GetReligion
Thursday, April 03, 2025

Bill Hybels

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She kept stacks of journals: Bill Hybels drama enters a shocking new #MeToo chapter

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Is there any phrase that investigators – in police departments, newsrooms or even in churches – fear more than "he said-she said"?

We are talking about accusations in which one person insists that something happened. The only other person with first-person, direct knowledge of what happened is the person on the other side of the alleged incident. This person denies the facts presented by the accuser.

What is the investigator supposed to do?

Here is a hint of where we are going in this post: One of the best editors I ever had would always say something like the following, whenever I brought in a story in which crucial voices disputed what happened behind closed doors. This editor would say: Is there anything on paper? Can we prove that one or more of these people shared this information with others?

Hold that thought.

The big story, in this case, is that there has been another #MeToo development linked to the painful exit of the Rev. Bill Hybels, the founder of the massive Willow Creek Church outside of Chicago – one of the most influential institutions in "moderate" or even "progressive" evangelicalism. Here is the dramatic double-decker headline at The New York Times:

He’s a Superstar Pastor. She Worked for Him and Says He Groped Her Repeatedly.

Bill Hybels built an iconic evangelical church outside Chicago. A former assistant says that in the 1980s, he sexually harassed her

The story opens with this anecdote:

SOUTH BARRINGTON, Ill. -- After the pain of watching her marriage fall apart, Pat Baranowski felt that God was suddenly showering her with blessings.

She had a new job at her Chicago-area megachurch, led by a dynamic young pastor named the Rev. Bill Hybels, who in the 1980s was becoming one of the most influential evangelical leaders in the country.


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Catch a Deuteronomy reference? Another #ChurchToo case emerges in Tacoma

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Most everyone has heard of the imbroglio that drove famed Willow Creek Church pastor Bill Hybels from his Chicago-area pulpit in recent months – because that received tons of mainstream news coverage.

Fewer news readers have heard how the #ChurchToo movement has filtered down to lesser-known clerics.

Thanks to former GetReligionista Mark Kellner who alerted me to the story, I’ve been following recent revelations in the Tacoma News Tribune about a local Assembly of God pastor who’s been forced from his pulpit after similar complaints: Sexually suggestive remarks, a relationship with another woman that allegedly turned physical and a prior investigation that cleared him of all wrong. He leads a 4,500-member congregation, which is megachurch level here in the religion-parched Pacific Northwest.

The bottom line? This is a story that really needed attention from a religion-beat pro.

The Trib first came out with this story on July 2, updated it a day later here, then filled in various holes and updated it again this past Sunday with the following:

Revelations surrounding Tacoma megachurch pastor Dean Curry have reached the crisis stage.

Last week, Curry stepped down as leader of Life Center Tacoma in response to a complaint of physical misconduct with an ex-employee. This week, a former church board member filed formal complaints with federal and state agencies, alleging prior instances of sexual misconduct by Curry with female church employees and congregation members.

The complaints to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the state Human Rights Commission come from Julee Dilley, who was elected to the Life Center Board in 2014. She said she and her husband left the church in 2016 over concerns about Curry’s conduct and the church’s response to it.

The allegations described in Dilley's complaint appear to be distinct from the more recent misconduct charge brought to the Northwest Ministry Network by the former church employee. That record is confidential, and the employee has not been identified publicly.

What so often happens in these instances is a reporter publishes a few facts he can prove.


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Thinking, with Andy Crouch, about the stunning power of celebrities in religion and ...

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This is an unusual think piece, because its contents is primarily theological – as opposed to journalistic.

However, the whole "think piece" concept is this: We're talking about articles that will be of interest to anyone who is interested in trends in religion in the news or the process of covering them in the mainstream press.

In this case, there are all kinds of links between Andy Crouch's subject in this recent post at The Gospel Coalition – "It’s Time to Reckon with Celebrity Power" – and the news. He even states that in the overture.

What Crouch has not done, however, is write out the names.

It was not a great week. In three separate cases in my immediate circles, a person with significant power at the top of an organization, each one a subject of flattering major media exposure during their career, was confronted with allegations of sexual misconduct and related misdeeds. In one case, the person resigned from his role and board memberships, accompanied by a direct and remorseful confession. In the second, the person resigned, but not without posting a defiant denial of all allegations against her. In the third, the person likewise denied all allegations in the strongest terms – at one point with physical force, banging on a table – and, as I write, remains in his position.
All three were, or at least had once been, seen as among the most exemplary Christian leaders of their generation, including by many who worked closely with them. While I wasn’t personally close to any of the three, I have experienced and benefited from their exceptional gifts in leadership and ministry, as have thousands or millions of others.

