Part 5: The Aftermath
For many Christians, the local church is an integral part of their daily lives. From wedding vows to funeral rites, the church provides support, teaching, counseling, fellowship, charity, and a place to worship.
The church is supposed to be a safe place, a place for the weary, the broken, the young and the old, the sick, the hungry, the poor, the ashamed, and the brokenhearted. For the vulnerable.
People leave churches for various reasons. A major move. A disagreement over doctrine. The music. “I just wasn’t getting fed,” is a common excuse. People leave, and those left behind might feel disappointed, but generally, lives aren’t upended.
But what about the people who leave because they have been victims of abuse by church leaders? Breaking free of an unhealthy church environment DOES upend lives. Friends you thought of as family won’t talk to you anymore. Your main system of support is suddenly pulled out from under you. Rumors run wild, yet no one reaches out to hear your side of the story. You. Feel. Alone.
Now imagine if, on top of losing your friends and support system, you lost your income. Your home. Your family. Your reputation.
When Daniel and Caroline Palmer left Chesapeake, they lost all of these things and more. Their children lost a set of grandparents. Cousins. Aunts and uncles. They lost not one but two sources of income. They walked out of that church with little else but what physical items they could take with them. They. Felt. Alone.
Caroline observes that Daniel saw that Robert Hahn was willing to sacrifice anything, even his own daughter, in order to retain tight control over the church. When Daniel realized that he, too, was wrongly prioritizing the church over his own marriage, it alarmed him. That wasn’t the person he wanted to be. He chose to walk away from the life he’d lived for nearly thirteen years.
He walked away because he knew God needed to be his first priority. He walked away because he loved his wife, Caroline, and he was committed to saving their marriage.
“I’ve been a part of that church since I was seven years old,” said Caroline. “I was the senior pastor’s daughter and married to an executive pastor. Not one of the elders came to me. Why was our struggle and subsequent fallout swept under the rug? Why was Robert allowed to manipulate and lie and spin to keep himself on top?
“‘I always win,’ he once told Daniel. I guess that’s why.”
It wasn’t long after the Palmers left that they heard whisperings, rumors, and speculations as to why they had left.
“Caroline will come back to Maryland alone one day,” was a common sentiment that was encouraged by the Hahn family.
“Daniel was impatient and only wanted to be senior pastor,” was another common belief.
Robert allowed and encouraged these false statements. If Daniel was discredited, further questions regarding the Palmers’ departure would be nipped in the bud before they even left curious church members’ lips.
To add to the confusion and frustration, Caroline's family would reach out through text or email confessing how much they missed her and longed to hear from her and the kids (no mention of Daniel). Robert sent gifts of money and jewelry to Caroline and the kids – even after being asked to stop.
This went on while Robert was contributing to the false public and staff-wide narrative about why Daniel and Caroline left.
"They wondered why we didn't reciprocate the feelings and communication," says Daniel. "Maybe it's because they were calling me abusive and cheering for an eventual marital failure for Caroline and me."
The loss of his son-in-law proved beneficial to Robert. He quickly replaced Daniel with a protege who, at the time, believed in Robert Hahn. Daniel tried to warn his successor, but was met with an “I’m not interested.” Several years later, the protege, Ron Lafferty (name changed), would fall from grace in a spectacularly public fashion.
When reflecting on the September 2021 sermon that her father preached that began with a fiery denunciation of Ron Lafferty, Caroline said, “I couldn’t believe how he took someone else’s tragedy and made himself the victim. This man took a catastrophic event in the lives of a family he’d known for over a decade and he made it all about himself. ‘The fault falls at me,’ he said. And then people felt sorry for him.
“But the truth is, he’s created an environment of fear, and fear drives the people who work with him. They think, I don’t want to be put to shame like the other people who left. I’m going to look the other way and believe what’s fed to me.”
Daniel and Caroline started over. They live in another state, and they are thriving. They have a new community of friends and loved ones. A new church. They have beautiful children. They love each other. They put each other first.
Caroline has not spoken to anyone in her family in over a year. It used to break her heart.
But God has sustained her. Her faith has sustained her. Truth has sustained her.
And if you happen to know this extraordinary family, then you know that those they left behind at Chesapeake Church?
They don’t know what they’re missing.
The following is an email Caroline Palmer sent her father shortly after Ron Lafferty was released from Chesapeake Church last September.
Hello. How’s it going? I hear there’s been some excitement in the last few days.
You once told me about a dream you had where you were walking into your home, but it wasn’t your home, it was a huge, beautiful castle, a great kingdom. To hear you tell it then it was easy to think “Wow, that’s amazing! God’s going to bless you with a kingdom!” But looking back, I don’t believe that dream came from God. Jesus was once given the vision and temptation of kingdoms as well, but He resisted. You haven’t. You are taking the kingdom and people that God has entrusted to you and are using it for your own glory, your own way of living, not His. God won’t share His glory.
Your leadership is not only growing weak Christians, which, yes, you will have to answer for as you once said, but it is destroying lives, marriages, and families. This has to stop. You have to let the Holy Spirit humble you and God renew you. You’ve been through hard things in life, there’s no doubt about that. But there is a difference between just going through a fire and being refined by the fire. There’s a difference between being sorry and being repentant.
I came to you years ago trying to get you to see the truth of our unfortunate situation. I was blown off and met with deflection and finger-pointing. Not one bit of humility or willingness for you to examine your own motives or actions. Was it worth it? I imagine you will say yes in a stubborn effort to remain on top and continue to come out ahead. And that’s fine, God certainly used it for good in my life, but not without immense humbling and repentance.
I’m under no disillusion that what I’m saying will actually lead to anything. I fully expect more finger-pointing and deflection. And that's okay. I have no skin in the game this time and your actions have little consequence on my life anymore. But having been one that’s escaped the toxicity and abuse that’s continuing to grow up there, I couldn’t just sit by and not say something.
Lastly, if there’s some part of you that believes you’ll be able to escape the hurt and destruction you see happening around you, you won’t. Whatever hurt you think you’ve experienced is nothing compared to what will come unless you allow God to come in and clean this up. You convince people that you’re all banding together, picking up your cross, and forging ahead. But really all you’re doing is ignoring the problem, avoiding the hard truth, and sweeping it under the rug. That will never work. You will eventually be seen for who you are.
Sincerely,
Caroline Palmer
Caroline never received a reply.