Evangelical churches have long distanced themselves from the sexual abuse crisis that has consumed the Catholic Church. But a reckoning has arrived.
Christi Bragg listened in disbelief. It was a Sunday in February, and her popular evangelical pastor, Matt Chandler, was preaching on the evil of leaders who sexually abuse those they are called to protect. But at the Village Church, he assured his listeners, victims of assault would be heard, and healed: "We see you."
Bragg nearly vomited. She stood up and walked out.
Exactly one year before that day, on February 17, 2018, Bragg and her husband, Matt, reported to the Village that their daughter, at about age 11, had been sexually abused at the church's summer camp for children.
Since then, Matthew Tonne, who was the church's associate children's minister, had been investigated by police, indicted and arrested on charges of sexually molesting Bragg's daughter.
Bragg waited for church leaders to explain what had happened and thoroughly inform other families in the congregation. She waited for the Village to take responsibility and apologise. She waited to have even one conversation with Chandler, a leader she had long admired.
But none of that ever came.
"You can't even take care of the family you know," she remembered thinking as she walked out of the large auditorium. "Don't tell more victims to come to you, because you're just going to cause more hurt."
Evangelical churches have long distanced themselves from the sexual abuse crisis that has consumed the Catholic Church. Many Southern Baptists have dismissed sexual abuse as a problem caused by "corrupt Hollywood" or "liberal theology." But a reckoning has arrived.
Nearly 400 Southern Baptist leaders, from youth pastors to top ministers, have pleaded guilty or were convicted of sex crimes against more than 700 victims since 1998, according to a recent investigation by the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News. Superstar pastors like Bill Hybels and Andy Savage have been forced to resign over allegations of misconduct.
After years of resisting reform, the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, promised that it would address the problem this week at its annual gathering of thousands of pastors. The denomination's new president, J.D. Greear, has called for repentance for "a culture that has made abuse, cover-ups and evading accountability far too easy."
At the Village, one of the most prominent Southern Baptist churches in the country and a bedrock of Texas evangelical culture, Bragg said leaders offered prayer. And at times she was grateful and tried to respect their decisions.
But as months passed, she came to believe their instinct to protect the institution outweighed their care for her daughter or their interest in investigating the truth.
For years she trusted that her church's top leaders had acted in the best interest of the congregation, and that if she disagreed, the problem was hers. She had a spiritual reason: to doubt them was to doubt God.
But her daughter's ordeal showed her a different side of her church. The Village, like many other evangelical churches, uses a written membership agreement containing legal clauses that protect the institution. The Village's agreement forbids members from suing the church, and instead requires mediation and then binding arbitration, legal processes that often happen in secret.
The Village also uses an abuse prevention firm called MinistrySafe, which many evangelical churches cite as an accountability safeguard. Bragg assumed MinistrySafe would advocate for her daughter, but then she learned that the group's leaders were the church's legal advisers.
The Village permanently removed Tonne from the staff within weeks of learning his name from the Braggs. To this day, the Village denies he was fired because of a sexual abuse allegation.
Tonne's lawyer said he had been falsely accused.
The Village declined to answer a list of detailed questions about the matter from The New York Times and Chandler declined multiple requests to be interviewed.
"Since our early beginnings, the Village Church has made it one of our top priorities not only to provide for the spiritual care of our members and guests, but also to provide for the safety of those attending any of our services, camps, community events and other activities," the Village said in a statement. "We employ a number of best practices that have been informed by work with external experts, including background checks, safety trainings and various security protocols to do all we can to ensure the care and protection of all participants."
The Village said that the church "promptly" met with the Braggs, provided outside professional counsellors and received the Braggs' signoff on all of their public communications "in an effort for honesty, transparency and to avoid any embarrassment or concern."
The church also said it had filed a police report and continues to support the work of civil authorities assigned to the case.
But the Braggs, along with several of their friends, see things differently. They have now left the Village, worried that raising their children in an environment where her family was not supported was, in Bragg's words, "spiritually abusive."
"No one was looking out for our daughter's best interest," she said, speaking publicly for the first time. "She matters. Jesus says she matters. We say she matters."
