Tag: lyell

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News

Defamation?! Man At Center of Massive SBC Sex Scandal Sues Denomination, Along with 11 Prominent Southern Baptists For Lying About Him

Former Southern Baptist Theological Seminary professor David Sills has filed suit against the SBC and 11 other high-profile personalities, including current SBC President Bart Barber, former president Ed Litton, Albert Mohler, Jennifer Lyell (the woman who accused him of sexual abuse) and others. Sills is requesting a trial by jury, claiming that he’s been repeatedly and unfairly maligned for years, and is seeking monetary damages and compensation for having his reputation destroyed by his denomination. Baptist Global news, citing the brief, quote from the lawsuit:

“Rather than seek the truth, defendants repeated and circulated false statements about Dr. Sills, causing him to be cast as a toxic pariah. After various mischaracterizations, misstatements, and a contrived ‘investigation’ by defendants, the plaintiffs, David Sills and Mary Sills, have been wrongfully and untruthfully labeled as criminals and shunned by the SBC.” 

and

(The defendants) understood the value of making an example out of SBC member and employee David Sills who, without controversy, had admitted to an affair with Lyell and willingly accepted the SBC requirement that he depart from his position at the seminary. In essence, defendants saw an opportunity to improve the appearance and reputation of SBC’s handling of abuse cases, long under fire, even though there had not been any legitimate and proper investigation into the allegations, nor was Dr. Sills adequately informed of the specific nature and extent of accusations made by Lyell.

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 from each other for months at a time. 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. The Baptist press writes further:

Sills has not denied engaging in an inappropriate relationship with Lyell, and he resigned his post at Southern Seminary after being confronted about it. However, in the new court filing he insists he did not sexually abuse Lyell, force himself upon Lyell, use violence against Lyell, threaten to use violence against Lyell or “engage in sexual intercourse” with Lyell “at any time whatsoever.”

The filing says Sills acknowledges “a personal and emotionally intimate relationship” between the two but claims it was initiated by Lyell, who was “well above the age of consent.”

Further:

The court filing further claims Lyell maintained the relationship by driving several hundred miles — from Nashville, Tenn., to Louisville, Ky. — to see Sills. It also claims Sills “ended the relationship with Defendant Lyell who nevertheless persisted her pursuit of Sills and undertook efforts to reach Dr. Sills through his family.”

David and Mary Sills also contend that Lyell, “relying on her expertise as an accomplished writer and executive in the fields of advertising and publishing within the SBC, a lucrative and powerful position, constructed a false narrative against Dr. Sills and Mrs. Sills, at the height of awareness of SBC scandals.”

“Thereafter, Ms. Lyell engaged in an effort to restore her reputation and preserve her powerful position of doling out lucrative book deals, while affirmatively and skillfully dismantling the reputations, careers, and family life of David Sills and Mary Sills,” the court filing states.

Sills has apparently taken umbrage with everyone who decried him as a sexual abuser and engaged in both slander and libel against him, including:

None have publicly responded to the suit.

Categories
Op-Ed

Op-Ed: The Might of the SBC is Raging Against Megan Basham

As the Southern Baptist Convention downgrade proceeds at a roaring pace, institutionalist SBC elites continue to play defense, in response to allegations that certain prominently featured sex abuse accounts in the commissioned guidepost sex abuse report were never properly corroborated. Protestia previously reported on the story of Jennifer Lyell, who allegedly received $1.5 million for incidents surrounding her alleged sexual abuse. Baptist Press originally characterized the incident as a 12-year-long morally inappropriate relationship with a seminary professor that began when Lyell was 26, during which Lyell moved multiple times. After leftist advocates pressured the convention with the threat of bad press, Baptist Press issued a retraction and apologized for characterizing the incident as an adulterous affair. The incident revealed a shift in the SBC from a scriptural view of sexual abuse to what could best be described as Critical Sex Abuse Theory. Consensual adultery plus power plus the regret of a subordinate party in the affair now equals sex abuse, even in cases where the regret is 12 years after the fact, and all parties are consenting adults.

In the wake of the 2022 SBC Convention, the Daily Wire’s Megan Basham released an investigative report that shed light on the questionable actions of SBC leadership in its treatment of the Jennifer Lyell incident. The report has been met with much ire from the institutionalists within the SBC, as it revealed that Lyell’s account of abuse was never corroborated by any real first-hand accounts, but rather “believed” by those to whom it was confessed in a manner reminiscent of the way that leftists demanded that the public “believe all women” during height of the #metoo movement. While Lyell was believed by SBC denominational leaders and characterized as a victim in part due to her status as a student at Southern Seminary, Basham noted that Lyell at times held power over Sills, as her position at Lifeway gave her power over negotiating Sill’s book deals.

