WASHINGTON (DC)
The Roys Report [Chicago IL]
August 21, 2025
By Julie Roys
Does Jesus’ command to love our enemies mean Christian women must remain in abusive marriages? That’s the troubling claim Pastor Paul LeBoutillier made in a recent sermon at Calvary Chapel in Boise, Idaho. While acknowledging that abuse is “terrible,” he implied Jesus’ words about loving abusers apply to abusive husbands.
Is that a faithful reading of Scripture or a distortion rooted in patriarchy? To unpack this, host Julie Roys is joined by author and abuse survivor Naghmeh Panahi and relationship coach Leslie Vernick, a leading voice on marriage and emotional health.
Naghmeh, known globally for advocating for persecuted Christians when her ex-husband Saeed Abedini was imprisoned in Iran, later revealed she had long endured abuse in her marriage. Her memoir, I Didn’t Survive, traces her painful awakening—and how the Christian community often turned on her for speaking out.
Leslie Vernick, author of The Emotionally Destructive Marriage, has been a pioneering voice in conservative circles, challenging the belief that wives must stay with abusive husbands.
In 2025, it may shock many that pastors still preach submission even to abusive husbands. Yet this message persists in parts of evangelicalism, harming countless women and children.
This episode takes a hard look at Scripture, church culture, and the ideology of patriarchy that keeps women trapped—offering both truth and hope to survivors.
Guests
Naghmeh Panahi
Naghmeh Panahi is an author, speaker, and Bible teacher. Naghmeh made national news when she publicly advocated for the release of her then-husband, Saeed Abedini, who was imprisoned in Iran for his Christian faith. Naghmeh’s autobiography, I Didn’t Survive: Emerging Whole After Deception, Persecution, and Hidden Abuse, is available now. Learn more at her website.
Leslie Vernick
Leslie Vernick is an author, relationship coach and speaker. Through Lesle Vernick and Company, she and her team help people in destructive relationships get safe, restore sanity, and grow strong so that they regain agency over their choices and life story. For 30 years, she was licensed in Pennsylvania as a clinical social worker where she maintained a private practice. She is the author of seven books, including The Emotionally Destructive Marriage and The Emotionally Destructive Relationship. Learn more at her website.
Show Transcript
Julie: Does the command of Jesus to love our enemies mean it’s wrong to divorce an abusive husband? Here’s what Pastor Paul Laier said just last Sunday while speaking at Calvary Chapel in Boise, Idaho.
Paul Leboutillier: The number one question that I get as it relates to understanding perhaps grounds for divorce, and let me just say abuse is terrible.
It’s hard to even find the words to describe the devastation that abuse brings into a person’s life. But as horrible as abuse is, you’ll notice that Jesus didn’t say love your enemies unless of course they abuse you, and then all bets are off.
Julie: So does this passage about enduring persecution apply to marriage or is this pastor twisting the scriptures to bolster his patriarchal view?
I’ll dig into this issue with author and abuse survivor, NME Panahi and Leslie Vernick, author of numerous books and resources on relationships and marriage. Welcome to the Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Royce.
I am thrilled today to be joined by two friends, NME Pani and Leslie Vernick. If you followed the Roy’s report, you probably know NME story, but just in case you don’t, NME became an international advocate when her ex-husband, Saeed Abini was imprisoned for his faith in Iran. But what many didn’t know, and even NME didn’t realize for much of her marriage was that she was being abused.
But when she realized how abusive her husband was and opened up about it. The Christian community turned on her and it’s been quite the journey since then to bring her to where she is today. And nme, it is such a pleasure to have you join me. Welcome.
Naghmeh: Thank you, Julie.
Julie: And also joining me is Leslie Vernick.
And Leslie is a well-known figure to many of you. She’s written numerous books, including the Emotionally Destructive Relationship and the Emotionally Destructive Marriage. And Leslie was one of the first conservative Christians to argue that wives should be allowed to divorce their abusive husbands.
So Leslie, so glad you could join us for this discussion.
Leslie: Thanks for asking me. I watched the clip over the weekend and my heart just broke.
Julie: It is heartbreaking. And nme, you posted this up on social media. You’re the one who first saw this clip, this calvary Church in Boise has been your church, as I understand it, for 26 years.
Is that correct?
Naghmeh: The only church I’ve known, I came out of Islam and for a long time I wasn’t allowed to go to church because my parents were Muslims. And the first church I was able to join was Calvary Chapel of Boise. So 26 years ago.
Julie: And so seeing this man speak in the church, were you actually live there for what he said,
Naghmeh: no.
I actually had just started tiptoeing my feet back into the church. My daughter wanted me to go with her. I’d seen some really crazy stuff and I’d been struggling with going back and staying and wanting to be part of the body. And I had not gone that Sunday. I had some family coming from out of town.
I, there was stuff that we were doing, and I got messages from people saying, I jumped out of my chair. I’m crying, I’m wailing, I’m screaming are you okay? Are you at the church? Because if I was, I’m so glad I wasn’t, I would’ve stood up and said something and no. So I wasn’t there. Fast forward, the introduction, I’m watching live now, what he’s saying that people are freaking out about, and I’m just shocked.
I really did not think he was gonna go there. When he’s talking about loving your enemy and, being persecuted for your faith, and then he really uses the word abuse and he’s just ed by that word. Because I work with the persecuted church, I work in Afghanistan, I work in Iran, of course, like when you’re under these regimes, you endure persecution.
You love your enemy. To be a witness for Christ, you have to get rid of all bitterness and anger and for you have to forgive. Because you wanna be this representation. I myself had someone like a top revolutionary guard. They’re like in Iran, they’re like, ISIS had a gun to my head telling me to deny Christ.
And in me loving him and my response to him at the, he ended up asking for a Bible. So yes, I understand this message for outsiders, for nonbelievers, like. How you respond to persecution. But it was shocking to me the way he like linked it to marriage as Christian husbands abuse you. It just was shocking to me and it really triggered me.
I just start crying and I actually started texting the pastors like live as they’re like listening to this pastor preach at our church. I’m texting the head pastor, I’m texting the executive pastor. So Tucker Mail head Pastor Matt Cocker executive pastor. I’m sending up group texts, like individual texts, like what is happening right now.
I was expecting for them to say this is not okay for them to get stage at the end of the sermon and say, we don’t know what Pastor Paul meant, but in case like, we just wanna make sure there’s clarity. If you’re in an abusive situation, that’s not for you and you can walk away. They didn’t say that there was silence and then it just got worse and worse as the way my church just started silencing me and started like protecting and defending this pastor was just shocking to me.
Julie: And they know your history. These pastors, they know my history. And to your knowledge, did you think they supported you? I did. Up until this point.
Naghmeh: Their words. It did but I had a gut feeling because I had brought other things to their attention. And they just seemed to be dragging their feet of wanting to address abuse.
There was a ministry I had invited and asked them for two years. I’ve been asking them, to come and help them protect the flock. And they, at one point the executive pastor said we don’t wanna do it in October. That’s domestic abuse month. And we don’t wanna be like the culture. And it just felt like through their words, I could sense that they could, they saw it talking about abuse as letting the liberal culture seep into the church.
And I was like, what? This is what attracted me to Jesus as a Muslim woman. Because he defends women, he honors women, he protects the abuse and the oppress. And you’re like saying that. Like protecting the abuse is a liberal outside influence. And so it actually confirmed to me a lot of things of why they were dragging their feet and not taking a lot of issues I was bringing to light seriously.
And dismissing me as being overly like reactive to abusive stuff and, overly sensitive. So it started making sense when this pastor was so outright in what he said and they they just were like. Protected him and it really shook my faith. I’ve been bawling for two days because not only have I had to make the decision to leave my church of 26 years, I had to wrestle with my faith and say, is this Christianity?
Because it sounds a lot like Islam and I’ve been like in love with Christ because he’s so different than any. Religion out there. And he’s he’s been so kind to me. He rescued me. It was through scripture that I was rescued from abuse. It wasn’t any outside influence. It was scripture itself that rescued me.
