligent, and I realized I wasn’t dumb, I was intelligent, and that part of me was dormant. So she was pulling that out of me, and I really enjoyed that, and liked the conversation. So that’s what started it. And then, we kept dating when we started dating, and we kept dating. And then there was an incident where I got in trouble in school, and I got arrested, and we all got released, and then I knew she was going to find out, because her brother went to my school. So I just was basically telling her, Listen, I’ve been faking this. I like you, but I’m a bad guy, right? And then, you know, simply, honestly, it sounds like a line that a motivational speaker is supposed to say, and it does play well, I’ll tell you, you know, when you are speaking, but it really is true. She said, “You know, I don’t care what you’re like when you are with your friends. I like the Mike Donahue you are when you with me. Why can’t you be that guy? And that really did, like, resonate with me, because it was like, Why am I accepting this identity? Why? Because I’m smart, I’m a good guy. I’ve got a good heart. I was taking care of an old lady, no one knew this.

JULIE ROYS  16:40

But for three years at the book where you talked about that, was she like 80 years old or something?

MIKE DONAHUE  16:45

Yeah .she was in her 80s. She was feisty, and to be honest with you, she knew my dad, so that was a big draw for me. I went and just listened to the same stories every week about my dad growing up because I missed him. I wanted to hear stuff about him, but I liked her too. I took care of her, and nobody knew that. And I told Pam, but she was the only one that that knew, And it was weird, because it was a side of me that was that pothead kid that I really identified with, and I had power there and then there was the guy that I knew I could be, but I didn’t have the backup there, you know, so I did. I had to make a decision, and I did. I made that decision, I walked away from my friends.

MIKE DONAHUE  17:29

I don’t say this in the book, but this is a true story. A few months later, after I made that decision, my best friend got arrested and got a 40-year sentence for a fight he got into, and something he did fight because he almost killed a kid. And I would have been right there. And everybody that was there got 10 years. This kid got 40, and they reduced it later,, but that was the original sentencing. And so I would have been right there with him. I would have had a felony on my record. So it was a godsend that Pam came into my life and helped me decide to get away from that lifestyle.

JULIE ROYS  18:08

So important sometimes. You don’t realize the impact you can have just by believing in somebody and seeing the best in them. And what a beautiful story. And you know, the outcome there. You ended up then going into the Air Force, going to the Midwest, and that’s where you were invited to this church, Assemblies of God church, and someone named Jeanne Mayo. That may be a familiar name for a lot of people, maybe not for others. She was, I mean, still is a national figure, and is out there coaching pastors and youth pastors. And she’s written a number of books, but you had never seen anyone like her before or a youth ministry like that. Talk about your impressions when you encountered this.

MIKE DONAHUE  18:55

Well, I went because of a girl again, some girl invited me. She was like, Do you want to go to church? I was like, I will join a cult with you. So let’s go. And little did I know that it was kind of a cult. I get there and there’s 300 teenagers and young adults, and it’s energetic. never went to a church that had energy in it. First of all, there was drums, and it was a rock band up there playing before the speaker came up. Then when Jeannie came up and she started talking about God, it was riveting. I mean, it just captured me, because she was so alive in talking about God and relationship with him. And I don’t remember what the sermon that night was on, but I couldn’t take my eyes off the people around just watching them. During worship, they had their hands up, and they were really into it. They were passionate about God. And it was very intoxicating to me, and I kept asking questions. I was like, Well, is she a nun? Because she wants to be called Sister Jay and they laughed at me, and they’re like, No, her husband’s a senior pastor. I didn’t know what that was. I had no idea. I wasn’t involved in any of that, like, I didn’t know any of the lingo and how the rules worked or anything.

MIKE DONAHUE  20:15

But I kept going, and I struggled for a little while. I went, but then I wasn’t really into it again, because I was looking for a girlfriend, and so I did. I found somebody that I dated for a while. She was from Boston, actually, and she was in the military too, and it was decent. Then she got stationed somewhere, and I was left again alone. So I was there, and I went one night, and I was drinking. I had been drinking, and I went towards the end of the night to talk to sister Jay, to talk to Jeanne, and I was drinking, and they were right to do this. There was no way they would let me near her. And that was good. I mean, in retrospect, that was a smart move. But this guy named Mike Beckham, he was six-six, walked me to the to my car, and, I mean, my feet hardly touched the ground. I mean, he was walking me out, and it was great. But what he did with next was he was like, Listen, you don’t ever come here drunk again. What are you doing tomorrow for lunch? And so he took me out to lunch, and that was the beginning of getting deeper involved in it. And then I decided that I would, and it was a good move, because I got close to God. I didn’t know Jeanne, or any of the mechanics, or any of the leadership structure or anything like that at that time, I just felt like I needed to change. I needed to deal with the self-medication issues with drinking and the girl stuff. And I didn’t know why, I didn’t know what, but I, I knew this was probably the answer for me. And it was, actually, it was, but as we found out later, I got involved in leadership. Then I got to see the how the sausage is made, and got to see some of the ugly side.

JULIE ROYS  22:02

Yeah. And you use this word, intoxicating for Jeanne, and you wrote in your book, Jeanne’s approval was intoxicating. Because pleasing Jeanne was the same thing as pleasing God in my mind. How did she take that place, which I mean, sounds like almost idolatry, right? Like she becomes God to someone. How did she assume that position? And do you think it was intentional on her part? Or where would you kind of put the onus for that?

MIKE DONAHUE  22:37

It’s hard to explain her if you’ve never met her, it’s really hard to explain her, because she is one of the most loving people that you’ve ever been around. It’s not just charisma, like she’s funny, she’s witty, she’s all those things, but when you’re talking to her personally, you feel like you’re the only person in the room. She listens to you on a level that I don’t think anybody in your life listens to you. Oh, you feel that way, at least. And so when you get any kind of time with her personally, it really does make you feel good. My dad met her in New Hampshire years later. And he’s a tough truck driver type guy. And he goes, Mike, he goes, she’s exudes love, and she does. But I think where it gets twisted  is that she’s really good at, you’ll do anything for her, and then she ends up asking you to do anything and the motive is gets twisted. I do think that at times, she’s had good motives. But I also think that because of the magnetic personality and the ability to reach into your soul, people want to follow her. They want to please her, and there’s nobody like her. Her cohorts, and even myself, when I worked for her; I’m charismatic, and I’m funny and I’m whatever. I don’t hold a candle to her, as far as that kind of connection with human beings is that fast. She’s the fastest I’ve ever seen. So it sounds it’s weird. If you haven’t met her, those of you that are listening that have met her, you know exactly what I’m talking about, but you know it’s hard to explain that to anybody else.

JULIE ROYS  24:30

Well I’ve met people like that. I have definitely seen that. And there’s some people that have that power and that ability and used appropriately, it can be a beautiful thing. But that’s a lot of power for a person to have because and especially when they’re working with young people who have deep, gaping holes left from their families of origin or whatever. Yeah, it can really be something. I used to be in youth ministry, and I remember how the kids would put you on a pedestal, and I didn’t have that kind of charisma either. I just remember it, but I also remember that the higher they put you on a pedestal, the farther you could fall in their eyes. So it can be a very, very dangerous thing, and something that you learn in ministry that you really have to work against if you’re in any kind of leadership position. Because  it’s deadly for people, absolutely. But it also seems like , she fed it a little bit by, she asked you to call her mom, right? Which I’m guessing she knew your background and that you had a big hole. I mean, is that right?

MIKE DONAHUE  25:49

Absolutely. And it wasn’t just me, but so publicly, like, she would ask people to call her mom, like, generally, just because,  she wants she basically she would say, I’m your mom in the Lord. But when we were talking privately, it was like she really, she would say, Mike, you’re my son,  you’re my son, you’re mine, you’re one of mine. It made you feel really special. And I did. I felt like I was when I when I got involved in leadership. She didn’t like me right away because I wasn’t very productive. But as I started figuring things out, I really liked that ministry, and I liked working with inner city kids and tough kids, and we were getting them. I mean, this was in Bellevue. We were getting a lot of tougher kids. I was in Council Bluff Iowa, and we bussed kids over. And it was getting a lot of attention. And the church like, oh, where are all these kids coming from? And so she, all of a sudden, she started to, like me, and that’s when the mom stuff started. That’s when her, personally, she began to put her hooks in. Before that, it was just, it was Rick Lorimer. He was her assistant, and he was a good friend. And he would I’m your dad in the Lord, they use those terms. It wasn’t just her, it was in that culture, they used those terms of mom and dad and brothers and sisters and that kind of stuff, because it was one of the hooks that they used to, hook in.

JULIE ROYS  27:16

I’ve been in Christian environments where you refer to brother and sister, because, you know, we are, we’re brothers and sisters in the Lord, I would be very reluctant now. And I was in a church most recently where the pastors were called Father, the priests and even their wife, they wanted us to refer to her as mama. And I look back and that kind of like, grosses me out now. I’m just like, you’re not my mama at all. You’re my sister. That’s what you are. And so I think those sorts of things are, they can sound so good, but they’re really kind of gross, and they should be red flags for us, I think, although coming from a Catholic background, you call the priest father, right? So that is somewhat something that you’re used to, and could be a positive thing, but again, can also be a very predatory thing.

MIKE DONAHUE  28:15

Well, I grew up in South Boston in the 70s, so we all knew that it came out later that a lot of priests were molesting children, and we knew. Like, the street level kids us, we all knew we had euphemistic terms, which I’m not going to say on the air here, but for them, because we all knew, we had no respect at all for priests. Yeah, I’m sure there were good ones. I’m sure there were but we all knew that there were bad ones, and so we stayed away from them.

JULIE ROYS  28:42

When you talked about being productive for Jeanne Mayo, you’re talking about recruiting people for this youth ministry. There’s a big emphasis on numbers, on image, on all of these things. And you used, and I thought this was an interesting term, this term of frog kissing, which is something that you were, I mean, it was actually had a name, and you were trained to use it. Describe what that is and how you were supposed to use this tactic.

MIKE DONAHUE  29:13

Well she taught lessons on it. I mean, it was frog kissing 101. I don’t know what the name of the course was, but basically, in our leadership development, and she does, she speaks when she’s doing her cadre, her training, youth pastors, I’m sure that’s still part of the curriculum, or you know what she talks about. And essentially, it’s kissing, kissing, love-bombing people in general, almost like a shotgun approach right till you land on somebody who has who’s sharp. And they use the term sharp, and people who weren’t sharp, they termed precious. So if you’re somebody who, like, you kiss the frog, and they end up being not productive, they’re not sharp, whatever. Then they go into the precious category, and it’s almost like a separation. You’re filtering people out and categorizing them to see who’s going to be productive, who could be productive in the ministry, and who’s just kind of a normal person that’s going and we were trained to look for people at the altar that was sharp, and not to spend time with precious people, but to spend time with, so what you would do is, if I was recruiting a leader, let’s say that I thought was sharp, I would let him minister or, you know, reach out to the precious people, but I was going to, you know, key on him, and eventually I’m going to coach him to find the sharp people. And you know, that’s how that worked. And it was really obvious. They didn’t hide that was not something they hid, that was everybody that worked there knows those terms and knows what was expected.

JULIE ROYS  30:57

I’m just trying to figure how to put that together with a biblical ethic, because Jesus went to, not the sharp people. Jesus went to, I mean, really the bottom of the barrel. I mean the fishermen; they were like the lowest of the low in society. The Jews were the lowest the low in Roman society, for sure. I mean, did anybody ever question this? I mean, it seems so utilitarian and crass to me to treat people for basically their use to you, right, and to the ministry.

MIKE DONAHUE  31:32

Anybody who questioned that eventually got the door. They were shown the door. So yes, to answer your question, yes. There were people that definitely questioned it, saw it didn’t like it, would say stuff like, hey, you know, we’re supposed to minister to  everybody. You know, all the things like that, things like, what you just said. And she would have you basically she would answer back to the group, but then that person would find their way out the door, so they would ostracize them. As I look back, there are plenty of people that were asking questions like that, and then they were quieted down. You got quieted down.

JULIE ROYS  32:14

One thing I’ve noticed in reporting on these churches that seem to have cult-like qualities is that almost all of them involve crossing boundaries. And for you, I mean, when I read about your marriage and picking a wife, and it seemed like there was way more involvement from leadership in that whole process, which to me, is pretty personal, and that’s up to the individual, provided you’re within certain qualifications of the person you married, the church really shouldn’t be involved in picking someone for you. Talk about that and kind of the personal boundaries that got crossed as you were in this group.

MIKE DONAHUE  33:00

Well, to be personal about it, there was a girl I really liked, actually, that was in college. She wasn’t part of the youth ministry because she was going to a college that was about an hour away, and so she couldn’t really be involved as much. And I was discouraged from dating her. And I liked her. She’s still a friend. We’re friends on Facebook and I know her brother really well. I’m not saying that would have worked out, but they definitely discouraged me from even dating her. So when I went, I did actually go a couple years without dating anybody, which I needed to personally, because I just had to get detox from the mindsets I had about dating. It was just really dysfunctional and that kind of thing.

MIKE DONAHUE  33:45

So I did, it was really a good time for me. I was developing friendships with guys and stuff, and just really finding myself and finding who I was as a guy, and that was great. But then  when I started to date my ex-wife, now ex-wife, it was the Cinderella syndrome. It was really, we were betrothed, kind of. It was like if you looked at on paper, you’re like, that’s a no brainer. Here you are, the up and coming, fun intern guy, I was an intern at the church because they interned me. They saw my talent, my ability, and went, Oh, let’s you know, I’m sharp. I was one of the sharp ones, so I got put on this top shelf. And she was too, because she was involved in a court case that went all the way to the Supreme Court. And they basically got the ability to that schools to this day, are able to kids in schools are able to have small groups like FCA because of that law, for the law that they protected, they went after, and that’s a whole different thing. But  she was sharp too. So you look at both of us and went, that’s a no brainer. But we didn’t know each other. We hardly knew each other. You know, we were friends. We were in the ministry together. And then when we started dating, I was interning, and I was gone a lot. I was gone speaking and stuff and they had me doing all kinds of things. She was in nursing school. So we just thought, Oh, it’s okay, we weren’t physical at all. We kissed or whatever, but we weren’t physical at all. We were waiting for marriage and that’s good and all that. But the bottom line is, we didn’t have any conflict. We didn’t really know each other, really.

MIKE DONAHUE  35:27

So when we got married and we got moved up to Rockford, I took the job up in Rockford, and I guess we can talk about that in a bit. But you know, it was our first year of marriage, and we were in a pressure cooker, I mean, went right into a pressure cooker. And so then all of a sudden, yeah, there was issues; there’s anger in me, and there was some, you know, I’m not going to get into her stuff, but, I had issues in my life that relationships brought out. I think if we had dated long enough, probably those things would have come to the surface and we would have seen some of those things and work through them or parted ways, you know.

JULIE ROYS  36:07

And some of what you’re talking about the work environment too, is another one of those boundary issues that you see a lot in these kind of environments, where they take people who are very motivated, very zealous and kind of exploit that too. You were working super long hours, right? Super long hours for very little money. And that almost, you know, is a badge of honor, right? Because that means you’re really committed, and commitment was really valued. So you went up to Rockford. You followed Jeanne up there. She took a position, and you’re kind of her right-hand man up there in Rockford. And I know Rockford really well. I’ve got family members that live there, so very familiar with the assembly’s church up there that you were working at. But this begins, I mean, in some ways, everything’s going right, because you’re getting lots of opportunities, ministry wise. She’s getting a national stage, which she’s taking you along with her. You’re able to speak. But at the same time, you’re kind of, you’re burning out. I mean, you really are burning at both ends. And in the midst of this, your marriage is suffering too, right?

MIKE DONAHUE  37:18

Yeah, we didn’t really know each other, and she started displaying some real stressful things. And again, I’m not going to expose her stuff, but  we had obvious problems in our marriage, intimacy wise, and other things. And so I would go to Jeanne about it, try to talk to her about it. And slowly she really began to put a wedge between Andrea and I and telling me things about her that really weren’t true. And at the time, I really didn’t know how to take that, because I was, I thought she was really telling the truth, and she was really concerned about me and concerned about our marriage, and so she was just giving me her assessment. But what I found out later is she was really just trying to drive a wedge, because Andrea was the one that was saying, My ex-wife was the one saying, Hey, Red Flag, there’s something weird here, you know. And she didn’t do that right away. It wasn’t that obvious. But there was things like, Hey, are you sure? You know, and to be clear, Bellevue, even though I was an intern, I really wasn’t in the inner circle with Jeanne. I was working for the church and the youth group, but I really wasn’t connected with her. I was connected with Rick Warmer. So I didn’t know, now Rick was a pretty good guy and did things pretty upstanding  most of it. But when I got with her, I saw some bad stuff. I mean, she was lying all the time. I mean, right from the get-go, I mean, there was, I was like, what? I was really shocked, because I didn’t know that this was going on, but she was really insecure and gossiping and slandering people, and if anybody came against her, she was just brutal. And I never saw that. And as I was trying to explain that to my ex-wife and justify it, because that’s the only thing I could do, is justify it. If I came against it, I’d have to get into another job. So I was trying really hard to, like, understand this must be the way ministry is, and it just wasn’t, it wasn’t flying, you know, just it, it wasn’t

JULIE ROYS  39:28

And that’s a kind of cognitive dissonance that just drives you crazy, right? I mean, you hear somebody saying one thing and doing another, and that hypocrisy, it just eats away at you. It’s terrible. So you eventually decided you’re going to leave. And again, another hallmark of these systems, I kind of liken them to the Hotel California. It’s like, you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave. (You can never leave.) So, right, what happens to you when you try to leave?

MIKE DONAHUE  40:02

Well, I tried to leave twice. So the first time in 93 I went to her and said, you know, we’re gonna go, and I would like you to help me find the next place. You know, she’s connected all over the globe. So I was like,  she could put me in a great spot. So that was part of it, was I needed her endorsement, and I thought this would be a  good time to go, because we  had just had a child and we want to start a family, and I wanted to really be a good dad and all that. So she freaked out and took us out to dinner, both of us, and just bombed the crap out of us, like, just, I love you, I love you, love you know. I mean, just answered every question that we had, and in a really, just goopy, overly, just saturated with love and goop and stuff. So, we decided to stay, and it just got worse. I just saw more stuff. And there was a girl that had a little crush. This is kind of the tipping point for me. There was a kid that had a crush on me and to be honest with you,  the boundaries up there, as far as guy/girl goes, were really gray. I mean, there was no boundaries. It was like, it was just too much. Like today, I would never do the stuff I did up there. I would never meet with a girl, like out for dinner or for lunch. But that was accepted up there because Jeanne did it all the time. She was meeting with guys all the time. You’d walk by her car at 11:30 at night after the youth group, and she’d have a 22-year-old boy, and they were like face to face, not kissing, but they were just an emotional connection going on. And that was just accepted up there, was accepted, and I fell into that. I’d cross some boundaries with nothing physical. Never kissed a girl up there, anything like that. But there was emotional connection that happened  that was my fault. I’m not going to blame that on Jeanne. I knew that I shouldn’t have done that. And one of the girls got really caught up in it, and it got a little weird. And so I went to Jeanne, and I said, I think this person, blah blah, and she said to me, I don’t care if you sleep with her, I will cover you. And I remember going, I got to get out of here, because that’s a setup from if I have that kind of permission in a place like this, with all these pretty people running around, that’s not good for me. I can’t do that. I started actively looking for a job, because I was like, I can’t be around this lady.

JULIE ROYS  42:51

Well, and they do that, don’t they? Because if you do cross that line, now you can’t go anywhere else. Yeah, she’s got you, yeah. And I have seen that at numerous churches where there was the worship leader at Harvest Bible Chapel, James McDonald, did that with he had a fall. He sent him out to, I think, England or something, for a year, and then the guy came back, and then he just did James McDonald’s bidding, which, interestingly, after James McDonald was fired and the whole implosion happened at Harvest, this guy went to a church. I forget where exactly might have been, Colorado. If you look it up on our on our website, you’ll see it because he did it again at the next church, you know. I mean,  it’s horrible how these manipulative people, it allows for this moral laxity, and they actually exploit that as well. They exploit everything. Because, again, it’s about power and it’s about control. It’s very sad.

MIKE DONAHUE  43:56

It’s the hook, and I’ve seen her do that with other people too. Is she having a secret? It’s like they have false intimacy going on. They share a secret, and so she can control them with that secret. I knew to get out of there, you know. So the second time we resigned, I resigned, and we got out of there. When she knew it was for real, she launched an absolute assault on us. I mean, it was just ugly. It was theatrical. She feigned a heart attack. It was just stupid. It was so ridiculous.

MIKE DONAHUE  44:36

 And then she turned people against us, and I, was so dumbfounded by that, because, again, I’m a smart street kid, and I took the street kid stuff and put it on a shelf, which was stupid, because I think God didn’t want me to do that, because I was really trusting of her. I was like, Oh no, she would never do that. But the street kid in me never would have let that happen. I would have been like, Nah, that’s bullshit. Sorry, can I say bullshit? It was bullshit. And  the street kid knew it was, but I didn’t let myself go there. I was trying to be a nice Christian guy, and I really felt like Jeanne was going to be true to what she said, that she was my mom, that she would protect me, and the ministry didn’t matter. It was  she loved me, she cared about me, and that wasn’t true. And it was really hard. It  was devastating, actually.

JULIE ROYS  45:37

It is devastating very much so. I’ve seen it play out in person after person in the stories that I’ve reported, and they all report the same thing. I mean, it’s just a horrible betrayal and confusion in all that, because you do love this person at the same time they’ve hurt you very much. So you go out to Denver at a new church, and you write, I realized that I had been groomed in my past ministry experience, but I was trained to be a groomer. (Yes)  I’ve seen this as well, where someone leaves, where they were hurt, but the truth is, they don’t know any other way of doing life or of doing ministry. (So this was the only thing I knew) Talk about what kind of patterns you perpetrated when you went to a new church.

MIKE DONAHUE  46:27

Well, I knew how to set up a structure. She’s really good at putting a structure together that was good, you know? That was useful. And so that part was fine, and I was able to hire people to help me administrate that and do that. So we immediately started, the youth group started to grow, and  again, it’s some of the same principles, the love bombing stuff. It was I knew how to get in someone’s life and get them to talk to me about their stuff.

MIKE DONAHUE  47:00

Now I didn’t take it to the gossip and the slander to the point she did, but there was a situation where there was a kid in the high school. We had a Christian High School attached to the church, much like Rockford, and this kid got he started seeing through it. He saw through it. He was a smart kid, and he had power. He had emotional power, social equity in that school, in our youth group. And so he began to say some things, and  I attacked him. I did from the microphone. I said some things, not to him specifically, but it was to him. I took some things he said, and I twisted it, and everybody knew I was talking about. They knew exactly what I was talking about, who I was talking about, and I remember feeling really gross, like I hated it, that I did that. And , there was other things going on. My marriage was really struggling a lot. There was some other stuff that I’m not going to get into, that it happened with us, but infidelity, and not on my part. There was some really, it was a very tremendous it was a bad place for us to be because basically what happened was everything that we were stuffing down in Rockford came out in Denver and there was this no holds barred. It just went and I got really devastated by that whole thing. And then we ended up having to leave that church after three years, even though the youth ministry was growing. But because of our personal situation, we had to leave. And so we didn’t get fired, but we knew we had to go, so we quit and then moved back to Nebraska. And actually, that was a great thing for me, because I have a friend of mine that said, Mike, when you were in Denver, you were a hole, and he was and I’m best friends with this guy today. I mean, I love him.

JULIE ROYS  48:58

That’s pastor a hole to you. I remember that part of the book, pretty hilarious.

MIKE DONAHUE  49:05

That was a great story. But he said, you just didn’t have the right motives. Because I was doing I was threatened by this kid, and I was threatened by anybody that was coming against our way. We were trying to build this ministry because, again, the numbers were everything. If you had a big youth group, you got to do whatever you wanted to do. I saw it with Jeanne. She had a big youth group. So there was a lot of good people in Rockford that looked the other way because  the youth group was big, that’s it. They knew the stuff was bad. They heard things. They experienced her doing negative things, but they look the other way, because, oh, wait a minute, there’s 1000 kids coming,

JULIE ROYS  49:45

Yeah, because that’s the fruit. And unfortunately, they haven’t looked at what fruit really means in Scripture, which is the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness. Those things should be the fruit we look at. But instead, you’re exactly right. We look at numbers, we look at money, we look at success. It’s the American way, right? And so we have a really, I mean, it’s like we just imported all of the world’s system into the church. We’re so surprised at what we get.

JULIE ROYS  50:14

You began, though, and  it’s kind of like when you were a kid, and you were hanging out with this crowd and doing drugs and everything. And you walked away from that. You began to change as you began to, it sounded like you began to get disgusted with the way things were working, and realizing this isn’t the gospel, this isn’t the way of Christ.

MIKE DONAHUE  50:35

Yeah, so I went to Grand Island, and nobody knew that we were there. There’s a small little town in the middle of Nebraska, and it was great for me that I didn’t go into a mega church. It was the church was a couple 100 people, and there was some really cool things that happened there. As far as me, fall in love with kids again, I got to, in fact, it’s really interesting that one of the guys that I ended up really just keying in on, his name is Marty Levinson. He’s now in his 40s, I think, and he’s, he is the UNK basketball coach. It’s a D2 college here in Nebraska, and I live in Kearney. so him and I are reunited again  and it’s really cool. But I remember, like just reaching out to him and fall in love with just doing what I’m supposed to do without the motive of trying to build a big youth group and be famous and write books and be cool, because  that was the goal – is to be Jeanne. Is to respect you respect you in that space. I don’t care about that anymore.

MIKE DONAHUE  51:46

 So I remember  after I left, we had to leave that Grand  Island church because it was the charismatic stuff was a little too much for us, but they were a little on the side, but they were good, they’re good people, but it was just a little crazy. So we ended up going back to the church that Jeanne originally, I met Jeannie at in Bellevue, and we became the youth pastors there for six years. And it wasn’t a mega church, but it was a bigger church. And I felt the pressure again. This was Jeanne’s old youth group, so I did feel it, but I didn’t let it hit me. I really tried to not let it bother me, and I think I put this in the book, but this was a defining moment for me. When I was reading Ezekiel chapter 34, and I was really getting into what a shepherd is supposed to be doing with people. I really wanted that heart, and I went to this, you know, we had to go to these denominational meetings with the Assemblies of God that were ridiculous. And this pastor came up to me, and he’s like, Well, hey brother, because they’d heard our youth group was big and we were growing and stuff, but we were growing for the right reasons. And I really was proud of that youth group, and it wasn’t perfect, but we were doing some good stuff. And He came out to me, and he’s like, Hey brother, you know how big your youth group or something like that. I know  why I was asking, so I just looked at him and I said, there’s a kid in Bellevue right now sitting on his bed. He’s got a gun in his hand. He wants to kill himself, and if he does, then our youth group wasn’t big enough. So I don’t really care how big. I want a good youth group for him. We gotta get him, you know. And so that’s what our youth group’s about. It’s not about numbers, it’s about him. And that kid became my like, that’s what I want to do. I want to reach him. I want to get him because he might not make it tonight. So let’s get him, you know. And  then I got cocky, because I was, like, these church people are so gross, like, I’m just going to do my thing. And because we had numbers, they left me alone, right? I mean, even though my motive was different, and I felt good about, I enjoyed that youth ministry because I had people like Shawna Swanager and Ryan Swanager. I had guys, Dan Torres and Kevin Barker and guys out there lifelong friends now that we’re still buddies, we’re not ministry buddies. We weren’t ministry buddies. You know, we were buddies. We were friends. And enjoyed that part of it.

JULIE ROYS  54:23

So that was a really redemptive experience for you, but at the same time, your family, your marriage, was falling apart, you ended up getting a divorce, and sadly, it sounds like a lot of the church just kind of abandoned you at that point. Is that fair?

MIKE DONAHUE  54:41

That’s more than fair, yeah. I was shocked about that. Some didn’t. I’m not going to say everybody baled, but the hierarchy in the church, did. There’s a lot there, because I knew things about their family because  their kids were teenagers when I was working for them, and so there was some bad things that happened within their family that I was involved in helping them get through. And so it’s weird, I put this in the book, but you know, one of the weird tensions of being a youth pastor is that you know information about the pastor’s kids, if they’re teenagers, you know. And so you know, the family. And there’s that weird tension. They need you. They called on me. I mean, I can’t tell you how many times my phone rang, and they said, come over here, and I’d have to go in and deal with some junk that was going on.

MIKE DONAHUE  55:34

But now I know, so that was part of it. They resented the fact that I knew some pretty heavy stuff, and then I saw them covering it up too. They should have probably handled some of that stuff differently, and they didn’t, and I didn’t like that, and they knew I didn’t like that. And then also the weird dynamic in our church was that our senior pastor had gotten into a car accident, and he was paralyzed from the chest down. So we were without him for a couple of years, pretty much. I mean, he was in rehab, so I really kind of developed my own ministry philosophy, that stuff, that I was kind of Ezekiel chapter 34 stuff, I was really trying to shepherd kids. And when he came back, it took a while, but there was a contrast between our ministry philosophies. And again, he was trained by Jeanne and Sam Mayo. So he was going with that precious people stuff. And I felt like he was looking for a product.

MIKE DONAHUE  56:42

They wanted a Christian product. They wanted to look a certain way. And I’ve just realized that if you’re going to shepherd people, it’s probably going to look bad for a while. It’s not going to look great at times. It’s going to look bad. So you have got to be willing to make it, you can’t be worried about it being clean or looking clean. Because it’s like raising children; sometimes they’re going to make you look brilliant, sometimes they’re going to make you look like an idiot. So it’s the same thing, right? You have to be willing to accept that. And they weren’t. They were really about the polish. And I couldn’t stand it. And my guys were like my guys, because I had two years without I had good quality guys that were good people that loved God and were productive or whatever. But we were good, you know, we were doing the right stuff, and they were coming to me and going, Ew, I don’t like church. And then I had to manage that tension. So I tried to influence the church in a way, that in the right way. I’m not gonna say I had the corner, because they did some things right too,  but it really was about the polish. And my guys were real. We were street kids, you know? We were like, you know?

JULIE ROYS  58:05

I know I loved we were in a Vineyard church for a decent amount of time. And one of the things I loved about it is that we used to have a motto that we’re committed to having a Messy Church. Because if you’re really doing ministry and you’re really getting in people’s lives, you’re going to have mess, and that’s just the way it’s going to be. I mean, I think Jesus’ ministry was kind of messy. And so the way that we want to put on this beautiful image for everyone, again, it’s the world’s values. It’s not God’s values, right? But that is, yeah, that is definitely there.

JULIE ROYS  58:42

You know, I want to end with,  you talk about this deconstruction process that you went through. And I know a lot of folks when they see this, hopefully some folks listening, just by hearing your story and the grooming and can identify some of those things that maybe folks are involved in right now, but I know there’s probably a lot of people listening that have been, there, done that, and have seen that, and now they’re trying to put together, okay, what was real? what was good? what was not good? and the deconstruction process, which I think has gotten really maligned by certain folks who just make it out to be some evil process. I’ve seen a lot of people go through deconstruction and come out with a really more beautiful faith than where they started. But what was that process like for you? And kind of, where are you landing right now as a result?

MIKE DONAHUE  59:37

Well, I go back to sacred moments, right? I really disappointed myself  when I went the divorce really messed me up, and mainly because of my kids,  not having access to them, and I was immoral. I’ll just say it. I was like, Well, you know what? Yeah, none of this really matters. And I did. I went off the deep end for a while, and I drank a lot. I went back to drinking alcohol, and started carousing around, meeting people. I played hockey, so I was meeting people at the bars afterwards and stuff. And so it was just bad, and it was so maddening, because I knew what I was doing wrong. I taught leadership seminars on the very lifestyles leading. I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t stop. And I because I had no anchor. There was no anchor. Every anchor was gone. I didn’t have a family. I wasn’t talking my dad or  my mom, Jeanne; all that was a mess. I had no anchors, and my marriage was over, and my kids were young, and so it just was crazy.

MIKE DONAHUE  1:00:49

But what began to happen in me is little by little is I really felt like God never took his eyes off me,  he just didn’t give up. And there was just little things that would happen that I knew was him. I knew it was him, but I just couldn’t stand the church. I didn’t want it to happen through a human because I couldn’t stand them, and because it was so mean and so little things would happen. And d then I met my wife, who is one of the best human beings I’ve ever been around. I mean, she’s just as solid and as genuine as you can find, and that doesn’t translate to nice sometimes. Sometimes she’s a brat, but you can trust her. I trust her a lot, because I know whatever comes out of her mouth is what she thinks. And I love that! I’ll never not like that anymore, like I’ll never be involved in people’s lives that lie, that sell me something, y and she was a big part of my reconstruction. She didn’t grow up in the evangelical world. She grew up Lutheran but had a faith in Jesus and we talked about a lot, and that really helped me. , I would tell her stuff that happened in the church world, and I was involved, like I was a big name, you know, for a little while. I was speaking at big conferences and youth things, and people knew my name, and I was being groomed to be the next youth leader in Nebraska and blah, blah, blah. And I would tell her stuff that  we did. And she’d look at me, she’d be like, That’s weird, like, and she’s right, you know? And it was good to be able to bounce that off her, and then just settle into the fact that there is a God,  and he is the source of love, and he’s going to use everything, he’s going to use Jeanne Mayo even, he’s going to use everything. He’s going to use me and I’m a sinner. I mean,  that’s what it comes down to, and I need a Savior, and I have one.

MIKE DONAHUE  1:03:15

So that’s it. Anything after that is just a bunch of crap, like, it’s all smoke and mirrors, right? The bottom line is, I need the gospel every day. I need it every day because I’m a sinner and that’s how I came to faith was that, was the original thing that happened to me, was I realized I’m dark and I need light, and then got involved in the church world. I got swept up into its machine. And then so when it all crashed down, I went back to the original God’s my Savior, and Jesus is my friend. And I love the song in church. We sing in our church. I do go to church now, and I love the song that says, ,  my heart needs a surgeon. My soul needed a friend. That’s what it is. That’s what it comes down to. That’s what I always needed, and that’s what I always had, and that’s what I still have. All the rest of it is just a bunch of noise.

JULIE ROYS  1:04:20

Well, Mike, thank you. Thank you for just being so real and honest with your story and beautiful how you really came back to, as I used to say in Vineyard, the main and the plane, right? All the other stuff, it doesn’t really matter. And I love that the main in the plane. I mean, this is the gospel, and I feel like a lot of us are doing that, like, what is what is church really? And we’re rediscovering that. And there’s a beauty in that. I feel like about my church experience now is richer than it’s ever been and that’s because it’s back to what it’s all about. And it’s not the numbers. It’s not about growing the big ministry. It’s not about having the smoke machine. Oh my God, I know, right, but it is about Jesus I hope, that corporately, as a church, we come back to that. And I think more stories like yours continuing to shine the light on what’s true and what’s not true and what’s just absolutely not only not true, it’s of the devil. I mean, this is the really worldly, awful stuff, and we’ve let it come into the church. So, Mike, thank you for this book. I really appreciate it. I appreciate your testimony and your willingness to just be so vulnerable. So again. Thank you.

MIKE DONAHUE  1:05:41

Thank you so much. I appreciate what you’re doing. I really do. I think God’s using you in so many ways to it’s not about exposing people. It happens you have to, to get to the light, to get to the truth. And I think you’re doing a great job.

JULIE ROYS  1:05:56

Thank you so much. Blessings to you. And thanks 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 and want to support our work and get a copy of Mike’s book, Groomed, just go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. If you give $30 or more, we’ll send you a copy of Groomed, and you’ll be ensuring that podcasts like these continue again. We don’t have a lot of big donors or organizations supporting us. We simply have you, the people who care about reporting the truth and restoring the church. Also just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcast 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 so much for joining me today. Hope you were blessed and encouraged you.

Christian nationalism has taken over large swaths of the United States. But is this movement really Christian? And is it possible to engage with a Christian nationalist in a disarming way that doesn’t end up in a fight?

On this edition of The Roys Report, host Julie Roys engages in a lively dialogue with Caleb Campbell—a one-time skinhead who became a Christian and then a pastor. And for the last 18 years, Caleb has been ministering in Phoenix—a hotbed of Christian nationalist fervor.

Caleb shares candidly how Christian nationalism divided his church and left him so wounded, he had to take a months-long sabbatical. But he says God used this experience to soften his heart and motivate him to reach those ensnared by a powerful, growing movement.

Drawing from his own experience leading congregants at Desert Springs Bible Church in Phoenix—and his just-published book, Disarming Leviathan: Loving Your Christian Nationalist Neighbor—Caleb provides a pastor’s primer on Christian nationalism.

How do you define this ideology? What are the concerns and potential harms, from both a pastoral and constitutional perspective? And what are some conversational approaches to disarm people who may be ensnared by it?

During a contentious election year, this topic is a minefield—with critics waiting to pounce. This thoughtful and compassionate dialogue will help you navigate this minefield and love those with whom you disagree.

Caleb Campbell has been a pastor at Desert Springs Bible Church in Phoenix, Arizona, since 2006 and lead pastor since 2015. He is a doctoral student at Fuller Theological Seminary and a graduate of Phoenix Seminary. He serves as regional director for the Surge Network, an equipping and church planting organization. He is a co-founder of the J29 Coalition and the founder of Disarming Leviathan. His first book, Disarming Leviathan: Loving Your Christian Nationalist Neighbor, was published in 2024. He lives in Phoenix with his wife and children.

[00:00:00] Julie Roys: Christian nationalism has taken over large swaths of the United States, but is this movement really Christian? And is it possible to engage with a Christian nationalist in a disarming way that doesn’t end up in a fight? Welcome to The Roy’s Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church.

[00:00:21] Julie Roys: I’m Julie Roys, and joining me today is Caleb Campbell, a one-time skinhead, who became a Christian. And for the last 18 years, Caleb has been pastoring a church in Phoenix, Arizona, a hotbed of Christian nationalists fervor. On this podcast, you’ll hear how Christian nationalism divided Caleb’s church and left him so wounded he had to take a sabbatical.

[00:00:42] Julie Roys: But you’ll also hear how God used this experience to soften Caleb’s heart and to motivate him to learn more about this movement and how to reach those ensnared by it. And if you’ve struggled to know what to think about Christian nationalism or how to engage with your Christian nationalist friends and family, you’re really going to benefit from this podcast.

[00:01:00] Julie Roys: I’ll get to my interview with Caleb in just a moment, but first I’d like to thank the sponsors of this podcast, The Restore Conference. If you’re someone who’s experienced church hurt or abuse, there are few places you can go to pursue healing. Similarly, if you’re an advocate, counselor, or pastor, there are few conferences designed to equip you to minister to people traumatized in the church.

[00:01:23] Julie Roys: But The Restore Conference, this February 7th and 8th in Phoenix, Arizona, is designed to do just that. Joining us will be leading abuse survivor advocates like Mary DeMuth and Dr. David Pooler, an expert in adult clergy sexual abuse. Also joining us will be Scott McKnight, author of A Church Called Tov, Diane Langberg, a psychologist and trauma expert, yours truly and more.

For more information, just go to RESTORE2025.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.

[00:02:16] Julie Roys: Again, joining me today is Caleb Campbell, pastor of Desert Springs Bible Church in Phoenix, Arizona. He’s also a doctoral student at Fuller Theological Seminary, and he’s the regional director of the Surge Network, an equipping and church planting organization there in the Phoenix area. He’s also the author of Disarming Leviathan, Loving Your Christian Nationalist Neighbor. Caleb, welcome, and it’s just such a pleasure to have you join me.

[00:02:41] Caleb Campbell: It’s my pleasure to be with you.

[00:02:43] Julie Roys: And it’s not very often that I get to meet my podcast guests in person, but I was able to do that when I was in Phoenix enjoyed lunch with you. And I thought we’d be there for maybe an hour. And we were there the whole afternoon talking, just had such a great conversation. So many fascinating things, hearing about your background and also about your insights into Christian nationalism. So so good. And I’m so excited that you’re going to join us for The Restore Conference there in Phoenix in February. That’s going to be awesome to have you there. And I should mention that your book, Disarming Leviathan, is our premium for the month of August.

[00:03:18] Julie Roys: So anybody who gives a gift of $30 or more to The Roy’s report will receive a copy of your book. So if you’re interested folks and getting that just go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. So Caleb, one of the things that you mentioned when we were having lunch and you mentioned it briefly in your book, but I just thought it was so fascinating, is your background because you actually were a skinhead and now you’ve been a pastor for many years. How does someone go from being a skinhead to being a pastor of a church in Phoenix?

[00:03:53] Caleb Campbell: Yeah. That doesn’t seem to be the common track towards lead pastor, but it was that way for me. So I was raised in a politically and religiously conservative home. A lot of what I perceived religion to be about, especially the church we were part of, was about what you’re not supposed to do and being unstained from the world, which meant no drinking, smoking, no rated R movies.

[00:04:18] Caleb Campbell: And I remember as a kid,  junior high age, just seeing people’s behavior Monday through Saturday and then hearing the stuff on Sunday and thinking this stuff is not integrated. And so I, for a variety of reasons, just stopped going as much as I could. I’d get dragged every now and again, but it was just giving up on faith and not really interested in it.

[00:04:39] Caleb Campbell: And in high school, kind of sophomore, junior year, fell in with a group of neo-Nazi skinheads and found myself in that movement, shaved my head, the whole deal. And I didn’t go to college after high school, but after I had graduated in that season, 18, 19 started asking myself where are all the wealthy, successful retired skinheads?

[00:05:01] Caleb Campbell: So the ideology is white supremacy, and the neo-Nazi skinhead argument was white people are the master race and we’re going to protect each other. And we’re going to protect a future for white children. So we’re going to have each other’s back because we’re going to be successful and we’re going to be awesome.

[00:05:19] Caleb Campbell: And I remember looking around and be like the life path that my fellow peers, it doesn’t seem like it’s ending with success. And so what was being said and what was actually happening wasn’t integrated. And so I started just disentangling myself, not only from the thinking, but also from the community and was just floating, looking for core needs of safety, belonging and purpose.

[00:05:46] Caleb Campbell: And I was a drummer in a band, and we had an ad in the Phoenix New Times classifieds. This is back when you would put stuff on a piece of paper, a newspaper trying to connect with people, the dark ages. Yeah, way back then. And a woman from Desert Springs Bible church was dialing drummers and had called me and said, would you come play the drums at our church?

[00:06:09] Caleb Campbell: And so I did. And I remember thinking, I should do good stuff for God. Cause I still had a sense that God existed, and I got in the Rolodex. I got on the rotation. I should say. We don’t do Rolodex anymore. Got on the rotation and called me back a month later, eventually just started playing in one of the bands and a member, a couple in the band started inviting me over to their home, and over the course of about a year, through conversations and they didn’t tell me this, but they were discipling me. I found myself following Jesus and now I am the lead pastor at that church.

[00:06:46] Julie Roys: Wow. What a story. And I think there’s so much in your background, that understanding of what led you, that need for belonging and safety, and that relates to our topic today of Christian nationalism. And we’re going to get into that, but also this has really impacted you personally. Talk about the impact this has had on you and your church as well.

[00:07:09] Caleb Campbell: Yeah. So I met the Lord at the church I’m serving at about 2001, came on staff in 2006, became the lead pastor in 2015. So I’ve been here for a long time, and I thought I knew what I was getting into.

[00:07:22] Caleb Campbell: And in 2015, primary season on into 2016 to the election, I remember thinking, okay, so most of the congregation that I serve is politically conservative. This is the land of Barry Goldwater and John McCain. So I thought I had a good handle on where everyone was at. They’re theologically evangelical, which I am. And they’re going to vote primarily red team, although not everybody. But they’re plugging their nose and voting, they’re watching the MAGA movement, the dehumanizing rhetoric, the rage inducing, anxiety inducing speech, the belittling, the caustic stuff that maybe they’re looking at that and they’re saying, oh, politics is messy.

[00:08:08] Caleb Campbell: I’m still a red team voter. So I’m going to plug my nose and do it. That’s what I thought people were at. I thought maybe 20% of the people that I’m pastoring love this stuff. They love the methods and the means of this movement, but 80 percent are going to vote red team, but they’re not going to give themselves over to this movement.

[00:08:27] Caleb Campbell: And I was right on the categories. I was wrong on the numbers. So 80 percent of the people who are in our congregation in 2016 were gone by the end of 2020. Many of them because of issues related to what I would now recognize as all connected to American Christian nationalism. We had taken what I consider to be conservative evangelical approaches with things like kindness, compassion, grace, understanding.

[00:08:51] Caleb Campbell: We weren’t giving ourselves over to the combative culture warring and the abstaining from the culture warring posture was perceived as betrayal of the gospel. I remember in 2020, I was called a fascist, a Marxist and having a Luciferian spirit of fear in the same week. And I remember thinking, I don’t think a person can be a fascist and a Marxist.

[00:09:14] Caleb Campbell: I think we should all just decide if everyone could get together. Yeah. So if we could all get together and decide which one I am, that’d be helpful to me. Cause I thought we were just doing what we had been doing as a church, Talking about caring for refugees, which we had done for decades, talking about racial reconciliation, which we had talked about for decades, part of my story. What was painful for me and what I just didn’t see was just how deeply people were not only committed to certain political convictions, which I totally get, but that they would use the means and methods of the kingdoms of this world in order to gain power, in order to protect and propagate their way of life.

[00:09:51] Caleb Campbell: And that was what was striking to me. And I realized that this stuff had always been there. It had just been at hushed kitchen table conversations, but now with the rise of the MAGA movement or whatever you want to call this thing, they got a permission structure that said, I can take that quiet kitchen table conversation, I can speak it out loud in my Sunday school class because my assumption is everyone believes the same way I believe. And to a great degree, that was the case. And so it was apocalyptic in that it was unveiling what was going on inside people’s hearts that at the end of the day, they were more willing to reach for the power of the sword in order to protect what they perceive to be the way of the cross.

[00:10:31] Caleb Campbell: And so it impacted our church. Like I said, 80 percent of people there in 2016 were gone by the end of 2020. And for me personally, this was devastating. The relational loss these are people that I loved. I shared communion with them. I baptized my kids at this church. I got married in our building.

[00:10:48] Caleb Campbell: These are my people. And part of my healing process in 21,I was on sabbatical, and I spent a full day just walking around a park and writing down names of broken relationships as they came to mind. And at the end of the day, I had over 300 names. And these are not just names.

[00:11:07] Caleb Campbell: These are relationships. We’d share communion together. I’ve been in the hospital with them and physiologically in 2020, I got COVID in June of 2020. So I was an early adopter. I got shingles in July and then facial paralysis in August. And I went to the doctor, the emergency room, and he said, yeah, you’ve got this thing called Ramsey Hunt.

[00:11:34] Caleb Campbell: The shingles is infected. The nerves in your face is paralyzed and maybe you’ll get it back. And so I got about 90 percent of it back. I’m still about 10 percent paralyzed on the right side of my face. And the doctor said, I remember this, Julie, the doctor said have you been under any stress lately?

[00:11:52] Caleb Campbell: And I was like, Oh my gosh, yeah, there’s a book called, The Body Keeps Score, and boy I carry that with me. And yeah, the personal toll, the pastoral toll, the physiological toll has been pretty devastating for me personally. Yeah.

