Sheila: In every generation, it seems like God raises up certain individuals to fight, to say this is not okay with me, and to call the rest of us to do better.  Well, we’re going to hear one such story today of Christa Brown and her fight to hold the SBC accountable for the sexual abuse crisis.  It’s riveting.  I so admire Christa.  And I think as you hear her story the question is going to occur to all of us too is, well, what can we do.  What is our role in all of this?  And how can we help?  At least, I hope that’s what you’ll take away from it.  Welcome to the Bare Marriage podcast.  I’m Sheila Wray Gregoire.  And here at Bare Marriage, we like to give healthy, evidence-based, biblical advice for your sex life and your marriage.  And a lot of that depends on the church that you grew up in.  And so we’ll be talking about why there are issues in the church today.  And I am so glad that you’ve joined us.  Before we turn to Christ, of course, I want to say thank you to those who make it possible for us to do what we do.  And so a special shout out to our patrons.  And when you give money, even just $5 a month, it helps support us.  It helps keep the podcast and the blog going.  Because as we have grown over the last few years and as our impact has grown, staff costs and all kinds of costs have grown as well.  And we spend so much time just trying to get new material out there.  So when you support us, it really does make difference.  And it’s our patrons, who allowed us to do our huge study recently for our marriage book that’s coming out in the spring, The Marriage You Want.  So they funded the survey for that.  And it’s just a fun place.  You get access to a Facebook group, which is kind of like my safe space online.  So we will put the link in the podcast notes to patreon.com/baremarriage where you can join to.  And, of course, as the end of the year is coming sooner than we think, if you would like to give an end of the year donation and get a tax deductible receipt within the United States, we are raising money for a lot of other initiatives that you’ll hear about in a couple of weeks on the Bare Marriage podcast.  And so you can give through the Good Fruit Faith Initiative of the Bosko Foundation, and the link is in the podcast notes.  And as always, remember to mark the podcast five stars and review it.  Review our books wherever you read them.  Great Sex Rescue, She Deserves Better.  It helps other people see us.  And now, without further ado, here is our interview with Christa.  Well, this is going to be a fun one because I have the opportunity, again—and I’ve had a few of these lately.  But to interview someone that I have known for years online, but this is the first time we’ve actually spoken in real life.  Kind of.  So I have Christa Brown with me who she was a lawyer.  She is a huge sexual abuse advocate specifically about the SBC church.  And you are an author of this amazing book, which I can see on your stand, and I have it right here too, Baptistland.  So hello, Christa.

Christa: Hello, Sheila.  I am so glad to get to visit with you.

Sheila: Yeah.  This is going to be fun.  You have been—you’re just a pioneer.  I started speaking in this area probably around 2019.  You’ve been 2006.

Christa: Well, and even before that with my own case.  So 2004.  So yeah.

Sheila: Yeah.  And you were abused in a SBC church as a teenager.  

Christa: Correct.

Sheila: And you tried to do something about it, and nobody cared.   

Christa: That sums it up.  And it was much to my surprise.  I really, truly believed that things would be different now.  That people would have changed and gotten smarter and wiser since when I was a kid and that people would want to help me.  I believed all of that.  But after communicating with the church and having the church threaten to sue me and just a preemptive strike, just out of the blue really for no reason, and then 18 Southern Baptist leaders later—18 in 4 different states.  No one gave a flip.  No one was going to do anything.  And as a mother, I found that really troubling.

Sheila: Yeah.  Yeah.  I want to get into your story and what—how you see the SBC and what has happened over the years.  But where I see our stuff mixing and coming together, synthesizing—I don’t know what the right word is.  But you speak specifically about abuse within church circles and specifically in the SBC.  I’m very much a supporter, and I want to elevate your voice.  But I come at it from a slightly different perspective, which is—my perspective is it’s the teachings inside the church which allow abuse to flourish.  And I know you agree with that too.  So it’s like we come at this same problem from different angles, right?  And so I thought because of that we could start by listening to a clip that has gone viral on social media by a SBC mega church pastor, Josh Howerton, that was taken a few weeks ago where he was talking about the danger that little girls pose.  So let’s just listen in.

Josh Howerton: You fight.  This is really interesting.  The book of Ephesians says to you, men, that if you—if the devil literally, physically, appears to you and says what you need to do is stand firm against the fiery darts of the evil one.  But then the same book says to flee sexual immorality.  Do you know what that means?  If you go out of one of our campuses, get to your car, and the literal physical devil, horns and tail and fang, the whole—standing right there, you need to stand up and bow up.  And the Bible is going, hey, fight.  But if you go out there and it’s like some shady little girl in a miniskirt, run, Forrest, run.  You are no match for this enemy.

Sheila: Well, that’s a take, isn’t it?

Christa: Yes.  Shady little girls.  And I think even many years ago that I was one of those shady little girls that they want to talk about and not much has changed.  The teachings are still the same because I was certainly blamed for what was done to me.  

Sheila: Yeah.  Because he’s literally saying, “Okay.  Look, guys.  If you see the literal devil, you stand there and fight the devil.  But if you see a shady little girl in a miniskirt in a church parking lot,” let me—so you see a shady little girl in a miniskirt in a church parking lot.  I don’t even know how a little girl can be shady.  A little girl is a little girl, right?  But if you see this girl, she is more dangerous to you than the literal devil.  So you need to run, Forrest, run because you are no match for her.  So she is your enemy.  She is so dangerous.  She is the problem.

Christa: Right.  And I was literally told that I had harbored Satan.  I mean and this was after seven, eight months of the pastor sexually abusing me as a kid.  I had harbored Satan.  Now some people want to—have asked me about that and said, “Well, didn’t they say that you had demons or something?”  No.  They could have said that.  But what they actually said was Satan.  Satan, himself.  You harbored Satan.  That’s pretty frightening.

Sheila: Yeah.  And that’s what happens.

