Reporter Who Broke Michael Tait Story Shares Inside Scoop

ALTAVOCES
JULIE ROYS, JESSICA MORRIS

Note: This is a rough transcript and may contain some misspellings.

julio: Allegations that former DC talk. Jesus Freak and Newsboys front man, Michael Tait sexually assaulted multiple young men and boys and abused drugs have rocked the Christian music industry. This story first broken by the Roys report has devastated fans of the 59-year-old rockstar. It’s also prompted Tate to publish a confession admitting he’d been living a double life and had touched men in an unwanted sensual way,

Newsboys: rocks.

julio: But it’s not just men alleging abuse. As we reported last week, a woman who toured with the news boys says Tate drugged her, then watched as a crew member as aided her. All this has sparked major industry backlashed as current Newsboys. Front man, Adam Ag told concert goers last weekend

Adam Agee: as a result of all this.

Then dropped from our record. They, we’ve

julio: had the band members and management swear they didn’t, notate was sexually abusing people. However, as we reported in our last story, several witnesses say Newsboys tour manager Steve Campbell, covered up the abuse and now Newsboys owner Wes Campbell, Steve’s older brother is distancing news voice management from Steve.

So how culpable are the news boys for what happened? And given that Tate’s misdeeds were allegedly an open secret, what does this mean for the Christian music industry? And is this scandal a one-off or just the tip of the iceberg? Welcome to the Roy’s report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth.

And restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys.

Joining me now is Jessica Morris, a freelance reporter with the Roy’s report who broke our blockbuster story on former Newsboys Front man Michael Tate and her story revealing Michael Tate’s pattern of sexual abuse, of illicit drug use. Has just absolutely rocked the Christian music community.

And it’s also prompted a confession by Michael Tate. And we’re gonna discuss updates to this story and also how it’s impacted survivors and the community. So I’m really looking forward to this discussion. But Jessica, welcome and it’s just such a pleasure to have you join me.

Jéssica: Julie, I am so honored to be here.

And so glad that I get to chat with you and share this with your readers or listeners in this case.

julio: Yeah. And I am so glad that you came to us with a story and we were able to work with you to bring it to publication. But it’s been just a, an amazing ride the past three weeks, and I can only imagine what it’s been like for you.

This story on our website already has over 305,000 views, so that’s the kind of, the viewership it’s gotten, it’s also gotten picked up by People Magazine, variety magazine, the New York Post, Fox News. This story is getting quoted by some major publications and it’s always amazing when that sort of thing happens, but I think that the bigger thing is that it is causing people to see, oh my goodness, there is an incredible.

Issue with the Christian music industry that somebody could behave this way. And I think a lot of people are asking, and we can get to all of these questions, like, how much did the news boys know? How could they not know? How about other Christian musicians that toured with the News Boys and with Michael Tate?

All of these questions have just been huge, but I’m wondering for you, there’s probably a number of people who have known you and your reporting, but you’re rather new with the Roy’s report. And I’m just wondering what it’s like for you to have a major story like this hit and what the past three weeks have been like.

Jéssica: Pretty crazy and unprecedented is probably the best way to, to say it. I, when I was given a lead about this story two and a half years ago, and we’ll discuss that, I knew it was important. I knew it was. Big in the sense that Michael Tate has a lot of influence in the industry. He was really well loved and respected as a member of DC talk before I was born, if I can, if I could age that.

But he was, I was born in 1990, so his career is long before, it was before

julio: I was born. I’ll just tell you that. I was

Jéssica: saying that

julio: to be clear.

Jéssica: But his career has lasted for so long, and so I knew it was big, but I was not emotionally prepared for I guess the response that we would receive.

julio: Yeah. And I will say I used to be in youth ministry I, I know how to play, in the light on my guitar, and I used to lead students in that song. It the songs were amazing and this is an amazing group. And to hear that this was, has been going on for so long is just really devastating.

But again, we’ve had this privilege of working with you to bring this story to print, which I think most people don’t understand how much work it takes to bring a story like this to print. But you had been working on this story even before you came to us with it. I know that you had lots of options when you get a story this large, and again, I named some of the publications that have picked up this story.

Obviously we’re not the biggest publication and news media outlet out there, and yet you chose to come with us. And so I, I’m just curious why did you go with us as opposed to, I know The Guardian, for example has been working on the story and would’ve loved you to go with them, and I’m sure there’s other big secular outlets that you could have gone with.

Why did you think this needed to be reported first by a Christian publication?

Jéssica: That’s a great question. It was really clear to me from the moment I was given this story, it was from people in the Christian music industry. So people and the survivors and witnesses and sources, they gave this to me with the intent of reform.

They wanted some form of redemption. They wanted truth and safety for their community. And so when I was looking at publications who could share this story and elevate it in a way that I thought would really honor the survivors and Gods in the way that I’d hoped, I looked at my options. And honestly, secular and Christian publications both were an option if I was gonna be working with staff and colleagues who had a lot of integrity and really good ethics and a great audience.

But ultimately what it came down to for me was the fact that I wanted to go with the Christian publication because I felt like. I felt like it was the responsibility of the church and God’s people broadly, to call out the evil in our ranks, to call out the injustice in our ranks and be the first to say, but how can we change this?

How can we be better? Because it’s very easy to do that from a secular publication. And the rest of the world looks at that as something that’s, minimizing the church and shutting it down and harming Christians. And I didn’t wanna do that. I wanted this to be a moment of us saying, like the prophets before us.

And so many people in the Bible saying, we’ve gone to speak the truth in situations so that God can bring redemption in through his spirit. And that’s ultimately why I chose a Christian publication. And essentially why I chose the Rose Park report because you had the reputation. I trusted your work and you were also, if I can be frank, you had the guts to follow this through.

You, you weren’t scared of doing this as long as we did it with integrity and we did it factually and with all the corroboration that we needed, you were willing to back yourself in this, even though you know that Michael Tate and who he represents is a monolith in evangelical culture. So even publishing this could have come at great cost to you in many ways.

And so I was. One, grateful. When I got to talk to you, you called me within, I think a couple of hours of hearing about this, potentially this story. And I just remember the fact that you talked to me. It was out of hours. It was an international call because I live in Australia and you were willing to look at everything and then say yes or no, and you committed to it.

And for me, that was the mark that it felt like for me on a personal level, that I was meant to go with this. And professionally it was the mark of I can trust these people

julio: And trust is everything. With reporting with your sources, I’m sure the trust that you’ve gained with them and I think people don’t realize how difficult that trust is.

So the fact that you have. Interviewed like 50, pretty, a lot of these are pretty big names within CCM shows your reporting chops, but also who you are as a person because people just, they don’t just trust you because you’ve been a reporter. They trust you because you’ve built that reputation internally with other sources.

And so that meant something to us to see that. But again, we felt very honored that you came to us with this story. It’s been a joy to work with you. And you have worked hard. You have really gotten your facts down. And I will say, and I love this, is that you’re not out to burn something down.

And I think that’s a misconception even of what we do, that we’re here because we hate the church. No, we love the church. And anybody who loves the church would be grieving. What’s happening would be grieving. I, I’ll just say it. Satan’s got a foothold in the church. And he also is, I think, parading as an angel of light.

And we have a lot of people in high positions within the church. And of course that’s gotten into Christian contemporary music who really, honestly shouldn’t be there and are really doing things that are harming the gospel. And we, first Timothy five 20 is a big verse to us because it talks about the fact that someone, an elder who is sinning, and of course nobody in this scenario is an elder in a church.

But I, I think that the same thing applies when you have leaders, spiritual leaders within the community, within Christianity, within the church who are sinning. That you should publicly expose them. And it says, so others may stand in fear. And I hear that from time to time, oh, people fear you. And I’m like if they’re not doing anything wrong, they have nothing to fear.

It’s like I didn’t fear my father if I hadn’t done something wrong, but if I did something wrong, did I fear my father? A hundred percent. I feared my father. And he was a loving father, but he was also a disciplinarian. And so I think the discipline of God is never pleasant at the time, but it’s super, super important in the long run.

