For months now, the Roys Report has devoted significant reporting, commentary, interviews, and podcasts to Wheaton College President Philip Ryken and the college’s handling of allegations surrounding former administrator Dennis Massaro.
Wheaton College / Photo by Wheaton College via Google Photos
If you have not been following this controversy, here’s a summary: the Roys Report says Ryken and Wheaton engaged in a long-term cover-up of sexual abuse by Massaro, abuse that took place in the early 2000s. Its reporting alleges the college concealed credible allegations for decades, failed to warn potential victims, and enabled further abuse.
The abuse took place more than a decade before Ryken became president of Wheaton. However, the Roys Report says Ryken should have done more to publicly disclose the misconduct when he became president in 2014. The publication also reported that Ryken had previously been censured within the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) for handling another abuse case in a way that allegedly protected an offender.
Those are serious allegations. They deserve public scrutiny. Christian institutions have too often minimized abuse, shielded influential leaders, and left victims to bear the cost. Evangelical outlets have not always covered these stories well.
But serious allegations also demand serious journalism. And serious journalism requires not only persistence and a willingness to “speak truth to power,” but proportionality, humility, and skepticism — including skepticism about one’s own assumptions — and a willingness to ask questions that might complicate one’s preferred narrative.
So, I reached out to Julie Roys with a series of questions about her coverage of the Wheaton story. To her credit, she responded quickly and fully.
Protecting Christian Institutions?
I asked her if the amount of coverage devoted to Wheaton was common for the Roys Report. She responded: “But we have devoted similar or more coverage to many stories. I encourage you to look at our investigations tab.”
I did look at her investigations tab, and I discovered that she has devoted 20 articles and podcast episodes to Wheaton. I also discovered about 40 other investigations at that tab. She is right. She has devoted similar coverage to other stories over the years.
I also asked Roys if she was concerned that no other news outlets had picked up the story. It seems plausible that other news outlets would have covered it if they had deemed it newsworthy.
She responded, “This is why the Roys Report exists. We report the stories of abuse and corruption that Christian media won’t touch and secular media largely ignores. That said, I know of at least one major media outlet working on a story related to our coverage.” She declined to name the major news outlet.
I followed up: “Are you suggesting that other Christian media outlets ‘won’t touch’ this story because of a lack of courage? Is it possible that other outlets have other motives — such as different journalistic standards?”
She responded, “There’s no doubt some have different standards. That said, it’s also true that most other Christian publications are part of the evangelical industrial complex and have a vested interest in protecting their friends.” She specifically identified MinistryWatch, Christianity Today, and the Christian Broadcasting Network as examples.
I reached out to Christianity Today and CBN for comment. Christianity Today did not want to speak on-the-record. CBN sent a statement that read, in part:
CBN News rejects any suggestion that it avoids reporting controversial stories involving Christians or Christian organizations in order to protect them from scrutiny. CBN News’ long reporting record demonstrates that it does not shy away from difficult stories simply because they involve Christians.
Roys wrote this about MinistryWatch:
I also recall that you read my story exposing Ravi Zacharias’ sexual abuse of Lori Anne Thompson and advised me not to publish it because you didn’t think it had enough evidence.
Roys is right. She refers to an email exchange between us in September 2020. She asked me if MinistryWatch planned to do a story about Ravi Zacharias that — in my view — depended too heavily upon screenshots of emails. I told her that I could not confirm the authenticity of the emails, and we would not publish the story until we could. I wrote to her, “The documentation and attribution are simply not adequate. If it is for you, I respect that. But I have too many unanswered questions about the emails.”
A week later, after additional reporting and new developments, MinistryWatch published a new story, and another one three days after that. In 2020 and 2021, MinistryWatch published more than 20 stories about Ravi Zacharias.
In short, to suggest that MinistryWatch or Christianity Today (which broke important aspects of that story) avoided the Ravi Zacharias story is simply false.
How Much Is Enough?
I also asked Roys about some of the specific facts of her stories.
I emailed her, “Phil Ryken issued an apology in 2017 which you and Daniel [Silliman] described as inadequate. What, in your view, was missing from that apology? What should that apology have said?”
Ryken’s apology related specifically to his handling of allegations of abuse by Paul Jones, former music director at Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, where Ryken was senior minister before becoming Wheaton’s president.
Rather than answer the question, she asked me to produce an “exact quote.” Specifically, she said, “Would you please tell me what you’re referring to? Was this in a podcast? If so, do you have the exact quote?”
So, I did. In this podcast episode they called Ryken’s 2017 apology “weak.” (You can read that apology for yourself here.) I followed up by asking Roys this: “The apology is not an ‘if I did anything’ non-apology. He was specific about his wrongdoing. What more would you want it to say? What should a satisfactory apology have said?”
Roys responded at length to this question. I quote it in full here:
He wasn’t specific. By this time, Ryken had heard from victims that this wasn’t just “a sinful act of corporal punishment”; it was sexual abuse. Yet, he uses the minimizing language to which victims objected in his statement. (Also, as Bruce Chambers noted in my interview with him, what reasonably intelligent person thinks spanking a naked, grown man doesn’t have a sexual component?)
