Note: Scott was on the pre-release reading and review group for Rachael Denhollander’s books. However, they just released this week to the public, and they are well worth us bumping his review back to the top. Both were available, at last check, from Lifeway as well as other booksellers.
I have just finished two books which belong in everyone’s personal libraries. The author of these books is Rachael Denhollander, a significant survivor voice in the midst of the Larry Nassar predatory abuse scandal in USAG (United States of America Gymnastics) and MSU (Michigan State University). In the book What is a Girl Worth?, Rachael chronicles her life, courageously sharing her experiences regarding predatory sexual abuse and her journey as a survivor. In her other book, How Much is a Little Girl Worth?, Rachael shares a poem she has written focused on this important question, especially as a mom with three little daughters.
Let me begin my review with Rachael’s children’s book, How Much is a Little Girl Worth?. This book is a wonderfully illustrated and poignantly stated affirmation of worth for the young ladies in our families. The illustrations, by Morgan Huff, help to carry the important message of a little girl’s value to everyone. The very intentional depiction of girls of varied ethnic backgrounds is a testament to the author’s grasp of the universal impact of the challenges little girls face in our world today. I also appreciate the clear statements of a parent’s, in this case a mom’s, commitment to protect and defend her daughter from anyone seeking to diminish, demean, or destroy her. This commitment is spoken so carefully and clearly that a child will appreciate the care of her mom or dad, while the parents reading this book will be reminded of and encouraged in continued resolve to thwart any ill will of any predators. I pray that this brief, powerful book will be an encouragement to families with little girls as well as to our churches as we recognize our privilege, and responsibility, to walk alongside these little ones and their families as we help protect, value, and empower them for the future our Lord has prepared for them.
In What is a Girl Worth?, Rachael’s memoir, she candidly shares with her reader her story. In a thoroughly engaging conversational manner, Rachael communicates significant components of her early years, prior to the abuse by Mr. Nassar. As I read this opening section of her book, I came to see a more complete picture regarding who Rachael Denhollander is. For me, this aspect of her book, which carries throughout every page, helped to humanize the lady I had only seen speak in very challenging, crucial circumstances, namely on panels such as the one at the SBC annual meeting this year in Birmingham. Hearing from her on that panel–and in the various video sections of the curriculum, Becoming a Church that Cares Well for the Abused–I saw Rachael as a tenacious and forthright advocate for abuse survivors…and a challenger to us, individually and corporately, as believers to step up and do what is just and right regarding the issue of predatory abuse. I am forever grateful for this aspect of her book beautifully juxtaposing her “pit bull like” tenacity and her vulnerability as she struggled through the challenges as a survivor.
As I continued reading What is a Girl Worth?, I encountered moments of anger, shock, mourning, tears, encouragement, laughter, and celebration. Reading about her prior experience of sexual abuse, years before the encounter with Mr. Nassar, within the context of a local church was a serious shock. I had not heard of that aspect of her story before reading this book. Hearing that part of her story increases my resolve to lead my church and encourage other churches to be those which care well for abuse survivors…right now! In addition to those kinds of shocking moments are the heart-touching moments like the wonderful story of God bringing her husband, Jacob, into her life. I’ve read the humor from his Twitter account. Seeing, through Rachael’s eyes, his God-honoring compassion and care for her as friend and husband is a point in her book which brought me both to tears and cheers. Simply awesome! As I read the last word of Rachael’s book and closed the cover, having read all that was involved in bringing justice to Mr. Nassar and for all the survivors who regained their voice and have been clearly heard, I am challenged in my resolve to live my life honoring and caring for the women and girls God has brought into my life–from my wife, to my Mom and extended family, to my church family, and to all others.
I encourage, even implore, everyone to pick up a copy of Rachael Denhollander’s books. They are available now for pre-order on sites like Amazon (children’s), Barnes & Noble (children’s) and ChristianBook.com (children’s) and will be shipped and available in bookstores like Mardel’s on September 10.
We owe a great deal to Rachael Denhollander.
She and her husband were asked by their church leadership to consider leaving their church because of her open criticism of CH Mahaney, whom the pastoral leadership in their church loved and enjoyed annually at T4G, promoted his books etc.
Much of the SBC leadership (including some of those now leading the SBC sexual abuse prevention efforts) protected and promoted Mahaney, or ignored him, for many years, even after it was known how badly Mahaney’s churches handled sexual abuse. Even a resolution passed at an annual SBC meeting could not dissuade them from their loyalty to him.
Denhollander’s CT interview broke that log jam with the Reformed crowd and their young acolytes.
Patterson (who is not one of the cool kids) also made a contribution toward changing minds.
And the Houston Chronicle stories lit a fire under everyone.
It’s good that more churches in the SBC are now working on this issue.
Ms. Denhollander has a lot to do with that.
Louis,
As I read that part of Rachael’s and Jacob’s story, I was extremely disappointed in that church’s leadership. I am thankful for her uncompromising courage to help be an agent of change within the SGC and T4G communities, especially our SBC leaders connected there.
Thanks, Scott.
It’s a part of the story that bears remembering. Not for purposes of unforgivness, but as a reminder of how badly hero worship and group think can affect the best of us.
