How to Survive When Whistleblowing is Deeply Personal

Photo by Mubariz Mehdizadeh on Unsplash

Jedidiah Hartley said he spent much of his life trying to help his father, Bob Hartley. Jedidiah served with his dad’s ministry that had close ties with the International House of Prayer-Kansas City (IHOPKC). He worked for his dad’s business. He even wrote his dad’s story in a published book.

But then last fall, news broke that IHOPKC founder Mike Bickle was accused of using prophecy to abuse women. The faith community that was foundational to Jedidiah’s family’s life crumbled.

But that wasn’t the end of Jedidiah’s difficulties. Several women accused Jedidiah’s own father of alleged sexual abuse, including one who said the senior Hartley also using prophecy to abuse her. Then Jedidiah’s mother alleged publicly that she was one of Bickle’s sexual abuse victims. Jedidiah sat in the middle of all that, wondering how in the world to help now.

So, he decided to speak up.

“I am speaking truth because I feel a degree of responsibility for abuse victims of the past and of the future,” Jedidiah said. “Plus, this is my story. This is the reality that I have lived in and experienced my entire life.”

Jedidiah reported his concerns about his dad to church leaders. He shared on social media and to The Kansas City Star that he believes his dad gathered information online and through pastors to create so-called prophecies that were really cons. And Jedidiah spoke to me for an article I wrote for The Roys Report.

But in Jedidiah’s personal life, things were about to get messy.

“I had to be the whistleblower on my own father,” he said. “It's just so messy to speak out against abuse in general. But to speak about abuse within your own father. . . it just feels like a lose-lose situation.”

Thankfully some of Jedidiah’s family have been supportive of his whistleblowing efforts. But Jedidiah is no longer in contact with his father, including no longer working for him. Jedidiah said some members of his extended family have criticized him for his decision to speak publicly.

“They have conveyed this sense of betrayal, that I have betrayed my father and therefore have betrayed the Hartley family,” Jedidiah said.

There are so many reasons why blowing the whistle on abuse in your workplace, community, or church is deeply personal. Maybe the abusive pastor you’re reporting was the one who officiated your wedding and is now in your wedding picture sitting on your mantel. Maybe your parents are still leaders or members in the organization that is causing harm. Or perhaps your kids’ best friends are the kids of the offender.

You’re facing not only the loss of a job, a calling, an identity, but also a church, a spiritual family, perhaps blood family. You may have to leave or may be kicked out. The nearly inevitable separation leaves jagged edges all over your family, life, and soul.

“It has that ripple effect feeling where every time you’re like, OK, I got through this first wave of emotion, there’s another one coming,” Jedidiah said.

The power of moral certainty

Communities where abuse festers may also place unfair guilt and even self-hatred on victims, said Jedidiah.

“A lot of the victims are taught to internalize and feel guilty about the things that are done to them,” Jedidiah said. “It actually gets the victim to loathe themselves for the things committed to them.”

Abusers and the people who enable them often use victims’ vulnerabilities to manipulate them into silence, Jedidiah said. Then others often simply don’t believe victims who do decide to speak out, Jedidiah said.

Jedidiah said he was worried already about his dad’s struggles before women began making allegations of sexual misconduct and abuse by the senior Hartley. One particular woman’s description of the alleged abuse left no doubt in Jedidiah’s mind.

“When you're really familiar with someone, you can recognize a family member from far away just by seeing their shadow and their outline and how they walk,” Jedidiah said. “I don't know this woman who's speaking out against my dad, but I hear her account, and I see my dad in her account.”

When he decided to speak out in solidarity with the women, Jedidiah said he held onto a strong sense of what was wrong—the alleged abuse, and what was right—speaking up about it.

“What the situation rested upon is this ability to stand firm, not be overwhelmed with guilt, to have the conviction that this is something that I need to do, and I need to say it, and have that sort of strength to do it, to not blink, to not back down from it,” Jedidiah said. “It is so intense. I totally can see how it makes so much sense why people don't speak up because if you are not in a place of moral certainty, you're going to be totally bowled over by these individuals.”

The power of people standing with you

As Jedidiah spoke out publicly, he said more women came forward to share their heart-wrenching stories directly with Jedidiah. And then Jedidiah began helping with a Facebook survivor group of others who left IHOPKC with concerns.

But he was also often on the receiving end of support.

“I can look back on this last year and be like, OK, it was super hard, but I was able to, with the help of others, keep my head above water,” he said. “That is very, very meaningful to me.”

Jedidiah, who teaches chess to kids as a job, said he’s also learned strategies whistleblowers can use. He and Gracia, who I recently interviewed for my substack, have formed a nonprofit, Rise and Reclaim Advocacy Group, to help survivors and whistleblowers.

“The heartbeat of the organization is hearing the stories and doing triage for the victims of religious abuse, specifically, because the churches are often not there and not a resource for them,” he said. “To have someone who is a victim of abuse on this scale hear that their story matters is legitimately life-altering.”

He also hopes Rise and Reclaim can push for changes in religious communities where accountability is lacking.

“The non-denominational charismatic world, in general, has zero accountability,” he said. “I genuinely think that could change in my lifetime.”

One of the key principles of helping survivors is to stand firm with them while others are firing at them, Jedidiah said. It’s something he knows all too well from the deeply personal cost of his own whistleblowing.

“The deck is stacked against those who are speaking up,” he said. “To come into that space and know how to handle myself and absorb some of that and do some strategic things to hold abusers accountable so that their bite back against the people who are speaking up against them is diminished is a very worthwhile and noble cause.”

(Disclaimer: This is my own personal opinion intended as general educational information and not meant to replace legal or psychological advice for your specific situation. The opinions of people I interview are theirs.)