Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment

Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment (also called GRACE) is a Virginia 501(c)(3) non-profit organization formed by Basyle "Boz" Tchividjian to help Christian groups confront sexual abuse, particularly child sexual abuse, within their organizations. In late 2018, GRACE indicated it would broaden its focus to include all types of abuse within Christian organizations—sexual, physical, and spiritual—as well as domestic partner violence. (Boz Tchividjian is the third-eldest grandson of Billy Graham and law professor at Liberty University, who formerly served as the chief child abuse prosecutor in the 7th Judicial Circuit of Florida, focusing on sexual abuse cases.) History: In the early 2000s, Tchividjian became convinced that Protestant institutions were not properly addressing incidents of sexual abuse, incidents that he believed would eventually lead to scandals similar to those that had damaged the Catholic Church. In Tchividjian's view, the legalistic, authoritarian culture of some Protestant organizations was particularly susceptible to what he called "spiritual abuse" — the attempt of religious leaders to silence victims or convince them that they deserved their abuse. Tchividjian has stated that "When it comes to child sexual abuse, too many churches and Christian organizations prefer to sacrifice individuals in order to protect themselves. We end up living out the very antithesis of the Gospel that we preach. The consequences are devastating." GRACE began in 2003 when a reporter called Tchividjian about a case of sexual abuse mishandled by a pastor. Tchividjian first contacted Victor Vieth, who previously headed the Gundersen National Child Protection Training Center, and Diane Langberg, a psychologist from Pennsylvania who specialized in trauma and subsequently the three invited a number of legal, therapeutic and clerical professionals to form a board that created GRACE, an organization dedicated to educating churches and parachurch organizations about preventing, detecting, and dealing with sexual abuse. GRACE's services include independent investigations, organizational assessments, seminary curriculum, and a Safeguarding Certification program—headed by former pastor Mike Sloan—that educates faith communities on abuse and victimization. Many organizations have sought out GRACE and their resources, such as the children's ministry OneHope and the relief organization Samaritan's Purse each requested help from GRACE to aid them with abuse prevention and response. In 2009 Tchividjian was asked by New Tribes Mission, an evangelical missionary organization with 3,000 missionaries in 20 countries, to investigate claims by former children of missionaries that they had been abused while attending a central mission boarding school run by New Tribes Mission in Fanda, Senegal. Because the statute of limitations had expired on all the cases, GRACE investigated the abuse with the goal of revealing the full extent of the abuse and allowing New Tribes Mission to confess, repent, and reform. The investigation, which took a year to complete, demonstrated that the abuse had been more extensive than had previously been thought; the results of the investigation were widely discussed among evangelicals. After GRACE published its report about New Tribes Mission, abuse allegations surfaced at nine other New Tribes boarding schools. New Tribes hired a different organization, IHART (Independent Historical Abuse Review Team) to investigate these later claims. As of 2014, IHART had completed only one investigation and had published nothing. In 2011, the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism (ABWE), which had 900 missionaries in 60 countries and 5,000 supporting churches, asked GRACE to investigate allegations of abuse at its mission in Bangladesh. After 100 interviews over two years, ABWE fired GRACE just as it prepared to publish its report, claiming GRACE had mishandled the investigation. ABWE then hired an organization called Professional Investigators International (PII) to complete the investigation. In 2012, Bob Jones University asked GRACE to investigate the way it had handled reports of sexual abuse and sexual harassment. After a year of investigation, just as GRACE was preparing to release its report in early 2014, the university fired GRACE, then rehired it a month later. GRACE released its report in December 2014.