Biblical Teaching on the Misuse of NDAs: Part 1
- Guest Writer
- Aug 5
- 8 min read
What Scripture Reveals About Silencing Through Confidentiality Agreements
The Bible is surprisingly unsilent about the misuse of NDAs to silence people. NDAs that protect confidential information such as intellectual property, donor lists, or counseling records are legitimate. NDAs are misused when they prevent individuals from disclosing their lived experience, especially sexual abuse, discrimination, retaliation, bullying, and other misconduct.
Much NDA misuse is based on rationalizations that do not consider biblical teaching or the harm done by silencing people. “I need to protect the reputation of my organization, which is doing good work.” “Our attorney is recommending an NDA.” “The insurers require us to use NDAs.” In order to make good, responsible, and humane decisions, it is essential to have a clear picture of both right and wrong related to NDAs and the damage they do. The reader is asked to keep in mind that personal integrity, obedience to the word of God, and human decency are all limited to what we cannot rationalize.
Jesus said one of the most important commandments is to love your neighbor as yourself. This may be the most important principle to keep in mind when thinking about NDAs.
Fundamental Ideas: The value of a person.
Jesus brings abundant life and sets people free.
Love your neighbor as yourself.
Choose truth over rationalization.
Every Person Has Worth
Genesis 1:27 "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them."
Both men and women are created in the image of God and have incredible worth. Harming a person by silencing them to protect the reputation of a leader or organization violates this principle and denies their worth as a person. Although women are created fully in the image of God, they are more likely to be silenced by an NDA (Can’t Buy My Silence/Speak Out Revolution survey)1.
Two statements that align with this principle:
The first core value of NDAFreeCampus: Value of a person over the reputation of an institution.
The first fundamental canon of the National Society of Professional Engineers Code of Ethics: Engineers, in the fulfillment of their professional duties, shall: Hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public.
NDA misuse harms both the individual and the public.
Community Heals What Silence Damages
Genesis 2:18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.”
God puts us in families and communities. Relationships of all kinds help
humans meet a basic need for connection that He has designed into us. NDAs
isolate people so they cannot share significant life experiences with friends,
family, or colleagues at work, or even within a support group. This isolation short-
circuits the healing that family, friendship, community, and support groups are intended to provide.
Love Does No Wrong to a Neighbor
Romans 13:9 For the commandments, "You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet," and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
Romans 13:10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.
Many of the Ten Commandments are summed up by loving your neighbor, and love does no wrong to a neighbor. Silencing through NDAs is known to harm people. In one study, 93% of people who signed NDAs reported negative mental health consequences.1 Individuals who have signed NDAs have also spoken of the harm done to them:
“I wanted to speak out. And I was reminded—I signed an NDA and not to speak, not to disclose what happened.… I was already down. I was already devastated.”2
“I just kept [my feelings] in… [to] myself and just [thought] about it at home, but it felt like it was kind of ... consuming my mind.”2
“I think back a lot to the beginning. I never would have agreed to be silenced if I knew the long-term impact it would have on my health, my personal relationships, and the safety of others. It should be over by now; I should have healed and moved on with my life. The reason it isn’t over, is because I was silenced.” 3
Love sets people free and helps them find healing. NDAs and silencing harm people. They violate this fundamental commandment to love our neighbor, and instead do them wrong. This commandment should not be set aside by rationalizations like ‘NDAs are standard.’
Jesus Brings Abundant Life
John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.
NDAs steal people’s voices and their capacity to be honest and forthcoming in their
relationships and networks. They cause and compound harm by preventing
people from sharing significant and often painful events or warning others, which
allows abuse to continue in an organization. An NDA prevented Trey Carlock from telling even his own family about the childhood sexual abuse he had experienced. The NDA caused him to lose hope that he would ever be free, and he took his own life. NDAs can kill. In contrast to the death—of voice, hope, and connection—that NDAs bring about, Jesus brings abundant life.
Jesus Sets People Free
Luke 4:18-19 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
Jesus sets people free. He offers forgiveness to all who believe in him and sets them free from judgment and bondage to the past. He sets free the poor and oppressed, who are harmed and held captive by the powerful. He sets people free from addiction, hate, and harmful belief systems. Binding people to silence with NDAs is completely opposite to what Jesus himself is doing.
