the Empathy List #146: On the Downfall of an Influencer Friend 😔

About The New Evangelicals controversy, cancellations, and para-social betrayal.

Hello friend, Liz here.

I am worried for my friend Tim. You may have already heard the news: my influencer friend, Tim Whitaker of the New Evangelicals, has recently been accused of misconduct (or abuse? what’s the difference?), related to his individual behavior and organizational leadership.

I have dragged my feet responding to this news, mainly because I do not think my voice is generally helpful or necessary when it comes to controversies like these. But this story has weighed on me like few others have.

Partly, this is because Tim’s voice is loud in the post-/ex-evangelical political space which I inhabit (and probably you do, too), and it matters when one of our own goes under.

I have also collaborated with Tim in the past, and so as weeks have passed, I have felt greater concern about Tim’s public reaction to the report, both for his own sake and for the sake of those who publicly alleged his poor behavior. And I feel that I should take the findings from the past month seriously.

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What’s the Controversy with TNE?

A New Evangelicals’ employee/contractor angered Tim while they traveled together for work, and so Tim drove the two of them recklessly to a video shoot in a way that made the employee feel unsafe. When they arrived at their destination, the employee had a panic attack in the car, and Tim apologize profusely. Afterward, the contractor said accepted his apology. But later, as the event continued to linger in her mind, she confronted him again about the unacceptability of his driving and the silent treatment he’d given her. Tim did not respond well to this second confrontation, though did apologize and acknowledge wrong-doing, suggesting they bring the issue to the TNE board-of-directors. The employee declined this offer, but accepted an offer of mediation. So Tim engaged a mediator he knew through his podcast connections to help them work through the conflict. However, Tim’s friendship with the mediator meant that the mediator was on Tim’s side and less open to the employee’s point-of-view. In fact, the mediator seems to have minimized the contractor’s allegations, decrying the seriousness of the original conflict, and describing the issue as the the employee’s own past trauma, which caused her to have an outsized reaction the original reckless driving home now incident.

The employee realized that the bigger issue than the original incident, however, was that organizationally, Tim worked isolated from his board-of-directors in such a way that they could not hold him accountable when events like this occurred. The employee began to feel that Tim’s behavior toward her became punitive to the point that they could no longer work together.

But since the initial mediation was unsuccessful and both the accusing contractor/employee (and another contractor/employee with her) had submitted their resignations because of the conflict, the New Evangelicals board-of-directors did eventually get involved, initiating an independent investigation surrounding the accusations. All parties involved in the aforementioned conflict agreed to participate fully with that investigation, including Tim and those who had initially reported his inappropriate behavior. Those findings were then given to the board in mid-February, to Tim and others involved with the organization in early March, and then were released to the public in mid-March. Since then, the report has been circling social media, resulting in several negative articles and division within the New Evangelicals community (some of who have stoutly defended Tim, and others who have decried Tim and TNE board-of-directors’ behavior).

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A Caveat or Two

Before we go further, I want you to know that I have not talked to Tim or to the victims/accusers about any of these events, so the thoughts below are purely based on my own reflections.

And, having read the report in full, I have no idea how the allegations and recommendations in the report should translate into next steps for TNE or anyone else. Do these allegations rise to the level of seriousness that would require removing Tim from leadership? Do they rise to the level of “abuse”? Do these accusations mean that the founder and his org are now unworthy of continuing to exist? I cannot make up my own mind on these points, so I cannot tell you what to think either.

Those who have read my newsletter for any length of time will understand that I tend to approach these kinds of events with a nuance that can be uncomfortable for some.

We readers/viewers like our pundits sure of themselves. Anything less feels like both-sidesing, like we’re either in the business of predatorial cancellation or that we’re protecting those within our tribe unjustly.

