While this is out of character for me to write about, and to publicly come out on one side of this issue, I can't be silent on this. Too many people already have.
You may have heard about the lawsuit (recently tossed out due to statue of limitations) against Sovereign Grace Ministries, alleging a conspiracy to cover up multiple incidences of child sexual abuse by pressuring families not to report abuse.
You may have heard about the lawsuit (recently tossed out due to statue of limitations) against Sovereign Grace Ministries, alleging a conspiracy to cover up multiple incidences of child sexual abuse by pressuring families not to report abuse.
I can't stop thinking about it, for many reasons.
One reason: The details of the kinds of abuse that occurred are
horrific. At least eleven people came forward with stories that I wish I could
forget. If you know anything about child sexual abuse, it’s that allegations of
abuse are rarely false. In so many of these instances, church leaders were made
aware of the abuse that was happening by either other church members or people
in ministry roles, and their response was to defend the victim and push for
reconciliation over and against alerting authorities.
This was not one church within the Sovereign Grace network. This
happened in at least two locations, and the charges in the civil suit were
aiming to prove that there had been an orchestrated effort on the part of the
leadership to keep the abuse under wraps and out of the hands authorities.
A second reason: C.J. Mahaney is a well-respected and influential
leader in Reformed circles, one of the founders of Sovereign Grace Ministries
and its long-time president, one of the “4” in T4G (Together for the Gospel,
the quartet of Mark Dever, Al Mohler, Ligon Duncan, and Mahaney), and a council
member on The Gospel Coalition, an organization composed of almost all
influential Reformed folks (John Piper, Tim Keller, the T4G boys, Justin
Taylor, Kevin DeYoung, D.A. Carson, Matt Chandler, and many more). The lawsuit
included many instances of abuse that happened at the church of which he was
senior pastor, some of them under his watch. He was named as one of the men
allegedly covering up abuse.
Now, in 2011, CJ took a leave of absence from his position at
Sovereign Grace Ministries, in order to examine his heart over several charges
leveled at him by others in leadership. These charges were perhaps not directly
related to the abuse cover-up, but it wasn’t long after that the lawsuit was
filed, and it isn’t hard to link the two eventsIn a post on The Gospel
Coalition website titled “Why I’m Taking a Leave of Absence,” CJ explains that,
while the charges aren’t immoral in nature, they are serious, and he was
leaving to go under the care of his friend Mark Dever while examining his
heart, etc. A statement put out last week by Dever, Mohler, and Duncan seems to echo the language of this 2011
article:
A Christian leader, charged with any credible, serious, and direct wrongdoing, would usually be well advised to step down from public ministry. No such accusation of direct wrongdoing was ever made against C. J. Mahaney. Instead, he was charged with founding a ministry and for teaching doctrines and principles that are held to be true by vast millions of American evangelicals. For this reason, we, along with many others, refused to step away from C. J. in any way. We do not regret that decision.
I read that and felt my blood boil. Were I a victim of abuse, or a
family member of a victim, I would feel betrayed not just by one church
organization, but by the church at large, whose leaders have chosen to minimize
the seriousness of the charges and spin the truth to protect a single leader. Add
to that the fact that it’s simply not true. Mahaney was charged with aiding in
the cover-up of abuse happening in his church and the network of which he was
the head, not with simply being the leader of the network where the abuse
happened.
Later, The Gospel Coalition website posted another response
composed by Justin Taylor, Don Carson, and Kevin DeYoung, “Why We Have BeenSilent About the SGM Lawsuit.” This one was equally troubling; though the
language was somewhat more sensitive to victims and those with reasonable
questions, the aim of it seemed to be to discredit the victims and those who
brought the suit and to defend the actions of those around Mahaney and SGM who
have not spoken up about this.
This is an example:
So the entire legal strategy was dependent on a theory of conspiracy that was more hearsay than anything like reasonable demonstration of culpability. As to the specific matter of C. J. participating in some massive cover-up, the legal evidence was so paltry (more like non-existent) that the judge did not think a trial was even warranted.
Simply not true. The reason the judge
decided to throw out the suit was because the statute of limitations had passed
for civil complaint for many of the plaintiffs named in the suit. The plaintiff’s
attorney was hoping that the judge would consider a charge of a conspiracy to
cover up the abuse would be enough for the judge to consider bringing the case
to trial anyway, but the judge decided against that. Not because of lack of
evidence being “so paltry,” but because of the statute of limitations.
And that’s a huge deal. Because it means
that, since this won’t go to trial, the pattern of behavior in these churches
may continue. It also means that the leadership of the reformed community in
America can feel justified in standing by Mahaney and SGM, claiming their
innocence because the judge threw out the case against them.
A third reason this weighs on me: I am
Reformed. I’m a member in a Presbyterian church, and I’m part of a Presbyterian
church-planting ministry. These people are my people. I’ve watched and listened
some of the sessions of the Together for the Gospel conference and gained a lot
from them; I’ve respected these men for their solid biblical teaching and for
their reputation for integrity in leadership. So it grieves me to my soul that
they are so far off in how they are handling this. It grieves me that C.J.
Mahaney has not simply come out and said, “ I did wrong; this happened on my
watch. I can’t fix what happened, but I can make sure I do whatever I can so
that it never happens again.” Instead he’s done the opposite, running and
hiding from it and having his powerful friends run interference for him. He
stepped down several months ago from leadership at SGM to become senior pastor
at a church in Louisville. He’s gotten around coming clean about his
culpability by retreating, rather than owning up and asking the church
community how he can begin to work toward restoration.
And Dever, Mohler, Duncan, Carson,
Taylor, and DeYoung have publicly sided with him, each one of them going on
record as saying that Mahaney is above reproach in the whole thing.
I know there’s the possibility for Mahaney’s
innocence. It’s a possibility, but it’s fairly unlikely. I have (regrettably)
read many of the details of the case, and the close ties many of these
instances of abuse have to Mahaney (close associates and men in ministry roles
accused of abuse, cases of abuse being handled inappropriately by the
leadership of the church while he was senior pastor, etc.) would make it next
to impossible for me to believe that a) he had no knowledge of abuse happening
in his church (and network of churches) on his watch, and b) he had no
influence on how the leadership structure handled their approach to abuse
victims and victimizers.
The reformed leadership – these celebrity-like
figures within the landscape of Christianity in America – has a lot to answer
for in these circumstances. I almost wish they had remained silent, because
when they spoke up, they made things a whole lot worse. What they did was the
collective equivalent of telling the abuse victims what happened is their
problem.
And a fourth reason this bothers me: the
Church is called to look out for the widows and the orphans. We are to look out
for and speak out for the oppressed and the powerless, to defend and give voice
to those who have none. We are told that the Kingdom is made up of children and
the child-like.
These men have done the opposite. They
have acted to silence those who have been oppressed; they have prioritized
defending the powerful against the powerless children who were abused on his
watch. They have publicly spoken out in such a way as to dismiss their plight.
They have failed to do what they are called to do as Christians.
So where does that leave us? It leaves
us all in the hands of a sovereign God whose grace covers over all sins. I pray
that these men repent of what they are doing; they are hurting the church at
large by shielding Mahaney. I pray that Mahaney repents, that God pursues him
as only He can until he can’t resist any more. I pray that, even if nothing
changes with the men who lead reformed America, the victims experience the
healing that only Jesus offers. And I pray that other believers speak out against this cover-up, that pressure is put on these leaders to repent of their actions.
May God have mercy on
us all.