Boz Tchividjian Discusses NDAs, Abuse in Churches, and Support for Abuse Survivors

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This podcast episode was initially recorded in June of

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2022. This is a conversation I had with attorney

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Baz Chivigyn. Baz's main area of practice is representing

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abuse victims who have been harmed by pastors and churches. The

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2024 news cycle has unfortunately been filled with accounts of abuse

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at the hands of pastors. So I thought this would be a good time to

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re air this conversation. Here's my conversation with Boz

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Tovigen. You know, I don't say this lightly. I think it's where God gave

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me the passion and commitment to spend the rest of my life

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addressing this issue in some fashion. It's just

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incredible privilege. It's difficult. It's fun.

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I also know that there are employers and churches

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that require their employees, as part of

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employment to sign a form of an

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NDA that basically says, if you leave working here, you

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can't talk about anything that happened here. That's

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ridiculous and reprehensible. If you're being given that

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agreement at the beginning of your employment, go find a job elsewhere.

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That's a bad sign. And if it's a church, go somewhere

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else. That means it's a church that is obsessed with control and

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controlling the narrative run from that type of place.

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This is Amy Fritz, and you're listening to untangled

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faith, a podcast for anyone who has found themselves

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confused or disillusioned in their faith journey.

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If you want to hold on to your faith while untangling it from

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all the things that are not good and true, this

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is the place for you. Hello, and welcome to

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episode 42 of the Untangled Faith podcast. I'm so

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glad you're here. This week I am chatting with Boz Chivigan.

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He's an attorney who represents many survivors who have been hurt in faith

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communities. He's also the founder of the organization

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Grace, which stands for godly response to abuse in christian

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environments. All right, here's my conversation with Baz

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Cevidian. I would love it if you could tell my listeners who you

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are, what you're doing, what you've been up to, in case they

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don't know you. Wow. That's. Okay. That's very broad, but that's fine.

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My name is Baz. I'm sitting at my desk drinking a Dunkin donuts, decaf

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coffee. Very fancy. We have to go beyond

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that. I am. Yeah, it's. My full name is Basil

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Chivigian, but so I don't make life difficult for other

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people or myself. I just go by Boz.

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I am a practicing attorney down in

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Florida. Prior to this, I was a law professor at

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Liberty University School of Law, which could be a whole

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other podcast. Yes. Prior to that, I was in private

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practice. In 2004, I started an organization called

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Grace, which stands for godly response to abuse in the

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christian environment. We can talk a little bit more about that. And then before that,

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some sort of going backwards. I started off as a prosecutor

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here in central Florida. I started, it was the chief of

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the sexual crimes division, where I really, really,

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that was part of the season of my life where I came face to face

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with these horrific offenses,

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both with regard to children and adults. And I think that's

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where, you know, I don't say this lightly. I think God gave

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me the passion and commitment to spend the rest of my life

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addressing this issue in some fashion.

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I currently, as a practicing lawyer, I left sort of the

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comforts of teaching to jump back into practice,

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because one of the things I really became convinced I wanted to

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do is to represent abuse survivors in courtrooms

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across the country. And so that's what I'm

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doing. And it's just incredible privilege.

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It's difficult, it's fun, all the above. I'm

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53 years old, and I feel like, okay, the

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last season of my professional life, which I hope will go on for quite a

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while, this is where I wanted to land, and it's just

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a huge privilege for me to do this line of work,

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which, again, we can talk about a little bit more later, because I think a

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lot of times, people don't. They think of criminal cases, but a lot

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of people don't understand the civil aspect of these types

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of cases and what availabilities there might be to

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them if they're seeking some accountability. You founded

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grace, which is godly response to abuse in christian

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environments. You are on the board still, but you're doing

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more with your private practice. So your role there

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has changed just a little bit. But I'd love for you to explain, what does

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grace do? How do they partner with people and

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churches? Yeah, it's a. Maybe partner is the wrong word.

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Yeah, partner. In fact, I was gonna. I was gonna. In my answer, I was

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going to rephrase that. Maybe gentle correction.

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You know, when I finished prosecuting, I just. One of the things that hit

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me is that there were so many

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cases that I had as a prosecutor that involved

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the church in some fashion. The church. I mean, whether it was somebody who was

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abused at a church, whether somebody was abused outside the

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church and brought the issue to the attention of leadership. Amy, I

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can't tell you how many cases I had where the church, over and

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over again, just blew it in their response, either failing to protect,

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failing to respond, or both. So when I got out and went into private

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practice, I just remember thinking, like I always grew up, maybe I was naive, probably

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was thinking that the church should be a refuge

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and should be the safest places for hurting and vulnerable people. And

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I was discovering as a prosecutor that that was largely

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untrue. And so I thought, man, what can I do?

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Where can I learn what I've learned on the front lines, as a frontline

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prosecutor, what can I do with that? To help train and

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equip faith based communities on these issues

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and didn't really know what to do, except I had met some

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wonderful people along the way as a prosecutor, all who had

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various, came from various disciplines who all shared the same concerns.

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And so I reached out to them. And long story short, in the summer of

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2004, in a back cramped office of

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Diane Langberg's up in Philadelphia,

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we came together, and I'll say, on the side, as a hurricane was hitting

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my home in Florida, wow. So I was, you know, talking to my

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wife, actually one night we all went to a Phillies baseball game, and I'm

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calling her and she's like, oh, that must be nice because we're in a hurricane.

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And so we started and we didn't really know what we knew that we wanted

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to educate the church. We don't know exactly how that

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looked, what that looked like. To be honest with you, back in 2004, unless you

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were in the catholic world, in the protestant world, nobody was really talking

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about this. They were mostly pointing their fingers at the Catholics. Yeah. So, yeah, we

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would speak at some conferences, went some denominational would

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sign up to do little talk here in a denominational workshop and things

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like that. And anyway, very long story, very short, is ultimately,

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in the coming years, the work of grace really expanded

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significantly, really, to where it is today, which is, I

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would say, sort of two primary areas of the work we do. One is the

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safeguarding initiative, which is where we work with churches and

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other faith based organizations to go in and train and

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equip every demographic within that community on

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issues related to abuse, not just child abuse and child sexual abuse. But

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as time goes on, we've expanded that to various other forms of abuse, because

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so much abuse is layered over and over again with each

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other. And then we have the other side, the

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institutional response side, where we go and conduct

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independent investigations or assessments of

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situations where if somebody steps forward, let's say, and says, for example,

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you know, 15 years ago, I was abused by my youth pastor, and

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this is the first time I'm saying anything about it. Oftentimes, yes, the youth pastor

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needs to be, in most cases, if the statute of limitations is not expired,

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needs to be investigated and criminally charged. But

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oftentimes what the prosecutors don't do is they don't really take a look at

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the institution. And how do the institution either allow it,

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cover it up, all those types of things? And so that's what our independent

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assessments will go in and do, and then we'll write a report.

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And one of our requirements is that the report goes not only to the

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institution, but also to every reported victim

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that met with us in that particular assessment. So it's

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transparent because I believe transparency lends

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itself to a much greater degree of credibility. And then we do also in

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cultural assessments of an institution. We did one recently of a christian

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college where they said, you know, we've got, we've got some sort of ongoing issues

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here with regard to sort of misogynistic behavior by

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some of the males. And we really want to get a handle on

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that and what we should do. And so we'll go in and do a

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institutional assessment that provides sort of an assessment of the culture

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and then make recommendations as to what they might want to do

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to transform that. But those are the,

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I mean, I could go on and on about Grace, but those are the two

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big areas that Grace is involved

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with. And, yeah, you're right. I started it. I was the part time executive director

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until December 2020. It became

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increasingly clear to me, as we had as full time staff and all of that,

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that they needed a full time director. And I just

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didn't feel like I was the person best equipped for that.

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And we, in God's kindness, found art director Pete

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Singer, who is doing an amazing job and who's a dear friend of

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mine. And it's a really, I'll just say this and be quiet. I think it's

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such a unique relationship because a lot of times you have organizations where, you know,

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some of the founder steps aside and the new person comes

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in and they don't really feel like they're in charge. There's sort of

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a insecurity because especially the founder's still on the board,

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and that's just been so not the case with Pete. He's become a

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dear friend. It's been really wonderful. He's the right person

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for this position, and I couldn't be more thrilled that he's on board and that

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I get to work with him as a board member. I did not realize

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that Diane, Doctor Diane Langberg was part of your origin

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story of grace. So that's awesome. In my mind,

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I'm imagining a Marvel style movie poster with Doctor

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Langberg and Boz on it in some way. Surely one of

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my listeners could make something like this, right? That's how I met her. I

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met Diane when we were thinking about putting together a board,

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and somebody mentioned this person named Diane Langberg. To be honest, I don't know if

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she knows this. I'd never heard of her before. This was back in

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2004 or earlier. And, man, that

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she sure changed my life. What an amazing human being. So

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many people that I have talked to or listened to this podcast

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could say the same thing. They have watched her videos. They

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have read her books. They have been blown

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away by she could preach. She doesn't call

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herself a preacher, but I listened to her at the curing

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well conference on her address, and I

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was blown away. Now, it was an SBC thing, so we

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can't say that she was preaching, right? But in my heart, she

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was preaching. Oh, I like to think she was preaching. That gave me a little

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bit of a smile. I'll have a link in the show notes to the address

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that Doctor Langberg gave at the Keringwell conference, as well as to

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the address from Baz. Baz started his address by talking about his

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discomfort with some of the aspects of the conference as well as the

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lanyard that he had been given that had sponsors names on it. One of my

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questions I wrote down, what actually did you do with your caring well

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lanyard? Boz I probably threw it in the

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trash as soon as I walked out. I remember you saying, you

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know, just your that in your address, saying

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how conflicting that was for you. Glad to be able to address the

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problem. But how hard it is that tension in, like,

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are we creating an industry around this? Are we actually looking at

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the right things here? So I know that there is still that tension in

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the survivor world of how to navigate that. I went

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back and forth on whether to go to that at all, and I really struggled.

