Ep. 477: Michael Tait, Southern Baptists Meet, Truett McConnell President Suspended

Jun 13, 2025

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On today’s program, Christian music artist Michael Tait admits to living a “double life” after accusations surfaced that he had sexually groomed and assaulted multiple young men over the course of a decade. We’ll take a look.

And, Southern Baptist abuse survivor died last week after a brief illness, sending shock waves through the community of abuse reform advocates. Before her death, she took part in a deposition, publicly revealing details of her abuse by an SBC leader. We’ll have details.

Plus, pro-Israel evangelical Johnnie Moore is named chair of a Gaza aid group.

But first, the trustees of Truett McConnell University have called for an investigation into allegations of sexual abuse against a former professor—and placed its president on leave under suspicions that he had helped cover it up. Truett McConnell University President Emir Caner has been placed on administrative leave following a special called meeting of TMU trustees Friday (June 6). The school, affiliated with Georgia Baptists, has been embroiled in controversy following allegations of sexual abuse against a former professor.

The producer for today’s program is Jeff McIntosh. We get database and other technical support from Stephen DuBarry, Rod Pitzer, and Casey Sudduth. Writers who contributed to today’s program include Laura Erlanson, Kathryn Post, Tony Mator, Kim Roberts, Bob Smietana, Yonat Shimron, Shannon Cuthrell, Brittany Smith, and Christina Darnell.

A special thanks to Baptist Press for contributing material for this week’s podcast.

Until next time, may God bless you.

MANUSCRIPT:

FIRST SEGMENT

Warren:

Hello everybody. I’m Warren Smith, coming to you from Charlotte, North Carolina.

Natasha:

And I’m Natasha Cowden, coming to you from Denver, Colorado, and we’d like to welcome you to the MinistryWatch podcast.

Warren:

Plus, pro-Israel evangelical Johnnie Moore is named chair of a Gaza aid group.

Natasha:

Warren:

Truett McConnell University President Emir Caner has been placed on administrative leave following a special called meeting of TMU trustees Friday (June 6). The school, affiliated with Georgia Baptists, has been embroiled in controversy following allegations of sexual abuse against a former professor.

Natasha:

The school also launched a third-party investigation.

Warren:

The school hired Richard Hyde with Phoenix Research, and it has installed John Yarbrough, TMU’s director of alumni and public policy, as acting president.

Natasha:

TMU alumna Hayle Swinson went forward last week with allegations that former TMU professor Bradley Reynolds groomed her and sexually abused her while she was a student athlete.

Warren:

Reynolds was employed at the school until February 2024 after Swinson went to police.

Reynolds allegedly sent hundreds of emails and text messages to Swinson over a long period of time, some of them sexually explicit.

It is unclear whether school administrators knew about Reynolds’ behavior before 2024.

Natasha:

Next, breaking news from the Christian Music world.

Warren:

Days after an investigation revealed allegations of sexual assault against Christian musician Michael Tait, the former Newsboys frontman publicly admitted to abusing cocaine and alcohol and touching men “in an unwanted sensual way.”

Last week, The Roys Report reported that three men Tait met in the Christian music industry between 2004 and 2014 accused him of substance abuse and sexual assault.

Natasha:

Known for performing on Christian music hits such as DC Talk’s “Jesus Freak” (1996) and Newsboys’ “God’s Not Dead” (2011), Tait has been a mainstay of the contemporary Christian music world since the 1990s. He was a founding member of the Grammy Award-winning Christian rock trio DC Talk and later became the lead singer of Christian rock band Newsboys in 2009, before abruptly leaving in January.

Warren:

Tait admitted in his Instagram post that he was largely “living two distinctly different lives” and said he left Newsboys because he was “tired of leading a double life.”

He said he is now sober after spending six weeks at a treatment center in Utah.

He wrote, “I accept the consequences of my sin and am committed to continuing the hard work of repentance and healing-work I will do quietly and privately, away from the stage and spotlight,”

Natasha:

After the allegations against Tait, current Newsboys members Jody Davis, Duncan Phillips, Jeff Frankenstein and Adam Agee said in a statement they were “devastated” by the implications.

