ADDENDUM::Sex abuse in Protestant life: Is Rachael Denhollander the tip of a newsworthy iceberg? — GetReligion

As my GetReligion colleague Bobby Ross reported, her speech was notable for many reasons. She talked about God’s forgiveness, tossed in a C.S. Lewis quote near the end, then added that she lost her church over the matter.

That's news. Only Christianity Today really went after what happened and named the organization: Sovereign Grace Ministries, whose flagship church -– Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Md. –- got hit with a sexual abuse lawsuit. Sovereign Grace Ministries issued a rebuttal on Feb. 13.

Sadly, no reporters are pursuing what Denhollander is alleging: That Sovereign Grace Ministries is really the tip of the iceberg and that sexual abuse of the young in Protestant churches may dwarf the horrors exposed, starting 16 years ago, in the U.S. Catholic Church.

Sex abuse in Protestant life: Is Rachael Denhollander the tip of a newsworthy iceberg? — GetReligion

ADDENDUM::C. J. Mahaney Withdraws from T4G | News & Reporting | Christianity Today

C. J. Mahaney announced today that he will back out of next month’s Together for the Gospel (T4G) conference to keep the controversy over Sovereign Grace Churches (SGC) away from the event.

“Given the recent, renewed controversy surrounding Sovereign Grace Churches and me individually, I have decided to withdraw from the 2018 T4G conference,” Mahaney wrote.

Over the past several weeks, Rachael Denhollander, the former gymnast whose Larry Nassar testimony went viral, has used her platform to address abuse in the church, particularly years-old allegations of abuse at Covenant Life Church, where Mahaney—the former president of Sovereign Grace Ministries (SGM)—had served as senior pastor.

Though the 2012 case against SGM was dismissed in court, Denhollander has repeatedly challenged the church network’s claims, most recently in a 7,800-word statement posted on Facebook last Thursday.

C. J. Mahaney Withdraws from T4G | News & Reporting | Christianity Today

UPDATED::My Larry Nassar Testimony Went Viral. But There’s More to the Gospel Than Forgiveness. | Christianity Today

UPDATE::  Sovereign Grace Churches Posts New Response to Rachael Denhollander (Updated with Reactions)

,,,Sovereign Grace Churches posted a lengthy and detailed response to Denhollander’s request for an investigation by GRACE. In addition to a denial of the bulk of Denhollander’s allegations, the church organization flatly rejected her request.

UPDATE:: Sovereign Grace Disputes Rachael Denhollander’s Remarks

Comments by Larry Nassar accuser Rachael Denhollander in a Christianity Today interview have revived debate over a dismissed abuse lawsuit against Sovereign Grace Ministries (SGM) dating back to 2012.

Last week, Denhollander referred to the SGM saga as “one of the worst, if not the worst, instances of evangelical cover-up of sexual abuse” and “one of the most well-documented cases of institutional cover-up I have ever seen.”

The 33-year-old said her former church’s stance toward victims and involvement in restoring former SGM president C. J. Mahaney led her family to leave the congregation.

Sovereign Grace Churches (SGC) issued a statement dated February 2 calling her characterizations untrue, citing the 2014 dismissal of a civil case against SGM. (In a separate case, a former youth leader with SGM had been convicted of abuse.)

Not something I would normally post but it provides some food for thought. The intersection of Larry Nassar with CJ Mahaney.  To borrow the Ed note,

Editor’s note: Denhollander clarified that she and her husband did not attend a SGM church, but a Louisville, Kentucky, church “directly involved in restoring” former SGM president C. J. Mahaney. She said that she and her husband “left because we were told by individual elders that it wasn’t the place for us.” CT previously reported how Mahaney and SGM were accused of covering up abuse within the church network in a 2012 lawsuit; they denied the allegations and argued that courts shouldn’t second-guess pastoral counseling decisions. A judge dismissed the suit in 2014, though a former SGM youth leader was convicted of abusing three boys in a separate case.

What I found to be a devastating statement on Denhollander's part,

That’s exactly right. When you support an organization that has been embroiled in a horrific 30-year cover-up of sexual assault, you know what that communicates to the world and what it communicates to other enablers and abusers within your own church. It’s very obvious that they are not going to speak out against sexual assault when it’s in their own community.

