Michael Tait has confessed his sins. I’m relieved he did the right thing

“What if I stumble / What if I fall? / What if I lose my step / And I make fools of us all?”

This week, 30 years after he first sang those words with his then band DC Talk, Michael Tait has answered his own question: Confess. Admit to everything. Make a fulsome apology.

The high-profile Christian music artist, former the Newsboys frontman, star of a stage musical and a fixture of a popular Christian film franchise – has confessed to having excessively abused drugs and alcohol, and of serious sexual misconduct involving a number of men over a period spanning two decades. The shocking news followed his unexpected departure from The Newsboys in January.

In a statement posted on Instagram earlier this week, Tait said: “Recent reports of my reckless and destructive behaviour, including drug and alcohol abuse and sexual activity are sadly, largely true…I am ashamed of my life choices and actions, and make no excuses for them. I will simply call it what God calls it: sin. I don’t blame anyone or anything but myself. While I might dispute certain details in the accusations against me, I do not dispute the substance of them.”

Tait went on to outline the rehabilitation programme he has been on since leaving the Newsboys, and ended his post by quoting Psalm 51 (“Have mercy on me, O God…”).

The confession post has garnered 22,000 likes on Instagram. Many have praised Tait for it; while a minority say it’s “too dramatic” or not sincere enough. Azariah Southworth, the TikTok influencer who first outed Tait as gay (in itself, a highly contentious move), said, “A confession is not full accountability. It’s a good first step, but it’s not full accountability.”

No matter how insincere critics might feel the confession is, the fact remains that Tait has owned what he did

For me, what Tait’s confession gets right is that he fully owns it. There’s no blame-shifting; he takes it all on. This is encouraging, given that in recent times, fallen Christian leaders have either doubled down, continued as if it’s business as usual, or vanished with no apologies given (see Mike Pilavachi, Michael Brown and Mike Bickle for examples).

Tait’s update on what he has been doing to turn things round is also a positive. What’s missing, however, is a specific apology to his victims. They just get lumped together with friends, fans, bandmates and anyone else who knows him with a one-size-fits-all “I’m sorry.” They at least deserved to be acknowledged publicly. One can only hope that Tait has reached out to them in person away from the gaze of the media (through the correct legal channels, of course).

The response to all this from the Newsboys is perplexing. “When he left the band in January, Michael confessed to us and our management that he ‘had been living a double-life,’ but we never imagined that it could be this bad,” they say in their official response to Tait’s confession. Given that some of the reported misdeeds took place on the band’s tour bus, something about that just does not ring true.

The Newsboys have sadly been here before; their first lead singer, John James, quit the band in 1997 after succumbing to alcohol and drug abuse (before you think the signs should have been easier to spot the second time around, remember none of the current band members were in the original lineup). And then there’s that weird bit in the statement where they inform us that “the four of us are husbands and fathers … between the four of us, we have fourteen children.” Meaning what exactly? That Tait’s wrongdoings happened because he was single with no children? I don’t think so! And we wonder why single people often feel alienated in our churches…

It isn’t perfect, but I still think Tait’s confession gets most things right, and could even serve as a helpful model to others in future. Because, as we sadly know from history, this won’t be the last time a Christian leader is caught in scandal. There are too many other skeletons in CCM’s closet. No matter how insincere critics might feel the confession is, the fact remains that Tait has owned what he did. To quote another song Tait sang with his old band DC Talk: “Just between you and me / Confession needs to be made / Recompense is my way to freedom.”