A Christian pastor from Spokane Valley, Washington, has apologized for giving a “ridiculous ultimatum” to girls at his youth summer camps, insisting they only wear one-piece swimsuits to church-sponsored events.
Bryce Brewer, 42, issued the apology on Facebook on Sunday, explaining how he came to realize how unfair it was to teach girls that their bodies are things that “need to be covered” instead of teaching boys to “control themselves.”
In the now-viral post with more than 49,000 shares, he pleas for other youth pastors to “stop being chauvinist” and added that he is sorry for laying the “weight of purity on a girl’s swimsuit while she was swimming and not on the boys’ responsibility to not be gross.”
Brewer says the realization came to him while on a recent shopping trip with his fiancée and her 10-year-old daughter.
“I wandered with them through several department stores and through Target trying to find a cute-but-appropriate one-piece bathing suit, and they’re very, very difficult to find,” Brewer told TODAY Parents. “I watched a frustration build with both of them, almost a dejection.”
“I wondered, how many young ladies did I subject to this event over 20 years of ministry?” Brewer continued. “Times when, because of me, they were desperately searching for a one-piece bathing suit and couldn’t find one?”
As his apology post makes the rounds on the internet, Brewer told TODAY Parents that he hopes others will be inspired not to make the same mistake he did.
“The number one thing I hope comes from this is that we as leaders, especially in the church, would walk in humility and stop pretending we are the ones that have the answers,” Brewer said. “I truly am sorry, and my intention was to say that and to say that while my heart may have been in the right place, I missed the boat in this area.”
Brewer, who has a 13-year-old daughter and a 20-year-old son of his own, concluded his Facebook post saying, “I am sorry to all the students, especially female, that we subjugated to our rules. I am sorry to my female students as they desperately tried to search for a swimsuit in the days leading up to camp. I am sorry if you felt sexualized by us telling you to cover up. I am sorry I didn’t teach boys to be men, and laid that responsibility on young women.”
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