This is not the first time that local pastor has been brought up on this blog. From what I have heard of that situation from someone who personally knows that pastor well, he is a really faithful man who is doing really good work in his context. It seems like he is going to be brought up as a villain here occasionally. There is at least one SBC seminary president who was friends with CJ who was not publicly disagreeing with CJ until earlier this year (if I remember correctly). Maybe, we don’t all have to condemn this local, faithful pastor for also not publicly parting with CJ sooner. I don’t know how he would handle that situation today, but I want to believe it would be different.
Should “really faithful” pastors who are “doing really good work” not be held to account for their church and abuse that occurs therein? Few would agree that they should not but it is the most common reaction to clergy/church based abuse – “Well, he’s a really good man and this is a very effective church.”
This type of reaction has a cost for all of us.
I’ll pick up RD’s book one of these days and read it. I appreciate the review.
William,
I do not understand your response. The pastor we are talking about is not accused of any sort of abuse or hiding any sort of abuse. He is accused of disagreeing with RD. Are you suggesting everyone who disagrees with RD is on the same level as abusers or those who try to cover up abuse? Should we label all people who disagree with RD that way?
It is really really hard to get asked to leave a SBC church. Pastors want really godly and articulate people like RD to stick around. Whatever happened in this situation must have been difficult for all parties. I can’t imagine that this pastor wanted that outcome. However, I dont think we should throw him into the category of villain anymore than we should throw any of you into such a category if a former member mentions you negatively in a book.
David, that’s the thing. The church Rachel attended as an adult did not have an abuse issue as I understand it. They were promoting Mahaney, and Rachel did not like him.
Such a good review Scott. I hope and want to get the books to read to both myself and my granddaughters. Jacob, Rachael’s husband is such a wonderful husband, father, and human being. His support of her is nothing short of a role model for males, as her support for him is a role model for young girls and women. Thank you Scott.
Thank you, Debbie. Both books are amazing blessings. Rachael is a champion, and Jacob is, too. I pray that as our convention works through this issue of predatory abuse in our midst, we will listen to her and the other survivors who have been abused within our churches. We need to do better, and I believe we will.
Louis,
You present a good, balanced view.
David R. Brumbelow
Thanks, David.
I love and have relationships with many on all sides of SBC life. Our convention is diverse and each person, movement, camp etc. has something to offer. And they each have faults.
I’m glad you comment here and look forward to your future contributions.
David Griffin:
I do not know the name of the man who was the Denhollander’s pastor or the particulars regarding the matter.
I merely know what Mrs. Denhollander told Christianity today.
I cannot imagine any pastor asking a couple like the Denhollanders to leave the church because they did not like a public religious leader whom their pastor admired.
It seems to me to be beyond the pastoral calling or proper church membership qualifications to insist that all of the church members show admiration to the people the pastor believes should be honored.
Pastors and elders don’t get to dictate the tastes and opinions of others on matters like that. That sounds cultish to me.
The fact that so many leaders looked the other way with Mahaney and SGM, and believed Mahaney’s narrative can be summed up in believing the best in people we love.
No new information was disclosed about Mahaney between the last time he had been praised and absolved and Mrs. Denhollander’s interview with CT.
It just took sunlight, the publication of that interview, to show things in a new light.
Let’s hope going forward that we will all be more wise, and that it won’t take embarrassment from the press to cause us to use the common sense and wisdom God gave us.
I’m not sure it took embarrassment for things to change in this situation. My understanding of the situation is that CJ was invited. Then RD objected, but the pastor didn’t refuse to allow CJ to come. After that apparently (I dont know what exactly happened), she left the church. I think it would be a poor reading of the situation to say that the pastor was so enthralled with CJ that he could not take someone else not liking him. It sounds a lot more like two godly persons, RD and the pastor, disagreeing. Paul and Barnabas disagreed over John Mark. They were especially godly people or many of us would think so. That can happen. Neither party has to be a villain for that to happen.
A lot of godly people liked CJ. Probably, many still do. I would say the same is true for Paige Patterson. If a similar situation happened over PP. Neither party would have to be a villain for good brothers and sisters in Christ to disagree.
David
The shepherd has no staff; neither Mahaney nor the local pastor. If you manage people 9 Marks style, your lapses in judgement and lack of oversight are especially harmful to the positionally vulnerable under your care.
Her church did respond with an apology for their actions.
I dont know what you mean about having “no staff.” Also, you just judged and found wanting a whole lot of pastors without knowing many of them or how they would actually handle the situations you speak of.
The church apologized? Good on them then.
David
I refer to the pastor, singular, as you did earlier in this thread. “No staff” is an allusion to the king who had no clothes in the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale. Some combination of complicity, fear, and positional preservation caused a collective delusion amongst the people. Only a simple and unpretentious child was willing to utter the truth. In Andersen’s story, only the king maintains the pretense in the end. The voice of the child awakened the Kong’s subjects, but I doubt that many of them reflected on their part in the delusion.
