Jennifer Lyell, a former Lifeway Christian Resources executive and abuse survivor who played a key role in the Southern Baptist Convention’s response to sexual abuse allegations, has died at age 47.
Rachael Denhollander, an attorney, former gymnast and advocate for abuse survivors, took to X on Sunday afternoon to announce that Lyell died following multiple strokes last week.
“Jennifer suffered catastrophic strokes on Monday, was found in her home on Thursday, and was gathered to Jesus last night,” she tweeted.
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Notable Bible teacher and former SBC member Beth Moore took to her X account to offer condolences, paraphrasing the widely known biblical passage of Psalm 23.
“The Lord is Jennifer Lyell’s Shepherd. She shall no longer long to see right made of wrong. She has walked through the valley of the shadow of death. She fears no evil, for he is with her and she, with him. His rod and his staff, they comfort her,” said Moore.
“He prepares a table before Jennifer in the presence of her enemies. He anoints her head with oil. Her cup overflows. Surely Goodness and Mercy have walked her all the way home. She now dwells in the house of the Lord forever.”
Jeff Iorg, SBC Executive Committee CEO, called Lyell’s death “tragic and heartbreaking.”
“My heart goes out to everyone who loved and cared for her because of the magnitude of their loss today,” Iorg said in a statement shared with The Christian Post. “While her life was marked by much pain and turmoil, now she knows only peace and rest. The eternal good news of the Gospel is our only source of hope today, and we are grateful for the sure hope it provides.”
A native of Marion, Illinois, Lyell earned a bachelor’s degree from Southern Illinois University and eventually a master’s in divinity from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Lyell experienced homelessness while undergoing her studies at SBTS, for a time living in her car and using gas station restrooms for showers, according to a seminary story about her that was published in 2003.
“I can remember laying back down in my seat and speaking to God and saying, ‘I don’t know what You’re doing up there,’ basically just cursing God and shaking my fist in His face and saying, ‘You’ve done this to me,’ when in reality I had done it to myself,” Lyell said at the time.
Lyell eventually had a born-again experience while attending a Billy Graham Crusade event in St. Louis, Missouri, being baptized as a professed Christian at her childhood church.
While a student at SBTS in 2004, a then 26-year-old Lyell met Professor David Sills, a married man in his 40s who headed the missionary nonprofit Reaching & Teaching International Ministries.
After graduating from SBTS, Lyell became director of book publishing and merchandising at Lifeway, reportedly helping to publish over a dozen New York Times bestsellers.
In 2019, Lyell went public with allegations against Sills, telling Baptist Press that her former mentor at SBTS had sexually abused her while she was a student at the seminary.
Lyell had previously told her superiors about the abuse in 2018, with Sills having reportedly admitted to engaging in inappropriate behavior and being removed from his position at SBTS.
Lyell went public with her allegations against her former mentor when she learned that Sills had been appointed to serve as a missionary for a non-SBC entity.
However, the initial BP story published in 2019 made the abuse sound like a consensual affair, which led to Lyell being heavily attacked, especially online. She lost her job at Lifeway.
For its part, BP retracted the story months later and issued an apology, noting that “Lyell came to us with an allegation of abuse and should have been cared for throughout the entire process.”
“Baptist Press ultimately failed to convey that the heart of Lyell’s story was about sexual abuse by a trusted minister in a position of power at a Southern Baptist seminary,” stated the official SBC news entity.
“This entire season of discovery of and enlightenment about sexual abuse within Southern Baptist churches and entities has caused tremendous pain and sorrow for many. We are grieved at the trauma that survivors of sexual abuse have endured and continue to endure.”
Lyell’s public accusation was part of a broader effort to hold SBC entities accountable for how they responded to credible accusations of sexual abuse and harassment.
In May 2022, Guidepost Solutions released a detailed report concluding that SBC leaders had mishandled some sexual abuse allegations, intimidated victims and resisted efforts to make churches safer, mainly to avoid legal liability.
Lyell’s experiences of being abused by Sills and the prolonged effort to get the BP article retracted were extensively documented in the Guidepost report.
In November 2022, Sills and his wife filed a defamation lawsuit against Lyell, the SBC, Southern Seminary, Lifeway and other parties, alleging that he was unjustly scapegoated by the denomination.
“After various mischaracterizations, misstatements, and contrived investigations by Defendants, Plaintiffs have been wrongfully and untruthfully labelled as criminals and shunned by the SBC and every other religious organization with which Plaintiff Sills has tried to associate,” alleged the complaint.
The case is scheduled for trial in February of next year.
In response, Lyell posted a statement online: “I do not need to be under oath to tell the truth — and there are no lies that will shake my certainty about what is true.”
