Despite being furnished with detailed firsthand allegations of Sills’s behavior, Baptist Press characterized his relationship with Lyell as a consensual affair. The Executive Committee wasn’t going to stand for Lyell, the denomination’s most accomplished woman, being turned into an avatar for the #MeToo movement. Its members took a calculated risk: They would paint her as an adulteress, squashing the sordid details of her statement to Baptist Press, and dare her to challenge the official published account of the denomination.
