CHICAGO (RNS) — For years, Nancy Beach had no idea there were women with stories similar to hers.
Beach, the first woman to serve as a teaching pastor at Willow Creek Community Church, said her boss acted sexually inappropriately toward her in the late 1990s.
Instead of speaking out, she said she went silent, like so many other women, wanting to protect the church and families involved and thinking her situation was an isolated case.
When she learned other women said they had similar encounters with Willow Creek founder Bill Hybels, she decided to speak out earlier this year. Eventually, Hybels, who has denied the allegations against him, retired early after about 10 women accused him of misconduct.
Like others who have shared their stories of sexual harassment and abuse this year, Beach hopes other women won’t have to wait so long to speak out. It’s time, she said, for evangelical churches to have an honest conversation about sexual misconduct.
She plans to tell her story at Reflections: A GC2 Summit on Responding to Sexual Harassment, Abuse and Violence, a one-day evangelical gathering around the topic on Thursday (Dec. 13) hosted by the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College, an evangelical Christian school in the Chicago suburbs.
There’s never been a more important time to address the topic of sexual misconduct in the church,…
… Read More
Click here to read the rest of the story from our content source/partners – Christian Headlines.