Bethlehem Stories

A collection of stories I'm aware of from people harmed at Bethlehem Baptist Church and its connected ministries

Bethlehem Baptist Church 

Lydia Arant – Bethlehem Librarian 

Stephanie Denzer – BBC Ministry Assistant

1. Downtown Women's Staff Report - specific examples of mistreatment of women
2. Downtown Women's Staff Report - lack of follow up

Janice Perez Evans – BBC Member, Ethnic Harmony Taskforce Leader

1. When the Faithful Flee
2. Her experiences
3. Abusive Episode on Task Force

Hilary Engel – Bethlehem Worship Team 

Natalie Hoffman - Bethlehem Member 

1. Bethlehem Baptist Church Is Not a Safe Church for Women in Emotionally Abusive Relationships
2. Is Bethlehem Baptist Church Safe for Abuse Victims? 

Chris and Barb Johnson - Bethlehem Members

Jan Korbel - Bethlehem member for 34 years (if people reach out to Jan personally, she is happy to share why she left Bethlehem) 

Nick Laparra – TBI Student 2008-2012, Bethlehem Member (TBI was the precursor to BCS)

Leah Moreno – Bethlehem Member 

Amy Olney - Bethlehem Admin Assistant

Matt Perman – Director of Strategy, Desiring God 2011, Bethlehem Member

Katie Snow - Bethlehem member for 16 years (if people reach out to Katie personally, she is happy to share why she left Bethlehem) 

Jill Swanson – Bethlehem Member 1981-2010

1. BBC's association with Doug Wilson and John Piper's impact
2. Toxic Culture from way back

Steve and Janette Takata - BBC Members

1. Andy Naselli's treatment of the Takatas
2. Bringing grievances against Andy Naselli, to have them all dismissed
3. BBC's failures to promote truth and accountability
4. What Happened At Bethlehem Baptist Church (Part 1)
5. What Happened At Bethlehem Baptist Church (Part 2)
6. Details on the elder letter to Takatas, seeming to silence them and prevent them from bringing another motion

Brenda Thorsen – Disability Coordinator, South Campus, 2016

Ming-Jinn Tong - Downtown Pastor for Neighborhood Outreach

1. Goodbye Letter to Bethlehem
2. Reflections on Power
3. Church Hurt
   

Bethlehem College and Seminary

Johnathon and Crystal Bowers - Bethlehem Members and BCS Professor

1. Resignation Letter
2. Resignation Statement to BCS and Piper's Response
3. Response to Abigail Dodds criticism (also addressing Piper's response)
4. Specific examples of Joe Rigney's comments on race and abuse
5. BCS investigation as expression of institutional dysfunction
6. John Piper's influence behind the dysfunction at BBC, BCS, DG etc.
7. How friends and faculty responded
8. Crystal's reflections

Jamie Carlson - BCS Staff

Matt Denzer - BCS Seminary Student

1. Seeing sexism at BCS
2. Seeing racism at BCS
3. Response to Tabb's "review" of A Church Called Tov

Daniel Kleven - BCS Grad (both college and seminary), BCS Director of Admissions 

1. "Bethlehem College and Seminary, Ethnic Harmony, and Doug Wilson"
   
2. Why I spoke to Julie Roys About Leaving Bethlehem
3. Institutional process used to suppress substantial disagreement
   
4. Emotional Blackmail and the Sin of Empathy
5. Reflections on Natalie Hoffman's excommunication and the dysfunctional system that led to his own voting yes (with his regret & apology)
6. NDAs at Bethlehem

Wanja Kuria – BCS College Student and Ethnic Harmony Taskforce Member

Benjamin and Chloe Lantzer - BCS Seminary Family 

1. Benjamin's threads 
2. Experience of a Sem Wife
3. Reflections on Piper's Response to the Bowers resignation
4. 90-minute interview on "The Bodies Behind the Bus" podcast, describing his experience at BCS

Tyler Stitt - BCS Seminary Student and Interim Director for Worship and Music

Eric - BCS M.A. Student 

1. Experience with his Greek professor and leadership
2. Follow up interaction

miserable mod - BCS College Student 

Campus Outreach Minneapolis 

Campus Outreach is the college ministry of Bethlehem Baptist Church, and is a leadership pipeline.  Multiple pastors and elders at Bethlehem started as Campus Outreach staff

Ann Elizabeth Mekela – Campus Outreach Staff 

1. Emotional, Psychological, and Spiritual Abuse At Campus Outreach
2. John Piper talking about biblical manhood and womanhood
3. Sexually abusive environment at Campus Outreach

Cities Church

Cities Church was planted out of Bethlehem with multiple former Bethlehem people on staff. Joe Rigney (president of Bethlehem College and Seminary) is one of the primary preachers there.   

Sarah and Sahr Brima - Bethlehem Members, Cities Church Members.  

1. Coming out of complementarianism
2. Joe Rigney's words about hypothetically owning the Brimas
3. Cities Church's treatment of women  
4. Reflections on empathy is sin as protection from critique

Training Leaders International 

Training Leaders International was birthed out of Bethlehem Baptist Church with Tom Steller (former BBC Pastor and Dean of BCS, now elder and global partner at BBC) on the board and John Piper as an advisory member.  

Aaron Brown - TLI Global Partner

Logan and Molly Copley - TLI Global Partner 

Some side notes - 

1) Each person is labeled with the role they had in the context of their story.  I didn't want to clutter things up with "former this, former that" for every single person.  

2) Even though the stories are sorted by ministry, all of these stories are interwoven because they all ultimately connect to Bethlehem Baptist Church.  The leadership at one ministry is often shared (shared elders in leadership or transferred from one to another) and people at one institution often end up appealing to BBC leadership as well.  

3) I'm not entirely sure as to how to organize the stories within the groupings.  I've defaulted to alphabetical by last name.  Every story is important.  

4) I also made the choice to try to summarize stories/comments when there are multiple different threads by the same person.  I recognize that that risks putting my words over theirs, but I also didn't want to make it impossible for readers to navigate around the links.  

5) I'm open to clarifications of people's roles/details and suggestions for better ways to organize to honor the people with stories.  There are a few additional stories that were not included here though were included (with permission) in our open letter.  Since I didn't ask about putting them in a webpage (where their names would be searchable), they aren't included here.  I'm also happy to add new stories (or remove yours if you'd rather not be included).