“On the evidence of two or three witnesses”
A post centered around 1 Timothy 5:19. I will discuss:
Many people have come forward claiming harm by Vista Church
Finding and listening to those who have been harmed
Biblical requirements to hear a charge against elders
A mountain of dead bodies
Over twenty (and counting)
Seeing clearly.
The count stands at more than twenty who have given me permission to count them publicly as having experienced harm at Vista Church. I knew about exactly zero of these (the count does not include myself and Paula) when I left Vista church, and I learned about a number of them after I published my letter. I’m also being very careful about who I include in this count – they need to have explicitly agreed to me including them as having been harmed, even if I already know that they have been. What I’m saying is that this number is absolutely undercounting the scale of the damage.
Until I wrote my letter, I was unsure of the effect of Vista on college students. “Maybe they just graduated,” I thought. I was wrong. A significant portion of those who reached out has been individuals who were in college when they experienced the harm.
These counts are not final – and I encourage others who suffered or were harmed by their time at Vista Church to reach out to me. I will hold anonymity and confidentiality fully.
Can you see them?
In my letter, I said that I discussed the spiritual abuse I’d experienced with a small group leader at Vista Church. I asked him to read through Michael Kruger’s blog series , as well as the first chapter or two of Wade Mullen’s book Something’s Not Right . After doing so, he told me that he didn’t see enough evidence to act quickly but promised to continue investigating after I left. The specific thing he said he did not see was the “pile of dead bodies” that the resources said would be present in an abusive church.
At the time, I had no answer to that. To be honest, I was unprepared for the idea that this friend would not see what happened as worth acting on quickly. But now, with myself, Leaving the Network (LTN), the reddit (with almost 400 joined), thousands reading, and the twenty-plus people above, I say to him and others: Do you see the pile of dead bodies now? And if not, how many dead bodies will it take? Biblically, the answer is “two or three”, which I will discuss in a moment. It shouldn’t take dozens or hundreds. But even if it did, we now know that there are.
The silence of victims
Some of you might say that these victims should have come forward sooner. That they should have had more courage or more fight in them. But investigating abuse requires that you understand that many victims move on in silence for many reasons. Experts say you should never, ever judge a victim for their silence.
In the case against USA Gymnastics Dr. Larry Nassar (serial sex abuse of young female gymnasts), more than 200 victims eventually came forward, spanning more than a decade of abuse. Were they cowards for not coming forward sooner? Did they lack courage? Did it not matter to them? Did they make up their story when Rachael Denhollander’s came out? No. According to her book What is a Girl Worth? published after the successful prosecution, victims simply looked at the facts. They understood that the power Nassar had meant they would never be believed. They chose not to open themselves to the further trauma that likely would have resulted from trying. Those who had power to stop Nassar failed and enabled his abuse. The victims did nothing wrong by protecting themselves. The final chapter of her book describes the people in power who could have stopped Nassar’s abuse years earlier but did not. I cried listening to it thinking of how many he abused after he should have been stopped.
After I left Vista, I began reconnecting with others who had previously left. I was shocked to hear their stories. I had no idea these people had left for similar reasons to my own, especially since Luke and Mark had told me sanitized versions about why some of them had left. After my letter went out, I heard from even more people.
The dead bodies amount to a pile, a mountain. And what’s more: they’re not actually dead. They still speak. You just have to be willing to listen.
What the Bible says
1 Timothy 5:19-21: “Do not admit a charge against an elder except on the evidence of two or three witnesses. As for those who persist in sin, rebuke them in the presence of all, so that the rest may stand in fear. In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus and of the elect angels I charge you to keep these rules without prejudging, doing nothing from partiality.”
However, here we see that a process is given for what happens if a leader is in sin: admit the charge on the evidence of two or three witnesses. When I left, I did not know of a third witness beyond my wife and I, and I speculated that there was a strong chance we would be dismissed as being only two, not three. We thought we were alone, so did not raise the charge.
Now we know we were not alone. There are many more than needed, according to the only applicable standard laid out in the bible. For the leaders to ignore this charge and thus refuse to investigate it is to act unbiblically, without repentance, every single day. And to this sin, everyone in the church is a witness. If the leaders claim to have investigated the charges brought by LTN, the reddit, and myself, I’d ask what kind of investigation doesn’t interview those bringing the charges or inform them of the result. It should also be obvious that the leaders are not qualified to investigate themselves. Verse 21 says that these instructions are to be carried out without prejudging or partiality. Allowing the leaders to be the judges of their own behavior invites exactly those things. Partnering with a third party like GRACE is a great way to handle something like this. I’ll have more to say about that in an upcoming post. Scot McKnight also does an excellent job outlining the beginnings of a framework for survivor-centered investigations (he’s talking specifically about sexual abuse, but it would easily apply to other forms as well).
If you would like to counter that those of us who claim harm are no longer part of the church, I’d respond four ways:
Elders are required to be “well thought of by outsiders,” (1 Timothy 3:7) and no distinction is made that former members do not count.
Even 1 Timothy 5:19 does not require the witnesses to be part of the church.
Even if you did allow those who left to be excluded, be careful. The church gives the elders the authority to excommunicate anyone at any time. By making this allowance, you would be incentivizing them to simply push out anyone who looks like they are having concerns. Notably, that type of behavior is what you see reported repeatedly on LTN and the reddit.
Finally, are you entirely sure that there aren’t members of the church presently experiencing abuse? Many of my examples in my letter, as well as shared on the reddit and LTN occurred in public, being committed against the entire church. Additionally, this excellent article from The Gospel Coalition does an excellent job stating that it’s the responsibility of the elders, not the victim, to ensure a charge is investigated properly and to look for additional witnesses. It also does an outstanding job of describing the toll that pursuing accountability takes on victims of abuse – I can attest personally that the last nine months have cost me and my family dearly, and that continued engagement only costs more. New experiences, new disappointments, new traumas. But I continue because it needs done.
Summary
There is a pile – a mountain – of dead bodies. Leaders: how many do you need to see before it warrants investigation? 10? 20? 50? 100? 500? The bible says two or three is sufficient to admit the charge.
Those who are in the church, a humble suggestion, which you can do what you want with: Weep for the wounded. Care for them. Many have suffered from the abuses they endured and the isolation and shunning that happened after. Reach out to those you know who left the church, with the love of Christ and be like the good Samaritan. Don’t just walk to the other side of the road and pretend you don’t see them. Listen to them, tend to their wounds, and protect them, even if it’s uncomfortable to hear what they have to say. And then expect your leaders to take these allegations seriously.
As always, I love you all, including the leaders. Leaders - humble yourselves. Hear the charges. Turn from sin. Let Christ exalt you in your humility.
A side note: This article is centered around Vista Church in San Luis Obispo, CA, but I would apply it to any church in The Network or with abuse allegations generally.