One-sentence Summaries of Why We Left Bethlehem Baptist Church

My friend has mused that she needs an elevator speech to explain why she left Bethlehem.  People will ask, and she's tempted to say, "Do you have 3 hours?"  So I wanted to share some long, medium, and short reasons why we left, in case that helps anyone else.  

Joe Rigney's Resignation

Joe Rigney resigned as president of Bethlehem College & Seminary on April 3.  I found many of the online responses helpful.  I'm linking here to capture them in one place:

Examples of Impression Management at Bethlehem

I finished reading Wade Mullen's book Something's Not Right:  Decoding the Hidden Tactics of Abuse--and Freeing Yourself from Its Power and was struck by how many of the impression management tactics listed in the book I've seen the elders employ at Bethlehem.  We alluded to this in our open letter, but at that point Mickey had read the whole book, while I had only dipped into it.  I finished reading it, pen in hand, and wanted to share a list of examples I found.  I fully agree with Mickey's assessment that the playbook is eerily similar to the tactics we've seen used at Bethlehem.  I encourage everyone to read Wade Mullen's book in full.

Two Approaches to Dirty Laundry

This story captures two different approaches to the problems at Bethlehem.  I've left out names because I want to focus here on the two approaches rather than the specific people involved.  

In March 2021, two Bethlehem elders visited a small group.  We'll call them B (for Bethlehem College & Seminary, where he is still in a leadership role) and N (who is Not at Bethlehem anymore).

An Analogy: Bethlehem as a Burning Building

This analogy helps capture how I feel about the problems at Bethlehem. I found it helpful to have a visual image.

Covering Up a Lie Feels More Betraying Than the Initial Lie

There were at least two lies spoken by elders at the Bethlehem meeting on 7/11/21.  Instead of acknowledging this and apologizing, the elders further evaded the truth in the smaller Q&As a month later.  In many ways, the secondary deception felt even more betraying than the initial lies, because it confirmed that the elders knew there were problems with what certain elders had said on 7/11, and yet their response was cover-up, not confession.

50+ Things I'm Thankful for (I Think?) from My Years at Bethlehem

I finally requested to have my name removed from membership at Bethlehem.  I kept delaying because it felt so heavy to cut ties with a place where I had attended for 21 years.  It was startling to realize that I had been at Bethlehem longer than I've been married.  Longer than I've had my driver's license.  Longer than my 18 years of childhood.  Other than family, I can't think of any other tie in my life that has been as long-lasting.

An official response to our open letter

Below is an email from Tim Johnson, the new Chairman of Bethlehem's elder council (Kurt Elting-Ballard was the former Chair.  He and Tim Johnson have apparently swapped roles and Kurt is now the vice-Chair (which Tim previously had).  It was sent on Feb. 11, 2022.  A few comments below the email.  

Reflections on the Prophetic Visions Shared at Bethlehem 1 Year Ago

Last year on this date (3/26) there was an amazing Bethlehem downtown family meeting.  It was definitely my highlight of the year at church.  I'm writing about it now to share the visions with those who weren't there and to reflect on them.

A Letter From Pastor Steven Lee to the North Campus of Bethlehem Baptist Church

This was sent August 10 to the North Campus email list.  Portions of this letter were read at a 8/12 smaller Q&A that was hosted at the Downtown Campus.  It's reproduced below for future reference.  (I've redirected the links so they point to the correct site without the email tracking.)

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

"But Look At The Fruit"

As we've raised our concerns at Bethlehem, one common response has been, "But look at the fruit." Several elders responded to our open letter by pointing to the good things happening at Bethlehem. One elder pointed to heartfelt Sunday worship and helpful sermons. Another elder pointed to good ministry happening overseas. Another one described an encouraging Global Focus week. And they didn't really engage with our concerns. So it seemed as though they were saying, "But look at the fruit!" I'm using fruit here as an umbrella term for any seemingly good ministry happening, either at Bethlehem itself (e.g. small groups, Sunday morning worship and preaching, Bible studies, etc.) or in the ministries it has launched (e.g. church plants, Global Partners, Campus Outreach, etc.)

