02 | It’s Complicated . . .
ACNA Witnesses Series:
How the Anglican Church in North America failed victims of sexual abuse.
ACNA leadership failed repeatedly to create a transparent, workable, fair way to support victims of sexual abuse under their care.
ACNA leaders, after being made aware of abuse allegations in their churches, focused on self-protection and secrecy instead of providing immediate help to multiple victims. Our witnesses document these failures with emails, minutes, and their personal conversations.
As you know from my original post yesterday, I had a front-row seat to the interactions between Joanna, Cherin, Eve, their other advocate, and Bp. Stewart’s crisis response team at REZ from January 2021 to July 2021.
And, I am here to tell you that Bp. Stewart and every single member of his team expressed deep care about what happened and about these victims.
I know everyone wants to hear a more sensational story of cover-up and scandal.
They want to hear something akin to the Mars Hill Podcast or to the Ravi Zacharias revelations.
That’s not what happened here in the Diocese of the Upper Midwest.
What happened here is so much more pedantic and so much more pervasive and private. And so much more difficult to name precisely.
THE OPPOSITE OF LOVE
We like to believe that “we” (whatever group we identify with) are on the side of all that is right and just and “they” (whoever they are) are on the side of evil and wrongdoing.
It’s harder to look inside and find that the evil is inside of us, inside of me.
The name of that evil is neglect, apathy and turning away.
The name of that evil is the opposite of love of neighbor. It is not actually “hate” of neighbor. It is simply not choosing to love.
It’s the story of us walking by the man who is lying bleeding on the side of the road to Jericho (see Luke 10:25-37) because it’s inconvenient, because I don’t know who did this, because I don’t have time right now, because I have more important ministry to do, because this might cost me my job or my friendships or my reputation. Why should we care for him (or her)?
Every single person I have worked with—both at REZ and on the BC—are honorable, God-loving, and kind people. They are ones that I enjoy. They are ones I wish I could get to know better personally.
I have no malice toward them. I have no bitterness. I have no judgment.
And each one of us is also fatally flawed, beautifully broken, and sinfully self-centered.
We are blind to the needs of others. We are each the “god” of our own existence. Our needs and desires trump those of others–all the time.
I see this in the way I treat my husband and my children. I am angry at them for making my life a bit harder or a bit messier, or for causing me to be a bit later to that meeting. And then I justify my impatience and my outbursts because they don’t appreciate me enough or they don’t happen to satisfy my exact needs or desires right this instant. And these are the people that I care the most deeply about. Imagine how I am with strangers?
Well, actually, I am much, much nicer to strangers.
I woo them. I want them to like me. Admire me, really. And I don’t want them to see my sin. I don’t want them to peek behind the pretty curtain and see the amount of pride I have stashed away. I don’t want them to pity my lack or be aghast at my ugliness. I want to seem full and sufficient and overflowing with abundance in and of myself. No sins here. Just the perfect, shiny Christian veneer.
But is this not the gospel? Is this not the bad news that we proclaim — that we have each one of us gone astray? Is this not what cost Jesus his very blood?
Do we actually believe this though?
EITHER - OR THINKING
We are attracted by the “poles”.
Either Bp. Stewart is a perfectly godly man who is enduring the attacks of Satan and the abuses of the Enemy . . . . Or he is a sick and twisted man who has been masquerading all these years and who cares little to nothing for injustices and is only out to cover up the truth.
Those are the two poles that pulled at me — from opposite directions and by opposing voices — throughout my last months of service on the response team at REZ (post-Joanna’s Twitter revelations) and during my many months on the BC post-Stewart’s leave in July.
The gravity from each is undeniable.
And the truth actually — at least the sliver of it that I see — is much more nuanced and multi-layered.
Bp. Stewart is a godly and gifted leader. He is one of the best leaders that I have ever had the privilege of serving under. His people are loyal to him for a reason, and it’s because they love him. He is definitely charismatic and attracts a lot of admirers. I didn’t know him that well when I stepped onto the BC back in 2017, but I saw his manner of leading.
He invited me to the table. He asked me questions. He encouraged me to share my perspectives. He was gracious and thankful. He modeled saying “sorry” when he was wrong. He was everything you could ask for in a leader and more.
