Sills admitted to engaging in inappropriate sexual activity and tendered his resignation. Henzel told CR that he did not know how the audio was leaked and did not feel comfortable speaking about it. The ex-Southern Baptist Convention seminary professor accused of sexual abuse by his former student filed a defamation suit in Alabama against her and several SBC entities, claiming the allegations. This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Sills also served as an International Mission Board (IMB) trustee and a member of the IMBs presidential search committee. Return to homepage. The SBCs public relations service, Baptist Press, misrepresented her statements about the situation, which eventually led to a public apology and a financial settlement from the SBC Executive Committee, which runs Baptist Press. Basham says whatever number of actual abuse cases may be found in the SBC, they represent such a small percentage as to be anything but a crisis.. Photo by Karen Race Photography 2019. And Christian theology about sin and about the roles of men and women often makes it difficult for survivors who come forward. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. What Ascol, Buck and Sills share in common is adherence to an extreme version of Reformed theology, known as hyper-Calvinism, that has been on the resurgence in the SBC over the past 30 years. Im also fine to answer any questions you or the other gentleman has to ensure you have clarity and believe me. Sills files defamation suit against SBC, Lyell, others November 29, 2022 By Baptist Press MOBILE, Ala. (BP) - A former Southern Baptist seminary professor and his wife have filed suit against the SBC and 10 other individuals and entities connected to the SBC, including Jennifer Lyell and Guidepost Solutions. Lyell tells the story in her own wordsso people can finally judge for themselves the particulars of the case. It also names Jennifer Lyell, a former seminarian and vice president for Lifeway, who has repeatedly alleged that Sills was abusive, an allegation Mohler has also made on social media and in. Buck is an East Texas pastor who shares Ascols beliefs and is aggressive on Twitter in spreading his commentaries and accusations. Baptist Press eventually apologized for the article, but Lyell said she had already been devastated by the repercussions of its inaccurate reporting. Why so much outrage over the burning of an LGBT Pride flag? All rights reserved. For Sills, no reason for his resignation was stated by Southern. As of earlier today, we declared his one IVP title (in both print and digital formats) as out of print.. Pooler said church members often become nonprotective bystanders, whose inaction enables abuse to continue and abusers to go unpunished. I am not a sinless victim. 2023 Baptist News Global. Lyell spends some of the recording taking about a blogpost written by Peter Lumpkins (likely this post.). Guidepost and the SBC are two of 12 total defendants named in the lawsuit that revolves around allegations that David Sills sexually abused Jennifer Lyell starting in 2004, when Lyell was. However, not everyone has believed a sexual abuse crisis exists in the SBC. David Sills (Photo via Baptist Press) That post cited the biblical story of David and Bathsheba to ask what constitutes a consensual sexual relationship versus rape. In a statement posted on her website, Jennifer Lyell, who is now 41 and works for a major Christian book publisher, said Sills first "sexually acted" against her on a mission trip in 2004 and. Though 30 pages in length, the key facts allged are right on the first page. Please click the "Register" link below to create a new account. Upon hearing Lyells claims last May, SBTS immediately took action. Join thousands of others to get the FREEDOM POST newsletter for free, sent twice a week from The Christian Post. The article was eventually retracted, but the damage was done. Except the pattern of inappropriate sexual activity continued throughout the relationship., Lyell wrote that when she presented her claims to Mohler, she also shared the responsibility" for being compliant at times and for idolizing the idea of a whole family., I protected [the family] despite what was happening within it, she wrote. Hilary Scarsella, assistant professor of ethics and director of women and gender studies at Colgate Rochester Crozier Divinity School, said survivors of clergy abuse can feel trapped because they know publicly disclosing the abuse may have consequences, both to their own faith and their place in the community. And we met with him within hours of his arrival back in the United States since our policies call for an immediate conversation. ", As a result of the conversation upon Sills' return, Mohler said "he was no longer a member of the faculty of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary from that time.". The same day, Geiger and Lyell contacted Mohler, he said. Photo via Baylor University. NASHVILLE, Tenn. (RNS) Jennifer Lyell was trying to do the right thing. David Sills, the professor, and his wife, Mary Sills, allege defamation, conspiracy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence and wantonness in connection with untrue claims of sexual abuse made by Jennifer Lyell in 2021. The case as outlined by David and Mary Sills directly contradicts the narrative told by Lyell and widely accepted as truth. Denhollander, who has represented Lyell, pointed out that it took months for Baptist Press to retracte that article. For example, why did Lyell continue the relationship with the alleged abusers after graduating from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS)? The fallout was quick and devastating. The resignations of Alvin Reid at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Christian George at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and David Sills at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary were reported by Baptist Press and the North Carolina Biblical Recorder. Lyell first disclosed the situation to a therapist in March 2016, she said. When I shared what had happened to me with my boss at LifeWay [Geiger] and then later with SBTS President Dr. R. Albert Mohler, I was quick to also share the responsibility I bore for being compliant at times, for not telling immediately and for so idolizing the idea of a whole family that I protected it despite what was happening within