Guidepost Throws SBC and ARITF Under the Bus in Newest #Churchtoo Lawsuit Filings+ Says it Did NOT Investigate Lyell vs. Sills Claims

Two months ago, former Southern Baptist Theological Seminary professor David Sills filed a lawsuit against the SBC and several other high-profile personalities, thirteen in all, including current SBC President Bart Barber, former president Ed Litton, Albert Mohler, Jennifer Lyell, Guidepost Solutions, and others. Sills alleged conspiracy, defamation, and intentional infliction of emotional distress after they and Guidepost Solutions branded him as a sexual predator. The thirteen defendants argue that this is a religious question that the courts can’t judge, so the case should be dismissed. Sills, in turn, claims it’s a secular problem, which they very well can.

Years ago, Sills admitted to having an inappropriate and sexual relationship with a woman named Jennifer Lyell, which quickly became the face of the #churchtoo movement within the SBC. Sills denied abusing, grooming, or forcing himself upon her in any way. He claims that their encounters were completely consensual and did not include intercourse (she, too, has admitted the latter) and intended to make many Southern Baptists pay for any suggestion to the contrary. (See end notes for more context)

The Twitter handle @SBClitigation has been following the filings, and reported the following analysis, which we have adapted for a post:

“Some rough analysis.

First, all thirteen defendants agree on one thing: the First Amendment should bar this case. Court’s can’t judge religious questions, or second guess religious leadership decisions. BUT: Was the Guidepost Investigation religious or secular? 

The engagement letter says Guidepost was independent of the SBC. The SBC’s advisor, Rachel Denhollander, repeatedly says churches should hire abuse investigators and accept what they find.

Sills will likely argue that neither Guidepost nor its investigation is religious.

The SBC’s experts and guides repeatedly stress that the religious institution should accept an outside, independent (i.e., not religious) investigation by professional experts.

And the question being determined by Guidepost — whether or not abuse occurred, and whether the response was adequate by secular ‘best practices’ of some sort — does not have to be framed in a religious manner.

Of course, Guidepost did offer suggestions, but the Abuse Reform Implementation Task Force was tasked with deciding which suggestions were consistent with Baptist polity.  If a church hires a doctor or lawyer during an employment investigation, it would be strange to let the professional off the hook for their secular malpractice.

Sills is claiming Guidepost’s investigation and best-practices claims were a secular sham.  If the court says this was a big religious question, Sills’ claims are likely to be dismissed, and he might appeal. But, like McRaney & McLean Bible, judges are reluctant to grant churches “get out of jail free” cards. There’s a secular path here.

I’d say it’s a toss-up. 

If Sills clears the First Amendment hurdle, the defendants are at odds about what should happen. There’s a variety of opinions about which state’s law applies: Mississippi? Tennessee? Alabama? Each state has a different time limit on defamation claims. 

There’s also some disagreement about who was in what group, when. Lifeway asks whether it’s responsible for Lyell and Geiger’s conduct after they left, assuming Sills is right. SBTS denies saying anything about Mrs. Sills, and says there’s no facts showing it “conspired” with anyone else. 

A potentially significant disagreement comes from Guidepost, who says that if defamations were published, that’s the fault of the SBC, not Guidepost.

Guidepost also wants to make clear that it *didn’t purport to investigate what happened between Sills and Lyell,* just the SBCEC’s response.

But note how that undercuts the position of Barber and SBC. Guidepost says it didn’t investigate or corroborate Lyell’s sexual abuse claims. It just investigated the EC’s change to words of her “first person” story.

If Barber’s tweet is false — and it looks like Guidepost would say Guidepost didn’t investigate the truth of the sexual abuse itself — that opens him up to accusations of recklessness and liability. 

Meanwhile, the lawyers for SBC and Barber seem to think Guidepost is their friend, and say that Guidepost investigated Lyell’s claims. But Barber says Guidepost investigated the “sexual abuse claims,” something Guidepost now denies.

The lawyers for SBC and Barber also seem to be caught flat-footed by their own client. In other depositions, Barber says he *disagrees with the Guidepost report’s description of Baptist polity.*

But in their memo, Barber’s lawyers tell the Court to accept the Guidepost Report’s description of the EC — the characterization Barber himself testified was wrong.

This highlights the problem of not having a general counsel that knows what’s going on across all the SBC’s litigation. A new lawyer on the case might assume everyone in the SBC accepts the Guidepost facts. But they don’t, and it’s hard to get everyone on the same page. 

Summary thoughts: if the First Amendment defense succeeds, everyone can go home.

But if the court lets Sills go forward, the lawyers for the SBC defendants need to be on alert. Some defendants have different stories.

And Guidepost is not the SBC’s friend in this case. “

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Backround:

Several years ago, Lyell, then a Vice-President at Lifeway Christian Resources, admitted to being involved in a sexual relationship with David Sills for over a decade. She claimed that it resulted from him ‘grooming’ her while enrolled in a missions class at the seminary in 2004 when she was 26 years old, ending 12 years later when she was 38 and having long moved on. She says that he “sexually acted” against her but never provided details or offered what the grooming looked like throughout their relationship, particularly when they were away for months. Once their affair was revealed, however, it resulted in his swift termination and public disgrace.

A year later, she would seemingly walk back any suggestion that she was guilty of any sin for the relationship, explaining in an update that just because she was ‘compliant,’ it did not mean their relationship was ‘consensual.’ As her understanding of her role in the whole affair continued to evolve, she also appeared to dispel the notion that there was any sin on her part for which she ought to apologize, supposing that she was and remains a complete, guiltless victim in every sense of the word, sharing the same culpability of a 4-year-old being, molested by her step-father.

Everyone agreed with her. The SBC Committee ultimately defended her victimhood. The Sexual Abuse Task Force dedicated approximately 35 of its 288 pages to Lyell’s story and the circumstances surrounding it, repeatedly castigating Sills not as an “alleged abuser” but a definite, for sure, unequivocal “abuser” while framing the 12 years together as one long incident of “nonconsensual sexual abuse” between adults.

The SBC Executive Committee, in a rare move, also issued a personal apology to Lyell for failing to “adequately listen, protect and care” for her after she came forward with allegations of sexual abuse by her professor, as well as acknowledged the “unintentional harm” they caused her by not correctly reporting her case and framing what happened to her in a blameworthy and distressing manner, resulting in a confidential monetary settlement to Lyell of $1,500,000. 

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