One of the most peculiar claims to arise out of the defamation suit brought by David and Mary Sills is that the former missions professor justified his extramarital relationship with Jennifer Lyell by saying his wife knew about it.
David and Mary Sills now are suing the Southern Baptist Convention and several of its entities and leaders, claiming the 12-year sexual relationship between David Sills and Lyell was consensual and not abusive as she claimed. Lyell died earlier this year. Her estate has been dropped from the suit.
That Mary Sills knew what was happening in the basement of the family home gained new support when a trove of discovery documents were made public in the court case. The question is when she knew and what she knew.
“The question is when she knew and what she knew.”
Mary Sills testified in her deposition that she first learned of sexual contact between Lyell and her husband in 2016 when, according to David Sills, he “genuinely felt convicted” and confided in his wife.
Notably, this contradicts Lifeway executive Eric Geiger’s testimony that Lyell confided in him that Mary Sills was aware of sexual contact between Lyell and her husband.
The extramarital relationship had begun in 2004, according to court documents.
None of these claims has yet been adjudicated in a court of law, as the evidence presented here is drawn from pre-trial depositions and documents.
A diary entry
One of the most surprising pieces of evidence now made public through discovery is an entry from Mary Sills’ personal diary that became a contentious issue in her deposition.
David and Mary Sills (Facebook)
In this diary exists a handwritten entry dated June 29, 2004. The entry contains an explicit reference to Jennifer Lyell — who at some point was “adopted” by the Sills family and often was present in the home.
Lyell’s academic file, now made public, confirms she first had David Sills as a professor in spring 2004 in a course titled “Topics in Missions: Spanish for Missions.” Lyell went on to take three more courses with Sills over the course of the next year: Intermediate Spanish for Missions (Fall 2004), Intercultural Communication (Fall 2004), and Cultural Anthropology (Spring 2005). Lyell also applied for a Ph.D. program in missions and cultural anthropology at Southern Seminary. David Sills held the title “associate professor of missions and cultural anthropology” at that time.
The offending journal entry, a portion of which is read aloud during Mary Sills’ deposition, starts with the following sentence: “She is being adopted by us.”
When asked by counsel what she meant, Mary Sills replied: “Jennifer was a lonely, needy person. And we thought it would be a good ministry to welcome her into our family, and to make her feel less lonely and cared for.” Mary Sills then expounded on what she meant by “adopted” — in the sense of “we were taking her on as a ministry as a family.”
Lyell later contended David Sills cultivated the family relationship deliberately to prevent her from speaking out, allegedly assuring her that he could “fix” the harm she experienced in her childhood if she became part of his family.
“Don’t let this be another disaster. Don’t let David get carried away and ruin it.”
The next sentence of the journal entry reads: “Lord, please help this to be the right thing.”
Then this: “Don’t let this be another disaster. Don’t let David get carried away and ruin it.”
This prayer seems to have relayed serious concern about her husband’s past behavior, as sworn testimony from David Sills (and as previously reported by BNG) that he already had a history of marital infidelity — including an affair with a woman at Woodland Hills Baptist Church in Mississippi where Sills was pastor before being hired to Southern Seminary’s faculty.
He also confessed to numerous “one-night stands” with women whose names he could not recall early in their marriage.
When counsel asked Mary Sills to read the sentence, “Don’t let this be another disaster,” and explain what she meant, she responded: “I don’t know what I meant by that. That was 20 years ago.” Counsel then followed up: “Had there been a disaster?” Mary Sills replied tersely: “No.”
When asked under oath about what she meant by asking God, “Don’t let David get carried away and ruin it,” Mary Sills replied: “I don’t know.” Further, she noted her husband was a person who was so focused on one thing that he would go “all in” and was a “this-one-thing-I-know, this-one-thing-I-do person.”
In what followed, Mary Sills displayed clear defensiveness when counsel, through questioning, interpreted her statement about David Sills getting “carried away”:
Q: So you had concern in June of 2004 that David would be carried away with the ministry to Jennifer or what aspect?RILEY: Object to the form.
A: Please don’t put words in my mouth. I didn’t want — I didn’t want David to think that he needed to be more than a counselor or a friend. I wanted him to realize that she was a person that was a lonely person, but that he didn’t have to fill that void for her.
Q And what would be being more than a counselor or a friend?
A I don’t know. I would not want him to — I need to think about my response. I would want him to be able to guide her biblically, to learn what a … (the sentence cuts off)
‘Marital distress’
Discovery materials also indicate Mary Sills was in counseling and taking medications for anxiety and sleep; she received an anxiety disorder diagnosis in May 2023. Her counselor characterized her condition as a “multi-year-long chronic trauma” related to “marital distress.” Mary Sills, however, explicitly stated to her counselor that the purpose of her seeking counseling was because “a woman accused my husband of …” (the exact next words are cut off in the publicly available version of the deposition).
At some point, Mary Sills posted a message on Facebook equating an unknown and unnamed accuser to the devil. The exact date of this post is not known as it is not provided in the records, but the text of the post reads as follows: “Friends, please don’t believe everything you read. The devil is alive and well and wearing a female’s clothing seeking whom she’ll devour next.”
“The same day David Sills submitted his resignation from the seminary faculty, Mary Sills sent an email to Jennifer Lyell.”
The same day David Sills submitted his resignation from the seminary faculty, Mary Sills sent an email to Jennifer Lyell. The message was a single question: “Why would you want to completely destroy the lives of people that opened their home, heart, family, and lives to you?”
For her part, while she was alive, Lyell and her attorneys alleged misconduct by Mary Sills, including enabling her husband’s sexual behavior and failing to stop it by, for example, allegedly leaving the room and telling Lyell to stay with David Sills. Both Mary and David Sills have denied this.
Lyell also alleged the family dynamic was used to harm her. In a court motion, Lyell and her attorneys contended that whenever Lyell attempted to initiate discussions with Mary Sills about David Sills’ alleged abusive behavior, Mary Sills allegedly would promptly leave the room and tell Lyell to stop talking or shut up, or speak over Lyell so she would not hear the purported disclosure.
Finally, Lyell alleged that, on more than one occasion, while watching news about a woman coming out with abuse or assault allegations against men, Mary Sills would say the women were wrong to ruin those mens’ lives and they “should have kept their business to themselves.”
Mary Sills has vociferously denied all these allegations and alleged they are defamatory, thus leading to this current lawsuit.
Related articles:
Court records reveal tangled trail in Sills sexual abuse case | Analysis by David Bumgardner and Mark Wingfield
Basham was advising Sills while condemning Lyell | Analysis by Mark Wingfield
Sills lawsuit misrepresents a piece of evidence, and that error got highlighted by Ascol and Basham
Not everyone believes there’s a sexual abuse crisis in the SBC
Megan Basham goes after Jennifer Lyell even in death
Also see the latest episode of the BNG podcast “Stuck in the Middle with You” that discusses the Sills case.