Hey, We Don't Talk About That.
Part One: Inside Chi Alpha Campus Ministries Culture of “Nudity Is Unity.”
A campus pastor caught with his pants down on a mission trip. A van full of nude Chi Alpha leaders and students traveling to a retreat. A father who warned his own pastor twice and watched the ministry get promoted from that same pulpit anyway.
A national office that called “nudity is unity” an isolated incident three years ago is now conducting another internal review, with a ministry director gathering witness accounts whose investigative qualifications and role in the process have not been publicly explained.
By Ron Bloomingkemper, Jr. | August 15th, 2026
The Game Called Baywatch
In 2023, a yellow school bus flashes past the window, and somebody screams the word like they just called bingo.
"Baywatch!"
Hands slap the roof of a Speed The Light™ minivan, a gift given to a Queens College campus pastor who's supposed to be shepherding souls, not running a stripping game at sixty-five miles an hour toward a Chi Alpha (XA) retreat in West Virginia.
The last hand to hit the ceiling loses.
Everyone knows what that means by now, because they've been playing long enough to have lost the hoodies, the shoes, the socks, and that item your mom always told you to have a clean pair of in case of an accident.
He's eighteen. He said yes to this trip because his dad thought it might bring him back to his faith.
Thirty minutes in, he's watched leaders and students strip down to nothing. Even his campus pastor is driving in his birthday suit, seated beside another Queens College student, also eighteen, who's naked too.
In the van, a reluctant participant who had overheard a leader say, "What are you doing? You're not supposed to cover up," was being pressured to take his underwear off.
That reluctant leader locks eyes with Craig Richey in the rearview mirror and gets a look he later described as making clear he was expected to comply.
Witness Statement: Queens College Chi Alpha - March 2023 & 2021 Incidents
Not everyone in that van keeps their clothes on.
One of them will spend years wondering why nobody, not the pastor driving, not the staff member enforcing it, ever once said the sentence that should have ended this before it started: we're not doing this.
An hour earlier, the van had stopped for pizza. Two of the leaders on the trip, Craig Richey and Collin Zellmer, went into the restroom together and, according to an account of that stop, shared a single urinal at the same time.
Nobody on that trip thought much of it at the time.
They would soon.
Two Years Earlier, Another Boundary-Crossing Incident
A few years before that van pulled onto the interstate, another incident in 2021 allegedly happened on a mission trip to Arizona where the New York team met up with the University of Arizona Chi Alphaunder pastor Jose Ocampo, and the XA University of Texas at San Antonio under Johnny Hauck, along with a group from Gateway Fellowship Church.
A Chi Alpha student walked toward a restroom stall and heard talking. He recognized the shoes under the stall door before he recognized the voice.
Craig Richey's shoes.
The second pair belonged to someone he didn't recognize at first.
He started recording on his phone, expecting a few seconds of harmless horseplay to laugh about later.
According to that witness's account, the sequence that followed was this:
the stall door swung open on Richey. Without appearing to flinch, Richey was seated on the toilet with his pants and underwear around his ankles, wearing only a tie-dye Mountain Valley Fellowship church t-shirt, genitals exposed. A student was beside him and, according to the witness, pulled his own pants down showing his genitals when the door opened.
A copy of the video recording described above was sent to Wrestling Lions Media. Given its sensitive content, it is not being published.
Wrestling Lions Media asked Chi Alpha directly whether this conduct, if substantiated, would violate Chi Alpha or Assemblies of God policies governing ministerial conduct and student safety, and whether it would be grounds for discipline or removal from ministry.
Chi Alpha did not answer either question.
Same pastor. Two incidents, two years apart.
Chi Alpha has provided no evidence that an independent outside party investigated either incident.
Richey remains the campus pastor at Queens College and Chi Alpha District Director in New York State as of 2026
He Warned His Pastor Twice. His Church Promoted the Ministry Anyway.
In 2024, a father and his wife, members of La Vina Church for over a decade by that point, the father serving as an elder for two of those years, sat down with their own pastor, Stefano Ortiz, an Assemblies of God presbyter, and Ortiz's wife, Madelyn, who held her own leadership position within the network.
“It wasn't an easy conversation to start.”
