OUT OF DARKNESS

For more than 30 years, a weary group of sex abuse survivors have tried to get the Southern Baptist denomination (SBC) to report and remove sexual predators, many pastors, within their midst. These survivors picketed Southern Baptist conventions, wrote numerous letters to church leaders, appeared on news programs, and blogged prolifically—only to be met with gaslighting and stonewalling from denominational leadership. But a seismic shift happened after advocate Rachael Denhollander led an army of women to speak up about Dr. Larry Nassar’s abuse of gymnasts: Rachael became the general of another army of abuse survivors—this time within the SBC. She’s been called “a tool of the devil” by those who oppose her work, but she’s not backing down from a fight with the largest evangelical group in America.