"You Always Knew!" (Tiffany's Story)

For decades, Tiffany Thigpen carried the weight of what happened to her as a teenage girl in a Jacksonville church. A charismatic preacher. A trusted pastor. And a pattern of abuse that powerful leaders chose to ignore. 

This podcast episode is hosted by Carolyn McCulley and features an interview with journalist Robert Downen about the historical context of the Southern Baptist Convention. At the end, therapist Deborah Bumbaugh helps listeners understand Tiffany's story through the neurobiology of trauma. 

Our executive producer is Rachael Berglund.

• The Silenced Truth is a project of the Safe to Speak Initiative. 
• Join our Patreon community to advocate for the legal protections that survivors need to safely disclose their experiences. 
• To support the production of this show, you can make a tax-deductible gift to the Southern Documentary Fund.

FOR FURTHER CONTEXT

PBS Newshour on the Abuse of Faith series, February 11, 2019

WFAA-TV report on Paige Patterson’s firing from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, May 30, 2018

Paige Patterson recording from the 2000 CBMW/FamilyLife Today conference

Paige Patterson talks about a 16-year-old girl’s figure

Pastor Cited in SBC Report on Abuse Worked at Churches in Oak Cliff, Garland, Richardson, Dallas Morning News, May 23, 2022

Unearthed Tapes, Letters, Show Southern Baptist Leaders’ Support for Pastor Who Face Sex Scandal, by Rob Downen, Houston Chronicle, Aug. 28, 2019

How Women Led to the Dramatic Rise and Fall of Southern Baptist Leader Paige Patterson, by Michelle Boorstein and Sarah Pulliam Bailey, The Washington Post, June 10, 2018

Former Rising Star Preacher Pleads Guilty to Molestation, by Bob Allen, Associated Baptist Press, May 21, 2009

Jacksonville Pastor Begins Prison Sentence, by Paul Pinkham, The Florida Times-Union, June 11, 2009.

The Silenced Truth is a project of the Safe to Speak Initiative and is a production of Citygate Communications. It is fiscally sponsored by the Southern Documentary Fund.

Chapters

• 1:04:37 Therapist Deborah Bumbaugh on what the neurobiology of trauma looks like

Transcript

The Silenced Truth Podcast

EP 1: “You Always Knew!”

[00:00:00] Tiffany Thigpen: It was June of 2022, and I was at the Southern Baptist Convention in Anaheim, California. And for that year's convention, there was a raised level of threat because some people were so opposed to what we're doing here as sexual abuse survivors. So the FBI actually let us know that they were going to have a presence there. They were there at the convention. So that was when we got kind of a wake up call that, "Hey, wait a minute, everybody's not for this reform work, and we are still up against a battle."

[00:00:41] I was with Jules Woodson, another survivor. She was at the convention with me, and we were leaving our hotel to walk into the convention center together, and I heard a voice behind me yell out my name. It was Rob Downen, a reporter from the Houston Chronicle.

[00:00:56] Rob Downen: I walked outside and Paige Patterson was standing outside and over his shoulder I see Tiffany Thigpen coming and immediately was like, "Hey Tiffany. Tiffany Thigpen!" Yelling and yelling, trying to get both of their attention just so that they both understood that they were near each other.

[00:01:12] Tiffany Thigpen: In my mind, Paige Patterson was the key person responsible for what happened to me. He was not the man who sexually assaulted me as a teenager, but he was the man who enabled my abuser, who covered for him, who saw me as nothing but an obstacle to his kingdom he was building.

[00:01:29] I decided that this was the moment that I was going to stand up to him directly.

[00:01:37] And in that moment we locked eyes and I just beelined it for him. Not on a telephone call, like all the years before, and not on social media, and not through newspaper reports, but face to face and just give him another opportunity. One more chance to say, you know what? What I did was wrong, and if I could go back, I would redo it.

[00:01:59] That's all I've ever asked from him all of these decades. So I approached him, introduced myself because I wasn't positive that he knew who I was face to face. So I said, I'm Tiffany Thigpen, and he cut me off and said, I know who you are. So, okay, so you know that I am the victim of Darrell Gilyard, and which you covered up. You, you know my story.

[00:02:21] And he said, I had nothing to do with that. And at this point, his hands were folded behind his back, his security details standing around him. And obviously that was not truthful. He had everything to do with it. He had everything to do with it for the 10 years or so before Darrell got to me. And I was not taking that for an answer.

[00:02:42] So I reminded him that he knew, and that all the reports that had come before and all the people that had come to him asking for help and he wouldn't help anyone. And so he repeated himself over and over again: I had nothing to do with that. I had nothing to do with that. And I said, so you're not going to apologize? You're not going to, you know, own your role in this? And at that point, he turns his back on me, as I once again say, you always knew. You knew! And he walked away from me.

[00:03:16] At that moment, everything for me clicked. I'm standing up to a giant. He was a giant to me, and all of a sudden he looked so small. He's just the little wizard behind the curtain. I just felt everything shift. All of these years of advocacy and speaking out. That was my power moment. That was my moment of taking it back.

[00:03:38] But if you're to understand anything about my story and the story of other abuse survivors, you really have to understand the church machinery.

[00:03:49] Carolyn McCulley: The irony here is that this meeting, the 2022 Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting, was the year that many people hoped would be a turning point. The Southern Baptist Convention, usually called the SBC, was assembled to vote on a series of reforms addressing the sexual abuse crisis within its churches. Tiffany Thigpen, and the other abuse survivors who attended, expected vindication after many years of advocacy. But the SBC machinery wasn't done with the curve balls. So many more damaging things were yet to come at this convention, and in the years that followed.

[00:04:32] I'm Carolyn McCulley and this is the Silenced Truth Podcast. It is a series that examines the cost survivors pay for their disclosure of sexual abuse and the price faith-based groups are willing to pay to protect their institutions, instead of confronting their predators.

[00:04:55] How we arrived at this moment, at the SBC annual meeting in 2022, has a long history that's also part of the story of America. Southern Baptists are one of the largest faith groups in America, and their influence extends way beyond their own churches. But as an organization, they are similar to other large institutions when it comes to handling sexual abuse claims.

[00:05:20] This series looks at the immense hurdles survivors must surmount to pursue justice, and in this case, within the Christian community primarily, because that's the community I know best. But the lessons and the solutions are applicable outside of faith-based groups.

[00:05:37] Now it's important to name upfront that the spotlight is largely on the SBC in this series because thousands of SBC church members actually voted for an investigation to uncover the truth about their leaders and history, a dramatic event we will talk more about in an upcoming episode. There are many unnamed heroes in this story. People who still believe in the Bible's commands in Micah 6:8 to "act justly, to love faithfulness, and to walk humbly with your God."

[00:06:08] I also want to note here that several other excellent podcasts have told parts of the same history, but the Silenced Truth Podcast is more than just storytelling. It is a project of the Safe to Speak initiative. We invite you to listen and then take action with us by joining the grassroots movement to remove the legal barriers that silence sexual abuse survivors.

[00:06:31] Finally, a note for survivors: I know it's hard to process stories like these, so we've done our best to make this series trauma-informed. We won't be very graphic, but we also won't shy away from naming harm. More importantly, each episode will end with insights and analysis that will help all of us better understand how to identify, prevent, and respond to sexual abuse, and the leaders who minimize or cover it up. If you find it hard to listen to the personal stories, you might want to just skip to the analysis at the end.

[00:07:06] So let's continue with some context for Tiffany's story. And why journalist Rob Downen was there to yell out her name.

[00:07:13] Judy Woodruff, PBS NewsHour: With nearly 15 million members, the Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Protestant denomination in the United States. Now it is facing a reckoning of its own over sexual abuse.

[00:07:24] A Houston Chronicle investigation found hundreds of clergy or staff allegedly committed abuse or misconduct over two decades.

[00:07:33] Carolyn McCulley: Many people first heard about the extent of the SBC sexual abuse crisis because of a series that the Houston Chronicle published in early 2019 called Abuse of Faith. The Me Too Movement and the related Church Too Movement had started in late 2017. But as journalist Rob Downen explains, the Houston Chronicle's investigation was rooted in events within the SBC itself that went back decades to a movement that began in the 1970s when there was an intense struggle for control within the SBC. Its initiators called it the Conservative Resurgence, while its detractors labeled it the fundamentalist takeover. But no matter what you call it, Paige Patterson and Paul Pressler were its storied leaders.

[00:08:23] Rob Downen: I was 26 years old and working at the Houston Chronicle and stumbled across this lawsuit against Paul Pressler, this famous and influential Southern Baptist figure, accusing him of sexual abuse and accusing other SBC leaders in top churches of conspiring to conceal those cases. But basically the crux of the lawsuit was that this man named Duane Rollins had said that he had been repeatedly sexually abused, molested by Pressler, starting at 14 for years.