Christa: (cross talk)

Sheila: Yeah.  But that’s what happens when pastors normalize seeing little girls as dangerous, when pastors normalize the idea that a man cannot possibly stand up to the temptation of a child wearing whatever it is she’s wearing.  They are enabling people overlooking abuse.  Then your pastor can tell the music director at your church what he’s doing, but it can be seen as your fault, not the pastor’s fault.    

Christa: Exactly.  Exactly.  And it was seen as my fault.  I was a temptress.  Yes.  I was a kid.  I was a temptress.  I was even made to kneel in his office while he stood over me purporting to cast Satan from me, essentially a sort of exorcism.  Now that can sound pretty bizarre to a lot of ordinary people, who might listen to that.  But for someone like me raised in a faith group that preached and taught a literal hell that was terribly frightening to imagine that I had Satan within me.  

Sheila: Yeah.  And it’s just—it’s heartbreaking that—your story is heartbreaking.  I mean your story just makes me want to weep.  But your story is one of how many.  We don’t even know.  Thousands upon thousands.

Christa: Yes.  Yes.

Sheila: And nothing is being done.  

Christa: There is the linchpin.  Nothing is being done.  Not really.  No.  

Sheila: I don’t think a lot of my listeners really understand what’s been happening in the SBC.  So I thought today we could—since you are the expert in this area, you could walk us through what’s happened.  And in your book, in Baptistland, which just—when did it release?  It’s fairly new, isn’t it?

Christa: Yes.  May 7 was the release date.

Sheila: May 7.  Okay.  So this is new.  It’s a lovely memoir.  It’s heartbreaking too because I hadn’t known all the rest of your story.  I had known about the church abuse, but I hadn’t realized that you, yourself, came from such an abusive family.  Not just abusive parents, but abusive sibling relationships as well.

Christa: Right.  And I think in some ways that a lot of that is a reflection—I mean my family was enmeshed in Baptistland culture.  I mean Baptistland is bigger than the Southern Baptist Convention.  It’s a very influential culture that these teachings take hold in.  And those kinds of relationships of domination, which I think is part of what the theology of Baptistland promotes.  Those kinds of relationships of domination then take hold in other ways between husband and wife, spouses, between preachers and their congregation, between older siblings and younger siblings.  Those patterns of domination can take hold.   

Sheila: Right.  Because it’s all about who can be in power, who can have control, and that’s the way that you see your worth is if you have control over somebody else.  And yeah.  Not a good way to do society.  Not a good way to do church.  Not a good way to do family.  But it certainly is happening.  And maybe we’ll get to this in a minute.  Or actually I’ll just talk about it now.  But one of the things that really struck me was that was that, in many ways, you were the perfect victim.  

Christa: I was.

Sheila: You come from a family where you’re already abused, where it’s clear no one is going to listen to you if you speak up and say, “Hey, I’m upset about something.”  No.  You’re just supposed to be quiet.  What’s wrong with you?  Why are you complaining so much?  And predators notice this stuff.  

Christa: Yeah.  No.  That’s exactly right.  For me, the way I was raised abuse was simply normalized.  Don’t cause any trouble.  Keep quiet.  All of that was normalized, which did indeed make me a perfect victim.  And also I would say that—oh my gosh.  I was so devout, and my faith was everything.  And that, too—I mean that is what got turned against me as a weapon.  And that, too, rendered me vulnerable.  It was because I was so faith filled that it rendered me an easy target for this pastor.

Sheila: Which, I think, is what makes it so doubly evil or triply evil.  I don’t even know what the word is.  But that they attack the one who loves—who is the most submissive to God, who is the most dedicated to God because they know that that’s the one that they can manipulate in these situations.  It’s just so evil.  As Christa has been talking about how the SBC needs to be held accountable for these things, I think the thing that goes through a lot of people’s heads is I would love to call my church to more.  I would love to deal with some of the toxic teachings that are in my church space, but I don’t know how to do that.  And so we have a toolkit that can help you.  It’s kind of like a short form of all of our major findings from The Great Sex Rescue and She Deserves Better.  So you can print it out, or you can email individual PDFs, which say, “Hey, here is the problem with the obligation sex message.  Hey, here is the problem with the modesty message to teenagers.  Hey, here is what you shouldn’t be saying that every man struggles with lust.  And here are the repercussions when you do,” and so much more in that toolkit.  All of our one sheets, our rubric, so much more.   And it’s also pay what you want.  So you can pay as little as $3, or you can pay as much as you want to support us.  So you will find the link to the toolkit in the podcast notes.  My daughters used to say—because they were in circles in their teenage lives where there were some predators among the girls—who preyed on the girls in their midst.  And they always said, “They would never go after me.  The predators would never go after us because we would raise such a stink.”  And they knew that Keith and I, their parents, were so involved that we would see it.  And instead, the girls that were targeted were often the ones who were overlooked by their family, who were—and what I got in reading your memoir too is that that has long term consequences because when you’re used to not valuing yourself, when you’re used to I am the problem.  Everyone around me sees me.  I am the problem.  I’m not supposed to make any noise.  I’m not supposed to speak up.  I’m not supposed to inconvenience anybody.  My very existence is an inconvenience to so many people.  When that’s what you’re raised in—and a lot of people are.  Then it is really hard to speak up to your church, which is why so many people don’t do it until their 50s.

Christa: Right.  And then even when they do speak up, I mean I did tell the music minister, who was my piano teacher.  That didn’t help.  That made things worse.  And he told me to never speak of it again.  But as you say, I mean my story is just one of thousands.  I mean there are so many kids.  I mean yeah.  I was raised in a dysfunctional family.  But so are a heck of a lot of other kids, and that’s what makes it so awful.

Sheila: And I do want to stress.  Obviously, not everybody who was abused came from a dysfunctional family.  It’s just that we know that there are certain elements in people’s lives that can make them more attractive to predators.  But it doesn’t mean that all victims were raised in dysfunctional families.  Obviously.      

Christa: No.  And also I would say that all children are inherently vulnerable because predatory people seek prey.  And they are very, very wily and manipulative.  Some children are more vulnerable than others, but I think all children are vulnerable.