She added: "We see the posturing so clearly now. The church is not doing this well, and not just mine."
"Your whole world, it shatters"
The Village had been home to the Bragg family ever since they first walked in almost 11 years ago. The place was so packed, it took two Sundays before the whole family — Bragg, her husband and their children — could fit. The community they found was magnetic.
Once, when their lawn mower broke down, friends in their Bible study group bought them a new one. Leaders paid for Bragg to get a medical test when she had neck pain, and they subsidised the fee for her children to go to church camps.
It was the kind of community that Bragg, who was not raised in the church, wanted for her children. They signed the church's Membership Covenant, an agreement stating they would submit to the Bible and to the authority and spiritual discipline of church leaders. Members promise to "practice complete chastity" unless in a heterosexual marriage, to "refrain from illegal drug use, drunkenness, gossip," and to "diligently strive for unity and peace within the church." Leaders promise "to lovingly exercise discipline when necessary."
Bragg could feel her faith growing. She embraced evangelical tenets, like trusting God, not one's own feelings. She learned the importance of being slow to anger and quick to forgive.
And she looked up to Chandler, a handsome, 6-foot-5 rising star whose sermons always made people laugh.
Chandler has become a brand name in American evangelicalism, with a large national following. Many young people see his faith as authentic, even cool.
With more than 10,000 weekly attendees, the Village now has five campuses across the Dallas area. Chandler is raising money to build a new campus that is likely to cost more than $70 million. The Village has entered "kind of a golden era," he said recently.
This community, Bragg said, was "our whole life."
Then, one cold February day last year, Bragg was packing the van for a family weekend at a lake with friends. Her daughter asked to talk to her on the back porch, alone.
At the Village summer camp for children about six years earlier, her daughter said, she had been asleep in the girls' room when she woke up to some of her undergarments pulled down. A man, whom she did not name, was sitting on her bed, touching her. A light went on in the bathroom, and the man left.
"Your whole world, it shatters," Bragg recalled.
No clear answers
A sexual abuse survivor herself, Bragg realised her worst nightmare had come true. Suddenly so many troubles in her daughter's life made sense. The recurring nightmares. The night she decided not to kill herself so her sisters would not find her dead. The hours of counselling and medical treatments.
When the family arrived at the lake, Bragg filed a police report. She also alerted the church. She knew of no clear reporting process, so a friend put her in touch with a top pastor.
She heard back quickly. The pastor, Josh Patterson, said the church would file a police report as well and that he would pray for her family. He gave her the name of someone at the church who would be in touch.
As the police began to investigate, Bragg sought information.
She called the woman who had run the camp for the Village to try to confirm which leaders had attended that year. She tried the Baptist retreat centre where the camp took place to get a photo, a list of cabin assignments, anything. She even started calling other churches who may have also used the campsite. Call after call was not returned.
The weeks went on, and her daughter, for the first time, began to mention the name of a man who had been hanging around her cabin: the church's associate children's minister, Tonne.
Unable to wait any longer to hear from church leaders, Bragg asked for a meeting with them. The first opportunity, the church said, would be several weeks away, three months after the family reported the incident.
At the meeting, none of the church's top three pastors were present. Bragg and her husband brought a list of 15 questions, asking about church policies and the camp. They received no clear answers.
Bragg raised the possibility that the perpetrator could have been someone from the Village. That was impossible, she recalled being told by Doug Stanley, a senior director at the church, because leaders followed the church's moral code, enshrined in the membership covenant.
She turned to her husband as they walked out. "Thank God" for the police detective assigned to the case, she said. "If we were relying on our church to give us information, we'd be leaving empty-handed."
"Conflict of interest"
Leaders at the Village assured Bragg that they were consulting experts for her case, including Kimberlee Norris, founder of MinistrySafe, a company whose services are popular among evangelical churches.
The firm, which advertises a "victim-centric" approach, offers training on child safety and sex-abuse prevention to churches that are eager to show they are up to date on how to protect their congregations. Many church members trust that if their congregation uses MinistrySafe, it must be to benefit victims.
On its website, the Village currently cites its work with MinistrySafe as evidence that the church is "a safe place for children and victims."