But I am no pundit, friends. I’m just a middle-class suburban millennial white lady, who types at her desk in her basement in Aurora, Colorado, trying to make a living doing what she loves to do in between kid pick-ups and drop-offs. (BTW I am writing, but I am not currently living off of those writing wages, as my recent tax return would prove. 😅) That is, in fact, the reality for many writers, including those whose journalistic instincts have earned them unpleasant nicknames like “vampirous f*cks.” (Unfortunately, the profits earned by most journalists cannot touch the fame and fortune of many of their subjects.)

All this to say, my stance about Tim and TNE is very nuanced. Which means that if you’re wanting me to settle the question for you, I’m not your girl.

But first, some context about how I view an event like this one…

Illustration by Natalie Wei for The Talon

Fear of Cancellation is a Universal Fear

As a writer who speaks frankly online, I have experienced the fear and pain of the online mob of trolls who have determined to wreck you.

Women are primarily attacked for their bodies. I cannot count up the number of times a dude has tried to out-argue me, yet more often, I have been called fat and ugly. I have been told that my husband feels trapped in our marriage (because who would stay with ugly old you???). Commenters have told me they hope my children get kidnapped. I have been called a dildo, and I have received and/or seen far too many dick pics for my lifetime. 🥶 (For reference, 1 photo is too many.) Though I have never received death threats, I know those who have. So I pay monthly for a subscription to scrub my address and phone number from the internet to keep myself and my family members safe.

In short, I am a cute-fat white woman writing words online that do not admit the acceptance of the patriarchy, white supremacy, and evangelical bullshit, and surprise! Many people find that threatening. These are mostly the voices of conservatives who dislike my leftie opinions.

Yet in recent years, I have also noticed myself fearing those from the other side, my fellow progressives. I have feared the moment when those “on my side” decide that my writing is somehow homophobic, racist, or privileged, and therefore, cancel-worthy. And I have experienced this: I was have been labeled a “karen” before, and frankly, that diminutive hurt worse than the others combined.

I have no doubt that my writing has crossed lines I never meant to. I hate to think that my writing could have hurt anyone, or “led them astray,” or caused doubt, confusion, or distress. I write for exactly the opposite reasons—I want people to feel accompanied, to experience the “me too” moment of empathy while reading, and to feel that same empathy for another fellow human. Yet I have come to realize that how my work is received by others is outside of my control. I cannot control the tides of zeitgeist any more than I can control how one single person perceives my words. I can only write.

So I have settled my fears of cancellation by determining to be constant. Sure, the mob may one day come for me, but even so, I will still be here, tapping away on my keyboard, whether I have 100 readers or 1,000. I plan to outlast the trolls. 😉

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I have written about cancellation in the past, by the way. You might enjoy it!

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Para-Social Relational Pain

Another aspect of this particular controversy surrounds the para-social relationships we have with influencers, artists, and those we consider “celebrities.”

Like many of you, I have experienced spiritual abuse from church people in authority. I also have a luggage cart full of family dysfunction that I pull around everywhere I go; typically, it does not feel so heavy anymore, thanks to a decade’s worth of therapy. But when controversies like this occur, I remember the pain in my body.

Likewise, I have watched how others in the “deconstruction” and “church abuse” space have reacted to the New Evangelicals’ report and its founder’s misconduct. As followers have tried to metabolize news that their favorite exvangelical influencer has, in some way, betrayed the values he (and they) hold, they express anger, frustration, confusion, distress that can seem outsized for how little they are connected IRL to this person and organization.

And so influencers and artists may decide these reactions are unreasonable. Why would so many people feel hurt and/or personally involved in their conflicts? (“Get a life,” one different influencer wrote to those who expressed deep feelings related to TNE’s controversy.)

The truth is, public life is complicated. Though we may engage with Tim and other influencers anonymously, in a para-social relationship in which the influencer will never know the names of all those with whom they relate, these para-social relationships are real relationships. I know I’m leaning against the tide on this one, but I believe that these relationships do hold real emotional weight for us, the audience. If not, why would it matter that Bill Cosby was a serial rapist?¹ I could mention hundreds of artists in Western culture’s recent history who have been outed for crimes or misconduct. And once they are outed, how then do we treat their art? Do we continue to allow them to influence us? For example, do we still listen to Michael Jackson, watch Woody Allen films, read Harry Potter? If the artist is so terrible, does that taint the work? Can we separate the art from its creator? Do we even want to?

