Thread by @LuhmannAudrey

When a bishop in @The_ACNA claims they are doing their best to respond to & handle a case of alleged abuse, I feel my stomach knotting up.

I had a front-row seat to witness @ADChristOurHope Bp. Alan Hawkins "handle things." At the time, I trusted him. 🧵

https://x.com/LuhmannAudrey/status/1938792178396103118

What did Alan Hawkins do that was so harmful?

He played chameleon to all, making each of us often-opposing promises that he knew we needed to be patient & to trust his intentions.

Alan never imagined we'd find each other & one day compare notes. He lied. Constantly.

When we brought up contradictions, Alan always explained why it was "out of his control." He was doing his best to protect survivors, he assured us. He wanted the ACNA to be a safer place for his grandchildren. The Church's witness was at stake.

He knew what we needed to hear.

Behind the curtain, he contacted clergy and diocesan standing committees across @the_ACNA, poisoning them against survivors. In private conversations, he told people, "I will do whatever it takes to preserve the ACNA. That is my job."

So what did @ADChristOurHope Bp. Alan Hawkins do in particular to produce a horrid investigation process? How did his work undermine the pursuit of truth & reform?

In 2021, Mark Rivera survivor Joanna Rudenborg published questions she had previously submitted to @the_ACNA's Provincial Response Team (PRT).

Using her numbered points now provides an excellent framework to study Hawkins' failures.

https://x.com/ladyjessicahaze/status/1459252829084794885

Alan never allowed us to read the contract w/ the investigation firm. We never knew exactly what the scope was, what timespan it covered, or who was being examined.

By 2022, my report included Alan, yet his name was absent from @HuschBlackwell's report.

https://x.com/ladyjessicahaze/status/1459252837263634432

The scope would have also disclosed the level of evaluation the investigation firm was invited to give.

We would later see that it was "just the facts, we’ll take it from here.” Alan and @the_ACNA chancellors wrote the contract.

Per the @HuschBlackwell report's introduction:

We were never given a definition of “survivor.”

Many of the summary letters received back from @TeliosLaw in 2022 by those interviewed said nothing of substance. Were our reports counted?

We never found out.

Alan assured us that he was consulting with leading experts in trauma-informed investigation. He said he was receiving ongoing guidance, but those experts later disclosed one brief meeting each with him.

It was a lie.

https://x.com/ladyjessicahaze/status/1459252842208788481

Alan told us repeatedly that @the_ACNA was considering hiring @netgrace_org.

That was never true, we would later find out, but survivors and advocates gave Alan our hope and trust. He used that currency and spent it extravagantly.

https://x.com/ladyjessicahaze/status/1459252846096879618

Now, years later, Alan’s lies are preserved in multiple legally-recorded calls. From other cases Alan has “handled,” it is clear that he says what he perceives the survivor needs to hear to be patient & comply. All will be known, Alan assures. He paints pictures with his words.

Alan never gave us a clearly outlined process nor timeline. He always said “soon,” and then waxed eloquent about all the "hard work" his team was doing. They were all volunteers, he reminded us. We must be patient.

https://x.com/ladyjessicahaze/status/1459252847615250434

After resignations from the Provincial Response Team in Jan. ‘22, we learned we weren't the only ones disillusioned. We also learned that the PRT as Alan had described it to us was a lie; he had sidelined the trauma-informed experts from the beginning.

https://x.com/artofbreathing/status/1632886519903170562

Transparency?

Where to start… nothing was ever transparent. Not only that, Alan swirled everything, making it impossible to know “up” from “down.” When I would protest, “But this doesn’t make sense,” Alan would ask me to be patient.

“It will soon.”

https://x.com/ladyjessicahaze/status/1459252850819665920

Alan said repeatedly that the ACNA would be providing professional care to survivors as well as financial compensation for therapy costs.

What we would find out later: the PRT's trauma experts were not even told when survivors reached out.

https://x.com/ladyjessicahaze/status/1459252854670053376

These 3 women - @autumnvandehei, @artofbreathing, and
@Christen_P5 - discovered the truth when a lay person published her email to the PRT that they had never seen before. Alan Hawkins and Provincial Office staff had gate-kept almost all outreach.

facebook.com/share/p/1DoP3U…

Days later, following a flood of resubmitted reports and outreach to their personal email accounts, the three Provincial Response Team members resigned publicly.

acnatoo.org/acnatoo-news/p…

The response from Hawkins and the remaining PRT:

"We disagree with assertions in their resignation letter and wish they had discussed those with us before stepping down."

Narrator: They did, repeatedly. And they have all the receipts.

anglicanchurch.net/a-statement-on…

How did Hawkins define spiritual abuse ("ecclesiastical abuse of power," as he called it)?

He didn't, and wouldn't.

https://x.com/ladyjessicahaze/status/1459252860466565120

Experts Justin Humphreys & Dr. Lisa Oakley define spiritual abuse as "an ongoing, systematic pattern of coercive control within a religious context." @ACNAtoo is aware of 67 spiritual abuse cases in the UMD alone.

There was no public report for that portion of the investigation.

Independence?

Per above, Hawkins did not bring in experts for ongoing guidance, and he and @the_ACNA chancellors wrote a secret legal contract with @HuschBlackwell that prohibited any evaluation of gathered facts.

https://x.com/ladyjessicahaze/status/1459252866246275072

Here is the conclusion of the @HuschBlackwell's investigation report:

Hawkins claimed that survivors would be informed with weekly updates after PRT meetings. They were not.

He promised to share the rubric by which firms were being evaluated. He did not.

He promised that survivor's information would be kept safe.

https://x.com/ladyjessicahaze/status/1459252877428334593

Instead, Alan Hawkins personally contacted bishops, clergy, & lay leaders around @The_ACNA & shared sensitive details that gave false narratives & undermined survivor credibility. It also gained loyalty to Hawkins as he drew in more & more leaders who "knew the real story now."

When @ladyjessicahaze wrote her Nov. 2022 letter to the PRT, she was aware of five @The_ACNA dioceses with open cases of abuse.

What we *didn't* know at the time was that Alan Hawkins was involved in the "handling" of several of them. None of them ended well.

https://twitter.com/1297024524572143616/status/1459252893945532418

In Jan. 2022, @ladyjessicahaze authored another letter to Hawkins, the PRT, and Abp. Foley Beach.

"I will not participate in this empty pageantry," she wrote.

acnatoo.org/2022-0106-joan…

"I have been raped and abused and gas lit and dismissed and patronized quite enough by ACNA leaders for one lifetime. Do what you please with your denomination..."

"... I know there are people in ACNA leadership who are convinced that I am out to burn the ACNA down. I couldn’t if I wanted to, but nor would I need to. It is already burning. What I’m actually doing is discovering the fires faster than you are."

"I will not take part in any more of your performative 'survivor empowerment' rituals.

I will leave you to your corporate theater and continue to focus my energy on actually empowering your denomination’s abuse victims, one by one, survivor to survivor."

Three and a half years later, @ladyjessicahaze's words echo.

And I sit in silence, pondering this grave reality: that a non-Christian rape survivor has demonstrated more care and integrity than @The_ACNA's "Christian" leaders.

Matthew 23.

@ladyjessicahaze @The_ACNA @threadreaderapp unroll