ACNA Witnesses Series:
How the Anglican Church in North America failed victims of sexual abuse.

ACNA leadership failed repeatedly to create a transparent, workable, fair way to support victims of sexual abuse under their care.

ACNA leaders, after being made aware of abuse allegations in their churches, focused on self-protection and secrecy instead of providing immediate help to multiple victims. Our witnesses document these failures with emails, minutes, and their personal conversations.

As I described in my previous post, I had not felt as though my voice on the BC had made any difference. And, from our February 7th, 2022 meeting with Alec Smith onward, I had increasing uneasiness about the half-truths and secrets that I was being asked to protect on behalf of the church and its leadership.

Even so, the March 14th, 2022 BC meeting was what startled me into the realization that I could no longer sit on this board with a clear conscience.

.

A). THE IMPROMPTU LECTURE BY STEPHEN GAUTHIER

The Agenda for this March 14th meeting had been set. We were — finally, after many months of inquiry — supposed to have a chance to ask two Greenhouse (GH) Movement board members questions. In fact, the BC was asked to submit questions (in advance) to these GH folks so that they could prepare. And, boy, did I have some questions!

In addition, earlier that same day, we had received a 4-page letter from a GH priest describing various distressing concerns that he wanted to bring to the BC’s attention.

Bp. Alan Hawkins appeared from 7:00 - 7:15PM, as planned. He updated us on how both the Telios and Husch-Blackwell investigations were still progressing.

After he left this call, the BC began discussing what we would do with the results of these investigations. We did not yet have an Ecclesiastical Court set up within the UMD in order to deal with disciplinary matters related to the bishop, deacons, priests or lay catechists. Our acting Chancellor — along with us MN representatives — had been pushing for many months for such a court or disciplinary body to be set up, so that we could address discipline in accordance with our Canons. Our UMD Canons and Bylaws were seen as an outlier by the ACNA (see the denomination's Canons here for reference) and were very unique in the absolute power that they delegated to the Bishop.

In the midst of this discussion, Barbara Gauthier chimed in to say that perhaps the absence of these disciplinary procedures had been purposeful. Perhaps we should find out the underlying reasons behind how our Canons & Bylaws were crafted? Perhaps we should talk to one of the men who drafted these documents? And several members on the BC followed up with: "Is your husband, Stephen Gauthier, available right now to answer these questions for us?" The answer was, “Yes, he is available. Let me go get him now and he can explain matters to you.”

Now, my own husband and I have a great deal of respect for Stephen Gauthier as a teacher, theologian, and church historian. We have often listened to him on the “Word & Table” Podcast. I mean no slur on the Gauthiers in this account. What I do mean to point out is that it may be a conflict-of-interest to have the wife of the man who drafted the UMD Canons & Bylaws — alongside Bp. Stewart Ruch and Canon William Beasley — sit on the BC as we discuss matters about amending those same Canons & Bylaws.

Regardless, Stephen Gauthier not only appeared out-of-the-blue for our BC meeting that evening, but he also gave us a 30-40 minute lecture on why the UMD Constitution & Canons were better than everyone else’s and why we did not need to have any sort of Ecclesiastical Court established.

Here is what I told the BC in my March 18th resignation letter:

The UMD & Greenhouse Movement are both formed in such a way as to give full and unfettered authority over to Bishop Stewart and William Beasley —Look at our founding documents. Listen to Canon Steven Gauthier’s impromptu but entirely passionate defense of them on our last BC meeting. Read the Greenhouse Bylaws that Jens Notstad forwarded to the BC that same night.
Basically, what I heard was: Yes, we have created an autocracy and we are proud of it. Well, no, no other diocese does it this way, but that is because they are full of bureaucracy and layers and rules. They are bland. We are special.
And, yes, the ACNA does demand that we “shall” create an Ecclesiastical Court but do we really need to do what they say? After all, we got that box checked off when we got “birthed” into this Province and they really shouldn’t be able to tell us how to improve or change now since they approved our structure a decade ago. Besides, our diocese is unique because we have a Bishop who would only need to have checks + balances in the form of admonition from an Archbishop or a trial by the College of Bishops — he would never need to have his judgment questioned by those under his leadership. He would never need to be challenged personally. Why involve any system of oversight in our UMD ever? We don’t need an Ecclesiastical Court or any other avenue of redress for victims. Let that silly idea go.
Of course, I am exaggerating. And using sarcasm. But that is the gist of what I understood.
I ask you: Do we actually believe in the doctrine of the inherent sinfulness and fallenness of all men, even men as extraordinarily gifted and spirit empowered and blessed in ministry as Stewart Ruch and William Beasley? If so, why are we entrusting broken and imperfect leaders with such absolute and unassailable power?

