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Sexual abuse rocked their church. Though their families weren't victims, they bear scars.


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There are some Sundays that church can bring Maggy Nance to tears.

It’s not generally the sermon or worship. Sometimes the pain of knowing a sanctuary may not be inherently safe can become overwhelming.

“I’m sitting there and I’m just looking at whoever’s on stage, and I’m trying to figure out: who are you?” she told IndyStar, part of the Paste BN network.

It’s been nearly two years since leaders at Immanuel Reformed Presbyterian Church in West Lafayette learned of the sexual abuse of multiple children by a teen who is related to the church's then-pastor. 

The denomination has launched investigations. The pastor and elders have all resigned and are awaiting ecclesiastical trials. Congregants have become divided in their support of leadership and victim families.

Jared Olivetti:Indiana pastor accused of mishandling response to sexual abuse in congregation put on leave

Several former Immanuel members told IndyStar the elders’ handling of the scandal and treatment of those who spoke out against them caused emotional, mental and spiritual harm.

For Candace Bright, whose husband was formerly a deacon at the church, helplessness has, at times, crushed her like a collapsed concrete wall. After she and her husband were approached by friends with “earth-shattering” information about the abuse and the elders’ response, she lost weight. Found more gray in her hair. Started having nightmares.

“Coming to the conclusion that one is actually being deceived by one’s leadership is incredibly hard," she told IndyStar.

Neither former pastor Jared Olivetti nor any of the elders involved have responded to IndyStar’s requests for comment.

Neither the Brights nor the Nances have victims in their families.

Bright was among congregants who petitioned for an investigation by the Great Lakes-Gulf Presbytery, the regional authoritative body that oversees Immanuel. The decision to advocate for families has left her feeling unwelcome in a community she once held so dear. It’s an experience that has caused her and others to doubt themselves, to question those they considered spiritual mentors and reevaluate their relationships with their faith.

“Passage after passage, pretty much every page of scripture has things to say about suffering in it and things to say about advocating for the vulnerable and the oppressed, and all of a sudden, it went from gray to Technicolor for us," Bright said.

Former member: 'I felt profoundly alone' at Immanuel

In September 2020, months after Immanuel’s Pastor Olivetti learned of allegations of sexual abuse perpetrated by one of his young relatives, congregants were sent a letter disclosing a "series of acts ... between minors of unequal age." 

The elders were projecting the sense that the incidents were isolated and were being handled appropriately, Bright said. But then she and her husband, Joshua, learned of instances of abuse from a family who told them the elders failed to support them and continued to defer to the pastor, who remained involved in the investigation despite a clear conflict of interest.

A subsequent investigation by Presbytery officials would reveal eight children from six families in the church had been harassed or abused by the teen, who last year was found delinquent — the juvenile equivalent of guilty — on what would be seven counts of child molesting.

Bright was shocked and upset by her friends' revelations, she said, but she also remembers thinking the leaders’ actions explained some of the unease she’d silently struggled with for years.

Bright joined Immanuel after moving to West Lafayette to begin her master's degree and spent 11 years there, during which time the church was establishing itself as a major player within the Presbytery.

“I pretty quickly learned to take pride in that, that we were special, that we were gifted, that we were up-and-coming, that we were growing," Bright said.

And Olivetti, Immanuel’s planting pastor, was regarded by some as a poster child within the denomination, Bright said. The church’s success was his, and vice versa. It was his presence, his eloquence, his charisma, she said, that in part made Immanuel so desirable.

“As long as there’s been an Immanuel, there’s been a Jared at Immanuel,” Bright said, “and I think that that has a lot of different implications.”   

Maggy and JJ Nance began attending Immanuel in fall 2019 and became members the following July. Both said they were struck by the power of Olivetti’s preaching and the warmth they were shown by members. There was one Sunday, JJ remembered, that they received five or six invitations to lunch.  

“It was a very welcoming congregation, and you could tell that they really went out of their way to get to know new people,” he said, “and they also really went out of their way to present hospitality.”

Immanuel met their theological needs, Maggy said, and congregants offered a level of commitment to scripture unlike anything they’d seen elsewhere.

“We were seeking to find a community that we could grow with, and as our faith is deepening, just to have people to walk alongside us,” Maggy said. “So, seeing that, as a community, that they really were so intentional with us, that really was why we kept going back.”

Bright said there was an unspoken social hierarchy within the congregation and, although elders never explicitly had favorites, there were some she felt had more access to leaders than others. She began to believe there were more important people and issues worthy of their attention, so when she struggled with her own spiritual doubts – a “profoundly painful” experience – she mostly chose to remain silent.