Sheila: But what really struck me as I read your memoir—and we’ll get to the SBC stuff in a minute.  I’m still processing some of the emotional outpouring of reading your memoir.  But that the responsibility to fix this stuff has so often been put on the victims, who have already been traumatized in so many ways.  And that’s not fair.  You shouldn’t have to be the one to fight for this.  You’ve already gone through enough.  

Christa: Well, I didn’t step into it thinking that I would still be doing this all these years later.  Still trying to bring this truth to light.  In the beginning, I thought it would be a really short term endeavor because I truly believed that people of faith in this faith community would care.  But I was wrong.  And here we are all these years later.  I no longer hold any hope that they are going to make significant efforts toward meaningful reform.  But I still think that there is value in exposing this truth of the reality of where we’re at with the largest Protestant faith group in the United States.

Sheila: Yeah.  And I want that—I want people to understand that too.  I know we have a lot of listeners in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, all over Europe, the Caribbean, et cetera, Africa.  But the Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Protestant—it’s not exactly a denomination, but we can call it a denomination for the purposes of this.  It’s more a cooperative group, they say, of autonomous churches.  And they really like the word autonomous.  Who decide to cooperate for purposes of missions and outreach and things like that and education.  And so it’s—I don’t know.  There’s several—how many churches are there in the SBC?

Christa: About 47,000.

Sheila: 47,000.  Okay.  And members—what?  About 13 million.      

Christa: That’s where they’re at now.  13.2 is the last I saw.  

Sheila: Okay.  So this is a lot of people.  This is a lot of people in the U.S.  And so with that background, let’s start sketching out what happened.  So in 2006, you approach your—or 2004.  You approach your old church.        

Christa: Right.  I did.  And I thought that they would want to help me.  The same music minister, who had known about it when I was a girl, and he had been my piano teacher when I was a girl—he was still there.  And by this point in time, he had raised a daughter of his own.  I just was—this was someone who knew me well as a kid.  He was my piano teacher.  I had my piano lessons in the church sanctuary.  I just thought for sure that he would be glad to hear from.  He would be glad to know I was okay.  That he would want to help me to make sure that the guy, who was the youth minister—that he couldn’t hurt anyone else.  Boy, I have never been more wrong about anything in all my life because the church immediately responded back full force.  They went straight to their attorney.  Full force.  And basically threatened legal recourse against me if I talked about it.  And that was—at the time, it did sort of set me back on my heels.  I was really stunned.  But with hindsight, I have come to see that that was kind of a blessing in disguise because the reality of the position they were coming from was so very clear.  I mean my little brain—I can do all sorts of things to kind of cast a rosy glow on stuff and deny the reality of things.  I’m capable of all that.  But that was the kind of response that—there was no mistaking where they were coming from.  

Sheila: Right.  And this was in Texas?  

Christa: Yes.

Sheila: So this SBC church was in Texas.  You ended up talking to the Texas Southern Baptist—what is it?  Association.  I don’t know.      

Christa: Yeah.  It’s called the Baptist General Convention of Texas.  

Sheila: That’s what it is.  Yes. 

Christa: Texas Baptists.  And actually, they are considered one of the more moderate state conventions that is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.  And there, again, I thought these people would help me.  But they didn’t.

Sheila: And what you were asking for was to make sure that this pastor wasn’t still in the pulpit somewhere, wasn’t still able to hurt anyone.  You were asking for them to look in to make sure there weren’t new victims, that kind of thing, right?

Christa: Yeah.  That’s what I was asking for.  And I had also written to the Southern Baptist Convention, and they had written me back saying that—eventually—saying that he was not in ministry anymore which, at the time, once again, that’s sort of—okay.  Fine.  Everything is all right.  That set me back for several months because I believed them.  I believed them.  And, of course, that turned out not to be true.  He had been working in First Baptist Church of Atlanta, which is one of the largest churches of the Southern Baptist Convention.  And from there had moved on to a prominent church in Florida.  A very prominent church.  It was impossible to believe that people didn’t know that he was still in ministry.  That was just something I, personally, could not believe.  I think they did know.

Sheila: Yeah.  Wow.  And then in 2008, when was it that you asked the SBC executive to do a registry?  Because that was back—

Christa: The first time I asked them to do a registry was 2006.  Yeah.

Sheila: 2006.  Okay.

Christa: Originally by letter.  Certified letters because I wanted proof that they had gotten my letters.  And, of course, they responded with hostility saying communication between us will not be positive or fruitful.  But I continued to press for that.  And then the first sidewalk press conference I did outside Southern Baptist Convention headquarters in Nashville—that was also in late—I think September 2006.

Sheila: Yeah.  And remember, again, all she’s asking for is for a registry so that people who have credible accusations, who work in churches or volunteer in churches, that there would be a registry so that other churches wouldn’t hire these people.  That’s all Christa was asking for.

Christa: Right.  Right.

Sheila: That doesn’t seem like a big deal.  That seems kind of like yeah.  We should be doing that.

Christa: Right.  And it’s not unprecedented.  I mean at this point in time—I mean this has been something that’s been progressing.  But by now, Catholic dioceses across the United States of America have released over 6,000 names of priests, who are credibly accused of abuse.  Those are not priests that have been criminally convicted.  Priests that have been determined to be credibly accused.  So it’s not unprecedented.  This is something that can be done.  And, again, I would say Catholics are certainly a very, very low bar.  But Southern Baptists are falling far below it.

Sheila: Yeah.  Over the next few years, I know—you were called some pretty bad names.  What did Paige Patterson say about you back then?

Christa: Paige Patterson called me an evildoer and also said that I and other child sex abuse survivors were just—who were calling attention to this—said that we were just as reprehensible as sex criminals.  Now you imagine.  You’re telling child sex abuse survivors that they are just as reprehensible as sex criminals.  That, I think, was in 2008, as I recall.  Yeah.

Sheila: Right.  And at the same time, you’re writing a blog.  Stop Baptist Predators.  I don’t think it’s still up.  But you had it for quite a few years where you were—you kept your own database.  You were talking about this stuff.  You had hundreds of posts.  And you kept fighting, but nothing much happened until—I mean I—maybe I’m reading into this.  But I would put the big thing that happened that got things—that got the ball rolling was the Houston Chronicle article.