Instead of voting on a motion to create an Ecclesiastical Court for the UMD or taking time to discuss the significant GH issues raised in the letter emailed to us by a priest earlier that day, we spent the time listening to Stephen Gauthier’s defense of our system and we had to cut him off at 8PM in order to meet with the GH board representatives.

B). THE PROBLEMS WITH GREENHOUSE MOVEMENT

During my first four years on the BC, I had no idea that Greenhouse Movement was a nationwide ministry, completely separate from the UMD. I did not know that it was its own nonprofit with its own distinct board. I only knew about GH as a “deanery” that operated within the UMD under Dean William Beasley, later made Missioner General by Bp. Stewart Ruch.

1. The Missing “Comprehensive Review” Report

The COLA church plant in which Mark Rivera was a “lay catechist” was a GH church. The alleged sexual abuses suffered by Cherin’s daughter were in that church. Since sometime in 2020, I had been hearing about a “comprehensive” review of GH, as discussed below in a Dec. 14, 2020 Bishop’s Council meeting:

*Excerpt from the 12/14/2020 Bishop’s Council Minutes (emphasis mine)*

The “full report” – that was to have served as a “comprehensive internal review” and that synthesized the accounts of approximately “50 people within Greenhouse, including those who brought concerns” – was never given to the BC.

I have never seen this “full report,” even though it was supposedly completed in November of 2020. And, even though, according to Bp. Stewart’s statements to us, this full report had already been given to himself, to Cn. William, to the GH Board and to various leaders within the GH Community. I have, similarly, never seen the “video debriefing” or “a sort of report on the report” that was described by Bp. Stewart at our December 14th, 2020 BC meeting.

Instead, in September of 2021, nearly one year after this update by Bp. Stewart, the BC was given a 10-page report that mainly focused on the good stuff that was happening at GH and through its various ministries. This brief document did not seem to be the one described to us by Bp. Stewart in December of 2020. Realistically, there would have been no need for a “video debriefing” or “a sort of report on the report” for a 10-page summary.

Read the 10 page version of the Greenhouse Report here

2) The Missing Missioner General

Throughout the first few months of the newly-constituted BC in the summer of 2021 – after the Bishop had taken his “voluntary” leave and the Deans had also stepped down – we were kept busy with putting out several “fires” in GH churches in our UMD.

I learned then that the UMD is the only diocese within the ACNA that has this “special arrangement” with the GH Movement. That is, we are the only one in which GH churches exist under the leadership of both Canon William Beasley and Bishop Stewart Ruch. It has never been clear to me how GH is run within the UMD. And, as these fires continued to pop up, it seemed that nobody in our UMD really understood how GH is run. We received multiple complaints about GH, its leaders and, especially, its lay catechists. However, nobody on the BC knew how to respond.

The BC submitted our complaints – and I noted the fact that we still had not received any “comprehensive internal review” report – to Bp. Alan Hawkins, the COO of ACNA. On September 3rd, we received an email confirming that Bp. Alan was indeed meeting with Cn. William and the GH Board about these issues.

*Email from Alan Hawkins to the Bishop’s Council regarding William Beasley.*

On September 6th, we finally received a response from the GH Board – that is, they sent us the 10-page report that they claimed was the full report. And, on September 14th, the BC was informed of Canon William Beasley’s soon-to-be-announced retirement.

Read an excerpt of the 9/14/2021 BC Minutes here.

This retirement was later announced publicly in an October 12, 2021 UMD update.

3) The Missing Fr. Keith Hartsell (a/k/a Current Leader of GH)

Since Canon William Beasley’s retirement in October of 2021, the BC had not gotten many responses to our questions for the GH. In fact, by the time that GH representatives finally met with us on March 14th, 2022, I still had some very basic organizational questions to ask them.

*Excerpt from 3/14/2022 Bishop’s Council Agenda*

Read the full 3/14/2022 BC Agenda here

The first 45 minutes of our time with GH was taken up by Fr. Jens Notstad describing all the wonders of the GH model. Following his presentation, the BC pushed for these specific questions to be answered and we got the following response in a 5-10 minute monotone summation by Paul Wolfe, current Chair of the GH Board:

Read the full 3/14/2022 BC Minutes here

Even though we had already reached our 9PM end-time by this point, the entire BC continued to ask many follow-up questions of both Fr. Jens and Paul Wolfe. This was the very first time – since Cn. William’s retirement – that we had any opportunity to meet with GH board members or hear from them directly.

