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ABSTRACT
In 2018, The Chicago Tribune reported one of the most significant abuse scandals in evangelical megachurch history: Bill Hybels, Willow Creek Community Church’s founder, was accused of sexual assault and misconduct. Willow Creek staff and elders denied the allegations, refused to take action against Hybels, and accused the women of collusion. In response, survivors and sympathizers formed online networks of support through social media and blogposts, adding their voices to the #MeToo and #ChurchToo movements. While Willow Creek professed gender egalitarian theology, it failed to curb the power of its charismatic male leader. This paper argues that Willow Creek, which grew in the context of twentieth century American culture and conservative evangelicalism, harbored naturalized patriarchy, complementarian ideology, and gender individualism that resisted the examination of gender inequality. This demonstrates the limitations of egalitarian theology and the necessity of broader social movements and networks to unravel patriarchal religious systems.
KEYWORDS:
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank Todne Thomas, in whose course Religion and Family at Harvard Divinity School I first began to study this case. I would also like to thank Lynne Gerber, who responded to a version of this paper at the American Academy of Religion in 2022 and whose comments were instrumental to this publication.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 This paper takes as its evidence base newspaper and magazine articles, church announcements, and blogposts and Twitter posts by abused women and their supporters. The stories were reported by the Chicago Tribune, Christianity Today, The New York Times, The Daily Herald, and “The Roys Report,” a news blog. Testimonies of abuse were posted on blogs by Vonda Dyer, Nancy Ortberg, Nancy Beach, Ann Lindberg, and Keri Ladouceur. These were supported and corroborated by evangelical figures Scot McKnight and John Ortberg. They were contested by statements from Bill Hybels and Chair of Willow Creek Community Church’s elder board, Pam Orr.
2 Rezendes, “Church Allowed Abuse by Priest for Years,” Boston Globe, January 6, 2002, https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/special-reports/2002/01/06/church-allowed-abuse-priest-for-years/cSHfGkTIrAT25qKGvBuDNM/story.html.
3 Downen, Olsen, and Tedesco, “20 Years, 700 Victims,” Houston Chronicle, February 10, 2019, https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/investigations/article/Southern-Baptist-sexual-abuse-spreads-as-leaders-13588038.php.
4 Schmalz, “How the Catholic Church’s Hierarchy Hides Sexual Abuse.”
5 Gross, “How the Southern Baptist Convention Covered up Its Widespread Sexual Abuse Scandal.”
6 The Associated Press, “Southern Baptist Leaders Release a Previously Secret List of Accused Sexual Abusers.”
7 Shellnutt, “Willow Creek Chooses Co-Ed Pastors to Succeed Bill Hybels.”
8 Manya Brachear Pashman, Jeff Coen, “After Years of Inquiries, Willow Creek Pastor Denies Misconduct Allegations,” chicagotribune.com, accessed February 14, 2019, https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-met-willow-creek-pastor-20171220-story.html; Laurie Goodstein, “He’s a Superstar Pastor.” https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/05/us/bill-hybels-willow-creek-pat-baranowski.html.
9 Ortberg, “Flawed Process, Wounded Women.” Nancy Ortberg (blog). accessed March 14, 2019, https://www.nancylortberg.com/.
10 Vonda Dyer, “Vonda Dyer’s Statement Re: Chicago Tribune and Bill Hybels.”
11 Coen, “After Years of Inquiries, Willow Creek Pastor Denies Misconduct Allegations,” March 23, 2018.
12 “Statements from Bill Hybels, Willow Creek Elder Board Chairwoman.”
13 Pashman, “Willow Creek Congregation Comes Together to Support Pastor Accused of Misconduct, Cleared in Inquiries.”
14 Schmidt, “Veritas Be Told,” Veritas Be Told (blog), April 10, 2018, https://veritasbetold.wixsite.com/website; Beach, “Right/Wrong/Confused/Missing: My Response to the IAG Report,” Nancy Beach (blog), March 4, 2019, http://www.nancylbeach.com/blog; Dyer, “Vonda Dyer’s Statement Re: Chicago Tribune and Bill Hybels”; Ortberg, “Flawed Process, Wounded Women.”
15 Miller, “Former Willow Creek Pastor Steve Carter Breaks His Silence on Hybels Allegations.”
16 Pashman, “Teaching Pastor Resigns over Willow Creek’s Handling of Allegations against Bill Hybels.”
17 Goodstein, “He’s a Superstar Pastor. She Worked for Him and Says He Groped Her Repeatedly.”
18 Shellnutt, “Willow Creek Investigation”; Coen, “Claims against Willow Creek’s Bill Hybels of ‘sexually Inappropriate’ Conduct Are Credible, New Report Says.”
19 RELEVANT, “Willow Creek Church Apologizes to Victims and Holds Reconciliation Service.”
20 Ladouceur, “Two Years Ago This Week I Had a Meeting in the Board Room of the Private Jet Center at the Airport … ”; Roys, “Alleged Victim of Bill Hybels Tells Story of How Church Tried to Silence Her.”
