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U.S.|Whistle-Blower Who Ignited Sexual Abuse Reckoning Among Southern Baptists Dies
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/09/us/jennifer-lyell-dead-southern-baptist-convention.html
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Jennifer Lyell died at 47 on Saturday. As her denomination started its annual meeting this week, there was no mention of her from the dais.
By Ruth Graham
Reporting from the Southern Baptist Convention in Dallas.
June 9, 2025Updated 6:17 p.m. ET
Jennifer Lyell, a former executive at a Southern Baptist publishing house who became an early whistle-blower against sexual abuse in her denomination, died on Saturday in Nashville.
Her death took place as thousands of Southern Baptists began arriving in Dallas for their denomination’s annual meeting this week. The urgency to confront sexual abuse in the denomination has waned since Ms. Lyell spoke out in 2019 about what she described as ongoing abuse by a professor at a Southern Baptist seminary.
Ms. Lyell died at 47 after a series of “massive strokes,” according to Rachael Denhollander, an activist and lawyer who has represented Ms. Lyell and was a close friend. Ms. Denhollander and other friends said Ms. Lyell’s health had declined precipitously since she publicly reported her alleged abuse, making her the subject of intense criticism within the denomination.
Ms. Lyell’s activism ignited an agonized reckoning over sexual abuse among the Southern Baptists, the country’s largest Protestant denomination, that eventually led to a damning investigation and multiple lawsuits. But it came at a high personal price, with critics accusing Ms. Lyell of exaggerating her claims and the seminary professor she accused of abuse filing a defamation lawsuit against her.
“It takes years and years to recover from trauma, and no one should be in the position of having to explain it to the whole public while they’re still trying to do that,” she told Religion News Service in 2021.
Ms. Lyell was a vice president at the Southern Baptist Convention’s publishing arm, Lifeway Christian Resources, when she disclosed to her superior in 2018 that a professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary had first “sexually acted” against her in 2004 on a mission trip, when she was a student. She also shared her account with R. Albert Mohler Jr., the seminary’s president. The professor she accused, David Sills, resigned within days.