Spiritual Abuse at Bethlehem

I believe that the leadership and system at Bethlehem Baptist Church are spiritually abusive.  I do not say those words lightly.  It has taken us some time to get to this point.  When we wrote our open letter and our one month retrospective, we deliberately avoided the term "spiritual abuse" because we weren't sure it fully applied.  Since writing the letter, we have learned a great deal.  We've learned more about what spiritual abuse is, we've heard more personal stories, and we've also learned more about what the elders have been aware of and done in the last years.  Collectively, that new information made us realize the actions we thought seemed "off" were actually far more sinister than we initially thought.  I now feel comfortable using the term "spiritual abuse" to describe what the elders are doing and have done at Bethlehem.  Why? 

There's Just One Bucket

I had a helpful conversation with a friend who connected two things I had thought were totally separate.  As Mickey and I have waded through all the issues at Bethlehem, I've been trying hard to keep 2 groups of issues separate.  I've mentally sorted them into 2 buckets, which I'll call "culture wars" and "problematic behavior."  The culture wars bucket includes things like people's views on gender and race, who they voted for, views on Covid, etc.  The problematic behavior bucket includes things like misuse of power, misuse of authority, domineering, cover-up, and deception.

An attempted apology about BBC's NDA lie

In a surprising turn, the two separate posts I made recently have intersected.  I had posted about Ken Currie's lies about there being not even a mention of NDAs at Bethlehem.  I had also posted some reflections about harm, apologies, and forgiveness.  

In response to Janette Takata's initial post about Ken Currie's lie, he emailed her an apology.  You can see on the link her rationale for posting it, as well as get a sense of Steve's reception of the apology with his answer.  Below is Ken's apology with some of my own reflections: 

NDAs at Bethlehem

*NDA - Non-Disclosure/Disparagement Agreement, used in some contexts to silence unhappy employees by promising severance in exchange for silence, an extremely harmful practice.  

When we sat down with two elders to discuss our letter prior to making it public (we had sent it to the elders 6 weeks before we went public with it), one of them observed that it appeared that we were claiming that since what we saw was so concerning, it must have meant there was worse elsewhere.  We said that yes, that was one of our fears - it felt like the church was this dark room and we were trying to shine our flashlight on something we saw was concerning and were pleading for them to "turn on the lights" (have an outside investigation).  That elder reassured us that there wasn't worse on other walls (to take the dark room analogy), implying even though things looked concerning, things were fine.  

Harm, apologies, and forgiveness

This post is prompted by the interactions recounted by the Julie Roys podcast What Happened at Bethlehem Baptist Church (Part 2) as well as Julie Roys' Opinion: Bethlehem Baptist, Apologies and “Unintentional Sin”.  Of particular note is the linked transcript of Dr. Naselli's apology to the Takatas in the opinion piece.  Excerpts from the apology are played in the podcast so you can get a sense of Dr. Naselli's intonation and context.  Frankly, I found his apology frustrating and disappointing, very much not in keeping with what I would expect out of an apology from a professor at seminary and an elder of Bethlehem.  Unfortunately, this type of non-apology has sadly become commonplace at Bethlehem.  I could name multiple examples I've seen from the past year.  For another public one, see Pastor Kenny's "apology" to Julie Roys.  

Thoughts on "What Happened at Bethlehem Baptist Church, Part 2"

The second half of the podcast by Julie Roys: "What Happened at Bethlehem Baptist Church, Part 2".  Various reflections on not only the podcast itself, but also the primary source documents that are linked at the bottom.  

Reflections on "What Happened at Bethlehem Baptist Church? Part 1"

Julie Roys posted a podcast: part 1 of an interview with Janette and Steve Takata about their experience at Bethlehem.  

Prior to sending our our letter, Hannah and I were only vaguely aware of the stuff that had happened with the Takatas.  Hannah was at the members meeting in January where they brought their motions.  She saw how Andy dramatically escalated the stakes with his threat to resign.  We also saw the emails sent out by Andy Naselli and the other elders following up, but we didn't really know any of what had happened behind the scenes.  As we wrote our letter, we didn't lean on the Takatas as a primary source, though Daniel was more familiar with their story and filled in a little bit of backstory, so glimpses of how they were treated showed up in our letter.  

BCS and narrowing orthodoxy

Some reflections prompted by a twitter thread.  It is an email from a prospective student recounting his interview for seminary with Andy Naselli, where Naselli asked him a number of questions about hot button culture war topics (Critical Race Theory, Jesus and John Wayne, Complementarianism) because (according to Naselli) the church and school have decided the Elder Affirmation of Faith isn't enough and they want to filter out broad evangelicals.