I learned in this Q&A time that our BC’s Chair Fr. Alex Cameron, while ostensibly representing the GH Deanery, had been effectively “frozen” out of GH communications by Fr. Keith Hartsell. I also learned that Fr. Keith Hartsell was the de facto leader of GH now that Canon William Beasley retired, but GH wanted to keep that fact “quiet” because they feared the negative publicity.

I began to question Fr. Jens Notstad about which organization – GH or UMD – would be in charge of any disciplining of Fr. Keith Hartsell, should the current investigations being conducted by Husch-Blackwell and Telios indicate that he had committed any wrong-doings?

Fr. Jens became agitated and enraged with me at this hypothetical question. He said that he believed the entire UMD owed Fr. Keith an apology. He said that the UMD – and not GH or Canon William Beasley – was responsible for the Mark Rivera fiasco. He said many other things as well. It was a defensive, bitter response.

Now, having said that, let me tell you also that Fr. Jens Notstad and I had overlapped for a couple years previously on the BC. He is an admirable, hard-working priest who serves in nursing homes and who is extremely compassionate. Again, as an individual, he is a wonderful young man and a devoted husband and father. I do not hold him personally responsible for his comments to the BC or for his posture. I do, however, point out that GH – in my experience on the BC – has responded to our inquiries with evasiveness and defensiveness.

I retracted my question about Fr. Keith Hartsell and said that I had not intended to touch on such a tender nerve with my hypothetical. I was simply bringing up this particular man because he was the de facto, unofficial but recognized leader of GH currently and I was doing my best to figure out who had authority over him. And I was asking Fr. Jens and Paul Wolfe this particular question because Fr. Keith Hartsell had chosen not to appear in front of the BC himself.

C). THE PROVIDENCE OF JUSTIN GIBONEY’S TALK IN MINNEAPOLIS

I left the Monday, March 14th BC Meeting at 9:45PM, before it was entirely concluded for the evening. I got off my laptop and told my husband that I felt an instantaneous and full “release from the Lord” to leave the board. There was no point in staying on it any longer. He prayed with me and we asked for confirmation of this release.

The next day I went back-and-forth in my spirit about leaving. I felt as though I had incomplete work to do. I had just started leading the Child Safety Task Force. We had just begun reviewing policies from other ACNA dioceses. I hated to abandon that project and leave those people hanging. But, I also felt that God was asking me to step aside and that my “chapter” on the BC was now finished.

That Tuesday evening, I went with some friends to hear Justin Giboney (founder of the “AND Movement” and host of the “Church & Politics” Podcast) give a talk on “Racism & The Church,” sponsored by TRANSFORM MINNESOTA.

His talk was about the oppression that black people have historically faced in the context of the power exerted by the white majority. And he spoke about how much of this was done with white Christians looking away and pretending this never existed. He was looking at the messages that the OT prophets, Jeremiah and Amos, brought from the Lord — messages about how God has a special tenderness toward the weak and the marginalized . . . and messages about how JUSTICE is not simply the absence of “personal wrongdoing” (individual racism) but the active establishment and creation of systems/structures that promote protection for those that are the most weak, the most vulnerable, and the most defenseless.

He articulated in his speech about race exactly what I had been struggling to articulate since January of 2021 (serving Bishop Stewart Ruch alongside Alec Smith, Charles Philbrick, Steve Williamson, Brenda Dumper, Anne Kessler and others) about the deeply rooted inequalities towards women and children and others who are most vulnerable to abuse in our diocese. We may not be guilty of “personal wrongdoing,” but we have actively established and created systems and structures that provide no protection and no safety and no voice for those who are the most weak, the most vulnerable, and the most defenseless within our UMD.

I was so moved by his talk that I tried to type out his exact questions onto my smartphone. I apologize if I did not get these quotes exactly as he said them, but here are the questions that he asked of us all:

Are we more concerned about Dying to Self or about Defending the Self?
Is our Posture one of Earnest Submission or Is it all about Pride in our Position, Place & Power?
Are we Defending the Dignity of Others or Are we Defending our Own Self-Interest?
Are we Engaged in Self-Examination or Are we Engineering our Self-Justification?
Are we Grieving the Violence Done or Are we Grabbing for Control?
Are we Repenting our Deafness to the Cries of the Vulnerable or Are we Rejecting Anyone or Any Perspective that Is Not in Line with Our Own?
Do we let the Oppressed Lead us or Do we Impose on them the Solutions that We Provide?