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I was like, why am I going to go to this? I'm going to be

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speaking to a group of and again, some of it was just being

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judgmental, but a group of people, like,

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why is the SBC qualified to put

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on this conference? GRoss no, you need to be going to

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conferences, not putting one on. So I really wrestled with that. But at the same

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time, I knew that there were individuals within the

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ERLC. Yeah. At least at that time that

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I really cared. And there are things that I could say that they couldn't,

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and which a few of them afterwards came up to me and thanked me. They

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said, I could never have said that, but you needed to, and I'm glad you

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did. Yeah, that was encouraging. And then, you know, the big one for me

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was, the two big things for me was a, I want to be able to

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say anything I want, so nobody's going to look at my outline, talk

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anything beforehand. And they agreed to that. And then I just wanted to make sure

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I had a drink afterwards, so, which I did. I went with a couple friends

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to the, to the hotel bar. And it was sort of funny because, I mean,

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everybody's walking out, and I had my much needed drink that night.

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It was an honor for me to be because I, you know, Amy, I felt

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like, with regard to that, and that's all I'll say about this, is there

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were a lot of people who couldn't make that conference. There couldn't make it

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either because financially or they just didn't want to. There were a lot of voices

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that were left out. And, you know, I can't speak for them, but I wanted

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to speak to them and remind them largely, the people in the

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room is, are not why I'm doing what I'm doing. It's the people who,

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who are at home who can't pay money to a conference, can't

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fly to Dallas. I can't, you know, they're just, and they feel voiceless

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and, and so it was a privilege for me to do it, to do it

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for those reasons. And that's what ultimately convinced me. Like, okay, go.

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But I do think I left literally the first thing the next morning. I was,

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you know, it wasn't going to be this, you know, networking opportunity. Go network.

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Which just all grosses me out. It's the people that aren't

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comfortable in those rooms that you are needed

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for. I want to, I want to chase that down just a little

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bit. There are people that are listening to this, and I was wondering, like, what

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would you say to people to just encourage them that feel

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ostracized and like they are a threat in a faith community

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now because they really care about speaking up about

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injustice. Either they've seen it personally, it's

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happened to them, something, something painful has happened to them, or

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they just care about it. I have seen, and I wish this isn't the case.

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There is this movement, and I'm seeing a lot on social media from

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pastors, and I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt. In some cases,

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it's well intentioned, but in other cases, it feels really defensive.

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Writing articles and saying, you know, things aren't really that bad in the church. It's

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not as bad as everybody says it is. What would you say to people that

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have kind of felt pushed out and not welcome? Yeah, I first

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say, if it's not that bad and why are so many people leaving? You can

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ignore that reality, but it's a reality. I think what I would share with

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people is I know how important so many people

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church community is. It was for me for a very long time,

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especially if you grow up in that world. It's your social community.

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It's where you spend most of your time. It's where most of your

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longest term friendships exist. It's where people

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are a part of who helped maybe watch your kids grow up

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and maybe help raise your kids. I mean, it's a, we can't underestimate

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the power of community. And for many, especially evangelical

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christians, church has played that role. And so

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it's really devastating

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when either somebody steps forward because they were,

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they were victimized, or when somebody steps forward to speak on behalf

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of those who've been victimized or any other injustices,

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and they get, on a good day, the cold shoulder

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from church leadership. And if they keep stepping forward and saying,

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okay, I want to be consistent, they go from getting sort of the cold

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shoulder to, you're now becoming part of the

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problem. And so much of the world I grew up in,

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and again, I didn't grow up in fundamentalism at all. I grew up in a,

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you know, definitely conservative evangelical home. But

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so much of it is so dualistic. It's us versus them. You

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know, we heard that growing up about the culture wars. It's us versus

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them. You heard that in, you know, then that bled over into

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politics and in all aspects of life. And so

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when you're so used to being part of the US, and then you make some,

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you step forward to either disclose your own abuse or advocate for

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others, and you begin, over time, sometimes it's very

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quickly become viewed as part of them that is

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devastating to people because they've lost

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the very core community that has been such a part of their

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DNA. Amy, I see many people who just suck it up and, and

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stay in it because they can't lose that community sometimes. It's complicated. They got kids.

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They get kids who are involved in the community. They don't want to

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harm their kids or have their kids feel the consequences

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of this, so they stay. Sometimes they just shut up and be quiet

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and get back in line because they value and need that community. And sometimes

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they're kicked out, and sometimes they walk out. You know, I can't tell you how

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many of my clients, it's probably most of them,

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who were part of a church community

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and loved it. And when they

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brought forth disclosure that either themselves or their children were

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abused within a very short period of time, found themselves outside of

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community, to the point where I had one client tell me, we were part of

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this church for years and years. They were our family, our church family.

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And when we disclosed our child's abuse

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and the way they responded was so bad that we eventually

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felt like we had no alternative but to leave. To the point

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now, if she sees somebody in the grocery store who she might have

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known really well at that church, went to small group together, went to Sunday school

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worship, families, got together. That person, she remembered one particular

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incident where the person looked at her, caught her eye contact, turned

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around and walked the other way. And so there's a tremendous loneliness,

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you know, betrayal, loneliness,

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questioning yourself, like, wait a minute, if you know, why is

306
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the church. Why do I feel like the church is I'm one of

307
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them now instead of us? Maybe, am I doing something wrong?

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Maybe God's not really with me on this. Maybe I've made a

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mistake. And so I guess I would say, number one is you're not

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alone. I can tell you that now. That doesn't necessarily make you feel better, but

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you're not alone. And my guess is there are people, probably even in

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your geographic area, that are suffering

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something very similar. And the key is, how do we connect and find those

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people? Because I think that you're seeing more and more as more people walk away

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from more traditional church, you're going to run into

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those people and developing those types of relationships outside the constructs

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of a particular church. And now, the other thing I would tell other

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people is, I say this all the time, is like, just remember, church is not

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a prison cell. You can leave. And I know it's

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painful and difficult, but sometimes that's what you have to do.

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Because if they're not going to listen to you and they don't value your

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words and your concerns and your own life

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experiences and your trauma, then it's not a place you should be at.

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That's a very unhealthy, toxic

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community. And sometimes you just have to leave. But it's always

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much easier to leave when you when you have support

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than when you're alone. And so I guess it's all very

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tragic. Why are the families of sexual abuse victims

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not the perpetrators, the victims? Why do I run

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into countless numbers of them

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who the ultimate consequence of them coming forward

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has been ostracized by the very

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community that they thought would be their greatest advocate? How does that even

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reflect Jesus? I mean, there's no Jesus there. So just because

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you call yourself a church, in my opinion, doesn't make

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you one. I haven't experienced sexual abuse,

337
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but, you know, being somebody that's spoken up about injustice.

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Right. You know, somebody really powerful and connected in my

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community, you know, if the evangelical industrial complex

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exists, it exists in my neighborhood.

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It is a particularly lonely feeling to know that

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thousands of your neighbors see you as a

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threat in some way. You know, again, most of us growing

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up in evangelicalism heard, you know, it was just part of the

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culture, whether it's from the pulpit or in other teachings about

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the evils of the world and how the world is trying to destroy

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the church and how you send your kids to college and they're gonna destroy

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their minds? And, I mean, again, it was them. The them

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is out to destroy Jesus and his church. And when you find

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yourself now being labeled as them, whether you agree with

351
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it or not, it has a profound impact. This is one of

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those comments about which we could probably do an entire episode.

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So many of my listeners will resonate with this. Finding

354
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yourself in the them category is profoundly

355
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disorienting and heartbreaking. It's interesting to me

356
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that instead of that introspection that should happen

357
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when. When, you know, there's accountability that is brought that says, oh, yeah, we

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do believe that everyone is a sinner. And that applies to

359
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leaders of organizations, and that applies to

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organizational structures that are built by imperfect people,

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that the first, the default response would

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not be to think, oh, we have some learning to do or something we need

363
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to change. But to be this must be an attack from

364
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Satan. Yeah. Yeah, we

365
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act horribly, and when we're called on it

366
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and criticized for it, especially publicly, it now becomes

367
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an unfair attack by Satan. Unfair attack

368
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because of our faith, we're being persecuted. That's

369
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just ridiculous. But it's the easy narrative to embrace.

370
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And sadly, too many people in churches

371
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will run to embrace that because they all want to be part of the us.

372
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Nobody wants to be part of the them. And so that

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narrative allows me to confirm the fact that I am

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part of us. And if I'm part of us, that I'm

375
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God's child and I'm protected and loved by him, and I don't want to do

376
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anything that becomes where I'm part of them. And it's just very

377
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manipulative and destructive and judgmental and

378
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hateful and controlling. Unless people

379
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in the, in churches say, enough.

380
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And I think that's what they're, in many ways, they're doing by leaving. They're just

381
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saying, I don't choose. I choose not to voluntarily place

382
00:23:17,566 --> 00:23:21,406
myself in this type of environment. Doesn't mean I'm not a, I don't

383
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love Jesus. You know, a lot of them leave and they say, I'm done with

384
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the whole Christianity thing. And I get it. I truly get that. But a lot

385
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of them just, they're rethinking everything. And then even the rethinking,

386
00:23:31,530 --> 00:23:34,530
they get criticized for, like, you know, the whole term of, you know, these buzz

387
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terms like deconstruction, they can't even, they can't even think on

388
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their own. They can't even engage in critical thought before leaders

389
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are criticizing that. Yeah. Because when you think on your own

390
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and engage in critical thought, you might take away a little bit

391
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of power from the christian leader, and they don't like that. Yeah.

392
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You know, I read somewhere just the other day that, that I think it was

393
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Pete ends who said, this deconstruction has been going on for hundreds

394
00:24:00,790 --> 00:24:04,214
of hundreds of years. What do you think Martin Luther was doing? So it just,

395
00:24:04,374 --> 00:24:07,518
it has a lot to do with power. I don't know if you saw this,

396
00:24:07,566 --> 00:24:11,074
but a pretty well known pastor in the Dallas area,

397
00:24:11,614 --> 00:24:15,014
on social media, there was a clip of a sermon that was shared pretty

398
00:24:15,054 --> 00:24:18,234
widely. And he said

399
00:24:19,534 --> 00:24:23,280
very angrily, the disciples didn't give up on Jesus

400
00:24:23,382 --> 00:24:27,084
because of Judas. And then he said, you know,

401
00:24:27,124 --> 00:24:30,828
nobody really talks about sheep bite.

