Popular author and pastor Andy Stanley is denying an allegation he knew 19 years ago that Orange curriculum founder Reggie Joiner had a pattern of preying on young women but did nothing to stop him.

The allegation comes from an anonymous woman, who published her story last Thursday, detailing years of alleged clergy sexual abuse by Joiner. The woman, whose identity The Roys Report (TRR) has confirmed, published her account on Hagar’s Voice, a platform founded by author and advocate Danielle Strickland.

Last year, Joiner resigned from Orange, a leading Christian youth curriculum, after admitting an “inappropriate relationship” with former Orange CEO Kristen Ivy. Ivy later said the relationship was clergy sexual abuse and added, “I’m not the only one.”

The anonymous woman claimed Joiner began abusing her when she was a teenager, and Joiner was on staff at Atlanta-area North Point Community Church, where Stanley pastors.

She also claimed that in 2006, Stanley became aware of Joiner’s “cell phone record, which showed evidence of stalker-like behavior toward me.” The woman added that during a meeting with her, Stanley advised her “to run as far as I could from the Joiner family.”

But instead of holding Joiner accountable, Stanley “allowed Reggie to resign from North Point with honor and a public celebration,” she wrote. She added that for years, Stanley “made no attempt to name what he knows to be true: Reggie is and has been a sexual predator for decades.”

However, in an online, videotaped meeting yesterday with North Point staff, which the church released to TRR, Stanley said he believed the woman’s account of abuse by Joiner but denied culpability.

“(The woman’s account) leaves the impression that we . . . were accessories to her abuse,” Stanley said. “It appears we covered for Reggie and then sent him on to his next ministry assignment . . . That’s not the case.”

Stanley also shared that he and North Point Care Director Debbie Causey, a licensed counselor who had mentored the woman for years, met Sunday with the woman at her house for two-and-a-half hours.

“We believe her, and we feel like the relationship is being restored,” Stanley told TRR. But referring to their 2006 meeting, Stanley said the woman didn’t disclose any abuse by Joiner.

“She just didn’t tell us the truth,” Stanley said. “And we understand why she didn’t, and we don’t fault her for that. But if we had known then what we know now, we would have taken immediate action.”

Stanley also said in Monday’s staff meeting that his “primary frustration” is with Strickland for not giving North Point an opportunity to read and respond to the woman’s statement prior to publication.

“She has my cell phone number,” Stanley said. “She should have called me and said, ‘Andy, we’re going to release a story’—not to get permission to release it, but to let us know ahead of time. And if she had . . . we would have been able to address some of the specifics of that encounter . . . And that’s unfortunately why we’re having to do some of this cleanup.”

In a statement to TRR, Strickland replied that her “primary frustration . . . is that Andy’s primary frustration is with me not ‘giving him a heads up’ and not with the abuse that occurred at his church 19 years ago that was flagged but not reported, investigated or stopped.”

She also stated that she invited Stanley last June “to have a conversation about what was happening at Orange with Reggie’s abuse and how I thought there was a need for better leadership. He responded that he was not at all interested in having that conversation and that he had total confidence in Joel Manby (the chair of the board). That signaled to me that he was not open or willing.”

‘Shoved down a dark tunnel slide’

According to the woman’s statement, she became “one of Reggie’s targets in the early 2000s” when Joiner would visit the high school both she and Joiner’s son attended. But it wasn’t until she was 18 that she first visited the church.

The woman said Joiner met with her alone after her visit and offered her a job “on the spot.” He then began grooming her—lavishing attention on her, telling her secrets, confessing sexual fantasies, and crossing physical boundaries, she said.

When the woman was 19, “the grooming was complete,” she said, and Joiner had “fully conditioned me to silence and compliance.” That’s when she said Joiner kissed her, which “felt like being shoved down a dark tunnel slide.”

For the next eight years, the sexual abuse continued until she finally got “the traction I needed to stop falling deeper” and ended the sexual relationship. The woman said it took her another decade to “climb back up and fully reenter the world.”

The woman claimed Joiner abused other women, including her sister. “My sister’s story is hers to tell, but I can say that it follows the same pattern,” she wrote.

At North Point, the woman said she was “surrounded by people who observed Reggie’s excess of attention toward me.” She added that North Point family ministries staff talked openly about Joiner’s “lack of boundaries” and told her she was “one of Reggie’s girls.”

Stanley told TRR he was “never aware of (Joiner’s) lack of boundaries” or the comments about “Reggie’s girls.” Stanley said had he heard of “such terminology,” he would have asked Kendra Fleming to investigate. Fleming, who’s now North Point executive director of family ministries, was North Point director of pre-school at the time.