[00:08:51] The other claims in the lawsuit that Duane was making was that Pressler's behavior was allegedly, you know, enabled by high-ranking SBC officials, including Paige Patterson, as well as some major SBC churches in the area of namely Houston's First and Second Baptists. That lawsuit in 2018 kind of begged the question about how widespread this could possibly be.

[00:09:11] And then within a few months we saw a handful of other scandals involving top leaders, including Paige Patterson. So that kind of just piqued our interest. And by June, 2018, we had a, a team of veteran investigative reporters and data folks and photojournalists working on this full time. And that eventually became Abuse of Faith, which was a multi-part series that showed how widespread this was and the way in which the SBC structure has enabled a lot of these guys to move and flourish and abuse, repent, and then abuse again.

[00:09:45] PBS Reporter William Brangham: The paper also details church officials brushing aside repeated warnings of trouble. Some leaders who were convicted of sex crimes and officially listed as sex offenders were later able to return to the pulpit. One still works with teens in Houston today.

[00:10:00] Rob Downen: So I always want to be very clear when we talk about our reporting that much of what we put out there, much of what we found and and published had been out there, had been reported, had been discussed in some form or fashion by Southern Baptists for 20 plus years. We really, in many ways, you know, not to discount our work, we really did just put all of it in one place, and I think that is a really important thing to understand about this broader problem. They had faced warnings for years.

[00:10:30] But you know, as far as when people talk about abuse within the SBC, there is a lot of people who will start with our story, and I don't think that's fair because it leaves out all of the efforts of survivors for decades before us.

[00:10:43] Carolyn McCulley: Rob and his team picked a 20-year period to investigate, which included one critical SBC annual meeting that happened in Dallas all the way back in 2008.

[00:10:56] This meeting happened only a few years after the bombshell multi-year Boston Globe Spotlight series that investigated sexual abuse and coverups within the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston. That explosive report led many denominations to reconsider their own policies, including the SBC.

[00:11:17] Rob Downen: We found that since 1998, roughly 400 Southern Baptist Church leaders and volunteers had been credibly accused of sex crimes with children. Um, they had roughly 700 victims, pretty much all of them children. And moreover, we found that in the lead up to 2008 when the SBC was meeting and was set to consider abuse prevention policies that other denominations had taken and that survivors said would better protect children in Southern Baptist churches, rather than heed those warnings, Southern Baptist leaders declined to act in 2008.

[00:11:56] And so our reporting focused on the 20 year period between 1998 and 2018 because that gave us a perfect bookend: 10 years before that 2008 decision not to do anything and then the 10 years since. And so what our report found was top denominational leaders had either faced allegations that they mishandled sex abuse claims, in other cases fully admitted to having done so. And in a few instances involving some of the most prominent Southern Baptists of the last half century were accused in lawsuits and in news reports of committing abuses themselves.

[00:12:39] Carolyn McCulley: For several years after this series came out, Rob continued to report on this issue, which is why he knew Tiffany's story and who Paige Patterson was at this 2022 convention.

[00:12:51] Rob Downen: When we first started this process, it was because of the allegations initially against Pressler. But while we were assembling our team, you started to see the blowback starting to bubble to Paige Patterson. Paige was arguably one of the most important evangelical figures of the last half century in that he led this movement in the 1980s through really 2000 in the SBC, what they called the Battle for the Bible, the Conservative Resurgence, which they forced out moderates and fundamentalists tightened their grip on the denomination.

[00:13:29] And from 2000 onward, Paige Patterson was president of multiple SBC seminaries and his role in this quote unquote Battle for the Bible really was so revered that few people said anything when at his seminary in in Fort Worth, he paid thousands of dollars while the school was in very real financial trouble to have stained glass windows made of himself and his wife and his dog, and all of the leaders of the Conservative Resurgence.

[00:14:03] And in 2018, suddenly Paige's 40-year reign over the SBC just almost overnight came crashing down.

[00:14:15] WFAA Anchor Cynthia Izaguirre: Now to a developing story, a huge figure in the Southern Baptist circles, fired over the way he handled a sexual abuse allegation. Matt Howerton live with details just coming into the newsroom, Matt.

[00:14:27] WFAA Reporter Matt Howerton: Yeah, Izzy, the unearthed comments made by Paige Patterson in 2000 took many of his followers by surprise this month, suggesting a woman turn to God for help in an abusive relationship, instead of police. Tonight, Southwestern Theological Baptist Seminary fired Patterson due to how he handled a sexual abuse allegation at another seminary in North Carolina in 2003. At that time, according to the Washington Post, a female student says she was allegedly encouraged by Patterson to not report the assault and instead forgive her assailant.

[00:14:58] Patterson was the president of that seminary at the time. 

[00:15:15] Carolyn McCulley: the irony here was that Patterson's firing happened in May, 2018, shortly before the SBC met once again in Dallas, 10 years after the convention declined to do anything about abuse reports back in 2008. But this time leading Southern Baptist women were the ones who called for his resignation. Thousands had signed an open letter calling for Patterson to be removed as president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary due to what they claimed was his quote, unbiblical view of authority, womanhood, and sexuality, unquote.

[00:15:52] in full disclosure, I should point out that I was one of the women who signed. My church at the time didn't consider itself Baptist or even part of the Southern Baptist Convention. But because it had cooperated with some regional SBC church-planting efforts, it was listed in the SBC directory, much to my surprise, and I was therefore qualified to sign the statement. We'll get to my story later in the series.

[00:16:18] But Patterson stood by his words, telling the Washington Post that he couldn't "apologize for what I didn't do wrong. " One of the contributing reasons to Patterson's firing was something that he said at a conference way back in 2000.

[00:16:34] Here is the recording.

[00:16:37] Paige Patterson: I'll just give you one brief example of it. I had a woman who was in a church that I served and she was being subject to some abuse, and I told her, I said, all right, well what I want you to do is, every evening I want you to get down by your bed. Just as he goes to sleep, get down by the bed, and uh, when you think he's just about asleep, you just pray and ask God to intervene. Not out loud, quietly.

[00:17:03] But I said, you just pray there. And I said, get ready, because he may get a little more violent, you know, when he, when he discovers this. And sure enough he did. She came to church one morning with both eyes black and she was angry at me and at God and the world for that matter. And she said, I hope you are happy. And I said, yes, ma'am, I am.

[00:17:26] And uh, I said, I'm sorry about that, but I'm very happy. And what she didn't know when we sat down at church that morning was that her husband had come in and was standing at the back, the first time he ever came. And when I gave the invitation that morning, he was the first one down to the front and his heart was broken.

[00:17:43] He said, my wife's been praying for me, and I can't believe what I did to her. And he said, do you think God could forgive somebody like me? And he's a great husband, today. And uh, it all came about because she sought God on a regular basis. And remember when nobody else can help, God can. In the meantime, you have to do what you can at home to be submissive in every way that you can and to elevate him.

[00:18:10] Now, obviously, if he's doing that kind of thing, he's got some very deep spiritual problems in his life, and you have to pray that God brings into intersection of his life, those people and those events that need to come into his life to arrest him and bring him to his knees.

[00:18:28] Carolyn McCulley: If you are listening to this and you aren't a Christian, this might sound outrageous to you, but many Christians have been taught variations of this redemption story so many times that they miss the narrative framework.

[00:18:41] In this story, Patterson put himself in the position of ultimate authority. He does not intervene to prevent the crime or the sin of physical battery. He does not call the police, and he does not intervene to call this man to account. Instead, he sends the woman back to experience true harm. Then when the woman offers more physical evidence of the sin and crime, Patterson offers platitudes and again, leaves her unprotected.

[00:19:07] The story is wrapped up with the man's tearful performance of a confession, which according to this telling, Patterson accepted without any true evidence of change or a confession and repentance to the wife. It's just a pat on the back and the requisite bow that ties up the story: "He's a great husband today." Based on what? We don't know. The wife's experience and voice have faded into the background.

[00:19:37] So why didn't anyone at this conference at the time express concern about this story? Maybe someone did, but I can't find any record of it now. But if not, the conference's context may explain why. This recording was from an event in 2000 that was co-sponsored by the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and Family Life Ministries. All the conference messages were then repackaged into a series of books that Crossway Books published. This conference was held the same year that the SBC revised its Statement of Faith known as the Baptist Faith and Message. So why is all this important to know? It's because these groups were leaders in what's called the complementarian theological movement, one that emphasizes different roles for men and women.