In the context of my past 18 months of experience in engaging with the UMD, the ACNA, and the top leadership at both levels, I believed absolutely that we were:

All about Defending Self
All about Pride in our Position, Place & Power
All about Defending Our Own Self-Interests
All about Engineering Our Own Self-Justification
All about Grabbing for Control
All about Rejecting Anyone or Any Perspective Not in Line with Our Own
All about Imposing on the Oppressed the Solutions that We Provide

Another statement of Justin Giboney’s that smacked me was: “When you have had power and you have had power for a long time, Justice is always inconvenient.” Yes! Yes, that is it exactly. Cn. William Beasley had had power for a long, long time in the Greenhouse Movement and in the rise of Anglicanism in the Midwest. Bp. Ruch had had power for a long, long time not only as a Bishop for a decade but as a powerful pastor over REZ for even longer. These issues of sexual abuse by lay catechists and the call to transparency and reform were very, very inconvenient to both these men.

This talk was the confirmation that my husband and I had prayed for. I went home on Tuesday night and told him that I was resigning. The next night, I wrote my resignation letter between 1:30AM - 4:30AM because my brain was ruminating on these issues and I could not sleep. I hoped that my 6 pages of writing might move the BC to reflect and to act.

My title to this Reason 4 references the “Lions & Tigers & Bears, Oh My!” scene from the classic movie, The Wizard of Oz, in which the main character pulls back the curtain on this great and powerful wizard only to find that it is a small man from Kansas who is orchestrating everything. I hope that these posts have helped, in some ways, to pull back the curtains on some of the machinations that have occurred out of view from the general lay person and even clergy.

My other movie metaphor is from the Christmas film, Elf, in which Will Ferrell (as an elf) says to a fake department store Santa, “You sit on a throne of lies . . . You stink . . . You smell like beef and cheese . . . you don’t smell like Santa!” The meek and merciful fragrance of Jesus Christ was missing. Instead, the UMD, GH Movement and the ACNA each reeked of the world and all of its power plays.

I announced my resignation on Wednesday and Thursday with various phone conversations, but was then asked by Acting Bishop John Miller and Chair Alex Cameron to join them for a Zoom meeting on Friday morning. I told them that I would not change my mind about resigning but they still wanted the opportunity to meet with me and hear my concerns.

I spent most of my hour-long conversation with these two gentlemen telling them again about my complaints of being a female on the BC and of the power-disparities that are inherent in the church system that we have currently set up. As it is, males hold all the political and spiritual power. I was not arguing for women to be ordained, but I was arguing that women need to be heard and to be believed. I told them of my concerns that many women — Cherin and Joanna and many others like them — were not being given avenues to hold men accountable. And, even though I had been given a seat on the BC, I had felt marginalized, shamed, and shut-down whenever I tried to speak out against this system or to raise concerns about any male leader. They listened very compassionately and attentively. They thanked me for my service repeatedly, said that I was very much respected and told me that I would be missed.

Then, I sent off an email with my attached resignation letter to the entire Council.

Now, the discerning reader might notice that I state in my email: “This letter will not be showing up online or in social media anywhere — or if it does, it will not be by me. I will not be on social media to discuss any of this.”

And, this reader might then ask me to explain why I am, in fact, posting my story on the ACNAToo website. Why would you do this after you said that you wouldn't?

Well, funny that you should ask.

POST-RESIGNATION TIMELINE IN 9 EVENTS

#1 — Wednesday, March 23rd:

I got an email from a woman that I had referred to Husch-Blackwell telling me that the investigative firm could not guarantee that her name would remain confidential — they would be reporting back to the ACNA the full name of each person who participated in the investigation.

#2 — Wednesday, March 23rd:

I got an email from Fr. Steve Williamson correcting some facts that he originally told me. Please note that in my response I point out one of my key takeaways from this entire experience:

Regardless, though, I think the vehemence with which +Stewart argued his position with +Alan & Archbishop Foley (in his letter) shook my faith in our bishop’s humble and patient waiting. It seems to me that there is much talk about submission to authority . . . until one actually has to do it . . . and under difficult, demanding, demeaning circumstances.

Yet, this is the exact position that women in general — not only victims or survivors — find themselves in with the church. How does one submit to authority that one feels neither has her best interests at heart or is even aware of his own callousness?

There is a double-bind of us being told to “submit” in general to men (our husbands, our fathers, etc) and, specifically, in the church to priests, bishops, and archbishops. And, I wonder if raising questions or concerns or even expressing feelings of hurt/vulnerability are often taken to be forms of nonsubmission? Anyway, while I don’t accuse anyone specifically of sexism and I don’t support the ordination of women to priests, I do wonder about the systemic structures that keep women in their place in the ACNA/UMD and I do wonder how these underpinnings allow females/children to be vulnerable to various types of abuse in our churches?

