A Canadian megachurch has announced the findings of additional investigations into allegations of sexual abuse by two former pastors, including the well-known Bruxy Cavey. The church, The Meeting House in Oakville, Ontario, said one investigation confirmed allegations of sexual abuse by Cavey against a minor. The Meeting House has also apologized to the first victim to come forward, and has now defined what happened to her as sexual abuse.
In a statement and video released on Saturday, August 13, leaders of The Meeting House church’s board said it had substantiated these allegations through an independent investigation. At the end of November 2021, a victim came forward with the first allegations of an inappropriate sexual relationship between her and Cavey. In March 2022, the church released the findings of its initial investigation and said that Cavey carried out a sexual relationship with a congregant for a number of years and that it constituted an abuse of his power as a member of the clergy.
At a town hall meeting releasing the findings, the church also announced that it had hired an investigator to allow other victims to come forward. New allegations against Cavey, as well as another former pastor, Tim Day, have been substantiated, the church said.
“In this second investigation, two sets of claims of sexual abuse by a church leader (as defined above) have been substantiated,” board co-chair Bruce Miller says in a video statement from the church released on August 13. “In the third, his actions have been found to be substantiated as sexual misconduct. In one case, the victim was underaged when the abuse took place.
“In all cases, the victims have suffered great harm. We grieve deeply at the hurt caused to each of these individuals at our church.”
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The church board says they are grateful for the victims who have come forward. “We also acknowledge the courage of those who stepped forward. We are grateful for their bravery, and willingness to be vulnerable. As church leadership, we humbly and profoundly apologize to them for the pain they experienced at the hands of The Meeting House pastors whom they—and we—trusted.”
Defining sexual abuse
The Meeting House says since the first allegation it has now adopted a definition of sexual abuse by a church leader laid out by the Mennonite Central Committee. The MCC’s definition is “Sexual abuse by a church leader or caregiver refers to any sexualized behavior that occurs within the church context and where one party has more power than the other. The perpetrator can be anyone in a leadership position, either paid or volunteer. It could be a pastor, Christian counselor, youth leader, deacon or Sunday School teacher.”
MCC additionally defines sexual abuse and sexualized behavior as follows: “Sexual abuse or sexualized behavior includes any physical contact, bodily movement, or verbalization that uses sexual expression to control or intimidate the less powerful person in the relationship. The acts involved may be overt, involving actual physical contact of a sexualized nature or covert, as in pornography, sexual innuendo, or inappropriate disclosures of a personal nature regarding sexual matters. The person victimized may be an adult or a child, female or male, and the same or of the opposite sex as the offender.”
Church apologizes to first victim
The Meeting House’s board says that it is now considering what occurred in the case of the first victim was sexual abuse.
“We have learned so much over the last nine months, and with this knowledge and the adoption of MCC’s definition of sexual abuse, we have revisited the findings of the first investigation,” says board member Nour Aziz. “We have now concluded as a board that the actions substantiated in the first investigation constitute sexual abuse by a church leader.”
Before the church released the findings of the first investigation, former pastor Danielle Strickland resigned in protest of the language used in the report and in “solidarity” with the first victim. Strickland said she felt the church should have defined Cavey’s actions as sexual abuse rather than abuse of power.
“We truly apologize to the first victim for the length of time this has taken,” Aziz says.
Requests for prayer
Miller says that the church will be holding a town hall on August 14 to discuss the findings in full. He says that prayer continues to be an important piece of the process.
“We ask you to continue to pray,” Miller says. “Pray for healing for the victims and for their families, who have also been impacted by this abuse. Pray for the Cavey family and the Day family. Pray for our church family that God will use this season for his glory, honor, and praise.”
This article has been updated and reprinted with permission from CHVN Radio.
Journalist Mike Thom is program director at CHVN in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
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9 Responses
Authorities need to be informed by the church elders. The police need to be supported in their investigation to insure that criminal charges, particularly when it involves minors are fully investigated and if appropriate criminal charges laid. Verbal apologies are not enough. Search for further victims should be commenced by the church by notifying past members.