[00:20:26] We will talk more about that movement in upcoming episodes. But for those who are unfamiliar with this idea, what you need to know now is that this updated Baptist Faith and Message statement further limited the roles of women in the church and in marriage than prior SBC statements did, a theological position that the conference sponsors all supported.

[00:20:49] So this sermon illustration might not have raised any concerns at the time among the participants. Now for those today who are familiar with and support complementarian theology, please keep an open mind and keep listening to consider how the practice of this theology can fall short of its own biblical ideals, leaving women unheard and unprotected.

[00:21:11] But now we go back to Tiffany's story to understand why this run-in at the SBC meeting in 2022 in Anaheim was so momentous for her. Tiffany was raised in First Baptist Church of Jacksonville, Florida, and in 1982, Dr. Jerry Vines became the senior pastor. Under his leadership, the church's size and influence grew rapidly.

[00:21:37] Tiffany Thigpen: Our church, when I was growing up, was just an average Southern Baptist church. But then especially mid to late eighties, there was an exponential growth. And in '88, Jerry Vines became the president of the Southern Baptist Convention. So at the time growing up, we knew that we were important because it was continually talked about.

[00:21:59] I mean, it was talked about with this level of pride that we were so lucky to be a part of this church, and we didn't only hear it from our pastors and our members in the congregation also was told to us continually by those that came in to speak there. And at that time period in the eighties, there was a constant parade of political figures. And we're talking presidential candidates, military heroes and figures, Paige Patterson, all of the big evangelists. Falwell would come. Anybody who was anybody in our world, politically or religiously, spoke at our church.

[00:22:40] Now, in our community, if you weren't a part of First Baptist Church, the community itself didn't quite have the same love for the church. They saw us as what we really were very insulated. It was definitely us versus them. It was our church, our church family, against the city of Jacksonville, against the rest of the world. There was a lot of media coverage because there were always controversial things being said and done. So we became a very controversial church in the city.

[00:23:09] But that was something we were proud of at the time. We thought that we were holding onto the values of our religion and that our pastors were staying true to the word, but really we were just not showing love to our community.

[00:23:30] Carolyn McCulley: Tiffany was a teenager and active in the youth group when a young preacher within their church started attracting attention.

[00:23:42] Tiffany Thigpen: I knew that there was this dynamic preacher, and for the average churchgoer, especially a child sitting in the pews when he preached, you were excited to listen. You weren't sitting there trying to follow along and trying to understand. You weren't stretching to stay awake. You were fully engaged. And that preacher was Darrell Gilyard.

[00:24:06] He was dynamic. He had a way of preaching that got people out of their seats in a congregation that barely clapped or definitely didn't raise their hands in worship, but it would get the crowd excited. And then for a number of years, Darrell Gilyard wasn't a part of our church because he was away at seminary, and that was orchestrated through Dr. Vines and Paige Patterson to get his seminary education and to get ordained and to move on into further ministry. So when Darrell was in town, people went, including myself and my family.

[00:24:40] Carolyn McCulley: Back then Southern Baptist churches would often hold what's called revival services, where a traveling group comes into a host church, usually for several days, to hold nightly services. The preacher on those revival tours is often called an evangelist, a speaker who is supposed to be good at connecting with his audiences, but is not part of the day-to-day pastoring duties of caring for specific church members. First Baptist Jacksonville often sent their youth group choir as part of these revival tours.

[00:25:12] Tiffany Thigpen: When we found out that Gilyard was going to be invited to travel with our youth group, our youth group was excited. He was fun to be around. He was a funny man. So as youth, we were excited about this person that was going to become our evangelist on our tours.

[00:25:32] What we didn't know at the time was that he already had a background for his predatory behaviors. What we also didn't know at that time was that started way back before he went off to seminary at our own church with our singles department. And that our previous youth pastor had also been asked to bring Darrell along to travel in our youth group, and he said absolutely not. Because he had already had concerns about predatory behavior with the singles department, which were young college students. He had already seen things, seen red flags. But Jerry Vines ignored all of those red flags and he fired that youth pastor and they placed Darrell with our youth department anyway. And that's how I came to really know Darrell Gilyard.

[00:26:20] So our youth group would travel on these tours. We would go on a spring tour and a summer tour, some one week, some two weeks. We were serving Jesus, traveling and singing and bringing the gospel to people in a revival type setting. And we stayed in homes of volunteers at the church. We stayed in family homes, which looking back, is a very, very dangerous place to put teenagers. And I can tell you there were many unsafe situations we were placed in. There were many times that we locked ourselves behind closed doors as we slept in family's homes, feeling uncomfortable. We didn't have any choice, but none of us were comfortable with them.

[00:27:02] There was no background checks on the families. It was just whoever signed up on the roster got to take a kid home, or two or three or however many. But you didn't know what you were walking into. You didn't know, you know what the sleeping arrangements or bathroom situations, any of that were, but you went home with a family after church.

[00:27:20] So it was very special to us as a youth group that Darrell would show up early and hang out with us as a youth group, which we thought was just incredibly fun. Because any other evangelists or pastors that came to speak, they showed up just to speak and then left. They didn't spend any time with us.

[00:27:36] So it was always kind of an exciting time when he walked through the room. Everybody knew it's time to laugh and have some fun. He was a celebrity to all of us. And for whatever reason, he began to talk to me. Even within a group, he would single me out and ask me a question or say something to me directly. And this kind of became a pattern. I didn't really see any red flags in it, no one else did at the time either.

[00:28:03] But at the end of one of the gatherings, he said that he realized that I knew somebody that was a mutual friend, and it was one of my friends from school. And her fiance was on staff at his church, and she was very, very young. We were senior year of high school. She was already getting engaged and had a plan set out for her to go into ministry. And her fiance, who I had also known for many years as her boyfriend, was on staff at Darrell Gilyard's Church in Texas. So. At the time I was in Jacksonville, Florida. Darrell's ministry, his church that he pastored was in Texas and his evangelism took place from there, from that platform.

[00:28:45] When Darrell highlighted the mutual friends and said, you'll have to come out with her sometime to Texas, talking about my friend. And I was like, sure, maybe, you never know, kind of thing. And he kind of built that conversation into, we should keep in touch because you'll probably come out sometime, is how it started. Looking back, obviously as a teenage girl, it seemed innocent. But as an adult woman, you're thinking, nope, he shouldn't have been talking to you that way.

[00:29:14] So by the end of that week's tour, for whatever reason, and I don't know why I agreed to it, but he had asked for my phone number. He asked directly for a way to contact me at home. And at that time we didn't have cell phones. There was no secrecy behind it. He would have to call my home where my parents would be. So it was an innocent kind of exchange. And that's how it all began. That's where the grooming began.

[00:29:37] What I didn't foreshadow is that he very much had a plan. He also had a pattern, which I would find out later. He would find young girls in youth groups across the country. He would reach out to the one that he picked. He would get their information and he would keep in touch with them. So this was not something uncommon for him to do. And so that began a grooming relationship in which anytime I would raise a red flag with him or say, that's kind of inappropriate, you shouldn't say something like that, or, that feels uncomfortable. And I did do those things. I said all of those things because there were many, many things that he said that didn't feel right.

[00:30:19] So in the grooming process, eventually it became inappropriate talk, but it started with very, very godly talk. It started with sharing Scriptures. It started with saying things about what he saw in me and that he saw great good for God. And that if I stayed on the path for God and I continued to have this relationship with Jesus, this light that he saw in me, that I was going to do great things for God.

[00:30:44] So it all starts with that very soft grooming, building that familiarity with you, and also the praise, right? So he's building into you what you've always wanted to hear is that you're doing good for God and that your faith is shining a light, all the right things.

[00:31:00] And then slowly it transitioned to calls that were kind of at a weird time of the evening or the night. He's driving home from church, he's been at the church office working, and now he's on his way home to his family. And I loved hearing about his family. He would tell me about his young children at the time, and I had seen pictures of them and stuff. Which again, way too close, way too familiar.

[00:31:24] And then one night it crossed the line: "Well, I've pulled up to my house, I'm going to go get in bed with my wife." It was just that little like, eh, too much information, right? And I would say, I don't want to hear about you and your wife. And he'd go, well, what would you like to hear about?

[00:31:40] Just small, little tiny things. No, no big red flags, nothing anybody would report. But that grew over time to conversations that were more intimate about him and his wife, and how he would think about me while he was there. And I would tell him, that is so inappropriate. I don't want to hear about this. And he'd laugh as if it was just a joke and he'd start taking it back.

[00:32:04] And he would make it seem as if it was my mind that was in the gutter that I would think he would mean something like that. He would always turn it. And that became such a pattern that I began to get so confused about what I heard. And I began thinking I was the problem. I really believed that something wasn't right with me.

