(RNS) — Jennifer Lyell, an editor and author whose promising career in Christian publishing was derailed when she accused a former Southern Baptist leader of abuse, died Saturday (June 7). She was 47.
“Jennifer passed gently into the arms of her Redeemer, surrounded by loved ones,” said her friend Rachael Denhollander, who said Lyell had suffered “a series of massive strokes, leading to her becoming unconscious sometime Monday afternoon. She was found Thursday evening after missing a medical appointment.”
For much of her adult life, Lyell had been a Southern Baptist success story. She came to faith at 20 at a Billy Graham crusade, went to seminary, dreamed of becoming a missionary, taught the Bible to young women and children and became a vice president at Lifeway, the Southern Baptist Convention’s publishing arm. There she worked on about a dozen New York Times bestsellers, according to a biography from her time at Lifeway.
By 2019, she was one of the highest-ranking women leaders in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.
Lyell had gone into publishing reluctantly, after her desire to be a missionary went unfulfilled.
“Eventually, I’m always convicted of the reality that my life is not my own. It was bought at an incomprehensible price,” she said in 2009 profile published by Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where Lyell had earned a master of divinity degree.
While at seminary in 2004, the 26-year-old Lyell met David Sills, a professor in his late 40s who became her mentor and a surrogate father figure, welcoming her into his family. Sills was also president of Reaching & Teaching International Ministries, a missionary nonprofit.
In 2018, Lyell told her bosses that Sills had allegedly used force and his spiritual influence to coerce her into nonconsensual sexual acts over the course of 12 years. Sills admitted to misconduct and resigned from his seminary post and as president of the nonprofit, but no details were made public.
But when Sills found a new job with another Christian ministry the next year, Lyell went public with her allegations of abuse, telling her story to Baptist Press, an SBC news outlet. Rather than portraying her claims as abuse, the Baptist Press article said Lyell had had “a morally inappropriate relationship” with a seminary professor. That story was later retracted and Baptist Press apologized.
But the damage was done. Lyell was labeled a temptress and adulteress who led a Christian leader astray. She was showered with hate, with pastors and churches calling for her to be fired. A prominent activist journalist published an account alleging that Lyell had been less than truthful and arguing that Sills had been denied a chance to return to ministry. Lyell eventually left her job at Lifeway amid the turmoil.
“We are saddened to hear the news of the passing of Jennifer Lyell. Lifeway sends our prayers and deepest sympathies to Jennifer’s family and friends,” Lfeway spokesperson Carol Pipes said on Sunday in a statement.
“It takes years and years to recover from trauma, and no one should be in the position of having to explain it to the whole public while they’re still trying to do that,” she told Religion News Service in a 2021 interview, in which she said she regretted coming forward.
Controversy over the Baptist Press story, as well as other accusations that SBC leaders had mishandled abuse cases, led the denomination to order a major investigation into the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee’s handling of abuse. A 2022 report published by the investigative firm Guidepost Solutions found that SBC had mistreated survivors and long sought to downplay the problem of abuse in the denomination, leading to a series of reforms.
The report, however, led to more trouble for Lyell. Sills sued the SBC and its leaders after the Guidepost report appeared, saying they had conspired to make him a scapegoat and that he was “repentant and obedient.” He also sued Lyell.
Lyell never backed down from her account. Earlier this year, in a deposition, she detailed the alleged abuse and how the Bible had been used to silence her for years.
“I do not need to be under oath to tell the truth — and there are no lies that will shake my certainty of what is true,” she said in a social media post when the suit was filed.
Lyell had rebuilt her life after leaving Christian publishing, attending law school and finding a new career. But like many adult women who accuse male spiritual leaders of abuse, she continued to be viewed with suspicion. Her death comes as reforms in the SBC protocols on abuse have slowed and one of the major planned reforms, a database to track abusive leaders, appears to be stalled permanently.
Still, Lyell never relented, said fellow survivor Tiffany Thigpen. “She inspired me. She encouraged me. She made me feel better about myself than I thought I deserved. And when I tried to deflect her words, she’d stop me and say, ‘No, stop. I need you to hear me,’” Thigpen said in an email.
Megan Lively, another abuse survivor, said her friend was “much more than the awful things that happened to her.” In a text to RNS, Lively noted that Lyell, who loved the music of Rich Mullins and the “West Wing” television show, was a Sunday school teacher and author of “The Promises of God Storybook Bible” for kids.
“She was one of the smartest and generous people I will know. She loved her Savior and is now at peace,” Lively said in a text.
Lyell is the second prominent SBC abuse survivor to die in recent months. In May, Gareld Duane Rollins, whose allegations of abuse against Texas judge and Southern Baptist leader Paul Pressler helped spark a major reckoning with abuse in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination, died after years of illness.
Lyell remained a person of deep faith. A quote from the C.S. Lewis book “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” adorns a pair of paving stones in her front lawn. The quote explains how Aslan the lion, a Jesus-like figure in the book, had come back to life — in a story that parallels Easter.
“When a willing victim, who has committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead … the Table would crack and death itself would start working backwards.”
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