Russell Moore back in 2014 had this to say:
“… if someone comes and says I’ve been abused sexually, or I know someone who has been abused sexually, you have to first of all recognize that there are two authorities at work here, and both of them need to be involved: Caesar has a responsibility to deal with this at the civil level; The church has a responsibility to deal with this at the ecclesial level. You immediately call the police, even if you don’t know whether or not this is true—you don’t know whether or not this has actually happened. You call the police and you say Caesar has a responsibility; the government has a responsibility to investigate this. You also though have to—you can’t simply say well, we have sex abuse happening, and that’s a civil issue so the civil state deals with it. They do. But you also come in and deal with it in terms of church discipline, which means you are saying if this is someone who is sexually predatory in our congregation, we are also going to deal with it at the level of church discipline, and we are going to deal with this very, very seriously….”—Russell Moore
https://erlc.com/resource-library/articles/transcript-how-should-churches-think-about-the-topic-of-sexual-abuse/
What a big surprise here!
A hip, cool, relevant, trendy, “forward-thinking” pastor, who looks like a homeless drug addict, proves (yet again) to be a wolf.
If I didn’t know any better, I might start to think that when a pastor tries to be relevant and popular, it reflects some dark intentions, or at minimum an abandonment of Holy Scripture in favor of the idolatry of the world. But, maybe I’m just really intolerant and backwards.
Silly really slanderous comment – reflects an ugly, partisan spirit.
Some of your favorites all dressed up in smocks and collars – are the very worst offenders…..
Greg Logan,
Are you actually denying that Bruxy Cavey engaged in sexual assault?
Please spell that out, and if so, why you choose to defend him.
Interesting developments. However, while “abuse” is being somewhat defined, albeit in a circumlocutory manner; “sexuality” remains undefined and approached conceptually. Such that “sexual abuse” is something of a one-legged-stool.
That being said, we probably all have a sense of what the sexual is in our own person and being. Such that we should be able to do more regards defining it conceptually and legally. There is then a complexity as the secular and Christian understanding of sexuality are not equivalent.
For Christianity,sexuality not defined Biblically as righteous, is the event across which we fall; whereas for secularity this part of defining and experiencing is absent. The import of that then plays into the singularity of what Christianity ends defining and calling as “sexual abuse”.
Christian and secular threads are then intertwining complexly, and perhaps with a risk of becoming tangled.
I am floored beyond belief by the unscriptural actions of church leadership for their very public “investigation”. The police will be repeating such investigations putting these people through it again.
I find it unbelievable the 40 or so complaints went unnoticed by the church overseers for many years.
It’s clear to me these overseers are covering for themselves. They should resign.
There has been, as far as I read, only one admission of guilt, yet the pastors accused are portrayed as guilty of many.
There are clear Biblical definitions of sins and many of the accusations are not supported by scripture.
Yet another PASTOR Short-Eyes.
Has anyone considered starting a take-a-number system?
“MOST PROTESTANT PASTORS BELIEVE SEXUALLY ABUSIVE PASTORS SHOULD BE PERMANENTLY REMOVED FROM PUBLIC MINISTRY”
[But nt alll!!!]
‘“….The five years or less time frame, that 7 percent of pastors suggest is appropriate, does not even cover the length of the typical prison sentence for offenders convicted of sexual abuse,” McConnell said of the survey results. “In contrast, more than 10 times that number of pastors do not hesitate to say the disqualification from ministry should be permanent for a pastor who commits child sexual abuse,” he added….’Lifeway Research Executive Director Scott McConnell
https://bigboxradio.net/most-protestant-pastors-believe-sexually-abusive-pastors-should-be-permanently-removed-from-public-ministry/
Even more pastors are ready to forgive and forget when the abuse happens to an adult!