[00:32:26] Carolyn McCulley: As I've talked to survivors, I've heard this story on repeat. Abusers nearly always start by pushing the boundaries, testing what they can get away with, finding out who will object. It will start with small violations and build from there. The goal is to get their victims to stop trusting their own judgment and senses, to discount their gut reactions, that something is off unsafe, wrong. Often abusers are also grooming entire communities, creating a reputation for themselves as just amazing people within that community.

[00:33:08] Tiffany Thigpen: So I'd say that the major year of the grooming was the '90 to '91 timeframe. That was when he infiltrated himself into my life. I mean, by that time, my parents were inviting him over for Sunday dinner when he was in town, or even during revival week to come over before or after revival. And he would use my car on some occasions, like he was kind of a part of our family. It tore down those walls.

[00:33:34] So by the time everything happened in the spring of '91, I, I was on my way to Dallas when I graduated. I was moving into his city, to be a part of his church. That's the saddest part about it, because from what I later learned and, and fully understood, which again gets me to this day, that was his pattern.

[00:33:57] But my mom actually got a phone call one afternoon because his wife had looked at the phone records and saw this 904 area code that he called so often and so many different hours of the night and day, and wanted to know who the person was. And so she called and my mom answered, and then of course she says, who is this? And my mom says, well, who is this? And you know, you do that exchange going back and forth. And when she gave her name as Gilyard's wife, my mom goes, oh, it's so nice to talk to you. Like my mom was so familiar and just assumed that she was also familiar with us, because that's how Darrell had set it up.

[00:34:32] And she's like, I'm the mom of Tiffany. And she says, well, who is Tiffany? And she's like, Tiffany, that's coming out to stay with you. Like my mom fully believed that everything's on the up and up. She didn't know who I was. She had no idea. But Darrell, on the other hand, was telling myself and my parents that when I flew out there, I was going to be staying with he and his wife and kids, and they were all so excited about me coming.

[00:34:57] She had no idea.

[00:35:01] Carolyn McCulley: Darrell's wife wasn't the only one looking into Gilyard. In fact, there were accusations going back to 1985 when Gilyard left Jacksonville to study on a scholarship that Jerry Vines secured for him at Criswell College where Paige Patterson was the president. The Dallas Morning News reported claims by one woman that she told Patterson in 1985 that Gilyard tried to rape her, and Patterson told her and other women with similar complaints to refrain from speaking about it without substantial proof.

[00:35:35] This was a consistent theme in Patterson's defense of Gilyard and others too. While still enrolled at Criswell, Gilyard started preaching at a church in Oak Cliff, Texas. Just two years later, in front of 1500 church members, Gilyard was fired from the Oak Cliff Church for sexual impropriety. In response, Patterson wrote a letter to the man who was a senior pastor then to share his dismay about what happened. He wrote:

[00:36:03] "At the same time, I must share my disappointment at the handling of the Gilyard case. You were at least partially aware of my love for Gilyard. If there were a problem, why was I not called?" Then he added, "Please do not construe this letter as a total denial of guilt in Darrell. Without a doubt, he was guilty of some immature behavior and of too much jocularity and foolishness for that context." But then he offered this assessment: "Finally, I wish to go on record stating my belief that Darrell is not guilty of sexual impropriety, nor is he morally culpable." He concluded with an appeal: "It is my desire to work now to rehabilitate the gifted young preacher, helping him learn from his mistakes and recover from his sorrow and humiliation."

[00:37:04] What were these mistakes, this immature behavior? According to Rob Downen's reporting for the Houston Chronicle, 20 women in that church accused Gilyard of inappropriate sexual behavior, but that didn't prevent Patterson from recommending Gilyard for a new job at a new church in Norman, Oklahoma, where surprise, soon more accusations arose.

[00:37:29] In a letter to the pastor of the Oklahoma Church, Patterson wrote that he did not want to believe any of the allegations until they could be substantiated by two or more witnesses, and that anyone who came forward alone would be unreliable because they were also guilty of impropriety.

[00:37:47] Now, where did he get that idea? Well, it's a reference to a biblical verse in 1 Timothy 5:19 that says, don't accept an accusation against an elder unless it is supported by two or three witnesses. Of course, anyone familiar with sexual assault knows there are rarely two or more witnesses in any given incident. So calling the accounts of anyone who comes forward alone, unreliable and guilty of impropriety is unfounded and harmful.

[00:38:19] But even without that specific number of witnesses, the fact that numerous allegations trailed Gilyard wherever he went should have raised some alarms. So Patterson promised to monitor Gilyard, who was told to see counselor Don Simpkins in the late eighties.

[00:38:36] During a meeting with eight accusers, Gilyard, and Patterson, Simpkins said Patterson focused on the women's pass and frightened them out of pressing charges. The counselor called the situation a dog and pony show, saying Patterson stopped taking his calls after Simpkins told him Gilyard needed to be removed from ministry.

[00:38:59] In 1988, Gilyard returned to North Texas where more accusations arose in those churches. But these allegations did not dim Gilyard's rising star. By then, he had drawn the attention of famed evangelist Jerry Falwell, the television host of the Old Time Gospel Hour, who produced an emotional mini documentary about how Gilyard grew up homeless, sleeping under a bridge. However, that story unraveled when the Dallas Morning News reported that Gilyard, in fact, was raised in a comfortable home by a woman who said she took him in as an infant and raised him as a son.

[00:39:35] During these years, as Patterson was dealing with all these allegations around Gilyard, Tiffany's pastor back in Jacksonville, Jerry Vines, was serving in his first term as the president of the Southern Baptist Convention, while still leading First Baptist Church of Jacksonville. And at the same time, in June of 1989, Gilyard had the honor of preaching at the SBCs Pastor's Conference, an event that's held right before the SBC's annual meeting each year, and one that is akin to the Super Bowl of Baptist preaching. In that 1989 annual meeting, Vines was elected to his second term as SBC President.

[00:40:15] This is the history that Tiffany Thigpen did not know as a teenager. But as a grown woman confronting Patterson in 2022, this was the history she was referring to when she looked him in the face and said, you knew, you always knew.

[00:40:32] But back in 1991, as Tiffany looked forward to her high school graduation, Gilyard suddenly decided that he was going to fix her up with a young man on his staff.

[00:40:46] Tiffany Thigpen: I honestly thought that I was going to go away to school like everybody else did. My parents were a blue collar family. They didn't go off to college when they were growing up, so it wasn't a vision for their children to fulfill. So there was no real talk about going for college. So I guess I didn't even realize that there was all this pre-planning that needed to happen. I just assumed I'm graduating, going off to the college of my choice.

[00:41:10] And when I began to bring up the subject matter with my mom, there was this, girls don't go to college. There's no need for girls to go to college, because that was part of that church culture. You know, you're going into ministry as far as just being a pastor's wife going into ministry, and ministering through your children and your home life. And that's about the limit for you unless you want to become a missionary.

[00:41:32] But I assumed I was going to college. I really thought it would have to be a Christian college, it would have to be Liberty or something like that for my parents to agree to it. But I really wanted to go to FSU. That was always the school I had wanted to go to, Florida State University. And so when I began to have those conversations, it was just a no, absolutely not, not happening. There's no reason for a young girl to move away and live alone and all the things that can happen to you and all the, you know, vices that you'll be introduced to. And I was very frustrated by that, but I also realized I was not going to win that battle.

[00:42:08] However, Darrell was offering an opportunity, which was for me to move to Texas and work at his church and live on my own and have independence. And my good friend from high school was getting married and she was going to be moving to Texas as well. And it would be this grand thing. We'll both work on staff at the church. So she and I were planning for that. And Darrell was of course feeding into it. And before this part of the story, Darrell had introduced an extra little road bump.

[00:42:42] He said, I have a man that I want to set you up with. And so when he introduced this person, he was his music minister at his church. And Dean is still in ministry to this day and has a family of his own and everything. But it's a very big piece of my story into why things happen the way that they did. And it's a piece that for all of these years of advocacy, I've left out to protect him in the story, even though really he's kind of a hero in the story. But it also solidifies why things happen the way that they did.

[00:43:14] But in the most odd way, Darrell is controlling the entire thing. So he says, I want you guys to have an old fashioned romance kind of thing. Like, I don't want you to exchange photographs. I don't want you to see what each other looks like. I just want you to get to know each other, like write letters and things to each other. And we, we both agreed to it and did it. I mean, he was controlling the whole thing.

[00:43:38] So we began to write each other letters. It eventually moves into phone calls, but right behind the phone call would be Darrell calling. What'd y'all talk about? You know, what, what was said, what did y'all say? And I even have in my journals, you know, about how silly it was that he had to call and find out everything. Like it couldn't be ours. You know, why is he so invested in this?