And so I felt like we were kindred spirits from from day one. And so it’s been it’s been fun and I hope we get to do a lot more of it. But let’s go to how this story came to you, because I know you’ve been working on this story two and a half years and that is a very long time to be working on a story.

And yet I’ve done major investigations. I don’t think I’ve ever done one that’s gone over a year. I have certainly sat on stories for nine months, 10 months, or I’ve been working on a story that entire time, you know, behind the scenes. So I know what that’s like to do a major investigation like that.

Talk to us about how the story came to you. Yeah. And. And how it developed, why it took so long.

Jéssica: Yeah, sure. If you can’t tell through my accent, I am Australian and I do live in Australia. I live near Melbourne.

Which is south Southeast Australia. But I’ve, for the last 15 years I’ve lived between Australia and the United States, primarily Nashville.

As a freelance journalist, I grew up as a pastor’s kid. I grew up listening to contemporary Christian music, and that was my wheelhouse. It was it’s was the music that I loved. And so I fell into it as a journalist. I never planned to write about Christian music, but it just happened because I knew it.

And so I moved to Nashville for a short time in 2018. And loved it. And I Nash Nashville. For anyone who doesn’t know Nashville is basically the hub of contemporary Christian music. It’s where everything is really based. Yeah. It’s it’s separate to country music, but both of them are really based in Nashville.

You will meet someone from DC talk or your favorite Christian band probably at Kroger’s. It’s just that sort of town. And I lived in Nashville for only a short time. But while I was there, I. Began making friends with people. And I met people who were part of the Christian music industry or formally a part of it, people who had been crew or had family members who were in it.

And I was hearing all these stories not bad stories, but just stories about how they, as young people were raised in a spotlight and were grappling with faith and and sin and conviction and money, and the pressure they had from labels. And I was seeing how they had chosen to leave the industry or sometimes maybe even have left the faith due to what they experienced.

And I was so struck by the fact that these people had stories to tell, but no place to tell it because Nashville is so centered around this incredible music industry, but it has one very clear goal. It tells you the story of Jesus, but it doesn’t always go into the nitty gritty underneath that we’re beginning to see.

I think more of the, like the backstory of people, we are beginning to hear stories and people have been doing it for a while, but stories about addiction and depression and mental health. We go in circuits of new topics, but it’s not always easy to talk about those things, especially when your publicist maybe doesn’t want you to.

And so I left Nashville with this conviction that I felt was from God, that God wanted me to share these stories. And as a journalist, I thought the best way to do that was to host a podcast and invite these people to share their stories, like an interview, but really like you were having coffee with someone or a drink.

It was with someone so that people had an unhindered as much as possible expression of who they were. And it was through that I started making more friends in Christian music. It was, I had contacts, but people new guests started slotting in, it really felt like God was just placing things in ro and through that I ended up coming back to Nashville in 2022.

I was red carpet reporting for the 2022 DVE Awards, which is like the Christian Music Awards. Our Grammys, I guess is the equivalent. I don’t know. I was just. Basically there’s lots of sparkles in Jesus. And when I was in town for that, I was speaking to a friend who was in the industry and they basically just said, can you do something about this?

This person, what they are doing is evil. And my response was I’m one person and I’m a freelance journalist, but if you tell me what you have and if there’s evidence for it, I’ll see what I can do. And I was given some pretty compelling leads about Michael Tate, and at that point it really just felt like my duty to do something about it.

What I was told was that over the years, lots of people have heard rumors to different capacities, to be clear. So not everyone knew how bad it was. But people had heard rumors and either people had done nothing or they tried to do something and had been squashed in various ways. Or they’d been pushed out of the industry because of it and.

There I was sitting, I think I was in Fido, in, in Nashville, in the restaurant there. And my friend was telling me this, and I was this unknown reporter from Australia who had some contacts but is not well known until about three weeks ago in an incapacity. And I thought I guess I better do something.

And so that’s when I started investigating. It’s when I started looking into publications that were reputable and that could support me. And ultimately I did a plan that’s taking two and a half years. That’s not a toll I would want on any source, let alone at all me. I had some sources with me the entire time, and that was brutal to them.

But ultimately it took that long because I was lining up all my facts. I was getting enough sources to corroborate it, and ultimately getting to a point where I needed more than one story or two stories. What, what were basically released now because I needed people, particularly survivors, to know that they weren’t standing on their own.

Because you could release one story and it would be true and heartbreaking, but if people can identify that one person and no one around them is saying that Michael Tate is doing the same things, that person could be ostracized Christian music they could lose their career, they could lose their income.

And so it became a point of actually saying, how can we gather enough people who have these stories to be clear, not just fighting them, but who have these stories.

And feel able and heal whole and healed enough and courageous enough to share them with me so that we can share these in the hopes that we can actually give a voice to victims who have never been able to speak about this publicly.

And with the idea that maybe we could actually reform Christian music in the sense that we want young people to be safe on the road. Literally this is a case of we have young men and women in Christian music who are on tour with wide eyes and who are ready to change the world and they’re being preyed upon.

And whether they were drinking alcohol or not, it’s is irrelevant. Basically, they’re meant to be what I would call, probably it should be the safest place, the safest industry on earth, the Christian music industry. And yet I kept hearing over and over that at least for lots of the people I talked to, it, it was much safer.

To be in secular music or to be in country music. At least people would say to me in secular music, you know what you’re walking into. But for a lot of people when they were walking into the Christian music industry, they were seeing things they never expected. Now, to be clear, that’s not everyone in Christian music.

There are lots of people with morals in Christian music, different camps, and people with like power record labels. Bands have different standards, have different ways of navigating life on the road. So this isn’t one size fits all, but what I was hearing across the board is that there were incidences of young people being taken advantage of in various ways, whether it be sexual assault, whether it be like their labor, whether it not being paid well and.

It was about now sharing these stories and saying, hoping, begging the power holders in Christian music to say, we see your heart. The ones of you who wanna do what’s right. Now, it’s time to lift the game and bring in an accountability structure. Because at this point there is no, there is as, as far as I’m aware, there is no oversight.

We have the gospel music, like industry and awards we have that, but there is no oversight. There is no, as far as I’m aware, code of ethics for everybody. There is no set like one place in Nashville for hr. If you have an incident, you only have that for each camp, for each band, for each tour of each festival.

And so if any of those people in leadership or power are complicit in it, or if they don’t take it seriously, if they don’t believe the survivor, anything like that, then it’s just gonna get slammed down. And that’s ultimately for me, the conclusion that I came to is that I would want to talk to more musicians.

What do you think you need? What do you think you need to build here? And build infrastructure to protect people because I know a lot of them want to do that. But ultimately that’s the conclusion that I came to. There must be some sort of oversight here and accountability so that people like Nicole in a later story had someone to report to, not just her line manager, not just the leadership of the organization or the stage manager for News Boys, but someone above all of that who could then investigate this maybe independently and then look into it.

And ultimately that would be my hope. Maybe that is, maybe that’s an unconventional hope. Maybe that is an outta this world. That’s never gonna happen in Christian music. Hope. Because people in Christian music love, they love what they do. A lot of them do it with integrity, but each of them holds power and they can’t really give up that power because there’s there’s only a limited amount.

It’s pie in Christian music and you have a limited amount. Yeah. You need that. And so for anyone to give that up, it’s a great deal. It means a lot. It comes at a expense. But ultimately that was the conclusion that I came to, and that’s what I learned through the two and a half years ultimately when we published

julio: your story.

It’s interesting because it’s very similar in some ways to my story, in that I never really intended to be what, doing what I’m doing. It really was by finding myself in a situation where I knew stuff on the inside. I saw the rot and I had the training. To expose it and feeling like there’s just you, as you said, a duty like at this point, okay, what do I do with this information?