This was one of the pieces that I was thinking about this past week when, in my post about the "Crossroads" podcast, I listed the five "Big Idea" takeaways from my 30 years writing my national "On Religion" columns.

To be specific, note No. 5:


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Friday Five: tmatt's big milestone, Hybels' resignation, White House Bible study and more

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Hey, it's the Three Musketeers!

Actually, the photo shows me between about 100 years of religion reporting experience — Terry Mattingly and Richard Ostling.

"What’s the symbolism of an empty glass?" quipped a Facebook friend when I first posted that picture from a GetReligion planning meeting in New York City last fall.

"I have no response to that," tmatt replied.

A speechless tmatt? That's a first.

I kid. I kid.

In all seriousness, I hope you'll join me in helping GetReligion's editor celebrate a major milestone this week. I'll offer more details on that in just a moment. But first, let's dive right into the Friday Five:

1. Religion story of the week: Three weeks ago, the Chicago Tribune's Manya Brachear Pashman and Jeff Coen occupied this spot with their in-depth scoop on allegations of sexual harassment and misconduct against Bill Hybels of Willow Creek Community Church.

Here we go again: That dynamic reporting duo's report on Hybels' resignation in the wake of those allegations is this week's must read.


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Bill Hybels resigns at Willow Creek: Thank goodness, real pros got to cover this story

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Sometimes it takes an outsider to see the most basic facts.

When I was teaching at Denver Seminary in the early 1990s, the Denver area was in the middle of a remarkable boom era for evangelical megachurches. There were congregations that – in the space of 12 months or so – attracted several thousand members.

During a classroom discussion one day. a student from overseas (I think it was Russia) asked an interesting question: Why are there no old, unattractive, balding superchurch pastors? Why are they all young, super attractive and really funny? And how can you be a pastor when you have 7,000 members or more? Were these men pastors or celebrities?

The Americans laughed, but the laughter was rather weak.

I thought about that exchange when I was reading some of the early coverage of the latest scene in the ongoing drama of the Rev. Bill Hybels and the massive Willow Creek Community Church outside Chicago.

Obviously, Hybels is more than a pastor who founded a giant evangelical megachurch 42 years ago. He is the creator of what amounts to a new Protestant mini-denomination – more than a mere parachurch network. He has been a hero – a celebrity -- among moderate evangelicals who want to make sure that the world understands that they aren't like all of those other tacky evangelicals.

There's a reason that GetReligionista Julia Duin's original #ChurchToo post about the accusations against Hybels has attracted nearly 18,000 readers.

With all that in mind, let me say something very obvious about the main news reports about the Hybels resignation.

These stories are, as a rule, long, detailed and full of nuance. In other words, look at the bylines on the following stories in the Chicago Tribune, The Washington Post and the hard-news website at Christianity Today.


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Friday Five: YouTube shooter, Pearl Joy, Trump's Latino adviser, a mom's Easter Taser and more

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After a woman named Nasim Najafi Aghdam shot and wounded three people at YouTube headquarters in San Bruno, Calif., before killing herself this week, the San Francisco Chronicle had an excellent angle for a meaty religion story.

The Chronicle reported on what its headline characterized as "a troubling rush" by social media users to view the shooter as "driven by faith."

To some extent, this was a typical "Muslim backlash" story — the kind that often make headlines after someone of the Islamic faith is involved in an attack such as this.

But there was a major problem with the online rush to judgment, as the Chronicle noted:

In the end, investigators said the shooter, Nasim Aghdam, was angry about YouTube’s “policies and practices” — a message echoed by her family. And her videos reportedly included messages describing herself as of the Baha’i faith — a religious minority in Iran.
The same pattern has often emerged following mass violence — a wave of presumptions that the incident is linked to a perpetrator’s religious practices, assumed to be Islam. Muslim Americans, and others, see a profoundly unsettling routine.
“It’s sad to see how some people are literally giddy rather than somber after a shooting when they can exploit the tragedy to further their racist agenda,” said Dalia Mogahed, research director for the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, a think tank in Washington, D.C., that seeks to empower American Muslims.

It's an interesting piece, although I wish the paper had identified the social media offenders rather than referring to them in vague, anonymous terms.

Meanwhile, let's dive into the Friday Five:


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Another #ChurchToo: The Chicago Tribune investigates Bill Hybels in 6,000 words

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The Chicago Tribune set off a #ChurchToo tsunami last week when it ran a lengthy story (I counted 6,096 words) about the revered pastor of Willow Creek Church, a megachurch and global parachurch ministry hub northwest of the city.

Those of us on the beat were commenting on it almost as soon as the mega-story came out. It was clear to several of us that a ton of work that had gone into this piece and that reporters Manya Brachear Pashman and Jeff Coen must have been working on it for a long time.