402
00:24:30,996 --> 00:24:34,636
You know, everybody's talking about how, you

403
00:24:34,660 --> 00:24:38,236
know, people are getting hurt by the church, but nobody's talking about sheep bite.

404
00:24:38,420 --> 00:24:42,020
What is your response to that? Well, if it's the person I'm thinking

405
00:24:42,052 --> 00:24:45,380
of, then maybe he needs to listen to his own

406
00:24:45,412 --> 00:24:49,056
words, because I know people who have

407
00:24:49,220 --> 00:24:53,056
not been cheap bit, but have been shepherd bit over and over

408
00:24:53,080 --> 00:24:56,848
again, so they're bloody, and then they walk away. And you're

409
00:24:56,896 --> 00:25:00,592
now trying to explain that away instead of being humble and

410
00:25:00,608 --> 00:25:03,736
going, you know, what, what can I learn from this? How can I grieve over

411
00:25:03,760 --> 00:25:07,544
it? How can I practice lament? How can I maybe give

412
00:25:07,584 --> 00:25:10,564
up some power and authority that I've accumulated?

413
00:25:10,944 --> 00:25:14,584
And it's just, it's, it's all about a preservation of,

414
00:25:14,704 --> 00:25:18,004
of power and influence and especially,

415
00:25:18,504 --> 00:25:21,536
and it happens on all levels of churches, in my opinion. I mean, it doesn't

416
00:25:21,560 --> 00:25:23,912
happen. And let me just say this. I mean, I don't, I'm not here to

417
00:25:23,928 --> 00:25:27,712
say all pastors and churches are terrible places at all. Some of

418
00:25:27,728 --> 00:25:30,944
my dearest, dearest friends are

419
00:25:31,064 --> 00:25:34,512
pastors and they're imperfect,

420
00:25:34,648 --> 00:25:38,184
as we all are. But this whole notion

421
00:25:38,224 --> 00:25:41,880
where we've created, especially in this country, I mean, it's in other

422
00:25:41,912 --> 00:25:45,204
places too, where these pastors become these

423
00:25:45,244 --> 00:25:48,996
superstars and they have their little kingdom. They're living lives

424
00:25:49,060 --> 00:25:52,692
that 99% of their congregation couldn't even remotely

425
00:25:52,748 --> 00:25:56,532
afford to live. And when they begin to, maybe, and

426
00:25:56,588 --> 00:26:00,140
pretty soon there's zero accountability because everybody's coming to hear the

427
00:26:00,172 --> 00:26:03,660
pastor and we don't. Without the pastor, the

428
00:26:03,692 --> 00:26:06,820
church and all the money that comes in and all the people they pay can

429
00:26:06,852 --> 00:26:10,688
be called into, in question. So we don't want to do anything that

430
00:26:10,696 --> 00:26:13,768
upsets the pastor. That pastor becomes zero

431
00:26:13,816 --> 00:26:17,648
accountability. The pastor is in charge of appointing all the other leaders

432
00:26:17,696 --> 00:26:21,016
in the church that are all, yes, man. Sounds a lot like what happens, what

433
00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:24,880
I see in Russia today. And, you know,

434
00:26:24,912 --> 00:26:28,560
then they get upset if people question them or question their

435
00:26:28,592 --> 00:26:32,152
teachings. And I'm just like, I think,

436
00:26:32,288 --> 00:26:36,052
what if we created, I mean, I was with a friend of mine

437
00:26:36,148 --> 00:26:39,636
about a month ago in New York City, one of my dearest friends, and

438
00:26:39,780 --> 00:26:43,372
we decided to go to his church. He lives in the lower east side,

439
00:26:43,548 --> 00:26:47,252
goes this little greek orthodox church. So I said,

440
00:26:47,268 --> 00:26:51,076
yeah, I'll go with you Sunday morning. So we went to church Sunday morning, and

441
00:26:51,140 --> 00:26:53,932
I only understood about a third of it because most of it was in greek.

442
00:26:54,028 --> 00:26:57,212
And it was a very long, very long. We came in an hour into it

443
00:26:57,228 --> 00:27:00,672
and left. I think there's still an hour going on. So having said all that,

444
00:27:00,828 --> 00:27:04,480
but here's the thing. I walked out and the priest gave

445
00:27:04,552 --> 00:27:08,304
what I would call a homily, which was ten minutes, really

446
00:27:08,344 --> 00:27:12,128
good. And I remember thinking, wow, that

447
00:27:12,176 --> 00:27:15,816
service had really nothing to do with the priest or his ability

448
00:27:15,880 --> 00:27:19,664
to communicate or his charismatic

449
00:27:19,744 --> 00:27:23,584
personality. In fact, the service was all about Jesus.

450
00:27:23,744 --> 00:27:27,480
And it culminated, the service did not culminate with a

451
00:27:27,512 --> 00:27:31,128
30 to 40 minutes sermon by this one man standing up there being,

452
00:27:31,256 --> 00:27:35,032
speaking uninterruptedly for 40 minutes, if you're lucky. But

453
00:27:35,088 --> 00:27:38,832
it actually culminated with the Eucharist, which is communion

454
00:27:39,008 --> 00:27:42,456
culminated with Jesus. And that same night I was

455
00:27:42,480 --> 00:27:46,124
on, I turned on Facebook and I looked in somebody and they said, I mean,

456
00:27:46,784 --> 00:27:49,936
there's nothing wrong with this, but they said, I can't wait. Such and such is

457
00:27:49,960 --> 00:27:53,344
coming to our church next week to be preached. Make sure you all come and

458
00:27:53,424 --> 00:27:57,160
attend. And I remember just thinking such a dichotomy

459
00:27:57,192 --> 00:28:00,812
to what I had experienced that morning. And I thought, you know, the church is

460
00:28:00,908 --> 00:28:04,716
messy, and even in the orthodox world is messy. I get all that, but I'm

461
00:28:04,740 --> 00:28:08,516
saying just the format. I thought, man, when's the last time you heard of

462
00:28:08,540 --> 00:28:12,024
a rock star greek orthodox priest

463
00:28:12,444 --> 00:28:15,932
or even a catholic priest? I mean, we have

464
00:28:15,988 --> 00:28:19,532
created these systems in protestant evangelicalism

465
00:28:19,668 --> 00:28:23,172
that in many ways, and I don't say this lightly, have created these

466
00:28:23,228 --> 00:28:26,384
monsters that we call pastors

467
00:28:26,764 --> 00:28:30,100
that get to tell us what to believe, what we don't

468
00:28:30,132 --> 00:28:33,780
believe. And if we disagree with them on theology or

469
00:28:33,812 --> 00:28:37,104
quite frankly, anything else, we are now part of the them.

470
00:28:38,044 --> 00:28:41,804
And there's something wrong with that because that's not

471
00:28:41,844 --> 00:28:45,588
my, my understanding of who Jesus was

472
00:28:45,636 --> 00:28:48,972
and is. Yeah. And, yeah, I appreciate

473
00:28:49,028 --> 00:28:52,788
that. Caitlin Beatty, who just wrote celebrities for Jesus,

474
00:28:52,836 --> 00:28:56,350
it's coming out soon. I got to read it in advance. Copy.

475
00:28:56,542 --> 00:28:59,406
She has a question for you. She had posted it on Twitter. She wanted to

476
00:28:59,430 --> 00:29:03,222
now talk about NDAs, the use of NDAs in churches and

477
00:29:03,278 --> 00:29:06,542
christian organizations. And there was a thread

478
00:29:06,678 --> 00:29:10,382
probably from maybe a year ago, I know a pastor had asked you,

479
00:29:10,558 --> 00:29:14,302
hey, is there any good use for this? Like, is there, is there a

480
00:29:14,318 --> 00:29:18,078
middle ground where NDAs are? Okay, what have you seen in

481
00:29:18,086 --> 00:29:21,926
the use of NDAs? And she had responded with me asking, you know, I'm interviewing

482
00:29:21,950 --> 00:29:25,596
Bozeman. What are your thoughts on NDAs? Well, first of all, let's talk about what

483
00:29:25,620 --> 00:29:29,344
an NDA is, because I think it's really, I find a lot of times people

484
00:29:29,724 --> 00:29:33,356
have a misunderstanding of an NDA. So in general, in the

485
00:29:33,380 --> 00:29:37,020
legal world, a non disclosure agreement, it's

486
00:29:37,052 --> 00:29:40,868
usually a non disclosure provision within some type of settlement agreement.

487
00:29:41,036 --> 00:29:44,828
And when we say non disclosure, there's a spectrum. On the

488
00:29:44,916 --> 00:29:48,636
far end of the spectrum is you can't talk in

489
00:29:48,660 --> 00:29:52,502
exchange for this settlement agreement. So in exchange for this amount of money, you're

490
00:29:52,518 --> 00:29:55,710
going to sign a release that says you're going to release us from further liability

491
00:29:55,822 --> 00:29:59,494
and you're going to sign this agreement. And part of that agreement

492
00:29:59,534 --> 00:30:03,174
has this non disclosure provision. And the extreme

493
00:30:03,214 --> 00:30:06,838
non disclosure provision says you can't talk about

494
00:30:07,006 --> 00:30:10,790
anything related to this lawsuit to anybody unless it's your

495
00:30:10,822 --> 00:30:14,574
lawyer, priest, or maybe a therapist. And if you do,

496
00:30:14,734 --> 00:30:18,526
you have breached this agreement and we can either a sue you for breaching

497
00:30:18,550 --> 00:30:22,400
the agreement. Or what they try to do, which I don't allow, is they'll

498
00:30:22,432 --> 00:30:25,904
stick in what's called a liquidated damages provision, which says

499
00:30:26,064 --> 00:30:29,888
if you do violate this, you are agreeing upfront

500
00:30:29,976 --> 00:30:33,208
that if you violate this, you will pay us x amount of dollars.