At the same time, understanding and people who have been following this podcast for a while understand when I talk about the, evangelical industrial complex or the evangelical celebrity machine. And I’ve been talking about that on a macro level. But you’ve got a microcosm of it here in, in CCM Christian contemporary music where it’s the same sort of thing where you have just this network, but they’re all financially, whether it’s a band, whether you’re promoter, whether you’re, music label, whatever, they’re all dependent on each other, a symbiotic relationship, which should, I’ve said, nothing wrong with these networks, if they work to bring accountability, like if it’s the sort of thing where, hey, if somebody gets out of line, you go to them and you talk to them and then, if they’re not willing to repent, you bring another person or or there’s a way to report.

But there’s, that is not how it happens. How it happens so often is that it becomes a good old boy network where they all have each other’s back or someone’s too big to fail. And in this case you have Michael Tate, who is just so huge and he’s bringing in so much money and what is going to be the fallout if he’s exposed.

And so there, there was a great deal of pressure to, I think keep this story under wraps and keep it quiet. And people should understand that every survivor who came forward did it at great personal risk to themselves. They’re also, when they’re telling you their stories, they’re reliving. The trauma that they went through, which is I, and this is one of the things that absolutely grieves me and makes me angry, but yet it’s just, this is the situation.

I wish there were a way where you could report it and you’d have, and we’ve had advocates come alongside people and help them, but I wish they didn’t have to go through so much. The survivors have to shoulder so much, and yet they’re willing to do it. These are the really, to me, these are the heroes.

Are these survivors that are willing to do this? But when you’re a journalist, you’re in this position of you, you hear these devastating stories, obviously empathize with the people. If you don’t empathize with them and sympathize in some way with what they’re telling you then you can’t tell their story.

I think with the impact and the emotional impact it should have. At the same time, you have to maintain an objectivity. You have to maintain, you have to fact check everything. And it’s hard sometimes, to be able to hold these stories, hold space for these stories, and yet at the same time do the work that you have to do to corroborate their stories, which is protecting them.

Like then they’re not going out there on the front lines by themselves. You’ve got other people around them. But talk about what it’s like to work with a survivor and holding this tension together of being a journalist. And yet. Also trying to be trauma informed and love this person as Christ would, because as Christian journalists, that’s really our job is to love everyone as Christ would.

So talk about how you do that and what are some important things you’ve learned along the way?

Jéssica: So I, as I walked into this story this Michael, take this investigation. I had spent quite a few years interviewing people from different backgrounds with vulnerable stories. I’d worked with some nonprofits and talked about some heavier topics, but I had never reported this closely or talked to someone this closely in this capacity who was a sexual assault survivor.

So I had an awareness of, I guess the mental health. I had some awareness of trauma and how it impacted people in the body, but this was new to me. This was new and. What would happen, especially the first few times I would speak to someone because you do the preliminary, they would reach out to you. Or you would reach out to them because you had a mutual source, give you permission basically to do that.

And they would tell their story off the record to you for the first time. And basically that was their opportunity for them to build trust with me. Who are you? What are you doing? Will you want my story? Do you believe me? What is your process? Once that trust has been built? And that can take a little while, then you say, okay, this is the next step towards reporting.

And then you go on the record. And so I was really fortunate in the process of this investigation. I went to America a couple of times actually for like personal events with friends and I, ’cause I live in Nashville, a lot of them while I was in town, I would go and also talk to survivors and give them a chance to meet me face to face.

And I’m so glad that I had the privilege of doing that because. It’s still really I would say sacred and important work to talk to someone over the phone, over Zoom. It’s still just as weighty. But when you are welcomed into someone’s home, you meet their spouse partner, you meet their child, you see where they live, you are overcome by the fact of what these people have conquered.

You see their resilience and their tenacity and their courage in literally, you sit there and you get to know each other and you say, okay, I’m pressing record now. And I want you to know that when I say on the record, this means I can report what you say and, but if you say something that you want scratched, you can say that in this moments.

And you walk through this process of saying, I have a duty here as a journalist. I have a process, but at the same time, do you feel safe? Are you struggling right now? Would you like me to pause the recording so you can get a tissue? Things like that. And. That sort of, that empathy or that conversation with someone, that’s not unnatural to me.

I love that part of journalism. I love hearing people’s stories. I hate when they’re this dark, but I love hearing people’s stories, but I think I was unprepared for how it would impact me. I knew it was impacting my sources and it, to this day, it still does. Yeah. They’re incredibly brave people.

They are still processing what they have shared publicly. Sure. But I was unprepared for how it would impact me even physically. I thought I could probably write it down, process it, hear the story, prepare something, a draft do that, do their emails. Nor was important and then just move on to the next step.

Yet I would find, especially in the first few months, my body, my, I was getting migraines. My body was really spent for the first few weeks. I was having to speak to a counselor or like a supervisor about what does it actually mean to separate myself from the survivor I’m talking to so I can hold space for them and onto their story, but know their trauma is not my trauma.

’cause I need to make sure I’m not getting vicariously traumatized through what they’re sharing. Because I want them to share their story on their terms. I want it to be truthful. And so it was a real learning curve for me as a journalist. On a human level. It was the greatest privilege, the absolute greatest privilege.

And I am still. I’m grieved by, I’m grieved by the length of the process, mainly for everyone, for all the sources, but mainly for the survivors. I hate that some of them had to hold onto this for so long. We had a few moments where we thought we were going to publish, and then something popped up or a new factor, A story popped up and then we were on the back burner again.

And every time that would happen, they were investing more energy into it. They were thinking, okay, have I got a have I got a community around me to protect me? Have I shut down my social media so that people can’t find me? Have I talked to a lawyer every time we would go through this process? They had to reconsider it until the moment when we finally published.

And I literally said to them, I, they knew that we were in the process. We were a couple of weeks away, but I’d said to them multiple times in the past two and a half years, we are months away. And so when we got to the 48 hours beforehand and I’m texting them saying it’s happening. We are publishing hold tight.

I, I felt for them, I knew that they could handle it. I knew that they chose this, they prepared for it. They had everything set around them to, to take care of themselves. But I still really grieve that because they have carried this apprehension and this anticipation for so long and they didn’t know if people would respond and believe them.

And I was so incredibly relieved when we released the first story about Tate and those three young men who were all 22 at the time of their incidences.

Adam Agee: Si.

Jéssica: I was so relieved when the majority of people. Said, we believe these men, we believe we can see the pattern, we can see the evidence, we can see that there was like these moments and these photos here and here.

We can see what has happened here. And I was so grateful for that because I know that the public isn’t always taught to trust the media, which is why we have to work and we should work extra hard to make sure that we are doing our jobs well and proving what we have. But I was so relieved, and for me that was, it was a miracle, honestly.

It was protection for my sources in terms of recognition of their stories. But it was also for me, recognition that there was. People in the church and evangelicals like myself who are willing to be, can see the darkness and say, okay, let’s call out what isn’t of God in this situation.

We can still ask questions. We can still look for more evidence, that’s fine, but we are willing to say this is wrong. And that was a relief for me, and I was so glad I was able to, when I checked in on my sources and the survivors and the following days, I was so grateful when they were able to say, we’re doing all right.

We are fine. No one has contacted us, but are a few friends who know us. We are processing, we are really glad that this has helped people. One even said to me that they were, they felt like there’d been some healing and they weren’t even looking for that. They didn’t think they needed it. And that, that for me was just like, wow, God, that’s all I did was my job.

All we did was our job. And sometimes, and it required them to be the most uncomfortable positions ’cause they would have to repeat their story multiple times. To me, up to the very last few hours before publication, I was checking details. I would literally say, can you tell me specifically what happened here?

I misunderstood you, or I wanna make sure I got it right. And these brave people every time would tell me exactly what happened. And I hated they had to do it. But I appreciated it. Because it’s led now to so many people. I think speaking up in some capacity, we’ve had people reaching out to us and the fact that we had both the News boys and then Michael Tate make public statements was.

Completely unexpected for me. For me, I was like there’s a chance here for some form of accountability and hope and redemption, and that has to be my hope. Some vindication for these people who have survived this

julio: so often With these survivors, again they’re speaking out of often conviction.

