Hoping to persuade Missouri lawmakers to end non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) and the statute of limitations for child sex abuse victims, multiple survivors of abuse at two evangelical ministries testified powerfully in a hearing today.
“We waited too long to face the repressed trauma within,” said Tammy Woods, a survivor of alleged childhood sexual abuse by International House of Prayer Kansas City (IHOPKC) founder, Mike Bickle. “(We) couldn’t access the memories fast enough. And so, silence and helplessness remain our portion, while our abusers are empowered to continue their abuse.”
As reported previously by The Roys Report (TRR), Woods says Bickle assaulted her repeatedly when she was 14, and Bickle was a married pastor with children. But it took Woods 43 years to speak publicly of the alleged abuse, which is common. Studies show the average age childhood sex abuse victims come forward is 52.
Similarly, Deborah Perkins discussed how Bickle’s alleged sexual abuse of her involved him “taking my faith and twisting it and confusing it. I lived a secret horror that no one knew about while protecting him with my silence, because I believed it all.”
Currently, the Missouri legislature is considering two bills. One would end the current statute of limitations for any “victim of childhood sexual abuse” (SB589). A companion bill, known as Trey’s Law, would nullify NDAs regarding child sex abuse.
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The bill is named in memory of Trey Carlock, an abuse survivor of Kanakuk Kamps who took his life in 2019. His sister, Elizabeth Carlock Phillips, has helped coalesce a national effort to pass Trey’s Law in several states, as TRR previously reported.
Phillips today recounted how Kanakuk leader Pete Newman engaged in “patterns of nudity with children” and related sexual abuse at the Christian camp. But her brother never spoke publicly about the abuse because he signed an NDA.
“He was silenced to his grave by Kanakuk Ministries,” said Phillips. “I’m trying to be his voice, having a front row seat to my brother’s suffering and death.”
Today, Newman is jailed on charges against 57 victims.
Senator Nick Schroer, chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary and Civil and Criminal Jurisprudence, stated at the hearing’s end that the committee would vote next week on whether to advance both both bills to the full Senate.
‘It was too late’
A victim of abuse by another former staff member at IHOPKC—not Mike Bickle—also told her abuse story and why she believes policy changes are needed.
Using only her first name, Gracia shared how she had been abused before and after her IHOPKC internship. Since realizing the harm done by her abuser, Gracia has been denied any chance to file a civil suit against him.
“I was systematically groomed, sexually assaulted, and then gaslit into silence,” said Gracia. “(But) by the time I truly understood what was done to me, it was too late. The statute of limitations had closed just nine months earlier.”
Similarly, Woods, who recently moved to Michigan after spending most of her life in the St. Louis area, revealed that “Mike Bickle’s sexual behavior with me as a teenager escalated into sexual assault and deviant sexual intercourse.” She added that though a police report was filed in the early 1980s in South County, Missouri, “No action has been taken because of the statute of limitations.”
Perkins recounted how Bickle, a married man who is two decades her senior, rented her an apartment as his “assistant” in the early 2000s, which became a way to hide his abuse.
“(He) told me I was living like the early Christian monks in a radical way for God (and) compelled me to fast three days a week,” said Perkins. “He controlled every bit of my diet, relationships, and time. All of it was intended to weaken me, isolate me, and further my compliance as his sexual victim.”
In February, a third-party report based on hundreds of interviews documented Bickle’s years of abuses and the complicity of other leaders in the prayer ministry.
Kanakuk silences victims with NDAs
Keith Dygert, a resident of Branson since childhood, testified at the hearing how he grew up near the lake where Kanakuk Kamps are based.
Though a popular destination for children since 1926, decades-long patterns of sexual abuse have been uncovered at the camp in the last several years.
Dygert said he could hear the campfire praise songs and cheers of thousands of campers, though attending the camp was “out of reach financially” for his family. Then, through an area church youth group, he met Pete Newman, who befriended Dygert and offered him free entry to Kanakuk’s summer camps.
“Unbeknownst to me, Pete was grooming me (and) frequently took me to Kanakuk facilities and events,” said Dygert. “It was a dream come true for me—except for the brainwashing that I was oblivious to and then the consequential sexual abuse.”
The abuse continued into his adolescence.
Dygert only came to realize the abuse against him as an adult. He said he felt “no other option” but to sign an NDA to receive a settlement from Kanakuk to defray the costs of counseling.
He also told of a traumatized friend he knew from camp, who spent years in counseling. “Kanakuk used its affiliation with my friend’s therapist to conveniently dissuade my abused friend from ever considering justice through the legal system,” said Dygert.