Warren:

When he left the band in January, Michael confessed to the band and management that he ‘had been living a double life,’ but bandmates said they never imagined that it could be this bad.

America’s largest Christian radio network, K-LOVE, has since pulled DC Talk and Newsboys from its music rotation for the time being.

Natasha:

Next, Focus on the Family has joined a long list of conservative Christian ministries to receive a “hate group” designation by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).

Warren:

Specifically, the SPLC has labeled the Colorado Springs-based ministry an “anti-LGBTQ+ hate group” for its “biblical worldview strategy” that opposes same-sex marriage and affirms biological sexual identity.

Natasha:

But as the SPLC wrestles with mounting accusations that its hate lists are mere political hit lists, Focus on the Family is swinging back.

Warren:

In a statement reported by Colorado Politics, Focus on the Family president Jim Daly called the hate label “slander.”

“It really is a faux hate list—just because Christians believe there’s a natural order to marriage and creating families and gender doesn’t make you homophobic or intolerant,” Daly said. “It’s common-sense beliefs that have stood the test of time for millennia.”

Natasha:

Released in May, the 2024 hate list includes 1,371 groups. Among those listed as anti-LGBTQ+ are numerous Christian ministries such as the Family Research Council, Alliance Defending Freedom, and D. James Kennedy Ministries.

Warren:

Daly suggested that the SPLC’s hate list has become just “a fundraising gimmick” that has “incited violence against innocent believers and fanned the very behaviors they claim they wish to combat.”

Natasha:

The latter claim seems to reference a 2012 incident in which a man shot a Family Research Council security guard while attempting a mass killing inspired by the SPLC hate group list.

Warren:

More recently, the Family Research Council has drafted a petition calling on the Department of Justice “to immediately sever all ties with the Southern Poverty Law Center and formally renounce its influence on federal law enforcement and public policy decisions.”

Natasha:

Warren, let’s look at one more story before our break.

Warren:

The World Evangelical Alliance (WEA), a global ecumenical movement that works to unify evangelicals across geographical and denominational lines, has responded to a “whistleblower report” that criticized its leadership and governance.

The whistleblower report raised concerns about the WEA ranging from its “increasing engagement with Roman Catholic institutions and broader ecumenical bodies” to the theological positions of some of its leaders. The report also claims the WEA lacks accountability because the chairman of the board also serves as the group’s chief executive officer.

Natasha:

The report did not identify the whistleblower, but it was published on April 29 by the Christian Council of Korea, which was previously part of the WEA.

Warren:

The WEA’s lengthy statement responds to the theological and governance concerns raised by the whistleblower document, noting that the upcoming General Assembly is slated for October 27-31 in Seoul.

Natasha:

Do we know the source of these accusations?

Warren:

No. The details of the whistleblower account were published in both Christianity Daily and Christian Daily International, publications that are part of a group of brands founded by Korean pastor David Jang.

MinistryWatch attempted multiple times to reach Christian Daily International and Christianity Daily to ask about the source but received no reply. World Evangelical Alliance has 5 stars and an A transparency grade in the MinistryWatch database, and a donor confidence score of 93.

Natasha:

Warren, let’s take a quick break. When we return, abuse survivor and former Lifeway executive Jennifer Lyell died last week after a brief illness. But before she passed, she revealed details about her alleged abuse by former seminary professor David Sills.

I’m Natasha Cowden, along with my co-host Warren Smith, and we’ll have that story and much more, after this short break.

BREAK

SECOND SEGMENT

Natasha:

Welcome back. I’m Natasha Cowden, along with my co-host Warren Smith, and you’re listening to the MinistryWatch podcast.

Next, the story we promised before the break.

Warren:

In early April, Jennifer Lyell, a former Christian publishing executive, sat for a deposition in a defamation lawsuit filed by her once mentor and professor David Sills.

There she detailed alleged sexual and spiritual abuse by Sills in graphic detail — and insisted he had coerced her into sexual acts without her consent and then asked her to join him at family meals afterward.