it, Lyell said. Pastoral misconduct is seen as a moral failing rather than an abuse of power. Plaintiffs David Sills and Mary Sills file this complaint against Defendants, alleging defamation, conspiracy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, and wantonness concerning untrue claims of sexual abuse initiated by Defendant, Jennifer Lyell, and thereafter The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance". Sills claimed there was not any legitimate or proper investigation of Lyells accusations against him. "As the official news service for the Southern Baptist Convention, Baptist Press should be known for integrity, truth and accuracy. Lyell is a former Reaching and Teaching International board member. This is why the most egregious, cruel lies do not leave me without hope when those asserting them are reckless enough to do so in a form that not only allows my witness but provides a clear means by which it will be formally provided., Sills files suit against SBC and 11 other defendants, claiming his relationship with Lyell was consensual and he became a scapegoat in the SBCs sexual abuse crisis, Not everyone believes theres a sexual abuse crisis in the SBC, No, we will not take down an article you dont like | Opinion by Mark Wingfields, Guidepost report documents pattern of ignoring, denying and deflecting on sexual abuse claims in SBC, SBC Executive Committee publicly apologizes to sexual abuse survivor, SBC report shows how five words turn abuse victim from survivor to whore| Opinion by Marv Knox. She mentions them many times during this recording. Then Basham quotes three male friends of Lyells alleged abuser who all say they cant imagine him behaving the way Lyell has described. Survivors often deal with the trauma of the actual abuse along with a sense of betrayal and rejection from other believers, who often take the side of abusers. And for so long, people have been unable to understand those categories., RELATED: The cost for coming forward one survivors life after #MeToo. Anytime time you have to invoke these procedures is heartbreaking but simultaneously necessary. To date, none of the named defendants has issued a public comment on the lawsuit. Hope youll give us another try and check out some other articles. This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. Jennifer Lyell . But at Lyells request, SBTS, the flagship seminary of the Southern Baptist Convention, did not make the details behind Sills resignation public at the time. But that's not quite what we see. In a post on her website, Lyell accused Sills of sexually abusing her during a 2004 mission trip and claimed the abuse continued over a decade. It interwove Lyells story with this discussion. The suit states: On June 18, 2022, Defendant Lyell wrote to Religion News Services (RNS) and Reporter Bob Smietana, the following: My thinking was I could just verbally work through your article and clarify/add the information you didnt have or was inaccurate as well as answer the broader questions you asked when the information you had didnt reconcile for you. 1. Geiger, senior pastor of Mariners Church in Irvine, Calif., confirmed to BP that Lyell shared her allegations with him. I had discussions on our boards here with people who were convinced by the reporting that David Sills and Jennifer had an "affair" and that he was held responsible for it while she was not. Lyell was labeled on social media as an adulteress rather than an abuse survivor, with users leaving scores of vile comments about her on Lifeways Facebook page and the Baptist Press website. The law should reflect that, Legacy of Wounded Knee occupation lives on 50 years later, Holy Queer author seeks Black church inclusion beyond singing with choir, Three big numbers that tell the story of secularization in America. Attorneys misidentified an email from Lyell, which was sent to a pair of ministers, not to RNS. David Sills, into having a sexual relationship with him while she was enrolled in a missions class at the seminary. Sills has not denied engaging in an inappropriate relationship with Lyell, and he resigned his post at Southern Seminary after being confronted about it. The implication of Ms. Lyells statement was that Dr. Sills had acted criminally. In the spring of 2018, after more than two years of therapy, she disclosed to her boss at Lifeway that a former professor named David Sills had first sexually acted against her without her consent during a mission trip he was leading while she was a seminary student. If the claims in this suit are true, then it would seem that he is as culpable as any of the other defendants., To which Basham replied: Note, Religion News Service reported that Sills admitted to abuse, though Sills told me through an intermediary that RNS also did not reach out to him before that story was published and he never admitted anything like this., Basham also tweeted a link to the BNG story with this comment: Ive read David/Mary Sills filing against SBC, Guidepost, & number of SBC leaders. Such people have no fear of God, no interest in truth, no regard for justice, & no love for people. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. But we must not be silent. Survivors dont just lose their trust in that one person, she said. Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. What happened instead was a controversy over what kind of relations are consensual and nonconsensual and who gets to make that determination and challenges to the veracity of Lyells account. . Also at the same time Buck inserted himself into the behind-the-scenes interrogation of Lyell, he maintained a public campaign to identify an alleged leaker of a column written by his wife discussing difficulties in their marriage and in her earlier life. David Sills and his wife, Mary Sills, claim Lyell 'constructed a false narrative . Based on the information we now have I retract any suggestion that Jennifer Lyells physical relationship with David Sills was consensual., By Aug. 3, 2021 about six weeks after the SBC annual meeting at which a Sexual Abuse Task Force was authorized Midwest Christian Outreach issued an update to its post with this note from Henzel: Shortly after this article was published, Jennifer Lyell graciously reached out to us and provided crucial details of her case both to me and to Midwest Christian Outreach, Inc. President Don Veinot. We hope you will! "I think she was