501
00:30:33,336 --> 00:30:36,124
Amy, the scary thing about this is

502
00:30:36,824 --> 00:30:40,336
there's no ending date for that. Yeah, we've seen that with the

503
00:30:40,360 --> 00:30:44,056
Ramsey solutions and non disclosure paperwork that

504
00:30:44,080 --> 00:30:47,350
they hand, and they say, you know, we can get the money back from you

505
00:30:47,422 --> 00:30:50,294
plus damages. Yep. In just about all of my

506
00:30:50,334 --> 00:30:53,662
settlements, we will not agree to any type of

507
00:30:53,678 --> 00:30:57,430
NDA with regard like that. But just about every

508
00:30:57,462 --> 00:31:01,126
settlement, we agree that the terms of the settlement agreement are

509
00:31:01,150 --> 00:31:04,998
confidential. The amount of money paid, the language that's inside

510
00:31:05,046 --> 00:31:08,886
the settlement agreement is private, and that's often done for the benefit of my clients

511
00:31:08,950 --> 00:31:12,790
as well. What I will do sometimes in agreements where they say,

512
00:31:12,822 --> 00:31:16,590
no, they can't talk about it. And ultimately it's the client's

513
00:31:16,622 --> 00:31:19,910
choice. I do not dictate that for the client, the client has to make that

514
00:31:19,942 --> 00:31:23,702
choice. Obviously, most of them don't ever want to sign anything, but

515
00:31:23,718 --> 00:31:27,366
there are occasions where the client might say, well, there might be

516
00:31:27,430 --> 00:31:31,150
a benefit if neither of us talk about it. I might be open to

517
00:31:31,182 --> 00:31:34,910
that, and we'll talk about the benefits and drawbacks of that.

518
00:31:35,062 --> 00:31:38,594
Or I did one last year where my client said, listen,

519
00:31:38,934 --> 00:31:42,706
I want to share my story to whomever I want to. I don't

520
00:31:42,730 --> 00:31:45,786
really care to name the church in my story because that's not, my story is

521
00:31:45,810 --> 00:31:49,482
really not about that. It's about what happened to me and how a church and

522
00:31:49,498 --> 00:31:53,282
how the faith community responded. And so they said, you know, I'll agree not to

523
00:31:53,298 --> 00:31:56,562
mention the church. I don't really care because that's not part of my story. And

524
00:31:56,618 --> 00:32:00,386
if they want to do that, that's completely their prerogative to

525
00:32:00,410 --> 00:32:03,482
do. And I'm not going to stand in the way of that. What I won't

526
00:32:03,538 --> 00:32:06,294
do now is allow people to sign these NDAs

527
00:32:06,794 --> 00:32:10,106
where, like we just said, you can't talk about any of this

528
00:32:10,250 --> 00:32:13,786
forever and ever and ever. And

529
00:32:13,970 --> 00:32:17,626
I just, I let them know no amount of money is worth that. And the

530
00:32:17,650 --> 00:32:21,210
reality, in my experience, at least in the legal field, is ever since Harvey

531
00:32:21,242 --> 00:32:24,986
Weinstein's, you know, when he was exposed and so many of

532
00:32:25,010 --> 00:32:28,418
those victims were, had been silenced for years because of these

533
00:32:28,506 --> 00:32:31,938
very strict, multi page

534
00:32:31,986 --> 00:32:35,298
NDAs, NDAs have really gotten a bad

535
00:32:35,386 --> 00:32:39,162
rap. And I'm happy about that. It used to be I

536
00:32:39,178 --> 00:32:42,258
might have to really spend time arguing with opposing counsel that we're not going to

537
00:32:42,266 --> 00:32:45,922
do an NDA. And sometimes they would agree to it, sometimes they wouldn't. Sometimes we'd

538
00:32:45,938 --> 00:32:49,346
have to walk away from the agreement because of the NDA. That

539
00:32:49,410 --> 00:32:52,974
seldom happens now because even the institution

540
00:32:53,394 --> 00:32:57,058
doesn't want to be accused publicly that they required this person

541
00:32:57,106 --> 00:33:00,538
to sign an NDA, because then everybody will give them hell. Now,

542
00:33:00,706 --> 00:33:04,242
one other thing I'll say about that, that's in the legal side. Yeah.

543
00:33:04,418 --> 00:33:07,574
I also know that there are employers and churches

544
00:33:07,954 --> 00:33:11,010
that require their employees as part of

545
00:33:11,042 --> 00:33:14,530
employment to sign a form of an

546
00:33:14,562 --> 00:33:18,242
NDA, but basically says, if you leave working here, you

547
00:33:18,258 --> 00:33:21,818
can't talk about anything that happened here, or you have to get our

548
00:33:21,946 --> 00:33:25,016
approval or permission to talk about that.

549
00:33:25,210 --> 00:33:28,784
That's ridiculous and reprehensible.

550
00:33:30,484 --> 00:33:34,124
If you're being given that agreement at the beginning of your employment, go

551
00:33:34,164 --> 00:33:38,012
find a job elsewhere. That's a bad sign. And if it's

552
00:33:38,028 --> 00:33:41,860
a church, go somewhere else. That means it's a church that is obsessed with

553
00:33:41,892 --> 00:33:45,636
control and controlling the narrative, and that's why they want to

554
00:33:45,660 --> 00:33:49,308
shut you up, run from that type of place, because it's probably a very

555
00:33:49,356 --> 00:33:53,200
unhealthy environment. So how about, though, you've already started

556
00:33:53,352 --> 00:33:56,720
attending a church, working at a church or a christian

557
00:33:56,752 --> 00:34:00,008
organization, you haven't signed any confidentiality

558
00:34:00,056 --> 00:34:03,776
thing or covenant. Yeah, yeah. Like

559
00:34:03,800 --> 00:34:07,644
a. Some sort of membership covenant. But

560
00:34:08,344 --> 00:34:11,984
something happens. You've been working at a christian organization or

561
00:34:12,104 --> 00:34:15,768
christian or a church, and your leader

562
00:34:15,816 --> 00:34:19,378
comes up to you and says, your job is over. And,

563
00:34:19,506 --> 00:34:22,938
you know, we just want you to sign this piece of paper here,

564
00:34:23,066 --> 00:34:26,914
and it says, you know, you can never say anything

565
00:34:26,954 --> 00:34:30,354
about why you left. You can never say anything

566
00:34:30,434 --> 00:34:33,842
negative about the

567
00:34:34,018 --> 00:34:37,042
organization or the church or your

568
00:34:37,178 --> 00:34:40,754
agents on your behalf. They can't

569
00:34:40,794 --> 00:34:44,196
either. There's no expiration on this,

570
00:34:44,370 --> 00:34:47,912
and you don't get any severance unless you sign it, and you had no

571
00:34:47,968 --> 00:34:51,592
notice ahead of time that this was coming. Tell me about your thoughts on

572
00:34:51,608 --> 00:34:55,312
that. Well, I would. I say this,

573
00:34:55,448 --> 00:34:59,160
each situation is different and unique. I start with that. Yes. I

574
00:34:59,192 --> 00:35:02,824
can't impose my understanding or

575
00:35:02,864 --> 00:35:06,624
situation upon somebody else. So, for example, if somebody's

576
00:35:06,664 --> 00:35:10,184
going, oh, my goodness, I've got three or four

577
00:35:10,224 --> 00:35:13,846
kids, and I've got bills coming due, and I'm

578
00:35:13,870 --> 00:35:17,566
panicking. I just told I was gonna lose my job, I need this money,

579
00:35:17,710 --> 00:35:20,350
because I don't know what's gonna happen if I don't. And they get panicked, and

580
00:35:20,382 --> 00:35:23,942
understandably so, you know, it's easy for me to go. Never

581
00:35:23,998 --> 00:35:27,766
sign that. Well, I'm not living their life. Yes. What

582
00:35:27,790 --> 00:35:31,534
I would say is, don't sign anything until you speak to an

583
00:35:31,574 --> 00:35:35,406
experienced attorney who can speak on your behalf with

584
00:35:35,430 --> 00:35:39,034
the company and try to negotiate something.

585
00:35:39,554 --> 00:35:43,250
What if they say, you know, the offer's good right now, but if you leave

586
00:35:43,282 --> 00:35:46,570
the room, you pick up your phone, it's gone

587
00:35:46,762 --> 00:35:50,586
again. I can say what I would do would be like, goodbye. As a

588
00:35:50,610 --> 00:35:54,314
side note, if you have signed something or have been offered some sort of legal

589
00:35:54,354 --> 00:35:58,202
agreement to sign in relation to leaving, and you'd like a lawyer to look

590
00:35:58,218 --> 00:36:02,042
it over, this is something that Boz does in his private practice,

591
00:36:02,218 --> 00:36:05,994
and it's not always faith based employers. He does a bit of employment

592
00:36:06,034 --> 00:36:09,454
law as well. And I'll leave a link in the show notes regarding

593
00:36:09,494 --> 00:36:13,198
this. If you were speaking to somebody that was

594
00:36:13,246 --> 00:36:16,846
leading, you know, working in HR in a

595
00:36:16,870 --> 00:36:20,614
faith based organization church, what would you say to them

596
00:36:20,654 --> 00:36:24,278
if you found out they were doing that sort of thing or considering it?

597
00:36:24,446 --> 00:36:28,166
Stop it. Don't even do it. Is there any reason

598
00:36:28,230 --> 00:36:31,806
why, any justification for why they would do that?

599
00:36:31,910 --> 00:36:34,982
No. I mean, I can see in a situation where. Where, let's say you have

600
00:36:34,998 --> 00:36:38,494
somebody working in a very sensitive position, whether through

601
00:36:38,574 --> 00:36:42,046
therapy or finances or things like that, and they leave and you go,

602
00:36:42,070 --> 00:36:45,790
listen, I don't want you to. We don't want you to go disclose to the

603
00:36:45,822 --> 00:36:49,494
world about the finances of the church. Now,

604
00:36:49,574 --> 00:36:52,998
quite frankly, it should be transparent.