Preachers expound warmly upon the art of women submitting to men, but in the ACNA, when the male Priest is asked to submit to the BC or when the male Bishop is asked to submit to the Archbishop, I have yet to see them follow their own advice.

Read Steve's email and Helen's response here

#3 — Thursday, March 24th:

I got an email from Dawn Jewell, the Communications Director at REZ and for the UMD, in which she explained how she came to a different conclusion about Bp. Stewart’s motives for wanting to return to power. Now, I admire Dawn greatly and she has been a huge joy to work with on the Communications Subcommittee of the BC. However, it baffled me to realize that she had complete access to Bp. Stewart’s ultra-secret, totally locked-down letter to Archbishop Foley from January 14th. And, she had access to what I thought was a confidential resignation letter from me to the BC. I had sent personal “goodbye” emails to everyone at REZ with whom I had worked, but I had not sent them the actual resignation letter.

Read Dawn's email and Helen's response here

#4 — Friday, March 25th:

The ACNAToo contact/friend that I had was visiting her family in MN and I met with her briefly to tell her that I had stepped down from the BC. I did not tell her specifically why, but I did say that I could not stay on the Council with a clean conscience.

#5 — Tuesday, March 29th:

I was sitting in the Costco Parking lot waiting for the store to open when I got a call from my Acting Dean Paul Calvin. He was calling to tell me — in a very sorry and regretful tone of voice — that the BC had met the previous night and there had been a request made from Fr. Keith Hartsell via Fr. Jens Notstad that I write an apology for “using Keith’s name inappropriately” in my questions regarding GH and its disciplinary policies during the last March 14th BC meeting.

Fr. Paul said that he thought that this request was somewhat ridiculous but that he had volunteered to contact me to see if I might possibly help the BC out by smoothing some ruffled feathers and appeasing the GH folks.

So, I did. I typed out an apology to Fr. Keith Hartsell right there on my phone:

Read Helen's apology and Bp. John Miller's reply here

Then, I went on with my day. The problem was that I kept getting more and more angry throughout the afternoon. When I found myself yelling at my young daughter for dropping fishy crackers on our kitchen floor after school, I realized that I needed to take some time and do some self-reflection.

I went upstairs to my bedroom and began sobbing. I realized that my anger was not actually about the apology to Fr. Keith Hartsell. I grew up as a Chinese American immigrant and I also grew up as a female Christian in the Evangelical world. I can apologize to men all day long. I have both the heredity and the training for it.

My anger was at the BC. I was hurt, so very hurt. I felt betrayed. After all the statements that I had repeatedly made about how difficult it was to be a woman in this role . . . after my passionate resignation letter . . . after my hour-long teary explanation to Acting Bishop John Miller and Chair Alex Cameron . . . after all my five years on the BC and the months and months of intense, unrelenting service, this was the proverbial slap in the face.

It was the BC telling me that they would rather sacrifice me and my self-respect than to upset Fr. Keith Hartsell or anybody from GH.

Ten days after my resignation, they wanted me to apologize for asking questions of a male priest. Questions that I thought were in fact very appropriate. Questions that involved a priest who had been named online (see here, here, here and here) and who I had received email testimonies about from women in GH that I didn’t even know personally. Questions that I had asked to protect the diocese that I loved in my role as one of the members of the UMD’s ecclesiastical authority.

None of this seemed strange to the BC.

Soothing the male ego and silencing the female who asked too many questions seemed to be usual and customary for them.

This confirmed the suspicion that had been growing ever stronger within me during the past 18 months: the BC and every other set of institutions within our UMD will side with the male and with the priest — against any female. I realized afresh that this is exactly what happened to Cherin and to Joanna.

If I was not “protected” or “listened to” – even in raising a single question – by these folks whom I had served alongside for all these months and by whom I had been told that I was greatly respected and valued, then there was no protection for any other woman in our UMD.

#6 — Thursday, March 31st:

I had a late evening Zoom meeting with Gina Roes, Christen Price & Autumn VandeHei — the 3 women who had resigned from Bp. Alan Hawkins’ PRT back in February — and we compared notes about our experiences at the UMD and the ACNA levels. We noticed eerily similar patterns. They urged me to consider going public, as they had, in order to shed light on all that has transpired in the dark.

One of my lessons learned from these past 18 months is that Jesus spoke truth when he said, “For it is the least among you all who is the greatest” (Luke 9:46-48). The leaders at the “bottom” – the Deacons – have been the most faithful of servants and the most desirous of both mercy and justice. Many priests have done this as well. But, the higher “up” you go in the chain of command and the more powerful the person, the less concern there is for the damage done to others and the more concern there is with self-protection, institutional protection and proper optics. It reminds me of the “one ring” in the Lord of the Rings story. Our souls are not meant to carry the weight of power, prestige and praise.