Christa: Oh, I would too.  I mean I would say nothing much happened institutionally.  But things were happening with individuals as a growing chorus of other people’s voices kind of joined me.  And then by the time the Houston Chronicle was working, there were a great many more survivors, who were willing to speak out.  But yes.  2019.  The Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News—a joined investigatory report called Abuse of Faith.  A dynamite piece of work, which was absolutely stunning.  Of course—

Sheila: Thank you, Robert Downen.  Yes.  Thank you, Robert.

Christa: Exactly.  It wasn’t anything that Southern Baptist Convention leaders didn’t already know as Robert Downen, himself, has said.  This information was out there.  They put it all in one place and brought it into the public eye for which I remain very, very grateful.

Sheila: And I will put a link to that article in the podcast notes.  It’s worth reading.  I think it might be behind a pay wall at this point.  But it’s worth reading, if you can get a hold of it.  It really is.  And it said that there were 700 sexual predators that they could find.  Is that right?

Christa: My recollection is they said 700.  They coalesced 700 victims.

Sheila: Oh, victims.  Okay.  Mm-hmm.

Christa: Yeah.  But there were several hundred Southern Baptist Convention sexual predators that they documented.  Yes.  

Sheila: I had an interesting conversation.  One of the churches that they called out specifically was Second Baptist in Houston.  And I had an interesting conversation with someone, who had been on staff there.  Quite high up.  And I was saying to him, “You guys have to take this seriously.  This is serious.  You need to get your act together and focus on the victims.”  And he assured me that none of it was true because he had spoken to the pastors, and the pastors had assured him that none of it was true.  And I said, “But did you talk to the victims?”  And he said, well, he didn’t have to because he knew the character of the pastors.  

Christa: Ugh.  There it is again.  

Sheila: Yeah.  And I said, “Well, you know what?  Robert Downen talked to the victims.  He looked at both sides.”  And anyway, I couldn’t believe it.  I couldn’t believe it.  Yeah.  

Christa: Well, and Second Baptist—I forget which way this worked.  But Paul Pressler, himself, was there for a number of years either before he went to First Baptist or after leaving First Baptist.  I forget which came first.  But that was a church that held Paul Pressler for awhile.  

Sheila: And Paul Pressler has since been revealed to be a serial sexual abuser.  Did he just pass away? 

Christa: He did.  Yes.

Sheila: Before he could actually get sentenced or something, right?

Christa: It was a civil lawsuit, not a criminal lawsuit.  Yeah.

Sheila: Okay.  Mm-hmm.  Yeah.  And he was one of the founders of the conservative resurgence.  Not founders.  But he was one of the main instigators of the conservative resurgence in the Southern Baptist church in the 1990s along with Paige Patterson and some others.  And yeah.  He was revealed to be a serial predator.  Mm-hmm. 

Christa: And was absolutely revered.  And the truth is I think almost anyone would say so.  It was kind of an open secret about his conduct.  I think there were many people within the Southern Baptist Convention who had heard talk about his conduct.  But everyone wanted to ride the coattails of the glory of Paul Pressler, and so they all stayed quiet.  But this was pretty much an open secret.

Sheila: Yeah.  And then there was Paige Patterson, who did lose his job eventually as head of—was it—the Southeastern Theological Baptist Seminary?

Christa: Southwestern.  

Sheila: Southwestern.  Okay.  Because it came out—yes.  That he had—when a young woman came forward with the fact that she had been sexually assaulted on campus, he told the security guard to break her down.  To break her story down so that she would recant.

Christa: And I mean we now have also documentation of him getting her alone in his office, an office filled with stuffed animal heads, and literally working to break her down, to bully and intimidate her.  And a room filled with other men too who all stayed silent.  We hear these stories of how, in complementarianism, how men are supposed to be the protectors of women.  They couldn’t even stand up to the likes of Paige Patterson when he was bullying this young woman, this young, traumatized survivor.

Sheila: Yeah.  So imagine being 18, 19 years old—I can’t remember how old she was at the time.  But you’re called into the president’s office.  It’s this elaborate, ornate office with—yeah.  Like you said, deer heads everywhere.  There’s multiple men, and you’re asked to recount everything that happened.  And you’re asked what you were wearing and if you’d been drinking and all these questions that make it sound like you’re at fault.  

Christa: Right.  Right.

Sheila: That’s what he did.  Along with many other things.  That’s not the only reason he was let go.  I mean there’s so many horrid things that have come out about Paige Patterson as well.  Yeah.  So the Houston Chronicle article.  This got everything—all—the ball rolling.  People started to pay more attention.  The MeToo movement became the ChurchToo movement.  A lot was happening on social media.  And so at the convention, they—it looked like they might be doing something.  So did it start under Greear where there was a resolution—what was it?  In 2020, 2021?  I don’t know which year.

Christa: You’re probably talking about 2020.  But yes.  Former Southern Baptist Convention President J.D. Greear promised bold steps, which, of course, never materialized.  But that’s the pattern.  Flimsy promises, even flimsier excuses.  

Sheila: Yeah.  So they were supposedly going to create a database.  There were several other—and at the conventions over the last few years, there have—the messengers, which is what they call the delegates that are sent to the convention—and there’s several thousand of them there every year.  And the delegates voted overwhelmingly to do the third party investigation that Guideposts did eventually, to set up a database, to get things going, and to really fix things.  And yet, it hasn’t been done.

Christa: Right.  It hasn’t been done.  It is five and a half years now since the Abuse of Faith series done by Robert Downen, Houston Chronicle.  It’s been two years since that independent investigation that you referenced, the Guidepost investigation.  More than two years since they voted for the creation of a database, and still there is not a single name on any database.

Sheila: Yeah.  And there’s been some really good people, I think, who have tried to be part of this, who have been on the task force, and they thought it was going to go somewhere.  And they have now realized it’s not.  