[00:43:59] And as time move forward, we get to my last weeks of high school and Darrell is coming to Jacksonville for a revival at a church near my high school. And the revival was a week long revival. And Darrell says, I've had this fantastic idea. You guys have been writing all of this time and I'm going to pay to fly him with me and he's coming with me and you can meet for the first time. And we were like, okay you know, we're game for meeting each other finally to see if there's actually even anything there. Then, so Darrell flies Dean in.

[00:44:34] Now this is the week of the end of your senior year where everything's happening-- graduation, you have your banquet because we didn't have prom. We had a church banquet and a school banquet actually for seniors. And so all of these festivities are going on and I'm honestly disconnected from them. Because all I can think about is this up and coming move to Texas and my life's going to take off, right? The interesting part of that night of the banquet was also going to be the very first night I meet Dean.

[00:45:03] So Dean and Darrell had flown into town that day. I've been at school that day because we were in our last few days of school. And then I come home, get ready for my banquet. My date from school, poor guy picks me up. The whole night is just so strange because Darrell and Dean are waiting for me at my house. With my family. They're having dinner with my family. They're hanging out, my parents are getting to know this guy that I've never even met before myself. So I was feeling a little discombobulated. And then I know all this is going on at my house and I'm about to walk into this, but now it's not feeling quite so right, like something's just feeling off.

[00:45:41] And we leave the banquet. My date drives me home again. Poor guy, like he's, he's gone to rent the tux and do the whole thing and take the girl and buy the flowers and all. And here I am in another world the whole night. And he drives up to the house, in front of my house and walks me to my door. I am kind of just ready to get inside. I've got porcupine type feelings all over, and it's probably honestly adrenaline related and also telltale signs that something wasn't right. But at that time, I don't feel excited, but I'm misreading it as excitement, right? I've never felt this level of, "Run!"

[00:46:28] So the apprehension I'm feeling is just building and building. And Darrell won't let me walk inside and I'm like, Darrell, let me get inside. You know? I just want to get inside. And he's like, no, no, no. Big introduction. And he'll open the door and say something inside the house, you know? And everybody's inside waiting. And then he'd close the door and go, just another minute more. And playing these games. This is a pastor, an evangelist. Like, what in the world is happening right now at my house? Like, what?

[00:46:52] So he opens the door and he goes through this whole long introduction thing, and then he goes into Scriptures. I mean, it is the weirdest thing. It's just this big crescendo of a moment that's just foreign, just doesn't feel right.

[00:47:09] I found out later, Dean's on the inside of the house, feeling the exact emotions that I'm feeling. He's excited on one hand. On the other hand, he is like, this is just too much, like this big production and what is going on here? So our first meeting of each other was both of us feeling all of that.

[00:47:26] The next day I go to school, things are feeling really, really weird, but that night is going to be the first night of the revival. So I'm going to the revival to obviously hear Darrell, but also to see Dean again. And I'm kind of excited about like sitting through a church service with him, right? Because that's part of dating, especially in that church world, is, you know, what's it like sit in the church service with the guy that you like or whatever?

[00:47:53] So I'm excited for it, but when I get there, I can't find Dean anywhere. I don't see him anywhere in the building. And then Darrell comes out at some point, this is before the service, and I say to him, where's Dean? You know, why, why isn't he here? And he's like, oh, I need to talk to you about that, but not right now.

[00:48:09] And I was like, no, tell me where he is. Is he coming? And he's like, I can't talk to you about it now. And he's very charismatic. So when he's saying this, like I can still hear it all in my head. He's, no, no, no, I, I'll tell you later, I need to talk to you after service. And I said, you know, no, just tell me now. I'm not going to sit all the way through service wondering is he coming in or not? Just yes or no. He's like, I'm telling you, I really have to talk to you. There's some things you need to know. And I was like, about Dean or about me? And immediately I start thinking, Dean doesn't like me. He's rejecting me, right? And Darrell just doesn't know how to tell me.

[00:48:44] So I sit through that whole service thinking he doesn't like me. Like he met me, he liked me before, but now that he's met me, he doesn't like the way I look, or he didn't feel like there was no connection or whatever. Why couldn't he just tell me? So I sit through the entire service with this, you know, teenage girl going through your mind.

[00:49:00] And that's how the setup began of the sexual assault. Because he had pushed and pushed and pushed. And now I'm sitting here in this, you know, devastation of what in the world is going on, please tell me. He's like, no, no, no. I've gotta talk to you in person. No, it's got to be in person. There's some things I need to tell you. I need to be with you when I tell you. It's going to be hard for you to hear those kinds of things. And I want to make sure that you're okay when I tell you. That's how he got me to meet him outside of a church later. And that was the premise in which I went to meet him.

[00:49:35] Looking back, obviously it's the stupidest thing in the world, but in the moment it seemed very important and it seemed the only way.

[00:49:43] And he says, I need you to meet me at the hotel. The hotel is the same convention center I just had my banquet at. So I know what the setup of it is. I know how open and big it is, and that there's lots of people around, is what I'm thinking. And, but I still am like, I don't want to meet you at your hotel. You know, that's, that won't look good. And he says to me, this typical gaslighting, won't look good to who? I'm the one that should be worried about how it looks. I'm like, well then why are you asking me to meet? Can we meet somewhere more public? He was like, I can't meet in public with you. I can't be seen somewhere with you. It would look too inappropriate.

[00:50:18] So he's like spinning everything that I say right back on me. And so I'm feeling unreasonable, but I really want to know this information. And he's like, we're going to meet in the lobby. It's no big deal, is what he keeps telling me. There's people around, it's a busy place. You don't have to worry. I'm the one that needs to be worried because what this could do to my reputation.

[00:50:37] Anyway, he won and I drove and met him at that hotel and then initially we started out the lobby. The very first thing he starts is, I can't, I can't, this is, I don't feel comfortable. This doesn't feel right. I'm, I'm out here in public and you need to come up to my room. So the narrative keeps changing.

[00:50:57] And every warning sign inside me is going off. And I remember thinking like, I shouldn't be here right now. But then I'm also thinking like, he's right. So there's just, there's so much happening. Before the assault happened, he started telling me that Dean wasn't interested and that he didn't feel like I was right for him and all these things. So he's built up this falling apart emotionally. So I've got, I've got the news of that hitting me at the same time that I'm realizing I'm in a, in a compromised position. And the same moment that I'm thinking people are seeing me here and what am I doing and all of it happening at once, right? And so I start to just cry and to lose it.

[00:51:35] And as I start to cry, he like pulls me into him and he's like, come on, come on. We need to go somewhere quiet to talk. So now he's got me in a completely vulnerable emotional state. And, um, the assault. And then I am fighting him to get away. I'm all of a sudden realizing how vulnerable I am. I, um, realize that I can't easily get out from under it.

[00:52:01] And then also in the same moments, like in a flash, you're realizing that everything before has been a lie and that nothing made sense. And I finally make it back to the lobby and I'm coming through the lobby, and as I'm coming through, I feel like it's an eternal run to get to the door. But I am in a disheveled panic and I'm a young teenage girl.

[00:52:25] And I will never forget the two desk agents see me. And I remember they stop what they're doing and they see me and they see him running after me and they never came to help me. And as I ran by them, I'm just trying to get to my car to get out of everything. Get out to the, um, the parking lot in the hotel.

[00:52:44] And he's chasing me and they don't come to help me. They don't call out, but I'm too afraid to stop because he's already been so violent. And I had already seen the evil and I was already terrified of him because I saw the transition. That's something that I told to Dr. Vines that like, I saw the mask of evil come over. Like I saw the transformation, literally saw it. And Dr. Vines, when I told that, said, yeah, I've seen it too. And he told my mom and I that when he and Patterson confronted Gilyard that he had seen the transition and he actually told my mom and I, I've never seen such evil in like in front of me. But yet he goes on to continue to promote him and cover. So that's something my mom and I, neither one have ever been able to forget. Like he acknowledged that he knew what I was talking about.

[00:53:40] But he chased me all the way out to the parking lot and the assault continued into the parking lot like he was going to take me. He didn't care who saw, he didn't care where we were. He didn't care how many people, I mean, it was, it was literally an evil attack. So, um, the only way that I was able to finally get away from him is I, I finally managed to get my key into the car. And that's something that I still have nightmares about to this day, is like that moment of trying to get your key to work and you can't, your hands and can't get coordination.

[00:54:13] And, and he's on me. Like, he is on me, pressing me into the car at this point. And, um, I finally get the, the key in the lock and when I open it, he starts trying to push me into the car. So he was going to finish it in the parking lot if he needed to. And at that moment, something changed in me, you know, something like really strong rose up.