605
00:36:53,086 --> 00:36:56,654
But I can understand maybe the thought process on

606
00:36:56,694 --> 00:37:00,510
that, or somebody is leaving the church who's

607
00:37:00,542 --> 00:37:04,086
on staff, and they are going to go open another church down the

608
00:37:04,110 --> 00:37:07,706
street, and they want to pluck and pick out different employees to go work for

609
00:37:07,730 --> 00:37:11,498
them. I could understand maybe the initial

610
00:37:11,546 --> 00:37:14,242
church saying, well, if you want a severance, you're going to have to agree to

611
00:37:14,258 --> 00:37:17,614
a non solicitation clause and things like that,

612
00:37:18,434 --> 00:37:22,194
maybe. It's so weird. It sounds so businessy, right?

613
00:37:22,314 --> 00:37:25,578
It is, because it is a business. Here's the non

614
00:37:25,626 --> 00:37:29,170
compete. You can't win people for Jesus in this neighborhood.

615
00:37:29,282 --> 00:37:32,982
Yeah. And again, I don't. Those non competes

616
00:37:33,078 --> 00:37:36,678
probably would in most jurisdictions, wouldn't be

617
00:37:36,766 --> 00:37:40,478
upheld or enforced. But a lot of

618
00:37:40,486 --> 00:37:44,294
non competes are not enforceable. But the problem is

619
00:37:44,454 --> 00:37:47,710
you have to find a lawyer and pay money to even find that

620
00:37:47,742 --> 00:37:51,438
out. And that's the same good thing. Goes with what we call

621
00:37:51,486 --> 00:37:55,326
non disparagement clauses. A non disparagement clause is

622
00:37:55,350 --> 00:37:58,854
basically, you can't say anything ugly about us. Well,

623
00:37:59,014 --> 00:38:02,630
what in the world does that mean? Non disparagement like, well, even if it's

624
00:38:02,662 --> 00:38:06,414
true. Yeah. It has nothing to do with truth. It's just. It's just

625
00:38:06,454 --> 00:38:10,142
ugly. Something ugly. Those are all methods and manners of

626
00:38:10,198 --> 00:38:14,030
trying to control. And I guess. I guess what I would tell clients, and

627
00:38:14,142 --> 00:38:17,514
I do a lot of employment law as well, is when you leave,

628
00:38:18,414 --> 00:38:22,110
you want to be able to cut all the cords that you can,

629
00:38:22,182 --> 00:38:25,174
if not all of them. You don't want any strings attached to this

630
00:38:25,214 --> 00:38:28,766
relationship. And any agreement that

631
00:38:28,830 --> 00:38:32,630
involves strings attached, I can tell you,

632
00:38:32,662 --> 00:38:36,350
I can guarantee you, is not going to bode well for

633
00:38:36,382 --> 00:38:39,194
you in the future if you can get by

634
00:38:40,214 --> 00:38:43,926
without taking that severance, because that's the only carrot that

635
00:38:43,950 --> 00:38:46,846
they have to put in front of you to get you to sign that if

636
00:38:46,870 --> 00:38:49,734
you can get by. And the reality is, I'm going to be willing to say

637
00:38:49,774 --> 00:38:53,598
you will get by, and that's going to be a short term hurdle, and

638
00:38:53,606 --> 00:38:57,174
it's going to be difficult. But I can tell you, if you sign this agreement,

639
00:38:57,474 --> 00:39:00,778
the long term impact is going to be far more

640
00:39:00,826 --> 00:39:04,106
devastating and difficult than this short term hurdle

641
00:39:04,210 --> 00:39:06,854
of income, a lack of income.

642
00:39:08,034 --> 00:39:11,306
But that's where and if you're being pressured to sign it before you even leave

643
00:39:11,330 --> 00:39:15,170
a room, that's a telltale sign. You don't sign it.

644
00:39:15,362 --> 00:39:19,122
Do you have to? Maybe you don't know the answer to this, and

645
00:39:19,178 --> 00:39:22,566
I understand if you don't, if you're leaving, do you have to go to an

646
00:39:22,590 --> 00:39:26,434
exit interview, and do you have to sign anything to get.

647
00:39:26,814 --> 00:39:30,590
Do you have to sign an agreement to get

648
00:39:30,622 --> 00:39:34,342
your money you've already earned? Or, like I

649
00:39:34,358 --> 00:39:38,054
would think, you probably don't have to sign. You don't

650
00:39:38,094 --> 00:39:41,942
sign anything. It's federal law that they have to provide you

651
00:39:42,078 --> 00:39:45,862
with the Cobra notice. So if somebody hands you a piece of

652
00:39:45,878 --> 00:39:49,648
paper and says, here's just a paper, we just need you to sign

653
00:39:49,696 --> 00:39:52,644
it. This is just

654
00:39:53,704 --> 00:39:56,844
to say, you know, your address is the same.

655
00:39:57,304 --> 00:40:00,792
You don't actually have to sign it. No. If you're leaving, unless you're wanting to

656
00:40:00,808 --> 00:40:04,216
get a severance, like I said, the severance is the only carrot that they can

657
00:40:04,240 --> 00:40:07,936
put in front of you to sign it. Then, you

658
00:40:07,960 --> 00:40:11,776
know, in most jurisdictions, you don't. It's, employment at will is

659
00:40:11,800 --> 00:40:14,728
just that. That means they can fire you at will. They don't have to sign

660
00:40:14,776 --> 00:40:18,420
anything when they fire you, and you can walk away and leave at

661
00:40:18,452 --> 00:40:22,148
will, and you don't have to sign anything. I think it's fascinating that Boz mentions

662
00:40:22,196 --> 00:40:25,908
that most people who sign something taking away their rights to speak

663
00:40:25,956 --> 00:40:29,604
about anything, even true things that might reflect

664
00:40:29,644 --> 00:40:33,228
poorly on their former employer, that those who sign those rights

665
00:40:33,276 --> 00:40:36,884
away most often regret it. I also

666
00:40:36,924 --> 00:40:40,652
wanted to emphasize again, if you are leaving an organization or a church or

667
00:40:40,668 --> 00:40:43,980
an employer and they give you any paperwork to sign at

668
00:40:44,012 --> 00:40:47,764
all, you don't have to sign anything. It's not

669
00:40:47,804 --> 00:40:51,588
required. Even if they just push an innocent looking paper in

670
00:40:51,596 --> 00:40:55,076
front of you and say, we just need you to sign here to verify that

671
00:40:55,100 --> 00:40:58,708
your address has not changed, you don't need to sign

672
00:40:58,756 --> 00:41:02,564
that. Ask to take all the paperwork home with you or have them

673
00:41:02,604 --> 00:41:06,284
email you the paperwork. This might feel awkward, but a healthy

674
00:41:06,324 --> 00:41:10,040
organization will not question your request to take that paperwork

675
00:41:10,072 --> 00:41:13,552
home with you. Yeah, Brad Sargent, he's pretty

676
00:41:13,608 --> 00:41:17,444
active on social media, and he had a question for you.

677
00:41:17,864 --> 00:41:21,480
He wanted to know that he says, we're five years out from the

678
00:41:21,512 --> 00:41:24,416
hashtag Hash metoo and Hash church two. Church two is like

679
00:41:24,440 --> 00:41:28,240
2017. He said, how have these social movements changed

680
00:41:28,272 --> 00:41:31,944
the big picture of survivors advocacy for better or

681
00:41:31,984 --> 00:41:35,632
worse? And where are we headed? Like, do you see any signs? That's a great

682
00:41:35,688 --> 00:41:39,420
question. Is it waning? What's happening? I think that

683
00:41:39,492 --> 00:41:43,260
initially, me too, and church two. Let's just talk about church

684
00:41:43,292 --> 00:41:47,076
two for a moment was eye opening for a lot of

685
00:41:47,100 --> 00:41:50,612
people. There were a lot of people who posted church two or me, two

686
00:41:50,668 --> 00:41:53,860
stories that I think personalized

687
00:41:53,972 --> 00:41:57,804
this, this epidemic, this horrible

688
00:41:57,844 --> 00:42:01,464
epidemic in our culture that, where people were reading

689
00:42:01,924 --> 00:42:05,020
hashtags from family members, co workers, friends,

690
00:42:05,172 --> 00:42:08,504
and it really made it personal. And I think that was a really,

691
00:42:08,864 --> 00:42:12,364
that was a really powerful thing. And I think it did

692
00:42:13,344 --> 00:42:17,136
open up minds and eyes and begin to shift

693
00:42:17,280 --> 00:42:21,008
the discussion. I mean, the number of people that have felt empowered to step

694
00:42:21,056 --> 00:42:24,272
forward about both adult and

695
00:42:24,288 --> 00:42:27,844
childhood sexual abuse inside and outside the church

696
00:42:28,624 --> 00:42:32,320
has significantly increased. And so that's

697
00:42:32,352 --> 00:42:35,724
all a good thing. And I think that in a large part still

698
00:42:36,184 --> 00:42:39,528
exists. What I see now, though, in pockets of

699
00:42:39,576 --> 00:42:42,384
Christianity, especially in pockets of more conservative

700
00:42:42,464 --> 00:42:46,312
evangelicalism, is this sort

701
00:42:46,328 --> 00:42:49,944
of growing backlash, like

702
00:42:50,064 --> 00:42:53,144
very similar to the quote you read earlier from the

703
00:42:53,304 --> 00:42:57,144
pastor, where we're not going to say, you know,

704
00:42:57,224 --> 00:43:00,272
I remember seeing somewhere, I don't spend too much time on social media, but I

705
00:43:00,288 --> 00:43:03,604
remember seeing something just the other day where somebody was talking

706
00:43:03,644 --> 00:43:06,732
about, you know, what was a victim

707
00:43:06,788 --> 00:43:10,412
sainthood. And, you know, it was like, you

708
00:43:10,428 --> 00:43:13,772
know, basically just because you call yourself a victim now, you're supposed to be a

709
00:43:13,788 --> 00:43:17,156
saint and you can do no wrong. And I think there's a

710
00:43:17,220 --> 00:43:20,636
underlying, underlying tenant in many of our more

711
00:43:20,660 --> 00:43:24,428
conservative churches of that, you know, these would be the same

712
00:43:24,476 --> 00:43:28,084
churches, quite frankly, that have embraced christian nationalism