So that leaves me with the question: What happens when it’s a trusted person at this church? What happens when it’s a trusted person in these other evangelical organizations? The extent that one is willing to speak out against their own community is the bright line test for how much they care and how much they understand.

We have failed abhorrently as Christians when it comes to that test. We are very happy to use sexual assault as a convenient whipping block when it’s outside our community. When the Penn State scandal broke, prominent evangelical leaders were very, very quick to call for accountability, to call for change. But when it was within our own community, the immediate response was to vilify the victims or to say things that were at times blatantly and demonstratively untrue about the organization and the leader of the organization. There was a complete refusal to engage with the evidence. It did not even matter.

The ultimate reality that I live with is that if my abuser had been Nathaniel Morales instead of Larry Nassar, if my enabler had been [an SGM pastor] instead of [MSU gymnastics coach] Kathie Klages, if the organization I was speaking out against was Sovereign Grace under the leadership of [Mahaney] instead of MSU under the leadership of Lou Anna Simon, I would not only not have evangelical support, I would be actively vilified and lied about by every single evangelical leader out there. The only reason I am able to have the support of these leaders now is because I am speaking out against an organization not within their community. Had I been so unfortunate so as to have been victimized by someone in their community, someone in the Sovereign Grace network, I would not only not have their support, I would be massively shunned. That’s the reality.

My Larry Nassar Testimony Went Viral. But There’s More to the Gospel Than Forgiveness. | Christianity Today

ADDENDUM::Inside the Investigation into Child Sexual Abuse at Sovereign Grace Ministries | TIME

The only way to introduce this print interview is by the authors own words:

Unlike the hierarchical Catholic Church, evangelical churches often function independently. But their influence is widespread—as Stanley points out, Wayne Grudem, an evangelical theologian at Phoenix Seminary, once described Sovereign Grace Ministries “as an example of the way churches ought to work.”

In response to the Washingtonian investigation, executive director of Sovereign Grace Churches Mark Prater pointed TIME to a lengthy statement he made in 2014 denying that Sovereign Grace leaders “conspired to cover up” sexual abuse. “Yes, we have been the target of misinformed critique in both the secular and Christian media, and more will likely come,” he stated. “I pray that God gives us all grace to respond wisely and biblically. But regardless of the public discourse, we are strongly committed to ensuring a safe environment for the children in our churches.”

In a statement to TIME, Mark Mitchell, the executive pastor of Covenant Life Church, said that along with the broader educational community the church had learned much over the last few decades about how to respond to reports of abuse and care for victims and families. “Our interaction with civil authorities has been instrumental in shaping our policies and procedures for the protection and care of children. When a pastor, staff member or volunteer has reason to believe a child is the victim of abuse or neglect, our policy requires those individuals to report it immediately to civil authorities,” he said. “Every Sunday, hundreds of families participate in our church services and entrust their children to the care of our staff and volunteers. We will continue to work hard to ensure our church is a place of safety for children and a place of healing for victims.”

The point that, over the course of the past few years, has been driven home by the numerous postings made by this blog.  Sexual abuse is not just a Catholic problem:

The Catholic Church has been taken to task over abuse for decades now. Evangelical ministries are now facing their own abuse crises. In the media, we’re hearing more about these stories. Some of these allegations confront abuse that is decades old. From just the past year, I’m thinking of reports about Josh Duggar of 19 Kids and Counting and Bill Gothard, a Christian homeschooling advocate. I’m also thinking about Buzzfeed’s recent story on Jesus People USA [posted here] and Kiera Feldman’s 2012 investigation of abuse in a Tulsa megachurch. (Of course, other religions are not immune from sexual abuse scandals either.)

The sad reality is that sexual abuse is widespread everywhere, not just in religious communities. The statistics I saw were one-in-four girls and one-in-six boys will be sexually abused before the age of 18. The experts I spoke to didn’t say these statistics are worse in evangelical churches, but they did say that abusers could prey on trusting religious communities, which give them access to children. That’s why churches need policies in place to protect children and handle abuse when it happens. That means reporting suspected abuse to authorities immediately, instead of handling it internally. Abuse is a sin, but it’s also a serious crime.

A final point that caught my attention revolves around what Dias refers to as "sexual ethic" centering around the book I Kissed Dating Goodbye by Joshua Harris.  The conclusions made by Stanley (the author of the preceding piece) mirror my initial thoughts concerning the Bill Gothard/Josh Duggar debacle.