The woman also claimed that shortly before she came to North Point, Joiner had been “accused of sexual harassment by a woman on his staff.”

Stanley said he has “no recollection of that,” and HR has no record of it either.

Woman ‘gave no indication anything more serious was going on’

At North Point’s staff meeting on Monday, Kendra Fleming explained past events involving the woman.

Fleming stated that in 2006, someone who did administrative work for Joiner brought Joiner’s cell phone bill to her. The bill reportedly showed “dozens of late-night texts to a number that I knew was not Reggie’s wife.”

Fleming said she found out who the number belonged to and then asked Joiner about it.

“His explanation was . . . that this took place during a camp,” Fleming said. “He’d taken his son’s cell phone away, and his son had gotten on his personal phone in the hotel room and texted through the night with his girlfriend.”

Fleming said she believed Joiner’s account. However, the next month, Fleming said she received another phone bill showing the same pattern with the same number.

“This time, I took it directly to Andy and shared the name of the person on the other end of the text stream,” Fleming said.

Stanley then invited the woman and Debbie Causey to a meeting in his office.

“The young woman acknowledged the late-night texting and connected it to an issue with Reggie’s son,” Fleming said. “She gave no indication that anything more serious was going on. If she had, we would have responded immediately, and because of the age difference and his position, we would have held Reggie 100% responsible.”

Fleming added that Stanley “does not recall” telling the woman “to run from the Joiners.”

She also said that in Stanley’s recent communication with Strickland, Strickland said the woman told her that Joiner had pressured her to lie.

“After reading her story, we can see how that would be true, and we can understand why she did it,” Fleming said. “None of us fault her for that, in light of the manipulation she was experiencing at the time.”

A month after the meeting, Joiner resigned from North Point to develop Orange. Fleming emphasized that Joiner’s departure “was not connected to this incident.”

The woman continued to do contract work with Orange, Fleming said, noting that Causey stayed in contact with her “during this entire time.”

“Based on what she told Andy and Debbie, there was nothing left to investigate regarding their relationship,” Fleming said. “. . . And we had no reason not to believe that what she told us about the nature of the communication was true.”

Causey did not know the woman’s relationship with Joiner had become sexualized until the woman revealed it to her four years ago, Fleming added. The woman reportedly asked Causey to keep the information confidential, which Causey did.

Fleming added that prior to Joiner’s “affair” with Ivy becoming public last year, “None of us were aware of any abusive behavior.”

Woman responds

TRR shared the contents of North Point’s meeting with the woman.

She said she was surprised North Point mentioned Joiner’s son in its staff meeting. The woman clarified that during her 2006 meeting with Stanley and Causey, Stanley told her that Joiner had claimed that she and his son had dated and gone through a bad break-up.

The woman said she vehemently denied this and did not go along with the “lie that it was all (Joiner’s son).” However, she admitted to TRR that she went along with the lie that nothing inappropriate had happened.

The woman added that anyone with a little bit of knowledge about abuse, and power, and trauma, should know that this is how a victim would respond.

When asked about this, Causey said, “Unfortunately it did not cross my mind, I wish it had.” She added that at the time, she was just out of graduate school and may not have been a licensed counselor yet.  

Orange responds

The woman also claimed in her statement that “the public will not hear an honest account of Reggie’s abuse from the reThink board (parent company of Orange), which is mostly comprised of Reggie’s lifelong friends and business partners.”

The woman noted that the firm contracted to investigate Joiner’s abuse, Castañeda + Heidelman LLP (C+H), is also reThink/Orange’s retained counsel. This “insures client privilege to the board of directors but not survivors,” she said.

The woman also claimed C+H has “no plan to release their report to the public.” And in her experience, the investigation “has been a sequence of delayed responses, unanswered questions, gaslighting, and victim blaming.”

In a statement to TRR, Orange replied, “At no point has the reThink Board minimized or dismissed anyone’s experience. Any concern that we have is deeply concerning to us.”

The board added that the third-party investigation “is ongoing and we are committed to releasing its findings. We recognize that the pace of the investigation can be frustrating for many, but thoroughness is essential.”

Comments on this story have been disabled at the alleged victim’s request.

Julie Roys is a veteran investigative reporter and founder of The Roys Report. She also previously hosted a national talk show on the Moody Radio Network, called Up for Debate, and has worked as a TV reporter for a CBS affiliate. Her articles have appeared in numerous periodicals.