They laid out what they knew: the abuse of spiritual authority their daughter said she had experienced under Craig Richey and, in that same sitting, the incident involving their eighteen-year-old son on the drive to West Virginia.
Two of their children and a son-in-law. Three separate harms, handed over to the one person they still trusted to do something about it.
Madelyn told them she'd spoken to someone higher up in the New York District Network.
A conversation happened. Nothing came of it, according to the family.
The daughter and her husband didn't stop there.
In April 2024, they spoke directly with Matt Sprenger, Chi Alpha's Northeast area director, primarily about the spiritual abuse the daughter said she had experienced under Richey.
Sprenger wasn't a distant regional contact. Per Northeast Chi Alpha's own leadership page, Sprenger serves as Regional Director, and Craig Richey is listed directly beneath him as District Director for New York.
The family wasn't reporting concerns about Richey to some outside office.
They reported them to his direct supervisor.
Source: Northeast Chi Alpha About Us page
According to the family, nothing came of that conversation either.
Their daughter and her husband gradually stopped serving at the church, then stopped attending altogether.
The father and his wife stayed close to them anyway. They kept showing up, kept praying, and kept waiting for someone with actual authority to act on what they'd disclosed.
Two years is a long time to wait for a phone call that never comes.
Then, on May 17, 2026, during Sunday service, Pastor Stefano invited a Queens College Chi Alpha missionary to the pulpit. She thanked the congregation for partnering with her and with Chi Alpha, and explained what the ministry does.
Missionary from Queens College promoting Chi Alpha (May 17, 2026)
The father, an elder at that church, sat in the pew beside his wife.
His own pastor stood behind the exact ministry he'd personally warned him about by name two years earlier.
According to the father, the church's eldership had not conducted the financial review he understood elders were responsible for performing in more than two and a half years.
He was learning, from the pulpit, in real time, that his own church had been funding this exact Chi Alpha ministry.
Two weeks later, the dad called a meeting.
When he and his wife sat down with Ortiz and Madelyn, he asked the pastor if he knew why they'd asked to meet. By the father's account, Ortiz said he guessed it was about the campus missionary's presentation.
They told him what they'd been carrying for two years: that the church had continued supporting Chi Alpha after the family had disclosed its concerns.
Neither Ortiz nor Madelyn apologized, according to the father. They said they felt accused and drew a distinction: they supported the missionaries, not the ministry.
“The father told them plainly that, as an elder, if he’d known the church was funding Chi Alpha missionaries, he would have opposed it from the start.”
That day, the family left La Vina Church, ending a relationship with the congregation that had spanned more than ten years.
The father texted church leadership to explain why.
It was dated May 29, 2026.
The message, with identifying details removed, read in part:
"La Viña has been our family and community for the last 10 years; we have served with unconditional love and have also received your love and service...Chi Alpha Campus Ministries is under intense legal and public scrutiny due to a series of civil lawsuits and criminal investigations regarding the cover-up and facilitation of sexual abuse...This organization has caused a lot of harm to our family, and learning that our congregation continued and/or continues to provide resources to support this organization goes against our vision of what we understand as discipleship."
The fathers departure letter to La Viña Church and pastor Stefano Ortiz (translated into english)
This wasn't the church going quiet. It was the church closing ranks.
According to the father, after that message went out, pastors began calling a leadership meeting, and during that meeting Ortiz discouraged people from speaking with him directly.
No call, no text, from most of a congregation they'd belonged to for years, apart from a small handful of close friends who reached out on their own.
Other congregants were reportedly told to direct questions about the family to Ortiz or Madelyn, not to the family itself.
After more than a decade of showing up, serving, and giving, they found out how quickly a church can go quiet.
The father said he wasn't initially looking to make any of this public.
After finding reporting on the Daniel Savala case and interviews XA and the Lions Den and Wrestling Lions founder Ron Bloomingkemper had given, he reached out through Wrestling Lions’ contact line, not expecting much.
Bloomingkemper responded within hours.
Source: NBC News Pastors and Prey Series: How a Christian college ministry glorified a sex offender and enabled him to keep abusing students.