He is talented — so talented. He is kind. He is thoughtful. He is considerate. He is extremely funny and very charming.
He is a learner. He is one who invites challenging questions. He is not afraid of confrontation.
So, I am not surprised that there is such a fierceness of friendship for him and for Katherine.
AND
At the same time, over the months, as I have listened to folks who have left REZ or who have left the UMD, I have heard the same themes as well in their stories and past experiences:
He is someone who keeps his inner circle close and lets very few people into it.
All those that he trusts have proven themselves with years of tested loyalty.
Anyone who is not loyal or not trusted is forced out.
Those people have lost their jobs (even outside of the church), had their characters assassinated, or experienced much persecution from rabidly loyal supporters of Stewart.
He invites questions, challenges and confrontation in public and up to a certain point . . . but if he believes you are disloyal or you are undermining his authority or you are not being submissive enough, then a different side of him appears.
These are quotes from people who have left REZ. Some left more than a decade ago...others more recently. But, it will give you a flavor of what I have heard about Bp. Stewart and not yet experienced personally:
“When his back is up against the wall, you had better watch out.”
“When he wants to do so, he will use every power in his arsenal — and it is a vast arsenal — to attack you.”
“When he is threatened, the gloves come off.”
“It took me a long time and repeated failures to finally open my eyes to what Stewart and his crew were doing...what they were capable of doing. I’d loved and trusted him for so many years and it was hard to believe — to even consider — that he could willfully do something wrong.”
DO WE NOT BELIEVE IN THE POWER OF SIN — EVEN IN THE BEST OF MEN?
My question for all of us is: WHY is it hard for us to believe — to even consider — that any person could willfully do something wrong?
I grew up as a single child of first-generation immigrants from communist China. My parents were (and still are) atheists/agnostics. I became a Christian as a young child and, growing up, attended whatever smattering of churches that I could reach in physical proximity.
I have attended Presbyterian, Wesleyan, Baptist, Missionary Alliance, Lutheran, and a half-dozen other denominations over the years. When asked if I was a part of their denomination, I said that I wasn’t sure exactly but I was a Christian. Could I come and learn about Jesus? My early married life was spent attending a non-denominational church plant in the north suburbs of Chicagoland that met in an elementary school cafeteria and has since become a mega-church with multiple campuses. My husband and I spent our first decade serving in the Evangelical Free Church that my husband grew up in and that his parents still attend.
So, I may have missed something key about Anglicanism along the way since I only discovered it 14 years ago. But, are deacons or priests or bishops or even archbishops any different from the rest of us? Do they not experience problems with their physical health, their mental capacity and their spiritually besetting sins the same way that I do? Does ordination or even multiple decades of successful ministry sanctify them beyond the point of any significant temptations?
Here is a section from my resignation letter to the BC, emailed out on March 18th and mailed by post to Bp. Stewart:
“In the middle of wrestling with this confusion in my own mind as to what kind of leader our Bishop is and with whether or not I could, in fact, trust him at all, I cried out to God for clarity and I got the following picture:
Stewart Ruch and William Beasley are both like big, powerful semi-truck trailers being driven rapidly down the highway.
There’s nothing inherently “good” or “evil” about a large semi-truck.
They are POWERFUL vehicles.
They carry much greater loads and are much more useful for interstate commerce than my battered blue minivan.
They can do much good. And they can impact many people. And they are gifted to do much more than most leaders.
However, semi-trucks also have much more danger associated with them.
Their speed and their load and their sheer force can cause great damage — particularly, if the driver is not regularly trained and specially licensed . . . or if the truck’s blind spots are not being pointed out by huge mirrors on either side.
These trucks are also hard to stop.
Who among us haven’t been caught in the middle-lane of traffic between two huge semis and not felt some degree of fear and trembling lest we be crushed in between them?
Well, I would submit to you that the UMD has been. We have been crushed between two powerful semi-trucks in the form of Bishop Stewart Ruch and Missioner General William Beasley.”