Also, saying that Jones came to him in his first week as senior pastor makes it seem like Ryken was new to Tenth and Jones. But, as Daniel reported, Ryken had been at Tenth for several years before becoming senior pastor, and he and Jones worked very closely together.
Ryken’s language also shifts the blame to Paul Jones. Ryken “wrongly trusted an incomplete and inaccurate account” and “was deceived.” It’s almost like Ryken was the victim.
I would encourage you to compare Ryken’s apology with the presbytery’s censure. The presbytery apparently didn’t buy that Ryken was deceived. It said:
- “You have damaged the church; you have damaged Christ’s reputation before the world.”
- “… in order to preserve an institution’s reputation, you could neglect the sheep, aiding the strong in preying on the weak.”
A proper apology would have acknowledged that Ryken grossly mishandled the abuser’s confession and didn’t conduct even the most minimal investigation. He didn’t even interview the men living with Jones. Ryken says one of his “primary goals” was ensuring “that (Jones) didn’t do anything like this again.”
How can he even make that claim when he allowed Jones to continue living with young men? He didn’t do anything to ensure these men’s safety. As a result, they were brutally victimized.
Also, Ryken claims he “wrongly accepted the conclusions of those who investigated these matters.” But those who investigated the matters, Cairn University, fired Jones. Also, as Daniel reported, the president of the school at the time, W. Sherrill Babb, said Ryken’s decision to keep Jones on staff shocked him. Babb told PCA leaders he communicated to Ryken that students needed to be protected from Jones.
“I used strong words,” Babb reportedly said. “I told (Ryken) that it was so severe (Jones) could no longer be on campus.”
So, characterizing the apology as “weak” may actually be too kind. The statement was deceptive, and what Ryken apologized for was a sanitized version of what he actually did.
I asked her about the role of Ryken’s denomination, the PCA, in the situation surrounding Jones.
I emailed Roys: “Daniel’s latest article…mentioned a censure of Ryken by the PCA but it [the PCA] did not remove Ryken from ministry or state or suggest that he was disqualified from ministry or leadership. Are you suggesting that the PCA did not adequately do its job? If so, what should the PCA have done?”
Roys responded:
“No. The PCA issued a strongly worded censure, which expressed the court’s findings. Unfortunately, though, the public and even the majority of the congregation at Tenth Presbyterian did not hear that censure. Firsthand sources say it was read during a presbytery meeting that fewer than 100 congregants attended. Congregants told RR that the elders invited members to attend the meeting but didn’t even explain what the meeting concerned or that Ryken would be present.”
I also asked a related question: “If the PCA did, in fact, adequately do its job, is this censure an example of the system working, rather than the system breaking down?”
Roys responded:
“Had the censure been published, I think it would have demonstrated the system working. Then, the congregation of Tenth Presbyterian, which was largely left in the dark and celebrated an abuser when he resigned, would have finally been told the truth. Similarly, the Wheaton College community would have learned of Ryken’s misconduct and could have decided whether he should remain as president. But as it remained, the truth was buried for nearly a decade until we reported it last week.”
To which I responded: “Wasn’t the presbytery meeting open to members? You reported that about 100 people attended. Were they also involved in a conspiracy of silence?”
Roys wrote back: “Yes, I reported it was open to members. I don’t get what your point is. Do you think a proper way to handle a censure is to issue it in a meeting that’s not properly described to the congregation and is attended by fewer than 10% of the congregation?”
Journalism or Activism?
The issue is not, of course, whether I think it is proper or whether Julie Roys thinks it is proper. The issue is whether the PCA’s process for dealing with such matters was adequate, was followed, and whether those who had an interest in the matter attended the meeting. By all reports, it was, and those congregants who had an interest in the matter were allowed to attend this meeting.
Finally, I asked the question that I think gets to the heart of this controversy. “What do you think Wheaton and Phil Ryken should do now, today?”
Roys responded, “Ryken has twice covered up abuse and allowed an abuser to re-offend. He also has issued multiple statements that were at minimum deceptive, if not outright lies. I do not know how someone displaying this lack of integrity could remain as president of a Christian college. But it’s up to the Wheaton College community to decide.”
Whatever the Wheaton community decides, this story does raise important questions about the proper role of journalism in shaping public conversations, and especially in bringing reform to the church.
You may think Julie Roys is a courageous free-speech champion and protector of the integrity of the church. You may think she’s the Christian equivalent of The National Enquirer, or TMZ, or other bottom-feeding tabloid. (MinistryWatch faces similar comparisons from time to time.)
But whatever you think depends on your answer to these questions: What is the role of Christian journalism in creating accountability and transparency among evangelical institutions? When does journalism cross the line into activism? Is crossing that line a breach of journalistic ethics, or an important part of the job?
These are hard questions, and they are context-specific. There’s no one-size-fits-all answer. Surely Christian journalism fails when its loyalty to institutions prevents it from exposing wrongdoing. But it also fails — or at least becomes something other than journalism — when accountability becomes advocacy, and the journalist becomes too invested in a particular conclusion rather than a nuanced understanding of the truth.
These are questions and considerations all journalists — and their readers — should keep in mind any time they approach a story.
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