Tracing Two Decades of Influence
This article doesn't claim to know who taught Craig Richey to do what's documented in it.
What follows are his known, documented connections, people, and institutions in his own history, and an open question this investigation is still working to answer:
How did a specific culture of exposure (nudity is unity) spread across Chi Alpha's Texas network for roughly two decades before it showed up in a van on Interstate 81 in 2023?
Craig Richey pioneered the Queens College Chi Alpha ministry in 2018 and remains its campus pastor and Chi Alpha district director as of 2026.
Before that, he graduated from the University of Texas at San Antonio in 2015 and served in Chi Alpha under campus pastor Johnny Hauck.
According to witnesses, Richey has told students directly that "Baywatch" wasn't something he invented. He described it, in his own words, as a game he and his friends used to play back when he was at UTSA, years before founding the Queens College ministry.
Collin Zellmer, the staff member witnesses say ran the game alongside him, also came through that UTSA (University of Texas at San Antonio) ministry.
Craig Richey and Collin Zellmer at Gateway Fellowship Church (UTSA)
Kyle Volkmer, a Chi Alpha leader with decades of history in the movement, has stated publicly that he personally discipled Richey during his college years. That relationship isn't closed.
On May 1, 2026, well after the incidents described in this article, Volkmer posted publicly about visiting Richey in Queens and called him his "good friend and faithful brother." Volkmer also states that:
“I had the privilege of discipling Craig during his college years…”
Source Facebook: Craig Richey with mentor Kyle Volkmer in Queens College New York.
Whatever Volkmer did or didn't know about what's documented here, that endorsement is current, a public show of support from the man who discipled him, standing as of this year.
Volkmer wrote These Things: A Reference Manual for Discipleship, which includes many of his mentor Daniel Savala’s teachings and was used as a discipleship manual within Chi Alpha and Gateway Fellowship Church under pastor John Van Pay.
UTSA Campus Pastor Johnny Hauck promoting Kyle Volkmer’s book.
Separately, one witness described Richey personally inviting him, more than once, to meet Daniel Savala at a private residence. The witness declined.
Daniel Savala's own story is bigger than Richey and belongs to a separate piece.
The short version of Savala: in May 2026, he pleaded guilty to sexually abusing two boys and was sentenced to thirty years with no parole. A civil lawsuit filed that same year alleges he gained access to students through Chi Alpha's San Antonio ministry, the same UTSA-connected entity whose registered agent is Hauck.
Download a copy:John Doe 3 Plaintiff's Original Petition, Harris County District Clerk
Source NBC News: Daniel Savala sentenced to 30 years in prison without possibility of parole.
That lawsuit, not this article, is where a broader lineage tracing back through UTSA to Sam Houston State University and Savala is actually being alleged.
Tracing that lineage fully - who influenced whom, how far it spread, and how many people over two decades may have been shaped by it before Richey ever got behind the wheel of that van - is the specific work the Wrestling Lions Part Two article is being built to do.
This report stays with what's documented about Richey himself.
Queens College Chi Alpha also published a teaching titled "It's Healthy to Bow," presenting submission to leadership as spiritually healthy.
That teaching is worth noting here because multiple witnesses interviewed for this story describe a ministry culture in which deference to leaders shaped how students responded when personal boundaries were crossed.
Mesmerized, Six Weeks After Arizona.
On August 17, 2021, the Assemblies of God's own U.S. Missions publication ran a feature titled "Mesmerized by Chi Alpha," profiling this exact ministry by name, with a photo identifying both Craig Richey and Collin Zellmer as its leaders.
The Arizona mission trip took place that same summer, June 30 through July 4, 2021.
The feature ran roughly six weeks after the incident described earlier in this piece.
"Mesmerized by Chi Alpha," highlights Queens College and Craig Richey, Aug. 17, 2021
It's unclear whether that article was removed deliberately or simply archived from the live site.
What is clear is that the article is no longer available at its former location on the live site. An archived copy preserves it.
The Paper Trail Chi Alpha Can't Explain Away
This isn't the first time Chi Alpha's national leadership has been told about concerns connected to this broader network.
