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Tuesday, September 29, 2026
Content warning: This letter discusses sexual and gender-based violence, including allegations of rape at Cornell. Please care for yourself as you read.
Dear St. Luke family and friends,
This has been a painful week in our community. My own heart is heavy as I write. I have received calls and messages from people struggling with the allegations of sexual violence at Cornell. There is anger. There are questions. And there are people for whom this news reaches into something deeply personal—something recent, or something they have carried for years.
I want to say again what I said on Sunday:
“As a congregation woven into the life of Cornell and this community, we say clearly: sexual violence is never acceptable. Consent matters. The dignity and sacredness of every body matters.”
“And especially to survivors of sexual violence—whether your experience was recent or long ago—know that you are believed, you are loved, and you do not have to carry your story alone.”
You do not have to carry this alone. I mean that.
In my nearly five years as a chaplain at Cornell and Ithaca College, I have walked with numerous people who have experienced sexual and gender-based violence. It tears at the very soul of a person. It can make someone feel that their body no longer belongs to them, that their story has been taken from them, that who they are will forever be understood through what someone else did. Shame can settle into places where it never belonged.
Earlier this year, Presiding Bishop Yehiel Curry wrote that sexual and gender-based violence are “dehumanizing misuses of power,” adding, “No one deserves this evil.” I want us to hear that clearly. No one deserves it. And no one should have to carry its aftermath alone.
Sexual and gender-based violence is a grave sin against our shared humanity and against the God whose image every person bears.
We also need to name how patriarchal privilege and hierarchies of power can provide cover for abuse—whose voice is trusted, whose pain is questioned, whose future is protected. When preserving someone’s reputation or an institution’s standing matters more than the dignity of the person harmed, we have lost our way. The feminist and queer theology I so often bring into our life together asks us to pay attention to those pushed aside and to challenge the power that keeps them there. This is part of what it means to follow Jesus.
And to anyone carrying the wounds of such violence, I want to say this clearly: you are still sacred. Your personhood belongs to you. You are worthy of love, without condition.
I do not believe in a God who would find it just to blame someone for the violence they suffered. And I ask us to be careful about the conversations we join, the questions we ask, and the things we repeat. We can so easily add to someone’s pain without ever knowing whose story we are standing beside.
Let us practice a sacred culture of listening. Hear the person who chooses to speak. Respect the person who cannot, or does not want to. Let someone’s story remain theirs. We do not have to explain their pain or solve it before we can be present with them.
The allegations at Cornell describe horrific violence over the course of hours. They remain subject to legal proceedings and a renewed criminal investigation; we cannot determine the outcome of those processes. But we do have a place in this moment. We have a responsibility to our neighbors and to the students whose lives are woven into ours.
In the coming days, I will work with our synod and faith partners to invite Cornell’s administration to reflect on its past responses and listen to the present—to hear the voices raising pain, to examine its own actions following the reported incident, and to respond with meaningful care and accountability.
That responsibility belongs here at St. Luke too. I will review with our staff our policies on sexual harassment, sexual and gender-based violence, and appropriate conduct in the workplace. Together with our Personnel Committee and Congregation Council, we will examine those policies and our procedures for raising concerns and responding to them. We will also make information about support and reporting resources more visible and available. When we say this is a place of refuge, we need to keep doing the work that makes that promise real.
Here at St. Luke, there is room for conversation, reflection, prayer, questions, and organizing. I am available to you. You can come angry. You can come unsure. You can come without knowing what you need to say. We can sit together and begin there.
St. Luke is a place of refuge, and keeping it safe is work we share. We will continue to walk in the ways Jesus taught: seeking justice, practicing mercy, and reaching toward liberation wherever violence has taken freedom away. The hope and love of God shown in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ call us into that work together.
We have one another. Let us make sure that people can feel that—in how we listen, in how we show up, and in how we care.
With the love of Christ,
Pastor Jason