Bragg thought MinistrySafe might advocate for her family.
"They are saying they protect children from predators," she said. "Our daughter has been the victim of a predator."
But when Bragg asked the Village if she could talk with a MinistrySafe representative, the church said no. A top pastor, Brian Miller, said that because the church was Norris' client, it would be a "conflict of interest" for her to speak with the company, Bragg said.
Unknown to Bragg, Norris and her husband are attorneys, and they have an associated legal practice to manage crises and minimise risk for clients. MinistrySafe's website offers legal consultation, and those services are provided through Norris' law firm, Love & Norris.
In an interview, Norris declined to comment on specifics of her work with the Village and said she was not aware that the Bragg family wanted to connect with MinistrySafe. She said that, generally, she advises churches to remove an accused staff member from access to children during the pendency of a criminal investigation, and to conduct an investigation to see if other children were affected. She said her focus was to work with the church, not with individual victims, but that she will not represent a defendant in a child sex-abuse case.
"My job is to prepare ministries," she said. "I am a lawyer, not a counsellor."
Some survivor advocates have raised concerns about how churches employ MinistrySafe services after abuse has been reported.
MinistrySafe may address legal risks for churches, but it does not help promote greater transparency as part of its response to abuse, said David Pittman, a survivor.
"Christians want to believe that everything the church does for them is for their safety and salvation," he said. "That simply isn't true, not right now."
Surprising news
By the beginning of June, the Braggs had shared with the Village Tonne's name as the man they believed had molested their daughter, but thousands of church members still did not know an assault had even been alleged.
Bragg heard that Tonne had started a leave of absence for undisclosed "personal" reasons. The Village had emailed families and asked them to write him cards of encouragement.
She asked church leaders if his leave was related to her family. A top pastor said no.
Then, suddenly, Tonne was permanently removed from the staff.
"This decision is the result of an alcohol abuse problem and is heartbreaking for all of us," Chandler said in an email to congregants June 15. "Matt's preference was for you to know the specific reason for his removal rather than receiving a vague and general update about it."
Bragg did not understand any of it — the reason given; why Tonne's preferences were considered, but not hers; why he got notes, but her family did not. Her friends grew concerned.
"Things always seemed a little weird to me," said one of them, Ericka Eskam, who goes to another church. "What if she wasn't the only one? Why wouldn't they want to know right away that there weren't more kids?"
The church paid for Bragg to have eight counselling sessions, and gave her family $1,000 at Christmas — not earmarked for her daughter's care, but "to bless us," Bragg said.
Tabatha Pino, who home-schools her children along with Bragg, did not like how the church responded to the Braggs and left the Village earlier this year. New mothers get more care than the Braggs did, she said.
"You'd think they would be for the victim," she said. "That speaks volumes."
As summer ended, Bragg got welcome news. The police detective had filed the case with the Dallas County District Attorney's Office, and the Village was finally ready to make a public statement. Relieved, she prepared a family statement to accompany the church's announcement, which was posted online.
Then, on a Sunday in September, Chandler told the congregation that an allegation of sexual assault had surfaced. He did not name the suspect.
"It took courage and strength for the child and the family to share this and we want to support them in any way possible," he said.
What he said next infuriated Bragg.
"We want to clearly state that there are no persons of interest in this investigation that have access to children at the Village Church," he said. "We would not let someone who is under investigation for a crime like this be near any of our children at TVC."
It was a technicality. Tonne had already been removed.
The Village said in a statement that the police detective had asked the church "not to share the name of the accused with the church at that time."
"We honoured his request," it said. "We did subsequently communicate the accused's name when it became a matter of public record due to charges being filed and we were released to do so."
For most people in the pews, the news was a surprise. Lancine Aday, 41, said Chandler had seemed genuinely upset. But she felt a bit uneasy. Her son had attended the 2012 camp and she had lingering questions.
She hoped, though, the church was giving the victim "everything she wants and needs."
"Knowing Matt and knowing his heart, I'd imagine he would bend over backwards for her to do what he thought was right," Aday said, referring to Chandler.
