The Village Church Settles Abuse Complaint
The Southern Baptist congregation led by Acts 29 president Matt Chandler maintained it hadn’t done anything wrong, infuriating the family of the victim.
The Village Church, a large Southern Baptist church in Texas pastored by Matt Chandler, has announced it reached a settlement with a woman who had reported one of the church’s pastors sexually assaulted her when she was 11 years old.
But the conflict isn’t over. The church statement said, “We maintain and firmly believe that we committed no wrong,” and noted that the woman couldn’t positively identify that it was the church employee who abused her.
The woman’s family protested, saying in a statement that the church’s statement was “not fully truthful, transparent, or caring for the traumatized.” The family has left the church over the handling of the case.
“The attempt to communicate care in one sentence followed by language that invalidates and dismisses the merits of the victim's claims is not the way to express care, compassion, and truth,” the family said. “And then we wonder why so many victims of trauma are leaving the church.”
The settlement comes in the context of Southern Baptist churches wrestling with how to respond to a report documenting extensive abuse in the denomination.
The civil lawsuit against The Village Church was filed under the name Jane Doe, but the mother, Christi Bragg, recounted the details of what happened to her daughter on the record to The New York Times in 2019. The girl reported to her mother the year before that back in 2012, a pastor at a church summer camp, Matthew Tonne, had touched her in her bed with her undergarments pulled down. The mother immediately filed a police report and reported the incident to the church. The church said it also immediately filed a police report. Tonne maintained his innocence.
The ...