Carl Lentz was a preacher who seemed to have it all, until a moral failure forced him out as lead pastor of Hillsong NYC/East Coast.
His shocking firing rocked the evangelical world. Six years later, Lentz is sharing his healing journey. He and his wife, Laura, have a new book, “Overcoming Infidelity: 10 Conversations to Help You Heal the Hurt,” which helps guide people through the process.
Carl told CBN News they wrote the book to share their perspective and help others “make a dark season lighter.”
“We wanted to help people as fast as we could because we don’t think that you can get through it without help,” he said. “And we wanted to put as much as we’ve learned, and learn, and are currently learning, on paper.”
Carl said they hope to redeem what happened by helping others navigate similar struggles. Laura said she has received multitudes of messages from people over the past few years asking questions and seeking assistance.
Her experience has equipped her to guide others through the unthinkable, especially considering the very public nature of Carl’s affair — something that forced her to deal with other layers people in similar situations might not face.
“Finding out that you’ve been betrayed is really hard,” she said. “It’s awful. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, but the public part was really hard, because you have extra voices coming at you, and giving their opinions, and their hate, and what they think, that’s confusing as well, and hurtful.”
Ultimately, Laura said it was a “very lonely road,” but one she was able to navigate. She said “it was very dark” before she found out what was truly happening in her husband’s life.
“A week before everything came out, I was in the shower just crying out to God. I was just like, God, whatever’s going on in him, just get it out,” she said. “You could see it in his eyes. His eyes had no life left. … I would look in his eyes and .. it was just darkness there.”
Once the truth came out, everything made more sense.
For Carl, the public piece of the puzzle was obviously quite intense. At first, despite the pain and sorrow, he said there was a relief that the truth had been revealed. That left him thinking, “Well, my life’s over, and I’m just gonna try to do what I can, patch this up, and I’m just gonna go off into a hole.” The journey from there wasn’t easy.
“It’s almost like the most defeating, shame spiral you could ever imagine,” Carl said. “In regard to the humiliation, I think I was not in a good place in my soul, so I didn’t care.”
He didn’t realize at the time, due to the state of his heart, mind, and soul, the impact the ordeal would have on his family.
“I wasn’t prepared for the impact on my family,” he said. “I just wasn’t. That’s the honest truth. … I didn’t care about what people were saying. It was more about the impact on my kids and my wife.”
Looking back, Carl said he truly believes he wasn’t well at the time of his moral failing. He said he faced an “avalanche of despair” in the wake of the chaos.
“I don’t even feel like I was in my right mind, and a part of me is grateful, because I feel like … if you’re living with that kind of duplicity and you can function, I don’t know what the future is for somebody like that,” he said. “There was help I could have gotten, there were people I could have talked to, there were better avenues.”
The natural question many have for the Lentzes: what led them to stay together after such a horrific public journey?
“I got some advice early on, which was really helpful for me, not to make any big decisions right away, any big life-altering decisions,” Laura said. “Just to take it a day at a time.”
Meanwhile, Carl went on a healing journey to address the past and present issues he was experiencing, including past childhood abuse. Laura said it was not an excuse for behavior but was helpful to understanding him.
“It … just kind of gave me a little bit more context as to how broken he was and …. hurt was inside of him that he’s never talked about,” she said, noting that she didn’t want to leave in those early moments and instead took the advice to take it day by day.
Carl also reflected on seeing help and healing his marriage.
“I got some immediate help and uncovered some things that, again, for anybody listening, when you explain context, it’s never an excuse,” he said. “It doesn’t matter what the context is. Unacceptable choices were made by me.”
Ultimately, Carl was able to ask some important questions about how he ended up in that position and why he made the choices he did. As for church accountability, Carl didn’t place blame on anyone other than himself.
“I had a great system around me,” he said. “Accountability is so worthless if people are not honest with themselves.”
The couple hopes that being open and candid and writing “Overcoming Infidelity: 10 Conversations to Help You Heal the Hurt” will help others facing similar circumstances.
“We’re just doing what God’s called us to do in this chapter,” Carl said. “We’ve written a book, and we want to tell people about it and get the word out, and if someone wants to talk, we’re gonna talk.”
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