In June 2018, National Director E. Scott Martin wrote to a former Chi Alpha member who was trying to warn Chi Alpha and the Assemblies of God that Daniel still had access to students, with Jeff Alexander copied directly, that an internal inquiry into Daniel Savala's influence
"provided no indication of anything but positive interactions."
Sam Houston State University had already conducted its own Title IX investigation into Savala.
Chi Alpha's response noted that his conviction was public record.
E. Scott Martin’s June 1, 2018 response email to a whistleblower warning about Savala.
“Since Mr. Savala is not an Assembly of God minister...Chi Alpha nor the Assemblies of God have reason to take legal action against Mr. Savala.”
Two weeks later, on June 15, 2018, the Office of the General Secretary sent its own response, cc'd to district superintendents in both North and South Texas.
The email noted that General Superintendent Doug Clay had personally read the original complaint and forwarded it for a response, then explained that the national office does not involve itself in local church matters given its size, more than 13,000 churches and 37,000 ministers, and that "local districts handle local situations."
The two credentialed ministers named in that email as connected to the concern, Eli Stewart and Eli Gautreaux, would later be identified in a separate 2026 civil lawsuit as men who supported Savala during his original sentencing.
Donna Barrett’s response email to the 2018 whistleblower.
Five years later, Clay referred publicly to "hiccups tied to shortcomings" while addressing the scandal from the General Council stage.
The 2018 correspondence establishes that Clay had personally reviewed and forwarded a complaint involving Savala years before those remarks.
What happened to Martin afterward is public record.
In November 2023, after more than thirty-three years on staff with Chi Alpha, Martin resigned as National Director. No reason was given publicly, and an Assemblies of God spokesperson told The Roys Report the organization does not comment on personnel matters.
In a statement issued around the same time, the Assemblies of God acknowledged that
"National Chi Alpha...made relevant Chi Alpha leaders aware of [Savala's] status and warned them to cease contact" as far back as 2018, the same year as both emails quoted above.
E. Scott Martin’s successor as National Director, Alex Rodriguez, previously served as National Training Director.
A June 11, 2024, Assemblies of God U.S. Missions article announcing his appointment states that Rodriguez enrolled at Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas, where his girlfriend, now wife, Abby, invited him to a Chi Alpha small group on campus; both graduated from SHSU in 2009.
That's the same campus whose Chi Alpha chapter no longer appears on the organization's chapter locator, and whose broader significance to this network is addressed later in this piece.
Chi Alpha's own chapter locator returns no match for Sam Houston State University, once a training ground for the movement's national leadership, including its own current National Director.
Chi Alpha's own site confirms the chapter's disappearance.
Why it disappeared, and when, isn't.
Chi Alpha's presence at Sam Houston State University is missing from the organization's current website.
Conversation with Chi Alpha executive staff.
In 2023, XA Lions Den founder Ron Bloomingkemper and survivor advocate Olivia Wolf raised concerns about the broader pattern directly with Chi Alpha leaders Jeff Alexander (People and Health Director) and Stephanie Chapelle (Director of Missionary Formation) during a phone conversation.
According to Bloomingkemper's account of that conversation, Alexander characterized the matter as an isolated incident and said nothing similar was happening elsewhere.
Bloomingkemper’s response was:
“If you don’t know what’s going on at the largest Chi Alpha in the country, (Sam Houston State) how would you know what’s happening at any other campus?”
Since then, stories and cases from spiritual and sexual abuse survivors have continued to come forward, and Chi Alpha has provided no evidence that it has proactively investigated every minister and campus whose formation traces back to individuals connected to Savala.
The National Responses To This Investigation
This year, Wrestling Lions brought Craig Richey's name directly to Chi Alpha's national leadership, warning them about allegations of inappropriate sexual boundaries involving students.
Here's what came back.
On July 15, 2026, a formal request for comment went to La Vina Church pastor and AG presbyter Stefano Ortiz, as well as executives at Chi Alpha's national office.
It laid out both incidents in detail and asked direct questions:
Had either incident been reported to Chi Alpha National or Assemblies of God U.S. Missions? If so, when?
Was a formal investigation conducted, and what were the findings?
Was disciplinary action taken?
Would this conduct, if substantiated, violate Chi Alpha or Assemblies of God policy,
and would it be grounds for removal from ministry?