They have nothing to gain that’s the incredible thing. They do this at great cost themselves. They really don’t have anything to gain through it. However, I think through the process, and I’ve heard this from so many survivors, that they find healing. There is something healing about the truth.

Being out there about what really happened about your story, and there’s a justice. And I think when there are great injustices, when people who you know are victims and they continue to be, especially in this case, in Michael Tate’s case, just the adulation that he receives, and to know that man has harmed you so profoundly and is harming others it, that is a torment that I think if you haven’t lived through it or if you haven’t walked through survivors who have been through it it’s hard to describe, but I think people can, a lot of people who follow this podcast know it because they have been through it or they have walked with people, or they’ve heard enough of these stories, but times are changing.

I love, I think since the Me Too movement survivors are believed, we’re now, understand studies that show that survivors, especially sex abuse survivors, it is so rare, more than nine out of 10 times, they’re telling the truth again because they don’t have much to gain through this, and usually it’s a David and Goliath because they’re going up against someone with more power.

That person, that power differential is often what enabled that person, especially in this case and in so many of the clergy abuse situations we report on. It’s that power differential that allows them. To abuse. But I also, I really resonate with what you’re talking about. There is a secondary trauma as you’re walking through these stories as you’re hearing these stories.

In fact, at our last Restore conference, we had someone actually two psychologists who had done doctoral work on the secondary trauma that counselors receive. And to me, I’m like journalists receive, everything she was saying about counselors, I’m like, oh my goodness. Like this, I can relate to this because I’ve been through it and how your secondary trauma is somewhat tied to your own story.

I feel very fortunate. I’ve never been sexually abused. I grew up in a really healthy Christian home, and so I’ve been able to hear these stories without it triggering some event in me. Not to say you hear enough of these and I don’t care what your background is, if you’re human. It’s going to impact you.

And there’s going to be a cost. You said a little bit about the survivors and how they’re feeling, and so glad to know that they’re doing well. And as far as I know they’ve been really pleased with our stories. Am I right?

Jéssica: I believe so. Yeah. I haven’t had any negative feedback. I worked there’s an element of, as a journalist, you, they, people don’t have people don’t get to choose what their story looks like, basically.

That’s where the integrity comes into it, right? We do our jobs. But they I tried to be as transparent with them as possible, going over the specific quotes with them, so they weren’t surprised as such. And so I tried to do it in the most honoring way. And because of that, I think that probably helped.

They didn’t seem to be any great I’m sure there was emotional backlash from just reading it and seeing it publicly. But yeah they seemed. They, if you can be pleased with that sort of reporting, I think they, they were content with the result. If that makes sense.

julio: Sure, sure.

And I do the same thing. This is our practice really within the Roy’s report is to we always wanna make a survivor feel like they have agency over their story, because that’s the one thing that was taken from them is agency. And so giving them their quote saying, okay, this is this accurate, this is what I heard you say.

This is how I paraphrase that. Is that accurate? Did I get that story right? And I know in a number of cases Julia Dean, one of our editors who is phenomenal, like her last job was at Newsweek. We. We have some phenomenal our staff. I just sit there and I’m like, Lord, thank you. Just phenomenal including yourself.

The Lord keeps bringing just not just people of high integrity and character and conviction because I don’t think there’s anybody on our staff that does this for a job, right? Not at all. But people with just, the chops to do this, right? And really the expertise and it’s just been a joy to have a team around us that, that produces these stories.

So it’s just really been wonderful. I do wanna talk about not just the impact to survivors that you talked with, but survivors that are hearing this story. I received an email, I’m gonna read this email that was sent to me. I’ve taken out a few things that might be more identifying but this impact.

That the story has had. This just, this is just amazing how many people have reached out to us, but also the impact, and this person writes us. I want to express my heartfelt gratitude for publishing the report on Tate in the News Boys. I spent the late nineties through the mid two thousands working in the CCM world with occasional returns to that environment.

As I read your initial report about the three victims, I was flooded with memories of my own, not from Tate or the News Boys, but from my own experiences on the road with another CCM Act, I had clearly suppressed the memories of my own abuse. But your article made me realize how closely my story mirrored those of the three victims you highlighted in the days it followed.

I noticed my body physically reacting as those memories resurfaced at one point, causing me to convulse as though I were having a seizure. Though it has only been a short time since I read your article, I have begun to process what happened to me. I have started to unpack this journey with my wife and have begun therapy to confront the trauma I had long pretended didn’t exist.

While I’m not healed in this brief period, I can already see how my experience from so many years ago has negatively impacted me in various ways. I am hopeful that I can navigate through this pain to become a healthier, more whole individual. Without the story you published, I’m not sure I would’ve been able to recall my memories, let alone confront them in search of healing.

Your work has not only helped to stop a monster that ran unchecked for too long. I too have heard snippets of stories about Tate and witnessed unsettling behavior, but it has also helped at least one other person find a path to a transformed life. Thank you. Thank you. Is that just beautiful?

Jéssica: I So you forwarded that email to me?

Yeah. When you received it. Sorry, I’m getting actually teary. Yeah. You forwarded that to me and I read that to my sister after we received it. And I was, for me, that was like I think I, that’s God I’ve done my job. That’s more than I could have hoped for. And it speaks to the courage of the survivors, the victims.

And that story, it speaks to the courage of this man and the fact that he is now going through the incredibly difficult process of pro processing this. But it was such a gift for him to offer that. And I was actually able to say, I’ve very broadly to some of our survivors, I was able to say to them, you sharing your story has helped other people to begin healing.

Like that. This is if you’ve been looking for a reason, that it’s worth it short of the fact that you just deserve to share your story on your terms. This is it. And that’s just one of many stories that we’ve had sent to us a lot of the time. People just saying, thank you for caring, thank you for being willing to speak up.

I even through the process of investigating this and working to report it and it taking so long, I had multiple people say to me, who came to me, like in the la last, even last six months of me reporting on this. They would just say to me, we didn’t think anybody cared. Tate was getting away with this for years.

We told people and no one did anything and we didn’t think anybody cared. And you just care. And I’m just like I’m a human and I’m a Christian and a Jesus follower. And so that, and ultimately I think I’ve had a seen a few people in comments. I’ve seen a few people in comments say, why did you publish this as a journalistic story?

Why didn’t you go to the police? Why didn’t you do X, Y, Z? Why are you making this a tabloid expose? What they’re inferred and. I think as I read through those comments, my response is, the fact is that the survivors, many of them, they either chose not to come forward at the time because of the power imbalance they taught themselves out of it.

We saw that in the first story they forgave and forgot. They did all these things that felt like the best option for them at the time. They went through those processes. But I think there’s a need to understand the power dynamics that play in the Christian music industry

Adam Agee: a hundred percent.

Jéssica: And it’s not, and it’s not that everybody’s in is intentionally trying to cover something up. Some people specifically are, not everyone is, but the power dynamic in Christian music is that you need to, like any business, you need to raise yourself up through your hard work, through who you know, through how much money you make, and if you speak up at all.

You risk falling down that ladder of being brid right off it. It doesn’t matter how high up you are. And we saw that what, in the nineties with Amy Grant, when she got divorced and then remarried. And someone, if someone of her caliber, who was the golden girl of Christian music, could that imagine what is like a 13-year-old gonna do, or like a 21-year-old who is hoping to make it in Christian music?

They have no chance. And so the reason a lot of these survivors chose to come to us, rather than go to the police, is because they felt like their story on its own. While they knew it was true, while they could offer that as evidence, they knew it was unlikely going to be believed. ’cause it would be a, he shared.

He said, she said with Michael Tate, who was very powerful, who had the money to do the legal litigation against them. Yeah. So what happened was when so many of these survivors heard that we’re working on something, they said, we would like to work with you because we are not alone. Yeah. We actually have a chance for justice because I am one of many voices and that’s ultimately what’s convinced them to come forward.

julio: And with most of these cases, and this is part of the problem with the law, I think we need a lot of legal change within the United States. If you’re 13 years old, I. Some of these victims are, were minors when this happened. There should be, and I know in Illinois actually, it is unlimited. Now the statute of limitations, because we’re understanding born, we’re understanding that a 13-year-old is who’s abused and told they should never speak the average age.