I myself have engaged the personal struggle of reckoning with these fall-outs. And each of us likely settles questions like these on a case-by-case basis, weighing the immorality of the artist against our love for the art that they created, deciding whether the crime matters more than the enjoyment and inspiration the art has brought to us. I do not believe the answer to these questions are one-size-fits-all.

Further, these questions are so fraught because we feel that the artists we have come to love and trust have betrayed us. The art they made in the public eye created a sort of contract with us, and when we invested in their creations, we entered the trusting relationship that exists between artist and audience. Which means that whether they ever knew your name, whether they meant you to view or engage their art and content, the contract is real. And so is the betrayal. You may never have the IRL conflict to prove it, but these para-social relationships still hold a meaningful place in our interior lives as contemporary, media-obsessed humans. (I have no space or desire to discuss the merits and harms of media obsession itself, so we’ll have to content ourselves with the fact that media obsession is our indisputable reality.)

What I mean to say is, the para-social pain that events like this cause—the feelings of betrayal, hurt, denial, fear, anger, etc.—that pain is real, and it is worth considering.²

Those of us who have experienced such a failure of trust between the artist and their audience hold within us the remnants of every past failure we’ve witnessed, too. These ghost betrayals follow us around, which is why even allegations without teeth it can still affect how an audience engages that artist. Because as hurt humans, we remember how this goes. We’ve heard this song before, and we can predict what comes next, so our heart insists.

This does not make the audience’s pain or experience more important or more real than the pain and experience of victims. But I do mean to say that if this has affected you, that’s reasonable. Betrayal leaves a mark.

Illustration by Golden Cosmos for the New Yorker

The Case at Hand

That being said, when I consider a case like this one—my friend Tim, the allegations against him, and the victims who have experienced harm by him—I must evaluate the available information as transparently as possible. So I want you to understand that, to me, actions matter most. The words someone says can sound great, but their actions speak more truthfully. I cannot measure motivation, and I cannot measure an objective reality. I do not know what happened exactly between Tim and his accuser. However, I can examine the investigation done, Tim’s and the accuser’s actions as recorded there, and the investigator’s conclusions. I can also examine the way Tim and TNE have responded to the public outcry. This is the information available to me.

So I want to return to the report, the independent investigation performed by an outside Christian advocacy agency, which involved 15 interviews with 12 witnesses.

Are the allegations credible? Yes.

First of all, I see the allegations about Tim’s actions as credible for many reasons. I’d like to address one in particular. The account of the original driving incident has ballooned, according to the original allegations, and some on the TNE board and elsewhere have suggested that this means the witness’s/accuser’s perceptions are not credible (as the “mediator” suggested in the investigation’s report, the witness’s trauma response means that her account of the original driving incident is unreliable. In other words, that the fact that the accuser experienced abuse in the past means that her perceptions about the seriousness of current situations cannot be trusted.)

However, based on the limited information provided, I believe doubt is unwarranged, and I agree with the conclusion of the investigators:

I also find that this reasoning from the report convinced me of the accuser’s credibility (RV = the person who first brought allegations):

(Page 56)

RV sought to resolve this conflict in private with Tim and the TNE board over many months, as confirmed by “multiple witnesses.” (And like many whistleblowers, RV has paid a price for going public.) Yet even those who disputed her perceptions did not doubt her truthfulness.

Further, I believe her expectations of Tim and TNE were completely reasonable, especially because of the “high standard” set out by Tim and TNE in its mission statement:

(Page 76)

Yet, the allegations are not my main concern: Tim and the TNE board-of-director’s response to the allegations are.