That incident, she says, began a pattern of abuse that lasted 12 years until she was 38, continuing even as she moved to Chicago in 2006 and, later, Nashville, to further her career in publishing. During the time that Lyell was a publishing executive, she often worked with Sills, contracting with him for books, and, arguably, holding more power over his career than he did over hers.

Megan examined Guidepost’s account of the Lyell incident critically, attempting to corroborate Jennifer Lyell’s story by contacting those who claim to be SBC first-responders to the incident. Al Mohler, who as President of Southern Seminary received Lyell’s account of the incident in 2018, claims that the contact information she used to reach him is no something he frequently checks.

The specific questions that Basham, a former World Magazine film and television editor asked Mohler, the current World Magazine Opinions Editor, reflect a desire to accurately report on a story that has been purposely distorted and misreported by Baptist Press in a pravdaesque manner. The fact that Jennifer Lyell claimed in a recorded interview that David Sills threatened Al Mohler with a gun is an issue that should be investigated. Either the statement is false, which puts Lyell’s character into question, or a serious crime that involved a weapon should have been reported to the police, in consideration of the safety of the students and faculty of Southern Seminary.

Mohler’s refusal to field questions from Basham is reminiscent of the way that SBC elites like Russell Moore respond to difficult questions, that if answered truthfully, yield inconvenient answers. Mohler doesn’t like to be called on the carpet for refusing to confront what is clearly unscriptural, as he revealed in his agitated response to Phil Johnson’s question about Social Justice in conservative reformed circles, at the 2019 Shepherds conference. Under pressure from Basham’s statement, Mohler issued a short carefully crafted statement that answered none of the questions posed by Basham. Mohler refused to clarify the exact nature of the abuse and whether he was threatened by David Sills as alleged by Jennifer Lyell.

Other more forthcoming parties to Basham’s investigation, like Dr. Bill Cook, reveal that the basis for belief in Lyell’s account was a second-hand judgement that “found her allegations credible”. 

The same unbiblical standard of proof for determining that Lyell was innocent of adultery and deserving of $1.5 million as an abuse victim is the same standard of proof that Guidepost and the institutionalist SBC elites want to establish for putting an individual on a ministry sex abuse black list, a mark that would last for life. Leftists and institutionalists who railed against conservative executive committee members for refusing to waive attorney-client privilege are now demanding strict privacy for alleged sex abuse victims and believe that common church members in the SBC don’t deserve to know the details of why $1.5 million of their cooperative fund giving is being handed out to someone in a settlement, instead of being allocated to missions.

In response to the kerfuffle, pastor Jared Cornutt stated that those who believe Megan’s investigative reporting over the vague answers of seminary Presidents who received Lyell’s accusation should leave the SBC.

Cornutt’s argument was quickly husked as a logical fallacy, as Twitter followers recognized that Cornutt and others who criticized Basham only criticized her because she questioned the institutionalist narrative. Cornutt points to former SBC presidents as if they are paragons of virtue and honesty, and yet the guidepost report calls out former SBC presidents Steve Gaines, Johnny Hunt, Jack Graham, and Paige Patterson as being abusers or complicit in abuse. Plus Ed Litton just resigned after a scandal, so their title alone doe snot have the shine he supposes it does.

The standard for credible witness amongst institutionalists has shifted from a Biblical position that questioned whether there were any firsthand witnesses with actual knowledge of the incident in question, to a highly politicized fallacy-driven process that says believe all women (except for conservatives that work for the Daily Wire) and believe all seminary presidents and seemingly credible power brokers in the denomination (except for those who hold inconvenient conservative viewpoints).

While the waters surrounding the Jennifer Lyell case have been substantially muddied, the Biblical principles in God’s law for establishing whether such a case is sex abuse or adultery are present in scripture. As .AD Robles explains, these principles can be seen in the general equity of Genesis 22:23-27. 

If the leadership of the Southern Baptist is so antinomian and worldly that they can no longer discern right from wrong and ignore the plumbline of scripture in a case such as this, how can they be expected to properly discern other matters of law or Gospel from scripture?

Sadly, the axe appears to be laid at the root of the Southern Baptist Convention. 

Categories
News Op-Ed

Op-Ed: Is What the SBC Exec. Committee Apologized for Really ‘Nonconsensual Sexual Abuse’?