Here is another section from my resignation letter following a discussion about the lack of accountability structures in our UMD Canons and Bylaws:
I ask you: Do we actually believe in the doctrine of the inherent sinfulness and fallenness of all men, even men as extraordinarily gifted and spirit empowered and blessed in ministry as Stewart Ruch and William Beasley? If so, why are we entrusting broken and imperfect leaders with such absolute and unassailable power?
Have we not learned anything from history? Have we not learned anything from Scripture?
David was a man after God’s own heart. He slew Goliath. He defeated many, many enemies. He brought prosperity and power to Israel . . . and, yet, he also committed adultery and murder.
His son, Solomon, was blessed by the Lord with so much wisdom and wealth and honor that nobody else has since compared . . . and, yet, he ended up worshiping idols.
I am NOT accusing our Bishop or our retired Missioner General of any hidden sins.
I am only pointing out that we are NOT doing our Bishop (or any leader) any favors when we do not provide some oversight and accountability for their actions. They need us to be their REARVIEW & SIDE MIRRORS — the larger the vehicle, the bigger those blindspots!
Why is nothing in the UMD set up in such a way as to provide that? And why are we so afraid to do so now, even when it is so desperately needed?”
So, instead of giving you a neatly packaged answer to what is going on, can I instead tell you a story? It’s a story told from my limited point of view. But, I will tell it nonetheless if you are willing to hear?
The Story of the Bishop’s Crisis Response Team
A GOOD BEGINNING
I was asked to be on Bp. Stewart’s Crisis Response Team towards the end of January 2021. After four years, I was the senior lay leader left on the Bishop’s Council and so I was de-facto “Senior Warden” for the UMD. Both myself and Sarah Graham (Senior Warden of REZ at that time and daughter of Cn. William Beasley) had spent most of that month wrapping up Bp. Stewart’s personal performance review. It was the first time that the BC was invited into this review process so I was honored to be the one representing the council.
Bp. Stewart led his crisis response team with a steady hand. His team were all REZ folks or those closely associated with REZ. But, I could sense from the very beginning that the goal was not to cover up, but to respond well. We all agreed that Joanna and Cherin had been through horrific experiences. These women were coming to us. We all wanted to be a church that responded well.
I was initially tasked with writing a “Public Communications Piece” — in accordance with Joanna’s wishes and urgings to us. But, that was then put on hold. No nefarious reason – just a recognition that we needed an “expert voice who can bring clarity to the steps we need to take.”
Excerpt from a 2/5/2021 email discussing this with Cn. Brenda Dumper:
“Yes, Bp. Stewart is on board with holding because there are so many differing views and the situation is so complex that we're at the point of needing an expert voice who can bring clarity to the steps we need to take as well as protecting both known and potentially unknown victims. And because we're not just talking about the Diocese and Rez.”
Instead, a Zoom meeting was scheduled between us and Joanna, Cherin, and two of their supporters. On February 9th, an agenda was sent out to those on the response team who would be on the Zoom call.
As you can see, the plan was for Bp. Stewart to apologize for “his leadership shortcomings” in very specific ways. He was not hesitant to admit where he knew he had misstepped. (That, in itself, was more than I had seen in many Christian leaders.)
I remember this call vividly.
I was on vacation with my youngest daughter in Fort Myers Beach, FL. We were alone and staying in a hotel room. I had put on a cable television cartoon channel for her with strict instructions not to touch the remote. I spent most of the 3 1/2 hours of Zoom calls — a pre-meeting Zoom with just the team followed immediately by the actual meeting with the survivors — on the bathroom floor so as to have some privacy.
The absolute first dynamic that I noticed visually in this call — as I glanced at the little boxes of people’s faces — was the power disparity. Four survivor-advocates were on my screen. Three top UMD leaders, including the Bishop, were on the call. Two women who worked directly for the Bishop and/or REZ. And, then, me.
This was awkward. There was — in my mind — an immediate contrast in who held power in this situation. All the power in this conversation resided in the 3 men. The other women were either supplicants or subordinates. I was the only neutral female.
And, in addition, these 3 men were priests (or higher). They were ordained ministers and of the same “group” as Father Rand (COLA rector) and Cn. William Beasley (founder and leader of the Greenhouse Movement, of which COLA was a church plant). This “group” of men had failed Cherin and her family back in May of 2019 with their apparent mishandling of her daughter’s alleged molestation by Mark Rivera, a Greenhouse Catechist. Now, here we were asking Cherin to meet with similar men nearly two years later . . . and asking for her to trust us.