And God spoke to me through scripture and said, this is not okay. That’s not my heart. And so I was really confused that those who representing Christ are saying something else that it is okay. And it really, I was just crying and walking and I saying, is this who you are? Because, or it really shook my faith.
I have to be honest, 40 years of knowing Christ, I’ve stood to my parents who were Muslims. I got, I was persecuted by them. I was abused by my dad when like he was, he would throw things, he would say, you, he need to return to Islam. And my parents were angry at me and my brother when we accepted Christ. I was, I went to Iran as a missionary right after September 11.
I stood for my faith. I had guns pointed to my head to deny Christ. I did not. And then to. For my sha faith to be shaken by this. Not only what Paul, pastor Paul said at our church, but also how the leaders behaved. I was just shaken to my core. And so for the first time I could see why people struggled, have struggled and had to refind Jesus outside of the church structure and rediscover Christ and for their faith to be shaken.
But then restrengthen, which is what’s happening now. I’m still working through a lot of stuff with God, but he’s, God’s been so ministering to me so much in the last few days.
Julie: You had said how this almost felt like a divorce, and I’ve heard other people talk about that when they leave their church, it feels that way.
And we’re talking about marriage. We’re talking about one of the most fundamental covenant relationships in scripture. It’s supposed to be like Christ in his church. And here you have a pastor saying. That abuse. Oh just love your husband. And it, it sounds an awful lot like he’s saying now.
He doesn’t come out and say, you can’t leave your husband over this. You can’t divorce him. But certainly in the context, that seems to be what he’s saying. And so it was just appalling. Although Leslie, this isn’t new to you. You encounter this all the time and you’ve been encountering it for decades.
I don’t know how, I guess I live in this space an awful lot, but not necessarily to the extent that you do. When you heard this, and even hearing Nome right now what impact does this have on you?
Leslie: It, it breaks my heart because NMA is right. This is not the heart of God. And even, if we think about it breaks my heart that this pastor would be such a well respected, calculated in the church pastor and still be so misinformed on the character of Jesus. And actually what Jesus said when he said, love your enemy. So this pastor’s equating that you have to have a relationship with your enemy, an intimate relationship.
Julie: But
Leslie: Jesus isn’t saying that.
Julie: He’s
Leslie: saying, love your enemy precisely because this relationship has deteriorated to a place where this person is your enemy.
This isn’t just a stranger. This person has harmed you. And so when Jesus is saying, love your enemy, he’s not saying you have to kiss them, you have to sleep with them. You have to stay married to ’em. What he’s saying is, do not let what they have done to you poison your heart, that you are a woman of God.
You are an image bearer, and I love my enemies. But if you look at the passage, just one passage, I could list a number of them, but John three 16, God so loved the world. He loved his enemies. He died for everyone. But if you look at the end of that chapter in John chapter three, it says, if you don’t accept Jesus, you don’t have a relationship with him.
And guess what? If God loved his enemy so much and there were no boundaries, there’d be no hell. There’d be no hell. Jesus says that if you don’t have. A relationship with me. We don’t see eye to eye. You don’t repent. We don’t have close fellowship. You don’t get to go to heaven with me. And he says that in John chapter three, I love you unconditionally.
I, but we don’t offer unconditional relationship. And Jesus doesn’t, and he doesn’t require his people to. And so when he ties that together with love and your enemy means that you have to stay married and allow your enemy to continue to harm you, that’s violating all kinds of other scripture.
Jesus himself didn’t allow himself to do that. When the Pharisees tried to throw him off the cliff, he disappeared. He didn’t just allow his enemies to harm him. And so I think we have to look at the whole council of God and the character of God to understand certain verses. And this pastor has misused this passage of loving your enemy to mean something that God never intended it to mean.
Wow. And just
Julie: for the record, I reached out to Paul Laier. To ask him, what did you mean by this? This is what it sounds like. He has not responded to me. That, that’s sad to me. And he may respond later, and if he does I will certainly post whatever his response is. But I hope he is listening to this because I hope his heart does not intend to do what he has done to you, nme, what he has done to a lot of women who are listening to this.
And I hope your pastors as well at Calvary Boise that they respond because I think sometimes I like to think that it’s just blindness and these men just aren’t getting it. I don’t know, but to give them benefit of the doubt. But let me ask you this pastor Laier, I’m not familiar with him is he a well-known figure within Calvary Chapel?
Naghmeh: He is, he’s one of their top pastors. He’s a regional pastor, oversees I think Idaho, parts of Oregon, Washington. He’s one of their regional pastors. So he’s very well known. And one of their main teachers speaks at all their, a lot of their big conferences. His wife speaks at a lot of their big pastor’s, wife’s conferences.
So yes, he’s very well known.
Julie: And so this is indicative, potentially of a larger pattern. And I’ve heard these things not gonna, paint with too broad of a brush and say, this is all Calvary churches. It’s probably not. But I will say we’ve seen a number of these sorts of things, and even NME before this happened.
I remember when I was interviewing you about what happened with Sayeed and your church at Calvary. And if I’m remembering correctly, the previous pastor you went to when you realized that your husband was involved in porn, remind me what I mean. I know it was awful, but I can’t remember exactly what.
Your pastor told you at that time,
Naghmeh: he said, is he using the church computer? And he wasn’t. My side was having brought our own laptop and I said, no, but he’s addicted to porn. And he said he’s not using the church computer.
Julie: Wow. That’s just,
Leslie: and I think this is really important for us to look at biblically because if we’re gonna love our enemy, or even love our friend, what does it look like for a wife to biblically love her husband?
It Does it mean that she enables his sin through her silence, through her compliance? Or does it mean that she gets bold enough and strong enough like you did n Me to speak the truth in love? Not to harm him, but to help him to hope that he comes to his senses? Just like I think your heart is. For Pastor Paul, I hope he repents.
I hope he begins to see that he has done a lot of damage in what he says. That when we speak the truth in love, or when Ephesians tells us that love seeks to tell the truth and uncover the un unfruitful deeds of darkness, not hide them. That is what love does. Love says, I care about your welfare so much that I’m willing to risk our relationship to bring you to your senses.
Not I’m gonna cover up your sin and enable you to continue to harm me. That’s not love. That’s
Naghmeh: foolishness. Exactly. Yeah. And I did also, he made a little comment on my Facebook and said, I’m sorry, I came across as insensitive, blah, blah. And I asked him, I said, so I thank you for saying that, but I would like to know where do you stand in terms of what abuse is and if, what does it mean for divorce marriage?
And he didn’t wanna respond. And I asked, I reached out to my church and I said, I want a meeting with you guys and him. They didn’t do it. And so I did wanna sit down with him and say where do you stand on this? And looking more, digging deeper into other videos. I was like, oh, I think I know where he stands on this.
And oh, real time. What was happening is after I shared like this, of course he shared publicly that basically he didn’t come out and straight say it, but it’s, you look at the context of his message. It was to submit to abuse in marriage. And so when I shared that on my social media, a lot of people start coming forward and said, yes, he has covered for people who’ve sexually abused.
Daughter who had been in prison, he’s covered for me. Like my husband would beat me and he would say, you need to submit. So I got a lot of testimonies. I started sending some of those to the pastors saying, don’t come up. Don’t come say something about an elder unless with more two or three testimonies.
I was like, here’s some testimonies. Like people who have gone to his church for 10, 20 years plus are saying yes. This is what he believes. And so I was expecting my pastors to go, oh, okay. We can read between the lines if this is what he believes, obviously what, that’s what he said. And I also sent them messages of people from our church saying, I can’t believe I’m, like, it wasn’t just me.
It affected a lot of people and still they didn’t respond and still they didn’t take it seriously. So there is a lot of testimonies out there with Pastor Paul and the way he shepherded his people that basically said, you have to submit to leadership, whether it’s your pastor or it’s your husband.
