Trigger warning: discussion of sexual abuse
The latest entry in the sexual assault scandal that has rocked the Southern Baptist Convention took a new twist over the weekend. Earlier this year, Austin Stone Community Church, a multi-site SBC church in Austin better known as “ Austin Stone” or simply “The Stone,” fired its longtime worship leader after a series of inappropriate text exchanges came to light. Further investigation revealed that those text exchanges dated back more than a decade—and one of those exchanges involved grooming a minor.
Well, late Friday night, that minor victim spoke up publicly for the first time, revealing that it wasn’t just grooming. It was full-on sexual abuse. In so doing, the victim raised new questions about how this was handled.
The story begins on Feb. 4, when Austin Stone’s elders learned that worship leader Aaron Ivey had carried on “inappropriate and explicit ongoing text message exchanges” with another man. Ivey was fired the next day. A week later, in a message to Austin Stone’s members—or “partners,” as they are called—Austin Stone’s leadership revealed that an internal investigation had unearthed “multiple similar instances” of text exchanges that demonstrated “a very clear pattern of predatory manipulation, sexual exploitation, and abuse of influence” dating as early as 2011.
The first of those exchanges was the most disturbing of all. In 2011, Ivey began a series of inappropriate texts with “a minor male outside our formal programming.” Besides inappropriate texting, Ivey’s interactions with the minor involved “indecent exposure” and alcohol and drug use. In other words, classic grooming. While it urged the adults who exchanged inappropriate texts with Ivey to contact the Austin Police Department, the leadership team reported the text exchanges with the minor to the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.
Fast forward to Friday night. Independent musician Logan Daniel Garza, known professionally as “Wildman,” took to Instagram to reveal that he was the minor who had been abused by Ivey.
Garza revealed that he had been the victim of grooming and abuse at Ivey’s hands from the time he was 15 until he was 20—essentially all of Garza’s teenage years. It started when Ivey was in his mid-20s—old enough to be Garza’s dad. Ivey began with what Garza now recognizes as “textbook” grooming behavior—showering him with attention, hanging out together, pushing him to smoke and drink, and “sexually explicit conversations.”
Around the time Garza turned 16, Ivey exposed himself and rooked Garza into doing so as well. So began what Garza describes as “a pattern of sexual manipulation” that continued while Ivey—a man twice Garza’s age, old enough to be his dad—was supposedly serving as Garza’s mentor. It sunk to another level when Ivey molested Garza. This went on until 2014.
While Garza realized two years later that something was very wrong, it took awhile for his mind to catch up with what his body was telling him. The scales started coming off his eyes when he began working on staff at Austin Stone and was in the middle of a training session by MinistrySafe, an organization which helps churches understand what sexual assault and sexual abuse smell like. Even then, he still felt the need to protect Ivey and kept quiet about it for almost another decade. It was only when two other victims spoke up that the scales fell off all the way.
While processing his feelings, he wrote a song, “Sam Huntingson,” about another case of a minor being sexually assaulted by a church leader. Ironically, Garza found out “Sam” had been tracked down by way of a call from Ivey. Garza recalled Ivey telling him that those closest to “Sam” knew that there were was a “dark/broken/twisted” side to “Sam” that we didn’t know about. Turns out that Ivey was describing himself to a T.
There are two big reasons why this is really unnerving. First, Austin Stone was Garza’s childhood church—which is about as far as you can get from Austin Stone’s claims that Ivey’s interactions with him took place “outside our formal programming.” This word choice is even more questionable in light of a blog post earlier this year from former Austin Stone staffer James Gomez. Not long after Ivey’s firing, Gomez revealed that Ivey was at least the third Austin Stone ministry leader in six-plus years to be pushed out for inappropriate behavior with a minor.
In 2018, Larry Cotton, the head of Austin Stone’s internship and residency program, resigned after it emerged that he’d known about Jules Woodson—the face of the #ChurchToo movement—being sexually assaulted by disgraced pastor Andy Savage, but failed to tell authorities about it. According to Gomez, Cotton’s departure was portrayed as “a humble and Godly decision” to stand down so as not to “hinder the gospel going forward”—an incomprehensible line seven years removed from the Jerry Sandusky scandal. Two years later, according to Gomez, the youth director at Austin Stone’s flagship campus in downtown Austin was forced to resign for having an inappropriate relationship with one of his high school charges. And now we know that Ivey groomed and molested a teenager whom he was supposedly mentoring. This has the distinct flavor of a systemic problem.
Second, and more seriously, I’m very concerned for Ivey’s four kids. According to a 2021 article in The Washington Post, Ivey and his wife, podcaster and author Jamie Ivey, have adopted three Black kids and raised them alongside their biological son. The thought that a man holding himself out as a minister groomed and molested a teenager would be enough to send a chill down anyone’s spine. That he did so while raising four kids of his own is even more horrifying. The youngest of those adopted kids is still a minor as of this writing.
All things considered, if there isn’t already an investigation into Ivey’s behavior, as well as the larger climate at Austin Stone, there damn well better be. If it’s legally possible to bring Ivey to justice, we need to find it. Add this to the long list of reasons why there should not be a statute of limitations for sexual assault.