A Raw Testimony from a Male Survivor
Theology in the Raw
Theology in the Raw
4.5 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 16 October 2025
⏱️ 74 minutes
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Summary
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Today’s guest is my longtime friend Dr. Joel Willitts. On this episode, Joel shares his difficult journey navigating faith and life after being sexually abused by a family member in his youth. It’s an incredibly raw conversation —if you’re sensitive to these topics, please make sure to prepare yourself before listening.
Joel is a Professor in the Biblical and Theological Studies Department at North Park University in Chicago, IL, where he’s taught for over twenty years. His academic journey began at Liberty University (B.A. '92), followed by a Th.M. from Dallas Seminary ('00), and an M.Phil. (’02) and Ph.D. (’07) from Cambridge University. His intellectual curiosities are many, included the Jewish Context of the New Testament and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He enjoys travel, running marathons, watching baseball (especially the Yankees!), listening to U2, and reading. He live in the suburbs of Chicago and has boy-girl twins who are freshmen at North Park University. He’s been married to Karla for 33 years.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Exiles in Babylon conference is happening again, April 30th to May 2nd in Minneapolis, |
| 0:05.4 | and this one is going to be spicy. We're talking about mental health and the gospel. How should |
| 0:10.5 | the church respond to immigration? We're also having a dialogical debate about Christians and war |
| 0:15.6 | with Shane Claiborne and Paul Copan. And we're also having another dialogical debate |
| 0:20.0 | between Peter Enz and Sandy Richter over |
| 0:22.2 | the historical reliability of the Bible. |
| 0:25.5 | We also added a pre-conference addressing how Christians should think about artificial intelligence. |
| 0:30.4 | We have several experts coming to lead us in that conversation. |
| 0:33.8 | Other speakers include Dan Allender, Matthew Sorens, Liliana, Reza, Joshua Smith, Chinway Williams, and several others. And of course, worth the price of admission, Street Hymbs is coming back as well, folks. Most of all, the in-person experience at exiles is just super unique. I mean, it's, I don't know. If you've been there, you know what I'm talking about. It's hard to describe. You just got to go and experience it for yourself. Right now, we're running an early bird discount of 30 bucks off registration, so I encourage you to sign up soon to take advantage of this discount. Just head over to TheologyNorrah.com to register. We also have a heavily discounted Gen Z price. Don't lie about your age, you gotta be Gen Z, |
| 1:11.6 | and also discounts on groups of five or more. |
| 1:14.6 | Again, that's April 30th to May 2nd in Minneapolis. |
| 1:17.6 | Register at Theologyintheirah.com. |
| 1:23.6 | The care for the sexually broken in our churches has much to be desired, especially with men, |
| 1:34.3 | the way sexuality is kind of presented. It seems so far away. It leaves people feeling more shame and just hiding more. |
| 1:47.0 | Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology and Rod. |
| 1:54.0 | This is going to be our third episode in the series that we recorded live in person in Wheaton, Illinois. |
| 2:02.6 | This one is with my very good friend, Dr. Joel Willits, who is a Bible professor at North Park University. |
| 2:10.7 | Now, I want to give you a word of warning ahead of time. |
| 2:15.3 | Joel is going to share about his story of surviving sexual abuse. |
| 2:23.7 | And Joel, as you'll see, he's a very honest person. And he shares details about his story. |
| 2:33.5 | So just want to let you know ahead of time if you are a |
| 2:36.4 | survivor or if you are sensitive to these kind of details, you might want to, I don't know, |
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