[00:12:07] Julie Roys: I can relate to so many things in your story because I think for a lot of us, it was very disillusioning, that line about being a compassionate conservative.

[00:12:16] Julie Roys: I used to always say that conservatives are actually compassionate, and we really care. And we’re not the monsters that the left makes us out to be. And then. The MAGA movement started, and I was shocked. I was absolutely shocked because I feel like I’ve always been the same person.

[00:12:32] Julie Roys: I’ve always stood for the same things. And yet all these people that I thought were my tribe are not my tribe, and it’s so disillusioning. So you could come out with a lot of bitterness towards Christian nationalism. Instead, what you’ve done, is  you talk about loving them and I love your heart, and it comes out so clearly in this and it was actually really good for me to read because it was a good heart check for me and just a reorienting.

[00:12:56] Julie Roys: Oh, Lord, help me not to get angry and prideful and all those things that I can see wrong with other people that can actually be in me. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. But before we go on, I do want to just ask you to define Christian nationalism because there’s a whole lot of people out there saying this isn’t even a thing like, this is just a disparaging term that’s been put on us.

[00:13:16] Julie Roys: And there isn’t necessarily, in the dictionary, we can’t go to Christian nationalism and find necessarily a definition of this, but you found some really helpful things regarding, being able to understand this movement. Tell us, what have you seen Christian nationalism being in practical terms?

[00:13:35] Caleb Campbell: Sure. Yeah. My approach is viewing this movement through a missio-logical lens. So as a missionary, and not there’s a lot of great resources out there viewing this movement psychologically, historically, politically. That’s not really my approach, although I value those things.

[00:13:52] Caleb Campbell: And so I define American Christian nationalism in the way that we see it today as 3 things at the same time; a political ideology, a tribal identity, and a spiritual idolatry. So the political ideology is basically Christian nationalism in America, is that Christians should run the government or should be in control of the state. Nationalism as a political ideology is that there should be a nation state and that a certain people group should run it.

[00:14:22] Caleb Campbell: So ethnic nationalism in Ireland, you have. Irish nationalism, the idea being that, ethnically Irish people should be in charge of the government. This is religious nationalism that Christians, however one defines it, should run the government to protect and propagate their way of being in the world.

[00:14:39] Caleb Campbell: There’s variations on the theme, but that’s the root of the definition. As a tribal identity, it’s a means of talking about a people group. In some senses, it’s a surrogate for ethnicity. Ethnicity being a way to talk about a distinguishable people group. And so American Christian nationalists is an identifiable people group with taboos and values and origin story, even music and food in the same way that a missiologist would think about a tribe or an ethnicity.

[00:15:06] Caleb Campbell: We can think about American Christian nationalists in that way. Also certain clothing styles And just if you were a missionary in a foreign field, you would be noticing those types of things. And so it’s a tribal identity. It’s a way to refer to a people group. In fact, many inside the movement are referring to themselves as Christian nationalists.

[00:15:26] Caleb Campbell: And I believe that they don’t primarily mean the political ideology, but rather the people they belong to. And glad to talk more about that. But third, it is a spiritual idolatry mixed within the political ideology and the tribal identity is syncretism where you and most missionaries could talk ad nauseum about this, where you go into a culture and you see the gospel taking root, but then some of the local customs or religious traditions that are outside of scripture sync up with the Christianity, a classic kind of innocuous form of, well maybe innocuous form of syncretism in America is the syncing up of the Santa Claus figure with the Christmas story.

[00:16:06] Caleb Campbell: Where we say this is Christmas. It’s not Bible Christmas. Santa Claus is like an American or at least a Western European injection of our culture into the Christmas story where you’ll see the Santa Claus figure alongside a nativity. So it’s spiritual idolatry in a form of there’s syncretism.

[00:16:23] Caleb Campbell: There’s also in American Christian nationalism today, a form of empire worship, which you see addressed in the book of Revelation in the new Testament, where there is a veneration of the state power, the economic and military power and might of one’s state or government or empire that gets venerated as if it is uniquely inspired by or designed by or used by God.

[00:16:48] Caleb Campbell: I have heard purveyors of American Christian nationalism say that the American military is God’s chosen instrument for justice in the world. This would be a syncretism and an empire worship mixed together. Much to the applause of many in the room, I might add. So American Christian nationalism is political ideology, tribal identity, and spiritual ideology.

[00:17:09] Julie Roys: Wow. And there’s so much to unpack in there. And you do unpack it in your book, and we’re going to get to some of those things. But this is what’s so interesting is all of the things that you just said, I know there are Christian nationalists out there that would say, I don’t adhere to that, or I don’t adhere to this.

[00:17:25] Julie Roys: But yet there’s kind of these themes that you see running through it and not all of them necessarily adhere to every single one or there’s even spectrum of it, but I think just by identifying , it kind of help say, okay, where am I on this spectrum perhaps, or my friend and how can we discuss this?

[00:17:46] Caleb Campbell: Yeah it’s almost like the old stereo systems; there would be an equalizer. If you remember that there’s all these little dials that turns up the base and treble or whatever. And in the lived experience of a person who’s given themselves over to this movement, the political ideology could be at an 11 and the spiritual idolatry could be at a two or vice versa. And so for each individual, individuals have different volume levels of these things. And so it’s not uniform across the board.

[00:18:13] Julie Roys: You also talk about, and this is the title of your book, right? Disarming Leviathan. Yeah. And really interesting. And I’m sure a lot of people go, why is Leviathan on this? But you talk about it in spiritual terms as well, that you’re seeing, there’s some spiritual dynamics to this whole thing. And it’s very like this Leviathan creature that we see throughout scripture. So talk about Leviathan and how you see the spiritual dynamics of this movement playing out.

[00:18:41] Caleb Campbell: Yes. So the biblical authors had this way of talking about chaos evil in beastly terms. Probably most famous would be the serpent in the garden of Eden. Which comes in and works against the disordered ways of God. There is in Revelation, the beast, and the dragon. In Genesis chapter four, when Cain is meditating on murdering his brother, Abel, God says to Cain, watch out because sin is crouching at your door.

[00:19:11] Caleb Campbell: This idea of a predatory beast that’s going to leap out and consume. Peter says Satan wanders about like a roaring lion seeking to devour. And so in the prophets, Psalms and Job, you have that beast referred to as Leviathan, which is a way to talk about this ancient sea dragon that lived in the chaotic abyss, the sea the chaotic waters, and worked against the ordered ways of God.

[00:19:38] Caleb Campbell: It created or propagated rage and anxiety. It was a power force that the kings or the military generals of this world could tether themselves to. Prophets speak to this, almost like you could give yourself over to this chaotic evil power force so much that you become beastly yourself.

[00:19:59] Caleb Campbell: They would refer to some kings in this way. And so it was a way to talk about chaos evil that works against the ordered ways of God. So a disintegrating or disordered force that leads to the fruit of the flesh. The apostle Paul is always juxtaposing the works of the flesh or the fruit of the kingdoms of this world with the fruit of the Spirit.

[00:20:23] Caleb Campbell: And so thinking about American Christian nationalism, not primarily in politically ideological terms, but rather as a matter of the heart, a matter of the soul, Leviathan speaks to what I believe is a disordering chaotic evil force that some of the purveyors of American Christian nationalism are tethering themselves to.

[00:20:48] Caleb Campbell: And one of the reasons why I believe that is because look at the fruit of the movement. It generates anxiety, derision, greed, outrage, et cetera, opposite of the fruit of the spirit. And so there’s some spiritual dynamic going on here. And the reason that I use disarming is because we’re not to take a combative approach towards Leviathan that’s God’s job. In the book of Revelation, that’s the lamb’s job, but rather that people in search of safety, belonging and purpose can be tempted to give themselves over to some version of Leviathan, which, by the way, American Christian nationalism was one of many a multitude of expressions of Leviathan.

[00:21:31] Caleb Campbell: It’s not the only one. But we can, in search of safety, belonging and purpose, reach out our hands and embrace the Leviathan because we think it gives us power. And the objective for those of us who see our friends and family ensnared by this is to invite them to be disarmed. To release that power of the sword and turn back to the way of Jesus and receive his embrace instead of the embrace of Leviathan.

[00:21:59] Caleb Campbell: Thinking in terms of the spiritual dynamic of it, people are ensnared into these worldly powerful movements and Galatians 6:1 and 2 has been an anchor for me because it says, if anyone is ensnared or caught up in evil or transgression, you who are spiritually mature, seek to restore that person gently.

[00:22:22] Caleb Campbell: So restoration is the goal, not defeat, not conquering, not domination, not winning the argument, right? Restoration is the goal, seek to restore them gently, and watch out for yourself, lest you too be tempted. So 98 percent of the work is in my heart.

[00:22:43] Caleb Campbell: And then it says, therefore bear one another’s burdens and thus fulfill the law of Christ. The law of Christ being love God, love neighbor. And so that language of disarming Leviathan, loving your Christian nationalist neighbor is a) recognizing there really is a Leviathan power at work here. My job is simply to invite people to disarm from it as a means of loving my Christian nationalist neighbor as I want them to love me.

[00:23:06] Julie Roys: Let me push back on that a little bit because I am sure if we had a Christian nationalist in the room right now, he’d say, good grief, the disorder is out there in the world. The world is going  to hell in a hand basket. And we are trying to save this world.

[00:23:18] Julie Roys: We’re the ones bringing order. We’re the ones who are rescuing America from this Leviathan that, all the evil, they would say the evil is out there and they’re bringing the order. So what would you say to the Christian nationalists who says that? Because I would guess that would be the push to back.

[00:23:35] Caleb Campbell: Oh, of course. Yeah. I would notice number one, Alexander Solzhenitsyn said that the line, that it would be so easy, wouldn’t it? If all the evil was just out there. And we, the good, could just kick out all the evil people. Solzhenitsyn says that the line of good and evil cuts through every human heart.

[00:23:55] Caleb Campbell: That the evil is not out there only. It is also in here. And so this is why I think Luther would say all of life is repentance. Because every moment I am tempted to give myself over to the power of Leviathan. It’s not out there. The number one problem ain’t out there. It’s in me. And a life of confession and repentance and humility leads me to the space to say, there is a speck in their eye, but there is a log in mine.

[00:24:26] Caleb Campbell: And if I don’t take care of my own self, if I’m not in a healthy space with the Lord, if I’m combative and derisive and culture warring in the name of the gospel, I might be actually distorting the message of the gospel. And so I want to invite people to a space of humility and reflection. Two, one of the things that Leviathan does is it promises good ends by unjust means.

[00:24:52] Caleb Campbell: And one of the things that I’m seeing American Christian nationalists do today is to say things like, turn the other cheek isn’t getting us anywhere. We need to use political dominance to protect God. Now I have some theological problems with those things, but just notice that it’s the basic argument of today’s American Christian nationalist movement is we need to protect the way of the cross by picking up the sword, by dominating over others, by lording our power over others.

[00:25:21] Caleb Campbell: And I would just notice every time Jesus disciples did that, He corrected them. When James and John came to Jesus and said, put us to your right hand and left, he said, are you able to drink the cup that I’m going to drink? In the garden of Gethsemane, when Peter was trying to do a good thing, protect Jesus, he pulled out his sword.

[00:25:40] Caleb Campbell: And he did violent action. And Jesus said, Peter, we don’t do that here. That is not going to get us where we think God has us going. That will not beget the kingdom. And not only does he tell him to put his sword away, he heals Malchus, the victim of the act of violence. And what Jesus shows us is that if you really want to transform society, If you really want to shape culture, if you truly want to see a righteous people, you will lay down the sword and pick up the way of the cross.

[00:26:10] Caleb Campbell: You will, as Philippians 2 says, follow me and take on the form of a servant, laying down your power in service of others. And so my concern with American Christian nationalism is not primarily with the ends that they’re trying to get to, a righteous and just community. It’s the means by which they’re trying to get there, which is domination, power, culture war.

[00:26:32] Caleb Campbell: And everything I’m seeing in the teaching of Jesus is that we don’t do culture war, we do ambassador of the kingdom. We model where two or more gathered, we model on earth as it is in heaven and invite others, not by means of coercion. But through means of compassion and hospitality, we invite others in to practice this way of the kingdom with us.

[00:26:54] Caleb Campbell: And so the ends in many cases are just fine, right? Righteous, just society, economic prosperity, right? Great honoring God. Sure. It’s the means that are the primary concern. And this, by the way, is the primary temptation of the Leviathan in the scripture. If you’re a serpent in the garden and the tempter in the desert with Jesus in the desert, what the evil one is tempting with is not unjust ends, but unrighteous means to obtain those ends.

[00:27:25] Julie Roys: And that is what is so confusing. And I think this is why Christians can so easily be pulled into this movement because one, you’re hearing scripture, you’re hearing ends that most Christians would say, yes, I want a righteous. Do I want everyone in America to bow before Christ? Yes, absolutely.

[00:27:44] Julie Roys: We all want those things as believers. We want our hearts change. We want a country that’s righteous. We want some of this craziness that’s going on to stop. But yeah, it is the means, and it is shocking to me to hear very Machiavellian kind of, the ends justify the means this kind of language coming out of Christians.

[00:28:02] Julie Roys: And like you said, it’s not turn the other cheek. And when I heard the justifications for Trump, like we don’t need a pastor, which sometimes you need someone who will fight dirty. You know what I’m like, what? This is not the way of the cross. But let’s talk specifically about some of the methods of Leviathan because I think this is where it gets really revealing.

[00:28:21] Julie Roys: And one of them is distorting scripture. You mentioned that already but then there’s some other characteristics, some other methods that Leviathan is using in this Christian nationalist movement that maybe people aren’t really aware of.

[00:28:39] Julie Roys: And I love too what you said about disorder and chaos, the politics of panic and some of that happening. Man, that is at work in a huge way here where I just feel like people are being whipped up into a frenzy. Yes. And of course, when you get that scared, yeah you’ll do things that you wouldn’t do in a rational state. So let’s talk about some of those methods a little bit in more detail.

[00:29:02] Caleb Campbell: Yeah, stirring up anxiety is a favored tactic by purveyors of American Christian nationalism. In my limited understanding, the difference between fear and anxiety is as follows. Fear is the good feeling we feel when a wild bear enters the room. If you and I were sitting, having a cup of coffee and a wild bear walked in, we would feel something; that feeling by and large is fear, and that fear would energize us to action.

[00:29:32] Caleb Campbell: It would alert our senses to the fact that something dangerous is happening, and we need to act right? Probably escape. I think, would be my tactic, I think. Anxiety is having an unfounded sense that there’s a bear around every corner, that did you smell that? I think that’s a bear. I just saw a shadow go across the window.

[00:29:57] Caleb Campbell: I think that’s a bear and constantly being in a state of panic that there’s a bear and there’s a little piece of cat fur on the ground. I think that’s a bear. Now, when I’m in an anxious state, right? Unfounded fear, you know who benefits from me being in that state? Is bear repellent spray incorporated?

[00:30:15] Caleb Campbell: They love it when I’m feeling anxiety about the bears because I am malleable. I’m manipulatable to take out my wallet and purchase for 19. 99 a month, a subscription to Bear repellent spray incorporated. Okay. So in the same way politicians and pundits and power brokers know that if I can whip people into a panic about some kind of unfounded fear, anxiety, they will give me money and power.

[00:30:44] Caleb Campbell: Because I will promise to protect them. Now, I want to be clear. There are real threats. There are real things happening in the world. And what a leader does is they don’t manufacture something out of nothing. They take something that people are already feeling a level of anxiety about and they amplify it.

[00:31:00] Caleb Campbell: They turn it up to 11. Aunt Betty has grown up in the same community for 65 years and she was at the grocery store the other day and one of the clerks was not speaking English and Aunt Betty has never experienced that before in her hometown and the hometown is changing. That’s a very real thing.

[00:31:20] Caleb Campbell: But Betty is wondering, do I feel safe in my own community more? Am I going to have a home anymore? Because I need to be able to understand what’s going on. And I don’t know if I can understand anything that’s going on if everybody doesn’t speak my language in my own hometown, what’s going to happen to me?

[00:31:36] Caleb Campbell: And what about my kids? And you can see how this could stir up into a constant. Okay. So then she goes home and turns on entertainment news and the person says, have you noticed that the grocery store is changing? Yes, I have. And have you noticed that we’re being invaded? Oh, it’s invasion. Okay. It’s an invasion.

[00:31:55] Caleb Campbell: Yes. I have noticed. Yeah, give us your money and power. Julie, when a person feels in that state of anxiety that’s being leveraged by a power broker or pundit and they’re saying I will protect you from that change in your community, which is actually an invasion from people who hate your guts. They want to destroy your way of being. Well, none of that has been proven about this person, this clerk at the grocery store, right?

[00:32:24] Caleb Campbell: But Aunt Betty, this narrative is being spun and it’s being echoed and amplified on social media, at her Bible study, the news radio that she listens to on the car ride over to her Bible study, they’re all saying the same thing. And so she’s cutting checks and she’s willing to say things like, I don’t need a pastor in office, I need a bully because there’s an enemy out there.

Caleb Campbell: Now I want to notice, this could happen in a church, in my profession. It’s easy for pastors to say God created you, but you sinned and now God hates you. But if you donate today, I’ll protect you from God’s wrath. Okay. It could be used for social clubs.

[00:33:04] Caleb Campbell: The tactic is not unique to Christian nationalism, but it is the tactic of Leviathan and it’s stirring toxic anxiety, turning it to rage by creating an out group that is the enemy. And then saying, if you give me power and money, I will keep you safe from the enemy.

[00:33:22] Julie Roys: And it’s so sad because, when you bring that up, like for me, that’s somewhat emotional because I have a daughter in law who is Hispanic, and they are not the enemy. My goodness, such beautiful people. We have, I think, benefited so much as a family from having another culture and people and I love them dearly her entire family. I love dearly. And I’ve been so blessed by being able to see things from a new perspective. It’s been wonderful. And yet when I hear the talk, it just breaks my heart.

[00:33:57] Julie Roys: Sometimes because I’m like, these are human beings. And as I read scripture, we’re supposed to care about those who are less fortunate than we are, and which a lot of them are. And that’s why they’ve come to this country. It’s a complex issue. It’s a nuanced issue.

[00:34:15] Julie Roys: And we need to talk about it. There are some real dangers. But what I don’t like is when we talk about it in such a polarized way that demonizes. And there’s another thing you point out is that there’s also this sort of us versus them. Which, just this morning I got on social media and I was called woke for the umpteenth, I don’t know how many times which I’m like, Oh, you mean woke as in I understand, and I’m awake to the injustices that have been perpetuated against people? Thank you very much. I feel good about that, but that’s not what they were meaning. And I knew it wasn’t, they were using it as a disparaging term.

[00:34:49] Julie Roys: And it was simply because I was calling out that Megan Basham had quoted, supposedly cited this video that Phil Vischer supposedly was in talking about that we need to be nuanced or something in our approach to abortion. And he’s like, I went to that video and it’s not me, not my words, not my voice, this is a wrongs. But, because I pointed that out now I’m woke.

[00:35:10] Julie Roys: It seems to be just this tactic  we have to demonize people who push against or who question because we can’t actually engage with the actual issue of what’s actually happening. We can’t have a rational discussion about the issues and talk about both sides. We have to demonize us/them. Where do you see this in Christian nationalism? And maybe some examples would be helpful if people aren’t noticing this, but I think it’s pretty blatant.

[00:35:41] Caleb Campbell: Yeah certainly you mentioned immigrants, like the big scare, and usually it’s immigrants from the Southern border across the Southern border. Which ironically, most Northern European immigrants are not religious and tend to be more socialist. It’s such an irony because there’s so many political conservatives South of the American border. It’s striking to me that so many conservative evangelicals are like, we should have more European immigrants.

[00:36:13] Caleb Campbell: I’ve not quite put all the pieces together on that one, but I’m a Phoenician. So I share more in common with Northern Mexico than I do with Seattle.

[00:36:21] Caleb Campbell: So, I think the impending immigrant invader thing is just a common trope. The coastal elites usually now referred to as the woke, the libs, people in San Francisco, New York City, et cetera.

[00:36:37] Caleb Campbell: California is certainly viewed with derision. And so there’s an international other, then there’s the American other, the libs, the wokes, then there’s the conservative other. So the American Christian nationalist movement is also othering people like Mitt Romney, Liz Cheney, they’re referred to as rhinos, Republicans in name only because they dared to question the anointed leadership. You mentioned like Phil Vischer. I’m thinking inside of evangelicalism, people like David French, Russell Moore, who to my understanding and reading and my mind are conservative evangelicals, politically conservative as well.

[00:37:18] Julie Roys: And you know what’s strange about that?. With them? I have asked on social media numerous times, Can you mention some things about David French? Because they’ll say these awful things about him, and I’ve read a lot of David French. I just haven’t heard those things. What is it specifically that you’re offended by? or even Russell Moore and some of the people you mentioned and most of the time they don’t have a specific. It’s just, we know he’s the bad guy. They’re bad.

[00:37:40] Caleb Campbell: This is how toxic tribalism works is the othering is not a critique of their arguments. And it’s an ad hominem attack to dehumanize and dismiss. So I don’t have to engage with your arguments. So if you come at me with an argument and I don’t care for it, I could do one of two things. I could engage the argument on its merits, or I could say, You are a Nazi or a communist or a fascist or whatever anything you’re heretic.

[00:38:10] Caleb Campbell: I mean anything. And what that functionally does is it ascribes to you a category of person with whom I don’t need to take seriously. So it’s a means of getting out of actually having to do the hard work of making an argument for whatever it is we’re talking about. If you come at me with a solution to the border problem, whatever, and I don’t care for it, but I don’t have something good to say in response, Oh, you’re woke. And then the straw man attacks; so you’re just saying we should have open borders, right? If I don’t like the argument you just made, I will put into your mouth an argument I think, and everyone else thinks is ridiculous. And that’s what we’ve developed, but that’s all-toxic tribalism.

[00:38:52] Caleb Campbell: And the leader of the tribe gains more strength in the tribe because they’re pretending they’re peacocking. They’re showing themselves to be strong, but it’s not real strength. Like real strength is the capacity to make the argument on its merits, but the ad hominem, the othering is just, I will protect you, my people, from them, the enemy.

[00:39:16] Caleb Campbell: And what I would notice is this is very common. This happens all over the world in movements all over the place, but within the church, with John 17, where Jesus prayed, may they be one as you and I are one when the apostle Paul, I think meditating on that prayer says in Christ, there is no ethnic other, but we are all part of the family of God.

[00:39:40] Caleb Campbell: The early church is known to have been one of the most eclectic bunches of people: slave, slave owner, Greek, Jew, male, female, Scythian, barbarian. And they’re all one at a table in a house, and then to say that that movement means that we need to create another to be protected from? Man, if there’s any other, my posture towards them is compassionate invitation, not expulsion and derision.

[00:40:06] Julie Roys: One of the other things you talk about is that there’s a lot of false promises, and you’ve alluded to some of these. Mention some of the specific false promises because people are getting, the same way you got sucked into skinhead movement because there were some promises being made. And it is surprising to me too, because I feel like some of these promises are things that I’m seeing will happen when Christ returns, and I’m like, wow, there’s some really over promising here. So talk about that.

[00:40:35] Caleb Campbell: Sure speaking to that one directly, the promise that we’ll be a righteous country. I would just notice that we’ve not had one ever, including the one in the Bible, like the one God’s chosen people in the Bible were chosen. And then all throughout is a story of failure after failure after failure to live up to being a kingdom that models the way of God. This is why the prophets would say eventually in scripture, we need the law of God written on our hearts, not in some book somewhere. So the overwhelming testimony of scripture is you can’t get a righteous people without the gospel. And the gospel comes not through the state, but through the church operating in a way that transcends all states. So that promise like the concept of having a righteous country in the true sense of righteous and justice, like the biblical sense, it’s a false promise.

[00:41:38] Caleb Campbell: You can’t get there. You can have people who are pursuing righteousness So that’s a false promise. Another false promise more acutely in the lived experience would be safety, belonging, and purpose. The core needs that we have in the very center of our being. We need to be safe. We need to belong to a community, a people, a family, and we need to have purpose.

[00:41:56] Caleb Campbell: And those things are granted in Jesus. I will never leave you or forsake you. Behold, I’m with you always to the end of the age. That’s safety, belonging; in many Christian traditions, we call each other brothers and sisters. That I belong not because of my ethnic heritage or my economic status or my political convictions, but because of who Christ is, I am made new, and I belong.

[00:42:19] Caleb Campbell: And then purpose, go into all the world, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Bear witness to the kingdom, safety, belonging and purpose. American Christian nationalists say the world is changing. The enemy is at the gates. I will protect you. Safety.

[00:42:38] Caleb Campbell: Belonging. True patriots like you and me are going to purpose stand together against the woke agenda. And we’re going to fight it in the school board meetings and the county seat. And we’re going to take the White House back. Safety, belonging, purpose. However. Leviathan promises safety, but it never delivers true safety because true safety is to be in a communion where I can say whatever’s going on inside of me out loud without fear of expulsion.

[00:43:10] Caleb Campbell: If you ask the wrong question inside a Christian nationalist community, you will be expelled and othered – the Republican in name only. True belonging is I belong based on something that transcends my currently held convictions or posture towards politics. Something closer to a familial belonging. And then purpose I would just wonder, is taking power, worldly power, the purpose that Jesus pointed us to?

[00:43:38] Caleb Campbell: And so again, these are all relatively good desires, but what Leviathan actually delivers is a pale facsimile of the real McCoy, which only Jesus can deliver.

[00:43:51] Julie Roys: As you’re speaking, I’m thinking of some of the hallmarks of evangelicalism; conversionism, belief in Christ returning; evangelicalism has always been about converting the heart and about being ambassador to people.

[00:44:05] Julie Roys: Now, there was always this social action part, and I used to be very politically involved. I’m not anymore because I’m like I can’t see anything that I want to be involved in that makes sense to me. Like with politics right now,  I’m just like, both right and left. I can’t really affirm the movements and sign on.

[00:44:28] Julie Roys: But somehow it seems like the social action became the means of conversion. That it just got inverted. And it’s been shocking to me to watch this. I know I’m thinking right now that there’s still going to be some people listening who are saying listen, I’m not part of it. I’m not a Christian nationalist. I just heard somebody who is a Christian nationalist. If you would say, like, all these marks are there, as a public figure, and she said, I’m not a Christian nationalist. I’m like, okay, so they may say Turning Point USA, which is an organization that you mentioned in your book.

[00:45:06] Julie Roys: And I would say. Outright, very Christian nationalist organization. Sean Foyt who blatantly embraces the term Christian nationalism and is trying to say this is a good thing. So that they might say, yeah, I’m a part of Turning Point. I’ve gone to some Sean Foyt rallies. I think that’s great.

[00:45:22] Julie Roys: Not really Christian nationalism. You, as part of your whole research, and I found this really fascinating, you’ve been to these, and actually I would love to go to these now that I was reading it. I’m like, I should go. I really should go. This would be fascinating to do, but you’re also in a hotbed of it there in Phoenix.

[00:45:38] Julie Roys: There is so much Christian nationalism. But you went to a Turning Point, like a pastor’s, you went to a number of them, but you did go to one that was specifically for pastors, and you talk about specifically what you saw there and okay, folks, if you’re saying this is Turning Point isn’t Christian nationalism, this is what I saw. Tell us what you saw at that event and why like just for you like red flags all over.

[00:46:06] Caleb Campbell: Yeah, so as part of my work, for the last few years I attend the rallies as many as I can, online zoom calls, coaching, training things like that. Like I said, I’m in Phoenix, so I’m in a hotbed of it.

[00:46:19] Caleb Campbell: There’s multiple organizations that are here propagating versions of American Christian nationalism. And one of the things I got invited to in 2022 was the first pastor summit, which they had in San Diego. And it was paid for; one donor paid for 500 pastors and their spouses to go for three days at the Lowe’s Coronado resort, which is a pretty swanky joint.

[00:46:39] Caleb Campbell: And it tells you how much money is behind this thing. And I wanted to go cause I had been to the rallies here locally with people, some of whom were in the congregation that I serve. But I wanted to go and talk to pastors, my peers, and kind of get underneath what’s your connection to this movement? What are you thinking about it? How does this square with your theology and your ecclesiology?

[00:46:59] Caleb Campbell: And so I went and the things that I heard from the stage were terrifying to me and abhorrent. Again, many of the political postures that they were arguing for were just standard run of the mill conservative prolife, anti-abortion, et cetera, kind of the conservative view on marriage, that was their which has been around evangelicalism in America for a long time.

[00:47:30] Caleb Campbell: It was the dehumanizing, militant, combative, derisive rhetoric, the way that they would talk about people who didn’t agree with them as evil, demonic, monsters, not human. We’re talking about our neighbors in this way. And to watch a room full of pastors say amen and hallelujah with great verve and vigor.

[00:47:55] Caleb Campbell: And there is a lot of stuff around, like defying the government. usually around COVID 19 restrictions and whatever a person thinks about the restrictions and all that. There’s a lot in scripture to be said that’s given to the church about our posture towards government and combative approach doesn’t seem to be one of them.

[00:48:13] Caleb Campbell: But there was a gloating people would literally say, we didn’t care how many people got sick. We were taking a stand against the evil government. So taking a stand against evil, I’m on board with that. Saying, I don’t care how many people in my congregation get sick? These are non-pastoral sounding things to me.

[00:48:32] Julie Roys: I was talking to somebody just yesterday who got ostracized from her church because her husband is working in a situation where he needed, he could not be exposed to certain things and because of that she couldn’t. And just ask for some, Hey, can we do this by zoom or can, just very, you would think that we can just be, you can have a different view, but you would think we can accommodate each other, and we can accommodate different views, but somehow with COVID, it became like, there is no other view. And if you are a real Christian, if you’re a real Christian you will have this view and you will fight it. And if you don’t fight it, then you’re not a real Christian. It seems to be the implication, right?

[00:49:17] Caleb Campbell: It’s toxic tribalism. It’s a version of fundamentalism.

[00:49:20] Julie Roys: I don’t see that in scripture though. I see a lot of tests for becoming a Christian. I don’t see your stance on COVID or a pandemic as being one of them.

[00:49:29] Caleb Campbell: And the overwhelming testimony of scripture is that our character is to be like Christ’s that the fruit of the spirit should be practiced in us. And so the derisive dehumanizing, I don’t care what happens to sick people. If you ask a question about a vaccine, we’re kicking you out because it’s heresy. It’s this conflation of a tribalism with theology.

[00:49:58] Julie Roys: It’s almost like COVID vaccination became mark of the beast.

[00:50:03] Caleb Campbell: Yeah. Oh, for sure.

[00:50:04] Julie Roys: I haven’t seen that. I just don’t see that.

[00:50:07] Caleb Campbell: Yeah. And for me as a pastor, like wading into things about health and safety, I’m not trained for that. I didn’t go to like global pandemic navigation 101 in seminary; that’s outside of my field.

[00:50:24] Caleb Campbell: So when pastors would defer to medical professionals, which we do all the time, it was received as like some kind of succumbing to the atheist agenda or something. Striking to me was James Lindsay outspoken atheist and critic of the church was one of the keynote speakers at a pastor’s gathering. I’ve never had that happen before. And the reason that he was invited to speak is because they felt like he had an orthodox view of CRT, critical race theory, and they wanted him to talk about it. He was, and they were derisive and dismissive of Christians who would have different nuances or views.

[00:51:01] Julie Roys: So they’re more likely to embrace an atheist who’s anti CRT than a Christian who they perceive, which, by the way, I have done so many stories of people who’ve been pegged CRT and go, I didn’t even know what CRT was.

[00:51:16] Caleb Campbell: It was me. I got, I remember in 2020 I did, Julie, I did the exact same racial reconciliation sermon that I had done six times before over the last decade. Spoiler alert, sometimes pastors reuse sermons, and it was right after George Floyd was killed and it’s in the middle of COVID, I dusted off old faithful and I did the same sermon. And of course I had updated a few of the bits, but it was the same message.

[00:51:39] Caleb Campbell: And I was met with accusations of propagating CRT, which I didn’t know what it was. And I remember sitting with people and being like, this was the same sermon I did two years ago. Nobody came at me. Again, that speaks to the fact this isn’t actually about the arguments by and large. It’s about which tribe are you part of? Cause you sounded to my ears like you’re an outsider or another. And I saw a lot of this at this pastor’s conference where there’s revisionist history statements like Thomas Jefferson was a faithful Christian, statements like the American military is God’s arm for justice in the world, godly justice in the world. Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And what was striking to me is, there’s a room full of 500 pastors that are raising their hands, saying amen and hallelujah to these things. And I chronicle some of that in my book. So it’s no wonder that the people at the large events are saying amen and hallelujah because their pastors are discipling them to see this as good and righteous and orthodox and fidelity to scripture.

[00:52:47] Julie Roys: We mentioned this before, and I know this is your heart. Is that these are people that Jesus loves, and they are caught in, I think, a spirit of the age. And they believe it to their core. And so you talk about, don’t view these people as your enemy. They’re not your enemy, that we need to love them and view them really as a mission field. So talk about that perspective and why you believe that so passionately and how that should inform how we engage.

[00:53:20] Caleb Campbell: Yeah. Galatians6:1-2 If anyone’s caught up, you who are mature, seek to restore gently. So restoration is the key and recognizing that the clinging to American Christian nationalism is not something that they’ve logic to themselves into.

[00:53:37] Caleb Campbell: It’s not coming from the head. It’s coming from the heart. The needs of safety, belonging, and purpose, the feeling under imminent threat, the toxic anxiety, the rage, that’s all coming from the heart. And so my invitation to people is, Take on the posture of a missionary, not an enemy combatant, not a culture warrior.

[00:53:55] Caleb Campbell: Don’t go head-to-head arguing facts and opinions, but rather like a good missionary, study the culture, try to understand why they have the values they have, why they like the songs they like, the taboos they have, why that scares them, their dreams and hopes for the future. Try as best as you can, like a missionary, study the culture.

[00:54:15] Caleb Campbell: And then set the table of hospitality, because again, the problem does not exist in the head, but the heart, and the heart does not change when it feels under threat. I would notice, Jesus, everyone likes to cite Jesus flipping tables, which I like a good table flip, but depending on how you count, that’s one, possibly two times in the Gospels.

[00:54:35] Caleb Campbell: But notice how frequently Jesus set the table. Jesus ate his way through the Gospels, and he’s constantly inviting misfits to his table. In the Gospel of Mark, one of the first things he does is invite two fishermen to a tax collector’s house and says, follow me. And it’s at the space of hospitality, at the table where I feel I can let my guard down; I feel welcomed by this person. And so when they accept me for being me, an image bearer of God, my heart becomes more open to listening to what they have to say. This is why social media is not an excellent space to connect heart to heart, because you can’t communicate your welcome with me.

[00:55:17] Caleb Campbell: And so study the culture, set the table of hospitality, and then finally in that space of hospitality, if there’s an opportunity, engage in humble subversion. So to show the inconsistencies of their values. And so moving the conversation from head to heart could go something like this. Your cousin, Jimmy is yelling and screaming at the kid’s birthday party about the invasion or lizard people running the government.

[00:55:44] Caleb Campbell: And cousin Jimmy seems really anxious and ragey about this thing, but this is not the right context for that, right? We’re just trying to celebrate the 12-year old’s birthday party. So I might go over to Jimmy. Hey, Jimmy. Yeah. Can I talk to you for a minute? Man, some of this stuff that you’re saying sounds really important to talk about. Can we meet up next week for a coffee because I want to hear what you have to say.

[00:56:07] Caleb Campbell: So right there I’ve not agreed at all with Jimmy. I’m not saying that all sounds completely legitimate. I’m just noticing Jimmy is in a state of being that’s ragey and anxious and I want to invite him through setting the table of hospitality to share some of that feeling with me.

[00:56:26] Caleb Campbell: So we might go out to coffee. Hey, Jimmy, some of that stuff you were saying that sounds really scary. I’m not hearing those things, but you seem to, can you tell me more about that? And they might go on about lizard people running the government. They heard about it through a website or whatever.

[00:56:41] Caleb Campbell: And I might want to say, moving head to heart, Jimmy that sounds really scary when you hear that stuff. What are you feeling? Oh, I’m so scared right like that our government’s gonna fall apart that America’s gonna not be a country anymore, that evil people are doing evil things that are gonna destroy America and I’m scared for my kids That they’re not going to have a safe space that they’re going to be taught to hate their country.

[00:57:07] Caleb Campbell: Right there, I can connect on values. Jimmy, I love that you love your kids so much, and I hope you know I also love them, and I know you love my kids, and as we try to work as dads in this community, I just love that you love this so much, that you love them so much, and that you’re concerned so much about their safety and well-being. I honor that in you, so I’m gonna honor the good, and I’m trying to give statements that communicate, in the book I call them shibboleths, I’m trying to give statements that I’m not his enemy.

[00:57:41] Caleb Campbell: I might disagree with the thing he was yelling about, but at the core values I’m in lockstep with Jimmy and so I’m going to honor the good. I’m going to make statements like I’m also concerned about our government that communicate that I’m meeting Jimmy in that space. I’m going to avoid red flags like Jimmy, that sounds like fascism or, Jimmy, that’s insane. You sound insane right now. That’s just a red flag that communicates, I’m not a safe person to talk with. And then I might invite Jimmy to some humble subversion like this, Jimmy, I know that you’re trying to raise your kids to follow Jesus, I’m trying to do the same thing.

[00:58:16] Caleb Campbell: And I’ve been thinking a lot about what Jesus says that all the kingdoms of this world are shaken. That, I remember that time, Jimmy, when the disciples are asking Jesus about the temple and he says one stone won’t be on top of another, like their whole world could fall apart. But he keeps saying, Jesus keeps saying, while the world might fall apart and evil people are going to do evil things, that he would never leave us or forsake us.

[00:58:41] Caleb Campbell: And that’s why we could be a peaceful people, a compassionate people. And I feel a tension in my own heart, Jimmy, how do I show concern for my kids? How do I act in this world to create safe space for our community and follow the teaching of Jesus, which says, practice the way of peace and peacemaking because he’s never going to leave us.

[00:59:01] Caleb Campbell: What do you think? And what I’ve done is I’ve honored Jimmy by asking him to help me navigate a very real tension that I do feel. Now, I don’t agree about the lizard people thing, but I’ve got huge concerns I’m running around with, and I find it difficult to practice the way of Jesus. I might not give myself over to Christian nationalism, but there are many swords that I’m tempted to pick up.

[00:59:26] Caleb Campbell: And I’m trying to engage in humble subversion, not correcting Jimmy’s beliefs in his head, but reintroduce Jesus to the heart. And here’s why hospitality is so key. If in that conversation, we’re able to plant seeds that can grow into the fruit of repentance. Three weeks, three months, three years from now, when Jimmy is having a cup of coffee, thinking about Jesus and what it means to live in a broken society and peace and peacemaking.

[00:59:53] Caleb Campbell: And he says to himself, or he comes to the realization, I think maybe Jesus wants to transform this part of my heart. I think I’m thinking wrong about this. This is called what the Bible calls repentance, metanoia, having a complete mind-altering experience. And Jimmy starts to have that road to Damascus experience.

[01:00:10] Caleb Campbell: And then he says, Who can I talk to about this? Because I can’t go talk to my Christian Nationalist buddies, because if I ask the wrong questions, they’ll kick me out. My cousin Caleb, he was kind to me. He didn’t agree with me, but he was kind to me. He seemed to care for me, wanted to know what I thought.

[01:00:27] Caleb Campbell: I think I’ll give him a call. And if we can engage in that missionary model, of engagement, seeking to restore gently and we can have 100,000 kitchen table conversations for the next 10 years. We might begin to see systemic change in our communities.

[01:00:45] Julie Roys: I love that, and I have to say, as you’re speaking, what I’m noticing is that the kind of conversation, the way that you’re engaging, it shows that you’ve managed your anxiety because, and I’m telling you when I, and I will say when I am in those conversations, I’m thinking of some with family members that I deeply love and I hear some of this crazy come out of them and the amount of anxiety that causes for me, I’m like, cause I love you and you sound like a crazy person and you’re influencing people in this family that I love too.

[01:01:22] Julie Roys: This is insane. Do you hear yourself? This is the conversation going inside my head and the anxiety level in me, as I’m having these discussions, it is rising and rising and rising, and I’m realizing as you’re talking tell me how you do that. I’m realizing I need to really manage that well. I need to be filled with the fruit of the spirit because it is anxiety inducing for us. They are not the only ones that can go towards panic when they see some of this stuff. So how do you do that? Because that’s tough.

[01:01:54] Caleb Campbell: Julie, you have hit it right on the nose. 98 percent of this work is not in them. It’s in me. Galatians 6:1-2, bear one another’s burdens, but before that, it says, watch out for your own self that lest you to be tempted. If I meet anxiety with anxiety, if I meet rage with rage, I am only contributing to the chaos and disintegration. And so in order to be an agent of peacemaking and reconciliation, I first have to focus on me and my heart and my relationship with the Lord. I would just notice that in Jesus’ ministry, he was constantly going away to be with the Lord. He was frequently disappearing to pray and to commune with the Father. And I believe it’s because as a human, he was tempted towards anxiety.

[01:02:55] Caleb Campbell: And when I can recognize that all ground is equal at the foot of the cross, as grandma used to say, and that I am just as tempted to pick up the sword as my counterpart, their sword is different. Their swords is red, white and blue and smells like an apple pie. Mine’s different. I have a different sword, but I am also tempted to cling to the kingdoms of this world for power, safety, belonging and purpose.

[01:03:24] Caleb Campbell: In that space of recognition, confession, repentance, connection to the Lord, and then practical things. And I spent a whole chapter in the book talking about preparing our own hearts, engaging in the disciplines or the spiritual practices of commuting with the Lord, reflection, prayer, even fasting, corporate prayer.

[01:03:45] Caleb Campbell: One of the things I encourage people to do is if you’re going to go have a conversation with Cousin Jimmy, you call your homies and you say, would y’all pray with me for the next hour? Or on this day and at this time, because that’s when I’m gonna be with Jimmy and I think I’m gonna lose my mind if Jimmy does that lizard people thing, I’m going to need an extra helping an extra portion of God’s spirit because I’m weak.

[01:04:06] Caleb Campbell: And so even as I drive to meetings, even while I’m in the meeting, I am praying that the Lord would give me a sanctified imagination to see them for who Christ will make them into if they would disentangle from Leviathan and turn to him.

[01:04:24] Caleb Campbell: And so a hope filled imagination that there is no one too far gone. That the things that are coming out of their mouth are connected to deep feelings, which I also feel, and that the solution is not in my argument or my words or my clever reactions. The solution is to be like Jesus to them, so they might reach out to Jesus once again. To model and to practice the way of peace in such a way that it’s attractive to them to say, you know what, even when I’m yelling, Caleb is not. I’ve noticed that; wonder what’s going on in Caleb, why he’s not yelling? It’s that mission work, right?

[01:05:05] Julie Roys: My husband has a saying that people often won’t remember what you said, but they will remember how you made them feel. And I think that is just hitting the nail on the head. And we need to be ambassadors of Christ. And I think that’s exactly how Christ would be engaging. I think that’s exactly how Christ would approach this situation.

[01:05:37] Julie Roys: So again, so appreciate that in your book and you end the book on a hopeful note, because I think it’s very easy in the midst of this, to lose hope because this is what has been particularly hard, not with just with Christian nationalism, because as you said, this is one of many, of Leviathan’s things that he’s doing. But I think for a lot of us, we have seen so much disintegration and perversion of the church, which these were our people. This was supposed to be the light sitting on a hill. We’re supposed to be the salt of the earth. And we’re seeing just unbelievable amounts of compromise, of perversion, of twisting, there’s just so many things within the church that it’s easy to lose hope in the midst of this.

[01:06:21] Julie Roys: So where do you see hope and encourage our hearts because we need some encouragement today, not to just throw in the towel and move to some remote place and just hibernate for the rest of our lives.

[01:06:35] Caleb Campbell: Scriptures and church history is full of radical transformation stories. Underneath the call to repentance, Jesus shows up on the scene and his first sermon in Mark is repent and believe the good news of the kingdom. So repent, turn, right? Turn from your wicked ways. Turn back to Jesus. Turn back to God because the kingdom of God is here. Underneath that is the fundamental understanding that people can change.

[01:07:06] Caleb Campbell: And so there is no one existing today who is beyond the transformative power of the gospel. One of the most prolific biblical authors is a person named Paul who was murdering Christians and Jesus got ahold of him and said, why are you persecuting me? Turn to me. And he did. My own story is a story of turning, turning from one way to the other.

[01:07:32] Caleb Campbell: And so the other interesting thing about Paul is he was engaging in what he thought was fidelity to his faith. He was, in some senses, an ethnocentric religious terrorist. He was doing terror things to the church. And I see a lot of overlap with American Christian nationalists who think in earnestness that they are doing something that is faithful to the scriptures.

[01:08:06] Caleb Campbell: They have a religious zeal of it. The methods are not biblical. The means are not biblical, but they believe they’re trying to do a good thing. I think Paul is same way. And Paul had a radical conversion experience. And I hold out hope for my Christian nationalist neighbor that they also will have a Damascus road experience.

[01:08:28] Caleb Campbell: Here’s the interesting thing about the Damascus road experience. is when Saul has this conversion experience, he’s made blind. He’s in a weak state. And then Jesus calls some faithful follower, Barnabas, to go minister to Paul. And so there’s some of us who need to experience and be faithful in the repentance moment, and there are some of us being called to be caregivers to those who have recently experienced a repentance moment. But in both of those callings that the Lord placed on them you see the power of the spirit at work, reconciliation, forgiveness, repentance. And then you look through church history and for your listeners, I would just invite you look in your local church, look in your own life.

[01:09:18] Caleb Campbell: Has the Spirit of God been active in ways that you can point to and say, No I’m trusting my Christian nationalist neighbor into the care of a living God who is about the business of restoration.

[01:09:31] Julie Roys: That’s beautiful, Caleb, thank you. And thank you for reminding us of these core values and truths in Scripture, and yet it’s so easy to lose them in the crazy cultural moment that we’re in. But I so appreciate you and I’m looking forward to seeing you in Phoenix in just a few months. Again, thank you and God bless you and your ministry and bless the ministry of this book. I think it’s just so relevant and important.

[01:09:57] Caleb Campbell: Thank you so much, Julie. I appreciate it.

[01:10:02] Julie Roys: Thanks so much for listening to The Roy’s Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys, and if you’ve appreciated this podcast and want to support our work and get a copy of Caleb’s book, Disarming Leviathan, just go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. If you give $30 or more, we’ll send you a copy of Caleb’s book and you’ll be ensuring that podcasts like these continue.

[01:10:21] Julie Roys: As I’ve often said, we don’t have a lot of big donors or organizations supporting us. But what we have is you, the people who care about our mission of reporting the truth and restoring the church.

[01:10:42] Julie Roys: Also, just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roy’s Report on Apple 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.

[01:11:02] Julie Roys: Again, thanks so much for joining me today. Hope you were blessed and encouraged.

https://youtu.be/avV0ciCYqtg

Ten years ago, Sharon Clements’ world turned upside down. The pastor she trusted abused that trust and lured her into a sexual relationship. But when everything became public, her abuse was labeled an affair. And instead of receiving help, she received shame and rejection.