Today, advocates have identified 65 alleged perpetrators associated with Kanakuk, Phillips said.
Yet the Christian ministry, which is marking its “100th Summer” with significant promotions, continues its longstanding practice of silencing former victims through NDAs.
“They are about to celebrate their centennial summer, as they double down on their cover up to preserve brand reputation,” she said. “What helps them do that is NDAs.”
A call for ‘reckoning’
Dygert, who spoke out, despite his NDA, called it “common sense” for state lawmakers to nullify these agreements.
“Kanakuk, which has harbored, protected, and empowered pedophiles and covered up the abuse, has only benefited from truth-silencing NDAs and the statute of limitations that prevents more victims from calling to account (their) crimes,” he said.
More than 27,000 former Kanakuk campers and parents have signed a public petition calling for the Christian ministry to release alleged victims from NDAs.
Phillips recounted how Kanakuk has changed its story multiple times, only recently admitting that it mandates NDAs. “We’re not going to give Kanakuk any more chances to do the right thing,” she said. “We’re going to have to change the law.”
IHOPKC survivor Gracia, who has recently started the Rise and Reclaim Advocacy Group to help victims, emphasized how changing the laws regarding NDAs and statute of limitations will “empower” abuse survivors.
“The truth is, the pain of trauma has no expiration date. Why should accountability?” asked Gracia. “Predators must learn that the law will no longer be their shield. With your help, it will be their reckoning.”
*This article has been updated.
Josh Shepherd is production editor at The Roys Report and a journalist who writes on faith, culture, and public policy for several media outlets. He and his family live in central Florida.
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5 Responses
Christ says: ”My Kingdom is NOT of this World”. Tragedy beyond tragedy with all these abuses (women, children, old age,etc.), Greed, Power, and lack of empathy. Christ will build HIS church. Christianity and the church (for the most part) becomes no different than the World. That might be why many people can be attracted to churches which promise Life insurance, Fire insurance on the wrong terms. All spectrum of life is corrupted. ”Christian Nationalism” should be renamed Neo-Pharisaic Mammonist: Religious, external morality but still self-centered, legalistic, greedy, and abusive to the vulnerable, with total lack of empathy for the perishing. Mammon reigns as with the time of the pharisees. Read LK 16:13-15. No different. The church becomes similar to Laodicea (Rev 3:14-21), rich, organized, man-centered, ungodly from leader-down, with Christ as a brand name. To restore the church, we need to know who’s in charge, and the meaning of the church: A Kingdom of priests? Lights of the World? The titans which built America in the late 19th century (Vanderbilt, Morgan, Carnegie, Rockefeller) were ruthless (like the present President) and forgot the essence of the constitution, and represent what is happening even in the church with more and more pragmatic leadership. ”We do what works, not what’s right!!” To the Godly, stay firm, and seek fellowship with those who worship Christ’s with a pure heart. (2 Tim 2:22)
I applaud these women and their efforts… I hope they’re successful, but I also have some doubts… I mean this is the red red GOP, one-party rule legislature of Missouri… a veritable good ol’ boys club of white GOP ‘christian’ men… maybe it’s different at the state level… but the party generally seems to be quite ok with sheltering, elevating, pandering, cowering before and following all levels of sexual abusers / harassers / dominionists, etc. (whether alleged, convicted, or publicly bragging about it…)
I hope the bills pass, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they didn’t…
100% agree with this. Should be the law in every state.
As I look out across the vast forest of “Christian” institutions of size, I would not recommend a single one of them. Once they get beyond something small, very small they quickly get out of control. A place where predators and conmen are greatly attracted to and a place that becomes unsafe for all. You cannot tell these tares apart from the wheat at first glance. You probably will not recognize them until they have already preyed upon you and yours. So, do not give Mammon to any larger institution anywhere, for it is not better outside the “Church” either. Do not send your children there. Do not promote these things to others. You risk a cascade that I have experienced in my own life and unfortunately passed on to two others. Be a watchman and not a future victim. Look to Jesus alone, and not the snake oil salesmen who are leveraging God in order to take advantage of you. I am all for these changes in the law, but even with this you are still very, very vulnerable.
The only problem will be that any changes to the statute of limitations can only be prospective, not retroactive. Courts in nearly every state have ruled as such.
And many courts have ruled that outlawing an NDA, once signed by both parties, is considered an “impairment of contract”, which many states prohibit in their constitutions.