The deadline was Friday, July 17, at 5 p.m.
The request stated plainly that if no response arrived, the article would note that Chi Alpha and the Assemblies of God had been given the opportunity to comment.
Wrestling Lions Media original request for comment email (July 14, 2026).
Seven questions.
Not one was directly answered. Here's what came back instead.
Finance Director Robbie Anderson replied July 17, 2026:
"Thank you for bringing this information to our attention. We take these allegations with the utmost seriousness and recognize the gravity of the concerns that have been raised and will investigate them thoroughly. The safety, well-being, and dignity of every person in our community are of paramount importance to Chi Alpha Ministries. Any allegation of misconduct, especially misconduct of a sexual nature, is deeply troubling and contrary to our core Christian values. Our organization remains steadfast in our commitment to fostering a culture of safety, respect, and accountability... Because People Matter."
National Director Alex Rodriguez replied the same day, addressed by name:
"Thank you for bringing this information to our attention. We take these allegations with the utmost seriousness and recognize the gravity of the concerns that have been raised and will investigate them thoroughly. The safety, well-being, and dignity of every person in our community are of paramount importance to Chi Alpha Ministries. Any allegation of misconduct, especially misconduct of a sexual nature, is deeply troubling and contrary to our core Christian values. Our organization remains steadfast in our commitment to fostering a culture of safety, respect, and accountability."
Two people, two titles, one form letter, sent within minutes of each other.
Word for word, aside from the signature.
Pastor and Presbyter Stefano Ortiz, July 17, 2026, sent his own response:
"Please be assured that your concerns are being taken seriously and will be addressed appropriately in accordance with our established processes and policies."
The Assemblies of God General Secretary's office, July 16, 2026, forwarded the matter per bylaws to New York Ministry Network superintendent David Nuzzolo and network secretary Daniel McLaughlin, encouraging further concerns in writing.
They Want the Evidence. They Won't Give a Name.
On July 24, 2026, a reply came from an account identified only as "Chi Alpha Reporting":
"As previously noted, we are diligently investigating this matter. You indicated that you have information related to these allegations, including video evidence supporting these claims. In order to thoroughly investigate this matter, please send us any and all evidence you have supporting these claims."
The message did not identify the investigator, that person's title, the scope of the investigation, or who would ultimately receive the evidence, including video evidence of the Arizona incident that Chi Alpha was now specifically asking to be handed over.
On July 29, 2026, a follow-up went back to that same reports@ address, copying Doug Clay directly, asking who, by name and title, was conducting the investigation, whether a written policy governed how allegations against a campus missionary were investigated, and whether an outside investigator had been retained.
Part of the email read:
“Before I go further, I need to know who I’m talking with and how this investigation is actually being run. The email came from a generic inbox with no sender name. I don’t know who wrote it, what office they represent, or what authority they have to request evidence in a matter this serious.”
Response email to @ChiAlphaReports asking for clarity.
No answer came naming anyone.
On August 5, 2026, a second follow-up repeated the request: a full name and title of whoever was asking for evidence, the defined scope of the investigation, and confirmation of who specifically had the authority to receive sensitive material.
Again. No response.
Queens College Featured on the New 2026 Chi Alpha Homepage
Chi Alpha's national homepage was updated this year and currently features a student testimonial under the banner "In Their Own Words":
"Small Group has been life-changing for me. We don't just talk about God; we learn to live out what Jesus taught. You know that you belong."
It's attributed to a Chi Alpha student at Queens College, New York.
Chi Alpha’s 2026 homepage featuring Queens College
Almost four years ago, in the conversation referenced earlier in this article, Jeff Alexander characterized the matter presented to him as isolated.
In 2026, out of 276 Chi Alpha ministries in the country, Queens College is one of a small number of campuses chosen to represent the organization on the front page of its redesigned website.
The same campus Craig Richey still leads.
Featuring a campus nationally is a choice. Someone decided Queens College was worth spotlighting.
Did that decision involve any review of the allegations against Richey?
Had the campus been checked before being featured?
What criteria, if any, determine which local ministry gets promoted nationally?
