In my last post, I discussed Julie Roys’ book Redeeming the Feminine Soul and her account of her relationship with a teen girl “Sarah” she met at church. Julie met “Sarah” when Julie was her youth pastor. I believe that Julie describes abusive behavior as she crossed boundaries with a vulnerable youth while a pastor. Julie violated her position of power and trust.
Due to public awareness and discussion of Julie’s book and problematic behavior with Sarah, Julie has posted a couple of statements addressing this issue over the last 2 weeks. In the first statement, Julie said that she regretted the way she “framed” the story about Sarah in her book. Julie said she would be seeking help from a “trusted professional” to help her “process what remains a painful memory,” over 20 years later. She doesn’t specify what type of a professional or whether this person is a licensed professional counselor/therapist.
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In that statement posted above, Julie also said that she had pulled her book from her website and Facebook page and that she had initiated conversations with her publisher about next steps. Last week, I noticed that the book was still mentioned in her bio on her website. Julie temporarily unblocked me on Twitter to reply to me publicly. She said they did miss “one mention” of her book on the website but it had since been removed. I immediately checked her website and the mention in her bio was still there. As of the writing of this post, the mention is still there. She has not provided any further updates on talks with her publisher about pulling the book.
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Last week provided more developments with Julie Roys, beginning early in the week, when Roys publicly posted on Twitter that she had been “pulled into” a young woman’s “bizarre world.” She alleges that this young woman, Megan Stoner, created an “elaborate hoax” that involved a murder for hire scheme. Yes, you read that correctly. Julie also tweeted a statement about Megan from pastor Jeff Thompson. Jeff is pastor of Gospel City Church in Canada.
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Julie says she was introduced to Jeff by Megan. Jeff was a guest on Julie’s podcast in February 2022. In that podcast, Julie mentions Megan favorably and credits her as a helpful source of information. I archived the podcast link from Julie Roys’ website last week, the day before she removed mentions of Megan from the posted transcript. Here is the archived link. Below are screenshots of the original transcript before Julie wiped all mentions of Megan Stoner.
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As this was unfolding, I had seen some screenshots of email correspondence between Megan and Julie. It has since been established that there are serious questions about Megan’s credibility. I did not independently publish the allegedly photoshopped email screenshot. After reading a post discussing Julie Roys and Megan Stoner involvement, I began to ask questions about the details of that email exchange. I did not have Julie’s email, so I sent a message via the contact form on her website stating that I had questions for Julie about Megan Stoner. The next day I had not received a reply, so I reached out to one of Julie’s assistant writers. She passed along the request to Julie. Later that day, I received an email from Julie.
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Julie provided me with a timeline of her interactions with Megan Stoner. Julie knew in early March of the alleged “elaborate hoax” in which she says Megan alleged that a “hit” had been placed on pastor Jeff Thompson and Julie. According to Julie’s timeline, she knew of serious issues with Megan about 5 weeks before she informed Megan that she would not be allowed to proceed with the housing accommodations or the scholarship to attend the upcoming Restore conference that Julie was hosting. At that time, Julie did not make any changes to the podcast transcript. There was no public retraction.
Did Julie Roys or Jeff Thomson contact law enforcement about Megan’s alleged hoax? These are serious issues that should be handled by law enforcement. Choosing to leave up the podcast lending credibility to Megan may have placed others at risk of engagement with her. Why would Julie not immediately pull the podcast when she was alerted to this hoax of a murder for hire? Was there some personal advantage to Julie’s work to leave that information in place?
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Last Friday night, May 6, 2022, Julie released another statement saying that she was stepping down from the Restore conference that she was hosting. Ashley Easter provided the statement highlighting emphasis on Julie’s focus on her own pain. Notice that Julie still does not call her actions abuse.
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The next morning after Julie’s statement about removing herself from the Restore conference, conference sponsor GRACE executive director Peter Singer and the board of directors released a statement about Roys’ decision. With Julie stepping down, GRACE would be able to remain involved in the conference. In my opinion, this statement implies that Julie’s continued involvement would have resulted in GRACE pulling their support.
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ChurchLeaders: Investigative Reporter Julie Roys Removes Herself From Her Own Conference After Accusations of ‘Spiritual Abuse’
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