Repentance and Restitution
Luke 19:8-9 And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.” And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham.
Something has gone wrong in your church, and someone has been hurt. Do you act ‘with an abundance of caution’ to protect the church's finances and reputation? As a dishonest tax collector, Zacchaeus had cheated people. Now he voluntarily repays those he cheated fourfold without anyone having to file a lawsuit or sign a settlement agreement with an NDA. In response to his genuine repentance, Jesus says that salvation has come to his house.
Zacchaeus is an excellent model of repentance and making restitution for any church or organization where people have been harmed. For example, Broadmoor Baptist Church sided with a survivor of sexual abuse by a former youth pastor, publicly accepted responsibility, and offered to pay her legal expenses for breaking her NDA with him.
Nothing Stays Hidden
Luke 12:2-3 Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark shall be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in private rooms shall be proclaimed on the housetops.
Jesus says those who believe that they can use NDAs to hide embarrassing information will be disappointed. Jesus states clearly that everything will be known and known publicly. NDAs did not ultimately hide the actions of Bill Cosby, Roger Ailes, Harvey Weinstein, Ravi Zacharias, Kanakuk Kamps, and many others.
Speak for the Voiceless
Prov 31:8-9 Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute. Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.
King Lemuel recites the good advice given to him by his mother. Whatever power to speak we have, we should speak to defend those without power. To enable the voices of the silenced to be heard. To defend the poor and needy, rather than enable the powerful to silence them with NDAs.
Renounce Hidden Things
II Corinthians 4:2 (NASB) but we have renounced the things hidden because of shame, not walking in trickery nor distorting the word of God, but by the open proclamation of the truth commending ourselves to every person’s conscience in the sight of God.
We renounce the cover-up of shameful things with NDAs and speak the truth openly.
Reconciliation Over Silence
Matthew 5:23-24 So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.
Jesus places a high priority on reconciliation. Silencing with an NDA does not represent reconciliation; it represents an abuse of power and failure to reconcile.
Seek Forgiveness and Healing
II Chronicles 7:14 if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
NDA misuse occurs far too often in the church. Those in the church who misuse NDAs can stop this harmful practice, seek forgiveness, and free those who are silenced.
Our Testimony Overcomes
Revelation 12:2 And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.
We overcome by the word of our testimony. USAF Captain Ashton Alarcon, who had been sexually abused at Kanakuk Kamps, and at age 14 refused to sign an NDA, testified before the Texas State Senate. At age 19 he went on a short-term mission with his mother to Hungary. At the end of this trip, he felt the Holy Spirit ask him to share his story. “I told him no, that I was upset with Him and that if he wanted me to share my story, someone was going to have to come and ask me.”
Someone did ask, and he said yes. “Little did I know the impact that that would have the next day. I stayed up all night thinking about how am I going to translate this into another language. The pastor also stayed up all night and couldn’t sleep, of that church that we were with. When I showed him my story, what I had written, he told me that this is the exact message that we had been praying for.
That there had been generations of sexual abuse within Hungary. Generations. So when I got up and told my story, he said that never has his church been filled with people asking for healing, speaking out, that had never shared with anybody, that they had not seen anybody who has come forward about this, has healed from abuse like this.”
Jesus heals and sets people free. NDAs bind people to silence and prevent healing.
Continue Your Reading:
This is Part 1 of a two-part series on biblical teaching regarding the misuse of NDAs. In Part 2, I explore what churches and organizations must do to stop NDA misuse, repent, and restore those who have been silenced.
Also by Robert Leland:
🔗 When Positive Self-Talk Tells You It's OK to Silence Church Abuse Survivors — How churches rationalize silencing survivors and why institutional silence contradicts Scripture.
Author:
Scripture Attribution
Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Sources
Legal Services Board (UK). "The misuse of NDAs: Call for evidence themes and summary of evidence." February 2024.
Chan, A. L., Nichols, B. J., Daub, A., & Crossley, A. D. "Assessing the Impact of Non-Disclosure Agreements and Forced Arbitration Clauses on Survivors of Workplace Sexual Harassment and Discrimination." Clayman Institute for Gender Research, Stanford University, July 2024.
Can't Buy My Silence. "Story 90."
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