Lyell died Saturday (June 7) after suffering a series of strokes. She was 47. A few weeks before she died, her lawyer filed excerpts of her deposition in a federal court as part of a legal battle over discovery in the defamation lawsuit.

Natasha:

Lyell, a former vice president of Lifeway, a Southern Baptist publishing arm, was also named in the lawsuit. In 2019, she went public with her allegations against Sills. But few details of the abuse had been revealed until the May 20 court filing.

Natasha:

Along with abuse, Lyell also described spiritual manipulation by Sills — a longtime missionary and seminary professor — saying she was made to feel as if she had somehow tempted Sills into sexual activity.

Natasha:

Can you briefly provide a little more background to Lyell.

Warren:

For much of her adult life, Jennifer 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.

Natasha:

By 2019, she was one of the highest-ranking women leaders in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.

Warren:

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.

Natasha:

But the damage was done. Lyell was labeled a temptress and adulteress who led a Christian leader astray.

Warren:

She was showered with hate, with pastors and churches calling for her to be fired. Lyell eventually left her job at Lifeway amid the turmoil.

Natasha:

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.”

Warren:

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.

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 SBC, died after years of illness.

Natasha:

Speaking of the SBC, what’s the latest from their annual meeting?

Warren:

For the second year in a row, a move to bar churches with women pastors from the nation’s largest Protestant denomination failed.

A proposed amendment to the Southern Baptist Convention’s constitution, which would have kept any church that affirms, appoints or employs a woman “as a pastor of any kind” from belonging to the SBC, got 60.74% of the vote Wednesday (June 11), just shy of the two-thirds majority needed to move forward.

A similar proposal failed last year on a second vote.

Natasha:

A vote to abolish the SBC’s public policy arm, known as the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, also failed. It was the fourth failed attempt to shut down or defund the ERLC during the Trump era. Leaders of the ERLC have clashed with supporters of President Donald Trump over issues such as immigration, and the agency has been accused of causing division in the denomination.

Warren:

Messengers approved a $190 million budget, which included a $3 million priority allocation to pay the denomination’s legal bills. Messengers also approved a new business and financial plan but rejected a call for more financial transparency from the SBC’s entities.

Natasha:

What’s our next story?

Warren:

American evangelicals, driven by a biblical vision to protect Israel, have long been integral to U.S. diplomacy in the Holy Land. And now they have another player on the team.

Johnnie Moore, the evangelical public relations executive with deep ties in the Middle East, was appointed chairman of the embattled Gaza Humanitarian Foundation last week.

Natasha:

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, created within the past year, is a private group, formed with Israel’s blessing after it sought to circumvent the aid relief previously provided by the United Nations. Israel has long accused the U.N. of anti-Israeli bias and has alleged that aid from the U.N. ultimately falls into the hands of Hamas, the militant group.

Warren:

Moore, 41, stepped into the role of chairman of the GHF after its previous head, Jake Wood, resigned hours before the initiative was set to begin late last month.

Wood cited concerns over the GHF’s ability to adhere to the “humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality and independence.”

Moore was co-chairman of Donald Trump’s evangelical advisory board during Trump’s first campaign for president in 2016. The following year, Moore and other evangelicals pressed Trump to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv. Trump later appointed Moore to serve as a commissioner on the United States Commission for International Religious Freedom.

Natasha:

Warren, we’re going to take another break. When we return, our lightning round of ministry news of the week.

I’m Natasha Cowden, with my co-host Warren Smith. More in a moment.

BREAK

THIRD SEGMENT

Natasha:

Welcome back. I’m Natasha Cowden, with my co-host Warren Smith and you’re listening to the MinistryWatch Podcast.

Warren, we like to use this last segment as a sort of lightning round of shorter news briefs.

What’s up first?

Warren:

Walter Brueggemann, one of the most widely respected Bible scholars of the past century, died Thursday (June 5) at his home in Michigan. He was 92.

The author of more than 100 books of theology and biblical criticism, Brueggemann was professor emeritus of Old Testament studies at Columbia Theological Seminary in Decatur, Georgia, until his retirement in 2003.

