“That’s Just Mike”: How Abusers Weave Culture, Complicity, Silence & Fear Into Patterns of Abuse

It never ‘just happens’: it’s never a one off, or something that only began recently. Someone who abuses another person – physically, emotionally, psychologically, sexually or spiritually – has engaged in abuse and abusive behaviour before. It is a choice that is always part of a pattern of many incidents, some of which may well have been reported. It never comes out of the clear blue sky. It is not the result (in a church context) of a ‘lack of faith’, or because ‘the devil overcame’ the abuser. An abuser does not ‘fall’: their behaviour is not an accident. It is a choice that is the result of wanting power, and wanting to exercise power and control over that person, and others – there are always others.

This is something that is very much evident, both in Let There Be Light, and in the Soul Survivors podcast – and because it is the victims voices which are centered, we are given the opportunity to discern that a pattern of behaviour was being practiced and established over decades by Mike Pilavachi. It involved children – Matt Redman was a highly vulnerable 13-year old, who was being sexually abused by someone else when he met Pilavachi, and who was then groomed by Pilavachi after Redman disclosed that abuse to him, and after Pilavachi helped Matt Redman report the sexual abuse to the police. But Redman was not the only one. It also included (as described in the film) “athletic” young men particularly from vulnerable backgrounds; and co-workers whom he bullied and controlled with erratic, unpredictable tantrums. When Matt and Beth Redman became engaged, he stopped speaking to them until the day before their wedding. Like many other aspects of Pilavachi’s abuse, this is described by some of his former interns and ‘favourites’: how he stopped speaking to them when they began new romantic relationships with women. His abuse spans decades and impacts probably hundreds of people – as Beth Redman points out in the recent podcast interview, there are a great many victims who have not felt able to come forward and speak to the NST investigation.

Pilavachi put himself in a context that protected him. Evangelical Christianity is very much more conservative, exclusionary of LGBTQ identities and there are few, if any, women or disabled people in its leadership. Indeed, Pilavachi’s aversion of women in leadership roles is another underlying theme that the podcast highlights. Pilavachi is a performer, charismatic on stage, but moody and unpredictable in private; and it is clear that in the eyes of the now established Charismatic and Evangelical Church he could do no wrong, which will have acted as a powerful layer of protection. But he was also outside of the usual safeguarding structures of the Church for a large part of his ministry. He was not ordained for much of it, and he was ‘accountable’ largely to those who championed him.

The podcast looks at some of the relationships that mentored and supported Pilavachi here, but Natalie Collins also digs more deeply into the complex network of leaders and organisations that Pilavachi worked with, connected with, and built around himself here. Natalie also hosts a guest post from a woman who reported her experiences to the NST investigation here. I strongly recommend both posts to you. Natalie has covered this since the story first broke in great detail over a number of articles, and has worked to bring to light the suffering and damage caused by a great many other abusive Church leaders, having long campaigned on this issue. The continued, deafening, silence about Pilavachi – from the likes of Holy Trinity Brompton, Nicky Gumbel, J John and others – before and since the release of the NST report, nevertheless speaks volumes.

And yet Jesus empowers us not to suffer in silence, but to speak (Matthew 18:15-20). He understands that it is necessary to call out harm where it is being done, and it must be dealt by the church. I would insist that there should never be any onus on the victim to speak to the abuser privately, even with support, and that it isn’t always safe for them to do so. Hence, Jesus has already commissioned the Church itself to take responsibility for abusive leaders, and it cannot shy away from it’s responsibilities to do so. This does not impede us from the ongoing process of forgiveness (Matthew 18:22) but the harm must be acknowledged and especially where it causes harm to children or ’causes them to stumble’ (Matthew 18:6-9) – we cannot know how many young people were emotionally, physically, psychologically and spiritually harmed by Pilavachi’s abuse, and the silence that protected him. And the person causing the harm must take full responsibility for their behaviour: they must take whatever radical action is required and exercise self-discipline in pursuing it (Matthew 5:29, Matthew 18: 8-9).

But when the Redman’s took their concerns to senior Church leaders, they were told “that’s just Mike” – three words which would have more successfully silenced others who do not have the platform and standing in the Evangelical and wider Christian community that the Redman’s have; and they note, without bitterness, the ongoing silence from Church leaders who should be speaking out against abuse, and who should be standing with victims.

“…It’s not right for everyone to speak out, but I think the silence from a lot of leaders, even today as we launch Let There Be Light, I think is part of the problem in Church culture. Why can’t we just say it is wrong that someone abused their platform and privilege, and we stand with survivors, and we stand against spiritual, psychological, emotional, physical abuse; I don’t know what is so hard about that for leaders in the Church today to say.” Beth Redman

Soul Survivors Podcast, 09/04/2024

They, like many of us, wonder why it is so hard for those who should know better to do so, but they refuse to make any demands, save for one: justice. Mike Pilavachi was allowed to resign and to date has suffered no real consequences for his actions.

Beth Redman highlighted another problem that I don’t believe would have been unique to her, in the Evangelical Christian Church – she didn’t know about the National Safeguarding Team.

I did, but on it’s own, that isn’t enough because how does that help you when something is said, or happens, that you know is worrying and troubling, but you haven’t been empowered to trust your experience; and just as importantly, the knowledge and understanding to know how to deal with it? “Tell your church’s safeguarding team” isn’t enough when you don’t know what to say, how to say it, or indeed whether or not you should even say it at all.

Because abusers are very good at making things looking like a ‘they said/I say’ situation. What would you feel able to say in the following situations?

• A new pastor makes what feels like a very inappropriate comment to you – he is married, you are a single parent. But you might have misunderstood – would it be better to brush it off, and not worry about it? Would people think you were making trouble?

• Your vicar tells you that a highly vulnerable woman that they had helped at a previous ministry had made an accusation about her husband – but he really is innocent, and you do believe that, don’t you? (It feels like the vicar is trying to convince herself. But what are you supposed to do with that? If you reported it, are you dragging a vulnerable woman into something she might be trying to put behind her, and which was going to amount to a he said/she said thing?)

• A pastors wife tells you that when she met her husband, her first instinct was “I can’t trust him”, but she then goes on to describe ‘love bombing’ behaviour. You are aware that the pastors wife was previously abused as a child. What do you do with that knowledge? What do you say to her? Who can you tell?

One of the most striking, though not surprising, things listening to the podcast is this: Pilavachi was already a practiced abuser when he began his ministry, with victims from that first ministry at Chorleywood having come forward. I believe he will have victims from outside the Church, and I think the Church would be wise to make a wider appeal, once the second investigation is concluded, to any victims to so that help and support can be provided to them too.

One thing is certain: until the Church – the whole Church, across all traditions – recognises and accepts the need to ensure that it’s responses to abusive leaders are victim centered, and based on the abuser taking full responsibility for the choices that they have made; and until the Church accepts that it must learn from victims and their advocates how to better identify abusers, and patterns of abuse; until it learns that humility, the Church will continue to make victims – not offer the safe haven to them that it should.