When I first saw myself described as “the public face” of Baptist clergy sex abuse survivors, I pondered how in the world that had happened. It wasn’t exactly in my plan, you know? But because I survived every attempt of the Baptist machine to shut me down, I’m now able to write and speak about it. So that’s what I do, in the hope of shining a light on clergy sex abuse and cover-ups in Baptistland.
For me, things started unraveling when I began trying to talk to Baptist officials about the minister who molested and raped me when I was a kid. I could not have imagined the sort of duplicity and intimidation that I encountered. If I had not experienced this Baptistland nightmare in the reality of my own life, I never would have believed it. That reality is what turned my life inside out.
When I wrote an op-ed piece about Baptist abuse cover-ups, my inbox was flooded with similar stories from others who had also encountered the stone wall of denominational do-nothingness. That’s when I knew that my story was, tragically, quite common.
So, I started writing more and more. This site is where you can explore some of my writings.
Mostly, I write about abuse and cover-ups in the largest Protestant denomination in the country, the Southern Baptist Convention. But I also write about abuse in other Baptist groups, and I write about other ways in which religion gets twisted into a force for oppression and hate.
Ultimately, I had so much trouble trying to make sense of what I was seeing in Baptistland – the cover-ups, the mass-scale denial, the failure to protect kids, the victim-blaming vitriol, and the refusal to implement safeguards like those in other faith groups – that I finally decided to pursue a Ph.D. in religious studies. I’m now a student in the joint Ph.D. program at the University of Denver and Iliff School of Theology.
My work has been spotlighted on local and national news segments, including ABC’s 20/20 program and Investigation Discovery’s True Crime program. I’ve been interviewed and quoted by numerous newspapers, the Associated Press, MSNBC, EthicsDaily and the Associated Baptist Press. I’ve been on radio call-in shows and have been a featured speaker at conferences for clergy sex abuse survivors. I was the first Baptist clergy abuse survivor to directly address members of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee at the “Baptist Vatican” in Nashville.
In all of this, I persist in the hope that we may someday see a Baptistland in which there are effective clergy accountability systems so that church kids in the future may be a great deal safer. I also hope for a Baptistland in which clergy sex abuse survivors will be received with compassion and care. I don’t think it’s too much to ask. Do you?
My thanks to every reader who has shared some part of my journey.
Happy trails.