Those are open questions this reporting raises, not ones Chi Alpha has been asked directly yet.
No Scope, No Names, No Process
About a week ago, word reached Wrestling Lions that Chi Alpha has opened an internal investigation, according to a witness in this story. According to that witness, the first contact came by phone from someone who identified herself as the person leading the inquiry.
Delyn Cole is currently conducting outreach to witnesses.
In a recent interview with one witness, she was asked directly who else was reviewing the case and who would ultimately decide the outcome.
Delyn wouldn't say.
Asked who specifically would determine any consequences, she offered only "the executive leaders," without naming them.
Asked what accountability would look like if the allegations were substantiated, she said she didn't have an answer.
When the witness pressed her to confirm her own name for the record, she agreed to that much:
"I am the one leading it, so my name is the one you could include."
At the beginning of the interview with the man who had been eighteen at the time of the West Virginia trip, Cole asked him to describe what he had liked about his time in Chi Alpha.
Cole's publicly listed professional history shows nearly thirty-eight years at Chi Alpha Campus Ministries, USA, including work as Director of Coaching and Support Raising Training dating to August 1988. Chi Alpha's national leadership materials have separately listed her as People and Health director.
Wrestling Lions found no publicly listed training or professional experience in institutional investigations, trauma-informed interviewing, or safeguarding review in the biographies and professional history reviewed for this story.
Delyn Cole and and Craig Richey on Cole’s personal newsletter website.
This photograph isn't offered as proof of bias.
It's a reminder of the question that follows. The image isn't the story. The process is.
When an investigator and the people she's investigating share the same small leadership network, the institution owes the public a clear account of how it protects that independence.
The same organization whose 2018 inquiry reported finding "no indication of anything but positive interactions" regarding Savala's influence has now assigned Cole to lead the current inquiry, still without publicly identifying who else decides, on what timeline, or against what standard.
Chi Alpha has published a national leadership roster naming its senior national director, executive ministry team, and field specialists by name, title, and photo, or did.
The URL that hosted that page, chialpha.com/about/national-leadership/, now redirects to a general "Our Story" page containing no staff names, titles, or bios, only a mission statement and doctrine.
Chi Alpha’s national about page before and after removing all leadership references.
This reporting can't determine whether that redirect reflects a deliberate choice or simply a byproduct of the site's redesign.
What is certain is that, as of this writing, the former leadership page no longer links to a staff roster, and Chi Alpha's current site has no comparable leadership listing in its main navigation.
According to the last available version of that page, Alex Rodriguez holds the title of senior national director. The roster, when it was live, did not identify anyone responsible for reviewing misconduct allegations, and nothing on it named who specifically evaluates a case like this one once Cole finishes gathering accounts.
What a Real Independent Investigation Looks Like
There's a working model for what Chi Alpha and the Assemblies of God are being asked to do, and it isn't hypothetical.
In 2012, Bob Jones University's own board of trustees, facing complaints about how the school handled abuse disclosures, hired GRACE (Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment) as an independent outside investigator.
“GRACE ran the review for nearly two years, interviewed 116 people, and published its findings publicly in a three-hundred-page report that named the university’s own president as personally responsible for specific failures.”
Bob Jones University apologized based on the report's findings.
You can read a copy of GRACE's Final Reportfor the Investigatory Review of Sexual Abuse Disclosures and Institutional Responses at Bob Jones University, Dec. 11, 2014.
The university even posted the findings on its website for public transparency.
The contrast is substantial.
Chi Alpha has not disclosed the full scope of its current review, the decision-making body, the standards being applied, or whether it will make its findings public.
Source BozLaw PA website https://bozlawpa.com/
Boz Tchividjian, the attorney behind the Bob Jones University investigation and founder of GRACE, has spoken publicly about the Savala and Chi Alpha case and has said as much about claims of independence generally:
"Just because you call something 'independent' doesn't make it so. If it's truly an independent investigation, the larger organization would not be in control of it. At the very least, those who were victimized would receive full copies of the full report that these reported investigators wrote. We have yet to see that happen."
Tchividjian's concerns about Chi Alpha began before the current investigation.