In this edition of The Roys Report, Sharon speaks out—not just about the abuse, but about her road to recovery.

The church where her abuse occurred—LexCity Church (formerly Quest Community Church) in Lexington, Kentucky—recently made headlines for another sex abuse scandal. And in the wake of that scandal, LexCity has closed.

It’s not often we see such a dramatic consequence to news like this. But then again, this is the second time LexCity has been rocked by scandal.

The first time was in 2014 when then-Pastor Pete Hise admitted to an “affair” with Sharon Clements. This not only rocked the church but led to years of confusion and pain for Sharon.

It wasn’t until about a year later that Sharon discovered what adult clergy sex abuse (ACSA) is. And suddenly, things began to make sense—and Sharon began to heal.

If you’re a victim of ACSA or another type of abuse, you’re going to really be encouraged by Sharon’s story.

Guests

Sharon Clements is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of The Way Home Ministries, a non-profit dedicated to helping people recover a life of thriving faith in the aftermath of spiritual abuse. She and her husband, Paul, live in Lexington, KY, along with their two golden retrievers, Sophie & Sadie Grace. Their adult children, Carolyne and Renner, live nearby, and family dinners together are one of their favorite nights of the week.

Show Transcript

[00:00:00] Julie Roys: Ten years ago, Sharon Clements’ world turned upside down. The pastor she trusted, abused that trust, and lured her into a sexual relationship. But when everything became public, her abuse was labeled an affair. And instead of receiving help, she received shame and rejection. Now she’s speaking out, not just about the abuse, but about her road to recovery.

[00:00:27] Julie Roys: Welcome to The Roy’s Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And about two weeks ago, I became aware of Sharon’s story. That’s because the church where her abuse occurred, LexCity Church in Lexington, Kentucky, made headlines for another scandal. This time, it wasn’t the senior pastor involved in sexual misconduct, but the executive pastor, Zachary King.

[00:00:53] Julie Roys: King is facing six charges related to the alleged rape and sodomy of a minor. And in the wake of the charges against King, LexCity has closed. It’s not often that we see such a dramatic consequence to news like this. But then again, this is the second time that this church has been rocked by scandal.

[00:01:11] Julie Roys: The first time was in 2014, when then pastor Pete Hise stepped down after publicly admitting to what was labeled an affair. But as you’ll hear in this podcast, that’s what often happens with Adult Clergy Sexual Abuse, or ACSA. And that’s one of the reasons ACSA is so devastating to its victims. But as you’ll hear, healing is possible.

[00:01:33] Julie Roys: So if you’re a victim of ACSA or another type of abuse, I think you’ll really be encouraged by Sharon’s story. But before we dive in, I want to thank the sponsors of this podcast, Talbot Seminary and Marquardt of Barrington.

[00:01:52] Julie Roys: Are you passionate about impacting the world so it reflects biblical ideals of justice? The Talbot School of Theology Doctor of Ministry program is launching a new track exploring the theological, social, and practical dimensions of biblical justice today. The program equips students with the knowledge, skills, and spiritual foundation needed to address social issues with wisdom and compassion.

[00:02:10] Julie Roys: Justice has become a key issue in our culture, but more importantly, it’s an issue that’s close to God’s heart. While it’s clear the Bible calls God’s people to pursue justice, we must be guided by His word within that pursuit. Talbot has created this track to do just that. As part of this program, you’ll examine issues such as trafficking, race, immigration, and poverty.

[00:02:32] Julie Roys: And I’ll be teaching a session as well, focusing on the right use of power in our churches so we can protect the vulnerable, rather than harm them. So join me in a community of like-minded scholars committed to social change and ethical leadership. Apply now at TALBOT.EDU/DMIN.

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[00:03:17] Julie Roys: Again, joining me is Sharon Clements and her husband, Paul. As I mentioned in the open, Sharon is a survivor of adult clergy sexual abuse. She’s also the co-founder of THE WAY HOME, a ministry helping people recover their faith in the wake of spiritual abuse. Prior to that, she was the director of programming and worship at Quest Community Church, which rebranded LexCity Church in 2018. And as I previously mentioned, LexCity Church recently ceased operations in the wake of a sexual scandal there involving its executive pastor, Zachary King. So Sharon and Paul, thank you so much for joining me and for your willingness to discuss what I know was a really difficult chapter in your life.

[00:03:59] Sharon Clements: Yeah. Thank you, Julie. It’s actually really an honor to be here. It’s not some of my favorite parts of my story, but it is beautiful what Jesus has done in our lives and the idea of getting to share it so that people find hope and get some light in a place in the church that is a little bit shady, a lot shady, but a little bit dark and shadowy. I’m really glad to get to do that

[00:04:27] Julie Roys: Again. Thank you for being willing to talk about your journey. And I really do want to emphasize and focus the healing part of your journey and the redemptive part. But to understand that we do need to get context of what happened there when you were at Quest Community Church and what happened with Pete Hise.

[00:04:48] Julie Roys: So I appreciate you being willing to discuss that. And I believe we need to back up to 1996. This is when you were at a Christian and Missionary Alliance church there in Lexington. And as I understand it, some really exciting stuff started to happen in the church’s ability to reach the community. So would you discuss what happened and what that was like?

[00:05:08] Sharon Clements: Yeah, we had been married about three or four years at that point, and the church decided to have a seeker service along the model of Willow Creek Community Church to try to make church accessible for people who had given up on church.

[00:05:29] Sharon Clements: It was a Saturday night service .We dove into helping with that. At first I wasn’t sure about doing that. I was a new mom at the time. But I gave it six months, said, let’s see how this works. And we started to be a part of it and, honestly, we just started seeing people come to Christ. We saw the Lord using our gifts and we were really excited about what we saw God doing there.

[00:05:54] Julie Roys: And so what was it about 1999, then, the church decided to plant a new church kind of based on this seeker model and what was happening there, and Pete Hise ended up being the pastor of that church. Describe the first year or two and how that went and how you felt about it as a couple.

[00:06:16] Sharon Clements: It’s like you read in the book of Acts where people just would hear and respond. It was that kind of a live place. Somewhat in my life, church had been sometimes tepid, and this was anything but it was exciting. We saw a life change families. It was really irresistible. And after about a year, I was invited to join the staff.

[00:06:41] Julie Roys: So you’re on staff as a director of worship and programming. Paul, were you involved as well, I’m guessing, at least in a volunteer capacity?

[00:06:49] Paul Clements: I remember the day that we walked around in a gymnasium in our original church, where we put butcher paper pieces up describing the different ministries that you could be a part of, music and drama and technical stuff. And I’m like, I can’t do any of that stuff. But there was one that was the recording ministry. At the time it was the tape ministry. I’m like, I can push record with the best of them. So I sat in the booth for that entire first few years with headphones and just pushing record and duplicating cassette tapes of the services. Now, my involvement over the years has increased from there, but that’s where I started.

[00:07:36] Julie Roys: And my understanding is that while all this exciting stuff is happening, there’s also a culture being formed that had some toxicity to it and had some red flags. Would you talk about that culture and how that laid the groundwork for what happened later?

[00:07:54] Sharon Clements: Like I said, it was kind of intoxicating to be around. And we were all in, but we were trying to do the work of Jesus, but we were gradually drifting away from the ways of Jesus. We were elevating our pastor. We thought if he preaches then people hear the good news and they’ll be drawn to Jesus.

[00:08:15] Sharon Clements: So like that scripture that says, if Jesus is lifted up, all men will be drawn to him. We inserted like, if our pastor is preaching about Jesus, then people will be drawn to him. Like it was, there was an elevation and that was something he encouraged. There was an orbit around him. We were measuring fruit by the numbers, and we were seeing some pretty vibrant growth.

[00:08:40] Sharon Clements: But if you had looked at the measure of the fruit of the spirit, we were not growing in that. In fact there was getting less and less gentleness, patience, kindness. As time went on this wasn’t overnight. It’s more like a frog that’s been put into a pot of water and then the water slowly starts heating.

[00:09:02] Sharon Clements: It was more that way. Over time scripture was manipulated. We were encouraged to follow with our whole hearts. We were there was so much pressure. The pressure, like I’ve never been a part of a church that so much wanted people to come to Jesus, which was good, but the pressure that was on our shoulders to be out there, making sure people heard as if that was on our shoulders, as opposed to something that the Lord does.

[00:09:33] Sharon Clements: Like that we get to come alongside him and partner with him in. The pressure to be winning your family, winning your neighborhood. It got distorted. It got distorted really fast. And there was relational connectedness that was like too much relational intimacies that were accelerated constructing a level of relationship that hadn’t really been forged.

[00:10:02] Sharon Clements: So it was like this all in mentality. And a few years in, we started a leadership program, leadership training program called Accelerate and accelerate is exactly what happened. It accelerated the things that were broken. It accelerated some good things too, I’m sure. But I remember in one of the very first gatherings, it was an exclusive group you would vie to get in, pay big money to be taught by our pastor, put in hours of coming to sessions, then re-listening to all of the teaching again. But in one of the first accelerates our pastor told us to turn off our filter. Don’t filter what he says. just receive it like full blown as if it is straight from the Holy Spirit. Let’s cut out the middleman and know it’s me. When I speak, you can believe it.

[00:11:21] Sharon Clements: And for some people that was the red flag that they needed. I wish I had been so smart. What hubris, to say that to anyone. And honestly, just, what foolishness that we did it. But it accelerated the toxicity. It accelerated the pressure. It accelerated the control. We still were seeing people come to Christ, but like the closer you were into the inner, like the inner circles of things, the more the pressure was affecting all of us.

[00:11:33] Julie Roys: Don’t feel bad because what you’re telling me is things that I’ve heard. And so many different survivors that I’ve talked to. And when you say the thing about, it’s all about Jesus, right? That was a line of Mark Driscoll’s. It’s all about Jesus. But practically, if we put me up on stage and there’s more of me, I’m going to attract everybody to the church.

[00:12:04] Julie Roys: So it was a subtle idolatry. And I think too, that loyalty it’s funny. I was talking to somebody recently and they’re like, you don’t see loyalty as a positive thing? And I’m like, no, that’s a really loaded word loyalty among abuse survivors because the loyalty isn’t to Jesus. It’s to a leader, and yet when it’s happening, we don’t realize that it got flipped. That the loyalty, in fact, our loyalty to the leader is sometimes asking us to be disloyal to Jesus, but we’re not seeing it in the moment because we have so equated that loyalty to the leader with Jesus. Yeah.

[00:12:52] Julie Roys: So in the midst of this, there begins a grooming process between Pete Hise and yourself. This is a word that’s familiar to an awful lot of survivors. But there may be some listening that aren’t familiar with the grooming process and especially when it relates, when we talk about grooming, too often people think about it as someone who’s 20 to 30 years older than you. And it can be that. And it can be an adult to a child, but it also can be from adult to adult. So explain how that grooming works and what it did to you personally.

[00:13:03] Sharon Clements: First of all the things we’re describing are a spiritually abusive environment. Spiritually abusive. And that showed up in lots of ways for different people in different ways.

[00:13:16] Sharon Clements: Anytime a pastor or leader uses their power to manipulate or intimidate or control, it’s spiritual abuse. And we saw that happening in lots and lots of ways. It showed up for some people with the inordinate pressure, some people with performance, some people, there was like shaming, some people were elevated, and other people were excluded. There was an inside and an outside, and it was so unlike the kingdom.

[00:13:38] Sharon Clements: But the way that showed up for me, like you said, it was adult clergy sexual abuse. You’ve talked about it plenty, but the idea that anytime there’s a sexual relationship between a pastor and a congregant or a staff member, there’s a power differential, which makes consent impossible to have consent.

[00:14:04] Sharon Clements: To have consent, there has to be equal power. And I know that you understand this, but that is something that I think the secular world understands pretty well. Between a boss and an employee, between a therapist and a client. But for some reason, the church lags behind in their understanding of a lack of what happens with a lack of consent. And when there’s no consent, it’s an abuse, it’s abuse of power and abuse of their position. And I just wanted to just get that kind of just make sure that’s clear. And that is what happened to me.

[00:14:49] Sharon Clements:  And you ask about grooming. A better question would be how didn’t he groom me? It was from the very beginning; it was late nights. It was choosing me to come alongside him, sharing confidences with me. Like small kind of inappropriate confidences that I didn’t realize that at the time, kind of testing the waters, I think. Reading me to spot my vulnerabilities.

[00:15:11] Sharon Clements: He said that God gave him really great eyes to see into people. And I think he really did use his eyes to look and see where I was weak and then played that, manipulated it, whether it was, from my own childhood. Wounds of wanting to be chosen or to belong or to be seen or have my voice matter. So he cashed in on that. To be honest, I don’t know what he knew of what he was doing, but that actually isn’t my job.

[00:15:38] Sharon Clements: I know my experiences that the things he saw were then used to draw me in. He would promote me, elevate me, which made me, of course, super flattering, met a deep need in some ways in my life. And I now understand that was love bombing, that it was pouring on all of this attention and praise and value. And it made me feel valued and important and chosen. But also made me feel indebted to him and loyal to him and increasingly isolated. The best way to put it for me is that the ground under my feet was slowly and incrementally eroded away. Like the very ground I was standing on was eroded away.

[00:16:30] Sharon Clements: He would tell me how overwhelmed he was, how I was the only one who really understood, how the weight was so heavy, and I was the only one who got it. And bottom line, I was absolutely trained, led, and groomed to be loyal to him with my life.

[00:16:46] Julie Roys: And there’s a certain amount of flattery when we hear things like that. I remember just being in ministry and every now and then, people would tell me that and I’d almost just want to stop him right there. And I often did and just said I hope I’m trustworthy. I hope you’re sharing this with me because I am trustworthy, but I also want you to know that I’m not a hundred percent trustworthy and there’s a lot of people out there that are just as trustworthy as me.

[00:17:09] Julie Roys: So I’m not the only one, because I think once that only one idea gets into your head, it messes with you, it messes with them and it’s just unhealthy.

[00:17:27] Julie Roys: Paul, I’m curious, while this is happening to your wife, are you recognizing any of these things happening or is it like, this is normal? This has become the new normal and you really can’t see it when you’re in it.

[00:17:33] Paul Clements: Yeah. It was definitely more a slow and steady normalizing of all the hours at the church. To me, it was represented as Sharon’s job. She’s in ministry and, oh, it’s especially it’s, ministry is difficult and requires a lot. And we’re in a church plant just trying to get started. So that’s even triple harder. The amount of time that she needed to spend working on church things, again, there was some bit of pushback in me in the first few years. And then by probably year three, it was like, just turned to resignation. Nothing I can say is going to change this

[00:18:14] Paul Clements:. And so it was just an acceptance of, she’s going to be at church a lot and I think I chose some of the things that I did as a volunteer, partially out of just a desire to be close to her and be a part of what she was doing. But the interpersonal things she’s describing. Yeah, I didn’t have viability to most of it.

[00:18:40] Julie Roys: Did you feel like at that time, like she was married to her job?

[00:18:45] Paul Clements: Definitely by the end I felt that way. I’m not sure that I felt that at the beginning as much as I did toward the end.

[00:18:53] Sharon Clements: Just so you know what this culture was like living a boundary-less life was lauded. Pulling an all-nighter. Giving and living beyond our means, sacrificing time with our families and our kids, the practice of making the impossible happen. Because with God, all things are possible. So it should be all things should be possible for us too. That’s what true devotion looked like. That’s what it was lauded as. This is what a true follower of Jesus looks like.

[00:19:20] Sharon Clements: So that was called out more, expected more. And my sister Connie, who was a part of this community as well she calls it the creep, like it’s just slowly more is expected, slowly the hours get later. It’ll just be for a season until it’s not. It’s just kept on and kept on.

[00:19:48] Julie Roys: And I get that because I went to Willow Creek Community Church when I was in my twenties. And one of the things I loved about it was that we were fully devoted followers. And there’s a part of me, I’ve never been like halfhearted about anything I’ve ever done. Like I’m a hundred percent about things. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned that healthy means you have boundaries and the family; you draw boundaries around your family and around that time. But at the time I thought that was really, that’s what we’re called to be, right? We’re supposed to take up our cross and follow Christ.

[00:20:23] Julie Roys: But again, it wasn’t about following Christ per se. It could often get mixed up with ministry and ministry almost becoming an idol. So I totally get what you’re talking about. And I come from a missionary family too. There was an element of that in the family I grew up in where talking about personal things or about problems and things like that, you just didn’t do that because ministry was important.

[00:20:45] Julie Roys: God was important. Spiritual things were important. And we miss the people that it’s all about people, right? And it’s about being healthy and being in relationship with Jesus and with others. Again, I think there’s probably a lot of people listening who can relate to what you’re talking about.

[00:21:02] Julie Roys: And then for you, it crossed over that physical boundary from this emotional relationship with Pete to a physical one. And we don’t need to hear details about that, but I am wondering for the person who’s listening who just doesn’t get like adult clergy sexual abuse, how does that work for someone?

[00:21:25] Julie Roys: You’re obviously an adult and I know that I’m going to get asked this because every single time we do a podcast about adult clergy sexual abuse, people bring it up and they’re like, okay, how can this happen to an adult? If it’s abuse is this just a way of absolving them of responsibility? Address that issue because I know there are people listening right now that this is going to be the issue for them. And I would love for you to speak to that.

[00:21:52] Sharon Clements: Yeah, I had come into ministry with a heart for Jesus and a strong moral compass, but I have rigid boundaries. And part of what my pastor did was he led me into a deeper understanding of grace with looser, more gracious boundaries, which I had felt like was a good thing.

[00:22:15] Sharon Clements: Like I was understanding grace in a way. And so when he began to incrementally draw me into questionable territory, crash joking. physical affection, increasing relational intimacy, I was uncomfortable with that, but it was in the same vein of wider, looser boundaries that I had resisted originally.

[00:22:39] Sharon Clements: And he has led me to override what had seemed right to me and follow what he said was right. Like he said, you need to trust the way that I’m leading you because you’ve gotten this wrong. And so my practice of trusting his read over my own was well established. One of the verses that we memorized in Accelerate was in Hebrews chapter 13 verse 17.

[00:23:04] Sharon Clements: It says, obey your spiritual leaders and do what they say. And we memorized that like in a, you need to trust and follow your leaders because they will lead you to the right place. And when I said I was all in, I believed that, but we didn’t memorize Ezekiel 34 that talks about shepherds who feed on the sheep, the shepherds who harass and who harm. We didn’t memorize those things.

[00:23:36] Sharon Clements: We didn’t have the counsel of scripture to balance all that out. I was coerced to take incremental step by incremental step over a very long period of time. This was the frog in the pot of water. And honestly, like I was super naive. I didn’t have much experience in any way sexually before we got married.

[00:24:01] Sharon Clements: There was like, I was so naive. So when he would urge me to take a little tiny baby step that I was uncomfortable with, he would just say, oh no, you’ve just misunderstood that. No, he would say, you’re so naive. This is no big deal.

[00:24:21] Sharon Clements: And so it wasn’t in those moments. It was years earlier where I had been taught to override, override, override. That became like a way of living. And this was somebody who was supposed to point me to Jesus. This is somebody that was ordained to say, this man will point you into a life of following God.

[00:24:45] Sharon Clements: And my loyalty was played. My trust was abused. It was deep soul and moral injury that warps your moral compass. And it was it was dark. Julie, it was dark. Like the path that it was on, I was following somebody who was helping so many people come to Christ and that we were all in together and these subtle little steps.

[00:25:14] Sharon Clements: It did not happen overnight. It’s such a heartbreak that it happened at all. It’s such a heartbreak that it did. In the process of that I thought we were the same. Like I thought he was as heartbroken over all of it as I was, as desperate to get help as I was. And I don’t think that now. I don’t.

[00:25:41] Sharon Clements: I asked him, and I asked him, who could we go to, to get help? I thought we kept making a mistake. I blessed the Lord Jesus that we never slept together, but there were a lot of lines that were crossed. And when I asked who we could go to, he said that no one could know. We could handle it, that no one could know that it would bring the church down.

[00:26:04] Sharon Clements: The message was clear, that secrecy was loyalty, and silence was honor. And to speak up would mean exposure, and exposure would mean shattering a movement of God like we had never seen like this. And it was, like, so much pressure, and so much secrecy. Like I was so trapped. So trapped.

[00:26:35] Sharon Clements: And I don’t know who’s listening who may have found themselves in a similar spot but let me say this: God would never, never ask you to live in shadows or secrecy or shame to protect his reputation or his kingdom or his name. Never.

[00:26:47] Julie Roys: I’m so so sorry. And I think you have described that in such a vivid way. It all makes sense. And I’m just so sorry that happened to you. And I think I’m even extra grieved that when this finally came out, it came out as an affair.

[00:27:08] Julie Roys: And so instead of you receiving help, you received condemnation, you received shame, and you probably already felt that in spades. I can imagine. So describe what that was like when that came out, and you’re I’m guessing both of you just had a great deal of confusion about what was going on. What was that experience like?

[00:27:37] Sharon Clements: I was just so I was so trapped. I was begging Jesus to rescue me, and I was actually praying that he would rescue us. Again, I thought we needed rescue. I didn’t understand I needed rescuing. And the Lord answered that prayer.

[00:27:58] Sharon Clements: I have a friend who had the courage to ask me something felt suspicious to her. And she had the courage to ask me about it. And I said, Oh no, everything’s fine. But I immediately texted my pastor and said, I want to tell her. I want to tell her what’s going on. And he said, she can never know.

[00:28:22] Sharon Clements: And so my friend, she had the courage to ask me again. The Lord woke her up and had her ask me again. And it led to just so much heartbreak. It was shattering. When you say how it all came out, it was shattering, but I hold her in high regard for being somebody who could be a part of our rescue.

[00:28:50] Sharon Clements: It was so shattering, Julie. Like you said, nobody understood. It was reported as an emotional affair that had crossed physical lines. And I was like, that doesn’t seem right. Like those weren’t the right words, but also I was so confused. And the church had no idea what had happened to me.

[00:29:12] Sharon Clements: I had no idea what had happened to me. So I have compassion for that. But that’s why we need people to understand what this is. We need people to understand so that they can come in and help leaders. They were walking around, and they were devastated. When I said we were all in, we were all in. And so something like this, like just shatters your hearts.

[00:29:35] Sharon Clements: It shattered their hearts, and they were having to lead. through their own heartbreak. It’s like when a tornado hits a town, they call in the National Guard to come help because the first responders in the town, their own house may have been lost. They may have lost a child. Their family may be at harm’s way.

[00:29:54] Sharon Clements: So you bring outside people to come and help because it is so devastating. But because they didn’t understand, I was shunned. People were told not to talk to me. And I felt utterly alone. It was so devastating.

[00:30:14] Julie Roys: Wow. You lost your church, your family in one day. Boy, everything you describe, I just can’t even imagine because I’ve been in systems like that but not had it ripped apart so dramatically in one day like it did for you. And so I’m just putting myself in that situation and just know that would have been absolutely devastating.

[00:30:44] Julie Roys: Paul, let me ask you, how did you process this? Your wife, who you know to be a godly woman, I’m guessing never expected anything like this to ever happen. How did you process what you heard?

[00:30:56] Paul Clements: And there was a very surreal mixture of grief and sadness, and shock, but also again, relief. I just had something deep inside me that knew that, as painful as this is,  this is a good thing that she’s has gotten out of whatever this was.

[00:31:22] Paul Clements:  And we went through the journey, the process of understanding what it was and being able to have the right terminology for it together. So she would begin to understand things. She would point me to, Hey, read this or so it was we walked that journey of understanding together.

[00:31:43] Julie Roys: How did you become aware, Sharon, that what had happened to you wasn’t just an affair, that this was abuse?

[00:31:50] Sharon Clements: I was reading anything I could read to try to make sense of what had happened. I read Boundaries so much, over, and over out loud. I would gather my children around and say, okay, next chapter. Like Boundaries had been a hated book in our culture; like it felt anti Acts 2, and now we were like, again, we must read it.

[00:32:14] Sharon Clements: That was bringing a life that was helping bring some clarity. I knew I loved Paul, so I was so confused by all the things that had happened. And I told you that my sister Connie was a part of this community as well. And she lost everything, of course, in the middle of this, too.

[00:32:33] Sharon Clements: She was torn. She was her sister is on one side and the community is on the other. And that was just such a ripping experience for her and her family. We live in different states now, but we were getting to heal together on some levels. And at some point Connie said maybe you need to talk to somebody who’s been through what you’ve been through.

[00:32:56] Sharon Clements: And I said, who in the world has been through what I’ve been through? Is there anyone who has been through what I’ve been through? I had no understanding that there could be anybody else. And she had found the website called The Hope of Survivors, which outlines and explains adult clergy sexual abuse. It starts to diagnose it a little bit.

[00:33:22] Sharon Clements: So I went to that site. I have the date that I went to the site on my calendar, like with a big heart on it because it was like light starting to pierce through the darkness. I was reading like you may have heard your pastor say this. He may have said, done this to you. He may have set you up in this way.

[00:33:42] Sharon Clements: And as I was reading it, I was like, this is like a playbook. Like, how would they know that he said that to me? How would they know? But I’m still like super conflicted. I did not want people to think I was just trying to get out of the blame. Like I was sticking my landing at the cross. Like I was like, nope, this is me.

[00:34:06] Sharon Clements: It was a real wrestling match to figure that out, to wrestle with the idea that I had been abused because I certainly did not want to have been abused. And one beautiful thing that we read was on The Hope of Survivors website, they have a letter to husbands. It just says, so your wife may have told you some really hard news.

[00:34:34] Sharon Clements: And it was like a letter to try to help husbands understand that while your wife may not know what she’s gone through, this is an abusive situation. Try to have compassion for her, try to have mercy. Like it was coaching husbands in how to tend their wife and I read it and I like took it to Paul and I just said, read this because it was like the Lord had given Paul all that understanding, like everything they were trying to help a husband understand. It was like the Holy Spirit had given Paul that understanding from the first moment that I told him what had happened. And he just had tended to me with such kindness and compassion, like as if like he didn’t have the knowledge in his head, this is an abuse of power. My wife has been abused, but it was like the way he responded to me was with that kind of kindness.

[00:35:34] Sharon Clements: And I remember, I was sitting in a tzatziki’s restaurant really wrestling with the Lord about this idea of saying, was I abused? And I didn’t want that. It was a sad thought. It’s such cognitive dissonance to consider the idea that your pastor who is supposed to want good for you has done something destructive to you.

[00:36:02] Sharon Clements: But I remember it was like the Lord just got right down there with me. And it was like he said, will you just have an allegiance to the truth. We have an allegiance to the truth. And I was like, but what are people going to think? Are they thinking I’m trying to get out of it? Are they, what will he think, my loyalties?

[00:36:26] Sharon Clements: And it was like, the Lord just took my face in his hands so to speak, and just said, can you have an allegiance to me? Can you have an allegiance to the truth? And I was like that I can do. That I can do. And I surrendered to that loving voice and it was like I hit solid ground under my feet.

[00:36:48] Julie Roys: And what a wonderful thing that you responded so graciously, Paul. I’ve heard from some spouses that got very angry, which is understandable, very hurt, reactive. Those are all understandable, and I have had to work through those, but how beautiful that, it seems like on an intuitive level, you understood.

[00:37:09] Paul Clements: I think so.

[00:37:13] Sharon Clements: Yeah. Julie I can just say somewhere along this time when the Lord was starting to turn the lights on, it was like I remember being with him one day and again, it felt like he just whispered to my heart just said, do you want to see how I see all this? Would you like to know how I see all this?

[00:37:32] Sharon Clements: And I was like, with my journal pen in hand going, yes please tell me what is it you want to say? Yes, I want to know how you see this. Because it was such devastation for us and so many people. And the Lord said, at least my sense of what he said to me was, this is the day I rescued you.

[00:37:52] Sharon Clements: It was our rescue. He came in and he snatched me out of such harm’s way, like saved my life, saved my marriage, saved my family. And that’s how we refer to it. That’s how we’ve referred to it ever since. In fact, at the one-year anniversary of the rescue, Paul took our family away and just said, let’s celebrate that we made it, that God saw us through and that he has rescued us. And receiving that change, it turned the worst day into the best day, a little Good Friday-ish. It’s the worst day, but we call it good. He took a day of painful exposure and called it good. He called it rescue. And that is a treasure to my life.

[00:38:51] Julie Roys: And that is a spiritual principle. The truth will set you free that confessing our sins, bringing it all out into the open is when we begin healing. And I’m just thinking, as you’ve been talking, I wonder how many people, one who are listening, who this could be prevention for them. You can see you’re being led down this road and you can see that your church has these dynamics and get out to see the truth now rather than going through this.

[00:39:28] Julie Roys: But also, I’m thinking of when I interviewed Katie Roberts, this was a few years ago a podcast, great podcast, by the way. I encourage people to go back to listen to that one. That was one of the most instructive ones that I’ve done on adult clergy sexual abuse. And Katie said, until I understood it as abuse, there’s no way you could say that she was trying to get out of responsibility for it because she had confessed, and this is all my fault.

[00:39:47] Julie Roys: And she was there. But the problem was nothing made sense. Nothing made sense. And it was when you understand the abuse that it was like, Oh, now it’s starting to make sense. And now I can continue on this path of healing or really start on that path of healing.

[00:40:10] Julie Roys: But one of the hardest things seems to be church people. Because again, this is just something we don’t have understanding for. And it is odd because you’re right. And in many professions, if you’re a doctor and you have a sexual relationship with your patient, we get, that’s really inappropriate. If you’re a counselor, who experiences this trust that you can share all this intimate stuff with someone, they’re going to help you. And you use that as a context to then get into a sexual relationship. We get that’s abuse, but for some reason, a pastor? The trust level for a pastor. I think back now for me, there’s a lot of skepticism about all of that. And a lot of red flags would go up, I think back when I was younger, How I would have viewed that relationship and there’s so much trust.

[00:40:55] Julie Roys: And yet we just don’t see how this is abuse and it needs to change. And what are there like 13 states, is it, where it’s now a crime for a clergy person to have: 14? Oh, praise the Lord. We got another one. So there’s 14 states, but that means we have an awful lot, a lot more that, that don’t get it.  Where it’s not illegal and it needs to be, and it needs to be really brought out in the open. But when you took this to your church leaders, and you tried to help them understand, what was their response to you and to your description of this as abuse?

[00:41:34] Sharon Clements: I sat down with several elders and did my best to describe and help them understand the framework that we had come to understand. I think that’s what Katie called it. Just a framework where it all makes sense, the principles of consent, the principles of abuse. And they listened, they seemed to listen with compassion to what I’d been through.

[00:42:05] Sharon Clements: But when I asked that they tell; I didn’t even ask them to tell the whole church. I just said, there’s these leaders, there’s 20 or so leaders, would you please help them understand? Because the truth will set them free. It helps, it will help all of us. And they chose not to do that. They refused and said they didn’t want to open up the wound for everyone again, and I  have compassion for that. There’s a problem when we don’t right name though. I get the draw to softening things up so that you don’t drag everyone through the ordeal. In their perspective, I think, it had been about a year. So maybe everybody was healing up and so let’s not reopen it with more information.

[00:42:44] Sharon Clements: But it’s like going to a doctor and he does tests and finds out that you have cancer, but he doesn’t want to make you feel bad. So he doesn’t tell you that you have cancer. So we treat something else. And meanwhile, the cancer is eating away at you. And it would be malpractice, a reason to lose your license as a doctor if you did that

Sharon Clements: And, Julie, I just think church leaders have to understand these dynamics like a doctor goes to med school to understand how to diagnose things, church leaders need to understand so that they can rightly name. My friend Jackie, who’s a partner at The Way Home, the ministry that we started, wrote an article about right naming and she put it really well. When we don’t rightly name something, we’re not protecting the victim or the church or the community or the spiritual leader.

[00:43:35] Sharon Clements: Like no one is getting protected. In fact, everyone is getting exponential harm. Like the victim is getting wrongfully blamed, like you said. Adding trauma to trauma. The church is unable to heal from the infection that’s there because unrepentant sin is continuing to spread. The community is unable to trust another institution who’s choosing the abuser over the victim.

[00:43:59] Sharon Clements: And a spiritual leader is actually unlikely to come clean themselves because they’re being protected from the very light that could propel them toward truly owning and repenting of their sin. I get the draw.  It is such cognitive dissonance for somebody to believe that their leader could do something like this.

[00:44:19] Sharon Clements: Nobody wants to believe a pastor could do it. Nobody wants to, but if you’re in the seat of leadership in a church, you’ve just got to be willing to tell the truth. And I think that’s something that’s missing. Again, I think, 10 years ago, it was a lot less known. But I think it’s had consequences that the church wasn’t told.

[00:44:41] Julie Roys: It’s really unfortunate that seminaries don’t teach about this. I know some are starting to, but that should be part of the regular curriculum, to understand adult clergy sexual abuse, to understand the power that you wield as a pastor, to understand the vulnerability of the people that are under you, because that’s really a weighty thing to be in that position. I think that’s why Jesus said if you lead one of these little ones astray, it’d be better to be drowned in the deepest sea and have a millstone hung around your neck. Jesus speaks very, very bold language to people who lead vulnerable ones astray. And we’re not doing a service to our pastors to not inform them about this.

[00:45:23] Julie Roys: And Pete Hise is pastoring a church again. And to your knowledge, are you aware that he has owned any of this or repented of what he did?

[00:45:37] Paul Clements: Big shrug. We just don’t know.

[00:45:39] Sharon Clements: Not that we know of. We don’t know.

[00:45:42] Paul Clements: So he did go through a two-year restoration plan with our denomination. His ordination was revoked when he was exposed and fired. And in order to regain his credentials, you would need to go through this process. And he did. He agreed to do it. And at the end of the process, the denomination said, no, we’re not going to restore your credentials.

[00:46:13] Julie Roys: This was Christian and Missionary Alliance Church, correct?

Sharon Clements: Yes. I was encouraged by that.

[00:46:16] Paul Clements: Yes. Props to them for recognizing. And what we were told was that he just didn’t seem to get it. The leadership abuse in particular. He just didn’t seem to understand or acknowledge and lack of humility. Again, from there, it was just a matter, I think, of a months or a year later, the church he had been attending here in town brought him on staff as a pastor, and that lasted about a year and then he’s moved away. But yeah, continuing to be a pastor in non-denominational churches where there’s no outside accountability structure.

[00:46:59] Julie Roys: Props to the Christian and Missionary Alliance. They were also the church that didn’t handle so well the adult clergy sexual abuse that that Lori Anne Thompson experienced with Ravi Zacharias. And they were really, really slow on that. And again, denominational leaders really need to get up to speed on this because they are deciding some of these cases and they have no clue what they’re doing. But good to hear that they particularly caught Pete and understood in this case. That’s fantastic.

[00:47:21] Julie Roys: In the wake of all of this, you started as we’ve mentioned this ministry called The Way Home and really ministering to people who have been victims of spiritual abuse. There are so few organizations like this really ministering healing. I know it’s one of the reasons we started our RESTORE conference, for example, was I saw all of these church refugees, people have been harmed and not receiving care. Not receiving that community that you need, because I think you really, you heal from trauma in community. So I’m so thrilled you started this.

[00:48:09] Julie Roys: Talk about how this ministry has brought healing for the people that you’ve ministered to. And I’m guessing that, they say healing, what is it like an onion there’s layers and layers, and I’m guessing that as you’ve ministered to others, it’s ministered to you, and you’ve gone deeper with your own healing. But describe this ministry and how it’s ministered to others, but to you as well.

[00:48:27] Sharon Clements: We haven’t just been rescued for us, but we have been rescued so that we can put up road signs and guideposts for people so that they also can find their way home. And so that has been our prayer and our journey. We’re a nonprofit that’s been going for about a year and a half and, our heart is to help people recover a thriving faith in the aftermath of spiritual abuse.

[00:48:58] Sharon Clements: Because we’ve zoned in today about adult clergy sexual abuse, but that’s just one branch. It’s a big one, but it’s a branch of spiritual abuse in general. And so many people they risked on the church. They maybe came to Christ in a community that then had this dynamic at play. And so their spiritual lives have gone reeling.

[00:49:26] Sharon Clements: Like, Who do I trust? Was any of this for real? Is God who he says he is? Is God gonna use his power against me? Like it brings up so much chaos in your heart. And we’re working on small group curriculum of how to like a church can recover. That will be out this fall. Like we’re wanting to provide care, but also training. We’ve been able to actually work with some denominational leaders who actually do want to understand, who brought us in to do some training on this.

[00:49:48] Sharon Clements: It is both so disheartening that abuse is out there. We often say we wish we didn’t have to exist, but getting to talk to a woman, who has walked the path that I’ve walked and help her, help the light come on for her the way that The Hope of Survivors did for me to help them see what actually has happened here, because it’s just what you just said, the truth will set us free.

[00:50:27] Sharon Clements: I’ve got a fantastic group of partners, my sister I told you about, she’s the co-founder and we do this together and it’s been a beautiful journey.

[00:50:38] Julie Roys: Something that I think speaks to your integrity and really your commitment to do the right thing and to bring healing is the fact that you actually went back and tried to make amends with an awful lot of people that you realized had been harmed by one, you being a part of this toxic system. But by everything that happened. Could you describe what you did? I think this is just beautiful. And it does speak to the kind of person you are and also I think this is the Christian way, right? Is to seek that kind of reconciliation and healing after people have been so harmed. So would you talk about that?

[00:51:21] Sharon Clements: As I was being groomed and all the things that were happening to me, I was perpetuating the system as well. And that when I started to understand that it just broke my heart. And about a year and a half after the rescue I had been meeting with a woman. We were walking through the 12 steps of recovery, we have been doing a lot of work just for my own healing, my own soul healing after all this. And we came to steps eight and nine, which talks about making a list of people you have harmed.

[00:51:55] Sharon Clements: And I knew that it wasn’t like, I understood that the abuse that had happened to me wasn’t, that wasn’t my fault. That was somebody else, but the part that I had played, that there was still a lot of wounds from that. And so I made a list, and it was long. I started and then I started adding and then I started adding and I was like and these people, and it got really overwhelming. Just the thought of how many people had been wounded.

[00:52:26] Sharon Clements: And I remember talking to my sister about it. I just said, it’s too much. It’s just too much. And she had a good word for me. She just said, it’s a lot, but it’s finite. Like it isn’t never ending, it’s finite and there was something about that just helped me go, okay, I can go for it.

[00:52:52] Sharon Clements: And so I sat down and met with person after person, sometimes a couple lunch hours. A couple people in the evening, there was about a three- or four-month period where Paul and I, Paul was with me for almost every single one of them, just as he has been with me through all of this from day one.

[00:53:13] Sharon Clements: We just would say, who’s next? And we worked with the elders of the church to  help that be smooth. There were some Saturdays I would sit at a booth in Panera, and it would be like somebody would be there for 30 minutes and then it would be like next. And then the next people would come and next and just personally apologize.

[00:53:37] Sharon Clements: Just get to tell them what I had understood of the part I had played. I couldn’t apologize for what wasn’t mine, but what was mine I could and asked to hear how it had hurt them to bear witness with their grief and what church hurt is, it’s just so damaging and so just to have somebody just bear witness and say, they’re actually sorry And ask if there was any way I could make amends, or if they would forgive me and not a demand of forgiveness, but just tell them that I hoped that they would.

[00:54:14] Sharon Clements: And overwhelmingly people forgave, and I think it was a really healing thing. It’s some of the most holy work I’ve ever been a part of. I know what it felt like for me when somebody sat across the table to bear witness with what I had walked through. Not my abuser, but somebody else, who validated what my experience had been.

[00:54:38] Sharon Clements: And I just wanted to meet and apologize for my part. And it was hundreds of people, like over 300 people, I think at this point that, and honestly, now if I’m walking down the street and the Lord just stirs I’ll see somebody I haven’t seen in a bunch of years. I’ll just go, Hey I’ll pause and just tell them I’m sorry.

[00:55:01] Sharon Clements:  When a grenade goes off in a church, it’s like in battle, you can be dismembered, like a body can have an arm or a leg blown off. And in the body of Christ, it’s like there was just a battlefield that was strewn with parts of the body that were just bleeding out and have friends who are partners in this ministry who use the phrase that the Lord is re-membering us. Like he is knitting us all back together again. And that work was a lot of the work of re-membering the body of Christ. Just helping people maybe find some degree of peace because they could have somebody who said they were sorry. And I’m so grateful that I had the chance to do it. It made me nervous. It was super vulnerable, but it was holy work and I’m really grateful I got to do it.

[00:56:08] Paul Clements: One of the bravest things that I’ve ever witnessed. All of these people were contacted by the elders of the church and given the opportunity, here’s what Sharon would like to meet with you, but it was completely their choice to say yes, they want to do it.

[00:56:31] Paul Clements: And if they wanted an elder to be present in the conversation that was provided. It was all done with such humility and respect to people. And about a month in, people started coming in and going, we’ve heard about this. We’ve heard about what you’re doing and we’ve really, we’re just eager to be it’s like eager to be a part of it.

[00:56:52] Paul Clements: So it was a beautiful, just behind the scenes kind of thing, but it was so healing. And again, we’re not all in the same church anymore, but so much repair was done just through the spirit of humility and saying, help, here’s what I understand. Help me understand how did I wrong you? How did I hurt you? And what can I do to make it right? That was just beautiful.

[00:57:24] Sharon Clements: I have one girl in my mind right now who, she was like on the edge of her seat, eager to forgive me. Like she was just like, just say the words, just go ahead and say your apology. Cause I’m ready to, she was so eager. For some people it was more of a process, and I hugely respect that journey.

[00:57:41] Sharon Clements: I’m so pro forgiveness. Because of the healing work, Jesus says, Father, forgive them. They know not what they do. Like he is the author of our forgiveness. He shows us the way. But that is honest, thorough work that truly is done. I think it matters in the healing and it has mattered for the rebuilding of relationship. That has opened the door to reconciliation. That’s opened the door to restoration and the body of Christ being able to actually heal, at least in this little pocket of the world. It was beautiful, not very pretty, but it was beautiful

[00:58:33] Julie Roys: before you go. I would love for you. and Paul because there are people listening, I’m sure not just women, but their spouses. And men can be victims of clergy sexual abuse as well, can be victims of spiritual abuse. I know so many. And I think the thing that’s really difficult is hanging on to hope because despair is right there knocking at the door, and it is so easy to give into and to not choose hope.

[00:59:01] Julie Roys: So would you speak to that person and what they’re going through and just some encouragement for them.

[00:59:07] Sharon Clements: If you are finding yourself stuck, maybe you’re part of a church and, Wade Mullins language, something’s just not right. Ask questions. Don’t be afraid that you need to keep everything nice and even. If you’re volunteering a lot and you feel uncomfortable telling somebody how many hours you’ve put in at the church because they just wouldn’t understand, then it’s that’s just a good red flag to say, why would I want to be keeping this kind of under wraps? But I just encourage you to ask questions. Don’t be afraid. We don’t need to be afraid of messing up the kingdom. God has got it. He is so faithful, and it is him. You don’t need to be afraid of that.

[00:59:56] Sharon Clements: But if you’re a woman who is trapped, like I was trapped, you’re probably super confused. But you’re also probably really afraid. And I just want to tell you that you’re really loved. You’re dearly loved by your heavenly Father, and he sees you and he does not need your secrecy or your shame or your silence for his kingdom to advance.

[01:00:24] Sharon Clements: Like he wants you free, daughter or son. He wants you free. And here’s a question I would ask if I were you. Is this how Jesus would be treating me? Is this how Jesus would treat me? Not making that thought up, but literally you can just go read the pages of the Gospels and see how he treated the vulnerable, those who were on the outside, those who were afraid; he lifted, loved, and blessed them with dignity.

[01:00:57] Sharon Clements: He never used, he never abused. And I just want to tell you, you’re invaluable to God’s heart and we are proof that there’s hope on the other side. It was a painful rescue, but it was merciful. It was like severe mercy that God led us through and brought us to a place now where we’re on solid ground, where we’re free, where there’s no secrets, where we have each other back, where our family is like really thriving and our kids were spared so much. They walked through a lot, but the Lord has been generous in their healing and I just I come back to Psalm 40 all the time when we’re slipping and sliding in the mud and the mire, God hears our cry, and he picks us up and puts us on solid ground and will give us a new song to sing.

[01:01:53] Sharon Clements: And I don’t think that’s just for me. I think that’s for you. There is hope on the other side of this. It may seem like; how could you ever walk through it? But there’s hope, and if you need to tell somebody what’s going on, reach out to us because we would be glad to walk you through this,

[01:02:11] Julie Roys: Paul, anything you want to add to that?

[01:02:13] Paul Clements: Just this really is a story of Jesus’s rescue and redemption. If you’re at a church where your pastor doesn’t have a humble heart, whether that means it’s too big and you can’t get to them, or when you do have an interaction especially if you’re a volunteer or a leader and you have an interaction where there’s some kind of question that you’re bringing, If that’s not met with humility and a desire to understand and respect what you have to say, if someone turns it around back on you and says, oh, I think the problem is you have a critical spirit or maybe you should ask why you’re asking these questions.

[01:02:51] Paul Clements: That was so many people we talked to. I was like, that was such a common experience. And it’s just so sad and manipulative and damaging to people. So I would just say, get out of there if that’s not the spirit of the community you’re in, the leaders that you have. It’s not safe.

[01:03:13] Julie Roys: Thank you to both of you. It’s been really just a pleasure to speak with you and thank you for sharing so vulnerably and for the ministry that you’re doing. That is just beautiful. So thank you for being part of the solution and for getting this message out. I appreciate it.

[01:03:30] Sharon Clements: Thank you, Julie. Thanks for letting us share. And thank you for being a light. Light really matters. And you’re so courageous to bring light and to turn the lights on places that are not always very comfortable. And it’s really beautiful, the work that you do. We’re grateful for you.

[01:03:50] Julie Roys: Thank you. And thanks so much for listening to The Roy’s 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 donating to The Roy’s Report to support our podcasts and ongoing investigative work? As I’ve often said, we don’t have advertisers or many large donors. We mainly have you. The people who care about our mission of reporting the truth and restoring the church.

[01:04:17] Julie Roys: So if you’d like to help us out, just go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. Also just a quick reminder to subscribe to the Roy’s report on Apple 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.

[01:04:49] Julie Roys: Again, thanks so much for joining me today. Hope you were blessed and encouraged.

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https://youtu.be/w2rB6NZogbg

The American church is in crisis. After numerous scandals, distrust of the church is at an all-time high. Young people raised in the church are leaving at an alarming rate. And, in a society where loneliness and spiritual hunger are rampant, people are turning elsewhere for help.

In this edition of The Roys Report, host Julie Roys welcomes Skye Jethani for a wide-ranging discussion on the crisis in the American church.

Skye, a former editor at Christianity Today and former pastor, has for years co-hosted The Holy Post, a popular podcast. Recently, Skye wrote the provocatively titled book, What If Jesus Was Serious About the Church? In it, he looks at what the Bible really says about the church, then compares that with some of the prevailing beliefs and values popular in the church today.

For example, the church is commonly referred to in Scripture as a family—but in modern America, it's become a corporation. In its pursuit of expansion, influence, and power, the church has sadly lost the essential Christian virtues of faith and love.

