Our Redeemer Story: The Epilogue
Nothing’s gonna hurt you the way that words do
When they settle ‘neath your skin
Kept on the inside and no sunlight
Sometimes a shadow wins
But I wonder what would happen if youSay what you wanna say
And let the words fall out
Honestly I wanna see you be brave — Sara Barreilles
I hugged my former pastors.
Those really aren’t words I ever thought I’d say.
If you’ve made it this far, you know where things left off. While I haven’t shared the depths of the pain that was the aftermath of this time in our lives, suffice it to say, we know it was nothing short of an act of God that our marriage, our mental health, and our family remain intact. Not always great, not always thriving, but intact.
But I need to back up because I left off in 2021 saying I’d share more in the new year and it’s been several months and I’ve shared nothing.
2019 and 2020 were years of upheaval for Redeemer. Several staff and pastors left the church and a third party was brought in to investigate the leadership of the church upon allegations of abuse. The investigation, as deeply flawed as it was in not truly listening to the voices of those harmed and not seeing the depth of the abuse (for instance some former members reached out to tell their stories and were told the quota was full for former members and the pastors that abused them were cc’d on the reply emails so that they could pursue reconciliation with them personally…), it STILL found that Kevin Cawley needed to go and a major restructuring needed to happen.
So what did Redeemer do? Gave Kevin a 1 year fully paid (six figure) sabbatical and the investigative organization walked away due to lack of willingness from Redeemer elders to take any of their suggestions seriously.
Yes, you read that right. The head abuser is currently taking a one year paid vacation in order to “heal”. His victims have gotten nothing.
The church also orchestrated the sale of an historic building it purchased years ago (Katz — across the street from the church) at a profit of millions to a gentrifying developer with a massive tax abatement to continue to turn the area surrounding the church into their target audience. A dear friend whose life was also torn apart by the church even reached out asking if any of those millions could cover therapy costs for the abused. In a surprise to no one, there’s been no response yet. We are not holding our breath.
I also told our story on a podcast that is capturing stories of abuse from within the Acts 29 network — aptly named “The Bodies Behind the Bus”.
So with that as a backdrop…
This week we met with both Kris and Gregory and their wives. Both men reached out to me via email after I posted our story. They came forward with a posture of humility and regret; a foreign experience for me from men in church leadership. Because of that, it felt safe enough to invite them to our home, separately, to attempt the beginnings of the work that is reconciliation — awareness and acknowledgement of the depth of the problem and hurt.
I struggle to tell this part of the story for a couple reasons. First, I don’t wish to tell anyone’s story but my own. I also know that even in telling my own story, others were wounded.
I think this is largely shaped by the divide in understanding that leads me to my second thought; there’s a deep desire that I truly understand to want to look at Redeemer through one of two lenses. Either it’s a horribly broken *system* for which no one comes out unscathed, and while we were all actors in it and can take some level of personal responsibility for that, in the end, the buttons pushed and levers pulled were part of a machine, a system, and THAT is what chewed us up and spit us out. Therefore blaming individual actors is not only fruitless and unnecessary, but perhaps even lacking in compassion.
Or, its a conglomeration of *individuals* who made horrible choices in concert with one another and in ways that played off of each’s leadership style. People hurt people, and while it happened within a church, it is the responsibility of the individuals involved to fully own their choices and act accordingly. There’s no sense in blaming structures for individual choices, this mindset would say.
In this way, I can’t help but think of the conversations about racism and the push from one side to say it’s about individual hatred and the other to say it’s about systems and structures. Both have a point to make. There’s truth in both and also a missing of the fullness in both. I’m thoroughly camp, “why not both?”
I don’t think there’s a healthy and healing way forward without acknowledging the system is broken and abusive and controlling, and that those who built it and operated it are also autonomous human beings who were likely manipulated, but are ultimately responsible for their complicity or active involvement.
Therefore, meeting with individual pastors (both of whom left the church in 2019 and 2020) is healthy and healing and necessary on a personal level, but also isn’t system change. It takes much more time and relational capital to peel apart and make sense of the reality of both.
Here’s what I know more than anything.
People are deeply wounded by Redeemer, both those who were the abused and those who acted as intermediaries: being both abused and carrying it out simultaneously. Sometimes telling the stories of being inside the system adds to the pain of those who used to operate it. It points to the complexity of the issues, but also, I think there’s benefit to be had in naming both systems and individuals. The only beneficiaries of our silence is the system that keeps on, and the individuals not held to account as they continue to pull those levers and push those buttons. There is freedom in both leaving the system, but also in naming and claiming both our individual role and the reality the system exists.
Meanwhile, my inbox has been flooded with stories; with broken people who have been carrying this pain quietly, internalizing it, wondering if maybe they really were the problem? And somehow, someway, felt me safe enough to shoulder it with them. I attempted to do so. I don’t know if I fully honored everyone’s story well enough. In honesty, it was a lot to carry and take in, and still I’d do it 100 times over again, only wishing my own emotional capacity was enough to honor each story and each person in the way they deserved. I wish I could give each a six figure, paid, year-long sabbatical to “work on themselves”. But alas, we honor and reward those with power over those crushed by it.
For them. For the crushed. For the abused. For those who never had a chance to change the system. For those who would never be given an ounce of power. For the women who were deemed too loud and the men deemed not in control of their wives. For the Black members for whom the quota was met and their presence and voice disorienting and deemed a threat. For those whose influence and ideas were never going to be honored. For the whistleblowers and the truth tellers.
For you, for me, I will keep speaking truth.