I believe the original allegations matter less than the behavior from TNE that has followed the original reckless driving incident and the release of the report that closely analyzed TNE’s founder and organization. What has emerged in the past month is a narrative that undermines, minimizes, and denies the first inappropriate (but not unforgivable) behavior and, by proxy, the trustworthiness of the one who brought the allegations. This level of defensiveness concerns me.

Frankly, I care less that my friends act righteously at every moment, and I care more that, when they f*ck up, they do whatever they can to make things right with those they’ve hurt. That includes publicly and privately confessing fault. That includes, perhaps, stepping out of the public eye for a time. That includes following every single recommendation of the investigatory team.

We all f*ck up. But we do not all submit to accountability. We do not all accept the consequences of our actions. We do not all create the space needed for genuine repair. We do not all honor the humanity of those with whom we disagree, even those who may be seeking to harm us.

Most of the time, when leaders blow it, they try to hide, pretend it never happened, or ghost the one who accused them (whether in response to a right or wrong allegation). Minimizing and speeding past an event, however, is not the way to heal or to restore trust. (See

Tia Levings

’s wise words.)

For me, what hurts the most about this controversy is that I’m still not sure if Tim has truly taken ownership of his fault—which is not only driving recklessly, but also diminishing the experiences, contributions, and expertise of others besides himself, as expressed by multiple witnesses. I also feel concern about Tim’s anger and a version of self-aggrandizement that seems to resent and undermine oversight, even as he claims to seek it.

I admit that it is exceptionally tender to have your life measured so minutely in the public eye. That may not be fair. We all have parts of our lives which we know do not represent who we truly are and who we want to become. In my interactions with Tim, I have come to respect and like him. I consider Tim to be a good man, one who has been generous with me, and from the minute we met, I experienced a kinship with him. Reading his own account of these events in the report, I felt for him and could see things from his side. He has done much to try to repair with his accuser, including submit to this probing investigation.

Yet I cannot ignore the investigator’s conclusions either. Below you’ll find screenshots of the report that I found most helpful in determining how to view this conflict between Tim, TNE, and one of TNE’s employees. I will leave it to you to determine what you think.

However, for the sake of TNE‘s community, so many of whom are survivors of abuse within the Christian church, I urge TNE’s board and Tim to take seriously the findings of the report and to do whatever they can to rebuild trust with their community—not just for their audience, but for themselves.

Practically speaking, a first important step recommended by the investigators is this:

“The provision of care, support, and funding to assist RV in her healing from the harm caused by the misconduct discussed in this report.” Compensate RV and W1 for any harm endured due to speaking up about their experiences.

As far as Tim’s role, I pray that Tim takes this opportunity to continue to grow into a mature and caring human, even if he disagrees with the allegations, even if he disavows those who brought them, and even if he ultimately rejects the report’s findings. Even if/when I lose his friendship, I continue to hope that he will seek to become a trustworthy man who mirrors the character of Jesus, as I hope for all of my friends and collaborators in this space.

Yet I would suggest that the way to prove trustworthiness is to lead with humility, not defensiveness. As the investigators counsel, TNE leadership must continue to “explor[e] Christ-like processes for receiving criticism and developing a culture of listening distinct from shutting down when challenged.”

And so, speaking directly to Tim, I want to tell you that in being open to accept your faults in the community you have built, you can prove your integrity. I hope and pray that you will do so.

Photo-Illustration by Martha Morales for The University of Texas at Austin

A Bias and A Warning

Before I give you the excerpts I’ve promised, however, I want to address a couple more thorny aspects of this internet drama. The first centers on the question of identity:

Tim is a white cis-het male.

And that means that most of us who assess this case (as Christian lefties) are prone to be biased against him. Because, yes, the white male cis-het patriarchy has done so much harm—to themselves, to LGBTQ+ folks, to women, to minorities, and to women minorities especially.