I can’t speak to all of evangelicalism, but I can say there are troubling messages sent to sex-abuse survivors in church cultures that prize abstinence until heterosexual marriage. What does a young girl make of her “purity” if her father molests her? What does a young boy think if a male church member sexually assaults him? Churches that advocate a conservative sexual ethic should address those messages.

Does this kind of circumscribed sexual environment give way to more sexual abuse? Some people I talked to say, yes, this is repression and it leads to abuse and acting out sexually. All the perpetrators from my story were male—several were teenage boys—and they were members of a ministry that advocated strict sexual mores. Books like I Kissed Dating Goodbye promote courtship. Modesty is important. Abstinence is too. Underpinning much of these teachings is a patriarchal understanding of Christianity, where men are in charge. In a perfect world, those power dynamics would not be abused, but as Christians teach: We’re not living in a perfect world.

Inside the Investigation into Child Sexual Abuse at Sovereign Grace Ministries | TIME

The Sex-Abuse Scandal That Devastated a Suburban Megachurch | Washingtonian

There are many scandals that are just so big I can not wrap my little pea brain around all that transpires.  It seems that everyday a debacle comes along and I get lost in the details or become so overwhelmed, the true importance of it all is lost.  The mess with Sovereign Grace Ministries is one of those narratives.

I have picked at it through the years but till - today - reading the following, I don't think I realized just how depraved this cult is.

Whether it’s the military, a school, or a church, there tend to be some parallels: a culture that’s at least somewhat separate from the outside world, a self-policing elite, a rank-and-file conditioned to revere its leaders.

In the ministry Mahaney built, some of these features were readily apparent. SGM represented a society unto itself, one that functioned parallel to mainstream culture and that distrusted that wider, secular world. “They believe God’s law comes before civil law,” as one former member says.

Mahaney’s ministry wrote and licensed its own music, stocked its own bookstores, and supported Christian education. “The top tier was homeschooling. The second tier was Covenant Life School,” says Anne Ehlers, a Montgomery County teacher who attended CLC for 21 years. “To have kids in public school, that was like sending your kids to hell.”
,,,
Even for adults, questioning leaders was not always tolerated—it meant you weren’t willing to submit to spiritual authority. Members were held accountable for virtually all areas of their lives. And the ministry’s increasingly Calvinist focus on sin at times became an excuse for members to scrutinize one another’s behavior, calling fellow congregants out if they were prideful, if their children were unruly, if their house was unkempt.

These confrontations often happened during small-group meetings—“care groups,” in church parlance. Although meant to be supportive circles, care groups could morph into harsh examinations, in which followers were goaded into confessing faults and transgressions. “It was coded in positive language, as a growth thing,” says Hännah Ettinger, a Peace Corps volunteer who grew up in an SGM church outside Richmond. “But it actually was very nitpicking, negative, self-esteem-destroying kind of stuff.”
,,,
It’s a troubling document. Upon hearing about a case of suspected child sex abuse, ministers are advised to notify church elders immediately. They should also call a lawyer, preferably one with “ethics grounded in Scripture,” for legal advice. The document encourages pastors to “establish fact” during a “time of investigation.” It notes that pastors must notify authorities about suspected child molesters if their state’s laws require it. (Not all do.) It also says it may be necessary to call police if the accused is an immediate threat to children—“but this is unlikely,” the memo says. Otherwise, it’s up to the parents to report abuse.

“When Christians appear in a courtroom and they come from the same church community that has fostered trust and spiritual unity,” the guidelines state, “they will likely find the legal process to be highly offensive.” Reconciliation between a repentant abuser and a victim is presented as the ultimate goal.
,,,
The following morning, the church celebrated its third anniversary. Mahaney’s congregation filled the ballroom of a suburban Marriott with nearly 300 people, most of them good-looking adults under 35, singing along with the worship band. Elementary-school-age children squirmed in their seats until they were released to go to Sovereign Grace Kids. It was as if Mahaney, now 62, had recreated an earlier time in his ministry—once again assembling a new, makeshift church, an audience full of idealistic young families.