Christa: Yeah.  A member, in fact, of—I mean there’s been multiple committees and task forces.  A member of one of the first task forces actually wound up emailing me and apologizing and saying that this person—that they were sorry if they had ever given any hope that anything would ever change because nothing will change.  And that was what they—the realization they came to.  A very poignant and sad realization.  I know they were sincere in the work that they were trying to do.  But to have someone who was actually right there in the thick of it working on this committee saying that, I think it shows you just how hopeless it is that this tentacular, multibillion dollar institution is ever really truly going to commit to meaningful reform.

Sheila: And for several years at this convention—so they have this convention once a year where all of the churches send messengers.  They get together.  They vote on important things.  And for several years, sexual abuse was the top issue until this year and last year.  And this year, instead, having women pastors was the top issues, and that’s what they really—they just really wanted to crack down on women pastors.  And so instead of—so the main threat that they see in the SBC is not sexual abuse, but it is, instead, women preaching about Jesus and—yeah.  That that is the main problem.

Christa: That’s exactly right.  And yeah.  That’s a hard realization, I think, for people.  And particularly when you consider that this is the largest Protestant faith group in the United States.  And even apart from their own numbers, it’s a faith group that carries weight beyond their own numbers in terms of their influence across all of white evangelicalism really.  And that this was their priority while at the same time doing near nothing about clergy who sexually abused the young and vulnerable.  It’s just devastating.

Sheila: Yeah.  It really is.  But people in the pews do seem to want this fixed.  If you just talk to the average layperson, they do seem to want it fixed.  I mean the messengers did vote for this to get fixed.  They did overrule the Executive Committee.  And when the Executive Committee tried to do different shenanigans so that they wouldn’t have to do it, they were overruled.  Like no.  We’re going to do this.  So the laypeople seem to want it fixed.  But it just never gets fixed.  It’s like the people at the top are really scared of fixing it.  And I think that there was an amicus brief that took people very much by surprise when it came out.  But can you explain what that was?  

Christa: Yeah.  There was a lawsuit in Kentucky.  And it wasn’t a lawsuit that had anything to do with the Southern Baptist Convention.  But several entities—that’s what they call them—entities of the Southern Baptist Convention, the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee, Lifeway, which produces all of their Sunday School materials and more, Southern Seminary, and the Southern Baptist Convention itself, the whole of the Southern Baptist Convention filed what’s called an amicus brief, which is considered a friend of the court brief.  So you don’t even have to be involved in the case.  You don’t even have to be a party to the case.  You’re a friend of the court advising the court on what would be good.  So the whole of the Southern Baptist—  

Sheila: And usually, people do this—or usually organizations do this when the outcome of this court case would affect them.  And so they’re going to file this brief because they feel like I have a stake in this case even though I’m not actually a party to it.  And to be clear, the case was a horrific one about a little girl, now an adult, who had been sexually abused.  And she wanted people held accountable who had known at the time and had done nothing.

Christa: (cross talk) accountability.  Right.  And so the Southern Baptist Convention kind of put its own weight—and imagine.  This is in Kentucky where a very large part of the population is Southern Baptist, where no doubt many of those judges are Southern Baptist.  And the whole of the Southern Baptist Convention puts its weight behind opposing this case.  Now as you point out, the Southern Baptist Convention, there is another case in Kentucky that is, indeed, against the Southern Baptist Convention.  And this is probably—I think in the brief itself they even suggested that this was why they were filing it because of this other case.  So in order to protect themselves institutionally, they put their whole institutional weight of a 13-million member, multibillion dollar organization behind opposing this other girl’s case and, of course, setting precedent for countless other cases.  My point being they were willing to hurt no telling how many child sex abuse survivors for the sake of protecting themselves.  And they did this all behind the scenes.  While they’re at the convention and in other public forums talking about how much they care, talk, what they’re actually doing in actual practice is very powerfully opposing the ability of sex abuse survivors to seek justice of any kind, particularly as against the institutions that have concealed these kinds of crimes.  And the Southern Baptist Convention president himself did all this behind the scenes.  Individually, he—and he said this in one of his own blog postings.  He was the person who authorized this amicus brief.

Sheila: This is Bart Barber for everyone.  Yeah.  Bart Barber.

Christa: Yes.  On behalf of the whole of the Southern Baptist Convention despite resolutions and motions by what the messenger body had done, this is what the president authorized.

Sheila: And Al Mohler did as well.  The president of Southern Seminary.  Yeah.  So he also signed.

Christa: And Al Mohler on behalf of Lifeway—Bill Mandrell on behalf of Lifeway.  Yeah.

Sheila: And so, again, I just want to stress.  And her name is in the press, so I think it’s okay to say it.  But Samantha Killary, right?  

Christa: Correct.  That was the case.

Sheila: Yeah.  So she just wanted people held accountable who had known about her sexual abuse when she was very young and hadn’t done anything.  And the SBC stepped in and said, “No.  Don’t hold those people accountable.  Don’t give her justice.  Don’t give this woman justice for what was done to her.”  That’s what the SBC did.

Christa: And don’t even give her a chance at having justice.  Don’t even let her put the evidence on.  Yeah.

Sheila: And they won.    

Christa: Yes.  That’s right.  They did.  I mean I think if you consider the weight and power—I mean this is exactly why the Southern Baptist Convention did this because they do carry weight and power.  So it was no surprise that they did win.

Sheila: And let’s remember why they wanted to win, why this was so dangerous to them, and what—and the reason why I think they—well, actually, I should ask you because I have my own theories.  But why are they so reticent to do anything?

Christa: Because they’re protecting the institution against potential liability risks.  

Sheila: Yeah.  It comes down to money.  It’s money.

Christa: It does.  Yes.  It absolutely does.  And there is another case, which has not—because Kentucky’s law also has this process of sealing child sex abuse cases, there is another case pending.  At this point in time, the pleadings in that case are still under seal.  But that is the very case.  I believe that they fear having all of those allegations and evidence out into the public which eventually, I think, surely they probably will be.

