Tommy Nelson, the longtime senior pastor of Denton Bible Church in Texas, announced his retirement earlier this month exactly a year after a FOX 4 report alleged his church ignored red flags of abuse by a former youth pastor. Nelson is also a best-selling author of several books on marriage and family.

Nelson shared news of his retirement in a letter sent on Oct. 4. “A church like Denton Bible Church needs to always be, to always exist,” he wrote to congregants. “A church that is fundamental, premillennial, Calvinistic, dispensational, discipleship-focused, elder ruled, complementarian, and ‘non-woke’ must continue.”

Nelson’s letter included no mention of the Denton megachurch’s former youth pastor Robert Shiflet, who was sentenced to 33 months in prison in 2021 for sexually assaulting two girls on church youth trips in the late ‘90s. A third-party investigation commissioned by the church into Shiflet found credible reports of sexual assault against 14 girls, 11 at Denton Bible and 3 at an Arkansas church he worked at later. Shiflet was released from prison for good behavior in January 2023 after serving only 25 months.

In their investigation published in October 2022, FOX 4 spoke with one of the victims Shiflet was convicted of assaulting. The victim, who spoke anonymously, described being “abandoned by the church” after she told a Denton Bible Church counselor about Shiflet’s abuse when she was 19. The church did not report her claims to law enforcement for over a decade.

FOX 4′s report also included a five-page statement from the church that summarized the findings of a third-party investigation into the church’s handling of Shiflet’s behavior. The investigation found “many failures on the part of Denton Bible Church” to respond to reports of abuse and suspicious behavior.

The statement said that “many” of the 40 individuals interviewed throughout the investigation “described an ‘us vs. them’ mentality toward those outside of our active church membership” which “caused us to not really see or provide care for victims” that had since left the church. “The investigators also found that people within our church were afraid to raise concerns, or even participate in the investigation, because of a feeling that it would be seen and treated as disloyalty.”

Nelson and Denton Bible Church did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

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Joy Ashford covers faith and religion in North Texas for The Dallas Morning News through a partnership with Report for America.

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