As Skye writes, rather than feeling like valued members of God's family, today, many church members feel like replaceable cogs in a ministry machine. Is it any wonder that the church is suffering, and is it any wonder that people are leaving?

For people who’ve had negative experiences in church and have lived through congregational crisis firsthand, this lively conversation brings clarity and hope.

Guests

An award-winning author, speaker, and co-host of the Holy Post Podcast, Skye Jethani has written more than a dozen books and served as an editor and executive at Christianity Today for more than a decade. Raised in a religiously and ethnically diverse family, his curiosity about faith led him to study comparative religion before entering seminary and pastoral ministry. With a unique ability to connect Christian thought and contemporary culture, his voice has been featured in The New York Times, USA Today, and The Washington Post.

Show Transcript

[00:00:00] Julie Roys: There’s no doubt the American church is in crisis. After numerous scandals, the distrust of the church is at an all-time high. Young people raised in the church are leaving at an alarming rate and we have a society where loneliness and spiritual hunger is rampant, but people are turning elsewhere for help.

[00:00:21] Julie Roys: Welcome to The Roy’s Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roy-. And today I’m going to be discussing the crisis in the American church with Skye Jethani. Skye is a former editor at Christianity Today and a former pastor. He’s also co-host of the podcast, The Holy Post.

[00:00:40] Julie Roys: And he’s a speaker and author of numerous books, including the provocatively titled, What If Jesus Was Serious About the Church? In the book, Skye looks at what the Bible really says about the church, then he compares that with some of the prevailing beliefs and values popular in the church today. For example, the church is commonly referred to in scripture as a family, but in modern America, it’s become a corporation.

[00:01:05] Julie Roys: And in its pursuit of expansion, influence, and power, the church has sadly lost the essential Christian virtue of love. As Skye writes, now, rather than feeling like valued members of God’s family, many church members feel like replaceable cogs in a ministry machine. Is it any wonder that the church is suffering, and is it any wonder that people are leaving?

[00:01:28] Julie Roys: I’m so excited to speak with Skye about the church, not just because he’s a great thinker and teacher, but because he’s my brother. Skye attends the same house church that my family attends, and I’ve seen his commitment to the church on a day to day, week by week basis, and it’s because of people like Skye that I haven’t given up on the church, even though I’ve had a ton of negative experiences. I still believe in the church. I still see her beauty. And so I’m so excited to share this podcast with you.

[00:01:49] Julie Roys: But first I’d like to thank the sponsors of this podcast, Talbot Seminary and Marquardt of Barrington. Are you passionate about impacting the world so it reflects biblical ideals of justice? The Talbot School of Theology Doctor of Ministry program is launching a new track exploring the theological, social, and practical dimensions of biblical justice today.

[00:02:16] Julie Roys: The program equips students with the knowledge, skills, and spiritual foundation needed to address social issues with wisdom and compassion. Justice has become a key issue in our culture, but more importantly, it’s an issue that’s close to God’s heart. While it’s clear the Bible calls God’s people to pursue justice, we must be guided by His Word within that pursuit. Talbot has created this track to do just that. As part of this program, you’ll examine issues such as trafficking, race, immigration, and poverty. And I’ll be teaching a session as well, focusing on the right use of power in our churches so we can protect the vulnerable rather than harm them. So join me and a community of like- minded scholars committed to social change and ethical leadership. Apply now at TALBOT.EDU/DMIN.

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[00:03:26] Julie Roys: Well, again, joining me is Skye Jethani, a former pastor who now co-hosts the popular podcast, The Holy Post. He also speaks and writes books, including one that we’re offering to listeners this month called What If Jesus Was Serious About the Church? So Skye, welcome, and it’s just such a pleasure to have you.

[00:03:50] Skye Jethani: Thanks, Julie. I’m happy to be here.

[00:03:51] Julie Roys: And you may be surprised to know this, but I’ve actually mentioned you numerous times on this podcast. Do  about this?

[00:03:58] Skye Jethani: I do not, because I have to confess, I’ve not listened.

[00:04:01] Julie Roys: You haven’t listened to our podcast? Well, that’s okay, but I’ve listened to the Holy Post. I’ve actually been on the Holy Post, which has been really fun. I’ve mentioned you because I use this term that you coined called the evangelical industrial complex. And so whenever I do that, I try to give you credit. I say, , this isn’t my term. This is Skye’s term.

[00:04:24] Skye Jethani: I don’t need credit, but you’re appreciated. It isn’t like I get a kickback or anything from every time it’s spoken, but. Yeah, I think it was 2012 I wrote an article that I first used that phrase, and it just took off. A lot of people have used it since then.

[00:04:37] Julie Roys: Well, it’s a great term, but for those who are listening who haven’t heard it before, what is the evangelical industrial complex?

[00:04:45] Skye Jethani: Right. So it’s a riff off of President Eisenhower in his farewell address to the country. It’s on YouTube. I recommend people go watch it. It’s very interesting, but he gave a televised address to the country where he warned about the military industrial complex. Of course, Eisenhower, having been a general and the commander of the forces in Europe during world war two had a lot of credibility when it came to military stuff.

[00:05:08] Skye Jethani: And his concern was that there was this permanent arms industry that had been developed after world war two and the military industrial complex, he said, needed a perpetual conflict and warfare to continue its business model. And so I kind of adopted that phrase, but talking about the evangelical industrial complex, which is this financial money-making industry that constantly needs celebrity leaders, celebrity pastors in particular, and big events to perpetuate its business model.

[00:05:39] Skye Jethani: And so it tends to elevate leaders who may be quite talented but lack the character or the maturity to handle large audiences or significant influence. But the evangelical industrial complex will prop them up, publish their books, get them on the big stage, build a big platform for them in order to make lots of money off of this person’s talent and reputation.

[00:06:06] Skye Jethani: And then we’re shocked when they end up cracking under the pressure or falling into some controversy or their church implodes. And especially when I was working at Christianity Today, And I got around the country and I was seeing kind of behind the curtain in a lot of these places. I was noticing that tendency over and over and over again, where it wasn’t the Godly mature tested people who were given platforms.

[00:06:27] Skye Jethani: It was young, attractive, talented people who were given platforms. And so looking at this in different angles, like I just said, this is about making money. This isn’t about really building up the church. And so that’s the evangelical industrial complex.

[00:06:42] Julie Roys: And there’s so much that you just said; just in those few paragraphs about the church and some of our assumptions about the church, the fact that we can have an industrial complex, the fact that we have so many financial interests, and we’re going to dive into a lot of that today.

[00:07:01] Julie Roys: And I love your book because you take all of these things that are kind of, we’ve just adopted because we swim in this soup, right? And we don’t even know kind of these false ideas about church that we’ve imbibed. But they’re there. And when you begin to contrast them with scripture, you’re like, Oh my word.

[00:07:19] Julie Roys: But as I mentioned in the open, you and I, not only know each other professionally, but we go to the same church and we go to a house church, which is a very unconventional form of church. And I know for me and a lot of others within our house church, we’ve come because there was some sort of, I would say many of us are church refugees.

[00:07:44] Julie Roys: Something happened at the church that we were at. And I know I’ve talked about this before on this podcast that for us, it was losing trust in our leaders because of a sexual abuse coverup at the church. And so that was very concerning. Your story, I’m guessing, is a bit different, and I realized as we jumped into this, I mean, I know your former church, and I know some stuff that happened there, but I really don’t know your story of why you came to this house church, which is really, in some ways, unconventional form of church, but if you read the New Testament, it sounds awful lot like what they were doing back then. So, what’s your story? How’d you get there?

[00:08:24] Skye Jethani: Quite by accident really. I was at the same church for 20 years and for, I don’t know, six, it’s hard to, to find, but I was on staff at the church for quite a few years. And then when I was at CT, I actually split my time between staff at the church and Christianity Today.

[00:08:41] Skye Jethani: So these convoluted timeframes, but overall 20 years. And probably, uh, gosh, trying to get dates straight in my head. A few years before we landed at the house church, my wife and I were struggling, honestly, at the church. And I saw, I think partly because of my own ministry background and from my years at CT, where I had been around the country and seen behind the curtain at all kinds of different issues, I had growing concerns about what I saw happening at my own church.

[00:09:12] Skye Jethani: And I took some of those concerns to some of the leaders. They did not share my perspective. They thought I was making a mountain out of a molehill. So in those years, my wife and I kind of decided, well, we’re going to take a step back from like deeper involvement because I was, I just saw yellow flags and yet this was our community. This was the people we loved, people we’d known, our kids were all born and raised in this church. So we were committed to the community, but I just decided as previously having been a significant leader there, I was going to take a step back. And those are hard couple of years because I was constantly told, well, should we be somewhere else?

[00:09:52] Skye Jethani: I really wanted to be at a church where I felt like I could contribute my full strength and enthusiasm to the work of that community, and it just wasn’t going to happen at our church in that season. Then 2020 happens and the pandemic hits, and it’s like, Oh! God caused the global pandemic. So we don’t have to go to church and feel awkward anymore in this situation.

[00:10:30] Skye Jethani: So like everyone else, our church closed. And so everyone moved online or figured out other alternatives. And a few months into the pandemic, Brady Wright reached out to me, who’s also part of our house church and a mutual friend. And he and I and our families have been friends for a long time. And he said that he knew a bunch of families that were all struggling with just feeling isolated. And it was still warm out. And he asked if we’d be open to gathering in someone’s backyard under a tree, social distance for like a fellowship gathering where we would read scripture, pray for one another, and just have a very, very rudimentary kind of worship gathering.

[00:10:53] Skye Jethani: So we started doing that in the spring and summer of 2020. And the people came from different churches, but we said we needed fellowship. And a lot of us were connected through Young Life. And then as we got into the winter months, we realized, well, we actually really like doing this with each other and our churches were still closed.

[00:11:12] Skye Jethani: And most of us were maybe engaging somewhere online, but not in a meaningful way. And then by 2021, the church that we had been a part of all those years went through that significant crisis that it kind of finally blew up. And I had concerns that this was coming for years and then it did.

[00:11:37] Skye Jethani: And so when people found out that my wife and I had been a part of this little under a tree gathering thing. And then in homes, after the weather got cold, some of those refugees started showing up at this little house church. And then there were other churches in our area, like yours, where people were struggling, and they ended up coming. And before you know it, Brady and I are looking at each other going, this was just supposed to be a COVID fellowship, temporary thing under a tree.

[00:11:59] Skye Jethani: Um, But now we realize there’s a bigger reason for this, and there are people who need this place to feel connected and heal and a different way of approaching the basic functions of a Christian community.

[00:12:21] Skye Jethani: So fast forward, we’re no longer at that church that we were at, obviously, for 20 years, I’m no longer ordained in that denomination. And this house church has just become our community and home. So we didn’t go into it as refugees from a church. We came into it just because of COVID, but it all kind of aligned with a number of years of suspecting things were coming. And then when they did, I think we were just a little ahead of the curve. I saw what could happen and it did. So maybe God was just sparing us from a more acute pain had we stayed more engaged.

[00:12:50] Julie Roys: And we were church refugees, and I kind of knew this, but when we lost what was our church home, we spent about two years visiting tons of churches in the area and it just grieved me because I saw the same sort of system at every church that I just didn’t believe in anymore.

[00:13:13] Julie Roys: I still believed in the church, I still believed in God, but I didn’t believe in the system anymore. We’re going to dive into that and actually in your introduction, I like how you talk about the church has changed. Our idea of what the church is, it’s just dramatically changed in 50 years.

[00:13:33] Julie Roys: And I would a hundred percent affirm that. The church that I’m seeing everywhere right now, that’s called the evangelical church is not the church I grew up in at all, not even close. So talk about that change and what sort of prompted that change.

[00:13:51] Skye Jethani: Gosh, I guess it depends on where you want to start the timeline. It’s probably older than 50 years, but I think one of the significant changes that happened at some point in the mid-20th century was sort of the professionalization of pastoral ministry.

[00:14:08] Skye Jethani: And I don’t mean professionalization as in professional training. I think that’s very valuable. But here’s what I mean. Throughout most of Christian history, a pastor or minister would spend most of their time during the week out in the community. They met people in their homes, in their farms, in their factories, in the hospitals and the prisons, wherever they were out in the community, engaging people.

[00:14:29] Skye Jethani: And then those people would congregate on Sunday. And the minister would lead them in sacraments and in teaching of scripture and all that. But he or she knew their sheep because they were out in the community. And at some point we flipped a switch and we said, if you desire to be ministered to, you now need to come to where the minister works.

[00:14:51] Skye Jethani: You need to come into the church office, the church building, and we, the ministers will create a plethora of programs for you and your family to minister to you. And that was done, I think, with very good intentions and there’s an efficiency in that. But I think what it unintentionally did is it caused those of us who are ministers and our pastors to lose touch with the reality of our sheep.

[00:15:15] Skye Jethani: We lost touch with what do people’s lives actually look like Monday through Saturday? Because the only time we ever saw people, it was on our turf, on our terms, in our programs, and in our building. And once you made that switch from pastoral ministry out in the pastures, to pastoral ministry in the professional setting of the pastor in their building, well then it’s just a matter of how do I scale this factory? How do I make more programs? How do we make bigger worship services? How do I get more people into this system?

[00:16:03] Skye Jethani: And then you get the explosion of mega churches and all of that. That was a big wake up call for me, even, after spending a number of years on staff at my church and then beginning to work outside, I realized, oh, I had no idea what the lives of the people in my church were actually like, because I only saw them in my context. I never saw them in their context. So I think that was a big change. And then you just get this massive growth of the institution because you add into this concoction the sacred secular divide. And a lot of people in ministry think that the only work that really matters ultimately is ministry.

[00:16:23] Skye Jethani: So if something’s going to matter, it has to happen under the church umbrella, which is how you get like exercise facilities in a church. It’s how you get auto mechanics in a church. It’s how you get all these because it has to be under the church to count and you get these monstrosities ministries and in some communities that’s necessary.

[00:16:43] Skye Jethani: I don’t want to completely diminish that, but a lot of places it isn’t. And then you need more and more professional people to manage and run these huge things. And that becomes the system that you’re talking about. You’re like, wow, this becomes really self-serving rather than ministering out into the community.

[00:16:59] Skye Jethani: I think that’s one reason is just the simple professionalization of what happened. There’s a lot of other pieces of this we can unpack, but I think that one doesn’t get enough attention.

[00:17:07] Julie Roys:  Yeah. And the church has become a corporation. It’s not  the family that a lot of us knew the church has. And I do think there were good intentions with things. Like I remember the first time we went to Willow Creek, which is the big mega church in the Chicago area, much less big now that everything’s happened with Bill Hybels But I remember going and the thing that struck me, because when I grew up in this little church, it was a great family, really great family, but nobody became a Christian there. Right? Like nobody came to the church and became a Christian. And I saw Willow Creek putting on these amazing shows on Sunday morning, very attractional model. And I remember inviting my boss. I was doing this little sales job in between college and graduate school. And I invited my boss, and my boss became a believer.

[00:17:59] Julie Roys:  And then we started doing Bible studies and we used to fill up two rows of people on midweek. Like we’d have a sales meeting and then we go to Willow. And literally there were dozens of people became believers through that. So I mean that at first I was just like, this is amazing. It’s like the para-church church. I saw all of these para church type outreach ministries, that model coming into the church. But then some really unintended consequences we really weren’t thinking about it necessarily biblically, we were thinking about it pragmatically; how do we reach people?

[00:18:43] Julie Roys: And that’s kind of how we got there, but really, what is the church, right? I mean, that’s what your book is getting to. What is the church? And I think you rightly say a lot of people think of it as an event, as a building, as an organization. So biblically, let’s go back down to our roots, right? And what is the church?

[00:19:02] Skye Jethani: The simplest answer is it’s a community of women and men and children who have been redeemed by Jesus and are living in communion with him and one another. That’s it. And that obviously can take different forms and structures and different cultures and times, but that’s it. I think your observation that megachurch function very much like a parachurch outreach kind of ministry, I think it’s accurate. And I’ve been a part of a number, especially as a college student, a number of parachurch organizations like Campus Crusade CRU now, InterVarsity, Navigators, and at least in my time connected to some of those things. They’re very careful not to call themselves a church because they understand that we may be a ministry, we may do outreach and Bible studies and other things, but we are not a church.

[00:20:05] Skye Jethani: But the funny part is when you go to some churches that more or less function like parachurch ministries. they embrace the name church. And I wrote a piece many years ago for Leadership Journal, where I was arguing that these very large churches shouldn’t really be called churches. And I started calling them VLMs, which is a new one. It’s a very large ministry. And I tried to come up with a name that wasn’t disparaging because they are doing ministry. They are reaching people like your colleagues, like they’re doing good work, but there’s something chafed on me about calling it a church when the historic definition and functions of a church community were really not present. But they were preaching the gospel. They were teaching scripture. They were engaging non-believers, all that great. But the functioning of a church in many of these places was not actually happening.

[00:20:44] Skye Jethani: Para church organizations recognize that about themselves and stayed away from the label of church, but these mega churches and other ministries embrace the church name. All the while they weren’t really functioning as churches.

[00:20:56] Julie Roys: And I think the pastor wasn’t functioning as a pastor. I mean, we have pastors who are basically preachers, but they’re not pastors. They’re not shepherds.

[00:21:04] Skye Jethani: Right. Exactly. Yeah.

[00:21:06] Julie Roys: You wrote one of the chapters is on, whose church is it really? And it reminded me of an experience I had last fall. So I was doing some investigating on a church where Albert Tate was the pastor. It’s in Monrovia, California, and he had admitted that he had an inappropriate texting relationship, but then his staff started complaining about bullying, about spiritual abuse.

[00:21:33] Julie Roys: They found out that they really didn’t have any say. They didn’t own the church the way the bylaws were written. Albert, and a few of his key guys that he put on his board owned the church. I remember at this very contentious town hall meeting that I went to where they were basically the people were demanding their church back, and they were talking about Albert going on this sabbatical, and he came back really quickly. I forget how it’s several weeks. And then he said, and I’m just going to quote, he’s like, I’m not sure if a month would have made any difference, like saying if I had stayed on my break for a month longer. And unfortunately, I still feel like this is my church. And the place erupted. I mean, people were saying it’s our church, it’s our church.

[00:22:25] Julie Roys: And then somebody was saying, no, it’s God’s church. But the way that we think about our church, I mean, there, it was really coming to a head, and it really was a matter of who owns this church? And we’ve got legal ownership, and then we’ve got spiritual ownership. So speak to that, because I think we have really messed this one up.

[00:22:46] Skye Jethani: Yeah, and there’s a lot of pieces that intersect with this, because there’s different polities, there’s different church structures and governance structures, depending on your denomination and theology and all of that, it gets complicated. There’s some denominations in which they might have congregational polity, but the denomination owns the building, and it goes on and on like in the denomination I was a part of they were congregational in their polity, but the licensing and ordination of clergy was handled by the denomination. So there was some oversight. And one of the things, I used to have stronger opinions, I guess, about these matters, but as I’ve gotten around and had my own experience and just perhaps mellowed a bit with age, I’ve realized I have not yet found a church structure that cannot be abused.

[00:23:33] Skye Jethani: They all have weaknesses, and they all have strengths. Some I think are better than others, but none’s immune. So if someone’s looking for a silver bullet of how do we structure these things to avoid abuse? Good luck. The best you can do is try to mitigate against it in your culture and environment by choosing certain models versus others, but they can all be abused.

[00:23:56] Skye Jethani: But what you’re getting at in the story that you mentioned, and I’ve seen this up close as well, especially within evangelicalism, so much of our tradition is rooted in charismatic personalities and lowercase C charismatic personalities so that we tend to associate a church with its visible leader, the person in the pulpit.

[00:24:22] Skye Jethani: I remember Outreach magazine, I think it was Outreach magazine years ago, used to do an issue every year on like the top hundred churches in the country or something like that. And they measure just based on size, based on attendance. And it was like a centerfold, a fold out. big thing and they’d list all these churches in this chart And there was the name of the church and then there was just a headshot of the senior pastor That was the visual representation of that church

[00:25:02] Skye Jethani: So it is a structural problem, but it’s also a people problem We do that we do that because we tend to pick a church based on do I like the preacher? If that’s the criteria you have for picking your church, you’re reinforcing that same idea. And what really grieved me was when I realized, despite the rhetoric, despite the theology, despite all the words about we’re a body and it’s blah, blah, blah. When people in leadership, John Ortberg used to say that everyone has their mission, and then there’s the shadow mission.

[00:25:28] Skye Jethani: There’s what you say your mission is, and then there’s what your mission really is. And what I discovered in some of these places is, you might say your mission is the health of the church, or it’s the growth of the church, or it’s the service of the community, whatever it might be, glorifying God. The shadow mission in an awful lot of these places is to protect the pastor and to maintain the pastor’s status and reputation.

[00:25:50] Skye Jethani: And that for me to speak about the system being broken is when I lost trust and hope. Where it ceased to be about what’s best for the body, and it became what’s best for the figurehead who represents the body, not Jesus, but the pastor. Again, there’s a bazillion stories of how this happens.

[00:26:15] Skye Jethani: I don’t want to point the finger just at the system because we are complicit in creating that system. Because I think for a lot of us, we get a lot of satisfaction after saying that’s my pastor. That’s my leader. Look how great my guy is. Look how many books he’s published, look how popular his radio show is. And I’m a part of that. So there’s something we get from that, which props them up.

[00:26:36] Skye Jethani: And somewhere else I wrote about it as being like the relationship between an animal and a zookeeper. They both benefit. The animal gets fed in a safe place to live. And the zookeeper gets the satisfaction of. , being in charge of all these animals. And if you’re content with that model, we’re going to continue to have this dynamic where the leaders are synonymous with the church. And then the church does everything it can to prop up and protect its leader, and it’s really unhealthy for everybody involved.

[00:26:57] Julie Roys: That’s interesting. And it is true that it’s comfortable for us because when we go to a church like that, everything’s provided for us, and we don’t really have to bring anything to the table. And that’s been one of the challenges with our house church, hasn’t it? We’re like, nobody signed up to facilitate this week. Nobody signed up for worship leading. And it’s like, okay, yeah, we’re going to have to bring a little more to the table if we’re going to keep meeting. Again, biblically speaking, there’s commands about when you meet together, you should bring a psalm, you should bring a word of encouragement, you should bring, I mean, all of these things.

[00:27:34] Julie Roys: We’ve gotten into a very consumeristic way of looking at church and of approaching it. And it’s on us. You’re right. You’re a hundred percent right. It is on us. And I think we don’t think of the church. as God’s church. But if we do think of the church as God’s church, then I think it also changes our expectations of who should be in that church.

[00:27:59] Julie Roys: You mentioned how a lot of churches, when they plant a church, they’ll talk about their target audience, for example, which implies you can either be in their target or not be in their target, right? So, if you’re not in their target, then do you count? I mean, do you matter? A lot of assumptions there. But when we think about church and we think about who’s coming, how should we perceive that?

[00:28:29] Skye Jethani: Yeah, I think that the breakdown here is the way our culture defines hospitality. Again, it’s become an industry; there’s the hospitality industry in the modern world. And so what we usually mean by hospitality, and this trickles down even to our homes, like when we think about do you have a hospitable home? You think, well, if I’m going to have guests, I’m going to find out what do they like? What do they want? I’m going to accommodate to their needs. I’m going to make sure that they’re vegan or whatever it is. And we’re going to customize our home to fit the people who are coming. The hospitality industry has taught us, whether it’s airlines or hotels or resorts or whatever, find out who you’re marketing your resort to, and then give them what they want. Customer is king. And megachurches and the seeker movement came along, and they adopted that same approach. Well, we’re going to go after unchurched Harry and Mary, famously was Willow Creek’s thing. And they had this middle-class, middle-aged people, and they tailored a church around what they wanted.

[00:29:30] Skye Jethani: That’s very different from the ancient world’s understanding of hospitality. Paul commands us to be hospitable to one another, and so does Peter, and it’s a very ancient idea going back to Abraham being hospitable to the strangers who are angels who came to his home.

[00:29:46] Skye Jethani: In the ancient Near East, hospitality was not about catering or changing your home or community to accommodate your guests. It was instead, welcoming guests into the normalcy and flow of your home as it is; it’s been authentically yourself but welcoming those guests into it.

[00:30:15] Skye Jethani: So, I’ll give you one example. When I was in seminary, some classmates of mine did an experiment where they took 2 television monitors to Northwestern University, right? This. secular university in Evanston, the north side of Chicago.

Julie Roys: Where I got my graduate degree.

[00:30:36] Skye Jethani:  Right. One monitor they showed a Catholic mass, and the other monitor they showed a very contemporary mega church worship gathering. And they asked students as they came by, hey, if you were ever to go to church, which one of these would you go to? And this would have been probably 1998-99 in that timeframe. The overwhelming response of the students was the Catholic mass. And then they asked them, why is that? And they said, well, that looks like a rock concert. I can get that anywhere, but that looks sacred. That looks holy.

[00:30:54] Skye Jethani: And what they were getting at was, the mega churches said, we’re going to accommodate to the culture and give people what they want. But increasingly with my generation, and I think the younger ones, it smacks of pandering. It smacks of, well, you’re changing who you really are in order to be who you think I want you to be.

[00:31:13] Skye Jethani: Whereas the Catholic mass, a lot of these students was like, well, they’re being authentic to who they are. That’s Christianity. They’re not trying to. I mean, goodness, the Catholics just started doing the mass in English not that long ago. They were very slow to accommodate, but that was seen as authentic.

[00:31:28] Skye Jethani: So I think that the challenge for us today is not how do you change the church to be what the culture wants you to be? It’s how do you be authentically Christian in your church community? But how do you make it As accessible as possible to the people who might come in?

[00:31:49] Skye Jethani: So in our case, like when we gather, we take communion every Sunday when we gather. I know plenty of seeker churches that would say, you don’t do that because it’s off putting to non-believers who don’t understand it. I would hope that if someone came into our community, and I’ve seen churches that do this really well, who take communion regularly, they explain what this is, what it means, why we do it, how to do it, the significance of it and invite people to participate or not, depending on their theology

[00:32:13] Skye Jethani: . That’s being hospitable. It’s not changing who you are to accommodate people’s expectations. It’s welcoming them into who you are and to the normal flow of your family and household. And I think that’s a better approach and a more faithful approach than polling the community and finding out what they want.

[00:32:29] Julie Roys: Absolutely. And I love that we do communion every week. I think a lot of churches have forsaken this. In fact, you talk about the, what is it, The coffee bar versus the Lord’s table? Like in a lot of these churches, the coffee bar has become more appealing than the Lord’s table to these churches. Again, because I think their mentality is we’re doing church, and this is where I feel like evangelism, which is such an important thing, but it’s almost superseded worship.

[00:33:04] Julie Roys: Like, we forget why we come together. We don’t come together to reach the seeker. Not that God, obviously Jesus cared. He left the 99 to get the one. But we come together to worship God; that’s the primary. And so the table, describe, beyond what you’ve talked about, but theologically, why is the table so, and by the way, our RESTORE conferences, every single one, we always end with communion, which I’ve had people come up to me and say, Oh, you shouldn’t do like anything that might trigger people because they were hurt in the church and communion, that’s something that’s very churchy.

[00:33:46] Julie Roys: And I’m like, we have to redeem these symbols. We can’t throw them out because these symbols are there. God gave them to us because our souls need them. And we need to have this communion with one another and with Christ. I know this is a conviction of yours. It’s very deeply held, but why is the table like a non-negotiable for us as believers when we meet?

[00:34:13] Skye Jethani: Let me give you two reasons, although there are more. One, is I think it is the practiced embodiment of the gospel. It is not just the verbal proclamation of the gospel, which is obviously valuable, but it’s the embodiment of the gospel. And in the sense that it’s not just a memorial to Jesus’ death, which certainly it is that; my broken body, my shed blood, but in sort of an Ephesians 2 kind of way.

[00:34:54] Skye Jethani: There Paul talks about how on the cross God has reconciled us to one another. He’s talking about Jew and Gentiles there. He’s broken down the wall of hostility and he has reconciled us to one another and made us one new person. And then together reconciled us to God through the cross. So It’s not just when I sit alone and take a little juice and a little bread, and I kind of think about the cross and my community with God, it’s when I am sitting side by side or standing side by side with my sisters and brothers, realizing I’m one with them because of the cross, and he has reconciled us to one another, people, maybe who I share something in common with, in an earthly way, but some whom I don’t.

[00:35:31] Skye Jethani: And so when we don’t practice communion regularly, I think we can easily fall into the trap of losing the horizontal dimension of the gospel. And we make it simply vertical. It’s just me and God. And we forget, no, it’s the reconciliation between brothers and sisters happens first, Paul says, and then we’re reconciled to God, the father of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.

[00:35:56] Skye Jethani: If you’re going to make an offering at the altar, and there, remember your brother has something against you, leave the offering, go be reconciled to your brother, then come and offer your gift to God. He always puts the horizontal reconciliation ahead of the vertical, and we have so lost sight of that. And we don’t think that’s essential to our gospel, but it is.

[00:36:11] Skye Jethani: So the table is critically important because it is the embodiment of that full gospel, the horizontal and the vertical. And when we don’t practice that, we get really warped. And it just leads to terrible things in the church. Then the other reason, the second reason, and this gets a little bit more into that coffee bar versus communion table thing is, virtually everything in our society is designed to make us narcissistic consumers.

[00:36:41] Skye Jethani: It’s all about me. It’s what I want. And when I go to a coffee bar, I don’t drink coffee. I drink tea, but when I go to a Starbucks or whatever, like there’s infinite options and I pick what I want and I’m the one in charge and I order it and I get it. And a lot of churches have that in their foyer or communion area or common area, whatever might be fine.

[00:36:58] Skye Jethani: I’m not against coffee in church, but the table I’m no longer in charge. It’s Christ’s table. It’s not my table. And even if I’m officiating and I’m a pastor at the table, it’s still not my table. It’s Christ’s table. He welcomes us there. This is his body. This is his blood. This is about his kingdom and his family.

[00:37:18] Skye Jethani: And it’s a reminder that I am not in charge, and I belong to something other than myself. And so those two realities of the gospel, I think are antidotes to what we get bombarded with in our culture of the privatization of our faith. It’s just me and God and the hyper narcissism of it’s what I want that matters, not what God wants.

[00:37:41] Skye Jethani: For me, the practice of communion inoculates me to a degree against all of that cultural garbage and realigns me to the gospel of Christ again. So to not practice it regularly, I think is to lose one of the greatest graces that Christ has given his church. And especially in our context, we need to do that.

[00:38:03] Julie Roys: I love about the table too, especially this is probably why I absolutely love liturgical worship, which is something I loved about our previous church because it was Anglican and I love the liturgy, but I love the table because it reminds us of what’s coming, like the wedding feast that we’re looking forward to.

[00:38:27] Julie Roys: I think way too often especially in evangelicalism, it’s like our goal is to get people saved and then it stops. Like we forget that ?we’re saved to be part of this community that’s being redeemed and has this glorious thing that we’re anticipating. And I think most Christians forget we’re anticipating something.

[00:38:48] Julie Roys: You just get the sense like, Oh, you got saved. You’ve arrived. And then, well,  you should become discipled; that’s important because as you point out, we haven’t really defined what disciple is but that’s important, but we forget. Man, we are just passing through. We’ve got this glorious, glorious feast that we’re awaiting, and it is going to be a family and it’s going to be a family affair where everyone’s gathered.

[00:39:15] Julie Roys: I love that part of it. And I love that it takes us out, like you’re saying, out of our present context and reminds us who we are and where we’re going. So love that part of it. And you touched on this when you said, You were hinting at the transactional nature that we come to church with, and I hear this all the time. I’ve probably said it myself. I’m sure I’ve been guilty of this. But we look at church and we say, and if we go and we don’t feel like we were especially inspired or something, we’ll say, I didn’t get anything out of that.

[00:39:54] Skye Jethani: Mm-Hmm. .

[00:39:54] Julie Roys: Talk about why that’s really not the way we should be approaching church.

[00:39:59] Skye Jethani: Oh, gosh, Julie, I wrote my very first book on this whole thing, which no one read. It’s called The Divine Commodity and it’s all about consumerism and the church. With a weird thread of Vincent van Gogh all the way through the book, which is why no one read it.

[00:40:16] Julie Roys: That sounds very interesting though. In a dark sort of way.

[00:40:19] Skye Jethani: We live and move and have our being in a consumer culture. Everything is measured by its value to me. It’s interesting. Like, there’s an economist who argues that America really transitioned into a truly consumer economy in the 1950s. And it’s the 1950s where you begin to see a massive spike in divorce rates.

[00:40:43] Skye Jethani: Now, there’s a lot of factors into that. It’s not just economics, but I think it’s a factor. Because what Consumerism tells us is that the world exists to satisfy my desires. And when something doesn’t satisfy my desire, I’m justified in changing it, whether it’s a product from a shelf or a spouse that I said I was committed to.

[00:41:03] Skye Jethani: So we measure everything that way. Most of us don’t even think twice about it. Of course, that’s the right way to live. Of course, that’s what the world is all about. And so we come into our church communities or even our relationship with Christ and we go, well, what have you done for me lately? And is this beneficial to me? And am I getting something from it? We don’t challenge that ethic in most of our churches. We never point it out, we never go, Hey, this might be the way economics works in our society, but it’s not the way the most important things work. This isn’t the way we should think about our children.

[00:41:34] Skye Jethani: This isn’t the way we should think about our spouses. And this is not the way we should be thinking about God. And Certainly not the way to think about his church, but we do. And in a weird way, the first amendment has reinforced that idea. We have no established church in America and I’m grateful for that, but it also means there’s a free market of religion in the United States and the religious institutions that are out there are all competing for part of the market. They’re competing for customers. And in that setting, the customer’s King, you give them what you want. So it ends up reinforcing this mindset over and over and over again. I can’t just shake my fist at the culture and go big, bad consumerism.

[00:42:12] Skye Jethani: But what I can shake my fist at a little bit are churches and ministers that aren’t speaking about this dynamic and helping people be formed out of it into the values of the kingdom of God. And instead we either stay silent about it or flat out reinforce it and advance it in a weird way. So yeah, things like communion, like commitment, like relationship, like service are antidotes to some of that mindset.

[00:42:38] Skye Jethani: But it’s hard. And I find myself in that posture all the time as well. You can’t escape it. It’s just part of who we are as 21st century modern people. But that’s where it’s on the shoulders of church leaders and institutions to help form us and give us a vision of a different way that very few are doing.

[00:42:58] Julie Roys: Similar to that is I think this idea that when we come to church, we do so, and we’ve heard churches build themselves this way. We come and experience God, and worship has become, and it’s interesting to me because worship was so huge in my development as a Christian. As I remember being in high school and I got discipled by these, Oral Roberts/Jesus People like wacky charismatics who were druggies maybe 10 years prior to meeting me.

[00:43:32] Julie Roys: But they were so on fire for the Lord, and we would get together, and we would pray and worship and literally we’d be there for 3 hours, and it would seem like 10 minutes. It was just an amazing. I didn’t realize up until that point that you could have that kind of intimacy with God and that kind of communion with him.

[00:43:51] Julie Roys: So worship was huge to me in my experience of God. What’s been challenging now. And even I look back, we were in a Vineyard church for a long time, and I used to love to invite people and I would see them come into the worship and they just start crying and they don’t even know why they’re crying, right?

[00:44:08] Julie Roys: They’re just crying because they’re moved. But now I’m seeing so many of these worship experiences that are, they’re amazing emotional experiences and it’s making me check; like I have a check now because I see these kids raised in their hands and they’re praising the Lord.

[00:44:32] Julie Roys: And then the rest of what they’re doing throughout the week has nothing to do with the Lord has nothing to do with worshiping the Lord. I see these ministries that are built on worship, like Hillsong and Bethel. And now we’re seeing just such horrible manipulation and corruption and abuse within so many of these churches.

[00:44:52] Julie Roys: And so the whole experiencing God thing,  it’s hard to even parse out, like, is the music affecting me? I think if you try to parse that out, then you’re kind of killing the experience itself, right? So, you destroy it.

[00:45:16] Julie Roys: But I think this idea that we have to go to church to experience God. has been baked into evangelicalism where it’s at right now. So address that and why we need to really change our focus when it comes to worship.

[00:45:28] Skye Jethani: You and I were very different high school students.

[00:45:31] Julie Roys: We were. You were here, I was here, right?

[00:45:35] Skye Jethani: Yeah. So I was the worst kid in the youth group in high school because I was such a skeptic. I used to get dragged to these big worship events in Chicago for high schoolers in the early 90s. And I just thought these are the most manipulative and emotionally charged. I just didn’t buy it. I never bought it. And that’s just, that was my own baggage and problem. But let me say, I think the problem is not necessarily these gatherings.

[00:46:02] Skye Jethani: I think they can be beautiful in many, and I’ve been a part of some that are just amazingly gorgeous times of communion with God. The problem is not the gatherings. I think the real problem is what we expect to get from them. And here’s the metaphor that I’ve written about elsewhere that I find helpful.

[00:46:23] Skye Jethani: In 2nd Corinthians chapter 3, Paul references Moses on the mountaintop of Sinai when he meets with the Lord. And if you remember the story from Exodus 34, when Moses came down the mountain to meet with the people again, they all freaked out because his face was glowing, right? The radiance of God was shown on his face.

[00:46:44] Skye Jethani: And in Exodus, it says that Moses put a veil over his face. So that people wouldn’t freak out anymore. Well, Paul, when he’s referencing this in 2 Corinthians 3, adds a little bit of rabbinical tradition into the story that’s not actually in Exodus, but Paul was familiar with. And he said, no, the real reason that Moses put a veil over his face is because he didn’t want the people to see that the glory was fading away and that is was only temporary.

[00:47:09] Skye Jethani: And so when you piece these things together, you get a sense of what was really going on here is every time Moses would go up the mountain and meet with the Lord, he would take the veil off and he’d kind of get recharged another zap of God’s radiance.

[00:47:20] Skye Jethani: And he’d come down and everyone would see, Oh, he’s been with the Lord. He’s glowing. And then he put the veil over cause it fades away. And I think that’s a little bit what we’ve gotten caught up into, is an external mountaintop kind of communion with God. Moses’ experience on the mountain was real. It was genuine. It was good. It was full of God’s presence

[00:47:38] Skye Jethani:. The problem that Paul’s pointing out is it always faded. It was temporary. And so you have to go back over and over and over again. And he contrasts that with the new covenant in Christ, which he said is not. about an external glory. It’s about his spirit within us, transforming us from one degree of glory to the next with ever increasing glory. So we can take the veil away.

[00:47:59] Skye Jethani: And this is the core problem. I think in an awful lot of consumeristic American evangelical Christianity is essentially what we have done is rejected the new covenant in Christ in favor of the old covenant in Moses. And the reason is if we really buy the new covenant in Christ, You don’t need a 50-million-dollar mountaintop to encounter God, and you don’t need a dynamic preacher to encounter God, and you don’t need a huge worship band o genuinely encounter God. What do you need? You need to cultivate a deep abiding presence with his spirit, the kind that Jesus talks about in John 15. Abide in me and I will abide in you, just as a branch abides in its vine and bears fruit. That’s New Testament spirituality

[00:48:53] Skye Jethani: But if you want a big ministry, and if you want thousands or even millions of people buying your albums and coming to your church and doing anything, then you need old testament spirituality. You need to convince people that the only place that they’re really going to have an experience of  God is on the mountain that you’ve built and that you hold the toll road to accessing. That’s old testament spirituality and it’s really lucrative .But it’s not what we’re called to in Jesus.

[00:49:13] Skye Jethani: So that’s what worries me is we’re creating kind of worship junkies where they need another hit and the glory fades and they’re like, Oh, my life, I felt really transformed after going to that big event, that big conference, that big whatever. But yeah, a week later, the glory fades and you’re back to the person you always were.

[00:49:29] Skye Jethani: And then you go, I guess I need to go again, or I need a bigger thing or a better church or a better speaker. Whatever. And all the while we’re ignoring what we’re called to, which is who’s teaching me how to really commune with Jesus? Who’s teaching me how to pray? Who’s teaching me how to confess my sins? Who’s teaching me how to really live in step with the spirit day in and day out so that I might truly be transformed from one degree of glory to the next?

[00:49:51] Skye Jethani: Very few of our mega ministry settings are designed to do that kind of work. They’re designed to give us a show and make us feel great. And to be fair, again, sometimes those are genuine encounters with God, just like Moses was, but it always fades. That’s the problem.

[00:50:09] Julie Roys: I’m thinking back to when I was at Vineyard and there was a saying that John Wimber had that I absolutely loved. He would say pretty much everything else in our experience with God is something that he does for us. Worship is the one thing that we do to him, that we give back to him. And I think rightly understood, it comes from that communion with God that you have, that then when you have the chance to verbally express that, it’s very much like in a marriage relationship.

[00:50:44] Julie Roys: When you have that opportunity to physically express that love to your spouse, it’s extraordinarily meaningful because why? you already have that love that you experienced one for another. And so then that Physical expression becomes so meaningful But if it were just the physical expression without the love, I think that’s where a lot of people are at really in the way that they’re relating to God,

[00:51:07] Skye Jethani: Right. Yeah, if we developed a genuine communion with God throughout the week, and then we gather with our sisters and brothers on the weekend and express that, that’s wonderful. I think too many of us again, schooled as consumers don’t have that communion all week long. And then we show up on Sunday going, light me up, make me feel good, give me that charge so that I can go into my week and feel encouraged or blessed or whatever it is I’m looking for. That’s not worship

[00:51:34] Julie Roys: We don’t want to disciple people on how to maintain that in their private life because then they don’t need us. And yeah, so good. Well, there’s so much more we could talk about. Before I let you go talk just briefly about leadership and you’ve touched on it somewhat, about the celebrity pastors. You also used a term that’s become somewhat of a buzzword within the church is something called servant leadership.

[00:52:05] Julie Roys: I have a feeling that’s much more about the upfront and not like the shadow mission shows whether that servant leadership is actually a thing. But talk about that leader and the approach that leader should have. How a leader should serve within a body, and why maybe we should be suspicious of those who come along and say, they’re visionary leaders and they’re going to impart their vision to us, for the church. And I know I just gave you a big one, didn’t I?

[00:52:37] Skye Jethani: It is a big one. And there’s so many landmines in this. I generally don’t like using the language of servant leader because especially again, in American evangelical culture, the assumptions behind it are misunderstood. So let me unpack that a little bit.

[00:52:57] Skye Jethani: Usually, when we think of servant leader, we think of a person with authority or power who nonetheless does humble acts of service, right? So it’s the pastor who’s out there shoveling the snow o ,the church leader, who’s still taking out the garbage and you go, gee, look at,  pastor Steve, isn’t he humble? And he’s a servant leader and he’s doing that thing. Just like Jesus washed the disciples feet. In my view it’s great. I’m glad a pastor does that. I certainly wouldn’t want to disparage it, but I don’t think that’s really what servant leadership means. In John 13, that scene where Jesus washes the disciples feet, what he’s really doing there is not only humiliating himself, he’s humiliating his disciples. They had been arguing about who’s the greatest. And then Jesus strips naked and starts washing their feet, taking this grotesquely humiliating role. And he gets to Peter and Peter’s like, there’s no way you’re washing my feet. And he says, if you don’t let me wash your feet, you can have no place with me.

[00:54:03] Skye Jethani: Which is like, wow, that’s a pretty strong statement. What’s going on there? In that culture the relationship between a rabbi and a disciple was well established, and a disciple’s identity was completely defined by who their rabbi was. So when Peter and John and James and the others, when they left their fishing boats and their toll booths and all the other things they were doing to become a follower of Rabbi Jesus, Peter especially was thinking, this is a pretty good deal, because I’m leaving a meager fishing business to become the disciple of the most powerful guy I’ve ever seen, who’s probably going to take over the world.

[00:54:41] Skye Jethani: And that’s why, am I going to get to sit at your right on your left? Where am I going to get, like, this was a great deal. Cause my rabbi is like bigger than Moses. And then he sees his rabbi do the most humiliating and embarrassing task imaginable. And so what Jesus is saying to Peter is, If you think this is humiliating to me, it’s even more humiliating for you, Peter, because I’m your rabbi, which means you’re even lower than me.

[00:55:05] Skye Jethani: And then at the end of the whole scene, he says, I, your teacher and rabbi have done this. You should do likewise. I think the message he’s really saying there is stop caring what others think about you. And love in a self-sacrificial way, take up your cross, die to yourself and follow me.

[00:55:37] Skye Jethani: So when I then look at what does that mean in 21st century American church world, nobody is going to look at a pastor shoveling snow or taking out garbage and go, Oh my gosh, what a loser. Most church worlds go, Oh, that’s great. He’s doing something noble and kind and helping out and everything. No one’s going to think he’s a humiliated nothing because of that. So what I’m looking for is a pastor who has given up on their own reputation, who’s doesn’t care how many followers they have on Twitter, who’s not worried about, are they going to have a bestselling book?

[00:56:00] Skye Jethani: Isn’t counting how many people showed up every Sunday because that’s a stroke to their ego. It’s where they have truly died to themselves. They know who they are and where they’re going, like Jesus did at the beginning of John 13. They know they belong to God, and they know they’ve been called by him, and they’re set free then to love sacrificially, without caring about their own reputation and ego. So that’s, I think, a better definition of a servant leader, the person whose ego is not driving their ministry. That’s hard to spot without real relational connection and knowing somebody well.

[00:56:44] Skye Jethani:  I’m all for that kind of serpent leader and it’s rare. I’ve known men and women like that. Sometimes they have an ecclesiastical title. Sometimes they don’t. But they are the salt and light in the church today. And I pray that God will bring us more of them because we desperately need them in the American church.

[00:57:02] Julie Roys: I love that. That’s so good, Skye. Thank you. Well, we have to wrap this because I’ve got my grandson’s first soccer game coming up and I’ve got to boot out of here to go see that.

[00:57:15] Skye Jethani: I actually have a soccer game tonight too for my high school daughter. So I’ve got to do that too.

[00:57:19] Julie Roys: But this has been really good and really rich. I so appreciate this book that you’ve written. Like we said, we’re offering that to anybody who gives a gift to The Roy’s Report this month. Just really grateful for you, Skye. And I think people, when they hear this, they’re like, wow, that guy’s in your church. And we have like so many people who are deep thinkers like this in our church. And it’s been an incredible gift. And it’s been an incredible thing to iron sharpening iron, which we’ve had that opportunity. So just feel blessed to have you as my brother and just appreciate this time we spent.

[00:57:57] Skye Jethani: And thankful for all the good work you and your team at The Roy’s Report are doing in helping people navigate a really difficult season in the church and hopefully find healing and deeper communion with God and one another. It’s valuable, valuable work. I’m grateful to have a small little role in this podcast now as a part of it.

[00:58:15] Julie Roys: And you’re going to have to watch this podcast now. It’ll be your first.

[00:58:18] Skye Jethani: Yes, I probably will.

[00:58:20] Julie Roys: Well, blessings to you. And thanks so much.

[00:58:22] Skye Jethani: Thanks, Julie.

