Chris Sohl has been the Youth Minister at Ashland UCC Church. I had always been impressed with him, when I was going to the church, because of what looked to me to be valiant, forthright efforts to do good work in the community, especially with young people. He is the nephew of the Associate Pastor, Paula Sohl, who was one of the first people in a position of authority to begin the effort to cover up Brad's bad behavior. This is not a post about Paula. We have covered her role pretty thoroughly on the site. But I consider it quite significant that Chris even responded to the notice that L sent out about the site, because for the most part, no one has wanted to engage in any way about what has happened.
Not that Chris's response was curious, or an attempt at a dialogue. In his emails, he claimed that L "had not been wronged in any way", and that she should "get over it!". He also claimed that we were engaged in slander. This is a notion that I think many people may carry, so I am glad he brought it up. It gives us a chance to address that issue. I responded to him in an email, which I include, below. This is how we will continue to handle substantive questions, comments or objections that people have, to the material on the site. Our aim is to foster honest inquiry into how we all behave with each other. What do the patterns of behavior that we have witnessed from folks at the church reveal about the agendas that hide behind words as we navigate our relationships with each other?
So here it is...
Chris,
I want to address your responses to the publishing of our website: ashlanducckarma.info
Your second email refers to the definition of “slander”. Here is a good article on that topic for you. It would be a lot smarter for you to read up on this subject before you accuse someone of something you don’t understand.
The crux of the issue is about whether or not the statements we are making are true. We can back up everything we have said.
So here is the situation: the church could bring a lawsuit against us for defamation. And, in fact, so could any number of people who are mentioned on the site who don’t like what we have written about them. However, there is quite a high bar that would have to be met in order to win such a suit. The truth is, the church, and all of the leaders of the church, have only the flimsiest of arguments for why they did what they did. None of these arguments would hold up well under any kind of reasonable public scrutiny.
And that brings us to the next point. At the very first moment that there is even a hint about taking such action, we will bring this story to the local paper immediately. We are not looking for a fight. We never sought to damage the church. The damage is self-inflicted, and you should begin to wrap your mind around that.
But if you, or any of the leaders of the church wants a battle over truth we will gladly engage that battle. And we will win. It will be the Park cellist and the devoted volunteer of the church against the bullying leaders of the church. And people don’t like dishonest, bullying leaders, as you well know. The entire tragic saga of what happened at the church is nothing more than a pile of aggressive nonsense that would never have withstood the light of the day if it wasn’t subject to the most vicious manipulation and dishonesty imaginable by people who are hypocritical to their core.
Here is the story line, which, for all I know, could go national:
An elder white male who enjoys an iconic reputation with the congregation of “progressive white Christians” propositions a volunteer, who immediately rejects his suggestion that she “get to know him better - ask him questions about his body!”. She writes about it in her journal, but dismisses it as the usual male boorish behavior. As time goes on, he passive-aggressively manifests his resentment about the rejection with various kinds of non-cooperation until he escalates that behavior and begins to engage in genuine, certifiable workplace bullying, stopping her work, triangulating against her with the church leadership ( Becky Martin) and intimidating her by saying that her work is not worth much and suggesting that she is angry at him for all this because she is on her period.
This will play very well, I am sure, with the current interest in sexual harassment, disrespect toward women, and workplace behavior. It is a story of interest, to be sure.
If the church had a “zero tolerance “ policy towards sexual harassment, it would be Brad that would be removed from the church. If the church were an actual business, workplace bullying would not be tolerated and the perpetrator would be fired. Certainly we would have grounds for a suit against the church in that case. But the church is a church. Everyone knows that all kinds of devious behavior goes on in churches, without any form of accountability.
But wait! It gets worse. Your aunt, Paula Sohl, was the first to jump into the breech to cover this up and squelch all criticism, even any discussion of what had happened. This was the pattern of every church leader, including Christina, including the whole Council, including you: to either pretend that nothing happened, or actively work to confuse what had happened, mainly through character assassination. This included, literally, presenting us with an order to gag us from any further discussion about the conflict, with the threat of removal if we did not follow the rules.
In what "social justice" universe that you travel in, Chris, is working actively to bury discussion, to censor words, like "bully" - which is what Christina did - to forbid others from talking to you, which is what your aunt did - in what "social justice" universe that you travel in is that OK? Doesn't that look, smell and feel much more like the kind of authoritarian rubbish that is oppressing our whole country right now?