Obviously, people have been talking about this situation for some time. The story begins:

Last October, the Rev. Bill Hybels stood before worshippers at his packed sanctuary and made a stunning announcement. After 42 years building northwest suburban Willow Creek Community Church into one of the nation’s most iconic and influential churches, Hybels was planning to step down as senior pastor.
“I feel released from this role,” he said, adding that he felt called to build on Willow Creek's reach across 130 countries with a focus on leadership development, particularly in the poorest regions of the world…
What much of the church didn’t know was that Hybels had been the subject of inquiries into claims that he ran afoul of church teachings by engaging in inappropriate behavior with women in his congregation – including employees – allegedly spanning decades. The inquiries had cleared Hybels, and church leaders said his exit had nothing to do with the allegations.

What follows is a step-by-step recitation of what Hybels was accused of, plus the fact that these accusations have been swirling for at least four years. What was also intriguing is that within hours of the Tribune’s story, Christianity Today, which is headquartered in Chicago’s western suburbs, had its own highly detailed story up on its site.

To have their own investigation –- written by religion beat pro Bob Smietana – at the ready tells me one thing: If CT was onto this, then a lot of people knew about these rumors and have known about them for some time.


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Friday Five: Sister Jean's rising celebrity, Bill Hybels' #ChurchToo accusers, Pence's bunny and more

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In this space last week, I highlighted Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt — 98-year-old nun and team chaplain for Loyola-Chicago — after her 11th-seeded Ramblers won in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament.

Thursday night, Sister Jean's team improved to 3-0 in #MarchMadness and advanced – in yet another last-minute win – to the Elite Eight.

"I don't care that you broke my bracket," she quipped after Loyola's latest victory.

With each game, Sister Jean's national celebrity just keeps growing.

Among the countless stories about her, the New York Times' Jeff Arnold had a really interesting feature this week on "A Day in the Life of Sister Jean, Media Darling." A note from the piece:

William Behrns, Loyola’s eeassistant athletic director for communications, is one of two staff members who have been assigned to sort the requests for time with Sister Jean since the Ramblers’ success thrust them — and her — onto the national stage last week. Behrns estimated that as of Monday evening, his office had received 75 requests for interviews with Sister Jean, from outlets including “The Tonight Show,” newspapers, radio stations and cable television networks.

Here on the religion beat, we do love this kind of detail:

Sister Jean wakes before dawn, an hour earlier than usual, and immediately spends time in her daily prayer and meditation. She routinely, and almost ironically this week, asks God for a peaceful day. She then meditates on a gospel story; lately, her choices have centered on reminders of God’s love for his children. “Whether we win or lose,” she said in an interview with The New York Times on Tuesday morning, “God is still with us.”

Loyola will face Kansas State, a No. 9 seed, in the South Region final Saturday night. USA Today calls it "an epic underdog battle."

But enough about Sister Jean and Loyola – for now anyway. Let's dive into the Friday Five:


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The Los Angeles Times posits that this popular evangelical writer is a fundamentalist

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As a rule, GetReligion doesn't pay attention to editorials, commentaries and reviews for the simple reason that our purpose is to focus on the good and bad in mainstream religion news coverage, with a strong emphasis on the word "news."

Besides, it's hard to critique matters of accuracy, bias and balance in forms of writing in which authors are free to speak their minds, as columnists or commentators.

However, even it comes to writing about movies – whether we are talking about news or commentary – The Los Angeles Times is not just another newspaper. It matters what kinds of labels the La La land newspaper of record pins on real people who work in the public square.

So here is the top of the Noel Murray review of the new movie "The Case for Christ," which is based on the journey that former Chicago Tribune legal-affairs reporter Lee Strobel made from atheism to Christian faith. The headline on the review: " 'The Case for Christ' prioritizes drama over evidence."

Lee Strobel became a fundamentalist Christian hero thanks to his 1998 book “The Case for Christ,” chronicling how his dogged research into Jesus’ resurrection helped convert him from atheism. Director Jon Gunn and screenwriter Brian Bird’s film version emphasizes Stobel’s personal drama over his academic investigation, which makes for a watchable movie but thin theology.
Mike Vogel plays Strobel, who at the start of the 1980s was an award-winning Chicago journalist with a happy marriage and a bright future, until his wife, Leslie (played by Erika Christensen), found God. Anxious to get their life back to the way things were, he started interviewing scholars in various disciplines, hoping that by presenting Leslie with the facts, she’d back down.

Veteran GetReligion readers will not be surprised that it was the word "fundamentalist" that caught my attention, after clicking on a URL sent in by a reader on the West Coast.

There are two ways to read the "fundamentalist" clause in the lede.


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