Although I believed that my main role was to listen and observe, the ENFJ and Enneagram Type 2 in me could not help but jump in and try to bring some warmth and some comfort to the conversation. I talked about who I was. I talked about the fact that I was from MN and unconnected to REZ and that neither my husband nor I worked for any church. I talked about the fact that I had an 8-year-old daughter in the other room and that I was grieved for Cherin and her daughter. I talked about the fact that we were taking their requests for public and open communication very seriously — that I had been tasked with it, but we had put it on hold so that we could make sure it was done right.
Anne Kessler, the COO of the UMD and treasurer for the BC, jumped in after me and also explained how terribly tragic this situation was and how she was personally invested in researching and finding the right independent third-party firm to help us to do the communication, interview, and survivor-care pieces right. She was articulate, passionate and detailed in her research. We discussed certain firms on her list.
All the men on this call — including Bp. Stewart — made space for Anne and I to speak. They did not ever interrupt. They listened respectfully. They were compassionate.
Joanna and Cherin and their advocates softened. The atmosphere thawed. I could tell that we were, in fact, starting to gain their trust. They opened up and shared about their frustrating and painful experiences — both with the church’s handling of this matter (including the shunning that they had each experienced from Christian friends) and with the criminal justice system (and the number of times that Cherin’s daughter’s trial had been postponed). NOTE: At the time this post is being written on April 20, 2022, this trial has not yet taken place.
And, their underlying concern was that this type of response was completely normal and standard. They could not do anything about reforming the justice system, but they had come to Bp. Stewart and to all of us in order to impact the response of the church. They wanted to make sure this never happened to another woman or another child in the UMD ever again. They wanted to make sure that the abuse and subsequent trauma due to how it was handled was known and understood at REZ and in our diocese.
We all agreed that this was exactly what we wanted as well.
Conversation continued with growing fervor and eagerness. The call lasted for almost 2 1/2 hours.
Read the minutes from the Zoom call here
Although the Zoom call minutes detail what the church leaders spoke about, it does not describe what the 4 women told us:
Justice system can't be trusted to protect children. Something like less than 10% of children report and of those only about 5% result in convictions. The average age of disclosure of childhood sexual abuse is 52 years old! (And it is likely higher since that doesn't average in the people who die without telling.) Repeat crimes (when the perpetrator is an adult) are the norm, not the exception.
Children do not just "report" when something happens to them, especially in very conservative circles where they haven't been given the “body safety” or language training to tell about what has happened to them. Children are highly perceptive and pick up on signals from their parents and community about who is bad and good, what is and isn't said, what parents are and aren't comfortable with, etc.
It is very important to provide resources and to educate on how to properly interview a child. Children don't know what "abuse" is – they might just know they felt uncomfortable, so accessible language needs to be used, and it needs to be done without shame or threat (which can be subtle). They pointed out that REZ and the UMD were already working in a hostile environment for reporting because every child in the community had already seen Cherin and her family get "disappeared" and heard disparaging things said about them (so shame and threat are already implied and need to be corrected against).
Regrettably, I had to leave the call early because my child had been left alone for far too long in the next room and was now hungry. Since we were in a hotel room, there was no way for her to rummage through our snack cabinet or our fridge. I left with a feeling of gratefulness that this Zoom call had gone so well and that we had built some trust. The next morning, I sent the team a brief summary of my thoughts. I hoped that this positive traction would continue and we could continue to work successfully together to bring positive change to REZ and the UMD.
This was to be, however, the one and only Zoom conversation that the two sides ever had together. We never reached out to them again to have such a face-to-face conversation.
Instead, the only interactions that took place between the teams from February 9, 2021 and current day in the spring of 2022 have been via emails and then through social media.
The Mangled Middle
I won’t go into details about what took place during the course of last spring. Suffice it to say that all the interactions began to take a downward spiral.
It didn’t happen right away of course.
We had built some “good will” with one another in this one Zoom call.
