This coming week will mark 10 years since tapes surfaced of Donald Trump telling “Access Hollywood” host Billy Bush that he could treat women any way he wanted–even “grab ’em by the p*ssy”–because he was a celebrity. For a time, it looked like it would sink Trump’s campaign. But he was able to hold on in large part because evangelical leaders didn’t back down from their full-throated support of him. They told us that his remarks didn’t matter nearly as much as his conservative platform which they fully supported. For the same reason, they haven’t backed down from him even though more than two dozen women have accused him of sexual assault.
I believe that this is largely because a number of religious right luminaries are of a generation that sees sexual assault as a sin to be forgiven, not a monstrous crime. That mentality is a big reason that sexual assault frequently gets swept under the rug in evangelical circles. A stark reminder of that mentality came yesterday, when a pastor in Kansas took a picture of himself posing with Michael Tait, a former contemporary Christian music megastar who has been exposed as a serial sexual predator.
Tait was a fixture in CCM for some four decades, first as one of the front men for DC Talk in the 1980s and 1990s, then as a solo artist before joining Newsboys as their lead singer in 2009. At his height, his standing was comparable to those of Justin Bieber or Dave Matthews.
However, in January 2025, Tait abruptly left the band. The reason why became clear in June, when investigations by Julie Roys and The Guardian revealed that multiple men and teenagers accused him of grooming them, plying them with drugs, and molesting them as far back as 2001. According to The Guardian, Tait’s drug use and sexual misconduct were “the biggest open secret” in the CCM world.
By the time The Guardian’s investigation had dropped, Tait had confessed to years of sexual assault and drug abuse.
The band subsequently admitted that they had heard rumors about Tait’s behavior for years, but took him at his word when he denied it. As I noted at my Substack, this didn’t add up. The core of the band had been together since shortly before Tait signed on in 2009. If you believe that in 16 years on the road together, they didn’t see something was off despite his denials, there’s a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you.
Apparently others came to the same conclusion. By the end of June 2025, Newsboys had been blacklisted from most Christian radio stations, with others at the very least ixnaying any of their post-2009 material. Newsboys had also been dumped by their longtime record label, Capitol Christian Music.
But apparently Nathan Mudd, pastor of Ottawa Community Church in Ottawa, Kansas–an exurb of Kansas City–didn’t get the memo. Yesterday, he posted a picture of himself with Tait at a pastors’ conference in Kansas City.
Mudd also posted this to his Instagram and Threads feeds. On Facebook and Instagram at least, he got pummeled–and rightly so. This was a textbook case of “sin leveling,” or claiming that all sins are equal in weight. However, most people who don’t have their heads up their asses–including a number of conservatives–understand that grooming and sexual assault aren’t just “stumbles,” but monstrous crimes.
Imagine if you’re a member of Mudd’s church who is a survivor. You’re thinking about coming forward–only to see your pastor publicly embracing a confessed serial sexual predator. If you want to know why survivors don’t come forward for years, if at all, here’s why. To my mind, and those of a lot of other people who blasted Mudd on social media, this post amounted to an announcement in capital letters that he and his church are not safe.
Apparently Mudd was feeling the heat, because he deleted the Threads version of his post and shut down comments on Instagram and Facebook. But then he added a comment to his Facebook post that shows he really doesn’t get it.
No, Nathan. Forgiveness doesn’t exempt you from accountability and consequences for your actions. And there are times where the accountability and consequences are lifelong. This is one of them. Tait has forfeited any right to be platformed in any way. This is even more evidence that you and your church are not safe.
Trump has gotten over 70 percent of white evangelical support in all three of his presidential bids despite being, by any reasonable standard, a sexual predator. This is why. It’s another reminder that Trump didn’t expose a bug in the religious right. He exposed a feature.
We’ll get straight to the point: The financial hardships that Daily Kos is facing this year are tough.
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