Brueggemann’s books were broadly influential, especially in mainline Protestant circles. His 1978 “The Prophetic Imagination” sold more than a million copies and remains a classic that is still frequently assigned in mainline seminaries. In the book, he showed how the biblical prophets, called to imagine a different world, disrupted politics and the dominant culture and its assumptions.

Brueggemann himself was critical of American consumerism, militarism and nationalism.

He is survived by his wife, Tia, and by his sons James and John and their families.

Natasha:

What’s next?

Warren:

As part of our annual tradition at MinistryWatch, we’re diving into the Internal Revenue Service’s latest Data Book, a detailed account of the agency’s operations between October 2023 and September 2024.

While most of the U.S. tax base consists of individuals and businesses, the report offers a broad statistical snapshot of the nonprofit world, including religious ministries, charities, and other tax-exempt organizations.

The IRS recognized 2 million organizations as tax-exempt in 2024, including new determinations, and received over 1.8 million tax-exempt returns.

Natasha:

And we’ve got our May update from our pastors and planes list.

Warren:

MinistryWatch, in collaboration with the Trinity Foundation, each month publishes a list of the private planes belonging to pastors and Christian ministries.

The Trinity Foundation currently tracks 62 planes owned by more than 40 ministries.
During May, these planes made a total of 375 flights. This was a decrease from April’s 403 flights, but a minor increase from March’s 368 flights.
Operating costs were approximately $1.82 million for the month, down from $1.98 million in April, but up from $1.6 million in March. These costs do not include the cost of the plane itself.
Liberty University remained the biggest user of private aircraft ($228,900), followed by Jesse Duplantis Ministries ($199,800). Assemblies of God—including Assemblies of God Financial Services Group—came in third at $177,820.

Natasha:

Who did Brittany look at in this week’s Ministry Spotlight?

Warren:

LeaderSource, a leadership development ministry, has moved into the top 20% for financial efficiency in the Leadership Training sector, earning it some of the highest ratings in the MinistryWatch database, including a 5-Star financial efficiency rating.

According to its website, “there are at least 5 million church leaders in the world today, [but] it is estimated that only 5% of them have been trained.”

This is where LeaderSource comes in. The organization is based in Elkhart, Indiana, but works internationally in Africa, India, and Asia. According to its website “LeaderSource directly trains over 100,000 leaders each year from dozens of nations.” It partners with church planting networks and ministries around the world to offer coaching, consulting, training and mentorship.

The organization, which has a Donor Confidence Score of 97, makes both its audited financial statements and Form 990s available to the public. From 2020 to 2024, LeaderSource’s revenue grew from $3 million to $4.4 million, and expenses grew from $2.4 million to $4.5 million.

Natasha:

And who did Christina highlight in Ministries Making a Difference?

Warren:

Nazarene Compassionate Ministries is working to help victims rebuild their lives after a massive earthquake leveled parts of Myanmar in March. Last month, an NCM team completed its fourth round of relief efforts, including trauma debriefing for children. The team opened a prayer clinic for parents and adults to partner in mental and physical healing.

The Shelter, a ministry of First Assembly Honolulu in Hawaii, has been providing shelter and recovery support for unhoused mothers and their children since 2018. Now, it is adding a second site about 30 miles away that will house an additional 35 single moms with their children. The 3-acre campus will also include a transitional housing area for women over 55 who are able to work. The Shelter provides shelter, transitional housing, life skills training, and faith-based training, such as Bible studies, chapel services, and discipleship.

Founders Seminary last week named Voddie Baucham as its founding president. Founders Seminary, located on the campus of Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral, Florida, will open its doors August 11.

Natasha:

Warren, any final thoughts before we go?

Warren:

Warren Ad-Lib JUNE 48 of 70 raised.

Recurring Donor Appeal.

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Natasha:

A special thanks to Baptist Press for contributing material for this week’s podcast.

I’m Natasha Cowden, coming to you from Denver, Colorado.

Warren:

And I’m Warren Smith, in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Natasha:

You’ve been listening to the MinistryWatch podcast. Until next time, may God bless you.