#7 — Monday, April 4th:

My husband and I were asked to meet with Fr. Christian Ruch and his wife, Molly, at our own Church of the Cross. This was a difficult and yet affirming meeting. They have been our pastors and friends for more than a dozen years. Our kids have grown up together. We carpool to school. They had scrupulously left me alone during my entire time on the BC. We did not have a single conversation about church or UMD matters in this past year that I did not personally initiate. I admire them greatly and love them even more.

And, I also know that Christian is — and should be — extremely loyal to his own older brother, who happens to be our Bishop. They had heard from Bp. Stewart that my resignation letter had compared him to Mark Driscoll. I was surprised by that since my reference to the Mars Hill podcast in my letter had been in the context of defending Bp. Stewart from those types of comparisons. After the meeting, I sent them the entire resignation letter so they could read everything that I said and within the context that I had laid out.

They also pointed out that I was a mature Christian who was not afraid of confronting people directly so they asked why I had not chosen to confront Bp. Stewart directly about these issues. My response: I don’t trust him. I hope that I am wrong. But, I don’t feel safe going to him one-on-one right now. We told Molly & Christian, at that meeting, that our family would be resigning our membership from Church of the Cross. They said that we would be sorely missed. The staff at our church were informed about our departure the next day.

#8 — Friday, April 8th:

As I explained previously, the MN Deanery had met semi-regularly at a local Twin Cities restaurant to discuss motions to present to the BC in an effort to provoke some action [see Helen’s description of this dynamic under “Rowing Hard and Getting Nowhere” in her Reason 03 post]. These men invited me to a “goodbye” afternoon pie and coffee. I began by telling them directly how I felt about the request that I got from the BC to apologize to Fr. Keith Hartsell. I got a heartfelt apology from Acting Dean Paul Calvin for even making that request to me in the first place. I forgave him. And I told him that I didn’t expect anybody — priests and rectors, included — to be perfect or to know what it’s like to be a female in this system. And I thanked him for always listening to me and for humbling himself to learn from me and for asking for forgiveness whenever he had been wrong.

The other MN lay representative then informed me that, while the MN Deanery had gotten the letters of resignation – my own and that of Anna who had separately sent out her own resignation letter – onto the March 28th Agenda as an item to be discussed, nobody on the BC seemed to really want to focus at all on the substance of the complaints in those letters.

The BC, instead, had moved on rapidly and talked about the next steps in getting two new members on the Council now that we had stepped down.

This, again, confirmed in a rather forceful way how little the BC valued what both Anna and I had taken the time to write out to them.

#9 — Monday, April 10th:

I received the following email from Bp. Ruch, asking if we could meet in accordance with Matthew 18. The next day, my husband responded on my behalf.

From: Stewart Ruch
Date: April 11, 2022 at 12:44:51 PM CDT
To: H. Keuning
Cc: John Miller, Katherine Ruch
Subject: A response to your letter

Dear Helen:

Dear sister, I was sorry to receive your letter of resignation to the Bishop’s Council and to read of your broken trust in me.

Before I say more about that, let me first thank you for your years of faithful service to our diocese. You were a dedicated member of the Bishop’s Council. I was always interested in what you were thinking and took time later to ponder your insights. I came to trust you and your leadership so much that I asked you (with Resurrection’s senior warden Sarah Graham) to conduct my annual ministry review in January of 2021. I also asked you to participate in the Diocesan Response Team as we sought to respond to Joanna’s letters and concerns. Thank you for your service.

Based on the trust I assumed we shared, I was surprised and saddened to read your resignation letter, and that you have lost trust in me. It is my understanding from your letter that the main reason behind your erosion of trust is my decision, as displayed in my January 14, 2022 letter to Archbishop Foley, to work toward coming off my voluntary and temporary leave of absence.

I am sorry that you did not come to me directly with this concern. I would certainly have understood if you had asked to meet with a third party like Bishop John Miller. Furthermore, I would have sought to hear your concerns as you articulated them in your letter. I can only assume that you have listened carefully to the perspectives of some in ACNAtoo and also of the leadership in ACNA. Would it not have been a clearer, more just, and more biblical process to have also heard Katherine’s and my perspective? Certainly, you may have heard our biblical, canonical, and logical reasoning and ultimately disagreed. Disagreements among Christian leaders are to be expected, especially in times of crisis such as now. Yet, we would have heard one another; we would have had the opportunity to be Christian family to one another.