I’ve said this before, but the average age studies tells us 52, 52, that these victims come forward. There’s so much shame, but there’s also often spiritual abuse and putting the onus on them for what happened when they, it’s not their fault at all. Good grief. But it’s very difficult.

So in a lot of these cases that happened and in your last story, which was absolutely, folks, if you haven’t read this story it’s the most. It, maybe because I’m a woman all of the stories were very impactful. I think maybe it, it was the calculated ness. I think that’s what it was.

With the other stories. It, you could almost say okay, take, might have just fallen into this. Although there, you could see the predatory pattern of getting the sources drunk, or lowering their inhibitions. But this one seems so predatory to actually, and again, these are allegations they haven’t been proved.

But we’re seeing multiple allegations now of actually, using some sort of, like being roofied, some sort of drug with the intent. Very much the intent, I. It’s not just, oh, we happen to get drunk some night and I did something I shouldn’t have done. It’s like unbelievably calculated.

And then to involve another band member who, or crew member, not band member being specific crew member who sexually assaulted this woman while Tate allegedly watched. This is, it is grotesque. It is so predatory. But like you said, he was getting away with it for so long. And I think, that’s something that I do wanna dive into and then I wanna dive into some of the specifics of I.

These responses we’re getting and also some of the, ’cause you’re hearing more, there’s the story is not over folks. But this, we’ve heard this was the worst kept secret right. In Nashville. And whether that secret, a lot of people were like that secret was just that, Tate was gay.

We didn’t know about the abuse and some people were angry at us for Yeah. Because they’re like, wait, you’re acting like a whole bunch of people knew of the abuse friends, a whole bunch of people did know about the abuse. That’s what we’re hearing now is not just that they, thought that and this was never about sexual orientation, your stories.

This was about abuse, sexual abuse and harassment and pre predation on vulnerable people. So how is it. Again, that he was able to get away with this behavior. You’ve hinted at it, more than hinted at it, there’s these power structures in, in all of this, but so many years. Why didn’t somebody say, why weren’t there?

And granted the victims had no power. But why didn’t, did the executives not know? Did the news boys not know? This is the, this is what everybody’s saying. How did the news boys not know? And with this latest story you did, Steve Campbell, who was the tour manager, who is the brother of We Campbell, who owns the Newsboys and that whole concept, I’ve had a whole bunch of people read out and go they own the newsboys.

Wait, that own what? Wait, this is a, something you own and again, yeah. It’s a business end enterprise. But we had Steve Campbell, the tour manager, allegedly covering up, we have multiple sources, firsthand sources, and allegedly covering up. How much did the news boys know? How much did executives in the industry know?

Are they really as ignorant as they’re saying, or are they not necessarily telling us the truth?

Jéssica: That’s the big question, and that’s what I’m trying to figure out because what I have found is that I’ve been having lots of conversations with people off the record, and lots of conversations with people in Christian music who are trying to figure out what my motive is.

That they’re concerned by what they’re reading, but they don’t know if I’m, they’re trying to figure out if I’m out to get. The Christian music industry, if I’m just out to, I don’t know, defame Tate I’m not, I’m just here to tell the truth. But they’re trying to get a read on me, basically. Because they’re part of this really insular, protected community.

There’s, and because it’s so insular and protected out of loyalty, out of spiritual spirituality, sometimes that’s abusive and sometimes it isn’t and outta money. And

julio: Let me say something on that spiritual abusive too, because the people you’re hearing from who I say, why couldn’t you just, why did you have to make this public?

Why that, just forgive and forget. That’s not scriptural. That is not scriptural. Scriptural is expose and deal with sin. And if someone’s in a position of leadership in the Christian community to do it publicly. So I just wanted to jump in on that because I just, there is, it’s so pervasive that there’s something spiritual about suffering in silence while your predator is out there preying on other people and continuing in a position of leadership.

I just wanna say that because that is just wrong. And I’m guessing there’s even people like you just said, who are wondering why are they doing what they’re doing? Because they’ve been in Christian communities where that is held up as a standard and it’s glorified. And you, especially as somebody who knows something, are made to feel that you’re doing something of valor, you’re doing something noble.

By keeping silent, and that’s just not biblical. It says expose the evil deeds of darkness. That’s our job. That is our job as Christians. But again, I think there’s so few people that get that.

Jéssica: I agree with you. And that has been the most complex and probably most difficult part of this process for me personally.

Not just holding space for survivors, hearing their stories. That’s been awful. But learning about the level of complicitness in Christian music. And I have to be really careful how I talk about that because I can’t say everybody knew.

I have had basically everyone say to me, we knew Tate was gay.

Now to be clear, Michael Tate has never publicly stated what his sexuality is. So I can’t say that I can tell you what his actions suggests, but I could never tell you what his sexuality is. For me, that’s in many ways beside the point we’re talking about his behavior. So I have had nearly every person say that to me and they just left it.

They speculated about it or they joked about it. Everyone talked about that. Everyone knows that, but it was only, it was a handful of people who were willing to tell me. We had heard rumors about sexual assaults and the handful of people who were willing to tell me about that were often, the people who were younger who had grown up in Christian music were take, were significantly older than them, so they were probably more prone to being in the circles of the people that he groomed.

Allegedly groomed. Sorry. And then hung out with, and maybe took out to bars and took to his house personally. And so they had friends of friends who knew that, and maybe they would, those stories would be shared in confidence on a tour bus or in a green room behind the scenes.

And that would then make its way to a few trusted people. Now, some of those rumors would go across the entirety of Nashville. There was one rumor I heard about in particular that I was never able to prove, but was actually published by the Guardian, I believe.

And that that rumor was alluded to me multiple times, but every time someone told me about that rumor, they said, I don’t know this person directly.

I don’t even know if it happened to them specifically. I just think maybe it did. But everyone knew about it, they said 15, 20 years ago. And when I would hear that, I would think, how did it, how did people not know? How do people, not just friends, how do industry executives not know? How did tool managers not know?

I don’t understand that now. I can’t say outright that everybody knew Michael Tate was sexually assaulting people. I’ve had people who were quite close to him tell me off the record that they’re utterly shocked. Utterly shocked, devastated, had no idea this was coming. But I am also aware that this man has been in the industry for so long.

And he’s been getting away with levels of this for so long. He’s seen in and around Nashville all the time. I can’t comprehend how some people dunno. So I’m still trying to investigate that. I’m trying to figure out, okay, what was the level of knowledge? ’cause we also know that in some cases with perpetrators, and especially with people in leadership positions they nearly have a fragmented sense of self. They can show a face to one person and a different to someone else. Now we know in this case with t it was like he had his on stage persona and he had his charismatic off stage persona. And then this a sexual predator. It would seem, but part of me goes, was it possible for him to switch that off when he is talking to maybe his peers or people who had a similar level of power to him?

Or were they able to like. Were they able to think, I never saw that. It’s just a rumor and maybe someone’s just making fun of his sexuality. So I don’t have any evidence. I’m gonna turn my cheek. And that’s the part of it where I’m trying to figure out how many people heard these rumors and just thought I’m not seeing it, so it’s not my problem.

And how many people actually never heard about them in the first place? And that’s a struggle here.

julio: And as believers, we are instructed not to pass along rumor that’s when it is gossip, which by the way, printing. Corroborated factual, solid stories is not gossip. Gossip would be hearing the rumor and them publishing it without knowing whether or not it’s true without talking to the firsthand sources, without really doing the due diligence that we always do before we publish.

But again our detractors will use that whenever they’re trying to just, and it’s usually just name calling us Gossip Moners or, scandal mongers things like that. But the people need to be aware, what the difference is when it’s said. But I do wanna talk about the News Boys and their leadership because if you’ve been following the Roy’s report, one of our lead stories over the past several weeks in addition to this one has been Brady Boyd.