“I cultivated an atmosphere of not asking for help from people because I had internalized a pecking order,” she said. “What I felt was there was only a finite amount of help available.”   

It fed into a toxic pattern, she said, one that created an environment of silence and self-doubt.

“Somehow we were both this super-welcoming church — and people did feel welcomed,” Bright said. “And there was a substrate of silence that was framed as self-reliance, that was framed as you’re strong enough to go and handle your thing, when in reality, I felt profoundly alone and profoundly stranded and suspended out over a void for many years.”   

'It could've been our kids'

Connie Baker, a counselor with decades of experience working with victims of religious trauma, said spiritual abuse can be facilitated by implicit, unspoken rules. Perpetrators are often, but not always, leaders within the organization.

Baker, who works primarily with current and former members of evangelical Christian denominations, did not speak specifically about the situation at Immanuel and had not read IndyStar’s investigation prior to speaking with a reporter.

Churches have an inherently hierarchical structure, placing a person, who is fallible, as the conduit for teaching and interpreting the word of God, the infallible. When that leader is seen as being responsible for the institution’s successes, when he becomes inseparable from the institution itself, it can create an atmosphere wherein the congregation becomes so deferential to him that they begin to deny any inkling of wrongdoing, even when it harms another member of their community. 

“We will protect the leadership for the stability of our community," Baker said.

By the end of 2020, the Brights and several other families within the church felt compelled to act.

It took hours of painful conversations, introspection and research to reach that point.  It was a decision they knew was likely to change their lives.

“We had poured not all of our relational capital, but so much of our relational capital, into this one church, this one community,” Bright said. “We would only have left that if we had felt like the whole building was on fire.” 

The Brights were among a handful of Immanuel members who signed onto a letter distributed to the congregation in mid-December 2020, warning that what little information they had about the abuse was incomplete or inaccurate.

“We believe that there is a real danger to the children in our church every single Sunday,” they wrote. “We believe this congregation is largely unaware of the details of this threat. We cannot, in good conscience, continue to remain silent about these issues and feel obligated to share these things with you.”

At Immanuel, Bright said congregants were discouraged from gossiping, which is considered a sin. In some Christian circles, there exists a "totally un-Biblical" definition of gossip, she said, that would label any conversation containing negative information about an absent third party as gossip. In Immanuel's case, this meant it was likely there were members who had only spoken to elders and were unaware of details beyond what had been shared in congregational letters.

"I believe if there’s any question that safety is involved that we should err on the side of conversing with one another," she said, "we should err on the side of being open with information."

They shared the information they had pieced together about the timeline of the abuse, the nature of the acts, and the lack of a comprehensive child safety plan. The deacons, including Bright’s husband, had been tasked with creating and implementing that safety plan, but he told IndyStar those conversations stalled.

Bright’s husband, Joshua, submitted his resignation the day before they sent the letter. They walked away from the community that had helped them renovate their home, brought them meals in times of need, baptized their children.

“We were keenly aware as parents, it could’ve been our kids, and how would we want people to fight for their safety?” she said. “What would we want people to give so that they would be safe?”

'We thought our kids were safe'

For the Nances, the December letter was a wake-up call.

They had been alarmed by news of the abuse but felt reassured by a congregational letter distributed in October that assured members no additional acts had been discovered. The couple stopped attending in-person services that November, when they welcomed their second daughter, but continued to watch services via live stream and stayed in touch with congregants.

“(The discovery letter) caught us completely off guard,” JJ said. “We thought this was being taken care of, we thought our kids were safe, we thought everything was being handled. We respected the leadership still at that point, but that’s when red flags went up.”

A Jan. 2, 2021, congregation meeting was planned to discuss the December letter. Before that meeting, the families that had requested a Presbytery commission to investigate – including the Brights – received a message from Immanuel leaders, a copy of which was obtained by IndyStar, asking them to speak to investigators rather than air their concerns before their fellow members.

“Our request would be for you to hear us out and direct your concerns past, present, and future to the commission rather than making public statements to the congregation," their letter reads.

The Nances had gone into the meeting hopeful that the elders would admit to wrongdoing and be repentant. But it seemed to Maggy that – although they acknowledged mistakes had been made – they were trying to cast themselves in a positive light.

“That really left a bad taste in our mouths because we really felt like, no, these weren’t mistakes, this was sin,” she said. “And just not really seeing them broken over their sin just really broke our hearts.”