Please know I would still welcome that opportunity to talk these matters through with a third party. In my perception, that would be doing our best to follow Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 18. If I understand your letter accurately, we are now in a kind of unreconciled relationship as a brother and sister in Christ. I appreciate that you may need time and space before you want to engage in a Matthew 18 process, but please know that I am ready to do so whenever you may be ready.

Yours in Christ,

+Stewart

P.S. After consultation with Bp. John, he will also forward this letter on to the Bishop’s Council.

From: [redacted] Keuning
Date: April 12, 2022 at 5:26:31 PM CDT
To: Stewart Ruch
Cc: H. Keuning, Christian Ruch, Molly Ruch, John Miller, Katherine Ruch
Subject: Re: A response to your letter

Dear Bishop Stewart,

I ([redacted]) am responding on behalf of Helen.

I agree that broken trust between fellow Christians is a sad thing, and one to be mended when possible.

However, I do not think that this falls neatly into the teaching Jesus gave us in Matthew 18. That passage opens with, "if your brother or sister sins...." In reviewing Helen's resignation letter, and in discussions with her, I do not believe that in it she has accused you of any sin, nor does she hold any against you in her heart. Nor do we think she has sinned against you in writing to the council her reasons for resigning, even though some of those reasons touched on you and were undoubtedly painful to read.

I do not believe, and Helen agrees with me, that our obedience to Christ calls for a "Matthew 18 process" meeting in this matter. And as much as she admires and has benefited from the leadership you have shown in our diocese and on the council, and as much as that time has meant to her, she is not in a place where she can work on your relationship right now.

You may have heard that we have decided to leave Church of the Cross. It's really got nothing to do with Church of the Cross itself. But this last year or two of service on the council has been so painful that this denomination is not a place where we as a family can worship right now. We're leaving the whole ACNA. Though we are still finishing out some service commitments and taking part in the Easter Vigil, our last real Sunday service was Palm Sunday.

Christian and Molly let us know that you were coming for Easter. I am glad for you, and hope that your time with your brother and his family is wonderful. They are people that I admire more than I can say. I pray that God will meet you in Easter worship with strength and hope in these times of trouble.

But I do ask that you don't approach Helen if you should happen to overlap in any services. I ask some respectful distance for her while she sorts out the various pains of separation that she is going through. There may come a time when such distance is not necessary, but it is not yet.

Should you have any thoughts or questions on this matter, please contact me directly.

Thank you,
[redacted] Keuning

In addition to my husband’s statements above, I wondered what was to be done with corporate sins? I had no personal vendetta against Bp. Stewart. He had always treated me kindly. But as I pointed out in my first reason for leaving the BC, there were many, many instances where I felt that we – as the UMD leaders and as the ACNA – were sinning against the church as a whole and against the most vulnerable, the weakest members of the body of Christ. Did Matthew 18 cover that? Was it not necessary to have a public confession of sin for public sins committed?

Our family had already said our “goodbyes” during the Palm Sunday Service on April 9th. My husband and I had only to fulfill our previously-made obligations to perform in the Saturday Easter Vigil readings during Holy Week. I had been informed by Fr. Christian that Bp. Stewart and his family would be visiting them for Easter weekend. I felt very anxious about running into Bp. Stewart at the Vigil itself.

But, I needn’t have worried. Bp. Stewart and his family stayed in Wheaton, IL and attended all the Easter services at REZ instead.

I will let you connect-the-dots however you want, but these are the 9 events in my life — all taking place after my original resignation — that led me to post these reasons onto the ACNAToo website.

3 REASONS FOR COMING FORWARD:

So, it is the week after Easter and I am frantically reviewing notes, writing, editing, revising, and checking the underlying documentation for these posts in an effort to submit all four of them to ACNAToo and give them permission to release them online, beginning Monday, April 25th.

Our family has said our “goodbyes” to our own church and we have made a “farewell tour” of the daughter churches here in MN.

By the time the first post is “live” on this platform, we will have left the ACNA completely.

I have nothing to gain personally from going public.

After everything that I had witnessed these past couple of years, I simply wanted to submit my BC resignation letter, walk away and leave this entire mess behind me.

But, I believe the Lord stopped me from doing so. He asked me to give my public testimony – to be a witness to all that I have seen and heard and experienced. I don’t need to be believed. But, I do need to speak.