I. Who was a pastor at New Life Church in Colorado, big mega church. About 15,000 attenders. He came into that church in 2007 from Robert Morris’s Gateway Church. He was the second ran man under Robert Morris, was an elder for, from 2001 to 2007. And then when it comes out that Robert Morris had sexually molested this girl from the time she was 12 to the time she was, 16, 17.

Oh my goodness. Brady Boyd says I never knew. I never knew. I had no idea. And there was some plausible deniability, but we’ve basically, we’ve brought the receipts and we’re like, okay this is what the receipts say, this is what they say. And he just recently resigned because the elders said, we didn’t believe him.

And Gateway had gotten rid of four of its elders because, and this is what I think is interesting is they said they either knew. Or they knew enough to ask more questions and didn’t. Now this is where, I find it a little bit difficult to believe that News Boys management didn’t know enough to ask more questions to investigate this.

Now they’re investigating now that we’ve reported, but. They didn’t hear anything, okay. And this latest story, and we don’t have direct line to say but again, Steve Campbell, we had always understood, he’s part of the News Boys organization. He has been a tour manager with them for over a decade.

And I think to people who were on tour, they looked to Steve Campbell as the representative of the news boards organization. Now that you’ve reported this story, showing what appears to be, numerous witnesses saying Steve Campbell was involved, he did nothing. He tried to cover it up and he said, almost, this is our job.

This is what we do. Then now they’re saying, oh, he’s a contractor with us. He’s never been a part of our official organization. He’s doesn’t have an office, at Newsboys. Which may be true, may be technically true. I have some people that work for me as contractors. Would I ever say they’re not part of our organization?

I could make that legal case, but I would say no. They, would, they even have, the Roy’s report signature on their emails because I trust them. They do a great job, and if they did something wrong or immoral or, whatever, and I didn’t, to me that we would be responsible for that, to the level that we knew and didn’t take action a hundred percent.

So I’m, you know this story a lot better than I do ’cause you’re in the trenches reporting it. But when they came out and said this, the News Boys and their most recent statement that Steve Campbell basically. Isn’t a part of the News Boys organization. What did you make of that?

Jéssica: I was shocked. Out of everything that we have heard even Tate’s confession. I mean that I didn’t expect him to make that confession, honestly. Yeah. But even out of that, them what bred to me as them throwing Steve Campbell under the bus that’s how it read to me.

Was something I never saw coming.

I think what’s really important for people to know about the News Boys organization is that it is owned by we Campbell. And it’s important to know that Wes Campbell has been part of the band or the newsboys. Band brand since 1987. So the News Boys was founded in 1985 in Australia by Peter Furler and George Pika and quite a few other people.

And they met we Campbell. He became the manager in 1987. Ever since then, Wes has been a part owner of the band. And so when Peter Furler stepped back and left the band in 2009, sole ownership of the band and Newsboys Inc. And News Boys touring LLC. So both entities went fully to Wes Campbell. So Wes Campbell owns this, but it’s important to know that when the band, the News Boys in the early nineties moved to Australia, sorry, they moved to America.

Hang with me here. I know it’s long, but when they moved to America, the Campbell family moved with them. So what we need to understand is that Wes Campbell and his then wife and his kids moved with the band, but they also moved with Wes Campbell’s parents, with multiple siblings with like their brother-in-law of his then wife.

There are multiple people who made the move over who have relocated to Nashville and have been living in the region since the early nineties. So it’s, you can’t, in that respect, you can’t separate Newsboys from the Campbell family. While it is an entity owned by a person, in many ways, they feel one and the same.

And that means that Steve Campbell, the tour manager, who is now allegedly contracted, not part of the management team, he has been part of their story in some capacity since 1987. They have known this man the entire time. And he’s worked as tour manager for at least 10, 15 years. And before that he was still on tour with him doing multiple other tech things.

I have stories about him from the early nineties because that was, he was just part of the band, he was part of the crew. And so for them to make that statement so blatantly and say, Steve Campbell is not part of our managements. I was utterly shocked because it felt like the family was turning on one another and I could not believe that.

I wasn’t surprised when they wiped their hands of Tate,

Adam Agee: pero

Jéssica: I was utterly surprised when they said that about Steve Campbell because all of a sudden Wes was turning on his younger brother. That’s what it felt like to me. While the statement that we got didn’t come directly from Wes, it came from News Boys Management that represents Wes Campbell.

Adam Agee: Si,

Jéssica: and I honestly can’t fathom the repercussions of that or how that is currently being processed because you don’t have News Boys. The band touring at least a hundred dates a year if you don’t have Steve Campbell beside them. So you can have Wes Campbell own it, but Steve Campbell runs the show on the grounds and they just threw him under the bus.

So I don’t know what happens next, but that was shocking to me.

julio: Yeah. And who’s gonna be their tour manager? He has been for, 15 years their tour manager. So it’s, yeah. And how many tour dates are they gonna have? They. They’ve started they’re supposed to be starting a tour. I, they did play, didn’t they?

Jéssica: They have just, so they’ve just started, they’re just about to start their, another tour. So all their Canadian events were canceled which we reported on. But I have heard, I have seen online that a lot of fans, and I would even just say advocates at this point, are actually contacting promoters, contacting festivals and saying, have you read these allegations?

Why are you still allowing ’em to perform? And I think about two days, oh, three days ago, I think maybe it was on the 21st of June, I did actually read that Kingdom Bound Festival actually pulled the news boys and replaced them with passion music. So that’s significant. That’s as significant as k love resting, quote unquote resting the news boys from their airplay, because that sort of indicates that the industry, the machine is actually recognizing that something is going on behind the scenes that they have to now publicly address.

julio: And for those who aren’t familiar with kingdom, I’m sorry. And I’m not that king. Kingdom

Jéssica: Bound Festival. Yeah. It just, it’s a festival. Actually, I actually couldn’t even tell you what status it’s in. I’m very sorry. Kingdom Bound Festival. But it’s a one of many Christian music festivals that happens throughout the year.

And I believe this one, they have Colton Dixon and Wilson multiple, like really notable Christian music acts. Yeah. And so what the News Boys do is on their approximately a hundred plus dates a year, they are always on the road it seems. They have some of their own individual tour dates for their own shows that they have at churches and venues, but they will also add in stops at festivals, so Christian music festivals.

And so that all becomes part of the tour. So the fact that independent festival pulled them when they are probably like there were a mainstay, I guess they, they’re like a. Really standard festival acts. It’s a big deal.

julio: Yeah. Oh, I can remember back when I was in high school, so we’re talking back in the early eighties, 1983.

I graduated from high school, so you can do the math. But I remember going to the Creation Festival in Pennsylvania and I remember taking tents and we camped out there. I remember the power going out when Amy Grant was supposed to perform tragic and they got a generator going and she performed like just so down.

And everybody like got candles and we, lit it ’cause it was a night and really special sweet moments. And for me, like I still spiritually, that was huge in my life as a teenager that, that festival I’ll never forget it. It really marked me and was a, a huge time. And some of the, like res band and some of these old groups and I can remember Larry Norman days.

So wow. Yeah, I yeah, dates me. But, and I remember my parents even like in our home symphony orchestra music, we listened to hymns, things like that. This is funny, John Denver and the Carpenters were the two secular groups we’re allowed to listen to and we wore them out on eight Track that will date me too.

We did That’s great. Long trips. That’s great. And we were just so glad to get a break from, symphony Orchestra music, which is lovely, but we’re teenagers and they never, I remember when Christian Contemporary started, they were just. It was not my parents’ music, but they understood that it had a positive spiritual impact on me.

And so they supported it and they supported, we were doing some teen ministry at that point, and they were very much behind the scenes helping support that, and I’m very grateful for that. But I’m very sad because then when I did youth ministry and we went to some of these festivals, it had changed.