[00:58:23] Julie Roys: And thanks so much for listening to The Roy’s Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And just a reminder, we’re giving away Skye’s book, What If Jesus Was Serious About the Church? to anyone who gives a gift of 25 or more to The Roy’s Report this month. As I often say, we don’t have advertisers or big donors at The Roy’s Report. We simply have you. The people who care about reporting the truth and restoring the church. So if you’re passionate about our mission, please go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATED. Also, just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roy’s Report on Apple 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 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.

[00:59:23] Julie Roys: Again, thanks so much for joining me today. Hope you were blessed and encouraged.

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For more than two decades, Patrick and Mary DeMuth faithfully served as lay leaders at Lakepointe Church, a megachurch in the Dallas/Fort Worth area pastored by Josh Howerton. But as concerns about Howerton grew, Patrick and Mary found they could no longer stay in good conscience. And now, they’re dealing with the anger and grief so many so-called “church refugees” feel.

In this edition of The Roys Report (TRR), Mary DeMuth joins host Julie Roys to talk about navigating church bewilderment.

This is a condition more and more Christians are experiencing today, as scandal and corruption are increasingly seeping into the church. And if you caught the previous TRR podcast with Amanda Cunningham, you heard about many of the concerning issues at Lakepointe Church. This is the church where Mary and Patrick served for 23 years.

How do you deal with righteous anger? How do you navigate the grief? How much is okay to say, and what is gossip? How do you find another church home when you’re dealing with feelings of betrayal and lack of trust? How do you avoid getting in the same situation again?

These are crucial questions, which Mary—an internationally known author and a repeat speaker at our Restore Conference—admits she is wrestling with. And, as is so characteristic of Mary, she engages these questions with grace, wisdom, and a passion for truth and justice.

Sadly, many churches have created a culture where it's not okay to talk about leaving a toxic church. But as Mary explains in this podcast, the church won't get better until we talk about it. Believers must begin to evaluate and process the toxicity in churches—and how we can truly become the Body of Christ.

Mary has recently developed a Church Hurt Checklist to help people understand their situation and begin to process and articulate it. Download it free at marydemuth.com/churchhurt

Mary DeMuth is an international speaker, podcaster, and author of over 40 books, fiction and nonfiction, including The Most Misunderstood Women of the Bible and We Too: How the Church Can Respond Redemptively to the Sexual Abuse Crisis. Mary lives in Texas with her husband of 30+ years and is mom to three adult children. Learn more at MaryDeMuth.com.

Julie Roys: For more than two decades, Patrick and Mary DeMuth faithfully served as leaders at a megachurch in the Dallas Fort Worth area. But as concerns about the current pastor grew, they found they could no longer stay in good conscience. And now they’re dealing with the anger and grief so many so-called church refugees feel.

Julie Roys: Welcome to The Roy’s Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And today, Mary DeMuth joins me to talk about navigating church bewilderment. Sadly, this is an issue many Christians are dealing with, as abuse, scandal, and corruption increasingly seem to be seeping into the church.

Julie Roys: And if you caught our last podcast with Amanda Cunningham, you heard about many of the concerning issues at Lakepointe Church in the Dallas Fort Worth area, where Josh Howerton is Pastor. This is the church where Mary and Patrick served for 23 years. And if you missed our prior podcast, it was a real eye-opener and I encourage you to go back and listen to that.

Julie Roys: Today’s podcast is a sequel to my podcast with Amanda, but rather than exposing the issues at Lakepointe today, Mary is going to be discussing the aftermath of leaving. How do you deal with righteous anger? How do you navigate the grief? How do you know how much is okay to say? And what is gossip? And how do you find another church home when you’re dealing with feelings of betrayal and lack of trust? How do you avoid getting in the same situation again?

Julie Roys: These are crucial questions and ones that I know many of you are dealing with today. And so I’m so looking forward to diving into this topic with Mary DeMuth. But first I’d like to thank the sponsors of this podcast, Talbot Seminary and Marquardt of Barrington.

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Julie Roys: Again, joining me is Christian author and podcaster, Mary DeMuth, and many of Mary from her excellent books like We Too: Discussing the Sexual Abuse Crisis in the Church, and also her memoir, Thin Places. Mary also was a guest speaker at our last Restore Conference in 2022, and she’ll be speaking again at our Restore Conference in Phoenix in February in 2025. So we’re super looking forward to that.

Julie Roys: But she joins me now to talk about something that’s been a very painful process for both her and Patrick, and that is leaving her church of 23 years, Lakepointe Church there in the Dallas Fort Worth area. So Mary, Thank you so much for being willing to talk about what I know has been a really difficult journey.

Mary DeMuth: Thanks. I certainly prayed about this conversation and what I’ve noticed in this space is that a lot of people in the middle of it. are not articulating how they’re feeling because there’s this general pressure from churches that you leave that you aren’t supposed to say anything. And I think there’s a difference between, and we’ll talk about this, I’m sure, throughout this episode, but there’s a difference between leaving quietly and running around gossiping about things. Certainly, those are two different things.

Mary DeMuth: But I think what we’ve done is we’ve created a culture of silence; you can’t talk about it and literally we won’t get better unless we do talk about it. So that’s one reason why I am having this conversation today, because this is not a completed story. This is a messy story. I’m in the middle of it.

Mary DeMuth: I am heartbroken, and I don’t have all the answers. But I wanted to give word to those of you that may be in that same space, that may be hurting and don’t have words to say about it. And maybe I can articulate some of those things for you.

Julie Roys: And I so appreciate that. I find that people often are willing to talk about experiences years after the fact, when they’ve worked it all out and they can tie it all up in a neat bow and we can all go, Oh, that’s so nice. And here’s three ways that you can apply this message. But I knew you were going through a really painful thing that it was messy. You’ve been tweeting about it, or I should say posting on X.

Julie Roys: You’ve been very open and honest with your pain. And I really appreciate that. And I love the topic. You actually gave me the title for this, about navigating church bewilderment. And I love that word bewilderment because I feel like it really captures the confusion, the real disillusionment, and then the grief and the pain.

Julie Roys: All of these things bound up in one. And so we’re going to get to all that and unpack all of that. But I think to understand the depth of it for you and for Patrick, first I have to understand how deeply vested you were in this church. So talk about what this church has meant to you over more than two decades and the roles that you played in it and the community that you had.

Mary DeMuth: Yeah, we’ve been there for 23 years, and we immediately started serving the moment we landed there. And we also were the first non-IMB, it was an SBC church at the time, and we were the first non-IMB missionaries to be sent out from Lakepointe.

Julie Roys: Define IMB for those who .

Mary DeMuth: Yes. International mission board. So typically SBC churches send, they don’t really send their own missionaries. They sponsor IMB because all the money comes out of the SBC into this fund for the International Mission Board. We didn’t want to do that. We wanted to be actually supported because we believed that people who paid prayed. And so we were not IMB, but Lakepointe sent us out. So we were church planters in the South of France for a couple of years. And honestly the leadership there at our church, even though we weren’t going through our church, they were the ones that helped us through a really untenable situation. And our loyalty to that church was because they put us back together when we got back from the field..

Mary DeMuth: So much pouring in and so much love. And so we have been a life group leader for 20 of the 23 years. The only three years we weren’t was when we were in France, planting a church. And then I have run a couple of conferences, interestingly enough, called the Re-story Conference, which was very similar sounding to the Restore Conference.

Mary DeMuth: And I also recorded a Life Way study at Lakepointe for an audience. And then my husband was an elder at the church for five years. And so we have led mission teams all over the world for Lakepointe. We have definitely been in the upper levels of volunteer leadership all these years and have enjoyed a lot of conviviality and fellowship.

Mary DeMuth: And I never never. I always bragged about my church. It never crossed my mind that there would be a day that I wasn’t at that church anymore. And so as of December of 2023, we are away from there and making our way into a new space.

Julie Roys: And I’ve talked about this on this podcast, but we’re in a house church with, some of the folks in our house church were at their previous church for over 30 years, and the amount of pain and loss and especially when you’re, when you’re our age, early 40s.

Julie Roys: That’s it. It’s early 40s. No, when you’re a little bit older and later in life and to be at this point where you’re starting over is not at all where you expected to be, and it’s pretty tough to be there. You retain some of the friendships, but everything’s changed. And it just makes for a really really difficult road that you never planned to be on.

Julie Roys: Your church; and this is a lot of the reason behind you leaving, changed dramatically in the last 5 years. Stephen Stroop was your previous pastor. And in 2019, I believe Josh Howerton came in. Your husband actually was on the elder board that approved him, right?

Mary DeMuth: Yes. Yes. And we’ve had to work through that as you can imagine, because that’s painful to think about. And just to expand a little bit about the why is the basic reasons why we left. There’s a lot of things. As an author, as a published author and as a speaker, the plagiarism was just grating on me and I couldn’t stomach it, but that wasn’t the main reason.

Mary DeMuth: Although it’s still very problematic to me. What’s more problematic is that they don’t think it’s a big deal and they don’t see it as sin, and I just disagree. But the two things that we, the two main things that caused us to walk away, one was we were told by leadership, by upper-level leadership, that there was no place for us to serve.

Mary DeMuth: And that was really, that was about a year ago. And so it took us about a year to make that decision. Like we were still serving in our life group, but there were things that God has put in us as church planters. And as me, as an author and an advocate that we have a lot that we would love to be able to offer, and to have that cut off when we feel like we’re in the prime of service right now. We weren’t asking to be paid. This is all volunteer, but we were told we couldn’t.

Mary DeMuth: And then the second thing that was kind of the straw was all of the crude words and the misogynistic statements that started around 2022 almost every sermon. And as an advocate for sexual abuse victims and as an advocate for women, I could no longer be associated with that church because it just didn’t, I just couldn’t be associated with it.

Mary DeMuth: I have stood in front of the Southern Baptist Convention, and I have spoken and advocated, and I have been chewed up and spit out for it. And if I’m going to a church that is marginalizing women, it does not make sense. And so no place for us to serve, big, huge problem. And then I just couldn’t be connected with a church that had that kind of reputation.

Julie Roys: Those reasons are huge. and make an awful lot of sense. The plagiarism as you said, the crude remarks, the misogynistic remarks. And for a lot of folks, if you’re like, what are they talking about? I do encourage you to go back and listen to our last podcast with Amanda Cunningham, where we went over a lot of these things that Mary’s talking about that have happened in her church.

Julie Roys: I’m sure there’s people listening, and they’re like, okay, that sounds really, really awful. But how do you know when you hit that tipping point? Because I remember talking to you a couple of years ago and me going, Hey, is this really your pastor? I’m seeing some stuff. How is this your pastor? And you’re like we’re serving, and we love our life group. I get it. I totally, totally get it. But how did you and Patrick, how did you get to the point where you’re like, this is the tipping point, no more?

Mary DeMuth: We decided we went into this together, so we decided that we both had to have the same decision. We weren’t going to have one of us leave and one not leave. We were going to do this together. So that took a year of a lot of conversations. And we saw those red flags when you saw them. So we’ve seen them, but as you mentioned, the model of Lakepointe used to be, it seems to be shifting now, but it used to be church within a church. And so your life group was really basically what you’re doing, Julie. It’s a small gathering of people where there is someone who teaches, and there’s someone who’s the missions coordinator. And there’s someone who, it’s that’s how, like your church is that group. And so we felt a deep, strong connection to our group. And we felt like we were the pastors of that church within a church.

Mary DeMuth: The model has shifted. And I don’t know, it has never been articulated publicly, but it seems from the exterior looking in that it’s more becoming a franchise model, which is where you create this mother church, and it can be duplicated like MacDonald’s in any context. Therefore they may not have that idea that it is church within a church anymore. It has to be something replicatable on all other campuses. And so we began to see this shifting of, this is no longer church within a church, which is really what kept us there. We had people we were serving. And then honestly, I just couldn’t stomach sermons anymore. I couldn’t walk into that building anymore.

Mary DeMuth: And as everything became a spectacle the longer we were there, it was all about Sunday morning and the spectacle that it had become like a circus, and I could not find Jesus there. And I would sit in the audience. We had beautifully. articulated and performed auto-tuned worship. It was beautiful. It sounded amazing. There was a lot of rah-rah-rah. There was a lot of energy and it felt like Ichabod to me, like to me as a Christ follower, a mature Christ follower of many years, I couldn’t feel the presence of the Lord anymore. And for me, that’s what is the point of going to a church, if that has happened to you?

Mary DeMuth: I’m not saying that other people aren’t experiencing the Lord there. I’m not saying that other people aren’t becoming Christians there. They are. And that’s probably the most problematic part of this whole thing is that they are easily able to point to numbers that are flowing in through the front door, ignoring all of us that have left out the back door.

Mary DeMuth: And because it is successful, therefore they can just call me names and malign me or people like Amanda and others, and they can dismiss us because look what God is doing.

Julie Roys: And Amanda talked about that same thing about the church within a church and even how each of the churches had different women’s ministries.

Julie Roys: And I think about it, it was so personal because people are different and they all had different campuses, have different makeup, they have different cultures and now, this franchise model where you go in, you order a Big Mac, and you get a Big Mac. That’s what you’re used to, right?

Julie Roys: But is it? And probably our conversation today, we probably don’t have enough time to really delve into this, but this is something I have been thinking more and more about, is it even church if you have a place where it, maybe a Christian organization and maybe a Christian organization that blesses a lot of people but is it a church where you say to members of the body, we don’t need you, we don’t need your gift, and you can’t serve here? If we have a pastor who doesn’t even know people’s names, if we don’t have that kind of shepherding, is it even a church anymore?

Mary DeMuth: I’ll back up before I answer that in that I’ve, been overseas and, anyone that’s been overseas and gone to a McDonald’s overseas knows they have different categories. So even franchises like McDonald’s in France has McWine, right? Or McVine. McDonald’s even understands contextualizing the hamburger to the person, and to the people. So that’s an odd thing for me that there would be this idea that you can just, this is the model and we’re superimposing it on all sorts of different economic people and people in different cultures, and we’re just gonna superimpose it there, which seems super weird to me.

Mary DeMuth:  On the, is this a church? We have to just go back to simplicity, which is, are we celebrating the Lord’s Supper? Are there sacraments there? Is the word of God being delivered and is it?

Mary DeMuth: And then deeper than that, are  disciples being made? because there’s a big, huge difference between converts who hear something. And I think about the parable of the soils, they hear it, they receive it with joy, they have no root and then they walk away. We’re not teaching a theology of suffering in most of these bigger churches for sure.

Mary DeMuth: But I think we need to remember that a church is supposed to be a place of koinonia, a place of fellowship, a place where we are iron sharpening iron, and a place of discipleship where people are not just converted, but they are just doing the slow work of people pouring into each other’s lives. That’s discipleship. That’s not a top-down model. That’s not pastor to congregation. That’s person to person. And when a church gets so big for its britches these things can fall through the cracks.

Mary DeMuth: Now, Lakepointe had done a very good job of doing that discipleship piece through their vehicle of a life group. But as things have shifted, we’re seeing a lot less of that. And again, I haven’t been there for six months, so they could be doing it. I don’t know, but just from my perspective today that’s something that’s been difficult to see.

Julie Roys: You alluded to this earlier, this idea of leaving well. It’s hard to leave well and even to define what leaving well is. I will say there was one church that my husband and I ended up leaving and it was over a theological disagreement that we just felt we couldn’t bend on. And at the same time, we felt really pulled to another church. They actually had us come up and explain why we were leaving and gathered around us and prayed for us.

Julie Roys: That was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen where it was just like, differences and God makes calling you here. We want to bless you as you go. And you’ve met a lot to this church and we mean a lot to each other and let’s just bless each other. It was so beautiful, and I don’t know why this can’t happen more. But usually it’s just a lot of pain and a lot of heartache And when you talk about leaving well, what it usually means to a lot of people, and I’ve heard even Christian leaders talk about this. When you leave well, you just keep your stuff to yourself.

Julie Roys: The issues that you had, you suck them under, and you don’t speak about it. And honestly, I think that’s part of our problem in the church is that we don’t talk about our problems. And so we wait till they become a major scandal or crisis. And then they really blow up. And we allow abusive pastors just kind of reign; to continue doing what they’re doing.

Julie Roys: So talk about this concept of leaving well. Obviously, you’ve chosen to speak rather boldly about what happened there. I think really from a heart of love and concern for both the church and the people there, not just to vent how you’re feeling. But talk about that and how you’ve come to the decision you have about that.

Mary DeMuth: First, I’ll say there’s been kind of  an unholy silence. We were pretty high up and we have not been followed up with, and the very few times we were invited into those spaces, it was difficult. So there is that. I would encourage church leaders to do what your former church did, because I think there’s a lot to be learned.

Mary DeMuth: I also need to say that we didn’t leave from a position of canceling and of immaturity. There’s one thing if you’re like a church hopper and you’re like, just running around with a consumeristic mindset like, what do I get in this for me? A lot of people that are leaving churches are being accused of being that. But the ones that I know that have left this church are mature, deep believers in Christ who are seeing so many red flags.

Mary DeMuth: And the reason I articulated it was because I was running into people who were brokenhearted and didn’t have words for it. And somehow through the grace of God and through his power and his ability, I was able to say the things that people were feeling so that they would no longer feel alone. I would rather have been silent if the Lord hadn’t put his hand on me.

Mary DeMuth: I would rather grieve this alone and quietly, but I have seen a lot of really good conversation and ministry happen because of this. I’m not out to harm the reputation of the church. I will never tell someone to leave a church unless they’re being abused, obviously, that’s their own decision.

Mary DeMuth: They have the autonomy to make that decision between them and God. But I do want to be a listening ear and an empath for those who are bewildered at the church they’re going to that no longer looks like the church they used to go to.

Julie Roys: So tell me what is gossip because this is what is, this is the word, I’ve gotten called this myriads and myriads of times. But what is gossip? And clearly you don’t believe this falls into that category. Why?

Mary DeMuth: It’s not gossip to share your emotions about how you’re reacting to an abuse. That is actually being a lot like Paul. And if you look at the letters throughout the epistles in particular, you see Paul saying things about churches.

Mary DeMuth: And so if we’re going to talk about gossip, we’d have to call him a gossip because he was constantly calling out, Hey, listen, those Judaizers, they don’t really have it right. Oh, listen, this Gnosticism isn’t good. And that guy’s having sex with his mother-in-law. These kinds of things are, he’s very clear.

Mary DeMuth: These are not untrue things he’s saying. These are actually true statements. And underneath all of that is a desire for the church to be the body of Christ and to be holy. It’s not slander because it’s telling the truth. And it’s always with a desire to see God do good work in the local church. And if she is straying, if you love her, you will say something about it.

Mary DeMuth: Now there’s a manner in which you can do that. You can be really caustic. You can speak the truth without love, but we are called to speak the truth with love. And I believe that we have conflagrated speaking the truth in love with gossip, and those are two different things. Gossip intends to harm the reputation of another or of an entity; telling the truth in love tries to help that institution have a mirror and see what’s going on.

Julie Roys: The motive is really important, although I always get frustrated when people try to judge other people’s motives because the truth is, you don’t know somebody else’s heart. And that’s something I never do. I’ll talk about actions, but I don’t know someone’s heart. Only God knows the heart. But I know that’s something I constantly check myself about is my desire for repentance? is my desire to see these leaders repent? 100 percent, and I know you well enough to know that you would be absolutely thrilled and would extend grace if the leaders who have hurt you so deeply would repent of their sin and would change their ways. I know that and I’m sure you pray for that, that you and Patrick are praying right now for that. Am I right?

Mary DeMuth: Absolutely. That is  underneath all of this, is just a desire to see the local church healthy and to see her lift up the name of Jesus. And we also just want to again put up a mirror of is this representing the kingdom of God or is this representing something else? And that’s what we were coming to find. Patrick and I both were. The kingdom’s upside down. It’s counterintuitive. It’s the least is the most. And the most is the least. It’s not about building platforms. It’s not about being the winner. It’s not about Christian nationalism. It’s none of these. I don’t even like those two words together.

Mary DeMuth: It’s not about power. Jesus willingly laid down his power and he considered equality with God, not something to be grasped. He made himself nothing. And when I see a lot of these big churches and not all of them, but a lot of them where it is very male leader centric celebrity driven. And really about, we want to be the coolest people with the biggest numbers.

Mary DeMuth: I don’t get it. They’ll point to Acts chapter two. They’ll talk about how many were added to the kingdom on that day. They’ll call that a mega church. It was not a mega church. People were still meeting in homes. So we just have to be careful. I’m not against mega churches. I actually think that there’s a place for them.

Mary DeMuth: Over the years, they we have had the benefit of a megachurch that can go into a community and say, oh, you need a church building, here you go. Like they can do some things that a littler church can’t do. So I’m not against the megachurch, but there is something fallible in the model, the consumeristic model, that is causing all of this anguish.

Julie Roys: And I’d say the leadership model. Because we have imported a leadership model that’s of the world and done the exact opposite of what Jesus said, don’t be like the Gentiles who lorded over them, but instead, whoever wants to be first should be last, whoever wants to be greatest should be least.

Julie Roys: It is the upside-down kingdom, and we’ve forgotten that. We’ve become just like the world, and we count our success the same way as the world. And we’ve seen this going, it’s been going on a very long time, and I think the megachurches get a lot of the criticism because they’ve. been kind of doing it in spades in an awful lot of them and then exporting these values to all the smaller churches who are wannabes, right?

Julie Roys: So you even have smaller churches that are trying to do the exact same thing and they think it’s right because it’s successful very much in the American model of success, which is bigger and better. Before we go forward, there is something I do want to ask you, though, and I would be remiss if I didn’t. What was it about what you and Patrick that you were doing that they didn’t want you serving?

Mary DeMuth: I don’t know. They just didn’t want us. That’s what’s been hard is, it’s a speculative, I just don’t know. And I’m willing to be talked to about those things, of course. Like if they feel like something that we’re not godly enough or we’re, or I’m too public or whatever it is, I don’t know.

Mary DeMuth: But I do know this, I do know this. When we were told this, what we learned was that they had been morphing from a church that had a lot of lay leaders to a higher control situation where only people who are employed by the church could be in charge of ministries. And so, you can control that. If you can control someone’s salary, you can control the whole thing.

Mary DeMuth: And so we were just told there is no place for you because we’re not on staff. So that’s probably my guess at a reason is that we were not controllable. And the statement made to us is I’ve got 30 other people just like you that are well trained and that have gone, my husband went to seminary, and all that, but will never use them. We will never use them. And basically, you just need to get over it. You will never be used.

Julie Roys:  What a waste of resources. Unbelievable. The kingdom is not so well resourced that we don’t need every single person; that God didn’t give gifts every single one of them to be used.

Julie Roys: But I will say, I’ve seen this happen before. And the beautiful thing is, people get dispersed, people like yourself and like Patrick, too often churches that are very needy very welcoming. Like Oh, thank God. It’s like Christmas come early, come to Moots, come to our church. And I’m sure you’re experiencing that because I can’t imagine not wanting you and Patrick at my church. It’s just shocking to me. But yeah, that is a benefit of it. It’s the church in Jerusalem getting persecuted. Then they went to the ends of the earth, and we can do that.

Julie Roys: One of the things that I’ve seen be a silver lining, if you can call it that, in these sorts of situations is you’re a church refugee, but there’s a lot of other ones out there, too. And there can be a great deal of deep fellowship. And, in many ways, that’s what RESTORE is. It’s a gathering of a lot of not just refugees, a lot of helpers and pastors and people who are allies who just want to know more. But. There’s an awful lot of us there that have been hurt by the church, and there’s just this beautiful, sweet fellowship.

Julie Roys: And my understanding is, and Amanda alluded to it in our last podcast, that you guys have served as pastors to these refugees. Would you talk about that sweet group that you were able to love on and pastor through this and just help them?

Mary DeMuth: Yeah, we definitely were praying, and we just kept coming upon people. And in particular, people who had been employed but had been harshly fired in very traumatic ways. And we just felt so deeply. I mean for us, it’s sad and we were highly involved and it’s sad, but it wasn’t our job. And so we just had this empathy for those folks. And so we gathered as much as we knew, we put the word out quietly.

Mary DeMuth: We gathered people for several weeks and met with them. And these were people that some were still there, and some were not, and some were walking away from Jesus. It was just the whole gamut of a wide variety of people in a lot of pain. And what we wanted to do was just to help them know our first session was called, You are not crazy. We just wanted them to know. that what they had seen and experienced was real and validated by the rest of us. And then we’ve just been walking through Chuck DeGroat’s information about narcissism in the church and narcissistic church systems. And then talking about what is a safe person and what is a safe system. And then praying and crying and grieving and giving people the space that they are not allowed to have to get out all this junk that’s inside of us because it’s been so, so painful.

Julie Roys: And I want to get to the safe system and the safe person, because I’m sure there’s a lot of people listening who would like that information as well.

Julie Roys: But let’s talk about the feelings first, because when this happens, there is. Again, we talked about bewilderment. There’s just this mix of negative emotions that you don’t know what to do with a lot of times. One is anger and anger in the church has been one of these emotions that we just don’t deal with very well. And I’ve said this numerous times, but this is one that we’ll get. We’ll get thrown back in my face and people say, you sound like you’re angry and I’m like, darn I’m angry. Why aren’t you angry? Why wouldn’t we be angry when these awful things are happening in the church? And yet again, as a Christian, we feel guilty when we’re angry. So how have you dealt with your own anger, and helped others who are dealing with similar anger?

Mary DeMuth: The first thing that we did was we process outside of the circle of the church because we needed to know if we were going crazy. Is this normal? Are these things that we’re saying? Is it a big deal? Or are we just being babies? We definitely did that. And then it’s been the prayer of let this anger fuel something beautiful, because I do believe that great movements of God happen because there’s injustice and we are angry at the injustice.

Mary DeMuth: I often joke that I write a book when I’m angry, so I must be a pretty angry person at book 52. There’s injustice in this world and our God is righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. When we do the work of making note of people who are being hurt and oppressed and harmed, we are doing the Lord’s work. And so that anger can be a fuel to doing positive things

Mary DeMuth:. Now, I also just want to say, it’s okay to be angry. I’m angry and I have been angry and I’m processing that with friends and I’m processing it with my husband and with the Lord. Rightfully so, because I see so many people, to use Mark Driscoll’s frustrating phraseology, the people behind the bus. I’m meeting so many people behind the bus that are getting the bus is backing up over the people. Because not only cause when if you say anything, if you dare to say anything, you will get run over again and again, you will be accused of all sorts of things when really your desire is to see people set free and to open the eyes of people that are being harmed so that they no longer have to be in that system anymore.

Julie Roys: And what a great deal of fear these leaders must feel. to behave that way that you have to annihilate people who say anything negative. I’ve gotten quite comfortable with people saying negative things. I just want to make sure if there’s truth in it, that I take it to heart. It’s okay, but in the end of the day, you’ve got to be okay with who you are before your Lord. And those closest to you who will tell you the truth when you’re veering off. That desire to control that desire that you have to shut down negative communication. I can’t imagine living in that much fear that you constantly are doing that. And yet that’s what we see.

Julie Roys: And that whole thing about feeling like you’re crazy. So much of that’s because you’ve been told you’re crazy. You’ve been told that because that’s the gaslighting that happens when you say there’s a problem. No, there is no problem. You’re the problem.

Mary DeMuth: It’s back to the emperor with no clothes. We all see the naked emperor and only a little kid says he’s not wearing any clothes. And we’re like Oh, yeah, but there’s this like kind of delusional thing or czarist Russia, the Potemkin village. If you know what that is, it was a village that was just set up like a movie set so that when the czar went by he could see that this Potemkin’s village was actually a really cool place, but you open the door, you walk through, it’s just mud and dirt on the other side and some horses grazing in a field. Church is not a Potemkin village. It should never be. It should not be a facade that we are trying to hold up by shaming people who say negative things. The church is a living, breathing organization. It is the body of Christ.

Mary DeMuth: God does not need to be defended. He can do just fine by himself. And this fear that you talk about is very real because it’s about human empire. Whenever we build our Roman empire on our cult of personality and our particular views about things and not on the word of God and not on studying the word of God, then we will be threatened by anyone who says anything negative because that will eat away at the foundation of our FACO empire.

Julie Roys: Very well said. That is very well said. Let’s talk about grief. And I was reminded of the Kubler Ross Stages of grief. And let me see. Those are denial, which is often where we start, right? When things go wrong, anger, the bargaining we can work this out somehow, right? Depression and sink into that deep depression. This is just so sad. And then there’s acceptance, which is that last one. And it’s not like these are completely linear because what I found is you go through, oh, I’ve worked through to acceptance. No, I haven’t. I’m back at anger again.

Julie Roys: Something will happen. it’ll put you right back there. So it’s not completely linear, but how have you moved toward acceptance? What does acceptance look like? And maybe that’s a long way off but talk about where you’re at in that whole process.

Mary DeMuth: I think a lot of people are in this space. There’s a lot of loyal people and that’s where the bargaining comes in. And a lot of the people I’ve talked to are like, yeah, I never go to that church anymore, like to the services, but I’m here because of my small group and they’re my church. There’s this, that we were in that space for a really long time. We can make this work. This is our church, not that other part is not the church, but it’s all together.

Mary DeMuth: So once we got to the decision and made the decision, then the depression set in for sure. And I think I’m still there working my way through it of thinking that I was going to be there the rest of my life. As a person who grew up in a really difficult home and met Jesus at 15 years old, the church became my family. My family was not my family. And the church was the one place where I could go to be loved, to be healed, to be worked, just to work through my salvation with fear and trembling. And so, to walk away from something that you’ve been at the most we’ve ever been at a church is 23. This is the longest we’ve ever been somewhere to walk away from. It felt like I lost my limb. I lost my family, my father’s in the faith, my mother’s in the faith, my aunts, and my uncles in the faith. And then to be villainized for just having eyes to see what the heck is going on, has been devastating, devastating. So I’m still in the grief phase and I don’t cry much about it because I’ve sometimes just shoved it way down deep because I did not ever expect that I was going to have to leave a place I loved so much.

Julie Roys: There’s a, I think it’s a short story and I should know the name of it, but it’s about someone, a man who goes to a cemetery and he sees a woman just weeping and weeping, and he’s there to visit his partner who had died. I don’t think he had actually married her. But he realizes in that moment that the person who’s grieving, who’s crying and just sobbing is the richer person. Because they had loved deeply and he had never loved that deeply. And I’ve thought about that, I lost my mother over 20 years ago and she was so special and I never like, I hear some people talk about their mothers, and how difficult or what I never felt that way. My mother was just a joy, but it was so hard to lose her, but it was hard because I loved her so much.

Julie Roys: And I think, I’m so grateful for you that you did have that church experience where you were loved so deeply, where you loved deeply, and I’ve got to believe that God will provide that family again. It will be different. And I know I just feel so blessed by our church family that we found in this wasteland or out of the wasteland.

Julie Roys: But it’s been really, really special because I don’t have to explain anything to these people. They understand the world I work in. They understand. It’s just, it’s really been a gift. And I think it’s been a gift too. And I know you have adult children. I’m glad I had these adult children because they’re a blessing in ways that they couldn’t be and a support in ways that they couldn’t be when they were younger, when we had to be everything to them.

Julie Roys: And I’m glad I’m not dealing with, and I know a lot of people are,  is what do we do for our kids now? And then there’s that pressure to find something for your children right away. And that makes it really hard. But as believers, we are taught, Hebrews 10:25, let us not give up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but all the more as the day of the Lord approaches, let us encourage each other and all the more as the day approaches. I have found sometimes that can be used as a club against people who are just grieving, and they’re dealing with a great deal of betrayal trauma at this point.

Julie Roys: And now we’re going to hit them over the head and say, you better be in church on Sunday. When they walk into a church and it just triggers, it’s a trigger for them. I believe in fellowship. I believe in the church. I love the church, but I am concerned about the process of helping people reengage after they’ve been wounded so profoundly.

Julie Roys: So speak to this process of finding a new church home, or even having the freedom for a period of time to say, I don’t know. I don’t know that I can do that right now. Obviously, there is a danger if we’re out of fellowship for too long. But speak to that person who right now is outside of fellowship and really afraid to reengage with it.

Mary DeMuth: Yeah. First, you’re super normal. And if you’ve been wounded in a terrible community, the stakes are pretty high, when you walk in, especially if you’re triggered or traumatized by walking into a building. I don’t know that I could walk into a big church right now. Like I just don’t think I could, I think I would have a hard time with that.

Mary DeMuth: So for us, how we went about it and everyone’s going to be different, we did want to land somewhere because we just feel like we’re in that stage of, we want to serve the church. And so for our little parameters, and I think it’ll be different for every person. Ours was, it needs to be local. And we’re hoping that there will be people there already that we’re friends with.

Mary DeMuth: And since we’re in a little town, right? So there’s, 1 billion churches and little towns in Texas, right? So we had plenty to choose from so many, and we didn’t even get to all of them, but that was our parameter in choosing a home. In fact, we just officially joined a church yesterday. So it did take some time to get to that place. But I just want to let you know that it’s normal to be scared, to be triggered, to be in pain.

Mary DeMuth: Don’t let it stay there. You are wounded in a negative community and the Lord is very frustrating and he asks you to be healed in good community. That’s hard. But a relational wound requires a relational cure, and that’s one reason why Patrick and I have been pouring into people who are hurt because we want to be that safer relationship for people to be falling apart or hurting or ask really blunt questions and be really ticked off. Because I believe people are healed in community when they’re wounded in community.

Julie Roys: 100%. And I know when I came through just so much grief and pain and church hurt. I know a lot of people go to therapy and I’m not against therapy, but I was like, I don’t need to talk to this about this with a counselor. It’s just not like that. I need to be in a community where there’s love. I need to see beauty in people like again. And even though I’m afraid to be vulnerable on some levels at the same time, I’m compelled to be vulnerable because I know until you do that, you can’t heal.

Mary DeMuth: When we met with the person who became our pastor and there’s a multiplicity of pastors in this particular denomination, but we sat across from him and we told him our story and he just listened, and he dignified the story. And then he said this, he said, we just want to love you. And I just immediately just, I was like, what? you don’t want to use me? Cause we’ve been in leadership positions in the church for so long, our whole adult lives we’ve been in those positions and for him to say, we just want to love you. And that was foreign to me, but that was the beginning of that healing journey.

Julie Roys: I had a pastor at one of the churches we visited when we were in this search process. And it was at a very large church I would say it’s probably a megachurch, and we sat across from him and he said a very similar thing. It was really wonderful. And he said, “I think you guys have been wounded deeply, and you need a place to heal. And we do just want to love you. What was interesting is when I came back to him with a follow up email, because part of me is like wait, this is a megachurch. Am I insane?

Julie Roys: I’m just like looking at it and being like,  I don’t think this is at all what I want. And then I emailed him. I said, we want a pastor. Would you be able to pastor us? And then he basically declined as nicely as he could; like I’d love to be, but I can’t and I’m like I don’t need a small group leader to try and pastor me. I was just kind of like of course, you can’t because you have the corporation to run. And so that is again a fundamental issue that I do have with the mega church.

Julie Roys: One thing I found and I see it here, because I don’t know how many people in the Chicago area who have left Willow Creek and ended up at Harvest. They’re like, wow, di I know how to pick them! They’re going from something that’s become familiar. And if you became a believer at Willow, then that big model, that big service, whiz bang entertaining sermon or inspirational talk, whatever you want to call it.

Julie Roys: Although I’ll say at Harvest, he preached he discipled people. I know a lot of people from Harvest that were discipled shockingly by a really depraved pastor. But I see them going from what they’re used to. And it’s almost like when I see people who grew up in a dysfunctional home and thank God you didn’t do this, but they often then replicate that in their own home, or they’re attracted to that same kind of dysfunction in the next home.

Julie Roys: And I’ve seen it with churches and I’m just like, why are you going to the same model of church that you just left? And I see that there’s this thought in their head that it’s just the one bad apple. That’s all it is. It’s the one bad apple, but basically there’s nothing wrong with the system.

Julie Roys: I think there’s something fundamentally wrong with the system. So speak to that. Do you think, I know you’ve got some pretty strong opinions now about celebrity megachurches, even though you said some megachurches we’ve seen work. Do you have some thoughts about the model of church and what makes a safe church?

Mary DeMuth: Yes. So many thoughts. I’ll start with a story. In the early two thousand, I went to my first Christian writers conference before I was published and on the airplane on the way there, my story flashed before my eyes and I said, Lord I’ve withstood a lot of trials. Like I’ve gone through a lot of trials.

Mary DeMuth: And he said clearly to me, you have withstood many trials, but will you withstand the trial of notoriety? And that has stayed in my mind all these years because fame emaciates, fame makes you think that you’re better than other people and that people exist to serve you rather than you equipping the saints for the work of service.

Mary DeMuth: And when the systems are in a place, typically what happens is the ego takes over. There’s something deep within the narcissistic system. And in the narcissistic pastor, they have this wound that they can’t fill except by acclaim. And then it’s like a drug, so they have to keep being acclaimed. They cannot have negative things said about them.

Mary DeMuth: Therefore, the next thing they’ll do is they will dismantle the elder board, or they will significantly reduce the influence of the elder board that exists or completely dismantle it altogether. They will gather yes-men around themselves who will only say positive things to them that are not in their context that cannot see them do the bad things And who are other megachurch pastors. So there’s just this like cabal of megachurch pastors that are sitting on each other’s boards saying you can do whatever you want and have fun.

Mary DeMuth: That system is ungodly and that will cause the fall of many leaders, which we have already seen over and over and over. It’s like a broken record of sameness. It keeps happening. Why? Because I think we are creating a church structure from a pyramid, which if you look in the Bible, the Israelites left Egypt, but were still looking back at it. One person at the top, one Pharaoh at the top, one supreme ruler, and then everybody has to fit into that system underneath that pyramid.

Mary DeMuth: Whereas the kingdom of God is the opposite of that. It’s an inverted pyramid. The kingdom is of people that are last to are not acknowledged. And I think we’re going to be super surprised at where they are standing in line and the new heavens and the new earth, the people with all the acclaim are going to be way at the back. The people that nobody knew about that were silently and quietly serving the Lord are going to be at the front of the line. And we’re going to say, tell me your story, I want to learn from you.

Mary DeMuth: But these structures cause the downfall of many men who do not have the character to hold up that structure. They’ve been given leadership responsibility without having maturity, and therefore they are stealing sermons. They are harming people with their words. They are demonizing others. They are all sorts of things you talked about last week. They’re doing those things because they have to keep their empire because their ego needs it so badly.

Julie Roys: And the other thing is, and we can’t really even go into this, although I know you see this too, because you run your own literary agency, is that the evangelical industrial complex needs these celebrity pastors to function. So they need the publishing companies need the celebrities so that they can publish them, so that the megachurches need the celebrity to fuel their model of that great attractional speaker that can be everything. Which again, does just feed into the narcissism and it attracts the narcissism.

Julie Roys: We like the narcissist. And the whole entire moneymaking empire runs on these narcissists and these celebrity pastors. And so it’s not just even the pastor himself who needs to be a celebrity, but it’s this system that needs celebrities. And at some point, Mary we’ve got to deal with this and evangelicalism, or we’re just going to keep doing this over and over and over again.

Mary DeMuth: And I believe the Lord is bringing judgment on those systems. And we’re seeing that in publishing as well. I think it’s a broken system. We make these requirements of how popular you are to be able to be an author. In the nineties and before, it was really about can you write a good book? Is it theologically sound? Do you have a good mind? Do you have a heart to minister to others? And now it’s how many social media followers do you have? Which is you can buy those.

Mary DeMuth: So what does that even mean? I hate being a cog in the Christian industrial complex, both as an author and as a literary agent, but as an agent, I feel like I’m championing projects that would otherwise not get sold. That are more global voices people that are marginalized and not often given a voice. So that’s why I have a literary agency. Cause I’m trying to have those voices platformed.

Julie Roys: Before you go, I want to ask you also about, we’ve talked a little bit about a safe church, but what makes somebody a safe person as you’re trying to process this?

Mary DeMuth: A safe person is someone who doesn’t speak initially, who is an active listener. Who doesn’t jump to conclusions, who doesn’t feel the need to defend the church that you are leaving, who doesn’t say things like Hebrew says don’t forsake your assembling together. Those kinds of like cliche, like super cliche oh, you better do this instead of just meeting you in your grief.

Mary DeMuth: A safe person doesn’t try to change your state. They come alongside you into your state and they weep alongside. And that to me is so powerful. People won’t remember what you said, but they will remember that you were there with them in the pain. And we’re just willing to say, yeah, that hurts. And, oh, that must’ve been very painful. Just that empathy piece.

Julie Roys: And they won’t shame you for deconstructing. They’ll walk with you; they’ll allow you to process. And I hate that when I see that. I see it on social media all the time, people denigrating people who are deconstructing and I’m like, maybe if you didn’t do that, maybe they wouldn’t be walking away from their faith. But again, deconstructing, I think takes a lot of different forms. I think for a lot of people that have gone through it; they’ve come back to a richer faith that stripped of maybe some of the baggage that they had previously.

Julie Roys: Before I let you go, because I know a lot of people listening are in this place of just really, really  struggling and in a lot of hurt. And I know you have names and faces for those people too. Would you be willing to just pray for them and what they’re going through right now?

Mary DeMuth: I will. And I’m just going to mention, I have a free resource, MARYDEMUTH.COM/CHURCHHURT. And it’s a hundred statements about things that people feel when they’re going through church hurt so that you can share it with a friend and check off the ones that are you, and then have a good conversation about it.

Julie Roys: Wonderful. What a great resource. Thank you.

Mary DeMuth: Yeah. Okay. Let me pray. Lord, thank you for loving the least of these. Thank you for leaving the 99 and chasing the one. Thank you for being counterintuitive. Thank you for the Sermon on the Mount. Thank you for your grace being sufficient for us and your power is made perfect in our weakness.

Mary DeMuth: Lord, forgive us for these systems where we are worshiping strength, power, and numbers when that’s nothing to do with your kingdom. Reorient our lives and our hearts to what is your kingdom. Help us to hear your voice in the midst of the madness and the muddledness of what this has become. I pray that you would send friends to my friends who are suffering in the aftermath of spiritual abuse and church hurt.

Mary DeMuth: I pray for hope Lord in these kinds of situations, it can feel like a death, and it feels very hopeless and sad. I pray for comfort and pray all of this in your beautiful name, Jesus. Amen.

Julie Roys: Amen. Mary. Thank you so much. And how beautiful that even in this you are ministering to others through it. So I am just so grateful for you and for Patrick and for what you bring to the kingdom. And thank you so much for being willing to talk so vulnerably and bravely. So thank you.

Mary DeMuth: Thank you.

Julie Roys: 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 I want to invite all of you to our next Restore Conference in Phoenix in February 2025.

Julie Roys: This is one of the most healing gatherings I know of, where you won’t just hear from amazing folks like Mary DeMuth and Scott McKnight, author of A Church Called Tove, and Dr. David Pooler, an expert in adult clergy sexual abuse. But you’ll also meet lots of other people who have gone through similar experiences, and I’ve found that just being in that kind of community is so healing.

Julie Roys: And so powerful. So please come. I would love to meet you there. To find out more information, just go to RESTORE2025.COM. Also just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple 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.

Julie Roys: 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.

According to the Houston Chronicle, hundreds have recently left Lakepointe Church—Josh Howerton’s prominent megachurch in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Now a longtime volunteer leader at Lakepointe, who recently left the church with her family, is speaking out.

Joining host Julie Roys on this edition of The Roys Report is Amanda Cunningham, a former model and actress who became a Christian at Lakepointe Church under former Senior Pastor Steve Stroope. She also served as a leader in both the marriage ministry and women’s ministry, which boomed during her years there.

But in 2019, Stroope retired, and young pastor Josh Howerton was hired to replace him. According to Amanda, that’s when a major transformation occurred.

Ministries were canceled as the church sought to become more centralized and on-brand. Emails from Amanda to those in her ministry were canceled, and they were replaced by communications from central leadership.

Soon, outsiders began posting about Howerton’s plagiarized sermons. His behavior online, and in sermons, led to allegations of misogyny. Then, Howerton told a joke that some said promoted marital rape. Howerton apologized for the joke, but as TRR reported, he apparently plagiarized his apology!

Most recently, the church, in an effort to gain city approval for a traffic light, urged people in the church to sign up to drive repeatedly through an intersection to manipulate the findings of a traffic study.

All these events, plus interactions Amanda witnessed personally, made her and her husband feel like they no longer could attend the church. Now, she’s speaking out to warn others.

After 11 years doing life and ministry at Lakepointe, it wasn’t easy or simple for Amanda and her husband to exit. Her eye-opening account covers what led them to that point—plus insights on church celebrity culture, top-down leadership, and spiritual abuse that are widely applicable.

Amanda Cunningham is a former model/actress who left her career behind when she became a mom. Subsequently, she spun into an identity crisis and was later stunned to find her true identity in Christ. Amanda is a writer, speaker, wife of a fire Deputy Chief, and mother of two girls. Connect with Amanda on Facebook.

Julie Roys: According to the Houston Chronicle, hundreds have recently left Lakepointe Church, Josh Howerton’s prominent mega church in the Dallas Fort Worth area. One of those who have left, a longtime volunteer leader at the church, joins me today to tell her story.

Julie Roys: Welcome to The Roy’s Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys, and today I’ll be speaking with Amanda Cunningham, a former model and actress who became a Christian at Lakepointe Church. That was more than a decade ago when Steve Stroop pastored the church. But in 2019, Stroop retired, and young pastor Josh Howerton was hired to replace him. According to Amanda, that’s when a major transformation occurred.

Julie Roys: Ministries were cancelled as the church sought to become more centralized and on brand. Emails from Amanda to those in her ministry were cancelled, and they were replaced by communications from central leadership. Then outsiders began posting about Howerton’s plagiarized sermons. His behavior online and in sermons led to allegations of misogyny.

Julie Roys: And then Howerton told a joke that some online said promoted marital rape. Howerton apologized for the joke, but as The Roy’s Report reported, he apparently plagiarized his apology. Lastly, the church, in an effort to gain city approval for a traffic light, urged people in the church to sign up to repeatedly drive through an intersection to manipulate the findings.

Julie Roys: All these events, plus interactions Amanda witnessed personally, caused her family to leave the church. And now, she’s speaking out to warn others. We’ll hear Amanda’s eye-opening account in just a minute, but first, I’d like to thank the sponsors of this podcast, Talbot Seminary and Marquardt of Barrington.

Julie Roys: Are you passionate about impacting the world so it reflects biblical ideals of justice? The Talbot School of Theology Doctor of Ministry program is launching a new track exploring the theological, social, and practical dimensions of biblical justice today. The program equips students with the knowledge, skills, and spiritual foundation needed to address social issues with wisdom and compassion.

Julie Roys: Justice has become a key issue in our culture, but more importantly, it’s an issue that’s close to God’s heart. While it’s clear the Bible calls God’s people to pursue justice, we must be guided by His Word within that pursuit. Talbot has created this track to do just that. As part of this program, you’ll examine issues such as trafficking, race, immigration, and poverty. And I’ll be teaching a session as well, focusing on the right use of power in our churches so we can protect the vulnerable. So join me in a community of like-minded scholars committed to social change and ethical leadership. Apply now at TALBOT.EDU/DMIN.