Whether there was an attempt to cover up abuses within SGM or not, Mahaney promoted a style or system of church governance emphasizing the role of church leaders in in guiding and protecting people. He left the vulnerable sheep in cages with wolf sized holes while he paraded his wisdom on the speaker, conference, and forum circuit. Moses spent 40 humble years in the desert where he learned to listen to the voice of God and wise advisers. There was no pretense of personal wisdom or eloquence in his demeanor as he spoke to the people, for the people, and to God. He was no longer doing business on his own terms. CJ, though taking a little time off, never really seemed to lose control of the process. His public supporters disregarded victims directly in his defense and indirectly as they welcomed him back to the public platform. Rachel’s pastor and elders were part of this crowd. Many of these men project themselves as guardians of the faith, but their staff seemed invisible when it came to Mahaney.
Speaking of the local church and local pastors, they’ve been been done a great disservice by the church of public personality. They do themselves a great disservice and weaken the concept of the local church when they west themselves and their flock in the church of public personality. We prove ourselves fools when we publicly embrace and discard these personalities without a hint of private discernment on the front end or a sense of ongoing private care on the back end. Neither give evidence of our love for each other.
All, it was Immanuel Baptist (immanuelky.org) and they since have publicly repented. Whether or not that is in the book, I thought it was worth noting. Seems like they did wrong, figured out they did wrong, and admitted it.
https://immanuelky.org/articles/we-were-rachaels-church/
https://www.christianpost.com/news/rachael-denhollanders-former-church-apologizes-mishandling-ex-gymnasts-concerns-sovereign-grace.html
(and many others links…)
It’s a good thing that the church responded with an apology.
The bigger question is what kind of advice and teaching led them down this path to begin with.
The problem starts there.
Had the members not been the Denhollanders, and had they not gotten a CT interview that went viral, the Denhollanders would have just been another nameless casualty.
It is a very good thing this church came to its senses.
What kind of advice or teaching led them down this path? CJ was a really godly, faithful guy who preached at T4G for years. Many of the pastors who attended T4G would likely have been happy to have him in their church until recently. Before the metoo movement, many pastors would not have fully realized the harm caused in this situation just like this pastor did not realize it. It’s not intentional harm, it is a kind of ignorance imo.
I agree that most people in the congregation may not have known anything about the circumstances at SGM churches.
I would be very surprised if the pastor and elders did not know.
Hundreds of people had left SGM churches. Two websites had arisen where people who had left the churches posted about their experiences. There were more than a few posts about how sexual abuse was handled in SGM churches. They tried to keep those incidents “in house.” They discouraged discussing the matters with other members. They did not report the abuse to the police, and they discouraged people from going to the police. They threatened people who did not adequately follow these instructions with shunning and formal discipline. They did all of these things because they thought that is what the Bible taught.
This caused the messengers to one SBC meeting to pass a resolution advising agency heads to use caution when associating with groups who did these things.
Then the criminal trial of a former youth volunteer named Morales showed that he, Morales, had abused students when he was at an SGM church in Maryland, that SGM had not reported the matter to the police. Morales left Maryland, moved to Arizona where he married a woman and abused her children and others.
When all of that came out, Mahaney was not allowed to speak at T4G for one year. The next year, he was back.
People publicly protested at T4G meetings. Hundreds of blog posts were written over a 10 year period. But many SBC leaders and pastors bought SGM’s line that these complaints were untrue, and that the complainers were just bitter people who did not respect authority.
All of this was public. People decided to believe Mahaney and those in the SBC and others who gave him cover.
They decided that Mahaney and those who supported him were godly leaders who were telling the truth and that others were lying.
Whatever teaching it is that causes otherwise smart and sincere people to ignore facts and the protests of the families whose children had been abused is the teaching that needs reexamination.
Louis
Well said.
I don’t think there is a teaching that goes along with what you are talking about. I think it is inherent in human nature to trust people you know/like (at least think you know) and to distrust people you do not know. We all do this every day of our lives in all kinds of situations.
You are also assuming. You are assuming this pastor and lots of other people who have supported CJ knew all of the allegations against him and/or knew they were credible. A lot of people likely did not or had only heard of them briefly in passing and ignored them as likely untrue. There are likely things in this world we all are unaware of that have been written about in numerous articles over the years.
There are many instances of people doing this before metoo. Bill Cosby was believed for years until the number of women accusing him reached such a large number that almost no once could deny it. Donald Trump was just elected in spite of allegations against him. Those facts do not excuse ignorance or bad judgment. But to act like people are stupid or evil for trusting “good” people is short-sighted and seems a little arrogant. We all make errors in judgement. To act like other people are stupid or particularly evil for their failings, ignores the fact that we are not without failure either.
All that isnt to excuse bad judgment, but we should try to see the reasons why people have thought what they have thought. This is the kindness we will want when someone comes upon one of our many failings. Everyone isn’t a villain who makes a mistake in one sense. In another sense, we are all villains who need God’s grace.
David Griffin:
I think of all the things I have read, this comment sums up the mindset about which I have expressed concern. It’s really an interesting read from the perspective of a young, Reformed, SBC pastor.
https://www.emschumacher.com/an-open-letter-to-rachael-denhollander-on-sbctoo/