(RNS) — Jennifer Lyell, an editor and author whose promising career in Christian publishing was derailed when she accused a former Southern Baptist leader of abuse, died Saturday (June 7). She was 47.
“Jennifer passed gently into the arms of her Redeemer, surrounded by loved ones,” said her friend Rachael Denhollander, who said Lyell had suffered “a series of massive strokes, leading to her becoming unconscious sometime Monday afternoon. She was found Thursday evening after missing a medical appointment.”
For much of her adult life, Lyell had been a Southern Baptist success story. She came to faith at 20 at a Billy Graham crusade, went to seminary, dreamed of becoming a missionary, taught the Bible to young women and children and became a vice president at Lifeway, the Southern Baptist Convention’s publishing arm. There she worked on about a dozen New York Times bestsellers, according to a biography from her time at Lifeway.
By 2019, she was one of the highest-ranking women leaders in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.
Lyell had gone into publishing reluctantly, after her desire to be a missionary went unfulfilled.
“Eventually, I’m always convicted of the reality that my life is not my own. It was bought at an incomprehensible price,” she said in 2009 profile published by Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, where Lyell had earned a master of divinity degree.
While at seminary in 2004, the 26-year-old Lyell met David Sills, a professor in his late 40s who became her mentor and a surrogate father figure, welcoming her into his family. Sills was also presi …