courageous in making those statements and I think it sets an example for how others should also demonstrate an equal courage," Mohler said. Her story has already helped countless other people around the country, in ways that she may not even know about. Lyells experience reveals the difficulty survivors often face when they try to speak up about their experiences. It took months for Baptist Press to retract the article and address errors in it and that only happened after the former BP staff had been replaced and the article had been criticized by abuse advocate Rachael Denhollander. But her feelings toward the denominations beliefs about gender roles have shifted. I stand behind her in [her public statement] and believe she is acting righteously, he told BP. She said Southern Baptist leaders do not hesitate to use their public platforms to debate theology or drive culture war issues but rarely call out abusive behavior in their own camp especially if it means correcting other denominational leaders. He said people often turn to clergy when they are at their most vulnerable. Help keep The Christian Post free for everyone by making a one-time donation today. Her name appears on 37 pages of the report. Then things went terribly wrong. Moore said he and his wife are friends of Lyell and he described her as one of the strongest, most courageous and brilliant leaders I know. He hopes she will eventually return to a leadership role in the church. In the lawsuit, David Sills contends that he never even had sex with Jennifer Lyell during this twelve year long affair which he admits was inappropriate. The audio discussion features Jennifer Lyell speaking to Ron Henzel and Don Veinot of Midwest Outreach. Its complicated. In fact, she claims in a newly leaked audio recording that she has been vague intentionallyso that the Sills grandchildren wouldnt find out much about this by using Google. Hes wrong. While churches say they want to care for survivors of abuse, those survivors are often viewed with suspicion, having to prove they are worthy of compassion and respect. However, Baptist Press, the SBCs in-house news service owned by the executive committee, incorrectly reported that Lyell had admitted to being involved in a morally inappropriate relationship with her former professor. David Pooler, professor of social work at Baylor University, said sexual misconduct by clergy and other religious leaders is often labeled as having an affair. But that description misses the power imbalance at play. Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors. By the time Lyell had come forward publicly with her story, she had been in counseling for over two years. In her statement, Lyell accused Sills of "grooming and taking advantage of his student." Lyell first disclosed the situation to a therapist in March 2016, she said. At its simplest level, it is abuse because it is not consensual, he said. The church needs a way of understanding sin and violence that enables Gods grace without giving abusers back their power, their access and their good regard, she said. The audio came to the Capstone Report from a source not connected with Midwest Outreach. That was not accurate. Community Rules apply to all content you upload or otherwise submit to this site. After several years of dispute, the SBC Executive Committee earlier this year reached a financial settlement with Lyell and issued a public apology for the Baptist Press story. David Sills, an ex-Southern Baptist Convention seminary professor accused of sexual abuse by his former student filed a defamation suit in Alabama against her and several SBC entities. This issue caught fire on Twitter, where critics of SBC leadership and of the sexual abuse study picked it up, prompting retweets and commentary. In June, BP reported Sills also had resigned as president of Reaching and Teaching International Ministries, a missions organization that engages in discipleship and theological education internationally. They didnt they just kind of defaulted to me, and then realized later, Oh, crap, we shouldnt have done that., SBC Elites cite distinguished lawyer and Southern Baptist Matthew Martens; however, Martens has written persuasively, Supporters of a constitutional amendment to ban women pastors in the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), New intel points to Covid origin in a lab leak, remember when this was a, NAMB PR VP Mike Ebert emerges as key witness in McRaney v. NAMB What will, Leaked audio interview with Jennifer Lyell hits, featured in a new documentary on sex abuse in the SBC, David raped Bathsheba promoter involved in new SEBTS abuse class, SBC Abuse Expert Rachael Denhollander Sided with Amber Heard, SBC Elites defend credibly accused standard to ruin lives, Bart Barber flipflops on pledge to bring vote to ban Women Pastors in SBC, Evangelical Elites lied you to about the origins of Covid, Woke SBC Elites Delete History To Hide Their Schemes. The lawsuit challenges what has been accepted as fact in one of the highest-profile cases in the web of allegations regarding mishandling of sexual abuse within the SBC. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other. Last year, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary professor David Sills resigned from his position without much of an explanation. The suit was filed in the Circuit Court of Mobile County, Ala., on Monday, Nov. 21. Lyell told RNS that at first, she did receive a great deal of support from Southern Baptist leaders when she told them about the abuse she experienced. In a grievance filed Nov. 21 within the Circuit Courtroom of Cell, Alabama, David Sills, a former professor of missions and [] Southern Seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr. told Baptist Press he could not disclose why Sills employment at the seminary ended. Instead, from this news story (with details not included in the Guidepost Report), you can see that the sexual relationship between Jennifer Lyell and David Sills first occurred when Jenn was 26 and David Sills was 49. No thinking person with a backbone takes them seriously., Exactly one year before Basham published Southern Baptists #MeToo Moment, Midwest Christian Outreach, a small online apologetics site run by Don Veinot, highlighted Lyells case. And accusations week from the Christian Post. ) for everyone by making a donation. 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