I’ll just say it had changed. The spirit was different. And I remember like saying to my husband, after watching some of these bands perform, I’m like, was there I couldn’t even hear the words like, was there something gospel in there? ’cause I missed it. And you couldn’t miss it in those early days.

It led with the gospel. It was all about the gospel. And yeah, it’s it’s sad to me just personally to see some of this happen. It really is. But I wanna go back to Michael Tate’s confession too. We’ve talked about now. What the news boys and their official statement.

But I wanna talk about Michael’s because, and we’ve had different reactions. I think the initial reaction was, wow, thank you. ‘Cause he really seemed to own it. And then we had other people like, put this thing through AI and b like no, this was a public relations statement. It was crafted.

And notably he never talked about sexual abuse. He said, for example, I touched men in an unwanted, sensual way. That, that’s called abuse. That’s, that’s, what’s that’s called it, it was written in such a way to not maybe give him, legal. Kind of responsibility for the things that he said he did, but also admitted to cocaine use for more than two years.

Said that he had used alcohol consumed way too much alcohol which we know has been part of the story. Although I’ve noticed the comments on our site. Some people are so upset about that alcohol is a normal part of the tour. Yeah. Which is understandable to be upset about that. They shouldn’t be abusing alcohol.

At the same time it’s wait, with all of this, that’s what you’re zeroing in on. So there’s been some shock about that. But I will say there’s a reason why scripture says to stay sober because it’s when you’re not sober that your inhibitions are lowered and these sorts of things can happen.

But he said that he, in January when he had resigned, that he was actually in treatment and that, he was dealing with the situation. As you are looking at his statement, and we don’t wanna sound like really cynical reporters even, I try, I don’t think I am cynical. I’m skeptical, and I think there’s a difference.

I don’t just assume that the worst is true, but I also will look and analyze what I’m hearing with the facts and say or, do what do I think right now? So I just, with your professional opinion with what you’ve seen I’m curious what your analysis would be of this confession at this point.

And again, this came before the story alleging much more calculated drugging behavior, drugging these victims before really taking advantage of them.

Jéssica: Yeah, absolutely. I was shocked by Michael’s statement. I presumed that at some point. He would come out publicly and talk about things.

And probably talk about his story and his journey of grace and forgiveness and redemption. I assumed that. But I didn’t expect the confession to happen so quickly, honestly. And to be shared through social media. I know that’s the means, that’s how everyone’s been doing it, but it felt, it’s just the age we live in.

julio: Si.

Jéssica: But my first, first was, which by the way,

julio: let me just say, I have yet to hear a megachurch pastor that we’ve exposed, get up there and do e anything even close to that. And we have had equally or more, the evidence has been overwhelming in certain cases. Like it would floor me to hear John MacArthur come out and admit that he had harmed victims and that he had pro protected pedophiles.

Used his position to do that, that would absolutely shock me. Even though right now, to me the evidence is, it’s irrefutable. You know what I mean? It’s just, it’s so overwhelming, and yet just the fact that he owned it. Yeah. It is commendable.

Jéssica: No, absolutely. Look, I think the fact is that he chose to make a statement and he chose to, own.

Some of his struggles, he struggles is putting it lightly but he chose to own some of that. And yeah. And so that is commendable. The fact that he chose to make that statement and share some of his personal stuff with the world, with his fans is a big deal. Absolutely.

And so the, there’s a strong part of me that I err on two sides. Part of me goes it feels genuine. And part of me, I have heard about two sides of Michael Tate from sources. I have heard about the side of him that is dearly loved, where he is a wonderful friend, where he’s a life of the party, where he is charismatic, where he’s touchy, but not like inappropriately touchy.

It’s because of that charisma, that personality. I don’t, I’m not saying that’s fake. I think that’s part of just who this man is. It’s one of the reasons he’s so good on stage. He’s so good as a front man. Is. Of those reasons. He is, he’s so loved in Nashville and maybe one of the reasons he’s being so protected, honestly.

And so there’s an element of it where I go if I wanna believe it’s true, and I can’t say that Michael Tate doesn’t believe in a good God. At all. I could never say that. I have no insight into that. And so I, part of me goes he’s been learning and singing about this good God of grace for years.

It would make sense to me that him and his weakest moment with his friends around him and people who are full of integrity and really good people, that has come to a point where it’s I have to publicly talk about this. I have to grapple with this. I have to admit this. I can fully believe that.

And I, and I think that’s probably the case, but I also think on the other side, I feel like two things can be true. Because what we read in that statement reads like what he said to so many survivors and witnesses. Yeah. He has had no problem in the past admitting to people, oh, I did that. Yeah, I felt that, but God’s forgiven me.

Please forgive me. Or, oh yeah, it wasn’t a big deal. I’m sorry. And then just go on and keep the relationship going. He’s done this multiple times. This is just the most public way he’s done it. And so there is so much merit in his confession. There is so much a heart put out there, struggles there that we can’t fully fathom.

As a young man who grew up in the Christian music industry, who grew up in the spotlight, we don’t know what his sexuality was or if he had to repress that in any way. We don’t have evidence of that. So what is the impact of that? I can’t say honestly, but that also doesn’t justify his behaviors now.

And so I look at it as a, I hope it’s true and authentic, and I would like to believe that it is. But I also know on the backend of that, that I am at least hurt from none of my sources, none of the survivors I’ve not seen. A whisper of any type of reconciliation, direct apology, recompense, nothing legally like I, I’ve, I haven’t heard about any of that.

And that suggests to me that his apology may be genuine, but without actual, is it actually repentance if we are not like putting our behaviors with it? If we’re not changing our behaviors, it’s wonderful. If he went to, if he went to a treatment, and I’ve heard that he did, I don’t know how long for but I’ve heard that he went to treatment in Utah.

That’s amazing. And that, I can’t imagine how difficult that is. When you have an addiction, right? But all that to say is surely there is a follow up step. You make a statement, but then you make a follow up step behind the scenes. And that for me is where true repentance and reconciliation comes and accepting the consequences of your behavior.

Because without those things put together, it can appear. It’s not saying it’s not genuine, but it can appear that this statement is a publicity start to try and garner at least some love from fans. To garner some forgiveness from fans so that people don’t call for him to take the consequences of his behavior.

I don’t know if that’s the case. But all I’m saying is that I really think, as far as I’m aware, he hasn’t taken any of those steps behind the scenes yet. And he really needs to, if he wants to make right what he’s done wrong.

julio: Yeah, a hundred percent. And I had those same thoughts. He quickly, even the day after what happened with Nicole.

According to the sources that you talked to, he came and apologized and the next day like, oh, this is terrible. One, it’s not just terrible, it’s criminal. If what happened that’s criminal. And you own the responsibility for that by taking the consequences of your behavior. But I remember being in ministry and I would have students, again, this was in student ministry who would be very sorry.

They would cry. And I remember my pastor mentoring me and saying, there’s a difference between worldly sorrow and godly sorrow. I. Everybody can cry. Crocodile tears when things happen that, but the difference between worldly sorrow and godly sorrow is godly sorrow comes with action, and if there’s real repentance, there will be action to support it.

There will be fruit of repentance, and I am so tired of the Christian community using grace in a way that God never intended it. Grace is not extended to people who are sorry that they did something. Grace is extended to people who repent. We are not saved. By just being sorry for our sins. We are saved by repenting of our sins.

And those are two very different things. And I think we’re preaching a gospel of cheap grace that is not the gospel. And that is part of the reason why this evil goes unchecked because people go he’s sorry. Give him grace. He’s sorry. No, you can be a sorry predator and keep preying on people.

And so there is a difference, and I think Christians need to be a little more discerning about these things. I hope his repentance is real. I hope he changes and I hope he goes back. And it’s going to take a long time because you’re hearing from even more victims. There may be very many that need to hear.

Not just apologies, but how can I make it right? How can I make it right? How can I compensate you for what I did to you? Of course you can never take away the years that have been lost. And the pain and the anguish that may never go away, but you can do the best that you can to make it right.