In May 2023, as the Savala scandal was beginning to receive national attention, Tchividjian told The Roys Report:
“What I find most alarming is how easy it has been for this registered sex offender to make his way into the world of Chi Alpha. The organization’s leaders have given Savala access to untold numbers of young college students.”
That observation goes directly to the question an independent investigation must answer.
The issue is not simply what Daniel Savala did.
It is how he obtained, maintained, and expanded access to students inside the Chi Alpha network, and what institutional decisions, relationships, leadership structures, or oversight failures allowed that access to continue.
Read the full article at The Roys Report.
Tchividjian made that point even more explicitly after Savala's arrest, calling for "a genuine third-party independent investigation" to determine the complete truth and identify anyone who helped empower the predator.
That is the standard.
Not simply investigating individual misconduct after it becomes public, but examining the system that made the misconduct possible.
The Question Nobody at Chi Alpha Has Answered
Does Craig Richey believe that undressing in front of students, including an eighteen-year-old he barely knew, was acceptable conduct for a campus pastor?
And what, if anything, did the leadership culture in which he was formed have to do with it?
Chi Alpha has not publicly answered those questions.
There is a larger question underneath nearly every detail in this story:
How does a campus pastor become comfortable enough to propose a game like "Baywatch" in the first place?
Under what safeguarding standard would it be considered appropriate for a campus pastor to be inside a restroom stall with a college student while his pants were down?
Nudity is the most visible behavior described in these accounts. But witnesses describe something broader:
a leadership culture in which questioning a leader's decisions could itself become the problem, rather than the behavior being questioned.
"It's Healthy to Bow" wasn't written about nudity. It was written about submission generally.
Former students describe that same expectation to trust and follow their leaders showing up in situations far beyond what happened in the van and the bathroom.
That raises a safeguarding question larger than any single incident.
What happens when adult ministry leaders normalize unusual personal boundaries among students while operating inside a culture that places a high value on submission to spiritual authority?
For at least one former Chi Alpha student staff member, that question isn't theoretical.
Describing how commonplace nudity had become around his campus pastor, he put it this way:
“I’ve seen my campus pastors penis more times than I have fingers on both my hands.”
That is what normalization looks like from the other side.
Conduct that would ordinarily cause someone to stop and ask,
Why is my pastor repeatedly naked around me?
Can become unremarkable when it happens often enough, especially in a community where people have been taught to trust and defer to their spiritual leaders.
The question for Chi Alpha isn't simply whether these individual incidents happened.
It's how behavior this far outside ordinary pastoral boundaries became ordinary.
Eight Years, Two Reviews, Questions Still Unanswered
In 2018, Chi Alpha's national office concluded that its inquiry into Daniel Savala's influence found "no indication of anything but positive interactions."
Eight years later, another review is underway involving allegations about a pastor formed within that same Texas Chi Alpha network.
Craig Richey remains the campus pastor at Queens College.
Craig Richey speaking at Faith Assembly of God 2024
Trust isn't rebuilt by promises. It's rebuilt by process.
If Chi Alpha wants to rebuild that trust, the process has to do the heavy lifting, not the personalities involved.
That means investigators with no organizational ties, reporting channels outside the chain of command, published procedures, clear timelines, and regular independent reviews of ministry culture.
An investigation isn't credible simply because it's called independent. Its independence has to be built into the process.
The goal isn't to assign motives. It's to test the system.
That leaves questions Chi Alpha has not publicly answered:
Who selects the investigators?
Who reviews their findings?
What standards are being used?
Will the findings be made public?
How independent is the process from the leadership being investigated?
Survivors, families, and advocates are calling for a national, independent, third-party investigation into pastors and campuses whose formation traces back to the Texas Chi Alpha network.
“If a sexual abuse scandal of this scale didn’t produce a system that makes unhealthy leadership easier to identify and remove, what would?”
Because the question is no longer simply what happened in one van or one bathroom stall.
It's how far this culture traveled, who carried it, and whether anyone ever checked.
Chi Alpha has not publicly disclosed how many pastors formed within that network remain in ministry today or whether their ministries have undergone independent safeguarding reviews.
Right now, students are trusting the adults leading them in vans, small groups, churches, campus houses, and mission trips.
They deserve to know who checked.