The Nances arranged a meeting with their shepherding elder, David Carr, and Zachary Blackwood, one of the elders tasked with investigating the abuse, that was similarly concerning, they said. The elders offered little more than the line they’d heard at the congregation meeting: mistakes had been made, and things could’ve been done differently.

“It just felt so inadequate,” Maggy said. “It felt like they didn’t understand the harm they had done.”

Allegations of gossip could isolate families

The Nances, who had not resumed in-person attendance due to complications with their youngest daughter's health, stopped watching Olivetti’s sermons and began virtually attending another church in January 2021, but said they remained involved in various Immanuel activities until early spring.

In March, the Nances hosted a meeting with Olivetti and his wife at their home. By that time, the couple had spoken to multiple victim families whose experiences they said contradicted the elders’ messaging. 

When they confronted him, Maggy said Olivetti responded by telling them it was hurtful to him that they’d sought out information about the abuser and rebuked them for “participating in gossip.”

“When he did that, my immediate response, I think JJ’s, too, was shame,” Maggy said. “Immediately, he said that, and it just hit me in the gut, like, ‘Oh, I’ve done something wrong.’”

That shame lingered for a few minutes, Maggy said, before it was replaced with anger — she realized in the moment that shaming them was manipulation. Their conversations with victim families was never about the acts themselves, but the elders' shepherding. They were being discerning, she said, not gossiping. 

At the end of the meeting, the couple said Olivetti thanked them for the opportunity to talk things through and said he and his wife were taking as many meetings with congregants as they could — something Maggy said struck her as hypocritical and was potentially isolating the families directly impacted by the abuse.

“When you look at that, in light of his context of accusing us of gossiping,” she said, “he is saying: ‘I am allowed to literally go house-to-house, share my side of things, but no one is allowed to talk to victim families.’”

Olivetti has not responded to IndyStar’s requests for comment.

The couple had initially intended to keep their membership at Immanuel until they were ready to transfer it to a new congregation. By early fall 2021, they decided they could no longer in good conscience be associated with the church and did not want to continue to be subject to the elders' spiritual authority. They asked Immanuel leaders to dismiss their membership as they continued searching for another church.

In an Aug. 9, 2021, letter, a copy of which was provided to IndyStar, elder David Carr and provisional moderator Ken de Jong warned the Nances that not being members of a congregation was “a spiritually dangerous place to be.”

“We are deeply saddened that you have thereby separated yourself from the visible church, outside of which there is no ordinary possibility of salvation," the letter reads.

Neither Carr nor de Jong responded to IndyStar’s request for comment.

Doing the next right thing

A judicial commission of the Presbytery investigated the situation at Immanuel and reported its findings in spring 2021, recommending Olivetti and all members of the elder board involved resign their positions. 

Members at Immanuel and elsewhere pushed back, alleging the investigation had been biased. Following repeated complaints to the Presbytery, the Synod, the denomination’s national governing body, assumed jurisdiction.

Ecclesiastical charges have been accepted against Olivetti and the other members of the 2020 ruling elder board, Keith Magill, Ben Larson, David Carr, Zachary Blackwood and Nate Pfeiffer (charges against Blackwood and Pfeiffer, who resigned their positions following the first investigation, have since been dropped). 

Olivetti was suspended by the denomination in early January and, along with Magill, Larson and Carr, resigned just over a week later. Their ecclesiastical trials will take place in March.

The experience, JJ said, has caused him to reflect on how much he’s trusted earthly leaders to teach him about God and led him to reevaluate his personal study of the word.

But it's come with an entanglement of self-doubt. Mental and emotional exhaustion. He and those in his circle who have left Immanuel have at times felt crushed, angry, confused.

“We only knew (the elders) for a year,” JJ said. “I can’t imagine, some of the congregants that have attended for five, 10 years, the amount of betrayal that would be felt.”

The Nances told IndyStar they’re currently in the process of finding another church. The experience at Immanuel has sown a deep distrust in other spiritual leaders and institutions.

They wonder: Can I trust this pastor? Is this person a wolf in sheep’s clothing? Will my children be safe here?

Maggy said she’s found comfort in the other former members, including Bright, she and her husband have walked alongside over the past year.

“I see Jesus in them, and that just gives me a lot of hope,” she said. “I can’t even give words to how beautiful that’s been to me.”

Follow IndyStar reporter Holly Hays on Twitter: @hollyvhays.