[00:54:35] And as we're fighting for control of the door and him trying to push me in, I turn. And in that moment I just shove him as hard as I can. And when I do, he lost his footing and fell on his backside onto the pavement. And that gave me enough time to get into the car seat. And I start the car and we're just fighting, like battling back and forth to get control of the car.

[00:54:57] It was absolutely insane.

[00:55:04] So I'm surprised I didn't run him over. Part of me wishes I would have. So if I would have, he wouldn't have hurt so many others. But, um, nobody came out to rescue me, nobody from the lobby, nobody. And so I drove home and it was a 45 minute drive home, and I don't remember the drive home at all. I remember, um, getting to my house and thinking, I don't know how I got here. Like, it was just total remote driving.

[00:55:34] And when I put my key in the lock, my mom opened the door, and I kind of fell into my foyer because I was just so glad to be home and I was just coming undone, you know? It was just like all I could do to drive and get there. And my mom was mad at me because I missed my curfew. And she starts berating me for missing the curfew. And here I am, a teenage girl who's been out at a revival night and now been sexually assaulted and I'm getting in trouble for a curfew. It's like Darrell, all I kept saying, is Darrell. Darrell. And she's like, no.

[00:56:05] And then she tells me that Dean had called our house that evening. He had said, no matter what, do not let Tiffany be alone with Darrell. And I'm calling to leave this warning. He didn't want us to go to the revival. He was hoping to catch us before we went. But of course mom couldn't get in touch with me at that time. And so when she asked him why, he said, I can't tell you right now, but you've got to keep her safe. Just don't let her be alone with him. I don't care what he says. He knew something was wrong with Darrell.

[00:56:33] So what Dean did is he flew back to Texas. I don't know if it was that night or that morning. He started just basically investigating on his own. That's why I say he's like the hero in this.

[00:56:53] Carolyn McCulley: Only two months later, Paige Patterson stood in the pulpit of Victory Baptist Church in the suburbs of Dallas with some bad news for the congregation.

[00:57:04] Paige Patterson: For some time now, there have been rumors about misconduct on the part of your pastor. Darrell shared with me that the allegations of adultery, misconduct that were laid at his feet were indeed correct,. But because Darrell has sinned against the church too, he needs to come before you.

[00:57:29] He has agreed with sorrowing spirit and heart to do exactly that. I want you to pray for him as he comes. It will be the toughest assignment that he has ever had in all of his life.

[00:57:48] Darrell Gilyard: I stand before you tonight a broken man to confess that in the past I have sinned against God, against my family, and before you. And I beg you to forgive me. And as such, I offer my resignation as your pastor, effective immediately.

[00:58:15] Paige Patterson: We are now obligated to do all that we possibly can to assist Darrell Gilyard in recovering his own personal walk with God and recovering his family and restoring him to usefulness in the kingdom of God.

[00:58:33] I want to say just another word to you. It doesn't just take one to commit this kind of sin. Nobody committed any of these sins in innocency. Brother Darrell was not innocent. Those with whom he sinned are not innocent either. Darrell has asked me to walk with him and others also of his dear friends across this country, including Dr. Falwell, Dr. Vines, in a process of restoration. That's exactly what we intend to do. It'll be a process that will cover some two years of time. He has agreed that he will make no attempt to stand in a pulpit anywhere in the country or to teach in a church.

[00:59:22] Carolyn McCulley: That planned two-year restoration and rehabilitation never happened. The Dallas Morning News reported that less than two weeks after resigning from Victory Baptist, Gilyard started another church. The congregation was formed by his supporters. Gilyard was 29 at the time. It was the fourth church in four years that Gilyard was forced to leave.

[00:59:47] And what was not said to the church that night, at least not in the videos I watched, was any accurate description of Gilyard's sexual predation. The evening speeches were edited for length for this podcast, but one thing I want to point out from that video is that when Gilyard entered the sanctuary to address his congregation, you can see the front row of people rise to applaud.

[01:00:11] Its jarring to watch, but it's especially cringe-worthy when seen in hindsight and more of the story is known. Unfortunately, as we will hear in future episodes, this reaction in churches happens fairly often in these situations, and that's because a vague and glossy statement is given to the church. You know, "mistakes were made." Then the rush to redemption begins.

[01:00:35] This is not an experience that's exclusive to the SBC. I've seen it happen countless times across many churches. What connects these churches from across many denominations and affiliations are the practices of a more command-and-control authoritarian culture mixed with complementarian theology.

[01:00:55] We'll look at this further in future episodes, but these two practices together often lead to one, excluding the voices and perspectives of women to church leadership and in church leadership; and two, protecting the institution, meaning the church or the denomination, and its reputation, instead of protecting the vulnerable in the community.

[01:01:20] One thing I didn't include was Patterson's advice to the congregation to avoid talking to the press because as he said, that silence would be the thing that would help Gilyard the most. But it took the Dallas Morning news to provide the grim details, which I quote here:

[01:01:37] "A growing number of women in the church said their pastor had sexually abused them. One said he had sex with her in the pastor's study. Another said she received lewd phone calls, and most recently a woman said he had raped her."

[01:01:53] This is a far different picture than "allegations of adultery" and mutually guilty parties to said adultery. These are allegations of sexual crimes.

[01:02:05] So by 1993, Gilyard returned to Jacksonville, Florida to pastor Shiloh Baptist Church, which was not affiliated with the SBC. The Houston Chronicle reported that even there Gilyard faced multiple civil suits, including one that was eventually settled from a grieving widow who alleged that she was raped and impregnated by Gilyard during counseling sessions. A paternity test later on confirmed that he was indeed the father of this woman's child.

[01:02:36] And in 2008, Gilyard was arrested and eventually sentenced to three years in prison. He pleaded guilty to fondling a teenage girl whose parents brought her to him for counseling and to sending sexually explicit text messages to another minor girl. That same year in 2008, Tiffany went public with her story, launching her heartbreaking work as an advocate for sexual abuse victims. That story and the stories of other advocates will be in upcoming episodes of the Silenced Truth Podcast.

[01:03:11] If you're not a Christian and you've made it this far in the podcast, you might be wondering, is all this in the Bible? Is this okay? Yes, it is in the Bible and no, it's not okay. The Bible tells the story of humans falling short of God's holy standards. But if you read the Bible, you will see that Jesus never treated women like this. He actually was counter-cultural in his era for the way that he treated and honored women. We'll talk about this too in future episodes, but I wanted to stop and just point this out right now, that this is not holy or honorable behavior according to the Bible.

[01:03:48] Stories like Tiffany's can be hard to process. You might listen and think that kind of grooming and sexual abuse doesn't happen in my community. I don't know anyone who's been sexually assaulted, and let me tell you, you would be wrong. Wherever you go, you are among survivors of sexual abuse and assault. According to RAINN, the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network, which is the nation's largest antisexual violence organization, one in six women is a victim of sexual assault or rape, and one out of every 10 victims of rape are men. So these survivors are among your family, church, and neighborhoods.

[01:04:27] So to help us better understand these dynamics, at the end of each episode, I will bring on an expert to help us process these stories.

[01:04:44] Deborah Bumbaughugh is a trauma-trained psychotherapist who over the years has counseled numerous victims of sexual violence. I've asked her to join us on this first episode to help us have a clinical framework for this kind of experience. Deborah, thank you so much for joining us. You and I have been friends for years, so I know all of this, but let's start with a little of your background and your therapy credentials. Tell us about your experience and where you currently work.

[01:05:11] Deborah Bumbaugh: Thanks for having me, Carolyn. My name is Deborah Bumbaugh and I'm a licensed therapist. I'm the co-owner of Curo Consulting Group, a private practice that is located outside of Washington DC in Falls Church, Virginia. We specialize in the treatment of trauma and the delivery of consultation services to businesses and organizations.

[01:05:30] Carolyn McCulley: So let's talk a little bit about Tiffany's experience and anchor some of your training and the thoughts that you want to share with us today in her story. As we know, every survivor's story is unique, and yet there are similar themes of grooming, shame, and fear in them. Another common thread is the amount of time it takes for survivors to come forward.

[01:05:51] So in this story, there's a big gap between when the assault happened to Tiffany in the nineties and when she went public, and that's really common, at least from what I've heard from other survivors. So let's talk about why there's often a gap between the time of abuse and when the survivors have the capacity to talk about it. Can you tell us a little bit about what's happening with the neurobiology of trauma and especially young brains?

[01:06:14] Deborah Bumbaugh: Sure. Well, trauma is an injury. Trauma is an injury to the brain, and our brain is an organ. Injuries take time to heal. What happens in trauma is that our brain experiences something called fragmentation.