713
00:43:28,244 --> 00:43:31,756
and trump and all the ugliness that brings to

714
00:43:31,860 --> 00:43:35,396
the faith. But it is that, it's this, you know, and

715
00:43:35,460 --> 00:43:39,156
let's, what about the young men that are being falsely

716
00:43:39,220 --> 00:43:42,724
accused? And, you know, we need to start standing up for them, too, because they're,

717
00:43:42,764 --> 00:43:46,504
you know, they're the leaders of our churches and they've been maligned. And

718
00:43:47,164 --> 00:43:50,548
mostly these women who, quite frankly, a lot of these environments

719
00:43:50,716 --> 00:43:54,092
devalued to begin with now are feeling a little bit more

720
00:43:54,108 --> 00:43:57,614
empowered to, to not, they won't say sexual

721
00:43:57,654 --> 00:44:01,470
abuse is okay. They won't say that, at least yet. What

722
00:44:01,502 --> 00:44:05,174
they will say is we think that much to do is being

723
00:44:05,214 --> 00:44:08,454
made about something much less, and people are getting far more

724
00:44:08,494 --> 00:44:11,526
attention than they should about this. And it's just

725
00:44:11,590 --> 00:44:15,222
exaggerated and all of that stuff

726
00:44:15,278 --> 00:44:19,006
because we live in a day and age where truth is not

727
00:44:19,030 --> 00:44:22,800
really relevant anymore, even inside the church. And

728
00:44:22,912 --> 00:44:26,752
I think that is challenging for survivors. And what

729
00:44:26,768 --> 00:44:30,084
I don't know in the long run is, will that impact

730
00:44:30,704 --> 00:44:34,320
how and when survivors step forward in these

731
00:44:34,352 --> 00:44:37,684
faith communities? Are they going to stop stepping forward?

732
00:44:38,424 --> 00:44:41,592
Are they going to just go back and suffer in silence like they did for

733
00:44:41,608 --> 00:44:44,472
a long time? I don't think it'll ever go back to completely that, because I

734
00:44:44,488 --> 00:44:47,776
think that there are so many communities out there that are

735
00:44:47,800 --> 00:44:51,604
embracing of survivors and want to walk with them.

736
00:44:51,764 --> 00:44:55,384
But, yeah, you're seeing a little bit of a full circle in certain pockets

737
00:44:56,244 --> 00:44:59,460
that are, again, consistent with the times we live in,

738
00:44:59,492 --> 00:45:03,172
sadly. And that troubles me. I think it's happening

739
00:45:03,268 --> 00:45:06,492
me, too, as well. I see that happening more in the secular

740
00:45:06,548 --> 00:45:10,252
world. The big criticism I heard for a long time, I

741
00:45:10,268 --> 00:45:13,852
still hear now is, okay, just because you have a me too story means I

742
00:45:13,868 --> 00:45:17,588
can't push back at all. And I just have to do. And I'm like, no,

743
00:45:17,676 --> 00:45:21,132
nobody ever said that. What we're saying is that for

744
00:45:21,188 --> 00:45:25,020
decades, if not generations, these experiences have

745
00:45:25,052 --> 00:45:28,900
been kept quiet for a litany of reasons. And the fact

746
00:45:28,932 --> 00:45:32,756
that people, for the first time, oftentimes are

747
00:45:32,780 --> 00:45:36,524
feeling empowered to actually step slowly

748
00:45:36,564 --> 00:45:40,252
out forward to disclose and report, we

749
00:45:40,268 --> 00:45:43,820
should be celebrating that. And our first response

750
00:45:43,892 --> 00:45:47,580
shouldn't be skepticism or, oh, boy, here's another victim. Our

751
00:45:47,612 --> 00:45:51,276
first response should be welcoming and celebrating

752
00:45:51,340 --> 00:45:55,036
and advocating for. Now, if something comes down to the

753
00:45:55,060 --> 00:45:58,864
pike where you learn basically in a situation that there's something

754
00:45:59,244 --> 00:46:03,004
amiss with the disclosure or that it truly is

755
00:46:03,044 --> 00:46:06,708
just not true, nobody's saying that you just blindly embrace it.

756
00:46:06,796 --> 00:46:10,300
And that's why we, one of the things Grace does is independent

757
00:46:10,332 --> 00:46:13,394
investigations. That's why you get a third party into,

758
00:46:13,894 --> 00:46:17,686
to investigate these things. But the key is that you embrace it

759
00:46:17,710 --> 00:46:20,502
and bring that third party in and not just shut it down. So I think

760
00:46:20,518 --> 00:46:23,966
there's some challenging days ahead. I think the picture is, is

761
00:46:24,030 --> 00:46:27,542
definitely brighter today than it was ten years

762
00:46:27,558 --> 00:46:31,246
ago, but I don't know what it looks like five years from

763
00:46:31,270 --> 00:46:34,766
now. That reminds me, I wanted to ask you this question for a while.

764
00:46:34,830 --> 00:46:38,554
It relates to the investigation process.

765
00:46:39,004 --> 00:46:42,804
Now, I know Grace has worked with this particular church, but they have been

766
00:46:42,844 --> 00:46:46,180
open and said that they have been working with Grace, and it's Tate's Creek

767
00:46:46,252 --> 00:46:49,932
Presbyterian in Kentucky. And I know you

768
00:46:49,948 --> 00:46:53,780
can't speak to a specific instance, but they had

769
00:46:53,812 --> 00:46:57,588
disclosed that there were some allegations against somebody high profile. And

770
00:46:57,636 --> 00:47:01,236
there was quite a bit of, you know, flurry online

771
00:47:01,340 --> 00:47:04,996
when that was when people were, when they were saying, hey, we want to hear

772
00:47:05,020 --> 00:47:08,740
from people if they have stories to tell. But I

773
00:47:08,772 --> 00:47:12,212
also heard pushback from some people saying, why are we sharing

774
00:47:12,268 --> 00:47:15,908
somebody's name like this? Isn't this ruining somebody's

775
00:47:15,956 --> 00:47:19,548
life? Possibly. We don't know all the details,

776
00:47:19,596 --> 00:47:22,864
so I know you can't speak to that particular situation.

777
00:47:23,444 --> 00:47:27,140
Can you tell me, like, what goes into that process before? Like

778
00:47:27,172 --> 00:47:30,564
a church would say, would specifically name a

779
00:47:30,604 --> 00:47:33,970
person that has had allegations against them so that they can gather

780
00:47:34,042 --> 00:47:37,690
information? Do they, is there any vetting that happens

781
00:47:37,842 --> 00:47:41,458
beforehand or does somebody, can someone just come in and say, this

782
00:47:41,506 --> 00:47:45,258
person hurt me? And the next day the pastor sends out a blast and says,

783
00:47:45,306 --> 00:47:49,042
hey, everybody. Yeah. I would say my immediate

784
00:47:49,098 --> 00:47:52,850
general response is that seldom ever happens. It's usually the

785
00:47:52,882 --> 00:47:56,562
other end of the spectrum where we hold onto the identity

786
00:47:56,618 --> 00:48:00,346
as long as we can, even while we are getting information that

787
00:48:00,370 --> 00:48:04,210
is truly concerning because we don't know all the details. That's one thing I hear

788
00:48:04,242 --> 00:48:07,546
all the time. When people want somebody to not comment on

789
00:48:07,570 --> 00:48:11,250
it or not talk about it or not form an opinion,

790
00:48:11,402 --> 00:48:15,210
it's, we don't know all the details. There's another step, sure,

791
00:48:15,242 --> 00:48:18,898
there's another side, and that's sort of code language

792
00:48:18,946 --> 00:48:22,474
with, for just don't talk about it. And so to answer your question,

793
00:48:22,634 --> 00:48:26,220
first of all, that's a decision each church has to

794
00:48:26,252 --> 00:48:29,908
make. But at the end of the day, you have to ask

795
00:48:29,956 --> 00:48:33,660
yourself as a church leader, what's one of your

796
00:48:33,692 --> 00:48:37,204
most primary responsibilities and

797
00:48:37,324 --> 00:48:41,020
how do we carry out that responsibility in light of this

798
00:48:41,052 --> 00:48:44,900
information. And so I would argue that one of the primary responsibility

799
00:48:44,972 --> 00:48:48,624
of leadership is protection of vulnerable people within

800
00:48:49,084 --> 00:48:52,604
your faith community. And so

801
00:48:53,424 --> 00:48:56,804
if disclosing the identity of the person who's been accused

802
00:48:57,184 --> 00:48:59,764
furthers that responsibility,

803
00:49:00,264 --> 00:49:04,016
then do it. If you come to the conclusion that

804
00:49:04,040 --> 00:49:07,840
it doesn't, then you need to really wrestle with why aren't you disclosing

805
00:49:07,872 --> 00:49:11,244
it now, oftentimes these cases are

806
00:49:11,704 --> 00:49:15,440
initiated by law enforcement investigations. Somebody reports it because

807
00:49:15,472 --> 00:49:18,730
it's a crime and, you know, law enforcement will

808
00:49:18,762 --> 00:49:21,834
investigate. And sometimes I'll tell people,

809
00:49:21,914 --> 00:49:25,586
listen, law enforcement is investigating and you

810
00:49:25,650 --> 00:49:28,690
as a church should not step in the way of that investigation.

