Prominent youth group curriculum provider Orange has hired a third-party law firm to investigate allegations of sexual misconduct and “clergy sexual abuse” between its founder Reggie Joiner and CEO Kristen Ivey after Ivey, who was having an extended adulterous affair with Joiner, suddenly decided to retract her confession of having had an “inappropriate relationship” and instead insist it was actually an abusive relationship that she could not possibly consent to, and as a result was a victim of his manipulations and machinations.
According to an email obtained by The Roys Report, Interim Orange president Mikael Clear told staffers that the board selected Castañeda + Heidelman to conduct a “thorough, objective, trauma-informed, forensic investigation” of “the situation” between Joiner and Ivey, encouraging members to participate fully with the investigation, which is expected to last several months.
Two months ago, Joiner resigned from his role at Orange after confessing he’s been having an affair with CEO Kristen Ivy, the president and CEO of Orange, who also resigned. While Ivy initially characterized the adulterous affair to the Orange board as an “inappropriate relationship,” an email from Ivy to board members walked back those claims, saying she was, in fact, a victim of clergy sexual misconduct that she could not meaningfully consent to, and as a result should not “shoulder the burden of responsibility.”
Ivy explained that during the original interview with the board after they first learned of her actions, she was “prepared to protect Reggie at all cost because I was laboring under years of the belief that protecting Reggie was the only way to protect Orange” and that I chose the words “inappropriate relationship” when characterizing what I believed needed to be disclosed. My intent at the time was to maintain a humble posture and shoulder the burden of responsibility.”
After seeking professional counsel and speaking to “experts in abuse,” she has come to realize that “I now realize I am experiencing a high level activated trauma – not just from the past weeks, but also compounded trauma from many years of emotional and psychological abuse.”
“Part of that realization has been to recognize that in my disclosure to Orange, I was still living within the mental frameworks I had been coerced to believe which led me to request an inappropriate level of responsibility for this situation.”
Ivy said that because of the power dynamics at play, including the 20-year age difference between them, Joiner’s refusal to accept her resignation, and the potential loss of income if she came forward, she was a victim in all this who could not give meaningful consent to their sexual activity:
I believe you were able to see – even before I was able to name it – that the nature of the relationship between Reggie and myself was not truly capable of having meaningful consent. What I said was true, that the relationship between Reggie and myself was inappropriate, but I am now aware that this is not the best framing for understanding the nature of what took place. The truth is that Reggie has repeatedly abused his power and used it to gain access to vulnerable, often very young women, slowly crossing boundaries, isolating them, and eventually coercing them into agreeing to the abuse.
The very nature of these relationships is to confuse a victim into believing what is happening is consensual, and it can take years of separation from the abuser for the victim to recognize the abuse. I have been separated from Reggie for less than a week, but I am aware that these patterns are abusive and not consensual.
Sounds like Ivey has been reading fromthe playbook from the SBC’s most famous “victim” of “clergy sexual abuse,” Jennifer Lyell