The SBC Executive Committee, in a rare move, has issued a personal apology to Ms. Jennifer 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 acknowledging the “unintentional harm” they caused her by not properly reporting her case and framing what happened to her in a blameworthy and distressing manner, resulting in a confidential monetary settlement to Lyell.

A couple of years ago, Lyell, then a vice president at Lifeway Christian Resources, admitted to being involved in a sexual relationship with Southern Baptist Theological Seminary professor David Sills for over a decade. She claimed that it was the result of him ‘grooming’ her while she was enrolled in a missions class at the seminary in 2004 when she was 26 years old, and ending a decade later when she was 38 and having long moved on. This resulted in his swift termination and right public disgrace.

The Baptist Press, which is overseen by the Southern Baptist Convention’s Executive Committee, reported on the story but framed their involvement as a “morally inappropriate relationship” (repeating her words) with her former professor. Outrage ensured and the paper eventually apologized and retracted the offending article, but not before the damage was done to her reputation and people assigned a degree of moral culpableness to her by decrying her as ‘an adulteress,’ among other things.

 In March 2019, Lyell would write:

“So that day when I shared what had happened to me with my boss at LifeWay 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. I am not a sinless victim. But I am a victim nonetheless.”

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, given that she was and remains a victim.

The SBC Committee apparently agrees with her, with their own release framing the 12 years together as one big long incident of “nonconsensual sexual abuse” between adults. Peter Lumpkins, commenting on the whole affair when it first broke, offers up these observations:

“Assuming a unilateral manipulative, exploitative, wrongful beginning (“grooming”) of the relationship by the perverted professor, at what point does a 12 year voluntary but illicit sexual relationship between two grown adults, at times, miles apart, cease to be a unilaterally manipulative, exploitative, and wrongful relationship? Or does it? Are we to understand that a 38-year-old woman who is having a sexual relationship with a married man, and does so at long distances, is doing so because she is trapped in a sexual abuse scandal in which she cannot escape?

Listen to Lyell’s words again, words she wrote to describe the fiasco, not words Baptist Press used to describe the relationship:

But a family relationship did develop. Over the years I spent weekends with them, my holidays with them, became an “aunt” to their grandchildren, and their grown children became like siblings to me. It looked idyllic on the surface. Except the pattern of inappropriate sexual activity continued throughout the relationship (emphasis added)

Lyell said she spent weekends with the family, enjoyed holidays with them, and became very close to their grandchildren. Apparently, Lyell must have been close to Mrs. Sills during this time. Friends. Except for one qualifying factor that made it different–Lyell continued the pattern of “inappropriate sexual activity” with her friend’s husband.

Is it too much to suggest Mrs. Sills, her children, and grandchildren were victims of abuse in which Lyell herself would be, at least in some significant ways, morally accountable as the abuser? While I regret suggesting this possibility makes Lyell feel both uncomfortable and betrayed again, or even persecuted as she appears to indicate, it nonetheless seems to me one cannot escape the reasonably moral conclusion of the facts as they have been publicized.       

Baptist Press caving into the pressure by Caring Well celebrities and conference attenders to both apologize for publishing and then retracting a story that fundamentally was correct remains a dangerous precedent for our news wire service. 

More problematic still is the notion that the definition of ‘nonconsensual sexual abuse’ has now been broadened to include voluntary sexual affairs by two consenting adults. It’s true that powerful people in authoritative positions can exploit, manipulate, and deceive others into an initially unwanted relationship. Granted. No one is suggesting otherwise, and we rightly condemn it when it undeniably takes place.

However, to argue that an illicit relationship between two adults that started by devious exploitation of one over the over while the other was under the manipulative person’s authority but continued on years later after no such authority was present remains morally absurd.”

This is not to say that the Executive Committee didn’t do her dirty, only that there is an element to the story that raises a brow or two. Lord knows they’ve botched an investigation before, such as with Jules Woodson.

For Lyell, however, she is grateful for the apology, writing:

and in a statement:

“Finally, I must acknowledge and thank Pastor Slade, the EC officers, and trustees who agreed to resolve our disputes through their action today as well as their legal counsel who worked quickly to process four years of information. As I’ve shared with those to whom I’ve been able to speak and to their lawyers, although this by no means restores what I’ve lost, I am grateful because it is the only action I could imagine that may at least make the ongoing damage stop. My focus will now turn to my health and trying to build a future. I do so having accepted the apology offered by the EC in their public statement and with enduring gratitude for Rachael Denhollander as well as Russell and Maria Moore—without whom I cannot imagine still being here.”