#1 — I need to speak out on behalf of Joanna and Cherin and the other survivors — both those who have come forward and those who have yet to come forward. I believe in a God who SEES Joanna and Cherin and all that they have suffered — not only at the hands of Mark Rivera, but also at the hands of our churches and of our religious leaders. I believe in a God who has a soft spot in his heart for the foreigner, for the slave, for the single mom, for the immigrant child, and for all who are oppressed and powerless. I believe in a Jesus who tells the adulterous woman that he does not condemn her, but releases her to go and sin no more. I believe in a Holy Spirit before whom “all hearts are open, all desires known, and from [whom] no secrets are hid.”

#2 — I need to speak out on behalf of my two daughters. My elder daughter is 18 years old and needs to know that the Lord has granted her “a voice, an inner knowing and a choice.” (This quote is repeated often by Deacon Cheryl Withham who is a wise shepherd over many women in our church.) This daughter has kept abreast of these issues and has offered me keen insight into them. My younger daughter is 9 years old and needs to know that she will be believed by any church or denomination that we choose to become members of in the future. Since meeting Cherin over Zoom last winter, this little one has been a visible, embodied and daily reminder to me of the devastation that occurs when an innocent child is not only violated by a molester, but then is also disbelieved, ostracized, censored, and criticized by the very churches that her family turned to for consolation.

#3 — I need to speak out on behalf of Church of the Cross and the other MN daughter churches:

You all have been the most beautiful church home and family that we could have ever desired. Our leaving you is a death that I will grieve for a very long time. We did not leave because of anything that was wrong within the MN Deanery or within our set of churches. But, we leave in order to warn you of the failings in our UMD and to encourage you to build stronger, more humble foundations so that you and your people can flourish.

One of the abuse counselors that I spoke to last summer said to me something along the lines of: Churches invite sheep in. We are responsible for their safety. Where the sheep are, is where the wolves automatically go. How can we say we are protecting the sheep or the lambs if we don’t truly believe that our church will be one in which a wolf will attend? Even a wolf in sheep’s clothing?

In the March 14th letter (from a GH priest) that was forwarded to the BC, listing many specific dire concerns and describing hurtful situations, this man had concluded with these words:

“Is it possible that in these situations, there was no shepherd who was willing or able to care for the sheep or overseer to hold the shepherds accountable? If that is the case, I would hope we would do whatever is necessary to protect the sheep in our care.”

I beg of you — all you church leaders who care for the lambs and the sheep in our congregations — please take these warnings seriously.

I know you have already been working diligently on your policies and procedures. But, making sure that the most vulnerable are protected will require you to PRIORITIZE this in how you spend your time, your money, your energies and your lives.

You will need to make it a priority to not only put the necessary paperwork into binders, but to continue to make sure that you and all your lay volunteers learn about how to spot the wolves and how to protect the sheep.

You will need to make it a priority to train your staff, your vestries, your prayer ministers and all your leaders — not just those who volunteer with children and with youth.

You will need to make it a priority to have these conversations in the open within your church family and to listen to and learn from those in your midst who have personal experiences with abuse and trauma.

You will need to make it a priority to believe and to care for anyone who comes forward.

You will need to make it a priority to get outside, professional help and trauma-informed care for your church, for your leaders and for your flock.

You will need to make it a priority to provide real accountability for all deacons, priests and rectors — not trusting in their absolute goodness, infallibility or inability to sin. You will do this for their own good and for the good of all who are under their care.

You will need to NOT turn away from those who suffer because of your own blindness, arrogance or apathy.

You will need to choose to love “the least of these” because you represent Jesus to them and to the watching world.

The fourth and final reason that I resigned from the BC: I no longer trusted the leadership in the UMD or in the ACNA to follow in the footsteps of Christ. I no longer imagined that women have a true voice in our diocese. I no longer believed that I am – or that my daughters would be – believed by those who hold power here.

May those of you who care and who listen and who believe continue to do the work of pulling back the curtain, of revealing the hidden machinations, and of doing the “smell” test on what you hear and see in the coming weeks, months and years.

It is my hope that perhaps – in a decade or two – my daughters might bring their daughters back to the ACNA and find it a safe place to worship.

I will leave you with three songs that I have listened to on “repeat” for the past month. May they be a source of beauty and courage for you, as they have been for me:

Indelible Grace Music: Jesus, I My Cross Have Taken
Indelible Grace Music: Dear Refuge of My Weary Soul
The Gray Havens: Far Kingdom

CONTACT INFO: If you want to contact me directly about this post, you can do so at helen@keuning.us. I apologize in advance if I don’t respond for a few weeks.

Read all 4 of Helen’s reasons for resigning the Upper Midwest Bishop’s Council at the ACNA Witnesses page:

Visit the ACNA Witnesses page here

04 | Gauthier & Greenhouse & Giboney, Oh My!