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Julie Roys:  Again, joining me is Amanda Cunningham, a former model and actress who about 11 years ago became a Christian at a church in the Dallas Fort Worth area called Lakepointe. But over the years, it’s changed dramatically under its new leader, Josh Howerton. So Amanda joins me now to talk about, sort of from an insider’s view, what’s been happening at that church and also her family’s painful decision to decide to leave that church. So Amanda, thank you so much for joining me and being willing to talk about something that I know has been really difficult for you.

Amanda Cunningham: Thank you for the opportunity to work it out with other people who will listen and Christians who understand a heart for wanting a reconciled, peaceful, loving church to be a great witness to the world. So thank you so much for having me.

Julie Roys: And I know your story is unique to you. And yet at the same time, there are a lot of people listening who have had to leave their church for one reason or another. And they know what that process is like. There’s some who I’m guessing are listening right now and trying to figure out, is the stuff that I’m seeing at my church, is it serious enough to leave? Is it not? And so I think this is going to be a really beneficial podcast for a lot of folks.

Julie Roys: But before we talk about that, let’s talk about sort of your background and why you even came to this church. My understanding is 11 years ago, you weren’t a believer, and you really weren’t looking to go to church. Why did you end up showing up at Lakepointe?

Amanda Cunningham: It’s a very long story, but what ended up happening, I had visited church when I was younger. It never really stuck. I didn’t fall in love with the Lord. I didn’t understand it. And when I became a mom, just seeing the miracle of life through my daughter’s birth. And as they grew, I thought there’s something to this God. And we ended up moving to a new town when they were one in three. My husband’s a firefighter and a lot of his firefighter friends invited us to Lakepointe.

Amanda Cunningham: And immediately I thought I don’t want to go to a mega church, televangelist; I had all these outside opinions. And it took me a little while to even wrap my mind around visiting a church like that, and I really started to feel convicted with this thought before I even knew what that meant, that if my husband wants to try a church, I should try whatever church it is.

Amanda Cunningham: So we started going. And I am his third wife. He’s my second husband. We were obviously terrible at marriage because we didn’t know God’s design for it. We weren’t living by it. But as soon as we started attending, we were completely consumers, grateful to have child-care, grateful for the coffee and the music and the movie seats.

Amanda Cunningham: We were soaking it all up. But they started preaching a marriage series on fixing your marriage. And my husband and I kind of looked at each other I think God’s talking to us? Is that a thing? And the reason why they were doing a marriage series was to launch a marriage ministry.

Amanda Cunningham: So my husband and I just felt seeing okay, we really do need to figure out how to make our marriage better. We were in a really tough place and ended up attending the marriage ministry that Lakepointe launched called Re-Engage.

Amanda Cunningham: And it was founded by Watermark, and he didn’t want to go .He ended up going and week four, we have this huge forgiveness lesson. And I realized how much I needed forgiveness for. just all my sin. And I really just gave it up to the Lord. I had no idea what I was doing. I just started telling people what happened in this conversation that my husband said he believed again. And that I said, just God, take my whole life. I’m making a mess of it. People were like, Oh, you gave your life to Christ? What does that mean? Okay. I’m just learning all this language and I had heard you need to get baptized right away. So I got baptized.

Amanda Cunningham: And as I come out of the baptistry, our church is obviously very large. And so the baptisms are put on the big screen. And so I was baptized during service, and I come out of the baptistry and all my friends who I made in Re-Engage were like, why didn’t you invite us to your baptism? I can’t believe this! It’s so exciting. And I thought, is that what people do? You invite people?

Amanda Cunningham: So just very clueless coming in. And as soon as we graduated from Re-Engage, we were tapped for leadership. And so it was just this crash course of learning what church was about, what ministry was about, and how to serve well, like how to be a Christian leader. Obviously, we were vetted, even though we were very new to this. So we weren’t just thrown in willy-nilly, but it was a very interesting experience to learn all that so quickly.

Julie Roys: And at that time, the pastor was Steve Stroop, correct? And so it had a little different culture at that point than maybe it does now, and we’ll get into that, but you also started serving in the women’s ministry as well. Can you tell me a little bit about that?

Amanda Cunningham: So my husband and I served side by side for about four years in marriage ministry, and that’s a very intense, you’re in the depths of people’s broken marriages, holding on by a thread. And as our girls got a little older and we’re engaged in sports and after school activities, we really needed a relief to our schedule.

Amanda Cunningham: Then we ended up starting a life group and we’ve served all over. In that life group, I was trying to get women who are new to the church to get all the resources they could. So I was like, Hey, there’s a women’s ministry, we should go. And the first time I attended they really needed hands on deck.

Amanda Cunningham: And since I was an elected leader they were like, will you help? And I said, yes. And I ended up helping out. So there were several branches of women’s ministry, several groups that met regularly underneath the larger umbrella of women’s ministry, I ended up becoming the women’s ministry quarterly event. So we meet four times a year and have a time of fellowship and a meal and worship and a teaching and prayer. And so I did that for about three years.

Julie Roys: And during this time, you saw some differences between maybe the way the women’s ministry was treated, the resources allocated to it, as opposed to the men’s ministry. I doubt this is a unique thing in a lot of churches. I’d like to think it is. But describe what some of the things that you saw were.

Amanda Cunningham: That whole thing was very interesting. Just women and leadership in general, and definitely within in ministry and women’s ministry. But I came from a background a very female-dominated family. And I had worked for 10 years as a model and actress. And as a model, especially that is a very female-dominated industry. I would have no idea that women were looked down on in the church as they can be. So when I came into leadership serving beside my husband, it was very interesting trying to figure out where can I speak? Where can I not? I’m allowed to lead leadership meetings, but women are not allowed to speak in the pulpit. It was just a lot of gray area, a lot of research, a lot of my own bible study trying to figure out where I fit in. And then when I ended up serving in the women’s ministry, immediately people were sharing with me, okay, you’re the new leader, we can tell our ideas and complaints to. But at Lakepointe, they funneled a lot of their men’s ministry resources into one section of it is called man church. And as women,  as wives, we would encourage them to go whatever it took. The whole house is falling apart. Everyone has . . .  Fine. It’s man church, right? Please go. And there was no child-care. So I’m with the kids and the husbands would get like burgers and chips and have NFL stars or major league baseball stars. Really great speakers come, and we were so encouraged because our husbands would come home pumped up, ready to serve the Lord and dig in..

Amanda Cunningham: So we were really supportive of that. On the flip side, we would look at our women’s events that were similar to that, and, we’d be up in this larger room, but much smaller than the main sanctuary. And we’d have popcorn and little pig bites, and we’d have childcare. It was just much more cumbersome experience for us to try and attend.

Amanda Cunningham: And so as I came in as leader, I thought, okay, how can we remove barriers for women to attend? We want, we changed the imagery. So it wasn’t just a young blonde mom on the image. It was all ethnicities. It was for all ages. It was for all income levels, everything we could to let women know that this is a new vision, and we want everyone to feel welcome.

Amanda Cunningham: And I immediately realized, if we were going to turn the volume up and make women feel seen and respected in the same way, we could look at man church and say, Hey, they get all these cool things. How come we don’t? But okay, let’s prove ourselves. Do we really want biblical teaching? Do we really want community?

Amanda Cunningham: So we had to really come together and form a new volunteer group and just really earn the respect I felt and earn our place in the church. And our funds didn’t change, but we went from a hundred women at each event to five hundred and then four hundred and so we were able to meet in sanctuary and I cannot even tell you what that felt like as women’s church. Wow! We’re worthy of the big room.

Amanda Cunningham: And it’s sad to think that those things are important, but it is. If we’re looking at Genesis and how God created us equally in his image. Then, as women, we were thinking it should be equal in how we’re served and how we meet as a church. Now, obviously, women’s ministry have many different sections. So maybe that’s why the funds are so low. We don’t  know.

Amanda Cunningham: Turn the volume up. And a huge mission that we did together, and we served like 600 women with 10 free items of clothes the 1st year and 1000 women, 10 free items of clothes the next year. So our events were growing. Women were really, we had theologically trained teachers. We had food trucks. It was beautiful. And I find out that was an executive meeting close to before Covid shut us down,  where they explained that was the largest growing ministry of the church. And so we weren’t obviously trying to compete. We were just glad that we had grown and that women knew they had a place to come.

Amanda Cunningham: Women who husbands don’t follow Christ. Women who are single, women who are widows, like everyone was welcome. And so we were so excited and grateful that we could find community there.

Julie Roys: Sounds incredible. And I will say, I remember my husband and I, this is many years ago, but we attended Willow Creek and I remember Bill Hybel saying this out loud, which nowadays I think, wow, I don’t think he could get away with saying this out loud, but he actually said, We have found that if you target the men, the women will come anyway.

Julie Roys: So just target the men and the women are thrown in as a bonus. And even I remember thinking back, why was I not offended by that? I think I was so used to hearing that women are second class citizens in the church that I was like, okay, yeah, okay, we’ll do that. I look back now and kind of shocked at how I just went, okay.

Julie Roys: But it is something that needs to be addressed in church. I’m glad you did, but here you have this thriving ministry now, 2019 hits and Steve Stroop announces that he’s going to be resigning. He’s getting up in the years, and he announces that this new guy, Josh Howerton, is going to take over. When you first heard that, what did you think of Josh?

Amanda Cunningham: It was a shock. He had guest taught at our church twice. Pastor Steve had been very open that this was a long process. He was really being intentional about searching for his successor and it took years and other preachers would come in and we could tell he was trying them on and then that would end. For it to be announced like, Hey, this is the guy. And we knew we hadn’t had a long period to try it on, was kind of shocking, but we were all excited. We’re like, we trust Steve immensely. Obviously, the church is not perfect, and everyone always has their complaints. But overall, it was the vision of the church was solid and everyone was locked in and so many of us could find a place easily to serve and find a smaller community in such a large church. It was amazing.

Amanda Cunningham: And so when Josh came, we just thought, okay. And every time they would preach together or talk together or vision cast, they were very intentional to say, Hey, we’re on the same page, we’re on the same page. And so that was very comforting in the beginning.

Julie Roys: And then, what a time to be brought in as a pastor, though. I have to say, 2019 had no idea what was on the horizon, but then 2020 hits. COVID hits. Your church, like every other church, is thrown into just a whole litany of changes. And I’m guessing you guys, And I know you’re in Texas and Texas kind of bucked a lot of the restrictions, but was there a time where you weren’t meeting, and you had to do online church kind of thing?

Amanda Cunningham: Oh, absolutely. Immediately went online. The Rockwall campus, especially is so large they knew they had a great responsibility to protect everyone’s health, no matter what everyone’s different beliefs were on the precautions that we should be taking. And it was like, Hey, the bare minimum, we’re going to shut down, and we’ll let you know when we can reopen. And so we all shifted. We all shifted to meeting online and we put all the ministries on pause. All our communities are on pause. Everything was. I wasn’t serving and never been a staff member at church. I’ve served in high capacity for a long time, but pastors and staff members and leaders in the faith absolutely just took the brunt of so many hits and I think everybody’s faith was greatly affected by that period. But when you’re in leadership, they’re like, I just have the greatest respect for people who held on and kept serving through all that. It was insane.

Julie Roys:. So then after COVID subsides, we know that was quite a process too. But I’m guessing you’re pretty excited thinking, yes! Let’s hit the ground running. We’ve been waiting all this time. Women’s ministry, we’re excited. And it didn’t really turn out that way. So what happened when you came back to meeting after COVID?

Amanda Cunningham: Well, I could have had a little hint that things might be changing before that. When any new leader comes in, they have their own vision, they have their own fires, they have their own things that they want to do. And one of our last events it was when we served a thousand women with 10 free items of clothing. And we were trained by Passion City church, like in a large way and everything was running great.

Amanda Cunningham: I was in charge of writing follow up emails from our ministry events to invite women to the next one, to give them news. And so we were so excited to have a thousand women, new friends to draw in to our church. And so I drafted this email, like I always did, thank you so much. But the main thing was that every leadership meeting, every volunteering meeting we had for the last two years, I started every meeting with writing them.

Amanda Cunningham: This is not about the clothes, this event, we may be asking the community to donate their best extras and we’re going to set up a beautiful store, but this is not about the clothes. Yes, we’re meeting tangible needs. Absolutely. We want to offer our excess to those who are in need. This is about loving your community.

Amanda Cunningham: This is about letting women feel seen and known in their pain. The stories that came out of these nights were incredible, but my first inkling that things were going to change was actually before COVID our last event, I went to draft an email and I was corrected and there was a new email given to me that said, Hey, this is what we’re going to send out.

Amanda Cunningham: And instead of two paragraphs and what we normally do, it was two sentences, and it was, I hope you enjoyed the clothes. See you this weekend at services, here in the service times. And I had never pushed back on leadership. Now that’s not to say that leaders in line did not disagree and had needed conversations, but I’d never pushed back and said no.

Amanda Cunningham: And this is the first time I said, no, what do you mean? Every single leadership and volunteer meeting, I start out by saying, because I was trained by Passion City, this is what their team said is this is not about the clothes. So how can the first sentence be, I hope you enjoyed the clothes? So that to me thought, okay, I need to settle myself in thinking that things are about to change.

Amanda Cunningham: And we all knew that. Josh is young and Steve was older. And so very big difference in generational science. So we reopened and there was all this anticipation. We’ve been meeting online.

Julie Roys: Let me ask you one thing about that. So when that came, was this a centralization sort of a controlling of the narrative from above? Do you feel like that came from Josh when it was like, no, this is the email, and this is the way it has to go out?

Amanda Cunningham: I didn’t know Josh. All of my friends that I’d served with and employees I’d worked with and all their personalities. I knew them very well. And so this stood out to me as very different, very cold, and very just, come the weekend services.

Amanda Cunningham: The whole reason we had, Steve’s vision that we bought into was we’re a church on global mission and we are a large church of many small churches. And so Re-Engage to me was a backdoor into the church. Maybe I didn’t feel comfortable on the weekends at first, but I met people on this ministry on Tuesday nights and then I would come to the weekend once I found people to sit with, the people I knew, and women’s ministry was just like that.

Amanda Cunningham: Women came to what is initially like, Oh, I am comfortable and welcome in the church. Okay. I can come to the weekend service. So those are all back doors to the church. So it felt like the back door was going to be closed, but I didn’t want to jump to conclusions. Who am I? I’m a volunteer. This is really none of my business, right? I’m just a member here.

Amanda Cunningham: And then when we reopened, there was a lot of anticipation. We’ve been meeting online. We really got to know Josh and Janet through Instagram lives during COVID because he hadn’t taught every weekend. Then we reopened and the first weekend, there was so much energy, like I cannot wait to go, and it was almost when you’re a teenager, you can first get your car and you turn the speakers up real loud and blow your speakers?

Amanda Cunningham: That’s what it felt like, and we always have high energy. We’d always have high volume. There’s always a big, giant screen there, but it felt different. It felt very different. And I remember leaning into my husband and saying, it feels like pastor C’s out of town and the kids are throwing a kid party, but we’re coming out of months of isolation and maybe it’s just me.

Amanda Cunningham: And so we just roll with it and we’re like, okay. And so I’m looking at my girls who were tweens at the time. And I just thought. Maybe this isn’t what we’re going to do to reach Gen Z. Maybe this isn’t it. I don’t know. I’m not the boss.

Julie Roys: So you come out, change to the big service, but then major, major change to the women’s ministry.

Amanda Cunningham: Yes. So there was a blog post that came out initially and folded in there was the particular ministry I served in. Met at every campus and different people led it and they had different needs and different demographics and different styles. So they all look different. And what came down from the top was, we want to have a Lakepointe campus within 25 miles of everyone at DFW.

Amanda Cunningham: So the general feeling was everything needs to be easily multiplied, easy to copy and unveil, which was the name of the ministry. Looks different at every campus. And so the basic narrative that came down was, we can’t have stuff like that. We’re eliminating that and we try to handle it with grace. So okay, what are we going to do now?

Julie Roys: So your ministry is essentially wiped out like that.

Amanda Cunningham: Yes. And at that point, I had raised other women up to lead. And so I was just like, at the very end of 2019, my husband’s job changed. And I had raised other women up; it’s not my ministry at all. We’re just submitting to the church and to our pastors and they know what’s best and they know what our finances are.

Amanda Cunningham: And we understand that the economy is completely different. And so if you need to cut things, fine, we’re still going to find a way to meet. We still have our Bible studies, there’s lots of things, lots of ways we could still connect. And we were told that they would have two women’s events each year. And they were the same at every campus. And so we were happy with that for two years. There was a mom’s conference and then there was an IF gathering and women loved it. They came and people were still connecting. But as for my position, I’m watching, and it was like dwindling. Like when this connection was dwindling, like our small groups, our intimate groups were getting thrown into bigger groups in the bigger room and met twice a year.

Amanda Cunningham: And then I noticed, one by one, each women’s ministry was being shut down.

Julie Roys: And the children’s ministry began to change similarly. This kind of centralization as well. So I understand your kids were involved in small groups. And at this point, what are they? They’re like teenagers at this point? I think they were like, So

Amanda Cunningham: ? I think they were like, tween/teens. They’re two years apart. So we straddled that line for years and years. And the small groups would graduate from elementary to fourth and fifth graders, and then up to junior high and high. And a lot of the leaders tried to stay with the group and graduate with the kids. So it was very close knit. And of course, COVID changed all of that because a lot of people are staying home.

Amanda Cunningham: It doesn’t matter if the church is open, we’re not letting any kids go. And so you had less leaders and initially the option that I feel like the church decided to take was we’re gonna take all these small groups we’re not gonna have lay leaders, and we’re gonna have two leaders and have two large groups of 80 kids.

Amanda Cunningham: So our girls come back to it, what feels like a different church. And half their friends aren’t there, and now they’re in this group of 80 kids. Now my daughter is saying I don’t wanna share my inner most thoughts with 80 people. So then they just started coming to large church with us and didn’t go back.

Amanda Cunningham: They haven’t been back to small group since, which is good because then we really got a close look and we got to really discuss things with them from big church, but I know that they were lacking from not having a peer community in their faith.

Julie Roys: Was the youth church going on at the same time that the adults were meeting in big church?

Amanda Cunningham: It kind of swaps. It depends on the age, but yeah, usually at that age, the middle and high schoolers could come to large church with parents and then go to their small group while the parents went to their small group.

Julie Roys: That seems like a special thing, and they have been in those groups, like, how many years?

Amanda Cunningham: Yeah. Oh, I didn’t even know, maybe seven.,

Julie Roys: Which is a long time in a kid’s life.

Amanda Cunningham: Yeah, it was rough, but we just tried to make the best of it. And, all these changes that are coming, we’re like, you got to expect change. As long as, and we just kept saying, as long as God is still glorified, the Word is still being taught, we’re here for it.

Julie Roys: So then something happens in 2022, and this is when I would say Josh got on my radar, probably a lot of people’s radar. And that’s when Sheila Wray Gregiore called him out for what she recognized as plagiarism. And as I understand, Andy Stanley had written a book and then done a sermon series based on that book. And there were some very key phrases that he coined that were a part of that. And Sheila was shocked when she heard, because I guess she had received a pre-release copy of Andy’s book, had read the whole thing, and now she’s watching Josh’s sermon and she’s Oh my word, this is Andy Stanley’s material, but none of its getting attributed to Andy Stanley. So I actually pulled a clip from a podcast that Sheila did with her daughter talking about this. So I’m going to play that. So we’ll get an opportunity to hear them. Sheila will introduce the clip real briefly and then you’ll hear both Andy Stanley and then you’ll hear Josh and a little bit of the discussion about that.

Sheila Gregiore & Rebecca Lindenbach: I have a minute long, a bit more of a minute long clip where Andy says it better than me in a sermon that he gave.

Andy Stanley: And on about this guy I had met at this party, and he was incredible in his job, and he was good looking and she said, I was telling her that he was a Christian and that he was like mom, he’s your kind of Christian mom.

Andy Stanley: He’s the real deal Christian. He doesn’t just talk, but he was talking about Jesus at this party, and I could tell his faith is real. And she was going on and on about this guy. He was just incredible. And she said, her mom stopped ironing and set the iron on the ironing board and looked at her.

Andy Stanley: And she said, honey, the problem is, a guy like that is not looking for a girl like you. And she said, I literally fell to the floor and began to weep. This was years ago. And that was the defining, turning moment in her life. When she realized, that’s right. My whole approach to relationships has been, I’m going to find someone.

Andy Stanley: It never crossed my mind I needed to become someone. Then my whole approach, every message I’ve gotten from culture is, if I can find the right person, everything will become, everything will be alright. It never dawned on me that I need to become the kind of person that the person I’m dreaming of, hoping for, is actually looking for.

Andy Stanley: Which brings us to this question for all of us. Married, single, students, graduates, whatever season of life you’re in. Are you the person, are you the person you’re looking for is looking for?

Sheila Gregiore & Rebecca Lindenbach: Okay, so that is the thesis, and you need to understand that last question,

Sheila Gregiore & Rebecca Lindenbach: Yeah, are you the kind of person the person you’re looking for is looking for?

Sheila Gregiore & Rebecca Lindenbach: That is his phrase. Yeah, it appears 23 times in his book. It is on the back cover. It’s on the back cover of his book. It’s in every chapter of his book pretty much. It’s always italicized like this. This is big. And I’ve seen all over the Internet. People be like, like Andy Stanley says, become the kind of person, the kind of person you’re looking for is looking for.

Sheila Gregiore & Rebecca Lindenbach: So I’m getting ready. And I hear Josh saying all of this, and he never mentions Andy Stanley. And so we’re going to just listen in to Josh’s part of the sermon.

Josh Howerton: Can y’all describe for me the woman that you want to marry? And they would start like describing something. And guys, it was like a creature out of Greek mythology.

Josh Howerton: It was like, they would start talking about Man, I want somebody accepting and compassionate With the beauty of Selena Gomez and the godliness of Mother Teresa And a sense of humor of Zooey Deschanel And, they’d keep going, all that stuff And they would finish their list And I’d just look out of the room, And I would say, Bro, the girl you just described would never marry you. For real!

Josh Howerton: And here’s my point, I’d be going, hey man You have no job, you’re addicted to porn, and you play Xbox for six hours a day. That girl is never, the girl you just described on that board is never gonna marry you. Now listen here’s what I’m driving at. The Bible says nothing, think about this, nothing about how to find a good spouse.

Josh Howerton: Nothing. It says tons about becoming the right type of person and spouse. The assumption of the Bible is if you become the right type of person, you will attract the right type of person. So here, let me just say it really quick. You need to shift your focus from finding to becoming if you’re single and wanting to find and attract a good spouse.

Josh Howerton: So let me just say it like this and this a mouthful; become the person you’re looking for is looking for. But I know that’s tough. Just take a second. Become the person the person  you’re looking for is looking for. You guys remember, let me land a point on this spot like this.

Sheila Gregiore & Rebecca Lindenbach: Awfully similar, don’t you think? Quite similar. Quite similar. He even has the same thing on the screen that Andy did before. So very similar. And he never mentioned Andy Stanley.

Julie Roys: At this point, you’re engaged online and you’re seeing some of this stuff; what’s your thought and feeling when you hear this?

Amanda Cunningham: I think when you are really plugged into a faith community, your first reaction is to defend who you love. And I love pastor Steve. He was a spiritual father for me in ways he’ll never understand. And I love Pastor Josh and his family, like immediately accepted and locked in.

Amanda Cunningham: Now, previously I was a model. And come into ministry, figure out how women are supposed to fit into this, even though we fit into the picture of God and his Bible so clearly and beautifully. But I’m also a writer and so over time, I became a Christian nonfiction writer and just learning all the ins and outs and how we’re held responsible and watching people like Christine Caine have to really confess plagiarism and there’s a lot of issues in the church of plagiarism, especially big names, and celebrities, and coming from the acting and the modeling world, I am detested by celebrity culture. Not that I detest celebrities. I think people are very talented and they should be praised and paid for their work.

Amanda Cunningham: But in the church, Jesus came for the lowly. He is humble in spirit. He didn’t come as a star, he didn’t come for political power, none of that. And so I knew that initially we can’t allow celebrity culture in the church. It’s just something personally that I am so against, and my radar is like up and sharp about it because of where I came from.

Amanda Cunningham: So when I heard this, I was frustrated and sad. I think. He defends himself and his dad had written an article about this at their last church defending this. This has been a pattern. But as a writer and as a woman and as a female Christian there’s so many things working against me. There aren’t places in leadership. There aren’t positions and staff. So a lot of us go and start online ministries because we just have these gifts, and you can’t hold it in. It’s just who I am. And I haven’t made a career out of this. I just keep pouring out. And knowing how hard it is to wrestle with the Lord and meet with the spirit and pray and read the Bible to come out with these original words, it grieved me. To me, it makes me think of a thief.

Amanda Cunningham: I read the blog posts he shared in defense and immediately disagreed with two points. Number one, he says, I’m not doing this to earn money. I’m not doing this to make a fortune. First of all, you’re paid very well. I know that it’s a number. And I think when we first started, it was over $400,000, more than the president of the United States.

Julie Roys: Over 400, how do you know that?

Amanda Cunningham: I haven’t seen the paystub. I think that’s just something that’s well known and talked about, but no one really wants to verify. Even if it’s 150 or $200,000, like that’s a lot of money to wrestle over your words, study the Bible and teach. Preachers are called to teach the word

Amanda Cunningham:. So for me, it was very disheartening and grievous, but it’s actually not true that you’re not trying to make money. Like the church tithes, members invest in the church and that’s how you make an income. And if you have better sermons, better sounding sermons, we’re going to think the Spirit is alive in you and invest more and volunteer more and just offer more of our lives.

Amanda Cunningham: And so I disagree with that. And then one of the other points he said to defend it was that a sermon is not an academic work. And I disagree; people who have been to seminary and I know Josh didn’t complete it, but people who have invested their lives to be educated and turned in paper after paper to all their professors in seminary would disagree.

Amanda Cunningham: Like everything that they created was an academic work. And so I disagree with those points, and I took personal offense just as a writer not someone who’s published, but you can’t take other people’s words. And here’s the other thing. I haven’t seen any other pastors in my personal world that has struggled with this.

Amanda Cunningham: Everyone just says right before they’re about to quote someone, Hey, I love what Tim Keller said. Hey, I love at the time, Bill Hybel is/was a big deal. His name was thrown around a lot. It wasn’t hard to throw the source out at all.

Julie Roys: Attribution is not that difficult.

Amanda Cunningham: And we’re all part of the same church. We’re all led by the same Holy Spirit. Like we’re all in this together. It shows humility and hey, I didn’t come up with this, but it’s a great point.

Julie Roys: And then it’s my understanding that a lot of women started commenting because of course Sheila has a huge following among women and they started getting blocked. A lot of women got blocked and people didn’t respond too kindly to this and started complaining about, Hey, this is kind of misogynistic. Why are you like blocking all the women? What’s going on? How did you respond to that?

Amanda Cunningham: Part of me wishes I hadn’t, but when Josh first came on, I realized he was on Twitter and I was barely on Twitter X, whatever, but Twitter then X now.

Amanda Cunningham: He’s my pastor. I want to know what he’s learning. I want to know what he’s talking about. So I followed him there just like I did on Instagram and Facebook. When this happened and there was a lot of talk on Twitter about Josh being a misogynist. I prayed about it, and I was like, you know what? I’m probably one of the only women and people from our church on Twitter regularly. I feel like I have a responsibility. I know what it’s like to be a leader and be criticized and have no one underneath you like stand up for you and say, that’s not who she is. So I decided to say something and stand up for him.

Amanda Cunningham: And I said, Hey, I know that y’all are seeing this and you’re feeling a certain way. I just want to tell you as a member of his church, he lets women teach from the pulpit on Mother’s Day only. So it’s a token, but it’s more than we tried before. And it’s very personal to me and I see, from where I’m sitting, I don’t think he’s a misogynist and I just wanted to put my two cents in.

Amanda Cunningham: And so there was a lot of conversation, very respectful. I was not criticized, name-called, belittled by any of these women. We just had a frank conversation, shared our thoughts. At this point, I’d already listened to the Mars Hill podcast and already studied Willow Creek because I’m a leader of the church, I want to know, I want to know where people have gone astray.

Amanda Cunningham: So I don’t. And so there was some talk about that. Are you informed? And I kept saying, yes, I am informed and my eyes open. So from then on, I decided, okay, I’m going to keep my eyes open because maybe they saw something I didn’t.

Julie Roys: So then, some time goes by, and things hopefully are going okay. But I know in January of this year you guys started a Saturday night service and apparently a lot of it was at the Rockwall campus where Josh often preaches. That was really well attended. And they’re just, It’s really full. So they’re trying to entice people then to come on Saturday night and they did something to Attract people to that Saturday night service that didn’t sit too well with you. Would you describe what they did and why that just became a little difficult for you?

Amanda Cunningham: Yeah Obviously, this wasn’t the first thing . We were really struggling with attending at this point, but I will say Saturday night actually has been a thing for a long time. Saturday night service was a thing. That was really when a lot of the leaders and staff members went because they served on Sunday. So Saturday was well established and a great crowd.

Julie Roys: Okay, so I misspoke. It actually had been there for a while. Okay.

Amanda Cunningham: I just wanted to clarify the enticement was that Sunday was so full and really as soon as Josh came on that talk began immediately like our numbers are crazier than they’ve ever been. They’re so big. They paved over a soccer field, LP sports served hundreds of people in the community that didn’t go to church. But their kids always played soccer every year there. And so we had to pave over a soccer field, there was just always talk about traffic and numbers and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Julie Roys: What did that do to the ministry when they paved over a soccer field?

Amanda Cunningham: So I’ve never served in that ministry, but they ended up leaving out of Lakepointe. So they’re no longer associated, very sad. And there were lots of changes. And again, like we just try to submit and understand and respect and keep going.

Amanda Cunningham: For me coming from modeling and acting again, I have such a different perspective on imagery, smoke, mirrors, celebrity, and images in the media. My personal writing ministry is all about breaking free from poor body image, which is such an oppressive thing. And there’s so many strongholds of the enemy out in media culture in the imagery about women, especially.

Amanda Cunningham: And Josh had shared an image of Taylor Swift during Christmas. And they’ve doctored it like, Lakepointe Christmas invites into her hands. It was her Time magazine cover. Josh put it on his Facebook. He’s like, even Taylor Swift wants you to come to Lakepointe, but he put a black, a black rectangle over her lower region of her body.

Amanda Cunningham: She was in a black leotard and tights and said, put on some pants, and that really stood out to a lot of women. A lot of people who are struggling with the new culture about logos and merch and hype and this and that. Now you’re going to shame a woman’s body. What about all these little girls who are ballerinas out in leotards and black tights all the time? We’re not showing up at their recitals saying put on some pants.

Amanda Cunningham: So that had just happened in December. He also made a joke about 50 Shades of Gray in the Christmas service. Also opened Christmas service with the joke about an ugly woman. There’s just so many things that are hitting us wrong and then January.

Amanda Cunningham: So he announces on his Facebook that Sunday so full we need people to come to Saturday So we are launching tailgating on Saturday. And immediately, my husband’s a firefighter, so we talk in that term, lights and sirens are off with a firetruck or an ambulance, it’s not in a big hurry, they’ll just drive. Sometimes they have lights and sirens on because it’s an emergency. All my lights and sirens went off. What do you mean tailgating? My husband and I used to struggle with alcohol. Tailgating culture is completely sucked in alcohol. It’s not a Christian environment. Why are we bringing that in the church?

Amanda Cunningham: I immediately commented so that the announcement was we’ve ordered big screen TVs, and we are going to stream the games before and after service. We want people,  there are going to be burgers and hot dogs. And for the 1st time I couldn’t sit with that and not say anything.

Amanda Cunningham: Now, listen, you’re a mega church pastor. I cannot imagine the amount of emails that you receive each week. I know people left for many reasons, but also the volume level, my daughter’s room and aware. One of them was having to wear earplugs cause the volume was just so loud and they were not apologetic about it. If you don’t like it, you can leave, it was told to some of our friends. Obviously, they didn’t leave over volume. There was lots of other things that was just like, if you can’t even turn the volume down, why are we here?

Amanda Cunningham So they launched tailgating, and I sent an email to Josh and to one of my friends who’s a pastor. Immediately. I said, I have so many things wrong with this. First of all, you’ve eliminated women’s ministry. The infertility ministry, I think is the only thing that really held on after this conversation, but they’re gone now too. So divorce care is gone. Women and women mentoring is gone, the women’s ministry events is gone. All of its gone. And now you’re going to relaunch man church?

Amanda Cunningham: So that was my first thing as a former leader in women’s ministry. Like this is man church. You’re going to have the game on and burgers? Okay. That already bothers me. So I said, okay. How do you plan to serve the women in our church in a way that comforts them in the culture?

Amanda Cunningham: This isn’t men’s Bible study you’re launching on Saturday nights. And so I didn’t get a response from that. I was told that women’s feedback prompted them to do burgers because moms wanted to feed their children a cheap dinner when they got off the baseball fields before they went into church Saturday night.

Amanda Cunningham: So the burgers are for the women and my floor sunk, but even more than that, and I went into detail. I said how can we be censoring Taylor Swift’s crotch on a Christmas invite? Cheerleaders are not famous for wearing pants. Saturday’s gonna be college football. Are we gonna censor every coach’s F-bomb he drops? There’s this particular team that raises a very vulgar symbol with their hands. Do y’all even know what that means? Are you going to let that happen on the big screen? That’s compromising to the world and the irony. They launched tailgating on the weekend that he preaches on we cannot compromise to the world. It was just like, all in my face, like, how can this be happening? You don’t have biblical grounds to invite ESPN into the church. We don’t watch secular programming in children’s ministry. We don’t watch it in Bible study. We don’t turn on the TV in anything except for vetted Bible studies. Why are we watching ESPN before and after service? There is no good answer.

Julie Roys: So then fast forward about a month and in late February, and this one went viral, Josh tells a joke that, honestly, when I heard it, I was just stunned, but rather than describing it, I’m just going to play it. So here’s Josh Howerton speaking right before the sermon on a Sunday morning at Lakepointe church.

Josh Howerton: This is a gold nugget of advice I was given by a mentor. Okay. So this is free. Can y’all handle it? Okay. This is free. This is free. Okay. Now, first, let me do this. So let me talk to the guys first, guys. When it comes to her wedding day, she has been planning this day her entire life. She got her first wedding magazine when she was 14.

Josh Howerton: She draped the blanket around her like it was her wedding dress when she was a teenager. She did the towel over her head. It was a little veil. All the stuff. She’s been planning this day her whole life. So here’s what you need to do, man. When it comes to that day, just stand where she tells you to stand, wear what she tells you to wear, and do what she tells you to do, you’ll make her the happiest woman in the world.

Josh Howerton: Okay? Now, I gotta amen. Let’s see if you amen this. Now ladies, when it comes to his wedding night, he has been planning this day his whole life. So just stand where he tells you to stand, wear what he tells you to wear and do what he tells you to do. And you’re going to make him the happiest man in the world. That’s it, man. Okay. That was free. That was free.

Julie Roys: Wow. So you had actually gone online, like you said, and defended him before when women were upset with him. After this joke, how did you respond?

Amanda Cunningham: I was disgusted by this. It wasn’t free. It was very costly for thousands of women, not just in our church, but people looking up to Lakepointe as an example, people who find out about this, the amount of women who were hurt by this and boys and girls who are being groomed to accept this in a marriage that I was disgusted.

Amanda Cunningham: I had no hesitation in speaking out about it. But before I spoke out about it, so I forget. So it happened in February. I didn’t go to marriage night, at this point with tailgating, we’re not attending. I’m watching online afterwards. My husband and I are having lots of conversations. We asked the girls what they thought, and we were really struggling with staying.

Amanda Cunningham: There was other things that happened that we just decided we’re not going to attend. We’re just going to watch them online. And then, so we didn’t, I wasn’t there. We weren’t there marriage night. We didn’t hear this. We didn’t find out about it until Sheila shared about it on her podcast. Thank God. Bring it to light.

Amanda Cunningham: And I think it broke on Good Friday or Maundy Thursday. So good Friday. I’m in my study time in the morning and I’m reading the Bible, and it wasn’t even about like confession. I think it’s just felt convicted. You have to apologize to these women that you defended him to on Twitter, because at the time when I defended him, I wasn’t hateful or rude, but it was hurtful to them.

Amanda Cunningham: They weren’t hurt that I said, that’s not true. Even in the nicest way possible. But I see something and you’re saying I’m wrong. So I knew I hurt them then and I just put a pin in that conversation. So two years later I wake up in the Bible and I just felt convicted to apologize.

Amanda Cunningham: And at this point, I’m not on X a lot, but I went on there and I said, Hey, when I shared Sheila’s podcast and I said, Because this has come to light, I just have to apologize to all the women I defended him to, because this is spiritual abuse. I’ve been in the marriage ministry for four years. Every week we’re being refined about Biblical love, biblical marriage, God created marriage to reflect his relationship with the church. There is not one part of God’s love for us that would make us perform sex against our will.

Julie Roys: It’s crass, but you’re right. It’s just that the allusions to women performing for their husbands against their will. There are so many women now that I’ve been reporting who experience marital rape. And it’s justified in some of these churches and to do that is at best tone deaf, but at worst, just incredibly misogynist.

Julie Roys: And the sad thing is, so Josh gets up and gives an apology the next week, right? So if you listen to the apology, and you’re going to hear a portion of the apology if you haven’t listened to the whole thing, you can go back and listen to it. I think we have it at my website as well. But it’s online too.

Julie Roys: But he gets up and he apologizes, and he doesn’t say, I’m so sorry for what I did. This was so tone deaf. This was, he doesn’t fall on his sword, so to speak. He doesn’t really own it. It’s careless words, which to me, the apology was bad in and of itself.

Julie Roys: But then I find out somebody tips me off and they said,  Julie, do a little digging. This was the same apology that a pastor in Florida by the name of Joby Martin, the same apology he had given two years earlier. And sure enough, I find it and my jaw just drops as I’m listening to it. It’s so close. There’s no way it wasn’t just completely copied.

Julie Roys: And my goodness, who copies an apology? But don’t take my word for it. If you haven’t heard this, you have to hear it. We put it together in a sort of a side by side. So the first voice you’ll hear is Joby Martin, and then you’ll hear Josh Howerton, and it goes back and forth between them. Let me play it so you can hear

Joby: Church. If you got your Bibles, and I hope you do, grab them. We’re going to be in Psalm 34. And as you find your way to Psalm 34, I just need to address a thing.

Josh Howerton: I need to address a thing. I’m gonna address a thing, okay?

Joby: Bible says in Proverbs 12:18, that careless words stab like a sword and wise words lead to healing.

Josh Howerton: It says that careless words can stab like a sword, but that wise words lead to healing.

Joby: And what the Bible means in Proverbs 12, when it says careless words stab like a sword, it means regardless of your intent, if I was careless with a pocketknife and it slipped out of my hand and stabbed you in the face.

Josh Howerton: And what that verse means is that even if somebody had a steak knife and they had the intent to cut their steak and their hand slipped and accidentally stabbed you in the face.

Joby: Church, I need you to hear this, okay? Three things. I love you. I love you. I love this church. I love getting to do this thing together.

Josh Howerton: I need you to hear three things. Number one, I love you. Listen, Lakepointe Church, I love you more than you will ever imagine. I stay awake thinking about you. I pray for you every day. This is the honor of my life.

Joby: And, again, I am sorry. And I want to say thank you. Thank you for the grace that you give me every single week to stand up here and do what I get to do. And I hope by God’s grace, I’ll get to do this for decades and decades to come.

Josh Howerton: I’m sorry for careless words. I’m sorry about that. And number three, thank you for your grace to me. I want to be doing this with you for decades and decades. So that’s awesome, man.

Julie Roys: I know how people responded to the article I wrote. I know how they responded online. But you were actually there, at Lakepointe. You’re in the community. You weren’t necessarily there when he gave that apology. But how did this play out right there in the Dallas Fort Worth area when he gave this apology? And it was shown to be a plagiarized apology.

Amanda Cunningham: There’s so many layers of destruction. First, I want to point out it was a careless word. Thanks to your diligent reporting and Sheila’s, we found out, which of course Josh has received hundreds of emails about his sex jokes. Now he doesn’t frame it as a sex joke. He actually framed this unlike his other things, like the Pentecostal bedroom, as a gold nugget of advice from a mentor. It wasn’t careless because he actually said this exact same phrasing at marriage night in 2021 and received emails from women in our church.

Amanda Cunningham: So people like me who spoke out immediately on Facebook and said, this is spiritual abuse, He said Matthew 18, Matthew 18. You need to go to him in private. He had already been rebuked in private by women in our church in a very biblical, respectful, private way. He did not respond to them initially, and we found out through Sheila and your reporting that he finally acknowledged he had received that, and he would take it into consideration, but we’re just going to have to agree to disagree on that.

Amanda Cunningham: So it wasn’t careless words. He chose them in 2021. He chose them again on marriage night 2024, and he chose to repeat that three times in weekend services in front of every child and teenager in the service, grooming them of what a marriage night should look like.

Amanda Cunningham: It wasn’t careless. He knew exactly who he was going to hurt with those words, and he did it on purpose. He wrote them, rehearsed them, and regurgitated them over and over. So initially it was very disheartening that many people in our church were not trauma informed, were not spiritually abuse aware to know what that meant.

Amanda Cunningham: Now, I’m not going to get into my own personal story, it’s not about me, but this drug wells up from my grave. Things that Jesus healed me from that I had gone to intense counseling from, my husband and I have worked so hard so we can have a truly intimate. joyful relationship in all ways that marriage can be beautiful. And this pulled up a dead thing from the grave and Josh held it in front of the church, encouraged everyone to laugh at it and to praise him.

Amanda Cunningham: It was disgusting. So number one, it was not careless. He knew exactly who it was. We have a very close relationship with a foundation, a local foundation called The Woman Foundation. We’ve all served in so many ways to help women be freed from sex trafficking. Do you think those women thought this was funny?

Amanda Cunningham: I know personally, a woman who sat in the audience at marriage night, her husband actively abuses her, and he stood up and cheered for Josh when he said that. It’s completely irresponsible and it is a hundred percent spiritual abuse, but unfortunately most people did not know that that is true, but it is true. Josh knew. He’d already been told.

Julie Roys: And it’s the exact opposite of Ephesians 5. This picture of Christ giving himself up for the church in the same way husbands should sacrifice themselves for their wives as their own body they should treat her. What he regurgitated was a cultural, toxic, misogynist message that had absolutely nothing to do with scripture.

Julie Roys: And he should have been, at the very minimum, reproved by his elders and removed for a time so that he can go and get some education on how men are supposed to treat, Christian men are supposed to treat women. But instead, pretty much laughed off. And now a plagiarized apology. And like you said, we found an email, it was sent to us again, people tipped us off and sent us that email that he had been told three years earlier how offensive this was. So he doesn’t care.

Amanda Cunningham: This wasn’t the first time that we’ve had to deal with vulgarity in the pulpit. We’re supposed to be transformed into the image of Christ and put aside our fleshly desires. Obviously in marriage, there’s ways you connect. And you can speak biblically into that all you want in a respectful, tasteful, loving way. This was not that. And when I immediately spoke out about it, immediately people are criticizing me saying I have a good spirit, I’m a liberal, feminist, woke mom.

Julie Roys: I just love these; attack the messenger, but then how conservatives, because anybody who knows me knows I’m conservative. Because I’ve gotten called all these things and it just, it’s laughable. It’s laughable.

Amanda Cunningham: It is. It is laughable, but for people like me who have not overcome a lot of abuse and found a new strength and confidence in Christ is extremely hurtful, harmful, and painful. And so what happened was over a hundred people in the first week or so reached out to me because I was a former women’s ministry leader and there weren’t any really to reach out to and said how painful this was and how wrong it is.

Amanda Cunningham: And for a church to be proclaiming this message and defending it, but there was so much reframing initially. I went from having discernment of the Holy Spirit to being divisive. I went from sharing truth to, Oh that was just an edited clip to make him look bad. It went from being confident in Christ to you’re a feminist.

Amanda Cunningham: Went from, Jesus loves people on the fringes to your woke. Oh, you have friends who just, who agree with you that this is out of line with scripture. You’re a mob. It was all reframing, all gaslighting. And so we were waiting for this apology to find out, first of all, the apology did not even address how harmful it was and who it was harmful to and who he was sorry to, which is what a confession should be.

Amanda Cunningham: Especially when you’re leading it as the senior pastor of a mega church. To find out that he couldn’t search his own heart for an apology was insulting upon insulting. It was egregious behavior, and I can’t believe that anyone is defending it, but they still are. The elders went into hiding. They removed all their contact information for the website.

Amanda Cunningham: An elder email address was thrown out by Lakepointe Facebook account. And then we found out later than an elder didn’t even know that email address existed. And we’re not even sure the elders are getting those emails, and we don’t even know if they care because Josh is still preaching.

Amanda Cunningham: So that next weekend when he gives that apology at the beginning, which is not even his ecology, which is Joby Martins, who also had to apologize for demeaning women’s bodies. How many sermons have we sat through at Lakepointe of who your friends are is so important. Yet we know Josh’s friends with Joby Martin, have said that we know he turns with Mark Driscoll.

Amanda Cunningham: We know how Mark feels about women, like, how is this even happening in the church and people who, so after the full apology, 20 minutes later, he launches into a whole thing about, and basically it’s like this passive aggressive accusation that anyone who’s standing up to him right now is part of a demonic mob.

Julie Roys: Sorry. I know. Oh, man.

Amanda Cunningham: What he is saying with the tens of thousands of people who worship him and believe everything he says, because he’s the boss, he’s the spiritual boss. And so they just copy it and echo it and mirror it. And it’s wrong. It’s absolutely wrong. You cannot defend that advice with scripture. Anyone who’s calling you out for it is speaking the truth of the gospel, actually.

Amanda Cunningham: So it’s been so disheartening. The biggest problem with gaslighting from the pulpit and that narcissistic spirit is what it ultimately does is break down the person hearing it and gets them to question the reality to where you lose trust in that Holy Spirit voice, like still small voice of God, if your preacher is saying things that disagree with the still small voice. And you agree with your preacher, you’re silencing the Holy Spirit within you. And so you break this trustful relationship with the Lord to what? Worship someone who’s speaking things that are out of line with scripture. That’s demonic.

Julie Roys: And then I know also around the same time there was, and we don’t have time to go into everything, but I know there was a video that was put out around Easter that was, I don’t even know what the point was, but just extraordinarily dark

Amanda Cunningham: it was an Easter invitation. It was an imagery of someone holding up a mirror, the image in the mirror and behind the mirror were like dark colors upside down. There was a static filter over it and very eerie music. And lots of us saw it and said, “What is this? This is disturbing.

Amanda Cunningham: And you know what we do now, I used to serve on the social media team too. They’re very intentional about everything they’ve put out, imagery, words, everything. Also, there’s a wide net of people watching social media. Before this marital marriage advice that would have flagged, if you have 10 people who are members of the church saying, what is this? They would take the post down or do something.

Amanda Cunningham: It wasn’t addressed, but it was very dark imagery. And honestly, a lot of us felt like it was similar to witchcraft. There’s this thing called the scrying mirror and that’s exactly what it looked like. So there’s just been so many things that alert us like there is a darkness and deception there, and I don’t understand. We don’t know why it’s not being addressed.

