by Matthew Pertz, News Editor
Author and Memphis pastor Andy Savage is under investigation after a woman accused him of sexually assaulting her while she was a teenager in his church.
On Jan. 5, Jules Woodson published her account of a coerced sexual encounter with Savage in 1998 when she was 17 years old and Savage was serving as Youth Minister at Woodlands Parkway Baptist Church, located on the outskirts of Houston. Woodson claims she emailed Savage seeking an apology on Dec. 1, 2017, and waited a month for a response before publishing her story.
After purging offenders from the halls of Hollywood and Washington, the #MeToo movement has turned its magnifying glass on the church, exposing a culture often unprepared to deal with charges of impropriety. Christian leaders are struggling to balance the justice-seeking nature of a secular movement with the biblical motifs of forgiveness and redemption.
Savage, a father of five young boys, doesn’t maintain the same profile as evangelists like Joel Osteen or Franklin Graham, but he is now a member of the public consciousness because of his and his church’s responses to the allegations. Two days after Woodson published her story on Watch Keep, a sexual assault survivors’ blog, Savage tearfully read an apology letter to his Highpoint Church congregation, confessing to a “sexual sin” but stopping short of the term “assault.”
Texas law, governing where the incident took place, defines sexual assault as nonconsensual if the perpetrator is “a clergyman who causes the other person to submit or participate by exploiting the other person’s emotional dependency on the clergyman in the clergyman’s professional character as spiritual adviser.”
“I never wanted to minimize anything that’s taken place” Savage said during the service. “I accepted full responsibility for my actions…. I never sought to cover this up.”
The congregation gave Savage a standing ovation, which many highlighted as a poor response considering Woodson was still seeking closure. Highpoint bills itself as “a perfect place for imperfect people,” and Savage said moving back to Memphis “seemed to provide enough space for both of us to heal.”
Chris Conlee, lead pastor of Highpoint, said, “I know when you support Andy in that way, you also support Miss Woodson.”
Savage serves as teaching pastor for Highpoint Church, meaning he is the church’s most frequent preacher. He is currently on paid administrative leave while Highpoint investigates his conduct. The church says its probe into Savage’s behavior is scheduled to conclude this month; a separate probe into administrative policies has no timetable.