And that’s what is God’s calling you to do, is you have to submit to abuse.
Restore 2026 Video: That’s
Leslie: terrible. Yeah. And I think that’s so dangerous. Such a dangerous teaching. And it’s not the book, it really isn’t the book that God calls you to if you have a choice. There may be times that you’re in a concentration camp and you have to submit to abuse because to resist is going to cost your life.
But when we’re talking about a relationship with someone who God created for it to be, for our welfare and our safety, marriage is a relationship that’s supposed to be the safest relationship in the world to raise children in a safe environment. And when you’re in a relationship that is harmful, and Pastor Paul said, abuse is terrible.
There’s so much damage. And is he really saying that our heavenly Father would rather us allow our children to be broken and damaged and let our bodies to be broken and damaged, to keep the sanctity of marriage that’s more important to our Heavenly Father than the safety and the sanity of the people in the marriage, including the abuser.
Because when you just continue to allow him to sit with no consequences, he’s deluded as well. So now you’ve gotta lose. The husband’s lost, the spouse is lost, the kids are lost, the marriage is lost. And that somehow honors God more than saying, no more, I’m not gonna put up with
Naghmeh: this. It’s, I’m telling the world that this is not who Christ is.
It’s not
Julie: right. And that’s where, you mentioned Matthew 18, and I know people have been saying this on your feed saying did you use Matthew 18? And for those who aren’t familiar, Matthew 18 is a passage that says, if your brother sins against you, go to him first, one-on-one. If he doesn’t listen to you, then take a friend.
And then if he won’t listen to you and that other person, then you bring it to the whole church again. That is for personal offenses. This is something, it wasn’t a personal offense, it was something that he said publicly and the correction needs to match the manner in which the error was made. This was a public error made Not to you personally.
No. Me. Although it’s personal to you. But to, every woman out there who’s been abused and every woman who cares about marriage and every man who quite frankly cares about the sanctity of marriage to, to use it in this context is perverting the word of God. It’s being a bad testimony. And one Timothy five 20 says that we should com.
We should confront those things publicly if an elder is sinning. So a hundred percent. I’m so proud that you did this. I’m so glad that you put this out on Facebook. I’m glad that we’re discussing it. And what I want to do is just go through some of this sermon and I’m gonna play a longer clip, so we’ll give the context so people can hear.
We’re not just like pulling something outta context and we will be able to. Discuss what he’s actually saying in these. So let me start. He starts by quoting scripture and we’ll take a listen.
Paul Leboutillier: Let me put ’em on the screen just to remind you of what these verses say of chapter six, verse 27 and 28 says, but I say to you who hear, love your enemies.
Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who abuse you. And this is what I meant just a moment ago when I said, Jesus said more than just love one another. It gets a lot deeper than that, doesn’t it? Now the verse that you see up there, that you saw on the screen contains some really strong words.
Words, like hate, people that hate you, people that curse you, people that abuse you. And those are trigger words in our society today.
Julie: I just wanna stop it there, where he says, these are trigger words in our society today. Of course, they’re trigger words, right? Abuse is a huge problem.
I did. And I’m curious, Leslie, did you interpret this way this way, that he was minimizing abuse by the way he like calls it a trigger word.
Leslie: I did. And then when he follows it up with saying, I get so many women who ask is abuse grounds for divorce. And so it’s like he’s saying, oh every little ding is a, oh, you abused me.
And it’s not he’s not defining abuse. On the one hand he’s saying it’s awful. It’s terrible later on. But in this, he’s saying, oh, it’s a cultural trigger word. And there’s some truth to what he says. I think there is a mentality nowadays that people misuse language and they maybe exaggerate and say, you’re gaslighting me or you’re abusing me when we’re just disagreeing with someone. So that may be true, but there’s no context for which he’s giving all of this. He’s elevating, everyone does this, everyone is triggered by an abuse word, and that’s not true.
There’s some legitimate, the Bible talks about abuse of speech. The Bible talks about abusive behavior and oppressive behavior, and all of it is ungodly wrong and sinful, and it causes a lot of damage.
Naghmeh: And at later he says abuse has been elevated. I think you’re gonna play that. What do you think about that, Leslie?
Like that just surprised me that what he meant by abuses being elevated.
Leslie: He didn’t really describe that. So he left it like as if that’s a bad thing. I hope that’s a good thing that the church is now talking about abuse. Whether it’s abusive leaders, abusive husbands, abusive mothers.
I had an abusive mother. All of it is wrong and bad and causes damage. And if it’s more elevated in today’s culture that we are aware of it and talking about it and saying, Hey, we’re not gonna, we’re not gonna overlook this. We’re not gonna pretend like this isn’t real. We’re not gonna pretend like this doesn’t do damage.
We’re gonna try to help people get better, or we’re gonna have better boundaries so that they don’t continue to do the damage. But he’s elevating it. And then he is saying, he’s not really saying that’s a good thing. He’s saying it’s a bad thing, that we’re talking so much about abuse. At least that’s how I took it.
Yeah, that’s how I took it.
Julie: That’s the tone here. And it’s the tone that I hear so often when people speak disparagingly of the Me Too movement or the church too movement. And that, that always makes me upset. ’cause I’m like, thank God for the Me too movement. I’m like, are you against, Harvey Weinstein his abuse coming to light are, are you against that? Are you against Epstein coming to light? What do you mean when you speak disparagingly of that? To me it just betrays a misogyny, that they don’t really care and they like to just paint women that speak about these things frankly, as liars half the time.
And we know that studies say that, the amount that lie or the percentage is so low, like it may be two to 8% lie and the rest are telling the truth. So we as a church, shouldn’t we be standing for the marginalized and the oppressed, but instead we’re making fun of him. Let me keep playing this because he says more, as you’ve noted,
Paul Leboutillier: what you actually read on the screen, even though we read the verses we’re gonna cover today, we read ’em from the new King James.
What I put up on the screen for you was this those verses that Tucker covered from the ESV. They’re from the English standard version. And I did it on purpose because the words are a little more impactful, frankly, the new King James. Instead of saying those that abuse you, it says, those who spitefully use you.
And, there’s nothing inaccurate about that wording, but those aren’t the kind words that I would typically use. And I don’t think they’re probably the kind of words that you would typically use either. We would use, however, words like those who abuse you. That those are words that we know and understand.
In fact, the New American standard Bible says for those who. Are abusive to you.
Julie: And lemme just stop it there, because Nme, you mentioned you’ve been abused for the gospel. You have been persecuted for the gospel. Very few of us have in America. But you have, that’s the context of this, isn’t it? Yes. That a believer’s being persecuted by an unbeliever, not by their spouse.
Naghmeh: That’s the context. We teach it under underground churches. It’s for the, it’s for the, those who are persecuting the church. We never just imagine the enemy or the I don’t know. Yeah. That’s the context that’s always been taught in the underground house churches.
Leslie: When we go back to Matthew 18, which he talks about and we’ve talked about, and nme, you were scolded for not implementing Matthew 18.
Jesus here is talking about. A relationship. He says in Matthew 18, if a brother or sister, so this is this relationship that you have with someone in the body of Christ, sins against you. Jesus doesn’t say. Turn the other cheek. Love your enemy. He’s not saying that. He’s saying Go to them and talk to them and try to reconcile this relationship.
And then he says, and if it doesn’t work, if the person refuses to listen, he’s saying, bring it to the church like you did n Me with your husband. You brought it to the church. And if this person still refuses to listen, Jesus doesn’t say okay then just keep treating him like a brother and sister and love him anyway.
That’s not what Jesus says. He says. Now the relationship itself changes. You’re going to treat him not as a brother or sister. But as a pagan or a tax collector, in other words, you are going to love your enemy or you love this person, but you’re not a brother sister relationship anymore. The relationship has been damaged and it’s not reconciled.
And so therefore the relationship changes. And we don’t acknowledge that at all in the church. But that’s what Jesus teaches, that when you have this relationship of brother, sister, and it’s damaged, there has to be some repairs made in order for it to be restored to a close brother, sister, trusting, safe relationship.
And when that’s not restored, that doesn’t mean you hate the person. It means though that you have boundaries and they are like a pagan and a tax collector to you. They are not close and you don’t feel safe and trust them. In the same way
Naghmeh: you did before. And as you were saying that, I was reminded of one Corinthians five verses nine through 13, where it says, Paul says, when I wrote to you before, I told you not to associate with people who indulge in sexual sin.
But I wasn’t talking about unbelievers who indulge in sexual sin or are greedy or cheat people or worship idols. You have to leave this world to avoid people like that. I meant that you’re not to associate with anyone who claims to be a believer yet indulges in sexual sin or is greedy or worships idol, or is abusive or is a drunkard or cheats.
People don’t even eat with such people. So you’re right when it’s in the context of a brother or someone who calls themself a believer, Paul is actually saying, distance yourself from this person
Julie: a hundred percent. So well said, let’s keep going in this clip.
Paul Leboutillier: And words like abuse and abusive.
They make those passages really hard. Very hard because you see, we live in a culture today where we’ve elevated abuse or abusive behavior to we’ve, let’s just say we’ve elevated it. Okay. As a pastor, if I had a dollar for every time somebody asked me about divorce and whether or not abuse was ground, biblical grounds for divorce, I would be a very wealthy man.
And it’s interesting that they don’t ask about other possible grounds for divorce, but abuse is the number one question that I get.
Julie: Okay. This blew me away. Not because he’s saying abuse is the number one question he is getting asked. That doesn’t surprise me, especially in the conservative evangelical church.
From what I have seen, and Leslie, you can speak to this as well. There is rampant abuse going on in conservative Christian marriages, and I think a lot of it is because of this kind of teaching and because these men are not brought to account. But what’s shocking to me is that instead of him saying, my goodness, this is an epidemic in our churches, this is the number one question I’m getting asked.
He’s basically making fun of it. This like saying, why on earth would I get asked this thing? Because, oh, because why not That it’s rampant, not that it’s an issue we need to address. He seems to be implying that the reason is just because it’s become a buzzword and it’s popular. Is that what you were thinking, Leslie, when you heard that?
Leslie: Yeah. That, that the whole topic is elevated and so women are asking and I just felt sick because if I were a pastor or I’ve been a Christian counselor for 45 years, if I were getting that question again and again, I do, it breaks my heart. It breaks my heart, oh my gosh. There is so much abuse that this is the number one question.
I’m, I must not be teaching properly in our church about the sanctity of marriage and how do we create a loving and safe relationship. I, we must not be teaching our boys how to treat women. We must not be teaching our women how to have good radar to not marry someone who might be having some of those characteristics.
What can we do differently? There was none of that talked about it at all. It was like, I get this question and this is elevated, but he didn’t really say what he would say, but by his tone and his body language, it’s like. Girl, this is your bed. Make it and love your enemy. And that means what you have to what Allow yourself to be abused.
Is that what Jesus says? I don’t think he says that.
Naghmeh: And as a shepherd in the underground churches, we don’t use the word pastor, we say shepherd or servant. As a shepherd, it would be, it’s sad to, if you imagine a shepherd, a herding sheep coming and saying. I’m hurting, what do I do with this?
And the way Paul reacted was he’s annoyed by this question. And they don’t ask about any other reason for divorce. It’s just like they talk about abuse and it just breaks my heart that here he’s supposed to be a shepherd. That’s su supposed to say to the sheep, like, why are you hurting?
What’s going on? Like, why do you wanna talk about abuse? Is someone hurting you? And instead saying, oh, how many times am I hearing this? I would be a rich person. And they don’t ask about other things of why they should divorce. It’s always abuse. And that’s the number one thing. It’s almost like he’s annoyed that the hurting sheep are coming to him about this.
And that’s what’s heartbreaking because a good shepherd that’s, it’s, I don’t know, we read about how a good shepherd treats the sheep versus a not a good shepherd. It’s an Ezekiel.
Julie: Yeah.
Naghmeh: And also a lot of people said it’s not straightforward. He doesn’t come out and say it.
I had a friend that said, a lot of criticism, I work in the Muslim world for Muslims, is that Jesus never said, I am God. That sentence does not exist, but it’s so clear that’s where our faith is based on, and this is so clear. He might not have exactly said it, but if you look at the entire context of what he said of you, look at where he’s leading with it.
It that’s what he said. That’s, he is a hundred percent saying like abuse has been elevated. Which makes me think having had, you shared this story, Julie Franklin Graham basically tell me just that physical abuse is the only thing that matters even then, it has to be like a lot for it to be considered abuse.
It really triggered me to think he’s kind saying the same thing. Like elevated means like emotional abuse, come on, psychological abuse, whatever. And a lot of women would tell you like, I wish I was physically abused and I have been physically abused. But the emotional is so much harder to deal with and understand.
And under the. Like pretense of Christianity. That’s so much more to unpack than when someone physically hits you, which is also horrible, which has happened to me. But it almost like he’s dismissing what I saw with Franklin. Like he’s dismissing emotional abuse, psychological abuse, spiritual abuse.
Like he’s saying, it’s elevated to a point where it’s just it’s all anything. You can, that’s what it felt to me when I listened to it.
Julie: I should just mention those podcasts with you. Some of the most pod powerful podcasts that I’ve recorded. And I encourage folks, if you wanna see how the Christian community is still responding, to the abuse in the church, I think it it’s a heartbreaking story, nme, but it is, it’s such an important story.
And the thing that gets me is that Franklin really just got off scot free. He just keeps doing his thing. He didn’t lose a bunch of followers. Like he, the way that he treated you was abhorrent. Abhorrent. And again, if you haven’t heard this whole story, but he encouraged you to bring Sayed back into your home with your children.
I just unbelievable just either sheer ignorance or so much pride that you can’t listen or he just doesn’t care. And, I can’t judge his heart. I don’t know his heart, but it’s, it was just absolutely tragic. Absolutely tragic. And I, again, I encourage people to listen to that podcast or your book is just so powerful called I Didn’t Survive because you’re the old person, the old non me a new person.
Yeah. You are. And what is it, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right? Yes. And you are a powerhouse. I am just honored to do anything with you because of the way you’ve come out of this. You’ve been refined by fire.
Naghmeh: Thank you, Julia.
I just love how the stories that are shared that the work that you do is actually undoing the harm, is bringing a lot of healing and light and life back to the church, which a lot of people I know attack you the same way that you’re doing the opposite. But it’s been so life giving and good for the church.
But I do wanna say if Franklin Graham, for me was an idol, I was this close to listening to him, I was packing to go on a retreat to Billy Graham Center with site because he wanted me to, on the news, he was talking all over the news saying, NME is gonna go to this retreat. And I really wanted to please him, like every fiber of my being, wanted to please the son of Billy Graham.
And God rescued me from not doing that. And now looking back 10 years hindsight, like a lot of things that I know about side, like my children. Would’ve been horribly harmed. I would’ve been possibly most likely dead if I would’ve listened to him. And so for Christ himself, for God himself, to speak to me through his words and say, no, I care about you as a person.
Like this is all garbage. Like that. You have to try to make the marriage work, that you have to reconcile that this is not me. Like I want you protected. I want your kids protected. And yeah, it was such a hard, that was another time in my life where I had to franklin Graham to me was the voice of God, to be honest.
Billy Graham was like, the Graham family was such, they were such a powerful and I travel with him. He would fly me on his private jet and so I’d become very close with him. And so it was God himself that was like, no, it doesn’t matter if it’s Billy Graham telling you this. That’s not me.
I don’t want you to do that.
Leslie: May, you’re saying something so important that I think the listeners really have to hear, and that is that I don’t think that. We’ve had the confidence sometimes as women to listen to God for ourselves, that we’ve elevated male leaders as the pastors or our teachers or the Bible teachers that we’ve listened to to tell us what God says.
And that’s fine. We can listen, but there is a Holy Spirit inside of us that God says every single believer gets female and male. And that we are to discern truth from error. And so that’s what we’re trying to do with Pastor Paul. We’re trying to listen to what he has to say and then check it against what the Holy Spirit affirms in our.
In our heart as the truth. Check it against what scripture says and the character of God. And one of the things that I think the mistake that the church has made, that they made the same problem, they made the same mistake in Jesus’s day, is they elevated an institution. Above the safety and sanity of the people.
So in the Jesus’s day, they elevated the Sabbath and they made all kinds of rules and regulations around the Sabbath. And if somebody broke it, they were in hot water. And Jesus broke it intentionally all the time in order to show the religious leaders that, hey. Healing someone is doing good. Yes.
Who wouldn’t rescue an ox or a child out of a well on the Sabbath? Even picking grain from my disciples who are hungry is a good thing, even if it’s on the Sabbath. And so I think the sanctity of marriage is true. I honor the sanctity of marriage. God made the marriage to be the safest and most trusting relationship that we could have to raise a family in.
But when that relationship is harmful and destructive, we have to understand that God calls us to steward the safety and the sanity of the people in that relationship. More than just keeping the relationship or the sanctity of marriage elevated above what’s good and true and right for the people in that
Julie: relationship.
And we’ve elevated scriptures about submission. I think over scriptures like Ephesians five, that gives us a picture of Christ being our husband. And what is the image is he give it, he gives himself up for the bride. That’s what he does. That’s the image. And yet we’ve made, number one, the wife submits to the husband.
It’s even like the hierarchy. The our image of male and female should be Trinitarian of God, the Father, son, and Holy Spirit. It diversity two very different pers or I’m sorry, three different persons existing in uni, in Unity together. And honoring one another. And instead we’re we’ve been willing to just completely pervert that image of marriage that God gives us.
For what? For submission. That’s why like when people look at the Trinity, they make it into hierarchy. It’s not about hierarchy. And yet that’s what we do, I think because of how worldly we are in our perspectives that it’s all about power. It’s all about position. And we’ve forgotten that’s not what, that’s not what relationship is in the church.
Naghmeh: It’s so funny that we. The pastors like Paul try to protect the church from the worldly influence, but actually this hierarchical thinking, yes, is the influence of the world. Jesus said, the lords of the world will Lord it the, the kings of the world, Lord, it over them, but not so with you, i’m the example, you become a servant. And so actually this whole hierarchy, it’s is the world getting into the church? It’s not calling out the abuse. That’s actually very biblical. That’s not the world. Getting into the church. The hierarchy that’s trying that is protected is, and a few of my really close friends messaged me and said, are you sure?
This is what he said. They started like defending the pastor. And I just wanna say something as I work with the underground churches, one thing that just became clear to me is I don’t think because of this hierarchy, we’ve learned to function as a body. So we get mad at a part of a body. That could be the eye, could be the prophetic part, it could be the ear.
We, we are like, why are you always seeing this or hearing this and or the mouth that speaks. We get mad at it. We’re in the underground churches. We’ve learned to work together and be like, oh, you’re the eye. What are you seeing? Oh, you’re the ear. What are you hearing? Oh, you’re the mouth speak or you’re, so if a hand’s not seeing it, it doesn’t like attack the.
Eye for seeing it. The hand goes, oh, I’m not seeing this. Let me rely on that part of the body that’s seeing it and function together in a healthy way. And I’ve noticed in the American church, the way the structure has been set up, we’re so disconnected as a body that when. Let’s say you’re a mouth, there’s a prophetic, definitely there’s a prophetic voice there.
People get upset, but instead of appreciating, wow, okay, I might not be the mouth, I might not be the eye, I might not be the ear, but I wanna have that because my body will function better if that part of what we do without eyes, ears, and mouth. What the hand wouldn’t know what, where to go, what to do. I think that’s another sickness I’ve seen in the church here is we don’t know how to function as a body and we attack the different parts of body that are actually functioning well for the health of the body because we’re not understanding, they’re just a different part.
And so I just wanted to, as I was trying to process like, why do close friends of mine even question, are you seeing correctly? I don’t wanna get upset at them and say, okay. Go back to how the fun the church functions in the underground churches. We rely on each other to be to different parts, but here I think we don’t understand it and we start attacking the parts that are actually functioning like they, they’re the way they’re supposed to.
So I just wanted to throw it out there.
Leslie: No lame. Do you think it’s because we’re women? Do you think that if a man challenged him, if, do you think if some of your pastors would’ve come up to Pastor Paul and said, Hey, we don’t agree with what you said. We think it was really off. Do you think he would’ve been more open to hearing it?
Naghmeh: Yeah, definitely. And it goes back to also what Julie said with the hierarchy in the underground churches. There is no. Elevation of a human being. There’s different gifts. There’s Pastor El, you’ve got the apostles, you’ve got the teachers, you got all this. So you’re able to grow a healthy as a body by rubbing against each other and saying that was wrong.
Call things out. But when someone’s elevated. And also one thing I felt at Calvary Boise, a hundred percent in Calvary Chapels is as a woman, I don’t have a voice. I don’t. And I’ve been in a system that I’ve stayed in that system thinking I’m just gonna, yeah, I’ve led tens of thousands of people into underground churches.
But I’m gonna submit to their version of what’s sin and what’s not. I’m gonna not have a voice. But it’s been really sad to even cry out, not try to be a teacher or pastor, but just cry out and say danger. Danger to the flock, and to be dismissed and not taken seriously because a hundred percent, because I’m a woman, if it was a man saying it.
A hundred percent there would be a different different reaction to it. Yeah I would say that’s definitely true, but I also think it’s what Julie said. The hierarchy is affecting it. You it’s no longer just a circle of the body functioning well together. Now you have a hierarchy that needs to be protected, which is very much like the world, which is functioning very much like the world.
Leslie: And he talks about that when he talks about leaders.
Julie: He
Leslie: does
Naghmeh: actually,
Julie: let’s keep playing, finish this clip up and then we have another clip that’s pretty revealing as well
Paul Leboutillier: as it relates to understanding perhaps grounds for divorce. And let me just say, abuse is terrible. It’s hard to even find the words to describe the devastation that abuse brings into a person’s life.
But as horrible as abuse is, you’ll notice that Jesus didn’t say love your enemies unless of course they abuse you. And then all bets are off. You don’t have to worry about loving them then, because he didn’t say that. In fact, Jesus said, love those who abuse you. It puts it into a whole different realm than just going by a sign and seeing Jesus says, love one another.
We gotta go a lot deeper than that. Jesus goes a lot deeper than that, and we have to follow him there, even though it’s uncomfortable because we’re following Jesus. We’re not following culture. We’re not following our own inclinations. We’re not following our own feelings here in this matter.
We’re following Jesus. Amen.
Leslie: I would say amen. And he missed the whole opportunity to go deeper and actually explain what that means to love your enemy. So he leaves this implication that if you’re an abused woman, this is horrible. So he’ll say that and then, hey, but Jesus says somehow you’ve gotta love your enemy, which he doesn’t define or describe.
He could have said, so maybe calling the police
Naghmeh: is loving the,
Leslie: is loving your enemy. Because it might jail, might do him good.
He doesn’t define what that might look like in an abusive situation. So he leaves the listener to fend for herself.
Yet he says, we have to go deeper. We have to do what Jesus says. And this is where the confusion comes, that he says it’s deeper, we have to do it. Okay. Describe it for us. What does that look like? And I think he could have done a really good job of saying, if you’re being abused at home. It might be absolutely in your best interest, you correct your child because you love them.
They may not be happy with you, but you’re doing it because you want their good. And so you might call the police on a destructive husband or an abusive husband, not because you hate him. But because you want to see him wake up, but he didn’t say any of that.
Naghmeh: Actually. My highest love for sight is when I drew the boundaries.
I was still advocating to get him out. People don’t see that. I cried, put my wedding ring to the God I gave it to him and I was like, please give him back to me. Like I’m drawing boundaries, but it’s gonna be an Isaac. You are like, I believe God was gonna give it back to me. And so it was the most loving thing I did.
I did it out, was so much love. Like I had no hate towards say I felt bad for him that he was in prison and, but it was the most like loving act that I did. And I, even the email that was leaked to media, I said that I am laying down, I’m hoping I’m fighting for sight in a different way. The spiritual bondage that he needs to be break free instead of the physical.
I, that’s what I was thinking. I was like, I’m fighting for him, for his. I like spiritual bondage. Now I fought for four years for his physical bondage. So it is the most loving thing. But I have to say this last part triggered me in a couple ways. First of all, it says pray for those who abuse you. I noticed that as you were sharing the verses it, that when it talks about abuse, it says, pray for those who abuse you.
And not necessarily it doesn’t use the, you should love them to pray for them, but it doesn’t necessarily say a relationship. It says pray for those who abuse you. But two things that triggered me because it was used against me was again, like we don’t wanna follow culture. As a someone who’s walked through not only abuse, but how the evangelical church has responded to it.
I, like what I’m hearing is it’s the liberal culture affecting you if you’re calling out abuse or if and then when he says not your emotion or whatever, it’s telling you to ignore your body. Like saying, this is not good. I need to get away. Danger. Danger. He’s saying don’t listen to that and don’t listen to the liberal interpretation of walking away from abuse.
So that’s what I heard that triggered me, especially the not listening to yourself, like your emotion. Because actually over the last few years I’ve learned that’s how God has been telling me that there’s danger. And I’ve been shutting it down because I’ve been told, yeah, don’t listen to that.
That like red flag that’s like God is like the Holy Spirit is like literally telling you to go like run. And you’re saying, that’s my emotion. I’m gonna shut it off.
Leslie: The Bible tells you in Proverbs 22, the prudent see danger and what submit to it. No. They flee, they take refuge. And so if you’re wise, when you notice that you’re in danger.
And another really important story is even when he talks later about leadership. Herod was seeking to kill baby Jesus. And God didn’t tell Joseph just love your enemy and stay in a submit to your enemy. He said, flee, go to Nazareth. Yeah. And Jesus fled. And so this idea of, hey, you just have to stay put and have this encounter and relationship and allow your enemy to continue to harm you, but you just still love them in a.
Wifely way is not what scripture t it’s not possible for your body to do that in a good way. It actually makes you sicker
Naghmeh: and I do wanna say that the, it was used against me that Jesus took abuse and died on the cross. That was actually some of some things people would tell me, but Jesus did that for, until then, he was like boundaries not letting be abused, but he only endured that abuse on the cross for a mission of salvation.
And we’re not Jesus. And so I’ve had people actually tell me that like Jesus took it and I don’t know. What do you think, Leslie? Because that’s been like something I’ve had other women being told, like Jesus took abuse.
Leslie: There’s a couple passages if we think about, and I’ll just give them real quick, in Luke chapter four, in John chapter eight, in John chapter 10, Jesus fled.
He escaped when he was in danger. And so when we think about loving your enemies, that’s exactly what Jesus did by dying in the cross because we were enemies of God. We were enemies of God. So while we’re still sinners, Christ died for us. And so he did that for not just to allow us to be abused, but for him to accomplish that fight against sin and against evil, and so that he could overcome evil with good by dying on the cross to give us an opportunity to repent and be saved.
And so that was only one time that he allowed that. He didn’t do it with everybody who tried to harm him. In every instance that people tried to harm him. And so we really need to look at the context. But these other verses that I just mentioned, Jesus didn’t let himself be hurt.
He didn’t let himself be captured. He didn’t let himself be harmed. He fled and he escaped and he went to a quiet place.
Julie: It’s so funny that the same people that I, the same people who are often. Proponents of this and paint women who cry abuse as liberal, are the same ones that are huge on Second Amendment rights and gun rights and being able to protect yourself.
The hypocrisy so often is just so glaring. I, but I wanted to mention another time, and maybe you re recall this because we published on it, but this idea of suffering abuse. That you should suffer it just, love your enemies. And part of, being persecuted is suffering abuse of your spouse.
That was a spouse by John Street, who was the head of the counseling department at the Master’s University in seminary. And he says it very clearly in one of his lectures that us women who are abused should suffer abuse just like a missionary in a hostile country Yes. Would suffer abuse, which is so perverse.
And again, we’ve published on it, this guy John Street, still out there teaching. When is the outcry gonna get loud enough that this is not okay, that these people get removed? When they talk about the world being so bad I hate to tell you this, but the world handles abuse better than the church.
And what does that say about us? Women who have been harmed in their marriages. I can’t tell you how many people I have interviewed who said the church didn’t help me, but the shelter down the street did.
Leslie: And yet they’re
Julie: supposedly so worldly. I
Leslie: just wonder, Julie, if a man went to the pastor and said, my wife whoa, totally controls the money.
My wife won’t let me, have a stay with the children. I can’t imagine the pastor saying, sir, you just need to suffer for Jesus and love her anyway. I think they would say, sir, you need to pull your pants up and get some boundaries.
Julie: Yeah, a hundred percent. A hundred percent.
Naghmeh: I just call it I know it’s the religious spirit, but pastors that.
I don’t know. Sounds a lot to me. Maybe it’s ’cause of my past, but Sounds a lot like Islamic theology to me. It really does. It really does. I’ve lived in Iran the early two thousands for five years. I work with Afghan women and it’s just, it’s the same message and I’m terrified. I don’t invite, I do a lot of outreach to Muslims locally to the refugees.
I don’t invite ’em to church because I am so terrified of what they’re gonna hear that they’re gonna say. This is not what you said, nme. This is sounding a lot like Islam to us. So I don’t invite them to church. I really don’t. If they were sitting this last Sunday at my church day, would’ve been terrified.
That it’s the same message.
Leslie: You’re right. Nachman. You think in some of the Christian nationalistic movements and Doug Wilson and all that’s going on, where a woman is just a body to bear a child, she’s an incubator for a baby, she’s not a person.
She’s a role. So if I’m just a role to serve a man’s needs.
Which is the idea of the MacArthur rights and others in some of the churches that we’ve heard that I’m just a role that I have no value in and of myself. I have no purpose in and of myself. Other than to function, to serve the needs of a man or bear children and raise them, then my dignity and my worth isn’t essential to my wellbeing.
It’s as long as I can function in serving the way I need to serve. That’s what God calls me to do. And I think there is this idea that a man is the one who’s, god’s image and the woman is in the image of the man and she’s subservient to the man. And if he wants to abuse her, she needs to just take it.
And that is very Muslim. That is very, it is. It really is patriarchal. That is very unbiblical. It really is. But we embrace that in some of our churches. Not all of them, thank you. But some of them. And that’s
Naghmeh: why we’re seeing so many people become Christians from the Muslim world is because Jesus is so opposite of that God.
Jesus gives value and dignity to women and the Holy Spirit gives the same gifts to men and women. And so that’s why it’s heartbreaking for me to invite a Muslim woman or someone who’ve evangelized to, who is a new believer out of Islam to a church because they’re gonna hear the same Islamic message that terrified them.
That if a man, that’s why in a lot of Islamic countries, like in Afghanistan, they’re covered is because the burden of not having a man stumble is on them for, whereas when I evangelize, I tell them, actually the burden is on the man. The Bible says if a man looks at a woman lustfully, he has sinned. And if your eye causes you to sin, to gadget out, so God is actually telling the man, you are responsible for your own sin.
And that is so freeing for Muslim women to hear. Because all their life they’re told cover up, put your hand near your mouth because your voice could be sexy. Do everything ’cause it’s on you not to have other people. Sin. And for them to hear the same message from the pulpit that it’s on you is terrifying to them because they’re, they’ve just been rescued out of Islam.
And I, it is for me, honestly, again, because of my background, it does sound like Islamic theology. When Paul was speaking, I was like, Islamic theology. He’s, these people are so much like we need to evangelize and we need to be careful with Islam coming and taking over America. I’m like, it’s already like the Islamic religious spirit has already taken over a lot of churches.
Yeah. And you don’t even realize it. You’re giving the exact same message. I went to mosques in Iran. It’s a lot of it is the exact same message of woman being made to be used by men.
Julie: And it’s misogyny. To me it’s the result of the fall. This is the Satan and there will be enmity between the serpent.
And the woman there will be enmity. And I just feel like ever since the fall. Satan has been there, there is a target on women. And it’s the same spirit. It’s the same spirit that is in control in Islam. It’s infiltrated the church. And until Christians begin to realize that this is a demonic spirit.
Yes. This is not a Christian spirit, that we are actually baptizing demonic words in Christ. And it’s wrong. It’s absolutely wrong. And it, I know those are strong words, but it’s true. This is not of God.
Leslie: It’s, it is.
Julie: This is not of God.
Leslie: I just wanna give Pastor Paul an out here as well as other men who might be listening to this, because I know I have said stupid things in public, and I’m sure you have, and you have as well, that we have said something that was wrong, that was in air, that was uncalled for, that was snarky.
It was unbiblical inappropriate, any of the above. Any of us could do that in foolishness or in ignorance, or in anger. And I think that, so we’re not expecting our pastors to be flawless and perfect and not make a mistake. My concern is when you went to your elders, when you went to Pastor Paul, when you go to a pastor and you say, Hey, I want you to really review what you said.
I really want you to rethink what you said. I know when people have come to me and said, Hey, Leslie I don’t agree with that. What? Did you say something that was off? And sometimes it was a little off?
Then own it. And just own it and apologize and deal with it. And that’s what good leaders do.
That’s what healthy people do in the body of Christ. Nobody’s perfect. Nobody knows everything about everything. That’s why we need one another. That’s why any of us can be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. That’s why we’re talking to each other, and that’s why we’re talking to you, because if we’re saying something off, we wanna hear from you.
But what I’m concerned about is that Pastor Paul and the leaders are not listening.
Julie: They’re not
Leslie: hearing,
Naghmeh: and my pastors who I have really had this lens on of they’re gonna do the right thing, failed me because they protected him with a lot of evidence they had, and decided to question me and gaslight me and say, is that what he really said?
And so that was even more heartbreaking for me because I don’t know, pastor Paul, he’s a, he was a guest. Preacher, but I’ve known these pastors and elders at my church for 25 years. So And they’ve known you? And they’ve known me, yeah. And that was the part where it just broke me was why didn’t you stand up?
Why did Calvary Chapel has this headship. So as men, why didn’t you stand up for me? Why didn’t you stand up for the women who were being abused? Why did I as a woman, have to be the only voice that say wrong? If you believe in that male protection headship, like, why have you not been doing that?
Like, why am I the one that is continually having to cry out for wounded sheep? Like, where are the men? And so that was what was heartbreaking. I’ve known all of these people that I name in my church for 25 years, and they know me. They’ve known me
Julie: yeah. We’ve referred to this other statements that he made, and it’s a clip that you had posted him speaking about leadership, and again, this just shows a really perverse view of leadership.
I wanna play it. And I just, I, shout out to Lance Ford who said, it’s the system stupid, and it’s the leadership system that we’ve propped up that is leading to so many of these problems. Take a listen to this and this, prime example, number one.
Paul Leboutillier: Some of you might be thinking, pastor Paul, I hear you saying that this one person is essentially responsible for the tone of the fellowship.
Isn’t that form of leadership dangerous? What if the pastor were to go off the rails and believe me, it’s happened. Here’s my response in every. Real type of leadership. There is a possibility of danger. If there isn’t a possibility of danger, you don’t have real leadership going on, and that includes leadership in the home.
God has also called the husband to be the head of the wife and the family as Christ is the head of the church. Is there a possibility of danger there? Yes. Has it? Has it ever become dangerous for families? Yes. So what is our response? What are we gonna do? How are we gonna respond to abuses and things like that happen?
The response of some people is to remove any possibility of danger. But can I just tell you that when you remove any possibility of danger, you remove any reality of leadership, what you end up with is no leader at all. You end up with a higher. And that’s not what you want in the home, and it’s certainly not what you want in the church unfortunately, a lot of churches have done that.
They’ve responded to abuses that have happened in the Christian Church. And so they’ve decided we’re gonna remove any possibility of any danger of this man. Any doing anything or saying anything or whatever that’s gonna potentially be dangerous. And we’re gonna just take that completely out of the equation.
We’re gonna remove that possibility and that’s their prerogative. They can do that if they want to, but I repeat to you again, when you remove every possibility of danger, you remove the whole role and possibility of leadership and you end up with something much less than a leader.
Julie: I know that both of you are probably chomping at the bit to say something.
I just wanna. Put this in context for those who aren’t familiar with Calvary Chapel churches. So Calvary Chapel churches operate on what’s called the Moses model. And according to the Moses model, which can I just say, Moses was an Old Testament prophet, he was not a New Testament pastor. But according to the Moses model the elder board, for example, they are not there to hold the pastor accountable or to even hear from God.
Moses, their pastor, who’s equated with Moses, hears directly from God, and then he communicates that vision to the church. And then the elders are just there to support this man and make sure that he’s healthy and all these other things. But that’s not about accountability. So in Calvary Chapel churches, they have elevated a model of leadership that makes the pastor a.
Really equates him with an Old Testament prophet. And it denies to me what’s right in Acts two, which is after the Pentecost, the gifts were given to everyone, young and old, male and female. Everyone hears from God now. It’s not just the prophet and it’s a perverse form of leadership, but this is the context of what he’s speaking.
And again, this is not just Calvary Chapel churches, it’s all of the ARC churches association related churches. The largest church planning organization in North America. They have the same model. A ton of charismatic churches have this model. It’s a perverse model. It is not a biblical model, but that is exactly what he is operating out of.
Ironic to me that he talks about the hireling because the higherling and you know what, I’ll leave it there because I know you’re chomping to probably say something about that. But it, the irony here is shocking to me because he’s talking about abusive behavior, which is what the hireling does, but who wants to go first? I know you’re both eager to, to chime in. I just wanna
Naghmeh: make the connection. He’s connecting leadership to danger, to abuse. He’s literally connecting those dots like clearly. There’s no like confusion. Leadership has to be dangerous. There has to be some danger. And then he says it a few times, danger equals abuse.
So that was shocking that he’s even saying that because there’s nothing in the Bible that actually, and he’s teaches this, pastor teaches that like leadership conferences to other pastors, so yeah.
Leslie: It’s
Like he uses words that you’re not sure how he’s defining them. Just like elevated.
Abuse is elevated, but it doesn’t really say what that looks like. Or when he says, love your enemy, let’s go deeper. But he didn’t really define it. He leaves it very vague and up to the imagination of a listener, but it implies certain things. And the same thing with this leadership and leadership has to be dangerous or you can’t really be a leader.
What does that really mean? Dangerous. How dangerous to who? And so he doesn’t really explain that, but it leaves you with a kind of creepy feeling. Because Jesus com warns us that there are wolves in sheep’s clothing and they are dangerous in the church. And that there are false teachers and they are dangerous in the church.
And the Bible also warns us that our leaders in the church should not have characteristics that are abusive. He’s very clear. You don’t lose your temper, you don’t, misuse your authority. Exactly. Or power, all of those kind of things. And so I’m not sure what Pastor Paul was referring to is that you can’t be a good leader without having some danger.
I think that. At least as I read the Bible, when you look at the whole context, leaders are to be accountable to one another and to the Lord. And Hebrews three 13, for example, says that we’re to encourage one another daily, lest any one of us, including leaders, become heartened by the deceitfulness of sin.
That’s how dangerous sin is, right? And so sin can be very deceptive, including our own heart. And so if we don’t have accountability and we don’t have responsibility to have people speak into our lives, then I don’t know how you can be a leader of biblical status according to God’s word.
Now, however, Calvary Chapel instituted that, I’m not sure that would be okay with Jesus if you’re, have no accountability and no responsibility for what you’re doing. And you can be dangerous. And that’s okay.
Julie: I think he’s interpreting leadership as power. It seems like he’s saying the, the leaders that aren’t dangerous, basically they have no power, you can’t be dangerous unless you have power. And so basically he’s elevating a very powerful model where the pastor is powerful and he can harm. And I think that quite frankly a servant, a shepherd, not a hiring who’s very concerned about their own ability to harm. Others would want accountability, would want checks and balances on their power, would want people who can, sit ’em down if they’re doing something that is harmful.
If we love people, that’s what we care about. But I, again, I think this guy has been so schooled in this model of the powerful pastor that. If you’re not that powerful pastor, you’re not really a leader at all. Which is, it is, and again, leader like, I don’t know how many times I say this, but Lance says it all the time, leader is not in the Bible very much.
You know what’s in the Bible Shepherd servant. It’s the exact things, NME that you said. You call your pastors in Iran. That’s what it means to be a leader according to Jesus.
Naghmeh: I do wanna say also it felt to me like grooming because one thing I saw in my own life and lives of women who’ve been under abuse is you get a high tolerance for abuse and you develop a high tolerance for allowing it.
And it seemed to me when he was saying it, it’s it it brought back a lot of the same words my ex would use, my abusive husband is, it seems like he’s almost like grooming his congregation to accept abuse as okay. And as okay from leadership. And so they don’t show. Show reaction when it happens.
Oh, this is supposed to be normal. Oh, like he’s normalizing. He’s, he used the word dangerous and abuse together a few times and he said a leader he’s almost normalizing to a point where when it happens, the church member is oh, okay, this is just being a leader and is it just seemed to me like grooming the congregation to accept bad behavior from him and other leaders, whether it’s in, in a home or because a side would use the same language.
And I it took me years to realize, oh, he was grooming me to accept that a leader has to be this, and a leader has to be powerful or else you’re taking away their, God-given mantle vision, anointing direction, mantle anointing. Yeah. So it just seems like he was grooming. He’s grooming.
That’s
Leslie: so powerful. N may and I think that’s really true. If we don’t know our Bible ourselves. These are our teachers, these are our leaders, and they are telling us this is what a leader does. This is how a leader is. And if he doesn’t, if he’s not showing his strength, and that might be scary for you.
Get used to it because that’s what a leader does. And so then when it gets scary for you, is this leadership or is this abuse? I mean it’s really getting confusing And how many people don’t read their
Naghmeh: Bibles?
Leslie: Yeah, of course they don’t.
Julie: Yeah. This is why we all need to be like the Brean who even with the Apostle Paul didn’t just accept what he said on face value, but went back and searched the scriptures to see if what he said was true.
I mean that that’s our model. That is our model. When something hits us and we say, wait, is that true? Go back and look at the whole council of scripture at what it says. And we do. We have to be immersed in it. And so friends we are. Running out of time. But this has been a fascinating discussion.
I wanna give you, just any closing thoughts that you may have that you didn’t get to, to add so far in our discussion.
Leslie: I think that God’s word is really clear and n me, I think you said it really well, is that if we’re listening to people to represent God to us, but we haven’t looked at who God is ourselves.
We may have a very distorted view of who God is and what God says. And so I would just encourage, if you’re a woman out there and you’ve been abused, I’ve talked to so many women just like you, not gonna may who want to honor God, love Jesus. They wanna do the right thing. And so when a pastor comes and says the right thing is to love your abuser and stay married and no matter you know, if he kills you, that’s gonna honor God more.
And I’ve heard that. And they believe that. And I have had a woman saying I’m just like a sheep led to the slaughter just like Jesus. And I’m like, Jesus was a sheep led to the slaughter. You’re not called but it. When your pastor says that and you respect your pastor and you don’t know better, it’s so easy to get confused.
And so just. Like we said, start to look at Jesus yourself. Start to read the Bible yourself, because I think you’ll find a very different picture.
Naghmeh: That’s what I would end with too. When I was really, my faith was really shaken. I went back to scripture because if you’re not in the word yourself and you’re not in communion with God, it can really mess you up.
And you can believe a distorted gospel that has some good, like the devil and a lot of poison injected into it. And so we have to go back to who God is through scripture, through prayer to, through our our own walk with him and the past faithfulness. And that’s what I had to do this past few days when, because of the ways the leaders acted to towards abuse I was shaken, my faith was shaken, and I had to go back to Jesus.
I had to go dig deep in scripture again, pray. And so I that’s what I would end with is we as Christians, as followers of Christ, we really have to get back to knowing God ourselves instead of just being told by leaders that might. Be abusing that power for their own benefit. We really need to be reading scripture to be able to discern good from evil.
And the Bible says that end of Hebrews five says, meat is for the mature Christian who through practice has learned to discern be good and evil. And so as we mature, as if we wanna mature from milk, drinking milk, Christians to eating meat, the Bible says that we, through practice, we gotta be able to discern between good and evil.
And and so that requires going back to the word of God. We’ve gotta read the word of God in order to discern some something that might appear amazing, but is so dangerous. Like the pastor Paul that preached this Sunday at my church. So yeah, I would end with that.
Julie: Ladies, thank you so much, NME and Leslie, your insights as always are just spot on.
And I love your heart. Love your heart for God. I love your heart for women and even for this pastor who is really, I don’t know if he’s deceived or what’s going on. But again, we would just ask you, pastor Paul please, amend what you said. Please repent for these things.
You have harmed people. You have harmed people. And that’s not what the Good Shepherd does. It’s just not. So again, thank you ladies, and God bless you.
Naghmeh: Thank you. Good luck. Thanks for doing this.
Julie: Thanks so much for listening to the Roys report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Royce. And just a quick reminder that the Roy’s report is listener supported. So if you appreciate these podcasts and want them to continue, would you please consider donating to the Roy’s report?
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Restore 2026 Video: I’ve never seen anything in this like this in my lifetime. We need to be talking about spiritual abuse and religious trauma. This is a place where it’s safe for those who have been hurt in churches. It is also a place for people to learn more about how to respond to those situations, and it is much needed walking into the room, even taking the platform today felt so.
Safe. I, there was no nerves, there was no anything. I just, there is an atmosphere of support and comradery and love that’s here. I think that it’s really become a kind of a refuge. It’s become a green pasture for people to come find one another. And so many times there’s a solace, there is a restoration just in finding someone else that’s experienced what you’ve experienced to know that there are people from all over the country, all over the world who have experienced these same things and they’re uniting in Christ, but healing.
And I just think it’s a beautiful experience. It’s not that we don’t love the church, it’s actually that we do love the church very much. And that’s why we’re having these kinds of conversations. It makes me feel less alone when I can talk with someone who’s had a shared experience like that. It was so cool to see, the room is packed and folks are eager to engage.
They’re encouraged, but they’re also encouraging one another. And I believe that this is so good because the need is so great. This conference is not only for those who’ve been victimized and hurt, but it is for people who want to be the answer now to what sadly, the church in the last 30 to 40 years has covered up and those who want to be.
The on the cutting edge of how God is moving to vindicate to show his justice, to bring his healings. I just so believe in the power of story and we need to unite. And so I just would welcome any survivor to come and know that you’ll be loved. You’ll be heard. You’ll be seen. And this is just a safe place for all of us.
Julie: We celebrate what God is doing. We celebrate that the, those that have been hurt and wounded by the church, that there’s a place that they can come that’s safe and they can find healing, and they can find community and they can be ministered to. We celebrate that. It is so amazing and at the same time. We grieve that, right?
How sad is it that we need to have a conference for people who have been wounded by the very place, the very institution that should be ministering, healing to them.