But we spent whatever small capital of accrued trust in a spending spree!
Anne Kessler did work extremely hard at researching investigative firms. After the initial Zoom meeting, our team agreed that GRACE would very much be our first choice. I believe Bishop Stewart said something to the effect of “I wish we could hire them right away!”
But, as it happened, Anne reported back that GRACE was going through its own organizational restructuring. After reaching out — repeatedly — over many days and to many different folks at that organization, she still had not received a single call back from them.
This was in sharp contrast to several firms — including GRS — who responded to Anne’s calls within a couple hours and engaged in long consultations with her about this matter, prior to being engaged by us.
But, during much of this time, what Joanna and Cherin heard from us was absolutely nothing. There was a lot of silence.
You can see how that silence and lack of transparency into our processes began to taint any trust they had in the response team in documentation published on the ACNAToo website. Their record is accurate, but it does not include the many conversations and efforts that they could not see were happening on the Response Team.
During this time, I took a back seat to this process.
I was sitting in Minnesota. Everyone else was at REZ. I believed in their good intentions. I believed they were working hard to do the right thing. I believed in the character and competence of every single member on our team. I believed that a mutually-satisfying investigative firm would be hired.
Yes, the long silences bothered me.
Why isn’t anybody reaching out to Joanna & Cherin more proactively?
Yes, some of the curt or brief email responses bothered me.
Why couldn’t that have been said in a softer or more sympathetic manner?
But, I rarely acted on these instincts.
I am simply a lay leader and observer from the BC. Who am I to be a backseat driver in this complicated terrain? I am no expert. I don’t know how to deal with sexual abuse allegations.
I had my own family to care for and my own agendas that demanded my time. I had given many volunteer hours already throughout the fall to the BC and much more in January than I had anticipated. I have given this a ton of time and attention and effort already. I have done what I can. I don’t think I should interfere. I should stick to my own lane.
I am calling out and naming some of my own negligence, apathy and turning away here before you all publicly. I did not love the survivors as I ought. I did not love the Church as I ought. And I’m asking for your forgiveness, REZ and UMD, for sinning against you all in these small but significant acts of omission.
The attitude on the response team also began to slowly shift in opposition to Joanna and Cherin.
We were all working so hard to do exactly what they asked us to do — find an independent investigative group.
Why are they so unappreciative of our efforts?
Every time we do something for them, they continue to ask for more.
There was a subtle shift from wanting to serve them to wanting to placate them.
Then, that shifted into wanting to defend ourselves from them.
We felt more and more unfairly confronted by them.
Then, we felt more and more attacked by them.
They had gone from being survivors to becoming advocates to, now, being viewed as vigilante aggressors.
I too got pulled into this gravitational force of being on the “right side” and trying to strategize about how to position “our team” in a manner that showed how sincere and above-board and hard-working we had truly been.
Looking back, the polarization into “us” versus “them” was fast and fierce . . . and without intentional forethought.
And they were rightly surprised and hurt by our shifting responses.
We did indeed ask them to be part of this process of selecting the independent investigation firm during our Zoom call. We did indeed invite them to teach us and to advise us — not only with their personal experiences — but with their gobs and gobs of research. If you give Joanna credit for nothing else, I ask you to give her credit for this: she is painstaking about nailing down her facts, she is a thorough researcher, and she is an intrepid communicator.
But, then, over the course of the next couple months, what we actually did was slam the door of involvement in their face.
We decided that we needed a NEUTRAL investigator.
So, of course, nobody from their “J-Team” (from the very beginning, Bp. Stewart’s team had dubbed Joanna, Cherin and their two supporters this) could be involved in this decision.
And, Bp. Stewart and his leadership team would also not be involved in this decision.
Only Anne Kessler (who did not know Mark Rivera or any of the Greenhouse folks involved or any of the survivors) and Chancellor Charlie Philbrick (since he was legal counsel for our UMD) could interview the final few firms. And they alone would make the decision.
The need to keep this INDEPENDENT and ABOVE-BOARD was seen as paramount.
What I did not realize – at the time – due to being under the impression that Chancellor Charlie Philbrick was brought into this matter sometime after the fact – was that he also was personally implicated in the original May 2019 abuse report mishandling (as explained in the ACNAToo Timeline). He was far from neutral or independent.