Later, after your aunt and Christina had already begun implementing the strategy of silencing and shunning of us, along with the much needed gossip and lies to make it all work, Brad stated to a whole group of people that the “reason why L had to go” was that she "would not go along” with his decision to make building changes that were illegal at the time, because the City of Ashland had not approved them. He said he just wants to go ahead, and he is entitled to, and no one is going to stop him. We have an eyewitness to that statement, as well.
So, the answer to your assertion about slander is: everything I just said here is actually true. This is what actually happened. There is no case about defamation that is going to do anything but waste people's money on lawyers. And I am pretty sure that the last thing the leaders of the church need to do is to continue to suck the congregation dry of funds that have already been employed to cover up wrongdoing they could have just admitted to at the beginning. Christina's assertion that she spent 25% of her time on "conflict resolution" is just a bald-faced admission that she was milking the congregation for sympathy about a problem that she herself was instrumental in causing. No one should be fooled by this.
And yet, all of you have been.
How do you think all this is going to play in the court of public opinion?
Here’s my point. I don’t need to go on. We aren’t slandering the church. Just the opposite has taken place. What we are doing is engaging the public in a discussion about truth, about the excessively harsh and severe - yes, ridiculously authoritarian ( if you can't see it, you're blind) - handling of a stupid offense that could have been easily met with honesty, courage and common sense.
Instead, Rev. Kukuk, in particular, decided to make this an existential crisis for the church. Therefore, that is exactly what she has on her hands. She has created a kind of hysteria, of which you are now a part.
The church is obviously not what it was, because it has failed a series of tests. The test is: if you want people to believe that "all are welcome", and you even call that "the radical welcome", how much of an exponent of that are you, actually? How radical is your welcome? When someone disagrees with you, do you say they are being "harmful" and shame them? Or do you listen and try to find out what the trouble actually is? This was a question for everyone, and most people failed. Rev. Kukuk chose to lead everyone down a very dark path, and the church as a whole will continue to suffer the consequences of it’s own moral failure.
And here we come to your role, Chris. You have chosen to become a very naive cheerleader for the church. I have seen you step up and step out to, obviously, try to carry good into the world. I don’t know you personally, but I have admired your efforts to mentor younger people and to function in some way as a messenger for faith in a broken world. In that, I have seen you actively try to be a better person, which is all anyone can ask of anyone else.
But that path is a long path, Chris. It never ends. You have not arrived, nor are you a font of wisdom about what to do in this situation. This is a crossroads moment for you. You can continue being naive and act as it if it is not even possible that anyone at the church could have acted with bad intent, or you could own the fact that people do lie, people do have the capacity for aggression against others, and that includes everyone; all of us, no exceptions.
That would be an act of great humility and also, great courage.
If you could start there, you might have some ground to stand on. Then, perhaps, you could begin to engage some questions about what is true and what is not true. What is true is that none of our brains are big enough to know everything. We need each other and we need to actually talk to each other to find out what the best ways of moving forward for everyone concerned are.
If there is one thing that is true about what has happened at the church, it is that no one, not your aunt, not Christina, not the Council, and not even you, wanted to talk about this situation honestly. In fact, everyone’s response to the situation was to aggressively escalate attempts to keep the truth from coming out. That is the only consistent thread in the whole saga. The “attempts at mediation” are not true and are just a cover for the overwhelming and manifestly evident motivation of everyone concerned to bury the conflict and not be held accountable in any way whatsoever.
I think I covered your assertion about slander. You made two other points and I want to address both of them.
First you implored L to “get over it”...
Dude. You really have to be kidding. First of all, there is nothing to “get over”. The Ashland UCC church has taken a public stand that we are banned from their property. That is a fact. We are not going to get over that. It is not in our hands. You could maybe help them to “get over it”. That might be good work on your part.
All of you have made us out to be some sort of “enemies of the church”.
Brother! We took vows, in your church! To “fight evil and oppression”. I am sorry if it hurts your feelings that those characteristics actually live right next to you in your church. But that is what is going on. You could get on our side. Take up the fight. See if you can get them to “get over it”. We aren’t going to bite you or anyone else. When did “progressive Christians” turn into such cowards?
Then you said, “you have not been wronged in any way”. Come on, man. You are not stupid. Take a look at the facts. Have a real conversation. Be a real man. You don’t know what you’re talking about, and it does not become you to be so self-righteous and smug.
This reply will go on our blog, on the site. It is our intention to have a platform for public discourse about the important issues of honesty, integrity, self responsibility and accountability. We are happy to continue the conversation with you, transparently. But I would suggest that you prepare better arguments, if you really want to defend the church. They really don’t have a leg to stand on. It is a bit of a sinking ship over there. You might want to consider getting on some dry land and making some sober decisions about what to do next.
Daniel