Sheila: Yeah.  Because let’s be—and here’s the essential issue.  Okay?  So the SBC says that all the churches are autonomous, that they are just—they aren’t really a denomination.  They just cooperate on things, but that the Southern Baptist Convention itself has no power over individual churches.  And so if abuse happens in an individual church, then the Southern Baptist Convention is not responsible.  That’s what they want people to believe and to hear, and they want that to be the legal precedent.  They don’t want to be held responsible for what happens in churches.  But the problem is that quite often they knew what was happening, and they knew that pastors were getting switched from one church to the next where they would go on to abuse.  And they did nothing.

Christa: That’s exactly right.  Yes.  That’s exactly right.

Sheila: That’s what happened in your case.  Tommy Gilmore, who abused you, went to work for multiple very large churches.  Do we really believe there were no more victims?  

Christa: I don’t.  No.

Sheila: I don’t.  Yeah.    

Christa: No.  I mean that’s what makes this all so awful is many high Southern Baptist leaders have known.  They have known, and they have chosen again and again and again to prioritize money, to prioritize the protection of denominational dollars over the protection of children.  As a mother, I just find it unconscionable.

Sheila: Yeah.  I do too.  Absolutely.  And then there was the Guidepost’s report. The only thing that I read in it that I hadn’t known before—I think most of it I had already known as the Johnny Hunt story.  So Johnny Hunt was a former president of the SBC.  And he refused to be interviewed for the Guidepost’s report as did Paige Patterson.  Guideposts tried to interview as many people as possible who were on executive committees, who had done things over the years.  And most people submitted to interviews, but a lot—several key people like Paige Patterson and Johnny Hunt did not.  But they included a story, which they said they believe, that it was a credible accusation.  That Johnny Hunt, himself, had sexually assaulted a woman, who was a pastor’s wife, and they described the encounter.  And then Johnny Hunt went and sued the SBC for making this public.  And in his deposition—it’s just unbelievable.  I wrote a post about this last week, so I’ll put a link in the podcast notes so you can go read it.  In his deposition, he said it wasn’t adultery because there wasn’t intercourse.  It wasn’t sexual abuse because sexual abuse has to involve intercourse.  He said that he didn’t kiss her because he only kissed her breasts.  He didn’t kiss her lips.  What is wrong with these people?

Christa: Right.  What is wrong with these people?  Exactly.  Yeah.

Sheila: He was the president of the SBC.  

Christa: And he is still widely sought after as a speaker within evangelical circles.  Yeah.

Sheila: Yeah.  Yeah.  And so we have one president is showing an amicus brief to make sure that one particular girl never gets the chance to fight for justice.  We have this guy sexually assaulting.  We have Paige Patterson calling you a Jezebel just because you want people to care about sexual abuse victims.

Christa: Yeah.  I was named in the Guidepost report dozens of times.  My name appears in there dozens of times.  And the reason it’s there so much is precisely because of how terribly the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee treated me because the Guidepost report was really very narrowly focused on the Executive Committee, not the whole of the Southern Baptist Convention.  They treated me terribly.  They never made amends or taken any accountability.  And I think people wonder, well, why don’t the local churches do more and take more accountability.  Well, look at the example that is set at the very, very highest levels even when it’s fully documented in a multimillion dollar investigatory report.  They don’t take any institutional accountability.  The Southern Baptist Convention is—it has the resources of what would essentially be a midlevel Fortune 500 company.  Now the average Fortune 500 company—they carry liability risk.  It’s the very nature of a large institution that there are liability risks that are associated with such a large undertaking.  But large secular organizations manage those kinds of liability risks.  The problem with the Southern Baptist Convention is they want all the power of being essentially a Fortune 500 company without carrying any of the inherent responsibilities that go with that.  And that’s the wrong thing.

Sheila: Yeah.  Another thing that I found interesting in the Guidepost’s report was they talked about how when you went to speak—you were finally invited to speak to the Executive Committee.  Was this in the report, or did I read this somewhere else?

Christa: I think what you’re going to say is in the report.  (cross talk) but go ahead.  Yeah.

Sheila: Yeah.  So you were invited to speak, and you told your story of what had happened when you were abused.  You’re literally telling these men how you were abused as a teenager, and one of them starts laughing.

Christa: Yes.    

Sheila: And one of them turns his back to you.

Christa: Yes.  If you can visualize this, he literally got up and rotated in his chair so that he’s sitting in the chair backwards so that he can have his back to me.  And you’ve got this room full of men, men who are the highest leaders in the largest Protestant faith group, and not a one of those other men called that out or said whoa or in any way did anything about that kind of instability.  Can you imagine?  There I am talking about this.  The most traumatic thing of my life.  And this is how I’m treated, and no one does a thing.  This is what’s normal to them.

Sheila: Yeah.  Because you are the problem.  You are the problem, Christa.  You are the enemy.  You are Satan, right?  That’s what they think.  That’s what Josh Howerton said in that thing.  Little girls.  Shady little girls in miniskirts.  They are the enemy.

Christa: Right.  And to this day, I mean even for that horrible treatment there by the Executive Committee, there’s been no accountability for that.  It’s fully documented.  There it is.  There’s nothing.

Sheila: Have they ever apologized?  Has anyone high up ever apologized or reached out or said let’s have a follow up call?  

Christa: No.  Let’s see.  It was—these years.  I think it was 2021, maybe ’22, when on the convention floor, they did pass a resolution of lament and apology.  And they named ten of us survivors.  It was very generally worded.  It did not acknowledge any specific conduct.  Certainly didn’t acknowledge this conduct toward me.  It was very general.  I think, at that point, the media pressure was so great that they felt they had to do something.  But at the same time, what they did they didn’t draw any attention to the reality of what they had done, of their own conduct.

Sheila: Yeah.  And the fact that they’re still not doing anything.  And the reason, I think—their reasoning, if I can put myself in their shoes, is that these sexual abuse survivors are trying to take down the church.  We’re doing all this great work for Jesus.  We are spreading the Gospel.  We are doing the work of the Lord, and you guys are our enemies, who are threatening it.  And that’s how they see it.  We are doing this great work, and you are threatening our great work.  And it’s like, guys, the work of Jesus is to care for those who have been abused.  You cannot do the work of Jesus by trampling underfoot children, who have been sexually abused.  It doesn’t work that way.    