[01:06:28] I want people to understand through the lens of neurobiology that when trauma happens, it creates fragmentation in our brain and our body, meaning that a separation occurs in order to help us actually survive unsurvivable situations. So parts get shut off, frozen, disconnected. A common example of fragmentation in trauma might be if you've ever been in a car accident or been with someone in a car accident, where right after this traumatic experience, someone says, I don't know what just happened. They tell bits and pieces of the story out of order. So kind of this disparate, separate, disconnected presentation, which is incredibly normal because your brain has actually helped you to survive a threatening, if not life-threatening, experience. And so when we are with trauma survivors and we're experiencing them tell separated parts of a story that might not be coherent, it's incredibly normal. Because their brain was working hard to protect them and help them through these situations.

[01:07:32] And so trauma takes time to heal. This is normal with all injuries and it's further compounded if traumas also happen in a context in which they were in a developmental period, meaning they were children or young adults and their brain and body were still continuing to develop. Trauma can then cut off what should normally be happening during those developmental periods, further adding time to a person's life to be able to really make sense and make meaning out of their story. So injuries take time, developmental period can create further delays.

[01:08:09] And on top of that, a community that denies or denounces that any injury has happened to you creates a complex trauma that then continues to add time to the telling of a coherent story, to making sense out of your story. Because it is really normal for us to cut off thoughts or feelings to believe others in order to stay in a group.

[01:08:34] And so through the lens of anthropology, we would say that a group threatening to oust us, to kick us out, is akin to death. And so our brain will further fragment, will further cut off from aspects of reality or truth in order to survive. And so when we see in these stories that decades of time have passed before they've come forward, I see this as normative.

[01:09:01] Carolyn McCulley: You know, there's this old thought that you should be able to fight somebody off. You should be able to yell and scream. But we know now that there's several different responses to trauma. Can you tell us what is a likely trauma response and the variations of it when some abuse or assault happens?

[01:09:19] Deborah Bumbaugh: Sure. Many people are familiar with the common phrase now -- fight, flight, freeze. But I'll start by saying that our design is incredible. Our brain, our body is brilliant. And so by design, our brain, including parts of our eyes, literally determine for us the best strategy for our survival in the midst of trauma.

[01:09:39] And so therefore, that could be to fight back when our brain and literally parts of our eyes can pick up that we are not going to win this fight. We freeze. We fawn. We do a, a myriad of different things. So fight, flight, freeze is standard in our understanding of trauma. People often do not have a choice. In those moments, our brain determines for us the best path. It can be correlated with previous experiences, the trauma that we've had where our body has learned to stay still and do not move at all. There can be an overlay of ongoing trauma symptoms in those moments. But what is important to know is that we do not have a choice at certain points. It does not become a choice point for people how your brain determines that you survive a life-threatening event.

[01:10:29] And so learning to be curious about why someone's body responded a certain way is the best path forward.

[01:10:36] Carolyn McCulley: So in Tiffany's story, we hear the very long process of grooming, and that is one of the processes that I think makes it difficult to understand what's happening to you when the sexual assault actually occurs. So can we talk about what grooming looks like and then also how that could set somebody up for the particular response that they do have when the assault happens?

[01:10:58] Deborah Bumbaugh: So grooming is a pattern of manipulative behaviors where someone begins to mimic goodness, beauty, trust, love, care, in order to build a bond with someone and/or a system, a community of people in order to ultimately get what they want. And we see this pattern in a lot of cases of abuse, individually and systemically, that there are people who are looking for long-term supply. People who are looking to access and gain power to consume another person's body. And they're doing that through the long game.

[01:11:36] And so therefore, when someone has systematically over time mimicked building a secure attachment with someone, it's really common that in patterns of grooming, we see someone, once trust has been built, begin to test boundaries. So what this looks like in communities is that slowly someone starts to cross lines, right? Starting to massage, make separate calls, buy bigger gifts. And if someone does speak out, if someone's able to voice kind of this discomfort or question it, it's quickly denied and it's, you know, nothing that is usually criminal yet. And so it's easily swept under the rug. It's easily dismissed. So we see that in systematic grooming that there's a slow buildup, which is why for a victim it can feel very complex, because they have been mentally manipulated and coerced to the point that they're associating what is harm with good, because this person has displayed good. And so when they have offered up so much goodness or pleasure, of sorts, by making a child or young adult, or even older adult feel special, loved, seen, soothed, safe, secure-- the things that we are designed for-- when it mimics that goodness, it feels good and we want it, we want to maintain it, we want to keep it.

[01:12:54] And so when these complex moments happen, a violation, they tend to get minimized. They tend to just be allowed to occur because we see someone in such a good light. Or we're developmentally not even at the point where we understand really the degree of harm that is happening. This is also further complicated when we understand our biology, our arousal system, that our body has been designed that when certain body parts are touched, they are aroused.

[01:13:25] So it can feel very confusing for an individual to experience so much love and even pleasure that gets connected to pain. And this can impact a person's sexual and arousal template for the rest of their lives and get passed down generationally.

[01:13:41] Carolyn McCulley: Now, in my interviews with survivors throughout this podcast series, I let them determine what they want to share about the assault or the assaults. So you may have noticed that when Tiffany told her story, she gave us a lot of details going up to the assault, and then whipped through just a very brief moment talking about the assault, and then the recovery from it. And I didn't ask her to elaborate. I didn't think I needed to. But I also think that is emblematic of what's going on with the brain. Can you tell us a little bit about why assault survivors can respond this way, even in telling their story?

[01:14:16] Deborah Bumbaugh: Sure. Starting with culturally normative thoughts that I have, Tiffany may be choosing not to share explicit details, because it's pretty normal for us to not want to share details around unwanted sexual encounters.

[01:14:32] It's also incredibly normal that through the lens of trauma and fragmentation, that your visual or detailed aspects of the memory get cut off, which again, our brain can do to protect us. To help us to block out memories or visual aspects of memories is pretty normal in trauma processing.

[01:14:53] However, it is incredibly clear through the science that we have now that your brain and your body still store memory, even if visual memory goes offline or aspects of recall are not available. So the symptoms are still significant. She still has absolute certainty of the trauma, but aspects of exact visual memory recall may not be available to tell.

[01:15:20] Carolyn McCulley: You mentioned other parts of the body remember the trauma. What do you mean by that? How would you describe it?

[01:15:26] Deborah Bumbaugh: A person's conscious presence is not required in order for trauma symptoms to land. Meaning that a person can be not conscious and still experience trauma stored in their brain and in their body as memory. We call this implicit memory.

[01:15:45] Essentially, a person does not need to be coherent or conscious in order to have our body remember the trauma in order for the trauma to land and have an impact in our body and our brains. And so we know that now through the lens of neuroscience. And we also have to understand that healing and proper medical treatment is required to help a person's full brain and body integrate, regardless of conscious memory.

[01:16:12] An example that I might give of implicit memory is why we can see people with Alzheimer's still have certain dance moves or sing certain songs, because our body remembers past the point of us coherently being able to talk about things or tell a story. And so our body just kind of encodes and captures what has happened to us.

[01:16:33] And those injuries show up in a way, we get triggered, we get activated, or we get deactivated in a way. So examples of this could be that someone could be touched in a similar place and they could have a panic attack. They could freeze and not feel. They could disassociate from those parts of their body, even though they might not have conscious memory recall about the event or what happened in that part of their body, as an example.

[01:16:57] Carolyn McCulley: If you're at all aware of how predators work, you can start to see these red flags pop up, and they're pretty common across survivor stories. Often when we hear people talk about this kind of pattern in churches, they will use phrases like, oh, somebody stumbled, or they fell into sexual sin. Whereas I would say, no, there's a very intentional predatory aspect of this. And so let's talk about how the church sets up that concept and then what we need to understand about red flags and how we can close that gap for people in church communities.

[01:17:32] Deborah Bumbaugh: Yes. So let's start with DARVO. D-A-R-V-O stands for deny, attack, reverse victim offender, which is a pattern that we see as normal in abuse cases and with predatory behavior. So we'll see a predator, we'll see someone who's been accused of crossing a boundary or of any kind of harmful behavior, deny that they've done it. How could you ever imagine that they would do something so horrible? They will attack back, blame the other person, and somehow begin to shift the whole narrative that they are the victim, that they have been offended by someone daring to name these things about them. So it's kind of a, a degree of gaslighting. It is a degree of mental manipulation that can happen to an individual, but also to a community. It's mentally confusing, which is gaslighting. It's a different portrayal of the reality.

[01:18:29] Carolyn McCulley: So, like in Tiffany's story, there are many red flags early on, which she could only identify later in life. Like, you know, Gilyard shouldn't have been calling me so often, so late at night, saying all these things, and the kind of response, the gaslighting response is, oh, it's on you. You're the one who's thinking dirty. And once you become aware of them, you realize how often these red flags pop up and how often people are told it's only in your own mind.