The need to get the private investigation started and finished ASAP was also seen as a priority.
What I did not realize — at the time — due to not being copied on all communications with Joanna and Cherin – is that these women did not care about the immediate hiring of a firm (as they both explained in the email excerpts shown here). They wanted this to be done right — and that meant informing and protecting any survivors that remained at REZ and in the UMD.
In any case, our crisis response team decided to hire GRS and said, in effect, “here . . . this is what you asked for.”
And we were surprised when they responded with hurt and anger and dismay.
My biggest regrets from this time are the following:
Why did we not invite a trauma-informed specialist or a victim-advocate to join our Team?
Why were no outside experts on sexual abuse or the handling of sexual abuse ever consulted before we decided on this process of picking an investigative firm? (Note: Bp. Stewart apologized over the Zoom call with Cherin and Joanna for not engaging any 3rd-parties when Cherin’s initial reports were made in 2019 but we again made this same mistake here.)
Why did we not have anyone from outside REZ — besides me — speak into this entire crisis?
Why did we have nobody whatsoever from outside the UMD?
The middle of this REZ story — from February through June of 2021 — was mangled.
It reveals a disintegration in trust and a downward spiral in communication.
This is what led Joanna . . . and later Cherin . . . to go public on Twitter.
I am here to tell you all that we had a part — all of us on the on the “Bishop’s side”or the “ACNA’s side” — in creating ACNAToo. This organization was born out of our well-meaning but entirely inadequate ability to care or listen to these two survivors for over 6 months of them engaging directly and privately and repeatedly with us.
They gave us time and permission to take their painful story and make a right response. We did not fully do so. Instead, we grew suspicious of them and their requests. We sidelined them from the process.
That part of the story needs to be clear.
We cannot point our index finger at ACNAToo without pointing the other four digits squarely back at our own chests.
This was “our bad” originally and nobody else’s.
Not the ACNA’s. Not ACNAToo’s.
This points to a cultural and leadership problem.
The crux of this problem – in my mind – is not whether Bp. Stewart or our UMD met some “legal obligation” to report the child abuse that Cherin brought to the attention of Father Rand in May of 2019, but it is the following more complex and layered questions:
How have our systems and structures and the blindness (or ignorance) of our leaders allowed an alleged child molester to be among our children’s ministry, our youth groups, and our prayer teams for a couple decades?
How were over a dozen (adding up the survivors of #ACNAToo + #BelieveUsToo) women and girls who Mark Rivera allegedly abused not able to come forward in the intervening years to report him to REZ or to someone else within our UMD? (Or, if reports were made, why was this person not removed from lay ministry?)
In light of the #MeToo movement and in light of the Catholic Abuse Scandals and in light of the stories about sexual abuse in nearly every sector of society — from churches to schools to gymnastics/sports . . . how is it that a Diocese with so many churches and so many proactive leaders can still willingly remain so ignorant of trauma-centered responses or be caught so unaware of these vital issues that impact so many of their congregants? See a brief list of the many appalling sexual abuse statistics for the USA, only one of which states “Self-report studies show that 20% of adult females and 5-10% of adult males recall a childhood sexual assault or sexual abuse incident.”
Why are we still thinking that the UMD and Bp. Stewart is in the position where we have to be proven to have done something “wrong” or “illegal” before we can be condemned by the world when, in fact, what the world is actually demanding is something different of us: “Show us how and when and where you have actually done something RIGHT here?
These statements, however, are being written by me after months of reflection, prayer, wrestling and investigating. It was not how I saw the situation last July.
The Sad Leaving
Joanna’s going public on Twitter led to a deep fear and a wide set of behind-the-scenes responses.
I felt deep personal cognitive dissonance.
On the one hand, I was also working as much as I could with the crisis response team and with strategizing about how we could possibly change the trajectory of this impending crash.
On the other hand, I was also telling my husband privately that I was cheering Joanna on because she had patiently waited all these months before going public and she had essentially been snubbed by us after coming to us in such a vulnerable and forthright manner.