21 Bilezikian, Beyond Sex Roles; Johnson, How I Changed My Mind about Women in Leadership.
22 Cochran, Evangelical Feminism.
23 Miller, “Willow Creek Confirms Abuse Allegations Against Gilbert Bilezikian.”
24 Whitnah, “Evangelical Organizations’ Responses to Domestic Violence.”
25 Sylvia Junko Yanagisako and Carol Lowery Delaney, Naturalizing Power, 1.
26 Cho and Kim, “38 Harvard Faculty Sign Open Letter Questioning Results of Misconduct Investigations into Prof. John Comaroff News The Harvard Crimson.”
27 Hartocollis, “A Lawsuit Accuses Harvard of Ignoring Sexual Harassment by a Professor”; Levenson and Hartocollis, “Colleagues Who Backed Harvard Professor Retract Support Amid Harassment Claims.”
28 Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne.
29 Vaca, Evangelicals Incorporated.
30 Barr, The Making of Biblical Womanhood.
31 Bowler, The Preacher’s Wife.
32 Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne.
33 Gilbert G. Bilezikian, Beyond Sex Roles, 11; Gilbert G. Bilezikian In, How I Changed My Mind about Women in Leadership, 58.
34 Alan F. Johnson, ed, How I Changed My Mind about Women in Leadership.
35 Bill Hybels and Lynn Hybels, “Evangelicals and Gender Equality,” 108.
36 Hybels and Hybels, 111.
37 Gaddini, The Struggle to Stay.
38 Gaddini, 124.
39 Natarajan et al., “Decolonizing Purity Culture.”
40 Swartz, Stained Glass Ceilings.
41 Emerson and Smith, Divided by Faith; Bonilla-Silva, Racism without Racists.
42 I use the term “gender individualism” rather than “genderblindness” so as to avoid using disability language outside the context of disability.
43 Swartz, Stained Glass Ceilings, 163.
44 Chaves, “National Congregations Study.”
45 Chaves, 17.
46 Collins, “It’s All In the Family.”
47 “Statements from Bill Hybels, Willow Creek Elder Board Chairwoman.”
48 Pashman, “Willow Creek Congregation Comes Together to Support Pastor Accused of Misconduct, Cleared in Inquiries.”
49 “Statements from Bill Hybels, Willow Creek Elder Board Chairwoman.”
50 Goodstein, “He’s a Superstar Pastor. She Worked for Him and Says He Groped Her Repeatedly.”
51 Nancy Ortberg, “Flawed Process, Wounded Women.”
52 Vonda Dyer, “Vonda Dyer Tells of Trauma Suffered After Exposing Bill Hybels’ Abuse”, 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBeGmwW5-v0.
53 Ladouceur, “Two Years Ago This Week I Had a Meeting in the Board Room of the Private Jet Center at the Airport … ”
54 Chipumuro, “Pastor, Mentor, or Father?”
55 “Statements from Bill Hybels, Willow Creek Elder Board Chairwoman.”
56 Ortberg, “Flawed Process, Wounded Women”; Nancy Beach, “Right/Wrong/Confused/Missing: My Response to the IAG Report,” Nancy Beach (blog), March 4, 2019, http://www.nancylbeach.com/blog; Vonda Dyer, “Vonda Dyer’s Statement Re: Chicago Tribune and Bill Hybels,” VondaDyer.com (blog), April 8, 2018.
57 Schmidt, “Veritas Be Told.”
58 John and Nancy Ortberg’s participation in the Willow Creek Community Church sexual abuse case is complicated by their subsequent involvement in a scandal involving Menlo Church in Menlo Park, CA. John Ortberg, senior pastor of Menlo Church, failed to protect youth from potential abuse from his son by ensuring that his son cease volunteering with students at the church or at a local public high school. Following this revelation, John Ortberg resigned in 2020.
59 Ortberg, “John Ortberg » Observations on the Chicago Tribune Article Re”; McKnight, “About Willow Creek.”
60 “Get To Know Us | History & Inception.”
61 Willow Creek Community Church, “The #metoo Movement Crosses All Cultures, Religions, and Genders.”
62 Vonda Dyer Tells of Trauma Suffered After Exposing Bill Hybels’ Abuse; “Statement.”
63 Ladouceur, “Two Years Ago This Week I Had a Meeting in the Board Room of the Private Jet Center at the Airport … ”
64 Hybels, “Died to Self and My Self Almost Died.”
65 Jim and Leanne Mellado “How Becoming Egalitarians Improved Our Married Life.”
66 Miller, “Willow Creek Confirms Abuse Allegations Against Gilbert Bilezikian.”
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Kelsey Hanson Woodruff
Kelsey Hanson Woodruff is a PhD candidate in Religion at Harvard University. Her research interests include contemporary evangelicalism and post-evangelicalism, women in religion, religious media, and religion and American politics.