Of course, none of us experience the phrase ”the white male cis-het patriarchy” as a generality. I understand intimately that when I write that phrase, specific men come to mind, specific men in our real lives, and also specific men who hold power in our churches and in our nation. These white men likely hold power and influence that you and I do not have, that we may have been denied. They may have power over us. They may have stolen power from us, intentionally or not. They may have been our abusers.

No wonder the phantoms of whiteness and maleness have so much power to make those of us of other identities feel afraid, angry, and vengeful. We have lost much. We have been told the lie that we are less, and we have perhaps even believed it. And we blame the ones who told the lie.

For that reason, I have seen many people online posting about this controversy in a tone that I can only describe as gloating. Or perhaps it feels fairer to these folks to call their tone one of unsurprised cynicism. They rejoice—or perhaps roll their eyes into the back of their heads—that one more of this identity has been felled, that one more white man has been cut down. Duh, of course, thank goodness.

I feel sick writing those words because I myself have been tempted to revel in self-righteousness when others fall, especially those white males who have hurt me.

But I would like to warn us all that this attitude is not of God.

When I was slowly finding a way to follow Jesus outside of evangelicalism, one of my guiding lights was the question, how does God treat sinners?

I know that question sounds SUPER DUPER evangelical, but what I mean is, does God hate the sinner? Does God shun Her enemy? Does God refuse to sit at the same table with those who hate Them? Does God scorn the dirty rotten sinner, or does God equally grieve the harm and dysfunction we have caused and never stop seeking restoration?

How each of us answers that question, I believe, will tell us exactly how to act toward the actual human beings behind events like these.

(By the way, how we act toward an organization’s failures is different than how we treat the person who has failed. And whether we allow ourselves to continue to be influenced by an individual who has failed is also a separate question.)

For myself, I believe the answer to the question of how to treat the people behind this controversy—both the accusers and the accused—lies in the story of the shepherd who leaves the flock of 99 to seek the one sheep who has wandered off. I believe the psalmist’s words: God’s presence and love will follow me all the days of my life. Because God’s love is relentless, and I pray that mine will be, too.

I recognize my own temptations toward self-righteousness, self-aggrandizement, and self-defense, some of the same temptations it seems that TNE has succumbed to (I’d be happy to be wrong about this). And for myself, I pray that I will continue to have dear friends around me who will tell me when I’ve f*cked up and will not let me get away with it. We need each other.

Be relentless in your truth-telling, and be relentless in your love. That is the way of Christ.

Thanks for reading, my friends.

Warmly, Liz Charlotte Grant

P.S. I have purposefully removed from this email anything that could be construed as self-promotion because I do not want to benefit from this distressing situation in any way. Again, I never want to use another’s pain for my aggrandizement. I urge all of us to examine our motivations in telling stories like these, and to continue to walk in love and truth. I will not be putting this email behind a paywall, although I may limit comments. (TBD)

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Tell me: how has this TNE controversy affected you (if it has)?

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Notable Excerpts from the TNE Investigators’ Report

(Individual 1 is Tim Whitaker. RV is the anonymous original accuser. W1 is the secondary anonymous accuser/witness and also a former contractor of TNE.)

(from page 56)

(page 57)

(Page 58)

(Page 59)

(Page 61)

(Page 72)

(Page 75)

(Page 62)

(Page 66)

1. By the way, I am BY NO MEANS saying that Tim = serial rapist Bill Cosby. I doubt that Tim’s victims/accusers themselves would even make that comparison, and if they did, I see that as profoundly unfair. I am simply naming some of the most notable para-social relational pains that I myself have experienced in the recent past, those that have caused me to stop and consider my own relationship to these artists and their art.

2. Please hear me when I say, I am not equating the pain of victims with the pain of those who watch the fall of their favorite exvangelical influencer!! Those are not the same. And I feel deeply for those harmed IRL by this experience. In fact, I believe a friend of mine is planning to start a go fund me for those who spoke out. I’ll share a link when that’s available.