Christa: Right.  I think that is what they would certainly say is yes.  We’re doing all this great work.  We don’t want to be—we don’t want to be distracted from the mission by all of this other stuff.  That is what they would certainly say.  I think the reality is these are people who sit in control of a great deal of money and resources and power and influence.  And they want to keep that status quo.  

Sheila: Yeah.  Yeah.  Do you have any hope that things will change?

Christa: I certainly don’t have any hope—hold any hope for the Southern Baptist Convention as an institution.  What we see is that their membership numbers are dwindling quite rapidly.  I personally think that’s a good thing because an institution that doesn’t protect children—a faith institution that doesn’t protect children doesn’t deserve to have children in the pews.  But the hope I see is in the many, many, many more survivors, who are now raising their voices.  Survivors and advocates too.  I think there is value in the exposure of this truth even if the Southern Baptist Convention never changes and never does a thing then maybe they will wither and die.  Over a couple generations, people will know the truth, and they will have been very much on the wrong side of history.

Sheila: Yeah.  Absolutely.  I want to end with something that I said earlier on the podcast because this really—I might even get emotional when I say this.  It just shouldn’t be up to you.  You’ve carried a lot.  Reading in the Guidepost’s report at one point, they listed all the names that you had been called.  And it’s unbelievable the things that these supposed men of God said about you because you were like, “Hey, you got to do something about sexual abuse.”  And the pain that you have endured for years, the pain that so many other survivors, and I can think of many of them that I know on social media too who have been pushing and pushing and pushing and doing everything they can to raise awareness, and they just keep getting dismissed.  The pain of Samantha Killary, who was really bulldozed by the SBC.  It shouldn’t be on you.    

Christa: No.  It shouldn’t. 

Sheila: Which doesn’t mean we’re not grateful.  But this needs to be a wakeup call for everybody.  Things are not going to change until it’s not just on you, until it becomes our problem.  You shouldn’t have to be a sexual abuse survivor to care about clergy sexual abuse.  

Christa: Right.  No.  I really appreciate your recognition of the weight of that, Sheila.  I truly do because it has been a great weight and taken a toll.  There’s no question that this has taken a toll in my life.  But I would also say that I feel in many ways I’ve been fortunate than many survivors.  And I was aware of that from way back when.  I mean I was an attorney in my career.  I was able to afford good professional counseling.  I always felt that I had some resources.  As awful as it all was, I always felt that I had possibilities to speak that perhaps many—well, I knew I did.  Possibilities to speak that many, many survivors didn’t.  And so I felt some obligation to try to do that and still do.  But you’re right.  This burden that is—this additional weight that is put onto survivors to be the ones to keep bringing this to light, no.  It’s wrong.

Sheila: Yeah.  And the institutions are not going to change until the people in the pews stop supporting it the way it is, until they stop accepting the status quo.  And I want to say to Southern Baptist members.  There are other Baptist cooperatives that you can join.  The SBC is not the only one.  And a lot of churches have left the SBC in order to cooperate with other conventions.  There are other options.  And when you look at the history of slavery, when you look at what they’re doing now, people—you just need to ask is this really the best way that we can do.  And do we really want to export?  Because one of the reasons the SBC cooperates is for missions.  Do we really want to export all of this to the Third World?  

Christa: Which is what they’re doing.  Yes.

Sheila: Is that really the way that we’re going to spread the kingdom of God is by exporting these structures and these institutions into the Third World?  Is that really the way to do it?  

Christa: Sheila, my recollection is I think that you wrote one of the best Threads I remember seeing on this of the impact of why people should give some serious thought to walking away from such a faith group when it becomes apparent that change isn’t happening, that reform isn’t happening.  I think you wrote a Thread on that.  And the essence of it, as I recall—I’d have to go back and dig this out.  I hope I’m not speaking out of turn here.  But as I recall, the essence was by your very presence—your continued presence within this communicates to other people that this is a safe place.  And it’s not.  It’s not.

Sheila: Because it’s not just about how the SBC treats sexual abuse victims, which—and sexual abuse survivors, which we’ve been talking about here.  It’s also the Josh Howertons giving those messages.  It all goes together, right?  And what I said in that Thread, if I remember correctly—and I was in the Canadian equivalent of the SBC for quite awhile.  I’ve been in churches like this.  And I realized one day that by going I am signaling to all of my friends, who don’t go to church, that this is a safe place because they think I’m safe.  They like me.  They know I’m a neat person.  I’m a good mom.  I’ve got a great family.  And so if I’m going there, I am lending my reputation to this church.  And if I’m paying money and tithing into this church, then I am creating programs that make the church attractive to the community.  And if people then go into this church and if women then go to the pastor and say, “Hey, I’m being abused,” and the pastor then tells that women to submit more and go back to her abusive husband or if the youth pastor abuses a girl in that youth group and it’s covered up, that is partly on me because I was the one who made the church look safe even if I had issues with it, even if I thought, “Well, I can change it by staying.”  By staying, I am lending my reputation to it, and I’m letting it keep going.  And I know this is really nuanced.  And even in that Thread, I tried to give some nuance because I do believe that some people might be called to stay for a certain reason.  I mean things always work differently for different people, and I get that.  But I had to come to that realization that by staying I was lending my reputation to it.  Yeah.  

Christa: I think you’re right.  Yeah.  I do think people need to weigh that and consider it.  Yeah.