Julie Roys: What was the point of that? I just don’t quite even get it.

Amanda Cunningham:  I don’t know. So that’s what we asked. We’re like, why is there a mirror? Why is it dark? Why is the music dark? And then once people attended Easter, the very first few minutes there was a whole minute long of the same imagery and it was all about our sin.

Amanda Cunningham: And it was just talking about greed and gluttony and all lust and all these things, and it was the same images. Basically, are y’all saying you were trying to lure us in the Easter to hear about it? It was just. It didn’t make any sense, and they ended up taking it down after a week of complaints on the post.

Amanda Cunningham: What was also disturbing is after this all becomes public, right? People like me are accused of being divisive. Which actually, that’s not what happened. We can’t reach the senior pastor of our megachurch. You can’t get a meeting with him. Like he wasn’t shaking hands after service, but he’s very accessible online.

Amanda Cunningham: He’s online all the time. So people started commenting and their comments were deleted within two minutes, three minutes, everyone. People like men in our church who were publicly rebuking him because he wouldn’t respond to emails. Deleted comments over and over. That’s deceptive too.

Amanda Cunningham: But what we’ve also heard is the elders are not, they’re older, most of them, and they’re not online. So they don’t understand the weight of the deception that’s being played out. Tens of thousands of comments deleted questioning the leadership. The elders aren’t seeing it because they’re not online.

Julie Roys: So then the latest thing involves a traffic study. My understanding is Lakepointe wanted to put in a traffic light at the intersection where their parking lot is and the city told them, if you want to do that, you’re going to have to hire an engineering firm and do a traffic study. Lakepointe hires the engineering firm, and then somebody sends out to all the small group leaders an email, and this email basically says, sign up for an hour slot, and during that hour slot, drive by this intersection 10 times.

Julie Roys: So in other words, they’re asking them to purposefully pad the traffic study so that it will get the results they want, and they’ll get a traffic light put. This also gets public. Somebody takes this, and puts it up on, on Facebook, and immediately, I believe it was Chris Berkley, the creative arts director, right? He posts a public statement and says it wasn’t the main pastor, wasn’t Josh, it was an overzealous employee. Okay, couple of reasons why you don’t believe it was an overzealous employee. Why don’t you think that was the correct reason for why this happened?

Amanda Cunningham: Initially he said the statement on Facebook was top leadership was unaware about this email. And as soon as we find out about it, we took it down. Actually the email went out. The signup was live for 24 hours. And so we could all see that the campus pastor and one of the executive pastors had already signed up along with several other employees. If you’re a new person at Lakepointe, which that’s what they’re saying, they are saving hundreds every week and new people are coming in.

Amanda Cunningham: If you’re new and you get an email from your life group leader that says, Hey, this is what the church is doing. Sign up to run 10 laps. Maybe they don’t even question it. Young Christians, baby Christians, whatever you want to call them. Maybe they aren’t that discernible yet. And so they just sign up.

Amanda Cunningham: What they were signing up for was to manipulate the city to be deceptive, but it feeds this whole narrative. We’re like, the numbers are so big. Oh, we need a stop light. Oh, we need to pave over the soccer field. Oh, we need you to come to Saturday night because it’s just this like a big commercial. And every sermon is started with we have 10, 000 people. We had 3000 more this last weekend than the year before, like it’s just all numbers. So immediately I was just like, Oh, of course they are because of course they need to stop light because traffic is so bad. We’ve had police officers that are paid by Lakepointe off duty to direct traffic there as long as I’ve been a member.

Amanda Cunningham: I’ve never seen a wreck. Everyone knows in town that Lakepointe is busy and don’t go there during VBS week. Or on the weekends when they let out. It’s part of our town’s culture.

Amanda Cunningham: So if people didn’t notice that the marriage night advice was abusive, if they didn’t catch the fact that the apology was copied, if they didn’t hear him accusing people in the church of being a demonic cancel mob, a lot of people noticed that they were manipulating a traffic study. Why on earth would you do that? And what it does, you have a big church with a lot of resources that’s been very effective in our town 40 years from its original vision.

Amanda Cunningham: And now people have always been skeptical of those people in there. Are they even real? Are they a bunch of hypocrites? Are they just greedy? They have a big, fancy church, blah, blah, blah. And this just confirmed a lot of people’s fears about who was in charge. But they will take advantage of resources, that they will deceive people, and it’s just cultish do what we say and don’t ask questions about it.

Julie Roys: So my last question you’ve been very open about how this has impacted you, what you saw, but this is a church where you became a believer. This was your first church family. I’ve heard this from people, back when some of my earliest reporting on Harvest Bible Chapel, people saying, James MacDonald led me to the Lord, and now I know he’s just a fraud. Does that mean my faith is a fraud? Really messes people up and I think that’s probably the most grievous part of everything that’s happening.

Julie Roys: And so I just want to ask you, how have you been able to weather the disillusionment, the bewilderment that happens when you lose this kind of church family. Has there been anything that has been a silver lining or that’s helped you through this? Or you can see God holding you or, are you just confused right now, which is okay too. Just how are you doing?

Amanda Cunningham: So much to say there. First of all, one of the ways it hit me super hard was this idea of complementarianism that I’ve always tried to learn and submit to. Obviously, I’m a very open person, very fiery, and I was not a Christian until I was 30. So old habits really ingrained, but I just thought, how can this marriage night advice come out and demean women, and men in our church are jumping up to defend him? I thought they were our covering. I thought we were protected.

Amanda Cunningham: And so one of the greatest gifts is how my husband has protected and guided and comforted and supported me through this, the way God has just spoken the same words to him and me separately, and we’ve come together and been like, wow, God really sees us right now and it’s just making it stronger.

Amanda Cunningham: It’s absolutely heartbreaking to see things splinter. This has affected every community. It has affected workplaces. Kids, small groups soccer teams, like everyone has been polarized, starting with this marriage night advice of people thinking it’s not a big deal. Get over it, move on. And then there’s other people like, this is so harmful.

Amanda Cunningham: What’s great is when pastor Steve built this church and had this vision ingrained in it, it was a global mission church. We were on mission. We had local, national, and international mission. And so our eyes were open to the global church. And we realize like big picture, we’re all in this together and we are, some of us are going to go astray and we need to pull each other back. And some of us are going to sin really terribly and we all need to love each other through it. But one way we have to love each other is by holding the other accountable. So I don’t regret anything I’ve said because it’s all been in truth. It’s all been out of love for the people. So I’ve invited to this church for the past 13 years.

Amanda Cunningham: I was like a public cheerleader. Like come, I promise you. It’s not bad like you think it is and how the things are bad.

Amanda Cunningham: The beauty of it has been now, I tried to start a ministry years ago to unite women in our community from all different congregations and churches to really rally together and pray for each other. We’re all in this together. And I didn’t know anything about starting a ministry and it didn’t last, but what’s been cool about this and such a gift from the Lord is now I am getting to go visit, my husband and my children are visiting all these churches in town.

Amanda Cunningham: People we knew attended, people that used to go to Lakepointe that are there, and we just seen God multiply and send out faithful, faithful leaders who are being sacrificed at the altar basically. What’s happened is Lakepointe’s messaging is get on board or get out. And the people who founded this church who invested it for 40 years are being discarded to protect the production.

Amanda Cunningham: There’s like a broadcast section out the front of the church that children can’t sit in. It’s widespread, but the greatest gift is to be able to see all these other churches in town and pastors with no hesitation said, Hey, I got this from, Tim Keller. Here we go. There’s a great quote, like just the humility and all the way God is working and God’s still at Lakepointe.

Amanda Cunningham: There’s so many faithful people there. A lot of my friends there. That are completely plugged in, and some people are leaving it doesn’t matter all part of this big church and we’re in this together and I’m just really grateful for the way God has sent out people and kept people in place and just praying for healing and community.

Julie Roys: Our next podcast is going to be with Mary DeMuth, friend of The Roy’s Report and just someone I have so much respect for. And I know this has been her church and her husband served as an elder and they have left and they had invested so many years there. And I know it’s been very painful.

Julie Roys: So she’s going to talk about dealing with recovering from church bewilderment. And I know she’s right in the middle of it. And I said, Mary, would you be willing to talk about it while you’re in the middle of it? Cause I always get a little frustrated when people do it with a bow on top, like we’ve got it all figured out and here’s your three steps to how you’re going to do it too. It’s just going to be real, and ad I’m so glad that we can be real with one another and I’m so glad that there’s this larger community where I can meet people like you, where I’ve met so many people who have been through this and honestly, and I’ve said this before, I feel like I report on the worst of the worst, but I get to meet and the sources I meet are the best of the best and there are people that have often, the reason there’s profound wounding is because they have been in the inner circle and to me, the closer you are to the inner circle, the more profound the wounding because the more you were invested, the more you loved. The more that you really cared about the church.

Julie Roys: Again just really appreciate you sharing, honestly, I think that our next podcast is going to be extremely helpful, but thank you, Amanda. And I look forward to the day when I hopefully get to meet you in person or something that would be really great.

Amanda Cunningham: Thank you so much. And you’re in great hands with Mary when she and Patrick left, it was really just that’s the generation that people like me need. I need to be led and I need to be guided and mentored, even if it’s from afar, in a life group setting. And so when we started all these people like Patrick and Mary, that was our signal to leave. And so I’m so grateful that she’s going to come on. Just a wealth of wisdom about this and thank you so much for having me. You’re a gift to the church.

Julie Roys: Well, thank you. Thanks so much for listening to The Roy’s 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 donating to The Roy’s Report to support our podcasts and ongoing investigative work? As I’ve often said, we don’t have advertisers or many large donors.

Julie Roys: We mainly have you. the people who care about our mission of reporting the truth and restoring the church. So if you’d like to help us out, just go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. And just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roy’s report on Apple 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 so much for joining me today.

Julie Roys: Hope you were blessed and encouraged.

https://youtu.be/fFImYJWb2XU

Nancy French was once a darling of the GOP—and ghostwrote books, speeches, and articles for some of the leading conservative politicians. But then came Donald Trump’s candidacy for president—something as both a Christian and a sex abuse survivor, Nancy says she could not support. Then, she was ghosted.

In this edition of The Roys Report, Nancy French, a New York Times bestselling author and Christian conservative, recounts how she’s been called some of the worst names in the book. Why? Simply because she and her husband, New York Times opinion columnist David French, refused to violate their convictions and promote Donald Trump.

Even more egregious to some, Nancy published an article in the Washington Post explaining why, as a sex abuse survivor, she couldn’t support a man who bragged about assaulting women.

As a result, she lost every ghostwriting client she had. And she found herself unwelcome in her own tribe and her own church.

But Nancy tells about much more in her book than just the events of the last few years. She tells about her humble beginnings, her sexual assault by a pastor who taught Vacation Bible School, and the dramatic change in her life when she met her husband, David French.

Nancy French and her husband have been at the center of the major upheaval our nation has faced—as a new political paradigm invaded the church pews. As an abuse survivor and woman of conviction, Nancy courageously shares her story that has insights for every listener.

Guests

Nancy French has collaborated on multiple books for celebrities - five of which made the New York Times best seller list. She has conducted a multi-year journalistic investigation, written commentary, and published for the nation’s most prominent newspapers and magazines. She has written several books under her own name and tells her own story in Ghosted: An American Story. She lives in Franklin, Tennessee with her husband – journalist David French – and family. Learn more at NancyFrench.com.

Show Transcript

SPEAKERS

Julie Roys  00:04

NANCY FRENCH  04:08

Thanks for having me on. This is fun.

Julie Roys  04:11

And I know that this is not the best time for you to be doing a book tour. You’ve been very public about your struggle with cancer. And I know you’re going through chemo. And I just feel honored that you’d be willing to take the time in the middle of something like that to talk about this. So thank you.

NANCY FRENCH  04:27

Yeah, no, thank you so much. Yes, I think I’ve done pretty well with all the interviews, even though I’m high as a kite on prednisone. And I haven’t said too many things that I maybe regretted later. But I’m very thankful to be able to have a book out. It just so happens, it’s in the middle of chemo. So this is gonna get real.

Julie Roys  04:45

Yeah. Well, absolutely. And I was surprised when I read your book. I mean, you and David are kind of like this powerhouse couple. And yet, you had very humble beginnings. In fact, your grandparents lived in the mountains of Appalachia; you lived in the foothills because your parents moved. But again, they were interesting sort of rough and tumble group of people. In fact, your dad used to joke that your family was famous or maybe infamous is a better word. Tell us a little bit about that and the background of your family.

NANCY FRENCH  05:19

Yeah, we get accused a lot of being like Washington, DC cocktail party elites or whatever. I don’t even go to Washington DC. I am from Tennessee. My parents are from Montego mountain. My grandfather was a coal miner. My dad did not graduate from high school. He got his GED. And he later in his 50s went back to college. But  he went to college, he got a degree and amazing man. But yeah, from self-described hillbillies, and all that entails. And yeah, I wanted to sort of describe my upbringing, just so that people could understand that many times people will say, Well, you just don’t understand what true Americans think or you don’t understand what true Tennesseans think. And I always sort of in my mind laugh at that because I’m like, you can’t out Tennessee me. You can be an American and a real Tennessean and hold the beliefs that I hold, you know, so that’s one of the reasons why I wanted to describe that upbringing. I love my family. They’re amazing. They’re fierce. And I think some of that ferocity has been passed on to me and I just I love my hillbilly family.

Julie Roys  06:32

And your part Cherokee Indian too?

NANCY FRENCH  06:35

Yeah, we have a lot of Indian blood. So my grandmother was I think was 1/4. And that was Cherokee. And then my grandfather also had a different type of Montana Indian in him, which is interesting. But yeah, it was all mixed together.

Julie Roys  06:52

So your dad broke from your family, moved to the foothills. Mayfield, Kentucky, which I know where that’s at. My dad actually lives near there now. But Mayfield, Kentucky, then eventually to Tennessee. Talk about the culture of the home that you grew up in, but also the town and sort of rural Tennessee and what that was like.

NANCY FRENCH  07:16

So Paris, Tennessee, has a 16-foot-tall Eiffel Tower,

Julie Roys  07:22

An Eiffel Tower.

NANCY FRENCH  07:25

There’s a huge battle between Paris, Texas and Paris, Tennessee over this Eiffel Tower business. But Paris, Tennessee is an amazing place. I grew up near the lake, Kentucky lake. We have a 60-foot Eiffel Tower. It’s just a great place to grow up very rural. We did not necessarily value education in the way that you would think a school might. For example, in seventh grade, I did not have science class, but instead they decided because none of us were going to go to college, to teach us about guns and so we had hunter safety classes and that culminated in skeet shooting contest. Which, I don’t like to brag, I don’t like to but sometimes you got to. I was the best shot in my seventh-grade class. Which is interesting and funny, but that’s how I grew up; just complete redneck hillbilly sort of existence and I loved it. Like I love Paris, Tennessee. I love Montego mountain and I love Mayfield, Kentucky.

Julie Roys  08:28

Well, it’s funny you say you lived in Paris, Kentucky. My parents for probably about 12 years lived in London, Kentucky, which you know, we didn’t know Kentucky at all. We grew up in Pennsylvania, but we thought it was kind of comical because it’s the least like London of any place I can think of in all of the United State.

NANCY FRENCH  08:47

There’s also Versailles.

Julie Roys  08:49

Versailles right. Not Versailles. But Versailles.

08:52

Yes. And there’s also a fence. Right. Yeah, it’s crazy. Love all these small towns.

Julie Roys  08:59

Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that your dad did differently than your growing up or his growing up, I mean, he came from sort of a superstitious, it sounded like background very sort of animated with maybe tribal kind of religion. But then he became a part of the Church of Christ, and describe what that church was like, I mean, seems from your description, very conservative, but also kind of leaning towards the legalistic side.

NANCY FRENCH  09:32

Yes, that is a very kind way of putting it, Julie. But I will say this, the church probably saved my dad. It’s like, saved his life saved his soul saved my, because he got off the mountain and he and my mother started going to church. They took us to church three times a week. It was just very wonderful and Norman Rockwell ish, you would think, but under the  facade of that sweet small town, Southern church experience, there was a lot of abuse happening at my church. So I was abused by, there was one guy who was like a predator. And he abused 15 people in my church. I didn’t know about the other 14, I only knew about me. I only now know this in the process of writing the book, I figured this out. But I grew up sort of feeling isolated spiritually. And it made me feel differently about God. Previously, church was a cushion, the warm blanket, a place to lay your head. And then all of that was ripped away from me because of that abuse. And I became isolated and smoked cigarettes and painted my fingernails black and skipped church, and it just set me on a bad path.

Julie Roys  10:43

And you were 12 years old when that happened? .

10:46

That’s right. And the preacher was 10 years older.

Julie Roys  10:51

I read your book soon after I read Krista Browns book who of course, was sexually abused in her church as a child. I was actually stunned by the similarities between your story and her story. But I think that the thing that really struck me was the way that both of you internalized it. She internalized it, she called it an affair. How can you have an affair with your youth pastor when you’re an underage teen. You, similarly, you kind of took the guilt and shame on yourself.

11:27

I did. And I think this is common. This is like sort of an embarrassing book to write because it’s so I don’t know, like, actually, I shouldn’t even say that. I’m saying words that are shame full. Like I’m saying this is embarrassing, but I didn’t do anything wrong, right?

Julie Roys  11:45

No, you didn’t.

NANCY FRENCH  11:46

That’s what you think. And in the church with the purity culture sometimes, very well meaning poorly conceived theology. Which is, if you have a sexual sin, which by the way, you don’t, if you’re being abused, that’s not a sin, you’re not the one sinning. But if you’ve been compromised sexually, you’re ruined for the rest of your life. And I internalized that, and I thought that was right. And I also thought that this pastor, preacher, Vacation Bible School person, I thought he loved me, because I was 12. I didn’t know, I didn’t know anything about this. I just didn’t perceive it correctly. So I told myself the wrong story about this abuse almost my whole life. And so this book, though, there’s a lot more to it than just the abuse, obviously. This is me correcting the record for myself. But I wanted to do it publicly for all the people out there who feel guilty over stuff that they shouldn’t feel guilty over. And also, I became a complete mess after my abuse, and I wanted to show people that. Because what happens is you get embarrassed because you make a series of bad decisions and you look unsophisticated, you look immoral, you look like trash. And people will, they’ll look at you and they’ll say, that’s just trash, why are you listening to her? When in actuality, they should look at the damage that has been done to people in the church and repent about the way they’ve been handling abuse. And so I sort of wanted to put myself out there and say, Okay, y’all esteem me now, when I’m almost 50, because I’ve gotten my life together to the degree that I have, which I haven’t, but people esteem me. They don’t know about any of this. So I wanted to say, Okay, this is what it looks like, this is what I looked like. And I looked ridiculous. I was flailing, I was terrible in a lot of ways. You know, let’s talk about it.

Julie Roys  13:45

I think that’s so helpful. Because especially now when we have as public figures, you have a curated image, and it’s often so different than the real image, right? Although I really appreciate it, you have been so real, I think, especially as you’ve been walking through your cancer, the treatments and everything. I’ve so appreciated that. I appreciate that today, you forgot your wig. And so you’re just wearing whatever, and a lot of people would be like, Oh, I can’t go on. But I love that because that’s where all of us are. We like to pretend we’re not. But that’s where all of us are, at least at different points in our life. And so I just, I appreciate that. And I’m sure there’s a lot of people listening, who appreciate that as well. It didn’t end with the violence and the abuse didn’t end with that Pastor whose name was Conrad as I recall, but you had a boyfriend then, Jacob, who unbelievable. I mean, who this man turned out to be and you were trying to break it off from him forever. That did remind me of boyfriends I’ve tried to break it off with and you couldn’t. But talk about what happened with Jacob  and how that impacted you.

NANCY FRENCH  15:03

So I tried to find solace outside the church, meaning in boyfriends, and I made a series of terrible mistakes. And I dated this one guy, who eventually, I actually, Julie, double crossed him. I was cheating on him to let the record show that I was not innocent in this. But it was like I could not break up with him, I didn’t have the backbone to break up with him. And every time I tried, he threatened to commit suicide. And I realize now how terrible that is. I didn’t know it at the time. But in one very terrible moment, he revealed that he knew I had been cheating on him, and he tried to kill me. And so that was a pretty dramatic moment, he tried to strangle me, and it was bad. And boy number two, the guy that I was dating, actually came and rescued me from the situation at the very last second, very wonderful. So that boyfriend number two realized that I was cheating on him. And that I was in duress in the same moment. And he immediately pivoted to try to help me, and he did. I’m very thankful for that. But all of that was the pre-David French romance, which you can imagine when I met David French, who is so levelheaded and calm and good and mora., I wanted that. And that’s what I got. So David French sort of helped put me back on track. And, yeah, I’ll be forever grateful to him over that.

Julie Roys  16:35

Yeah, I was really struck by how big of a difference he made in your life. I mean, at this point,  you’re a victim of two assaults. You’re just absolutely reeling. You’re going to Lipscomb University, which is a Church of Christ school. Although I thought it was interesting that you could not even go to chapel. You knew, if you didn’t go to chapel, you’re going to lose your scholarship. But you call it the positive theology that you couldn’t stomach at that point. I think this is actually good for Christians to hear. Because it’s still there in a lot of churches where it’s very, well just describe what that was, and how that struck you as somebody who’s been through the kind of abuse that you have been through.

NANCY FRENCH  17:30

Yeah, I just had experienced so much. And then my best friend died. And in the same time period, and I was full of grief, though, I wasn’t even really properly processing. I wasn’t grieving the way you’re supposed to grieve. But I knew when I go into chapel, I was actually seeking answers, like, what do you do when you’re completely decimated by life? And the chapel speakers would be like, Hey, guys, we should be humble. Let me tell you about my little league game where I was pitching, and this happened. And I was just like, what is happening? This is so vacuous. I could not listen to this one more syllable. This is going to kill me. It felt like they were trying to kill me. And the reason why is because they didn’t have a doctrine of suffering. Right? Like I was really suffering. Not to mention the fact now that I realized that the Church of Christ leaders knew that I was being abused by this preacher and didn’t do anything. That’s a whole different level of stuff. The people at Lipscomb weren’t guilty of any of that. They were just nice people. And Lipscomb is really amazing. Like David works there. Now, David has always had a great experience there. But my experience there was I could not get down with this theology that I thought was vacuous. And it did not help. I needed help, like I need to help. I was suicidal, or something close to suicidal. So I needed help. And so those chapel talks were not going to cut it. And so I got called into the Dean of Students called me in and he was like, if you don’t go back to chapel, you’re losing everything. And I was like, I’ve lost everything. I don’t care. I never went back. But there’s something about this toxic positivity that I noticed with cancer, and here’s why. So whenever people find out that you have cancer immediately, they want to pray for your healing and for the cure. You have people at McDonald’s stop and pray for your healing, which is very kind and sweet. But when I first got my diagnosis, my son, who’s a philosophy major, said there’s going to be beauty in this. Like, you have to keep your eyes open to see the beauty in this. And there’s, I have like, that was such an interesting, salient thing to say, because there’s so much to learn through disease and disability. Like looking like this. Like, I have no makeup on. I have no hair. In 1 million years would not have taken a picture and posted it to Facebook, let alone been on an interview with you a year ago looking like this. And I am so happy because I feel like, I don’t know, Julie, have maybe this is just me. I’m completely insecure. But I’m insecure my whole life. I’m almost 50 I’m insecure over the way I look. I’m insecure over cellulite, I’m over insecure over my weight, I’m insecure over my teeth that are equine looking. Like whatever you know. But what I’ll do as a ghostwriter, I’ll move in and help people write books about confidence. And so I was talking to my friend, Kim Gravelle, who has her own makeup line and fashion line on QVC. She’s a queen, amazing businesswoman. And we wrote a book called, Collecting Confidence, and I was talking to her, and she was like, you’re so confident I love seeing you. And I was like I faked all that. I completely faked all that. I can’t even imagine people who are confident, like I don’t even get that. But the cancer thing. Oh my gosh, it’s like it removed the vanity or something. And I don’t want to say vanity like it’s negative because we all you know, care what we look like, and it’s important. But I am not going to criticize my body again. I’m so thankful for it. And thankful for the way I look. I’m thankful for being bald because it allows me to connect with people in the most beautiful ways. Women who have cancer will send me pictures of their bald heads and they’re afraid to do it publicly. Some of them don’t even let their husbands see their bald heads. And so what I’m trying to do is normalize this, like this is okay, it’s okay to look like this. I probably won’t look like this forever. But it’s okay to look like this. And so when I’m doing my normal life, that’s not book promotion, typically, I just go bald. And people come up to me and they’re like, is this a fashion choice? Is this you know, like, what’s going on? Because I also tattooed my eyebrows on, because I’m not completely free of vanity. But anyway, it just opens up so much conversation and so whenever you’re faced with lament and grief and loss and abuse and death and disease and disability, you better have a doctrine of suffering. And you have to know how your faith intersects with that. And the good news is it intersects in a very beautiful way. With Christianity, we get back what we lose. It’s a beautiful thing. And I just love the fact that there’s so much truth and beauty even when we look like this. There’s still truth and beauty that we can tap into that is so much greater than my tattooed eyebrows, although on fleek.

Julie Roys  23:05

Well, I think you look beautiful, even with a bald head. But I love that. I absolutely love that. And I love that sometimes when we go through, I was telling somebody this recently that sometimes when we go through really horrific things, the things that used to scare us, the things that used to be so daunting, now we’re like, now that I’ve gone through this, like, go ahead, make my day. I’m not afraid anymore. And I do think it’s a wonderful like, I’ve never been through cancer, so I don’t want to even pretend that I know what that’s like. But yeah, I do hear what you’re saying and suffering for believers is redemptive; it’s always redemptive in some way. And I think you’re right that we don’t talk about it nearly enough in the church. I want to get back to David, because again, he made this huge, huge difference in your life. And I just thought it was so beautiful how you wrote about him. But he really, I mean, here you are an absolute wreck. And I love how when you met him like you confronted him, because he’s the one who convinced you to go to Lipscomb. And you’re like, thanks a lot, you know, and you kind of laid into him. And yet he responded in such a gracious way and within. I mean, I don’t know if it was a few hours or days like he had led you to the Lord.

NANCY FRENCH  24:27

Yeah, we had a very truncated experience dating, romantically and spiritually. He was sick. He had an incurable disease, which is a totally different story. So he was sick. We started dating, the second date, I realized I could marry this person. And then I think we were engaged within three months. I didn’t know him. He was like a complete stranger. But during that very brief amount of time he told me about Jesus. He was like he was telling me about the Holy Spirit because David French, New York Times columnist, was cured of an incurable disease,  Okay? And that was in 95. And I got to see that happen. He weighed 100 pounds when we were dating, he was so sick. And maybe 120 I don’t know; he lost a ton of weight. But I got to see this miracle happen. And I didn’t believe in miracles. I didn’t believe in any of it. So he was telling me about that. And I was like, wow, I think I might need to know about whatever it is that you know about. And so he used CS Lewis to talk me through the Lord, lunatic or liar, those three options. And for those listening, CS Lewis was basically like, Jesus claimed to be the Son of God. Was he telling the truth? Was he insane? Or was he just lying? And I could not bring myself to say that Jesus Christ was lying. I just couldn’t. And so the only thing and I didn’t think he was a lunatic. So I was like, you know, I think Jesus was telling the truth. And that small thing changed my life, because I believed and David helped me believe, and it was very beautiful. So I write about that in the book.

Julie Roys  26:11

Yeah. Lord, liar, lunatic. It’s a powerful argument. So simple, but so powerful. And yet a lot of people just have never, they’ve never thought deeply about it. And then you guys got married, in Paris, which is great. I won’t go into it because we don’t have time. But that was a great, great story. You moved to Manhattan. And then you, this hit me in a probably a different way than it would normally because I kind of lean charismatic. So I’m open to charismatic things, even though I would say, I grew up, my dad was a surgeon. So we were always, if you thought you were sick, it was kind of like, prove it. It was everything a little bit skeptical. And, as a journalist, we tend to be pretty skeptical too. But I read this about your encounter with a prophet. It was I guess; it was like a reunion of the Harvard Christian group that David had been a part of. And well, you were skeptical too. So tell about that experience, because it really is pretty mind blowing.

NANCY FRENCH  27:23

Craziest story. I became a Christian. I have one inch of theological belief, which is I believe Jesus Christ is Lord, all in You. And the Harvard Law School Christian fellowship was having a reunion. And we went, and by the way, I don’t want to go hang out with a bunch of people who graduated from Harvard, right? Because, a three-time college dropout. I don’t want to hang out with these people. I’m intimidated. Everybody is so smart. And also, when you grow up in the way that I grew up, you’re taught that people who believe in the Holy Spirit and Pentecostals or charismatics are low class, they’re unsophisticated, they’re not smart. They’re given to emotion. So here I am going into the Harvard Law School Christian Fellowship. So they’re smarter than I am. They get paid a lot of money to evaluate documents, and the Bible is a document. And David was like, Yeah, I think they invited a prophet, and I was like, What is a prophet? Is this like a psychic? Like I don’t have a category for this. And so we go to the thing, and I was apprehensive because, Julie, I don’t know if this is a sign of a guilty conscience. 100% It is. But if you talk to a prophet, I was thinking that he would say, Well, you don’t read your Bible. You don’t pray, your main to whatever, you know, like whatever you kick the dog, whatever, like he could read my mail. So I didn’t want to talk to a prophet either. So anyway, we go to the thing. Gary has on a Hawaiian shirt. He’s smelly, he has a hairy belly, and I can see the bottom of it. It’s insane. I’m like, okay, so this is Gary the Prophet. Okay, whatever. So Gary the Prophet, y’all gotta read this, it’s the craziest thing that ever happened. But he goes to the people at the Harvard Law School Christian Fellowship, and I thought he would say to Harvard Law people, Oh, you struggle with pride? Or oh, I don’t know, you’ve got so much intelligence. I don’t know what you’d say to Harvard people. I’m not a Harvard person, as you can tell. But that’s not what he did. He went around the room and read to like, spoke into their lives. So for example, I don’t know if you know Shaunti Feldheim. She’s a Christian. Shaunti was there, and her husband Jack, and I use their names in the book. And later I was like, Hey, I used your name in the book with this crazy thing because they were there and they had this crappy car that Shaunti and Jeff, like, they were the only people in New York City who had the car of our friend group. So they were very nice to let us use the car, but it was a freaking jalopy, and they were always in fights over it. And so, but Gary looked at Jeff and Shaunti and spoke to them about this car. And I was like, what? So you got a chance to talk to a prophet. He’s giving you automobile advice, that’s weird. And then he went to other people, and he talked to another friend who secretly had written poetry and he said, “You know the poetry right secretly? It’s time to do this was like literary advice. I was like, what is happening, Gary the Prophet? So then Gary the prophet looked at me, and he was like you, and I was like, Oh, my gosh, this is gonna be so bad. And he called me up. And he told me, he said, you’re pregnant. And I was like, No, I’m not. Julie, this is TMI, but this is what’s happening. I was on my period, and I told him that, and he looked at me, I said, it is impossible, because I wanted everyone in this Harvard Law School Christian fellowship to realize they’ve been duped by a con man. And so I was like, defiant, like, No, I’m on my period. I’m not pregnant. And he just laughed at me. And he was like, with God, all things are possible. But this is what you need to know, you are pregnant, you are carrying a girl, she’s going to come this year, she’s going to have physical problems, here is five Bible verses that you need to know. When they tell you that you’re aborting, don’t believe it, you’re gonna have a healthy baby. And all is gonna be well just remember these words. And I was like, okay, Gary, the Prophet. This is weird because I wasn’t pregnant, right? But he scared me to death. So I go home, and my period stops. And I think, you know, this is weird. I think he’s scared me into not having a period. Gary the prophet is the worst prophet ever. And then later, though, like I took a pregnancy test, and I was pregnant. Apparently, the bleeding that I thought was my period was implantation. And Gary the prophet knew this. And lo and behold, a few months later, the doctor calls and he says, “You are miscarrying. You’re aborting call off the parties. But they gave me a due date in January. I knew that wasn’t the case, because he said that she was going to come this year, and I also knew the gender. So talking about gender reveal party, Gary the Prophet, you did not need that. And Camille was born. And she’s amazing. And right now this second, she’s 13 floors up. She’s got two of my grandchildren, that she’s given birth to; cute, wonderful, beautiful kids. And we’ve seen God’s hand in Camille’s life and all of our lives in such dramatic ways. And that cured me of being skeptical of the Holy Spirit. My book is called Ghosted, not just because I’m a celebrity ghostwriter, or because vast friend groups have ghosted me for my political decisions. But also I wanted it to encourage people to really consider the Holy Ghost, to consider God, because He will not let you down even though everyone else will.

Julie Roys  33:03

I never said why I’m a little more skeptical than I used to be. And it’s because of what’s happening at the International House of Prayer. Just, and of course, I mean, this is the umpteenth. I don’t know how many scandals I’ve covered since I’ve started The Roys Report. I mean, it’s just been one after another after another. But this particular one, I think is especially gross, because prophecy was used to manipulate and then abuse women. And then we have this prophetic history that now some of the key facts in it have been debunked. And it just seems like it was used in such a manipulative way. And so I’m trying to figure out why God? Like why do you even like, is that real? Like when people get because I remember, I used to be in the Vineyard, and I remember hearing stories, and I remember miraculous things happening. And then you go to a church where they don’t expect that to happen, and guess what? It doesn’t, you know, kind of like the Holy Spirit doesn’t work in ways that our faith doesn’t allow it to, sometimes, but it was good for me to hear it.

NANCY FRENCH  34:17

I think that’s a very interesting point. And it’s important to say it, because the charismatic church has really, really messed up with this Donald Trump prophecy stuff.

Julie Roys  34:29

Oh, my goodness, yeah.

NANCY FRENCH  34:31

They’ve gone off the rails. And so what do you do like if you’re a Christian person, and this is not just for charismatic people or Pentecostal people, but all white evangelicals who are going to church where the egregious evil is overlooked because of political positions? What do you do? And so that’s the thing I don’t I don’t even go to a Pentecostal church. I just really believe that there’s a lot of counterfeit stuff happening, with all these prophecies, political prophecies. But if it’s counterfeit, that indicates there’s something true. Right? So it’s a mimicry of something good. And so I would just encourage, I don’t know how to do it. I’m not doing church right. I’m completely a mess; I’m hanging on to Christianity by my freaking fingernails. And ever since I got the cancer diagnosis, I can’t really go to church, I’ve gone like twice in seven months. However, I feel so warmly towards God. And I feel like he’s got me. In spite of all of this, I just feel so thankful to God. And I don’t understand God. So when I wrote this book, one of my intentions was to never be invited by a church to come speak on the book at a church. And I think I probably pulled that off, the invitations are not rolling in Julie. And that’s because I don’t understand God. So I’m just telling you the truth. This is what happened to me, there was a guy named Gary, and he had a hairy belly, and a Hawaiian shirt. And he was completely right about the trajectory of my life. And we recorded it because he said, If I’m a false prophet, you’ll be able to say that I’m a false prophet. I’m recording everything I say to you. And there’s some things that haven’t happened yet that I 100% know are going to happen in our lives. Then David and I joke about it all the time because it’s just so crazy. But it feels crazy. But it happened, and I’ve got a kid upstairs, who is alive. And so many things like that happen. And sometimes things happen that you don’t get that aren’t as uplifting, that God acts in ways that are baffling and confusing. And I included those stories too. Because I just wanted the reader to be able to say, Okay, this is what my life looks like, because I wrangle with God and wrestle with God. What does yours look like? Is it as nuts as this? And I just think it is, I think we’re just too sophisticated to talk about it. But I think people have interactions with God all the time. And I want to normalize talking about that.

Julie Roys  37:10

And when I was in Vineyard, their tagline used to be to make the supernatural natural. And I did love tha.t I loved lots of things about my Vineyard experience. I know they’re going through some really, very difficult times right now. But yeah, it was very positive for me in many ways. And I appreciate that. And I appreciate just the fact that I read Scripture differently now, whereas I used to skip over oh my gosh, they raised the dead. You know, like that was normal for the disciples like what does that mean to us today? But it’s challenging.

NANCY FRENCH  37:42

Yeah. Or what does it mean when Paul says just eagerly seek these gifts of the Holy Spirit? Do it just do it, just believe the Bible and do it. And one of the things is church is so nuts right now. It makes you feel like you don’t have a spiritual home. Like, actually, like, I do not have a spiritual home, I’ve been projectile vomited out of like the church.

Julie Roys  38:05

I can relate to this. So yeah.

NANCY FRENCH  38:08

if you can just like divorce yourself from the people who are angry at you for whatever reasons, and just sort of settle into your relationship with God. I don’t think we should forsake the church or the gathering of our friends and saints and all that. I don’t know how to do it. It is a very difficult time. And so I wrote this book for other people who feel politically, culturally, or spiritually homeless. And I’m just sort of like reaching out my hand and saying, Hey, do y’all, this is weird, what’s going on? Do y’all feel weird about this? Anyway, we can be weird together, we can be alone together. And that’s what I hoped the book sort of encapsulated.

Julie Roys  38:47

I loved your story of how you became a ghost writer, which is kind of amazing. You’re a college dropout. And all of a sudden you’re writing for all these stars. A lot of people don’t know that you’re writing the book because you’re a ghost. But you end up writing and I didn’t realize you wrote this book Bristol Palin’s book when she got pregnant. For people, you know, who aren’t familiar with this, although most of us I would guess, that are listening. Or it wasn’t that long ago. Sarah Palin became the vice-presidential candidate. And of course, she’s a conservative, Christian conservative, very traditional values, and then it comes out uh-oh, her daughter Bristol is pregnant out of wedlock. Although it wasn’t really what I think everybody probably assumed at the time. Talk about that experience of writing that book with Bristol, but also of the reception that book got when you published it.

NANCY FRENCH  39:44

Yeah, so I grew up listening to Rush Limbaugh and knowing without a shadow of a doubt that Democrats were sexual predators, or at least for pretty still with them. Bill Clinton, Ted Kennedy, give me a freaking break. So I was like, okay, So that’s the party. I do not want to have anything to do with. Democrats do not care about women. So I go to Alaska, I live with the Palins, I meet Bristol. Her story is told beautifully in her book. And I’ll let her tell her own story. But I was shocked when I got up there. Because what I thought was true was not true about the Palins. And I love Bristol Palin, she is courageous. She has a backbone, and she is a fighter for what is right. During that very tumultuous time when she got pregnant out of wedlock, she really rose to the occasion and she’s an amazing mother. And I love her so much. But what I learned when I got there, I said to her Bristol, we need to really talk about this baby shower that you had and she goes, I didn’t have a baby shower. And I was like, Yes, you did. I’ve got pictures. Look, your kid has this camouflage onesie. And she was like, Nancy, that is photoshopped. What is wrong with like, it’s so obviously photoshopped. I didn’t know because I was new to the world of lies and deception. But then when Bristol told me her story, how she lost her virginity. She goes, it wasn’t really lost. It was stolen. And I was like, oh, okay, what? I was completely floored by that because all of the media coverage was mocking her. And so when we published this in the book, I thought everybody would be like, my bad. I write for The Washington Post, or I write for the New York Times, or I write for this thing. And we mocked her for what essentially was a sex crime. She was a victim. And we’re sorry about that. That’s not what happened. People continue to mock her. They continue to make fun of her. And what that told me at the time was Democrats do not care about women, unless you’re a certain type of woman. Now, later, fast forward five freakin minutes, and here we are. The GOP standard bearer is someone who has been held criminally accountable for rape in court, much more so than Bill Clinton. And we’ve embraced this guy. So this is my trajectory. It has been one of confusion. I don’t feel like I’ve changed. I feel like you could believe that Bill Clinton and Ted Kennedy were sexual predators or had sexual problems, obviously, without you can believe that and also look at people in your own tribe, can say the same things. You can walk and chew gum at the same time. You can just decide to be against sexual predation generally, across the board. It’s pretty easy if you make these decisions. But that’s not what we do. What we do is, oh, Harvey Weinstein. Yes. Well, that’s how Hollywood is, you know, Hollywood, they’re godless. Or the Catholics, for sure the Catholics have a problem. And then you find out oh, is the Baptist, oh it’s the deacon Oh, it’s Kanakuk camps in Branson, Missouri. And it’s like, you don’t want to embrace that you’re just like, Nope. A part of my identity is that I’m a part of the good guys, I belong to the good tribe. And that was mine, too. I firmly believed that, that I was on the side of good, but then I wasn’t, and I was guilty of mischaracterizing my liberal neighbor and trying to fight for my tribe over truth. And anyway, my book is sort of like unpacking that, it is not chastising the reader. It’s chastising myself because I got too much into the scoring of political points occupationally. And I realized that was not kind of me. God didn’t give me my writing talent for me to disparage my neighbor and to bear false witness. And so that’s what I was doing. And when I decided not to lie, or bear false witness, I was unemployable. I was as popular as head lice. So we used to be super popular in certain circles. And then, you know, nobody wants anything to do with us now.

Julie Roys  44:02

Yeah, yeah. It’s amazing. 2015 You guys were like the darlings of the GOP. I mean, David had gotten  awarded the Ronald Reagan award from CPAC, you know, the Conservative Political Action Conference. I mean, you guys were like, you were the quintessential Christian conservatives. And I think that’s when I was introduced to you. I was working at Moody at the time. And so I was doing a lot of commentaries and it’s amazing to me, I look back and I’m like, I had everything figured out then. Wow. It’s so funny, because I don’t now, but then I did. But I was very right. I was very conservative. And I could spout all of the political reasons why the Conservatives were right. And then all of a sudden, I couldn’t, I don’t think I changed. I don’t think I changed either. I was just absolutely shocked at who my Christian conservative neighbors were. Like, because I had supporters who were furious at me because I spoke out against Trump and stopped supporting me. And I’m like, Who did you think I was? Like, how can you support this man? I have not changed. I thought we were the party that cared about values. And they didn’t. Clearly we cared more about power, we cared more about position. But I have kind of thought, in my role as an investigative reporter in this space, where I call out Christians, and people often don’t want to hear, as you know, the scandals and what’s really going on. And so I thought, I got a lot of hate mail and pushback. Compared to what you and David have been through, I mean, that gave me like a whole new perspective, the personal nature of what was done to you. Especially regarding I know you have a daughter that you have adopted from Ethiopia. The amount of cruelty and this is where I’m like, that whole compassionate conservative thing. I was like, where are they? Talk about what happened to you when again, you simply stuck to your guns, and you spoke out, you spoke out what was true about Donald Trump. What happened?

NANCY FRENCH  46:28

So chaos. We’re big fans of Hamilton, and we are always like chaos and bloodshed. If you know that songs chaos and bloodshed are not the solution. But that’s what ensued. So I wrote a 2016 article in the Washington Post about my own sexual abuse and how I was begging the GOP to consider sexual abuse victims, because we were not about this. Imagine if you’re me, and you grow up believing Bill Clinton is rapist. The Democrats don’t care about women. The GOP is the party of family values. We care about children, all this stuff. Imagine if you’re that, and then they show up and they’re like, Hey, this is the guy that you can vote for. His name is Donald Trump, he grabs women by the genitals. It’s fine. Just, it’s great.

Julie Roys  47:17

Just locker room talk. Yeah.

47:19

And you’re just like, I don’t think I can do this. Is there a problem? So I wrote this article, I talked about my sex abuse for the first time. And I had not even told my counselor about my sexual abuse, I could not even articulate it. So it wasn’t like I had gotten to the point of spiritual maturity and emotional health, and I was finally deciding to make a case in the Washington Post. I had not even told my counselor; I could not even say it. But I went ahead and published this in the Washington Post, and it was a story of my abuse. And my counselor was like, Okay, I think we can work with this. But  this is potentially emotionally problematic, which it was, because I just laid my soul bare. I was like, guys, please. But then after I did that, there were some conservatives, prominent conservatives who were like, oh, Nancy French is just using her personal story to make a political point. And then later, when I would make any sort of statement about politics, these people would say things like, just because Nancy French seduced her pastor doesn’t mean that she should be able to speak about the Supreme Court or something like that.

Julie Roys  48:27

It’s infuriating. It’s infuriating, unbelievable.

NANCY FRENCH  48:30

I’ve never heard anything more evil than this; where you take the victim of pedophilia and say that they seduced a pastor. It’s so sinister. But these are people who y’all read, like, people read these writers, they’re associated with sort of legitimate magazines. I don’t know. I don’t read them. And they make fun of us. They make fun of our adopted daughter because she’s black. They say I had sex with men while my husband was deployed. And that’s how we got this baby. Not through adoption. And then for a time, they put fake-like photoshopped porn of me having sex with black men online and they would photoshop David’s face looking through the window at it, and they called him a cock-servative and obviously, he’s raising the enemy because we have a black child. So all black people are enemy. The evil that came at us with such a flood of evil. I could not even I still cannot even process it. That was all because we decided not to vote for Trump. So I mean, it’s like, I don’t wish it on my worst enemy.

Julie Roys  49:52

It’s unbelievable. It really is. And this is where, like you said, people continue to read some of these people. You call names in the book. You’re not doing it right now, that’s okay. But you can read the book. And you should.

NANCY FRENCH  50:03

Yeah, they’re so inconsequential to me. I was like, should I say their names or not? Because I don’t even like, I don’t even know what they look like. Like, I’m so not dialed in to whatever their thing is. So, you have this thing you’re like, should I elevate them by actually using their names? Or should I protect them? Because surely to goodness, in five minutes, they’re gonna realize they’re on the wrong side of this issue. You know, like, I feel bad for them. I don’t know what their deal is, or why they’re so obsessed with trying to attack victims of sex abuse. But it’s not like this is an anomaly. It’s not like the church otherwise really has it going on in terms of protecting children and women. So, anyway, yeah. So it’s hard to know what to do with these people. And I probably, I vacillated between wanting to name names and score settle. And I just decided not to do that generally, just because I think this story is important, the story is good in and of itself. And these people they’re not. They’re just tokens. They’re just indicative of the things that I wanted to talk about. And I wish them all the best. I hope all of us are progressing politically and spiritually and culturally, to the point where we get better. I feel like I’ve gotten better. And I know we all can, so I don’t even have animus toward them. But they really are on the wrong side of this.

Julie Roys  51:37

Yeah, absolutely. And I should say you name some names, but you do leave quite a few out. Although, if you put some things together, you can probably figure out who they are. But it is shocking what Christians are okay with and what I think this whole crazy political polarization has shown. And it’s been disorienting for a number of us Christians, I think, who are very surprised by it. For you, it cost you your job, your livelihood, essentially. I mean, you’re a ghostwriter, all of your clients were conservatives. We didn’t talk about it, but folks that you have to get the book and read the story about Mitt Romney and when you worked for Mitt Romney and the skiing story, I was laughing out loud. Oh, my gosh, I was laughing so hard.

NANCY FRENCH  52:33

I did include some anecdotes that do not reflect well on my virtue. There is a warning here.