[01:18:56] Deborah Bumbaugh: Yes. I mean, that is what happens with long-term systematic abuse, so that a person's mind is manipulated and they create a distorted view of your own thoughts, feelings, interactions, and experience of what's happening to you. So people have been taught intentionally to not trust or listen to anything that is of discomfort within them.

[01:19:20] You know, it is psychological warfare, it is gaslighting when someone projects back at you saying, no, you're having those dirty thoughts. So you start to discount. The point is that you question your feelings. That is the abuse. That is what creates trauma. It is the telling of your own brain that what you are feeling is not accurate.

[01:19:41] Carolyn McCulley: Now, Tiffany's story started in the nineties, and I can recall from that time period going forward that there seemed to be an acceleration in clinical areas of understanding the brain, of understanding what was going on scientifically. And yet there were certain segments of the church that were like, no, we don't need these clinical modalities. We have everything we need here in Scripture. And I agree that you have everything you need in Scripture to understand God and his plan for salvation, but I'm not sure that it's the manual for everything. Do you remember that in your own Christian walk and your professional training?

[01:20:16] Deborah Bumbaugh: Oh, absolutely. And I still encounter it occasionally now. I've been on many panels where I've been questioned how I can be a Christian and even be a therapist. How I can be a Christian and not use only the Bible in the treatment of trauma. How I can use specific forms of interventions like EMDR, since I might not be referencing God in every single session or moment of it.

[01:20:43] So it's a cultural norm that still exists and it feels occasionally like it's an issue of fear, but sometimes it's just lack of education or understanding that the Lord has allowed us to understand more through the lens of science how he's designed our body to heal. He's set us up for healing in many ways. We're just finding out now through science and research the ways to best partner with his design for healing. And so research over the past couple decades has confirmed for us that talk therapy is insufficient to integrate trauma experiences.

[01:21:21] Carolyn McCulley: Can you tell us what EMDR stands for and tell us a little bit about that modality?

[01:21:26] Deborah Bumbaugh: Yes. EMDR stands for eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. EMDR is a comprehensive and integrative form of psychotherapy that's based on the premise that our past experiences impact us in the here and now for good or for worse. It is one of several trauma interventions that is deemed highly effective according to the research outcomes.

[01:21:51] The NIH has studied EMDR for effectiveness, and it has much higher rates than other forms of psychotherapy and interventions to date. We work to identify memory networks that have been ineffectively processed, and we work to help the brain and the body to integrate material that is distressing, to the point of integration and relief and desensitization of trauma triggers that are present in a person's life in the here and now.

[01:22:19] And so in an EMDR processing session, we're able to move clients through stuck places to help their brain and body fully process through a traumatic experience, to the point that we are seeing a generalized response where they are not triggered anywhere near to the degree that they were-- enabling people to flourish, enabling people to redeem these experiences in their lives and move forward.

[01:22:44] So an example would be in a person that might have walked into a church where they were harmed and experienced symptoms of anxiety, we are seeing them able to walk into spaces and feel completely regulated and experience a less than a two out of 10 in terms of activation for a similar scenario.

[01:23:03] This is a profound evidence-based practice that when paired with a lot of other evidence-based information, education, we see people effectively reduce trauma symptoms in the here and now.

[01:23:17] Carolyn McCulley: Yes. So many of my friends who've struggled with trauma have found that EMDR really did help them. I've noticed too that it's very hard for people who've been traumatized sexually, and then again by an institution that did not care for them, to extend trust. Safety is very important, and so sometimes that behavior can come across as being squirrely or unreliable. Because you know, you make a plan with a friend and they don't show up, or they won't call or they won't respond. It requires a lot of patience on the part of the church body to help somebody who's been traumatized, because they're not going to respond necessarily in the ways that you prefer that they do. Can you talk a little bit about what that sense of safety and trust is and how important that is in the healing work of trauma?

[01:24:07] Deborah Bumbaugh: Sure. When we look at statistics around harm to women and the report of sexual harm, all the research that we have to date confirms well over 90, 95% accuracy in reporting. We should believe first, we should fully believe first when a woman has claimed sexual abuse or harm.

[01:24:28] And what I see in church systems is the desire to protect the system versus the individual. The desire to prevent full rupture, the desire to quickly move through pain and suffering. We all, I think, as humans, try to move through pain and suffering very quickly. And yet when injuries are so significant, we know a bandaid on a gushing wound is insufficient.

[01:24:56] It's very normal for systems to want to protect themselves, to somehow have this view of protecting God versus the individual. And to quote Diane Langberg, it is a work of God to come after the one who has been harmed and care for them. That is the body of Christ. That is our historical biblical theology and our call to action, to protect the one instead of the system.

[01:25:22] We want churches to have a greater degree of understanding of the impact of trauma. Trauma impacts a person's physical health, literally their medical wellbeing, their sexual template, their relationships, their ability to work and function in the world, and especially their faith. And the impacts of trauma can go from generation to generation. We have advances in science around epigenetics that now confirms the transmission of generational trauma through DNA. Things that, again, science is just validating what we have theologically. These things are clear correlationsand confirm one another.

[01:26:07] And so if a church really understands the impact of trauma across a person's lifespan, it would spend significant time, money, and energy to help that individual and to create systems that redeem people's lives from trauma, whether it came from within their doors or outside of their doors. That's the witness we need.

[01:26:28] Carolyn McCulley: For my final question, what I'd really like to talk about is this constant rush to try to restore leaders and to do it quickly, as though like, "Hey, you're going to diet here for a couple of weeks when you've lost a few pounds, we'll put you back in the pulpit." It's like that kind of feeling. And I kept thinking like, no, it's a very serious issue that you're dealing with here. And this may be permanently disqualifying you from ministry. Are churches making big mistakes in thinking they should or could restore predators like this to the pulpit?

[01:26:58] Deborah Bumbaugh: Absolutely. I think that they are. We have to understand that when someone has this profound of a presentation of harm, it is not something that can be easily or quickly changed and often take many, many years to really make adequate progress, if I'm being absolutely honest with this. And the cases that you are talking about, Carolyn, on this podcast, what I'm listening to, the degree of criminality, the history of decades, and the frequency, the the number of cases you're talking about --in the psychological world and you know, the legal world, they would look at this as non-rehabilitative.

[01:27:40] However, when we're talking about how to deal with it within the church, when there's a predator, it is necessary to get proper assessments. Someone who has measurement tools to know exactly what you're dealing with and who can actually properly measure what you might consider treatment or restoration.

[01:27:59] There are more profound mental health conditions that may be associated with some of these behaviors. When we talk about psychopaths or people who are on the spectrum of mental health and illness, when we do brain scans, we see that there's less connection to parts of their brain where there's fear, guilt, empathy. And oftentimes we see that certain people actually get pleasure from harming others. And so these are symptoms that we want to take very seriously and be aware when we're trying to operate outside of our own knowledge base. These are categories that I would not treat even after 15 years of being a therapist with advanced training.

[01:28:36] And so my encouragement is for churches to partner with people who specialize in these categories, who can help make sound judgements around what you do when this is uncovered.

[01:28:49] Carolyn McCulley: Excellent. I'm so grateful for your time today. I know there's so much more that we could discuss on this, and I hope to have you back on a future episode. But I did want to at least give some initial handles, because I know it can be overwhelming for people to realize that, oh, this thing that happens out there could be happening in here, in my church, in my network of friends, in my family, and then have no idea what to do with the shame of that or how to really seek proper redemption. So I'm thankful for your time today and I'm thankful for you sharing your wisdom and hope to have you on a future episode.

[01:29:27] Deborah Bumbaugh: Thank you for having me.

[01:29:34] Carolyn McCulley: The Silenced Truth Podcast is written and edited by me, Carolyn McCulley. Rachael Bergland is our executive producer. It is fiscally sponsored by the Southern Documentary Fund. If you want to support the production of this series, you can make a tax deductible donation online to the Southern Documentary Fund. To find the link for that fund or the links for the historical materials referenced in this episode, check out our show notes.

[01:30:02] This podcast is a project of the Safe to Speak Initiative and a production of Citygate Communications. To become part of the movement, please join the Safe to Speak Initiative's Patreon community. There you'll get the latest news about the actions you can take to protect survivors from secondary harm as they navigate the legal process to pursue justice. The Patreon link is also in our show notes. Or you can find it by visiting Safetospeak.info.

[01:30:29] Finally, as a podcast listener, you know this call to action, but if you enjoyed or benefited from this episode, please leave us a rating and a review wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you for listening.

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