On the one hand, I was praying and crying over the pain and distress that this was all causing to the team — my team — in Wheaton, IL.
On the other hand, throughout the spring, I had been reading books and articles on abuse . . . and I had asked for the authority (and been granted it) to reach out to Eve (a trauma counselor and “J-Team” member) to figure out for our team where things had gone so drastically wrong . . . and I had also discovered a female abuse counselor located in Chicagoland who was a believer with extensive experience in helping churches (including Willow Creek) muddle their way through this complex world of survivor care and response to reporting.
I wasn’t entirely sure that “our” side was in the “right” anymore. Not at all.
And, yet, I mourned to my core when Bp. Stewart was asked to take his “voluntary” leave of absence in early July of last year — when the ACNA Province swooped in through Bp. Alan Hawkins to project the public image that our Bishop and our Diocese had “asked” them to clean up the mess we had made and to save the day! Bp. Stewart was deeply loved and greatly respected. And, there would be a huge leadership vacuum in his absence at exactly the moment when we desperately needed the best leadership possible.
On a personal note, I felt supremely alone and isolated after Bp. Stewart and the rest of the Deans — including my own pastor, Christian Ruch of Church of the Cross (Hopkins, MN) — stepped down.
The rest of the BC had a very limited view on what I and the rest of the team had been doing. (You just cannot bring 11 other people along for that ride — nor would they want to be there.) The only other representative from the MN Deanery that I knew personally had resigned during the summer because she was pregnant with her fourth child. Even though she had very little idea what had happened, at least she knew I had been on Bp. Stewart’s team and that I had insights and observations from that time.
No other person in MN even knew the work that I had done on Stewart’s team from January - June. I had spoken of it with nobody here — except my husband. All the folks at REZ had each other to lean on throughout the crisis.
I didn’t want to lean on my own pastor or his wife since they were related to Bp. Stewart. And, while the two new members to the BC — a new “acting” dean and a new lay member, both from Church of the Redeemer (St. Paul, MN) were very respected and kind-hearted men, they were nearly strangers to me. They had been at our Church of the Cross when we had been the only Anglican Mission in America (AMiA) church in MN. I knew them in the past. But, they had left to plant our first daughter church over a decade ago.
I had no immediate support systems. I could not reveal these confidences to anybody — whether in our UMD or not. I was in deep lament over the “death” of our team that I had been engaged with in an increasingly intense manner over the early summer. I was in deep lament over the pain and suffering that we had caused to Joanna and Cherin.
I could explain this grief to none of my friends or fellow church members. Everyone in leadership in the UMD that already knew this confidential information was “off-limits.” Everyone at REZ had overwhelming burdens themselves and did not need any of mine.
I wanted so, so desperately to step off the BC.
But, I knew that I was the only one left with any of the backstory as to how we got here — with ACNAToo blog posts popping up and an absent Bishop.
So, I stayed.
For the sake of Church of the Cross and REZ and UMD. And for the sake of the Canon to the Ordinary who had become my only friend and confidante during those lonely late summer months. She had suffered even more intensely than I had. And she had chosen to remain and to serve the BC in spite of what it had cost her. I could do no less. And I did not want to leave her alone on the BC starting over with a group of nearly new people.
So, we both dusted ourselves off from the marathon we had just completed, tried to not focus on the pain we felt from our various injuries, and entered another arduous race — being on a Bishop’s Council with no actual Bishop.
Personal POV Closing
As I previously mentioned, I am the only child of immigrants from mainland China. My parents left the oppression in their communist homeland and ventured to create a life of freedom here in the USA. I was less than 5 years old when I stepped off the plane.
My parents had very little knowledge of English when they first arrived. They had both been college-educated engineers in China but they could only find menial work here. And while we came to the USA on a valid visa, we ended up being here illegally for a significant portion of my childhood. Under President Ronald Reagan’s policies, we were able to get our green card and apply for citizenship.
I learned English first — by watching Luke and Laura’s love story on GENERAL HOSPITAL on the tiny television in the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant in Washington D.C. My mom stood and washed dishes all day. I sat next to her and watched TV. There’s not much place for safe or active play for a little one in a working kitchen.