Julie Roys  52:38

Oh that one! Yeah. Again, I’m just gonna tease that one. Because people have to read the book to read that one. And it’s hysterical. But  here you are. You’re basically an unemployed ghostwriter. And Gretchen Carlson comes to you and  tells you about an investigation you can do. It takes you like better part of a year, and you get paid like a big goose egg for it, like nothing. Which I have to, it reminds me of when I got fired at Moody, because that’s when I started investigating Harvest Bible Chapel and James McDonald. And I think that year, I did get paid for that article. But that’s like, the only thing that I wrote for any other publication because I wrote it for World Magazine. But I think I came out ahead when I did, the income minus like, expenses. I made $300 that year. I know. It was fantastic. But  it was that kind of years, I could really relate to all of a sudden, you get this story just dropped on your lap, you tried to get other people to write it, and nobody did. And so you’re faced with this responsibility. And I know this all too well, where you know, a story. You know, I went to journalism school, you didn’t even go to journalism school. You’re a very good writer, an excellent writer. And I think you have obviously excellent investigation skills. And although you had to develop some of I mean, you just went out and you just began investigating this. And you get yourself in so deep that you realize, oh, my goodness, I gotta publish this, right? I’ve got to do something. So talk about it. This was Kanakuk camp, the largest Christian camp, and you find out there is widespread, like over decades, sexual abuse going on. It’s known, and yet, nobody has been held responsible, other than the actual abuser.

NANCY FRENCH  53:34

That’s a lot! Yeah. And you’re being very kind in your description of this. So like, literally, I tried to get everybody to cover this. And I don’t even have a degree period, let alone a journalism degree. And when I realized that I had to be the one to do this because I’m almost 50 years old and I’m a grown person who knows about the abuse. When I realized that and this is after losing my job and being fired, either being fired by or quitting all of my gigs and no money.

Julie Roys  55:13

That’s how we become investigative journalists. We get fired and nothing else you can do.

NANCY FRENCH  55:18

Nothing else you can do. I Googled, what does off the record mean? I didn’t know that there were layers of that, you know this, you’re laughing. It’s so crazy. There’s like no background, anyway. So I googled that. That’s how I started my investigation. It was three years of just angst and agony. And I didn’t have anyone to help because I’m just myself. I really needed a team of like five people or something. But I worked around the clock for three years, and I proved everything that I wanted to prove basically. I only published like 3% of what I know. But yeah, there was a bad guy at Kanakuk camps. He was there. His name is Pete Newman, he abused an estimated hundreds of male campers, several of whom have died via suicide. We still get tips over these deaths. So anyway, awful. But the thing that I uncovered was that Kanakuk camps and its CEO Joe White, they received 10 years of Red Flag Warnings. So they knew for 10 years that this bad guy was convincing campers to disrobe and to be completely nude. He played basketball nude with them; he was on four wheelers nude with them. Which by the way, absolutely disgusting. Just that fact visualizing that they knew that. They knew that parents complained, one camper saw Pete Newman abusing another camper. And they told the Female Camper who was the witness that they didn’t think she was Christian enough to go to the camp. So Pete Newman is in jail. But all of the people who allowed this abuse to happen, they’re still running the camp to this day, nobody’s resigned, nobody’s been fired. The same people. And there’s 25,000 kids who go there per summer. So that’s why I’m so alarmed by it. If you Google Kanakuk, almost everything written about it is me, regrettably. It’s  out there, and you can read about it. So I would encourage people and parents just to become aware of that. The reason I’m so sad and despondent over the issue is that I proved everything and the church, their reaction was laconic, is that the right word? I don’t even know what that means. They were not as alarmed as I thought they should be.

Julie Roys  57:38

Apathetic for sure. I mean, they just didn’t care. It’s callous. I mean, I have had investigations that turned out great. Like James McDonald, Harvest Bible Chapel. He got fired, all the elders stepped down. The Ravi Zacharias investigation, I think, pretty much it’s well established. But most of Christendom now realizes he was a sexual predator. John MacArthur, I don’t know what more I could have proved. I really don’t. And it’s been shocking to me that conservative, you know, pundits like Megan Basham still to this day, you know, will defend John MacArthur and I’m like, have you read this? I mean, we have so much documentation. We have video evidence. I mean, we have handwritten letters from him telling the teenage girl whose father molested her that she should forgive him and that he’ll stay on staff, and we know he stayed on staff three more years and then went on to pastor for decades more. And John MacArthur did nothing. It drives you absolutely insane. And you think what on earth is the matter with people? Like what is wrong with you? Nothing has been done to John MacArthur. Nothing has been done to Joe White. Christians continue to just send their kids to a camp where clearly they’re not being protected. How do you come to terms with this, Nancy?

NANCY FRENCH  59:01

I don’t. I’m so depressed. I’ve been in a bad mood for many years. To be completely honest, I don’t know how to resolve it. I’m so depressed over it. And then the Kanakuk investigation dropped like a few days after the SBC was revealed to have all these sexual predators in a database conveniently tracking all the sexual predators and keeping them from the cops. I have no answers and I have decided that I cannot be responsible for the church and their collective inaction on this. That I am not responsible. I cannot exact justice. I just can’t. I am standing on the side of the road with this giant sign over my head saying, justice is coming. Justice is important. One day this will be better. It is not today. But I’ve just decided I’m just going to talk about it. People make fun of me because I’m a one-note song. If you follow me on Twitter or on any of the social media channels, I’m like, Hey, guys, today in Kanakuk saga number 550 million, I’m talking about this, because I have so much information. I published, like 3% of what I know. And so I just want to warn parents and I have, and so I feel comfortable with that. I will not stop talking about it. Lawsuits have been filed based on my investigative work, what I was able to uncover, and I trust lawyers more than I trust the actions of the church in terms of holding people accountable, which, you know, is sad. But I am thankful for attorneys and for brave victims and survivors speaking out. So I’m very thankful. But it took me a long time to get to that point and, I’m not okay with it. I’m sad and depressed. I’m sad about the Christian celebrities who are associated with Kanakuk camps, who won’t speak out. I’m sad about the parents who send their kids to Kanakuk camps. And I’m sad just for all the grieving families who’ve lost family members because of this abuse, it’s awful. And I’m so inspired by the families who choose to say that their loved one who died via suicide,  was a victim at Kanakuk camps. A brave family in Texas did that first and that started all of it.

Julie Roys  1:01:26

Well, you’ve done a Herculean task by digging into that, and if you want a place to publish, you know, the other 97%. If you get well enough, we would love to publish it. I know we published. I mean, based on your research, really, we’ve sort of rewritten some of this stuff, but it’s really well done, really well documented, and you’ve done a service for the church. And you’ve warned people. I figure that’s all we can do, is we can warn people, and then what people do with it, at the end of the day, we have to you’re right, we have to let that go. Because that’s in God’s hands. And we did our job. We warned them, we told them the truth, but it is frustrating. You said, There’s a quote that I just want to read of yours. It’s so good. And I so related to it. You said throughout my life, I desperately wanted to identify the good people and the bad people. So I could walk more confidently among them. Befriending the good ones avoiding the bad ones. I categorized people into tribes, according to their political views, their church attendance, and their voting patterns. But this line was fuzzier than I’d originally believed. I feel that the people we thought were the good guys aren’t necessarily the good guys. I still hold on to my faith, I still have the same convictions. I hold them differently now. I hold them differently. And I think there’s an openness to people that I wouldn’t necessarily be open to before. But talk about where you’re at now with kind of maybe seeing a little more gray than you did before or good, where you made might have seen bad and how you’re processing that?

NANCY FRENCH  1:03:22

Well, I mean, probably the most interesting and honest answer is I realized how that the line separating good and evil runs through my own heart, as Alexander Solzhenitsyn said. And I was guilty of a bunch of stuff. I was politically acrimonious; I was mean to my Democrat neighbors. Mean meaning in my rhetoric. Like I help people own the LIBS or whatever. But I think there’s something very beautiful about aging, I’m almost 50. I do not care about my brand management. For all of you listening, I am not one of the good guys on the good side of the line, and I do all this stuff right. I do some things right. Probably hold a lot of beliefs that I won’t hold in 10 years, hopefully, because you know, you change and you get better and you want to allow space for you to get better, for your party to get better, for your church to get better. I think it’s interesting how you say you hold your beliefs differently. I am just so thankful for being able to not protect your brand. To the church. You’re not God’s PR branch. He doesn’t need you. He doesn’t need you in terms of his marketing. You can embrace the truth of whatever is uncomfortable, and you can talk about it without damaging the gospel, without damaging the church. In fact, you’re protecting the church when you’re calling out evil, you’re protecting children. When you’re calling out evil, you’re protecting women when you’re calling out evil, you’re protecting men. And so you don’t have to say like, oh, well, I’m a Christian, so therefore, I cannot criticize anything that is happening in the church. In fact, that’s biblically the opposite of what we are actually commanded to do. And so I have been guilty of being politically acrimonious and uncharitable towards my neighbor, not protecting the reputations of my neighbor. And I changed. And so I fully believe all of us can change. But that’s not to say that I’m the arbiter of all that is good. And now these people are bad, but it’s just all mixed up. And I feel like we have such capacity for both good and evil. And there’s part of you that is sort of like sobered by that. And then part of me is like, liberated. It’s like, okay, well, that explains a lot. That’s why I’m so petty. That’s why I yell at the kids when I don’t mean to, that’s when I get frustrated at my dog, you know, or whatever. But you can just relax and not feel shame over the fact that we’re complicated humans. We contain multitudes, and that’s cool. And all these multitudes reflect various aspects of God. And so like leaning into God and allowing him to tell your story, it’s just a beautiful thing.

Julie Roys  1:06:26

I love that. And I love the humility, the beauty that comes out of situations like this. And I hope though, I hope that through your book, and through people meeting you, even digitally like this, but that they can see who you, and I think David, are as well. I won’t say names, but someone, you know, called me out in a pretty negative way and said that I was used to another liberal journalists like David French, and Russell Moore, to which I thanked them. I said, Wow, I don’t think I’m in their league at all. But thank you very much for being with them. But I’m not liberal, you guys aren’t liberal, the disparagement that’s happening, where we call people names, just to again, disparage them in some way, and we’re not,  like it’s so polarized now. There’s no nuance. So if you say anything, nobody will hear the nuance. And they’ll just completely put you in one camp or the other. It’s evil. And I appreciate that you’re calling it out, I appreciate you that you’re doing it with humility. And I just pray for you that you will get healthy and be able to beat this cancer. And that we will have many more books and articles and writings from you. Because I do think you have a great deal to say. So thank you.

NANCY FRENCH  1:07:43

Oh, thank you so much. And yes,  for the kind words about David, I’m so sick of people being negative about David French. I love that I have this book. It is my love letter to David French. He’s amazing. He’s changed my life. He’s saved my life. And this random rank stranger that I married spontaneously 28 years ago is the person who’s taking care of me in my cancer. And it means a lot to me. And I’m really sick of everyone being so negative about this man who’s so great. It is devastating to me. But I appreciate all the letters of support that we’ve gotten from people and people who have the moral clarity to know that if you want to know what David French thinks about something, he doesn’t store his opinions underneath the potted plant in front of our yard with the spare key. He writes it in the New York Times. You can find out what he thinks about things. It’s not hard. So don’t come at me with your lazy criticisms of David French. He’s amazing. That’s how I feel about that. So America, you’ve been warned. I’m over it.

Julie Roys  1:08:52

I do ask people when they say that I asked them specifically, what is it that really bothers you about David French, and you know what I hear? Nothing. So often they have no comeback. It’s just they know he’s been labeled as the bad guy. And it’s absolutely terrible. So it’s an awful thing. I pray that the truth, the truth will be revealed. I do believe that when we’re over this crazy season, and we look back at it, history is going to remember David French and Nancy French very well.

NANCY FRENCH  1:09:24

Well, thank you for saying so I really appreciate it.

Julie Roys  1:09:31

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’d like a copy of Nancy’s new book, Ghosted, you can get one when you give $50 or more to The Roys Report this month. That’s a bit more than our usual minimum gift because the book is a hardback and so it’s a little more expensive than our usual premiums. But as I think you can tell from this podcast, it’s a fantastic book. Plus, when you give you’re making pot has like these possible. As I’ve often said, we don’t have advertisers or many large donors. We simply have you people who care about the mission of The Roys Report to report the truth and restore the church. So if you’d like to help us out and get a copy of Ghosted just go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. Also just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcast, 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 so much for joining me today. Hope you were blessed and encouraged.

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https://youtu.be/ok7qRXGZYro

For nearly two decades, one woman stood up to the Southern Baptist Convention, forcing it to face its sex abuse crisis. She was gaslit, maligned, and threatened with legal action. But she didn’t back down. And on this edition of The Roys Report, you’ll hear her story.

Joining host Julie Roys is Christa Brown, an abuse survivor who overcame the odds in pursuit of justice.

As a 16-year-old girl, Christa was repeatedly raped by the youth pastor at her Southern Baptist Church. And when she told the music minister at her church what had happened, he told her never to speak of it.

For 35 years, Christa kept silent, accepting the shame that rightly belonged to her rapist. But in the early 2000s, Christa broke her silence—and confronted her childhood church with what had happened. She thought they would do the right thing. But instead, they attacked her.

That began a nearly 20-year battle with the Southern Baptist Convention—and led to two major investigations, showing that hundreds of Baptist leaders and volunteers had sexually abused congregants. She recounts it all in detail in her just released memoir, Baptistland.

Christa found her voice, rising above her past trauma to become a leading voice in the national and global abuse survivor community. She speaks with unrelenting honesty about the patterns of abuse in evangelical churches—and the necessary steps to bring reform.

Guests

Named as one of the "top 10 religion newsmakers" of 2022, Christa Brown has persisted for two decades in working to peel back the truth about clergy sex abuse and coverups in the nation's largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention. As one of the first to go public with substantiated child molestation allegations against a Baptist minister—and documentation that others knew—she has consistently demanded reforms to make other kids and congregants safer. She is the author of Baptistland and This Little Light: Beyond a Baptist Preacher Predator and His Gang. Christa, who is retired appellate attorney, a mom, and a grandma, lives with her husband in Colorado.

Show Transcript

SPEAKERS

Julie Roys  00:04

CHRISTA BROWN  03:22

Thank you, Julie, I really appreciate it. I’m so glad to be with you.

Julie Roys  03:26

And you’re kind of like a legend. I don’t know if you recognize this, but you have been at this a very, very long time and the persistence that you have had to expose what’s been going on within the Southern Baptist Convention, it didn’t just happen to you, it happened to so so many women and men who have been victims. And so just as somebody who’s been in this space for a really long time, not nearly as long as you, I just really appreciate your work. So thank you.

CHRISTA BROWN  04:16

Thanks. And of course, this is something that is still continuing to happen too.

Julie Roys  04:21

That’s true. So I just finished your book, Baptistland, and really emotionally, still wrestling to come to terms  with everything I read. I think there were several things that really struck me from your book. Of course, the horror of the sex abuse that you had at the hands of your own youth pastor, somebody that you trusted, and the spiritual abuse involved in that was just absolutely horrific. But I think too, the abuse within your own family and the psychological and emotional abuse that was there and kind of how that conditioned you for the abuse and to kind of keep secrets. And so it kind of contributed to everything that happened. But I think lastly, was your resiliency, which is amazing in the face of what you encountered, your resiliency. And I don’t know how you did that. I mean, what do you attribute the resiliency that you’ve had to overcome so many hurdles in your life?

CHRISTA BROWN  05:26

I don’t know. In part, I think I’m a little stubborn by nature. I think that is there. In part, I think I had the enormous good fortune to encounter a wonderful husband and wonderful spouse, who has been nothing but supportive. And I think, when someone has that kind of support in their life, I mean, that came, of course, later as an adult, but that too, of course, has just been an enormous source of stability for me. So yeah, I’ve had those things. And in that sense, I’ve been very, very fortunate.

Julie Roys  06:10

If someone has just even one person in their life that’s advocating for them, that’s behind them, it makes a huge difference. And I know my spouse has been with me 100% in the work I’ve done as well. And I credit him for a lot of what I’ve been able to do as well. So I can relate to that.

CHRISTA BROWN  06:28

Yeah. I mean, he’s a behind-the-scenes kind of guy. No one knows my husband, but he is very much there for me.

Julie Roys  06:38

 You divide your memoir into four different deaths, as you call them. And of course, there’s an element of resurrection and all of that, too. But your deaths start, the very first death that you write about is the abuse that you suffered by, again, your own youth pastor. But as I mentioned, there was some dysfunction in your own home, that kind of conditioned you to be able to have this abuse, and maybe to keep it quiet. Would you talk a little bit about that, the home situation that conditioned you to stay quiet about the abuse?

CHRISTA BROWN  07:19

Yeah. I mean, I grew up in the sort of home that it’s like, we all pretend we’re happy. What happened didn’t happen. And when someone blows up and throws plates across the wall, we clean it up, and we act like nothing ever happened. When my father explodes, we all just go on. My father had serious PTSD problems, but back then, we would not have even had that acronym PTSD, we didn’t know what to call it. We just all, as with many families across America, when war veterans come home, we all just do the best we can. But that very dynamic of never talking about it, and just always putting you in the background and moving on, conditioned me to keep quiet and to not talk about things in the family. We did not talk about the family with outsiders. That was for sure. And so all of that, I think is part of what conditioned me. Then when I was abused by the pastor, why would I talk about it? I had no experience in talking about anything troubling in my life, None. What was normal was never to talk about things. And I hope people will see that because of course, that’s one of the very common questions that people often ask, Well, why didn’t you tell someone sooner? Why didn’t you talk about it? I hope people will see in my book, the only rational question is, why would she have ever talked about it? And then, of course, the fact that I did try with a couple people and that only made things worse.

Julie Roys  09:08

Yeah. And there was also this element of spiritual abuse, which honestly, when I was reading your book, and I’ve heard a lot of spiritual abuse, but I would say this was almost just so wicked, because in your case, you were so trusting, you had such a childlike faith in God. And he just completely exploited that. Would you talk about the spiritual abuse and how that how that really gave him power over you?

CHRISTA BROWN  09:40

Oh, it gave him enormous power. And I hope people will see that the enormous power that earnest that a person’s faith can hold when it is weaponized against them, because that is what gave him power. I mean, I think there are many people who would wish to believe that this happens to kids who are in some way, oh, morally lacks or they want to blame the kid for some reason, that the reality is what made me vulnerable? What made me a target? What made me easy prey? was the very fact that I love God so much. My faith was earnest and pure and that is precisely what was weaponized against me literally. I was raised from toddlerhood to believe that you trust these men who carry the voice of God, that they are men and God. In the framework I held in my mind at that time., there was no other possibility other than to obey.

Julie Roys  11:00

You know, it’s interesting, because I just had a conversation with my daughter this morning. And I feel kind of bad sometimes because of the work that I’m in, that they’re exposed to the evil of it. But at the same time, I realized this morning, as we were talking about some things, she knows to be skeptical, that trust is earned. I don’t care what title someone holds. She knows that you still need to know that this person may not be trustworthy, you need to watch them over time. But I think especially in our generation growing up. I mean, I never would have dreamed that a pastor could be involved in any kind of wrongdoing. It just wasn’t in my worldview. So I totally get that. And the other thing is, and this is probably the most wicked is the way that he made you feel then that you are somehow evil because you had participated in this and even did like an exorcism on you or something, right?

CHRISTA BROWN  12:05

Yes. After this had gone on for months and months, seven, eight months. And it escalated, of course, and got worse. And then toward the end, he began to tell me that I had harbored Satan. And I was a temptress. And finally, then he called me into his office one day and made me kneel. While he, with one hand on my shoulder and one hand raised, stood over me as I was kneeling, praying on and on for God to cast Satan from me. But as a kid. I mean, that was just, that was terrifying. I mean, I didn’t know how I had let Satan in, and I didn’t know what I had done. If I didn’t know how I’d let Satan in I didn’t know how to make Satan leave me. And the very thought that I held Satan within me, made me think I was going to hell, which, as a kid, I was raised with a very literal version of hell, where you burn forever with no reprieve. This was absolutely terrifying. And of course, in hindsight, I think that’s exactly what he wanted was to put this enormous, just exponentially greater shame onto me, so that I would not talk about it. Because why would I want anyone to know that I harbored Satan?

Julie Roys  13:36

Unbelievable And yet when you did speak, like you referenced, nothing was done to help you. And you initially spoke with it was your music minister, right?

CHRISTA BROWN  13:49

Yes, that’s right. And he was also my piano teacher. I always had my piano lessons in the church sanctuary on the baby grand there. He was the music minister. And it was because I had just developed this enormous fear that I must surely be going to hell. And so one day at my piano lesson, I just, I mean, psychologically, I was at a point where I was just breaking then, and I just completely froze. I mean, my hands literally would not move on the keys. And I told the music minister that I was afraid I was going to hell, and I asked him, “Am I going to hell? Then I told him that I’ve had an affair. And that was my own word an affair with the pastor. And he basically just told me to never talk about it again, at all. And he said, I wouldn’t go to hell, but it wasn’t much comfort, really, at that time. He told me never to talk about it. He did nothing. And many, many years later, I learned that he had already known even at that point in time, because the youth pastor himself had talked about it with him.

Julie Roys  15:00

That level of complicity and silence, I just I don’t understand like, do you have any idea why he would do that? Why would a music minister say nothing about a pastor that he knows is sexually abusing a teenage girl?

CHRISTA BROWN  15:26

It’s very hard for me to explain. He was a father himself. He had a young daughter at that time. And so it’s hard for me to understand why he couldn’t think about his own daughter and imagine how he would feel if it were her. And it’s very, very hard for me to comprehend. I think that instinct among some religious leaders who kind of circle the wagons and protect themselves is very, very strong. Also the sense of protecting the institution, the sense of not doing anything that would bring, that would hurt the cause of Christ that would hurt the witness. I think all of that is a part of it. And yet, of course, none of that excuses it.

Julie Roys  16:21

No, and it’s not really biblical. I mean, Scripture tells us to confess our sins, not to bury our sins, and yet, that’s what the church has been doing for so long. Not all churches, but certainly within the Southern Baptist Convention this has been a widespread problem. So Tommy Gilmore, who was your youth pastor,, did eventually leave the church, was given what I understand sort of a hero’s send-off. Yes. And then, which I just can’t even imagine you as a kid, like, you have to go through an exorcism. Meanwhile, your abuser gets a hero send-off, and then you go home to live like, just go on, right? Like nothing’s happened, right?

CHRISTA BROWN  17:07

That’s right. He did indeed have a hero sendoff. He went to a bigger church; I was told that he would have a better salary. The senior pastor praised him for the pulpit and talk of how fortunate we all were, how blessed we were to have had such a man of God in our midst for so long, there was a big church reception where everyone brought their casseroles and stuff. And in hindsight, I don’t know how as a kid, I could have thought anything else. I mean, here was a great man of God, praised by everyone. I was the girl who harbored Satan.

Julie Roys  17:43

Just awful. And when you did go home, you did confess to one of your sisters what had happened. Her response was pretty horrific.

CHRISTA BROWN  17:53

Yes, she called me a slut.

Julie Roys  17:55

Unbelievable. And so the shame that you must have felt that you shouldn’t have felt but I’m sure you did, must have been just just awful. But you were given, I mean, sound like the pastor then arranged for you to have a job at the library. And your mother kind of encouraged you for this maybe? What was it he said that he thought you should be busy or something? Or I mean, kind of like he knew what had happened.

CHRISTA BROWN  18:23

Yeah exactly. None of this was really explained to me. But my mom said, Brother Hayden thinks you need to stay busy. And so they set me up with a job at the Farmers Branch Public Library, which I started immediately, which turned out to be even though I had never sought this job. But it turned out to be a very, very good thing. I loved working at the library.

Julie Roys  18:52

And you even said, I think later on your book, you credit some of your ability to come through all this to the books that you read, which opened your mind to a whole new world, which what a beautiful thing that in the midst of all of this awfulness, there was this oasis right?

CHRISTA BROWN  19:09

Oh, absolutely. The library was very much my safe place. Books were my safe place, always my refuge. A library has a certain kind of orderliness about it, and the neat rows and every book has its place. And that brought a level of comfort to me.

Julie Roys  19:28

Yeah. And one of the great things was that you were a very studious person, it sounds like, and that ended up being a route for you kind of out of some of your home life. But initially, you thought you would go off to college when you graduated from high school. It didn’t really turn out that way. Kind of like your mom sabotaged that. Is that a correct way of putting it?

CHRISTA BROWN  19:51

Yes, that is she did sabotage it. She wanted me at home for her own reasons, and I wound up staying home and commuting to college, and it was a very, very bad year, because she was struggling enormously. And both of my parents were struggling.

Julie Roys  20:13

The second death that you described is when your sister Rita was separated from her husband, Richard, and something happened. I’m gonna let you describe what happened, but also how that played out within your family and your family relationships.

CHRISTA BROWN  20:31

Well basically, I had gone over to babysit their young two-year-old daughter, and he made a move on me. Told me that he had married the wrong sister. That he should have married me. He picked the right family but picked the wrong sister. And I felt very trapped at the time. I did leave, of course. But I mean, this was someone I had grown up with. This was someone who was like a brother to me. This was my oldest sister. And so he had been a part of our family, since I was like 12 years old. So, in that sense, it just felt incredibly wrong and bizarre. But the one thing I knew with absolute certainty was that if I talked about it, I would be blamed for it. That even at that young age, I knew that for sure. And so ever after this was, again, another great secret that I had the key. It really kind of, I think, warped some of the relationships in our family. For every Thanksgiving, and all sorts of family gatherings thereafter, every single time, I would always try very, very hard to make sure I was never alone in the room with him. And yeah, that was the death of that kind of view of my family. I think.

Julie Roys  22:14

One of the things I’ve noticed just from my experience in ministry is that often a child that’s raised in a dysfunctional home, even though they recognize it’s a dysfunctional home, has trouble breaking those patterns, and often picks a spouse that is often very much like the dysfunctional parent or one of the dysfunctional parents. And yet you did the exact opposite. I mean, you turned down one proposal from someone who you didn’t love. And your mother pressured you quite a bit to marry because he had an engineering degree with some financial stability there. But instead you met a guy, Jim. What was it that really drew you to Jim, someone who was completely other than your family, and so healthy in so many ways? What really made you fall for Jim?

CHRISTA BROWN  23:13

Well. Initially, it was just that he had these gorgeous blue eyes.

Julie Roys  23:18

That helps, right?

CHRISTA BROWN  23:21

But it was just a connection there that I could not deny. You know, and with Jim, what you see is what you get. He is who he is, and there is never ever any kind of hidden agenda, any dagger behind that smile. That’s it. He is up for and in true. And that was always very clear to me. That mainly, it was just this connection that I felt with him. So much so that, I mean, it felt so powerful. And I felt fearful of it because I think I recognized immediately that this was something powerful, life-changing potentially. And so initially, what I did was to tell him that I could never be serious about someone who hadn’t read Anna Karenina.

Julie Roys  24:18

Well, of course! Who of us hasn’t said that, right?

CHRISTA BROWN  24:24

That was my effort in escaping because I was so afraid of this. But Jim proceeded to read Anna Karenina. So I had no excuse. And so we’ve been together ever since.

Julie Roys  24:37

That’s so funny. And then you went on to do something that nobody in your family thought possible. You went to law school, and even the application process and everything. I mean, to have the gumption to do that. Despite the fact your mother said you’re gonna fail. You’re not going to do well. Again, this incredible hurdle, what made you feel like you could go to law school?

CHRISTA BROWN  25:07

You know, I really only had, I came from a blue-collar family. And I really only had one friend at that point in time, who had been to law school. And I kind of thought, Well, I think I’m as smart as him. And he was a good deal more assertive than me by temperament. But I thought I could give it a chance. And initially, I really was very tentative about it. I kind of just kind of tip toed in and told myself, well, I’ll try it for one semester and see how it goes. But I did well, so then I continued. And with my family, I did not tell anyone I was even applying until I was already in, already accepted, already had my financial aid lined up. Because I was fearful of what the reaction would be. I was fearful of how negative it would be. And even intellectually, knowing that maybe that’s not right, your family’s words still carry power. And so I made sure I had things in place before I even told them.

Julie Roys  26:21

So true and so important. But yeah, I mean, even if  intellectually, that’s a lie. Or even if they’re saying this because of their own issues, right? It’s still hard to overcome that. And so the fact that you did, again, amazing resiliency. And then you had a daughter, which is just so beautiful. I have one daughter, I had two boys, and then my daughter. But daughters change us in remarkable ways. And you, even though you really didn’t have a model for healthy parenting, sounds like you did a really great job, and you broke some of those patterns of behavior that you saw in your family. What do you attribute that to?

CHRISTA BROWN  27:09

I attribute it to letting my daughter herself educate me, being observant of her, trying to attune myself to what’s going on with her. And recognizing that and trying to be sensitive to that. I do think that breaking long established patterns or familial dysfunction is very, very difficult. I mean, lots of people would like to make a decision and say, Oh, I won’t do things like my parents did. But the thing is, it’s not just a one-time decision. It’s something that has to be done in 1000s, of tiny, tiny little decisions, to choose to pause in the moment, to pay attention, to think about what’s happening. And that kind of attentiveness takes effort. And I think I attribute it to that. Also books I write,I don’t feel that I had a good roadmap to follow from my own upbringing. But  I was big on books.

Julie Roys  28:29

And that guided you. One book that you mentioned, you read your daughter was the Bible, but  chose not to raise her in the church, understandably because of your experience. But you decided to have her explore that herself with just reading her scripture and telling her Bible stories. As I was reading that, I just realized that my own experience within the church when I think of like your experience, my experience, things that for me, certain songs that for me are very comforting to you probably have a totally different connotation. Like for me, Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus is a beautiful song that reminds me of a wonderful, idyllic, really in comparison childhood that I had growing up in the church, where people were trustworthy, and people weren’t hypocrites. But yet for you were, how do you come to terms with that, and with what the church did? with God? with faith? How do you come to terms with that?

CHRISTA BROWN  29:53

For me, it’s very, very different. Because things like that. Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus. No, it was not sweet for me. Because trusting in Jesus, that was exactly what I did as a kid. That was my whole heart was to put every bit of trust in Jesus. And that led me down a very, very dark road. And that’s not the kind of thing that I can cognitively reason my way out of. Because the reality for me is that things like that, hymns like that, all sorts of Scripture like that, that for me now is kind of physiologically, neurologically networked with child rape. And that’s not something I can just say, Oh, no, I’m gonna think about this and not choose for it to be that way. No, that’s the way it is. And I accept that that is how it is. And I live with that. So yeah, for me, I mean, and that, I think, is what people need to realize is the enormous if you value your faith so much, then you need to be implementing serious accountability measures to make sure that these kinds of men do not church hop from church to church, because look at the damage that is done.

Julie Roys  31:20

Well. And that’s why I think spiritual abuse, and especially when it’s coupled with sexual abuse, has to be about the most profound harmful abuse there is, because you’re not just harming the body, but the soul in such a profound way. And it really is, I mean, that spiritual leaders or people who purport to be spiritual leaders, aren’t just horrified and wanting to root this out. I mean, says to me a lot about what they truly believe.

CHRISTA BROWN  31:55

Exactly. It is very, very hard. Certainly, for me, it is very hard to feel safe in faith, when faith itself has been used to eviscerate. And that doesn’t mean feeling safe in a church. That means feeling safe within myself in faith. It’s a very hard thing now,

Julie Roys  32:19

The shame that you felt as a kid, as I talk to you now, you seem to be very clear on the fact that you should have felt no shame, that you did nothing wrong. At what point did you get to that point where you realized this is not my fault? This is has been put on me by evil people. But it’s not my fault. I’m sure it was a process. But were there any points at which like, kind of a breakthrough where you’re like, this was not me?

CHRISTA BROWN  32:55

Yes. It was really my daughter who saved me, I think. Because when she was approaching the same age I had been at the time that the abuse, it was as though something exploded in my head. All these dark dusty boxes that were on the back shelf of my brain, that I had shoved back there and ignored for so long. All of a sudden, I kind of had to pull those boxes down and look at them and see what was in them. And that shifted thing. Suddenly, I saw things through the eyes of a mother in imagining what if someone did to my daughter what was done to me? And that was something I could not live with and could not accept. And really, that was  the singular kernel of truth from which everything else flowed. Because the one thing I knew for sure, and I didn’t know very much for sure. But I knew this, if someone did to my daughter what had been done to me, I would not blame her for one second, and I would be absolutely furious. And that shifted everything.

Julie Roys  34:20

Hmm. And so you did. You did at the age of 51, right? You publicly spoke out and really you talk about this as sort of the third death when you spoke about what had happened because of the response that you got. Although, before we talk about the response, just the fact that and I read in your book that the average age of someone coming forward is 52 which is insane to me, I would have guessed, like maybe late 20s early 30s you begin to sort of grapple with what had happened in your family or whatever. Why is it so late that people come forward about their childhood sexual abuse?

CHRISTA BROWN  35:13

I think the shame is so enormous. And as a kid, we absorbed that shame, and when we ossify into a few of what happened that blamed ourselves and we absorb that, as a kid, we solidify that view. It’s horrifying, we put that view, we put that into a box, put it up in their head, and put it on the back shelf. And we never want to look at it again, although, of course, it’s there. And it affects us in enormous ways. But I think it then just takes a very, very long time. And then there are these triggering events, like having kids of our own, to begin to understand, because we formed that view when we were young. And it impacted our whole identity.

Julie Roys  36:09

So when you did come forward, you spoke to your church, your childhood church. I’m not sure why you had optimism about that.

CHRISTA BROWN  36:19

I’m an optimistic person by nature.

Julie Roys  36:22

Yeah. I mean, you must. But I mean, when I read that I also thought,  when I first blew the whistle at Moody, I naively thought when I went to the trustees with the information I had, they would do the right thing. And that was not my experience. But I think we still hold on to this view that, man, these authority figures, they must not know. And so if I tell them, they will do something. Explain what happened when you did come forward to your church, and then I believe to, the Baptist Convention there in Texas as well.

CHRISTA BROWN  36:58

I was in my 50s,  early 50s. And I absolutely believe that they would do the right thing, that they want to help me. I was adamant about it. The same music minister who had known when I was a kid was still there at my same childhood church. I was absolutely convinced; I knew that he had raised a daughter by then. I thought he’s older now he will know better. He’ll wish he had done things differently. He will have learned some things; he will want to help me. And I have never been more wrong about anything in all my life then I was about that. Because the church’s first response was to threaten to seek legal recourse against me if I talked about it. And yeah, that was fairly intimidating. Even as someone who is a lawyer, I thought, whoa. And of course, you have to realize, I think, even as I’m doing this, at that point in time, I’m still trying to work through this process in my own mind, of unpacking everything that was done to me, of just dealing with it, of coming to terms with it. And that is a long emotional process because it was very traumatic. And at the same time then having the church threaten me, and try to bully me, that was just absolutely devastating. And then eventually, of course, yes, I also talked with people at the Baptist General Convention of Texas. Again, thinking these will know something. And I’ve contacted 18 Southern Baptist leaders in four different states, thinking surely there would be someone and there was no one. Absolutely no one who would do anything to help.

Julie Roys  38:59

One of the things that I thought back on when I was reading your book is about totalitarian states; that one of the things that a totalitarian state has to do is take over the press. And in Baptist land, they had their own press. Yes. And that was also weaponized against you, right?

CHRISTA BROWN  39:22

Yes, exactly. The Baptist Press published an article in which they said that I made false accusations, which, again, that was just absolutely devastating. But they’re in control of their own press, which gives them the ability to control the narrative, to present the picture that they want to present. That’s a very, very powerful tool.

Julie Roys  39:47

Although they don’t control all of it. And this is the thing that I have been so grateful for before the internet. Really, you had to go through all the gatekeepers, and I know, I couldn’t have done the reporting I’ve done had I had to go through the gatekeepers of the major Christian publications because they didn’t want to report half of this. Right. And I think the whole ME-TOO movement has taken off because of that. The Church TOO movement has taken off, because now, we have our own platforms, we have our own megaphones. And we can expose this stuff, and you did not stop. You just kept coming. And I’m guessing that that you’re one of so many, and so many people who have been suffering the same way as you have. But you went to the Southern Baptist Convention, you spoke out. Talk about your literally decades of advocacy, and what has kept you going through that.

CHRISTA BROWN  40:56

What has always kept me going has been the stories of other survivors, the very awareness that I wasn’t alone, and that there were so many others who did not have the ability, the resources, the educational background, the stamina, or maybe they just had toddlers under foot at home, they didn’t have the energy available for this. Back in 2006, I managed to publish an op-ed piece with the Dallas Morning News. And that was very early for me in this process. And it was after I did that, and I had my email address at the end of it, I was just flooded with emails. And that was when I really began to understand how pervasive this was. And most of those voices, most of those people are stories that no one ever hears about. And so that is always what has been a very powerful, made me feel a powerful sense of obligation. Because I’m very aware of those people. And I also want to say, the name of my book is Baptistland. And yes, I think there is this overarching kind of inculturation that this authoritarian type of Baptistland influences in our culture. But as you say, way back when, one of the earliest news media sources to begin reporting these stories was Associated Baptist Press, which is not affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, they’re Independent Baptist press. And they were some of the very first. We would not have some of the history we have and the documentation of this long problem if they had not been doing that work. And it continues today with Baptist News Global, which again, is not affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. I frequently write for them. So, yes, there have been other avenues, kind of on the fringes of Baptistland, that have been helpful in documenting this problem. And for that, I’ve been enormously grateful.

Julie Roys  43:14

So much has happened, especially in the past five years. The Houston Chronicle. That report showing literally hundreds of Southern Baptists leaders and volunteers engaged in credible abuse, effecting we know now over 700 victims. And again, that’s probably a fraction of it, because so many don’t speak, so many don’t come forward. We have Guidepost Solutions, who did their review, independent investigation of the executive committee the way that abuse survivors were treated. We know now that you were treated horribly, not just you, although you’re mentioned quite a bit in that report. But many survivors have been treated this way. SBC has initiated seemingly some reforms, the Caring Well Conference. But when it comes to substantive reform, have we seen substantive reform in the SBC?

CHRISTA BROWN  44:22

No, we have not. In my view, almost everything that they have done has been performative in nature. They still have no  names of credibly accused pastors on a database. They have talked and talked and talked. We’ve seen committee after committee, taskforce after task force. But no institutionally, they are not making progress. If they viewed this as a high priority, things would be very different. And you’re right. It is such a tragedy. It has been five years now since the Houston Chronicle Abuse of Faith series. It’s been two years since the Guidepost Report. That is enough time that we should see a great deal more change then we do. And yes, I’m named 70 times in that Guidepost Report, precisely because the executive committee treated me so terribly, and that’s now documented there. And that is just one report about one small entity of the Southern Baptist Convention, the executive committee. And what it reflects is pretty incredibly awful. And yet, the executive committee itself, it doesn’t make amends for its wrongdoing. It doesn’t impose consequences on those who treated me so terribly. No. And so what kind of example do they set for the rest of the Southern Baptist Convention? And they could take responsibility and accountability for their own wrong without anything to do with local church autonomy. They could do that themselves. No, they do not.

Julie Roys  46:15

And that was the big excuse for so many years was the SBC saying, listen, we’re a denomination that really honors local church autonomy. So we can’t really impose anything on these local churches. And you are asking for very common-sense reforms. I mean, a list for example, of all of the credibly accused or convicted pastors or leaders within the SBC. We just want a database, right? asking for this and them saying, oh, we can’t do that because of autonomy. And yet when this Guidepost Solutions report comes out, we find out they’re keeping their own list.

CHRISTA BROWN  46:52

Yes, they’ve been doing it all along, ever since 2007, while simultaneously claiming that they can’t keep a list. And of course, keeping records and sharing information on credibly accused clergy sex abusers, there’s nothing about that, that intrudes on the autonomy of local churches. To the contrary, that kind of information-sharing system could provide local churches with the resources that they need to exercise their autonomy more responsibly. That’s not on behalf of the local churches that their doing that. It’s on behalf of the larger denominational structures of the Southern Baptist Convention, that they’re protecting themselves.

Julie Roys  47:49

Wow. And we still don’t have it. We still don’t have a good database. This is not brain surgery, folks. This is really, really simple. But it shows the lack of will on the part of the Southern Baptist Convention. I think I just tweeted something out, not tweeted, posted on X. I can’t get used to that. But something recently; Southern Baptist minister saying, hey we’ve got the sex abuse crisis and everything else. But we need to get back to the really important things of winning people for Christ. That, to me is so infuriating that we don’t see, Jesus cared for the least of these, throughout Scripture talks about the least of these. How do we think what are we winning people to if our churches don’t reflect the heart of God? It’s so perverse and so frustrating. And I’m curious at this point, I mean, do you have hope for reform within the SBC? or do you feel like it’s a lost cause?

CHRISTA BROWN  48:56

I certainly don’t think that we will see meaningful reform in my lifetime. I really don’t. I just don’t think this institution is going that direction. They’ve given us no evidence on which to believe that they’re serious about this at all. And they have had multiple opportunities over the past 20 years to reckon with this, really serious opportunities, when they could have chosen to do so. And again, and again, they do not. So no, I do not hold hope for the institution. I do hold hope for individuals. I think there is value in putting the truth out there, regardless of what the Southern Baptist Convention may or may not ever do. Thank goodness, my hope does not rest on them.

Julie Roys  49:48

Amen. I mean, honestly, I think the truth has its own power and how it works itself out. That’s not in our hands. There’s nothing we can do about it. We’re not that powerful. But I know there’s a lot of different ways to look at this. I mean, some people come up to me and they’re like, Well, why is all of this being exposed now? What is going on? You know, it’s something awful in the church. And I’m like, Well, what we’re exposing most of what we’re exposing is decades old. Some of its recent, but a lot of it is decades old, that just hasn’t been exposed. And I do think God’s angry about it. I mean, that’s my personal belief on this. And that some of this is being exposed, that there is judgment coming. And there’s a reckoning coming. I do take heart in the fact that at least the truth is getting out there. But what people do with it, pretty tough. But I do think it will be a decade’s-long process, I thought at first it’d be a year or two few years. It’ll be a decade’s long process of this being exposed. But I do pray that something, some good structures grow out of it.

CHRISTA BROWN  51:13

I do believe that in years to come, and maybe decades to come, that ordinary human beings will look back on all this. Which is why I’m so glad things are being documented. We’ll look back on all this, and it will be so aberrant as to be almost inconceivable. And they will say, you? a multibillion-dollar tentacular institution? used this excuse of church autonomy to avoid protecting kids against clergy sex abuse? really? And it will seem so horrifying as to be almost inconceivable. I think that will happen. And this institution is on the wrong side of history.

Julie Roys  52:02

I agree with that.100%. And I’ll also say that when I talk to abuse survivors, it’s often not the abuser. I mean, the abuser obviously does horrific harm. But it’s the protectors, the allies, the bystanders that do nothing, or worse than that actually contribute to the crime by covering it up. That is what really, really causes the harm. And so I mean, to Southern Baptist leaders who probably won’t listen to this podcast, but if you do, shame on you! do something. I mean, this is unconscionable that you call yourselves Christians and you don’t do anything about abuse survivors. That is, to me, a test of the authenticity of your faith.

CHRISTA BROWN  52:52

You know you’re absolutely right Julie. This is perhaps the single most universal commonality that I find in survivor stories is almost invariably, as awful, and horrific as the sexual abuse itself is, what does even greater damage is how terribly survivors are treated by religious leaders, by churches, by people of faith. That is hard to reckon with and hard to come to terms with. It is one thing to come to terms with the evil that one man can do, but it is quite another thing to try to come to terms with, And everyone else acts as though it’s okay. And this kind of systemic institutional problem does not come about without the complicity of countless others who enable these things. And that is where the real problem lies.

Julie Roys  54:00

The fourth death that you talk about in your book is when your mother died, and your own sisters cut you out of an inheritance. And a lot of it though, based in the fact that your family didn’t want you talking about this. I can only imagine. I mean, I felt it as I read the book, but the pain that I’m sure you still carry from that. Why is it that your family wanted to silence you so much on this issue, so much that they would retaliate in this way?

CHRISTA BROWN  54:45

I think because they felt it brought shame onto the family. And because I grew up in a sort of family that says you pull yourself up by your bootstraps. You never talk about difficult things. You never talk about the family. My sister blamed me for what they said was making mom feel guilty because I had talked about this. Mom herself before she died, as I was speaking out numerous times would tell me that she thought I needed to own my part in it. Even though of course, I had been a kid. But she too had been, I think, misled, and manipulated by Brother Hayden, the senior pastor of our church at that time. And he’s now deceased. Because years later, many years later, I learned that he had told her that I would just forget about it. So that was a way of silencing my mom as well. And on some level, I think my mom must have felt guilty for that. As many mothers would feel guilt if something really terrible happens to a kid.  But I think she felt an enlarged level of guilt, which she could not really process. And it’s not as if people in my family went to counseling, right? And then because my mom felt guilty, my sister, I never put blame on her. I never ever put blame on her. But nevertheless, my sisters blamed me for making mom feel guilty. But, in some way if I think that’s all , scapegoating is something that human beings do. It’s something as old as time. And I think that’s what my sister did to me. Wrong. And in some ways, then they scapegoated me, and that was just kind of the rationalization for legitimizing what they did. And yes, to say it was painful, would be a real understatement. It was extremely painful.

Julie Roys  57:01

So sorry. You end your book with an afterword to childhood or clergy sex abuse survivors. And I know, our podcast, many survivors listen to this podcast. What message do you have for them?

CHRISTA BROWN  57:21

First and foremost, you are so worthy, you are a human being of infinite value. Whatever has been done to you within this faith community, it does not define who you are. Whoever you are at this point in your life right now, whether you are a person of faith or no faith, I don’t care. You are of infinite value and all of this other stuff that the faith community has communicated to you. Which abuse does this to people. It inculcates in you this notion that somehow you are not worthy. And that is a lie. That is a lie. So that would be the first thing I would say. And secondly, I would say, to all survivors and advocates, and really almost anyone out there, cultivate your skepticism. And sadly, when we see that faith itself is weaponized for power, that the accoutrements of faith are used to help propagandize and the perpetuation of status quo power structures, then it behooves us to apply our skepticism even to matters of faith. And I say, do not feel guilty for skepticism; not one bit. People need to earn trust. There’s nothing wrong with you for, for holding doubt.

Julie Roys  59:10

And I believe that if God is God, that he can handle our doubt, he can handle our hurt, he can handle our anger. And it’s justified in these cases. And it’s one of the greatest conundrums of the human experience. If God is great, and God is good, how do these horrible things happen to innocent people? It’s above my paygrade; it’s certainly one question that I’ve wrestled with an awful lot in my life and continue to, but I appreciate so much Christa, you’re honest, you’re honest  recounting your story and where you’re at, and you are a hero to the survivor community. And again, you have been in it so much longer than I have been. And I just look to folks like you who have really blazed a trail. And just so, so, so grateful for your work. So thank you.

CHRISTA BROWN  1:00:21

Thanks, Julie. Thanks for having me here. I really appreciate it.

Julie Roys  1:00:28

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 a copy of Christa’s book called Baptistland, you can get one when you give $30 or more to The Roys report this month. As I’ve often said, we don’t have advertisers or many large donors, we simply have you, the people who care about exposing abuse and corruption in the church so she can be restored. So if you’d like to help us out and get a copy of Baptistland, just go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. Also, just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roys report on Apple 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 so much for joining me today. I hope you were blessed and encouraged.

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