Sheila: Yeah.  Yeah.  So well, I think one of the things I got at the end of Baptistland too—which, again, great memoir.  I think this is the season of amazing memoirs.  I have so many people, who have written memoirs on this show lately.  And yeah.  It’s just been a great summer of reading all of these—they’re sad.  A lot of them are sad.  It made me think about so many different dynamics reading yours and about how abuse and trauma play out generationally and then how that affects how we experience abuse in the wider society and how we experience grooming and all kinds of stuff.  But one of the things you said at the end was that maybe the way things are going to change is by outside pressure whether it’s from the FBI, whether it’s from more reporters.  And reporters have done a stellar job.  They’ve really been heroes in all of this.  But yeah.  Let’s just keep pressure on.  On social media.  Keep talking to your pastor about this.  Keep talking to reporters.  And just don’t feel ever, people, that you need to keep anyone’s secrets.  Any church’s secrets.  

Christa: Right.  Right.

Sheila: Believe victims and stand up for victims because that’s what Jesus did.  That’s what Jesus did.  Yeah.  Yeah.

Christa: And that Department of Justice investigation is still ongoing, so that’s another thing down the road that we don’t yet know what the results of that will be.  But yeah.  I absolutely agree.  Outside pressure.  Lawsuits.  Media.  This is what will continue to bring change.    

Sheila: And remember, too, when people file a lawsuit, it isn’t them being greedy.  Sometimes they’re doing it because this is the only way to get the institution to pay attention.  And it’s sad when it comes to that.

Christa: Yes.  No.  That’s exactly right.  And by filing lawsuits, you put documents into the public record that then allow journalists to report on that.  So you get the exposure of this information, which is exactly why they filed that amicus brief to try to prevent this kind of exposure.  So yes.  I am grateful for—not every survivor can.  But for those survivors who do, we owe them a debt of gratitude because they are the ones who bring this information to light.  Just imagine if Duane Rollins had not sued Paul Pressler.  There is so much that we would not know, but it was that lawsuit that brought so much to light.

Sheila: Yeah.  Exactly.  So there’s a lot of people who are heroes in this and grateful for you, grateful for other survivors who have stood up.  And as we’re going out, I want to pick up on one thing that you said awhile ago is they’re going to end up being on the wrong side of history.  And that’s what I would just challenge our listeners to.  Do you want to be on the wrong side of history?  Because you know it’s going to be that way.  You can’t ignore abuse.  You can’t downplay abuse.  You can’t call shady little girls in miniskirts your enemy and not be on the wrong side of history.  And how do you want your kids and your grandkids to think about the faith legacy that you leave them?  There are healthy churches out there.  There are healthy faith communities that care about the abused.  And so please find a healthy one and bring life to it.  If we all just got together and went—and infused the healthy churches with more resources, then those healthy churches would become bigger instead of these ones.  So that’s my prayer.  So, Christa, any last words?  Where can people find you?  

Christa: Well, you can find me on Twitter.  I am Christa Brown 777.  I also have a Substack.  So it’s called In Solidarity so look on Substack.  Christabrown.substack.com.  And yeah.  I like engaging with people.  

Sheila: Yeah.  And I will put the links to those in the podcast notes too.  I love that you still call it Twitter and not X.  So do I.  I just can’t do the X thing.  

Christa: Me neither.  Yeah. 

Sheila: It’s always going to be Twitter to me.  Thank you, Christa.  And Christa’s book, again, is Baptistland, which is a memoir of abuse, betrayal, and transformation and really touching, really insightful.  So thank you, Christa.  

Christa: Thanks, Sheila.  Thanks for having me.  I appreciate it.

Sheila: So grateful to Christa for joining us on this Bare Marriage podcast.  And Christa was also one of the people, who was featured in the For Our Daughters documentary that Kristin Du Mez put out recently.  And a few weeks ago we had Kristin on the podcast to talk about that documentary, For Our Daughters.  And I encourage you to watch it.  Christa is featured there really well.  And a lot of these issues, if you want to learn more about them, are also featured in that documentary.  And so listen to that podcast from two weeks ago.  But even more importantly, watch the For Our Daughters documentary and share it.  Another thing that launched just this week on Monday is the Sons of Patriarchy podcast.  I think it’s going to be like a 36-podcast arc.  Podcast series that’s doing a deep dive into Doug Wilson and the problems with Doug Wilson in Moscow, Idaho.  The church that he is building.  It’s easy to think that Doug Wilson is fringe, but he’s really not.  And that’s what the podcast series is going to show is how mainstream a lot of his positions have become.  And if you’re not familiar with Doug Wilson, thank the Lord.  You’re very blessed.  But you probably are familiar with a lot of his teachings because they are infiltrating in other places even Al Mohler, one of the people who signed that amicus brief about Samantha Killary that Christa and I were talking about, the leader of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, even he was recently in a—he was platformed with Dough Wilson at a discussion forum.  And he shook Doug Wilson’s hand and shared the stage with him.  And I had a real issue with that.  So he is becoming more mainstream.  So the Sons of Patriarchy podcast, they interviewed so many survivors from Doug Wilson’s church.  They interviewed experts.  I’m on two of the episodes.  I haven’t heard what they are.  I don’t know when they’re airing, but I will be on two of them.  And there’s amazing people on them.  Kristin Du Mez, Karen Swallow Prior, Tia Levings, Cait West, all kinds of people that have been featured on the Bare Marriage podcast before.  Steve Hassan and his BITE model.  People that aren’t even necessarily Christian, but they’re experts on cults.  Anyway, so many really, really good people.  So please follow that podcast, share it because we need this information to get out there so that more people don’t get sucked in.  So thank you.  Together we can make a difference.  We can make a difference in the SBC.  We can make a difference in the broader Christian world itself, and we can make a difference in our churches.  And so pick up our toolkit.  The link is in the podcast notes.  Keep supporting what we’re doing.  And let Christa Brown be an inspiration to you that she took a deep pain in her life and she used it to stand up and fight for justice.  And even though the SBC hasn’t done a lot yet, Christa’s voice has been heard, and God has used Christa to shine a light.  And that’s important.  That’s important because it’s good to at least let organizations show you who they are.  So thank you for joining us and together we’re going to create a better church.  A church that becomes the body of Christ and that reflect Jesus better.  And I’m excited to be part of that journey with you.  So take care, and we will see you again next week on the Bare Marriage podcast.  Bye-bye.