"We have no clue where to go from here"
In November, the case became public after a grand jury indicted Tonne and the charges against him were listed on the Dallas County court website. He was arrested in early January and released on $25,000 bond.
When the church continued not to name Tonne to the congregation, Bragg said she felt so desperate that she wanted to stand in front of the church with a sign on a Sunday, with his name and case number, F1800705, which she has memorised.
Instead, she watched January 20 as Chandler rose to address the congregation. She still had barely heard from him. He had mailed a short handwritten card to the Braggs back in July, apologising for not being in touch. When Matt Bragg suggested coffee, Chandler's assistant offered a time that was months away.
On that morning in January, Chandler gave a vague update about "the 2012 Kids Camp incident."
He referred congregants to a statement on the church website, saying he did not want to get into details. The "whole thing" had made him feel "thin and exhausted and worn out and heartbroken."
Chandler thanked God for the "evidence of grace" in the victim's family. "They're still here," he prayed from the stage. "We're still walking with them. You're moving in them."
The church's statement online said that Tonne had been indicted but did not say what the charges were; it said he had been removed from the staff "for other reasons."
Tonne's defence lawyer, Sheridan Lewis, said recently that she had concerns about how the church had handled the case and that she was examining what appeared to be "a calculated decision" by church leaders to remove him after a "less than cursory investigation."
For months, relatives of the Braggs had been pushing them to hire a lawyer, but the family was nervous. Trusted church friends said hiring a lawyer would not be biblical, citing scripture and the membership covenant.
Christi Bragg felt haunted by an episode at the Village a few years ago, when a woman annulled her marriage after discovering that her husband used child pornography. Church leaders disciplined her for not following the covenant's marriage protocols. Eventually, leaders apologised, but Bragg feared similar discipline from the church.
When the Braggs met representatives of the Village for a legal mediation in mid-May, though, the family brought lawyers. No pastor participated and no resolution was reached. Bragg and her husband withdrew their membership from the Village the next day.
"What we encountered Wednesday was a church that has made a conscious choice to protect itself rather than reflect the Jesus it claims to follow," she wrote to the pastor of her church campus in Southlake.
"It's a terribly sad joke," she went on. "We followed the rules. We followed the bylaws. We have no clue where to go from here."
Pastors have not asked the Braggs to come back, according to the family.
In a statement, the Village said, "We continue to pray for truth to be revealed, for justice to be served and for healing for all involved."
Boz Tchividjian and Mitch Little, lawyers representing the Braggs' daughter, who is now an adult, said their client planned to move forward with formal litigation in order to hold the Village "accountable for the sexual trauma inflicted upon her as a child by an adult employee."
"What greater lie could we ever tell"
The Southern Baptist Convention has no explicit procedure or enforcement mechanism to respond to an abuse allegation when it arises in one of the denomination's churches, each of which is autonomous. The SBC has resisted calls for reforms for years, but addressing the issue of sexual abuse will be a major focus this week at the convention's annual meeting in Birmingham, Alabama.
Representatives are expected to vote on whether to create a new committee that would evaluate allegations against churches accused of mishandling abuse, and on a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow such churches to be expelled from the convention if the allegations are substantiated. Leaders also recently released a new curriculum on how to care for survivors.
Examining how churches legally protect themselves in abuse cases is not on the agenda. Some of the top officials who have been given responsibility for addressing the problem have also been looking to MinistrySafe as a partner.
A small group of advocates has planned a protest at the conference, following the example of Queen Esther, a woman who is said in the Bible to have been appointed "for such a time as this" to stand up to leaders.
The denomination's president, Greear, is increasingly worried that families may see hypocrisy and simply leave.
"God gave his life to protect the vulnerable," Greear said. "What greater lie could we ever tell about the Gospel than to turn a blind eye to people who are calling out for help?"
All Bragg said she wanted was a church home that will care for her family. Evangelicals in Dallas are enamoured with the Village, with Chandler, and all the church represents, she said recently. She started to cry.
"It is your word against these people," she said. "Where could we come in and say, 'This is what we have experienced,' and have them actually honor that?"
Written by: Elizabeth Dias
Photographs by: Annie Flangan
© 2019 THE NEW YORK TIMES