811
00:49:28,882 --> 00:49:32,706
So you could, you need to have ongoing communications with law

812
00:49:32,730 --> 00:49:36,146
enforcement because if law enforcement says, listen, we don't want you to name them right

813
00:49:36,170 --> 00:49:38,994
now we're in the middle of an investigation. We're about to do a controlled phone

814
00:49:39,034 --> 00:49:42,578
call and where he might confess to everything. But if you name him, he's going

815
00:49:42,586 --> 00:49:46,272
to, he's going to shut down. Then you hold off. Now

816
00:49:46,408 --> 00:49:49,480
that can create a tension because you go, yeah, but how long do we hold

817
00:49:49,512 --> 00:49:53,216
off? Because I have a duty to put the people

818
00:49:53,280 --> 00:49:56,984
in this community on notice that there could be some

819
00:49:57,024 --> 00:50:00,680
danger. And what steps can I take short of identifying

820
00:50:00,712 --> 00:50:04,552
him, removing him, telling him not to come to the church,

821
00:50:04,608 --> 00:50:08,056
telling him not to, those types of things. I think with regard to

822
00:50:08,080 --> 00:50:11,474
grace, you know, we usually,

823
00:50:11,594 --> 00:50:15,330
we, the standard, the standard now there's some

824
00:50:15,362 --> 00:50:19,210
exceptions, but the standard protocol for us is to inform the

825
00:50:19,242 --> 00:50:22,986
pastor that when we initiate and start an investigation, that you need

826
00:50:23,010 --> 00:50:26,778
to inform the church about the investigation and you need

827
00:50:26,786 --> 00:50:30,454
to inform the church of the name of the reported

828
00:50:31,114 --> 00:50:34,810
offender because I can't do my job

829
00:50:34,922 --> 00:50:38,556
as somebody who's investigating this if

830
00:50:38,620 --> 00:50:41,940
a, nobody in the church knows that I'm there to investigate, and

831
00:50:41,972 --> 00:50:45,388
b, in fact, I was just telling somebody yesterday,

832
00:50:45,556 --> 00:50:49,344
an insurance rep that I was arguing with about a case.

833
00:50:50,404 --> 00:50:52,944
She said, well, nobody else has stepped forward

834
00:50:53,964 --> 00:50:57,772
other than your client to disclose that this person hurt them.

835
00:50:57,908 --> 00:51:01,740
And I said, well, let's go to the facts for a moment. They

836
00:51:01,812 --> 00:51:05,616
never announced anything to the church about what

837
00:51:05,640 --> 00:51:09,296
this person reportedly did. So why would somebody even know to

838
00:51:09,320 --> 00:51:12,696
step forward had they. Because they've never been

839
00:51:12,720 --> 00:51:16,256
informed. So oftentimes we courage the

840
00:51:16,280 --> 00:51:20,064
identity of the, and we say it's a reported offender. It's not. We're just saying

841
00:51:20,104 --> 00:51:23,720
reported or alleged offender, but to disclose

842
00:51:23,792 --> 00:51:27,604
that, not to hurt that person's reputation,

843
00:51:28,364 --> 00:51:31,940
but quite frankly, to maybe empower others within that

844
00:51:31,972 --> 00:51:35,476
community who might have been victimized or might know

845
00:51:35,540 --> 00:51:38,612
information related to the very

846
00:51:38,788 --> 00:51:42,580
disclosures that we're investigating to step forward and provide us with that

847
00:51:42,612 --> 00:51:45,984
information. If we keep all the identities quiet,

848
00:51:47,084 --> 00:51:50,340
then we're really hamstringing the

849
00:51:50,372 --> 00:51:53,932
investigation. And at least with regard to the

850
00:51:53,988 --> 00:51:57,782
investigations Grace conducts, if we can't do the investigation the way it

851
00:51:57,798 --> 00:52:01,622
needs to be done, we won't do it because then it just looks

852
00:52:01,638 --> 00:52:05,086
like a sham and a cover, and we will never allow

853
00:52:05,150 --> 00:52:08,886
ourselves to be exploited by an organization who

854
00:52:08,910 --> 00:52:12,194
says, oh, we brought in grace and they did this work well,

855
00:52:12,534 --> 00:52:16,078
but didn't provide us with the information that we needed to do the work.

856
00:52:16,166 --> 00:52:19,902
That makes sense. Yeah, that does make sense. So a

857
00:52:19,918 --> 00:52:23,706
couple, this is one thing I was thinking, and also, Ryan Ashton asked this,

858
00:52:23,790 --> 00:52:27,586
so be prepared for a question. So he said, are you

859
00:52:27,610 --> 00:52:31,242
aware of any policy or code of conduct or ethical guidelines for

860
00:52:31,298 --> 00:52:35,082
journalists when dealing with survivors or covering

861
00:52:35,178 --> 00:52:38,954
abuse stories? And what journalists do this? Well,

862
00:52:39,034 --> 00:52:42,214
in your opinion, he says, so who's the, who's the,

863
00:52:42,554 --> 00:52:46,254
who is the. Megan Toohey, Rowan and Farrow,

864
00:52:47,154 --> 00:52:50,946
you know, of the christian religion

865
00:52:51,010 --> 00:52:54,792
journalist or. Most of the time. Most of the

866
00:52:54,808 --> 00:52:58,352
time, if I connect a client with a journalist, it's not a

867
00:52:58,408 --> 00:53:02,248
christian publication. Okay. Just because I

868
00:53:02,256 --> 00:53:06,040
think that there's some exceptions to that, but for the most part, I don't. Just

869
00:53:06,072 --> 00:53:09,720
because the christian journalistic pond is

870
00:53:09,752 --> 00:53:13,392
small and there's too many conflicts.

871
00:53:13,448 --> 00:53:17,208
Okay. So would you be more comfortable with a religion journalist that

872
00:53:17,256 --> 00:53:20,484
does not work for a religious publication?

873
00:53:20,874 --> 00:53:24,722
Yes. So like a Robert Downen, he doesn't work for, like,

874
00:53:24,778 --> 00:53:27,850
a religious media company. Yeah. Robert

875
00:53:27,882 --> 00:53:30,774
Downan, Elizabeth Diaz,

876
00:53:31,354 --> 00:53:34,374
Ruth Graham, folks like that

877
00:53:35,034 --> 00:53:38,818
rich McHugh, who has become a good friend of mine, who's a journalist

878
00:53:38,866 --> 00:53:42,282
who was the cohort of Ronan Farrow. He was the

879
00:53:42,298 --> 00:53:45,842
producer from his show. I don't like naming because there's so many, I think there's

880
00:53:45,858 --> 00:53:49,608
so many really legit journalists. Those are just people I've come to really respect because

881
00:53:49,656 --> 00:53:53,324
they're thorough. And I don't know about code of conduct. They probably,

882
00:53:53,624 --> 00:53:56,524
I know that they, you know, in most cases,

883
00:53:56,824 --> 00:54:00,352
journalists have policies and procedures within their own

884
00:54:00,408 --> 00:54:04,200
publications about not naming victims of sexual abuse unless

885
00:54:04,232 --> 00:54:07,784
the, unless it's already been, that person's identity has already been

886
00:54:07,944 --> 00:54:11,560
publicized, then they have a choice if they want to or not, or if that

887
00:54:11,592 --> 00:54:15,370
person wants their, you know, wants their name. There's also, you know,

888
00:54:15,402 --> 00:54:18,986
requirements. I'm learning, you know, with journalists, you can't, you can't just take, somebody says,

889
00:54:19,010 --> 00:54:21,538
hey, this happened to me. They post on front of the new York Times. I

890
00:54:21,546 --> 00:54:25,106
mean, there takes a lot of investigative journalism. Catherine

891
00:54:25,130 --> 00:54:28,946
Joyce is a, is a really thorough journalist who

892
00:54:29,050 --> 00:54:32,786
has done some really remarkable work, not as much on abuse related stuff, but

893
00:54:32,810 --> 00:54:36,610
on, you know, sort of the evangelical adoption movement and things like that

894
00:54:36,642 --> 00:54:40,378
and quiverful movement. And she's incredibly thorough. I

895
00:54:40,386 --> 00:54:43,734
mean, like, and so that's why when people say, oh, they're just,

896
00:54:44,554 --> 00:54:48,402
these secular journalists are coming out to attack the church, that's

897
00:54:48,498 --> 00:54:51,762
honestly, in all the years I've been doing this, I've never found that to be

898
00:54:51,778 --> 00:54:55,602
true. And I found that more often than not, not all

899
00:54:55,618 --> 00:54:59,434
of them. They are very thorough and conscientious with the work they do.

900
00:54:59,514 --> 00:55:02,930
And there are some within the christian world, too. I mean, I think of religion

901
00:55:02,962 --> 00:55:06,610
news service. They have some really great journalists. It just

902
00:55:06,642 --> 00:55:10,462
gets tough when you're dealing with publications like Christianity Today and

903
00:55:10,478 --> 00:55:13,598
you're, you know, when they're writing about, and it's all came out secret, but when

904
00:55:13,606 --> 00:55:17,214
they're writing about Ravi Zacharias, when Ravi Zacharias was the

905
00:55:17,254 --> 00:55:20,862
600 pound gorilla within that event, part of the

906
00:55:20,878 --> 00:55:24,686
evangelical pond, like, how do they, how do you not have a conflict

907
00:55:24,790 --> 00:55:28,594
in writing for that? And we saw what happened there was so,

908
00:55:29,214 --> 00:55:32,990
but my overall experience with, with journalists who have written about these

909
00:55:33,022 --> 00:55:36,786
subjects has been, has actually been pretty positive, and I'm

910
00:55:36,810 --> 00:55:40,654
grateful for that. I had talked to Bob Smitana,

911
00:55:41,474 --> 00:55:45,226
you know, personally, and then also just to talk to him about the

912
00:55:45,250 --> 00:55:48,866
idea of reporting. And he said he's learned a ton throughout

913
00:55:48,890 --> 00:55:52,014
the years of ways not to re traumatize,

914
00:55:52,714 --> 00:55:56,322
you know, if there's already public think statements about a story, to not make people

915
00:55:56,378 --> 00:56:00,026
tell it again, you know, and just understanding if people are in a

916
00:56:00,050 --> 00:56:03,814
place where they actually are able to tell the story, it is,

917
00:56:03,854 --> 00:56:07,502
it is traumatizing. So I think people that have been around and writing

918
00:56:07,558 --> 00:56:11,270
for a while understand if a story is ready to

919
00:56:11,302 --> 00:56:14,550
go for a big, you know, national audience

920
00:56:14,742 --> 00:56:18,350
where not every, and even if something that happened to you

921
00:56:18,422 --> 00:56:22,158
is very legitimately wrong, it's not the right story for

922
00:56:22,206 --> 00:56:25,234
every person. I also think that anytime

923
00:56:25,814 --> 00:56:29,550
I connect somebody with a journalist, the first thing we do is have an

924
00:56:29,582 --> 00:56:33,302
off record initial conversation because I want to be able to

925
00:56:33,318 --> 00:56:36,910
debrief with the client and go, do you, what was your

926
00:56:36,942 --> 00:56:40,742
thoughts about this person? Do you feel safe with this person? Do you feel. Because

927
00:56:40,758 --> 00:56:44,542
if you don't, because I've already told the journalists this, if you don't, we'll

928
00:56:44,558 --> 00:56:48,194
find somebody else. And I found nine out of ten times

929
00:56:49,614 --> 00:56:53,326
the quote, unquote, secular journalist has a

930
00:56:53,390 --> 00:56:57,096
much greater understanding, empathy, and compassion for

931
00:56:57,120 --> 00:56:59,884
my clients than their own pastor did.