They had no family here in the States. They had very little money. They had a couple friends who were in the same desperate straits.
There was one time when we were going to be homeless because we lived above the restaurant and it was closing down. One of my mom’s Chinese friends had found her a job with a Chinese-American family in Bethesda, MD. The wife was a lawyer and the husband was a doctor. They had two little boys — a toddler and a baby. She and I could go live with them. (My dad still could not leave China at this time and was only able to join us later.) My mom would work as a 24/7 live-in nanny, housekeeper, and cook. And she would get paid $100 per month. She acted like we had won the lottery! I didn’t know any better at the time but I remember the pure joy and relief. It’s only in retrospect that I thought: Huh. This was a wealthy, educated, established and CHRISTIAN Chinese family. How were they able to justify taking advantage of such a vulnerable mom and child as to get almost free slave labor from her just to keep her from facing homelessness? How were they able to reconcile that with their faith?
Flash forward to me as a 9-year-old. My English is much, much better than my parents. They are taking college classes and I am helping them correct their papers. An elderly American Caucasian couple with whom we lived (and to whom we paid rent for using 2 bedrooms in their massive house) suddenly accuses me of stealing. These were nice people. These were Christian people. They had been missionaries in Hong Kong for many decades.
I was, in fact, innocent. Nevertheless, my parents were threatened and berated and shamed by this couple until I was punished. My parents believed my innocence, but I had to apologize humbly and obediently to this couple in order to appease them.
Several weeks later, the wife mysteriously found the missing item. She showed both me and my mom, smiling and laughing about it as though it were a big prank. They never once admitted that they were wrong and never once apologized.
Why do I tell you these stories?
Is it to make you feel sorry for me?
Not at all.
I am now an extremely powerful stay-at-home mom earning about $5K-$10K per year teaching teenagers at local homeschool co-ops here in MN.
I jest, of course.
But, in all seriousness. I own my own home. Nobody can kick me out. I drive my own car. I don’t need to wait for public transportation or beg other people for rides as favors. I read and speak English fluently. I am educated. These are things that nobody in positions of power can take away from me. I am no longer of the class of people that are powerless, weak and completely at the mercy of others.
But, from age 5-15 years old, I was part of that class. And I saw the absolute power that people wield when they have it and those under them do not. And I saw Christians doing the exact same thing as non-Christians. All the time.
Christ loved me. He called to me as a young child. And I have loved him in return.
But, I never stayed a Christian because of the Christians that I knew as a child. And, I certainly would not stay a Christian now— not after the last two years of American Christianity animosity and the last two years of ACNA/UMD Christianity secrecy — if I didn’t know and love Christ as I do.
And I tell you this to say that my life experience as a youngster gave me EYES TO SEE the power dynamics here and the compassion to feel them as though they were my own. I can read about and learn about the impact of certain life experiences — the atrocities of war, miscarriage, OCD, sexual abuse — but I have never had to suffer them.
But, reading or even hearing from someone you love about these experiences does not give you the visceral, embodied knowledge of them the same way as when you have physically and emotionally gone through these scarring situations.
I tell my stories to you to say that I know this type of abuse of power. And I know the propensity of Christians in positions of power to forget that they even have it.
They believe in their own personal goodness.
They believe in their own absolute rightness.
They believe they are doing you a huge favor to even speak with you or acknowledge you or give you anything at all.
And, I see now — finally — that this is the same way that Joanna & Cherin were treated simply because they came forward, because they did not back down, and because they would not not shut up.
My second reason for resigning from the BC: Joanna & Cherin dared to not be satisfied with the help that they received from us – help that differed from what they requested. They were so bold as to plead repeatedly for the right sorts of efforts . . . to be heard AND also heeded. Then, they had the gall to continue to challenge publicly the “powers that be” in our UMD and in our ACNA. And they are paying the price for doing so. Leaving the BC was my witness on their behalf.
Stay tuned for reason #3 in tomorrow’s post.
CONTACT INFO: If you want to contact me directly about this post, you can do so at helen@keuning.us. I apologize in advance if I don’t respond for a few weeks.
Read all 4 of Helen’s reasons for resigning the Upper Midwest Bishop’s Council at the ACNA Witnesses page: