![]() ![]() The school’s Student Life Guide puts it this way: “Moody Bible Institute believes that humanity came from the hand of God with only two sexual distinctions-male and female-both in the image of God, and emerging from one flesh with the unique physical capacity to reunite as one flesh in complementarity within a marriage.” Men are considered to have been gifted with leadership, making them the godly heads of household and the authority on scriptural teachings. Many of the dozen former students I spoke with criticized the school’s teachings regarding gender. The reasons for this are both formal and informal, though all are colored by the evangelical belief in complementarianism-that men and women are different according to God’s perfect design, meaning the genders have separate strengths and weaknesses that together reflect the image of God. Take men that have the gifts and train them for the work of reaching the people.” As Moody himself said upon the institution’s founding, “I believe we have got to have gap-men to stand between the laity and the ministers men who are trained to do city mission work. Women may have enrolled alongside men at Moody from the start, but for all intents and purposes, men-students and faculty alike-have traditionally been regarded as spiritual authorities, both inside the school and in ministry more broadly. Jenkins, a co-author of the bestselling apocalyptic Left Behind series, is an alum, as are a host of influential Christian authors, pastors, and activists. Though the student body is small-the school’s total enrollment last year was 2,870-it’s a central training ground for future generations of evangelicals and church leaders. Over the following century, it grew in prominence as a leader among Bible schools Moody runs a vast “network of Christian radio stations, affiliates, Internet stations, podcasts, and related programming,” according to its website, as well as a publishing house. Moody, a passionate evangelist who sought to educate young people in the ways of God. The school was founded on the Near North Side of Chicago in 1886 by D.L. ![]() “If you want to be a godly person and go into ministry, you go to Moody.” It is essentially the “Harvard of Christian schools,” says Moody graduate Anna Heyward. Wohlers knew she wanted to attend Moody Bible Institute since she was a little girl.Ī lot of people like Wohlers-young, ambitious, and evangelical-set their hearts on Moody Bible Institute at an early age. But if a girl gets assaulted, it’s her fault.” ![]() “You know, if a guy has a porn addiction and a sex addiction, you should pray for him. “All the responsibilities are on the girls to be pure,” says Anna Schutte, who graduated from Moody in 2020. It is time, they’ve decided, for others to witness what they see as a systemic failure to address sexual misconduct at the school that describes itself as “the world’s most influential Bible college,” the place “where God transforms the world through you.” It is time to expose the people who were tasked with protecting them-under the laws of the country, under the laws of God-who at best looked the other way, at worst blamed them for the violence perpetrated against them.Īnd finally, it is time, they argue, to move beyond the purity culture that has defined and infected Moody-and imperiled women on campus-for far too long. “The school encourages transparency and vulnerability with each other,” Wohlers tells me, “but the truth of the matter is people don’t open up to other people about what’s going on in their lives, and then when you do open up to administration, you get shamed and blamed.” Now, more than five years later, Wohlers, the once-starry-eyed teenager who’d dreamed of going to Moody since she was 10, whose father was an alumnus, whose ambition was to go to Central Africa to spread the gospel, is one of 11 women who have decided to make public their experiences with sexual abuse at the college. The dean also promised to speak separately with the boy and tell him to back off. She gave copies of the letter to a professor, the Title IX office, and Dean of Students Timothy Arens, as well as her parents, for documentation’s sake. So, she tried to be systematic: She spoke with the public safety department at the school, and she wrote a letter to her ex, demanding that he leave her, her family, and her friends alone. Her ex-boyfriend seemed undeterred by her pleas for him to move on. She was afraid for her own safety, and the safety of those closest to her. It was the fall of 2016 when the sophomore at Moody Bible Institute, one of the country’s most prestigious evangelical colleges, started the process of getting help. For more articles read aloud: download the Audm iPhone app. ![]()
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