932
00:57:00,864 --> 00:57:04,640
Let me ask you one last question to wrap this

933
00:57:04,672 --> 00:57:08,008
up. What are some specific things that help you remain

934
00:57:08,056 --> 00:57:10,804
hopeful and resist cynicism?

935
00:57:12,024 --> 00:57:15,872
Well, I can be cynical, and I like to think that most of

936
00:57:15,888 --> 00:57:19,728
it is a fairly healthy degree of cynicism. Probably not

937
00:57:19,776 --> 00:57:23,356
every day. I think

938
00:57:23,380 --> 00:57:27,100
that's a good question. Probably the biggest thing

939
00:57:27,132 --> 00:57:30,892
that gives me hope are the

940
00:57:31,068 --> 00:57:34,580
incredible clients and survivors that I am

941
00:57:34,612 --> 00:57:38,024
privileged to meet and work with and walk alongside.

942
00:57:38,404 --> 00:57:41,660
I have found the reflection, and I don't say this lightly, I found the

943
00:57:41,692 --> 00:57:45,104
reflection of Jesus more

944
00:57:46,004 --> 00:57:49,748
in their faces and in their lives than I have found inside the churches that

945
00:57:49,756 --> 00:57:53,434
I have attended most of my life. That gives me hope.

946
00:57:53,514 --> 00:57:57,054
It tells me that maybe the church looks a little different down the road,

947
00:57:57,634 --> 00:58:00,534
but that's okay. And

948
00:58:01,314 --> 00:58:04,654
that's just a huge thing for, I also think the younger generation, I

949
00:58:05,034 --> 00:58:08,562
even in a bigger, in a bigger perspective, the

950
00:58:08,578 --> 00:58:11,810
younger generation gives me hope. The generation of my

951
00:58:11,842 --> 00:58:15,434
kids. And they're, you know, a lot of people give, you know, generation X

952
00:58:15,474 --> 00:58:19,154
and millennials and all those different letters a hard time. I actually love,

953
00:58:19,234 --> 00:58:22,810
love those generations. And because they're just so

954
00:58:22,842 --> 00:58:26,122
oftentimes, it's what you see is what you get. They see through all the b's,

955
00:58:26,258 --> 00:58:29,450
they call it, for what it is. Now they need to probably watch a little

956
00:58:29,482 --> 00:58:33,226
less TikTok. But, you know, that gives me

957
00:58:33,250 --> 00:58:36,914
some hope, maybe that the church will look much different down

958
00:58:36,954 --> 00:58:40,634
the road, but maybe it'll reflect Jesus in a more beautiful

959
00:58:40,674 --> 00:58:44,422
way. So, yeah, I think that. And then, you know, I

960
00:58:44,438 --> 00:58:47,990
just, I say this all the time, and I don't say this lightly either, that

961
00:58:48,182 --> 00:58:51,806
my, my wife and my three daughters are

962
00:58:51,830 --> 00:58:55,438
the most visible, beautiful reflection of

963
00:58:55,486 --> 00:58:59,302
Jesus in my life and are the constant reminder that God hasn't given

964
00:58:59,358 --> 00:59:02,558
up. Yeah, those are some of the things. But, you know, that's one of the

965
00:59:02,566 --> 00:59:06,294
reasons I love the work I do. Is it? Man, I get to meet and

966
00:59:06,334 --> 00:59:09,686
walk alongside some genuine

967
00:59:09,750 --> 00:59:13,462
heroes, and most of them will never get attention. Most of them will never get

968
00:59:13,478 --> 00:59:17,078
an interview. Most of them will never, you know, that's.

969
00:59:17,206 --> 00:59:20,910
They're heroes because they've inspired me in ways that I,

970
00:59:20,982 --> 00:59:24,566
you know, I can't even begin to explain with the time we have left. And

971
00:59:24,590 --> 00:59:28,302
so that's where, that's where my hope lies. And I'm glad for

972
00:59:28,318 --> 00:59:31,854
it because I have maybe the biggest thing I've learned in this

973
00:59:31,894 --> 00:59:35,714
work. Well, one of the biggest things I've learned in this work, having

974
00:59:35,754 --> 00:59:39,586
grown up as a, you know, conservative evangelical in the conservative

975
00:59:39,690 --> 00:59:43,138
evangelical world, is that I'm learning

976
00:59:43,226 --> 00:59:46,814
that the most beautiful

977
00:59:47,674 --> 00:59:50,802
expression and presence of Jesus that I've

978
00:59:50,938 --> 00:59:54,706
encountered oftentimes are the most unlikely people and

979
00:59:54,730 --> 00:59:57,614
in the most unlikely of places. And

980
00:59:58,274 --> 01:00:02,056
that's what gives me hope. Yeah, I appreciate that. Maybe next time

981
01:00:02,080 --> 01:00:05,884
we talk, baz, you can. You can clear up for us the

982
01:00:06,864 --> 01:00:09,124
who your grandpa voted for

983
01:00:10,624 --> 01:00:14,104
and what it's like to be a movie star

984
01:00:14,264 --> 01:00:17,480
on a docu series. Baz gave the typical

985
01:00:17,592 --> 01:00:21,244
lawyer response of no comment to the first question

986
01:00:21,624 --> 01:00:25,176
and to the second, in which I teased about his role in a recent

987
01:00:25,240 --> 01:00:28,536
docu series. He just laughed, I would

988
01:00:28,560 --> 01:00:32,164
say, on a side note, I will say this with my 2 seconds left,

989
01:00:32,504 --> 01:00:35,244
because we didn't get into this. I do think

990
01:00:36,184 --> 01:00:39,576
if you're somebody who has been victimized, know

991
01:00:39,640 --> 01:00:43,248
that even if there is not a criminal, potential criminal

992
01:00:43,296 --> 01:00:46,824
charges, think through when you get to that point of the possibility of

993
01:00:46,864 --> 01:00:50,672
speaking with a lawyer about what options you have

994
01:00:50,808 --> 01:00:54,492
to hold those, not only the individual, but the institutions,

995
01:00:54,588 --> 01:00:58,316
accountable for what happened to you. Because I have

996
01:00:58,340 --> 01:01:02,020
found with a lot of my clients that even though they, some of them, may

997
01:01:02,052 --> 01:01:05,724
not get a big wad of cash, which is really never

998
01:01:05,804 --> 01:01:09,424
the ultimate objective, the process empowers them,

999
01:01:09,964 --> 01:01:13,772
and it really contributes to their healing. And

1000
01:01:13,948 --> 01:01:17,744
so I just think that that's something that a lot of people don't think about

1001
01:01:18,064 --> 01:01:21,760
and. Or aren't even at a point where they can think about, which is completely

1002
01:01:21,792 --> 01:01:25,484
okay. But holding others accountable,

1003
01:01:25,824 --> 01:01:29,192
even legally, can be very therapeutic in and of

1004
01:01:29,208 --> 01:01:33,032
itself. And it can help others become after you.

1005
01:01:33,128 --> 01:01:36,888
So that has nothing to do with who Billy Graham voted for? Well,

1006
01:01:36,896 --> 01:01:40,528
I know there's a family controversy over it. I've saw it play out on social.

1007
01:01:40,576 --> 01:01:44,264
Media on our side of the family. It's not controversial. We know. Well,

1008
01:01:44,304 --> 01:01:47,864
thank you so much for your time. I really. I am so grateful.

1009
01:01:47,984 --> 01:01:51,832
We could do this again sometime, probably have like 50 more questions. Well, I

1010
01:01:51,848 --> 01:01:55,128
appreciate you inviting me, and I just want to thank you for this podcast. I

1011
01:01:55,136 --> 01:01:58,592
think it's, you know, there's lots of podcasts out there, but. But so much of

1012
01:01:58,608 --> 01:02:02,368
the material you cover and the guests you speak with, I think is

1013
01:02:02,536 --> 01:02:06,240
so relevant to what so many people are challenged with and some of them

1014
01:02:06,272 --> 01:02:09,872
battling. So you just bringing it all out in the open and

1015
01:02:09,888 --> 01:02:13,710
talking about it and giving that freedom to talk about it is

1016
01:02:13,782 --> 01:02:17,314
so important. So don't stop. Thank you. I appreciate that.

1017
01:02:21,334 --> 01:02:25,078
I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Boz as much as I did. I

1018
01:02:25,086 --> 01:02:28,222
have enough questions left over that I'm sure I will have him back on the

1019
01:02:28,238 --> 01:02:31,854
show again. I'd love to keep the conversation going over on Twitter

1020
01:02:31,934 --> 01:02:35,718
or Instagram or through the Facebook page. I am untangled. Faith

1021
01:02:35,766 --> 01:02:39,130
on Instagram and Facebook and Faith untangled on

1022
01:02:39,162 --> 01:02:41,858
Twitter. You can always find show

1023
01:02:41,906 --> 01:02:45,682
notes@untangledfaithpodcast.com with links related to

1024
01:02:45,778 --> 01:02:49,578
anything mentioned in any of our episodes. You all

1025
01:02:49,626 --> 01:02:53,410
make this worthwhile. Every message you send and every time you

1026
01:02:53,442 --> 01:02:56,538
share an episode with a friend, it makes a huge

1027
01:02:56,586 --> 01:03:00,418
difference. Thank you, guys. I'll see you back here next

1028
01:03:00,466 --> 01:03:00,554
week.