And then to me, he’s disqualified from ministry. A hundred percent. Yeah. He’s done from doing any ministry. And I think he needs to own that. And I, again, that would be huge for any of these megachurch pastors that we expose to say, I’m done from ministry. I can be restored to fellowship.

I may not be restored to leadership because there are actual qualifications of Christian leadership and I’m disqualified. And that’s permanent. Yeah. So we will see what happens. There we’re, we’re running out of time, but I wanna touch on one last thing and that is. The future of Christian contemporary music.

Obviously this has rocked their fans, it’s rocked the community. Haley Williams, who I have to admit, I am not in the know with the current music scene. So I was like, Haley, who? But

Jéssica: she’s a very big deal for millennials, trust me. She

julio: must be a big deal. Yeah. And this just, I’m just telling on myself how out of it I am, but I know you’re much more hip than me.

But she she said Let it crumble. Let it crumble. And I know with some of the ministries I’ve reported on, I would say let it crumble. Not that I’m wanna take down the church, but there are some that are so on the s the system.

And I will say this, the system is broken.

Entire, and I’m speaking evangelicalism as it is the evangelical industrial complex that is driven by money and where they cover for each other. And it I just I think it’s very difficult to combine business. And a lot of these churches will even say, we’re a business. We’re a business.

And I’m like if you’re a business, you’re not a church. Because I don’t see a business as compatible with how Jesus describes his bride. I don’t, I’m not saying you can’t take donations. I’m not saying that you can’t spend money because we live in the world. We’re to be in it, but not of it.

But if you think of yourself as a business, because the point of businesses is making money, that’s the point. The point of the church is to make disciples and sometimes making money and making disciples are in conflict.

And so when I look at the Christian contemporary music industry, I think it is a reckoning of saying, are you in this to make disciples?

Or are you in this to make money and ask the question really wrestle with that. What are you in this for? I’m not against, obviously we all have to pay our bills. We all have to, but again, have you, has the love of money, has it become the most important thing where you’re afraid of speaking out when you see something wrong?

Because, oh no, I might have a financial cost to this. You’re afraid of firing your star because Oh no he’s our brand. He’s our entire brand. If I tell we’re done, news Boys is done. Yep, we’re done. If people knew we’re done. So I, I. I, I do think there are some deep questions and I don’t think there’s easy answers, but again, you’ve been reporting on this a lot longer than me, at least with CCM I’ve been reporting on the evangelical industrial complex for quite a long time.

Where do you land with this?

Jéssica: My hope is that through this experience, people in the Christian music industry, myself included, we realize that it’s not the Christian music industry dies if we speak up. I think we need to understand that if there are toxic things at the roots of this industry in the evangelical like complex, if there are, rotten things at the core of some of these camps or businesses? Not in all of them, but some of them we need to actually acknowledge them and address them. Because at the moment, Christian Music, the people in the industry are scared that they are going, that the industry is going to die. And so they are closed in.

People are very scared to talk to me right now because they are so scared that they will lose everything they’ve ever worked for, that God’s ministry will shut down. And my heart is that people realize that if we shut down as an industry, if we state become even more insular, then we already are what is rotten, that the core will destroy us.

It and. Before it destroys us, it will destroy more lives. It will destroy more Nicoles and Philips. And Stevens, it already has. And so my prayer and my, if I can be bold enough to say, call to the Christian music industry just as a random journalist in Australia, is to say that we have to actually confront this, not to obliterate the industry and everything these people have worked for and a legacy of generations, but to actually allow God room to redeem it.

If we don’t call out what is toxic and what is evil or where we are complicit, even without realizing it, then we are part of the problem when we actually have the power to be part of the solution. My, my dream, I don’t know if I’ll see it. My dream, my hope is that we actually in the coming weeks, see people in contemporary Christian music of various power levels, but particularly performers speak up and say, we are so grieved.

We are so grieved, whether they knew about it or not, we are so grieved. We choose what to stand for this. These are the procedures that we have put in place for our team. This is how we take care of our crew. This is how we make sure that they’re paid on time. This is our structure for accountability and reporting.

That’s what I wanna hear from all these people, whether they reference Tate or not. At this point, I just wanna know that you are taking care of your people because I think that genuinely nearly everyone in Christian music wants to. Especially the P, the big names. There are so many good people who are big names of Christian music.

They have the power to do this, and right now they’re reckoning with the fact that one of their own is being taken down, not actually through journalism, but through his own actions being found out. And so I’m pleading with them to actually be brave enough to be the prophets that God has called them to be and speak out again, not just musically, but for their industry.

You can still hold space for the fact that you love this very broken man, but still expect more in the industry. And I think that’s what we have come to now. And if we don’t do that, more people will get hurt.

julio: And I think there needs to be a turning back to people being platformed and being put on stage.

Not for their gifting. Obviously they have to have the gifting, but they have to have the character too. And this is the same thing within, Christian mega church movement as well. That we are platforming men as pastors who have gifting incredible oratory gifting, but do not have the character to match it.

And when you get that mismatch, when you have the gifting greater than the character, you have a recipe for disaster. And that’s what I think we have to recognize. And, and I’m speaking to the executives now, if you have that situation with an artist you step him down and you, because your primary responsibility is to the cause of Christ.

It’s not to a certain brand. It’s not even to making money. And this is where I ask people, do you really believe in God? Do you really trust God? Because if you think you have to bury sin. And you think that you have to not speak out about injustices, not speak out about evil, to keep something alive is what you’re keeping alive.

Have anything to do with the kingdom. Anything to do with the kingdom, because the way of the kingdom is that you expose sin, you confess sin, and you deal with sin. I would just really strongly say if you are staying quiet because of your career or because of your money, and I know it’s easy for me to say, right?

But I lost my job. I lost my job, and I thought I lost my entire career and I was ready to lose it because. I saw something that was evil and I couldn’t stay silent. And it’s time for God’s people. And I’m not speaking just in CCM, but across the board it is time for God’s people to begin taking a stand, speaking up, like you said, prophetically into this.

And again, as journalists, there’s not much we can do. Really. Yeah. We rely on sources coming forward and them speaking and thank God for these brave people who have, but it’s tip of the iceberg and we need more.

Jéssica: Yeah. And I think there’s something in there as well when you talk about platforming, just quickly, you talk about not platforming people, you dunno have the character to match that.

They’re like, what? They haven’t. I think we really also need to address the fact that we are currently looking in a Christian music industry that is platforming really young people and trying to mold them to become superstars and pastors. And so we have people who are not who are not mature or spiritually mature when they are commissioned, essentially commissioned on stage, or they are put on stage and they see themselves as a musician and a performer, whereas the audience sees them as a pastor.

And so we have this dissonance. We expect them to be what Benjamin William Hastings, a singer, calls Holy Rolling Stones, and yet they just see themselves as someone who’s maybe worshiping God or maybe writing their own craft. And that’s where the dissonance is. So what we really need is in, in addition, is not just executives taking accountability and like maybe, taking people off stage who aren’t ready for it. But we also need pastoral support, counseling and accountability for Christian musicians who are on the road so that when they have a faith crisis, when they’re struggling with addiction when they are having a reckoning in their family, or they have a really tough encounter with a fan, they have someone to go to rather than spiraling and having to drink or use sex or drugs or something to cope with this and then spiral deeper into shame, which eventually then leads to this sort of behavior, which is inexcusable, but could have been remedied 20, 30 years ago perhaps if people had spoken up and they’d gotten the support they needed.

julio: Said. Jessica, thank you so much. Thank you for your diligence, for your faithfulness to, I think what God has called you to do. And I just really appreciate you and I. Continue the work, keep it up because I know there’s more to be reported and I trust that as we do, God will continue to expose, but he is also in the business of bringing new things to life.

Amen. And restoring things. Thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

Jéssica: Thank you. It’s my privilege.

julio: Thanks so much for listening to the Roy’s report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I. I’m Julie Roys, and just a quick reminder that the Roy’s report is listener supported. So if you appreciate these podcasts and want them to continue, would you please consider donating to the Roys report?

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