BLOOMINGTON (IL)
WGLT, 89.1 [Normal IL]
February 28, 2023
By Ryan Denham
Eastview Christian Church Senior Pastor Mike Baker resigned Saturday amid a review of allegations of an “abusive power dynamic and coverup by church leadership in 2016.”
The senior pastor of one of Bloomington-Normal’s largest churches has resigned amid allegations of an “abusive power dynamic and coverup by church leadership,” church officials said. The pastor, Mike Baker, said the allegations are “completely not true.”
The controversy spilled into public view Sunday, when Eastview’s elders – a group of seven church leaders – addressed church members and shared a lengthy statement on the church’s website. They acknowledged allegations of unspecified abuse dating back to 2016 when Mike Baker’s adult son left his position at Eastview. Mike Baker resigned Saturday after reaching an “impasse” with the elders about how to deal with the situation, the elders said.
Barton Shaw, chairman of the elder board, told church members Sunday that an outside third-party review – what they call an “audit” – was underway.
“To be transparent and to answer questions, that there needs to be accountability from this board, to you, to the staff, to everyone – that we are gonna do our best to find what we need to know, and we’re gonna use outside experts to objectively help us do that,” Shaw said. “This is not gonna be fun. It’s not gonna be easy. But you need to know we are resigned that this is the thing to do, and we’re gonna do it.”
Barton Shaw, chairman of the elder board at Eastview Christian Church, which has two campuses in Bloomington-Normal.
The exact nature of the allegations was unclear Monday; Shaw on Sunday described them as “serious” and involving inappropriate sexual behavior, misconduct, and abuse, and that church leaders (including Mike Baker and the elders) were accused of covering it up. Baker said “that’s a complete misrepresentation of what was going on,” pointing only to infidelity. “It’s libelous and slanderous,” he added.
The elders’ 980-word statement did not reference any plans to include law enforcement in the review. It encourages victims to contact the elders directly.
Normal Police Chief Stephen Petrilli said he wasn’t aware of any police reports related to Eastview employees dating back to 2016. “As with any citizen in our community, if anyone chooses to file a criminal report with our agency, we will initiate a report number and investigate as needed within the confines of the law,” he said.
It’s unclear who is doing Eastview’s “independent third-party audit.” The elders did not respond to a request for an interview from WGLT.
In a series of videos on social media, Mike Baker said the accusations against his son were “completely not true.” Baker said the accusations in 2015-16 were related to infidelity, and that he had asked his son to resign because of them. Baker said his staff had looked into the matter, limiting his own knowledge of what happened.
“I was completely in the dark. I didn’t mislead anyone, because I didn’t know anything. Should I have dug deeper? Maybe,” Baker said.
The elders said the outside audit began after they received a letter in July 2022 making allegations related to Baker’s son, Shaw said. The initial audit report was completed and “was very favorable, but it wasn’t deep enough and didn’t thoroughly cover the things we wanted and that we believed were necessary,” Shaw said.
The elders say that deeper audit – which would expand to include workplace culture, power dynamics, and harassment – was being set in motion when accusations involving Baker’s son began to recirculate on social media, including a Facebook post last week that was widely seen in Bloomington-Normal. The elders say they’ve also since come across an email message “that may be deemed as abusive.”
“These things were being acted on,” Shaw said Sunday.
At this unfolded, Eastview’s elders and other church leaders removed Saturday’s episode of “Mike Talks,” a video series featuring Mike Baker. Very soon after, Baker resigned. Elders say they did not ask for his resignation.
“Then and now, the Elders believe that for the health of our church, a third-party involvement is necessary to adequately address allegations,” the elders wrote. “Mike remains steadfast in his sincere conviction that there is nothing to investigate.”
Mike Baker said that’s not the whole story. He said the church elders “would not allow me to defend my family,” also citing the removal of his Mike Talks content.
The elders said they first became aware of allegations of possible abuse back in 2016, when they received two letters. The elders said it was determined then that the “purported authors of those letters denied that they wrote the letters and stated they had not been victims of abuse,” they wrote. Church leaders were “not successful” in determining what actually happened, Shaw said.
The elders now say they were “not aware of everything that transpired” involving Baker’s son’s departure from Eastview years before.
“We hope through engaging in a transparent review of past and present failures, we can both heal and strengthen our church,” the elders wrote.
Another church elder, Adam Ghrist, also addressed Eastview members Sunday. He said he joined the elder board just last month.
Ghrist is a former state and federal prosecutor now working in private practice. He said the elders would be honest with church members as the outside review unfolded.
“I’ve been on both sides of the truth-seeking process. The crucible that is truth-discovery is hard. It’s messy. But it works,” Ghrist said. “I would not stand here, sit here today, if I did not believe that what I came into – which is not what I thought I was coming into – was being handled well and being handled appropriately. They brought a former prosecutor onto this elder board – with no irony. They’re seeking truth, and that’s continuing.”
Mike Baker became Eastview’s senior pastor in 2007, following Gary York’s retirement.
Baker faced criticism in 2017 when he delivered a sermon on sex that asserted that homosexuality is a choice, and he also seemed to suggest that non-traditional families aren’t as effective as families that include a father and mother. Members of the LGBT community, a local women’s group, a Bloomington City Council member, and members of other Christian churches said they found Baker’s sermon “hateful” and “offensive,” particularly to LGBT people and non-traditional families.
Eastview is an independent, non-denominational church. Its largest location is on Airport Road in northeast Normal, with a second campus in Bloomington. Eastview also recently purchased the former YMCA building just south of downtown Bloomington to open a new community center.