He preached from the book of Job, about a man who loses nearly everything he has. The part of the text that preoccupied him dealt with Job’s tone-deaf friends. They came to Job during his suffering and called him a sinner. Job was blameless, but his friends couldn’t see that: They thought he must have deserved to have so much taken from him.

The Sex-Abuse Scandal That Devastated a Suburban Megachurch | Washingtonian

Blogger concerned about controversial pastor’s SBC ties

I have posted a small bit concerning Sovereign Grace Ministries here and here; about Sovereign Grace Church here and C.J. Mahaney here. I'm not quite sure where this is leading but definitely something to keep our eyes on.

Rick Patrick, senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Sylacauga, Ala., described a story in the February issue of the Washingtonian titled the “The Fall of a Mega Church” as “heartbreaking” in a comment on SBC Today, a blog he publishes in his capacity as executive director of Connect316, a group of pastors formed to counter the growing influence of Calvinism in the nation’s second-largest faith group.

SBC Today reprinted a blog by Brent Detwiler, a one-time colleague of Sovereign Grace Ministries founder C.J. Mahaney who for the past three years worked with victims, child abuse experts, lawyers and law enforcement in pursuit of a book detailing what media have called the largest evangelical sexual abuse scandal to date.
,,,
 “Perhaps I am missing some pertinent piece of information here, but it would seem more appropriate for Southern Baptists to be distancing ourselves from Mahaney and SGM rather than joining hands in joint ministry ventures,” he said.

Blogger concerned about controversial pastor’s SBC ties

So of course Tomczak had to respond

So the other day I posted the following on Facebook:

Listen to the sound of my voice. Attention youth of the world: I want you to live your lives being exactly who you are. Be true to yourself—the most important thing is to be true to yourself. The second most important thing is that you wear Ellen underwear and only Ellen underwear. And now, audience, look into my vortex and dance with me.

It was part of Ellen Degeneres' response to Larry Tomczak's hit piece "Are You Aware of the Avalanche of Gay Programming Assaulting Your Home?" published by The Christian Post. 

In the above named piece, Tomczak hits the usual ReichWing talking points of "indoctrination and propaganda,"  advocating of the "gay lifestyle" and throwing a bit of the Bile in for good measure - Romans 1:24-27.  What he misses, something which Ellen has throughout her career epitomizes, love and compassion: "Love your neighbor as yourself." (Matt 22:39)

You would think that after the ludicrous failure of One Million Moms threatened boycott of JCPenney because DeGeneres was appointed as its spokeswoman in 2012, that those within the Reich would have learned their lesson when an individual honestly stands traditional values - Here are the values I stand for: I stand for honesty, equality, kindness, compassion, treating people the way you'd want to be treated and helping those in need. To me, those are traditional values - without deceit, "LGBTQ advocates are extremely deceptive, sophisticated and strategic in working to lead a generation over the cliff to destruction."

What I find comical, the LGBT community is not interested in turning anyone gay, it is the homophobic community who wants everyone to be homophobic.  Which makes me think that these anti-gay tirades we hear coming from the Reich are generated more by a need to quell their inner demons rather than keeping people away from a "gay life style."  (Which I am still trying to figure out exactly what that is.)

One final point concerning Tomczak's initial post (yes, he responded to Ellen) it's in the title, "the [a]valanche of [g]ay [p]rogramming [a]ssaulting [y]our [h]ome."  Who exactly is forcing them to listen to "gay programming?"  With hundreds of cable and/or satellite channels, there has to be "some" that cater to Christianity; I can think of 12 (Daystar, TBN, CBN, CTN, TCT, BYU, Church Channel, Cornerstone, EWTN, HIS, Liberty Channel, The Word).  Unless one is seeking a "fight" or five-minutes of fame, it is hard not to avoid Ellen. "If you ask me, Larry is watching a lot of gay TV."

So of course Tomczak had to respond, and fails miserably by prattling on about, you guessed it, religion.

Ellen, a nation rises or falls on marriage. If we dismantle this pillar of society, as it has existed for over 5,000 years of Western civilization and redefine it to accommodate other arrangements such as yours (or those advocating for polyamorous, polygamous or other configurations), what will be the consequences for this sacred institution and the future of our nation?

The true Christian church must stand as a "sign of contradiction" amid ever-changing cultural trends. With kindness and courage we must remain faithful to the truth, whether it is popular or not. We must honor a higher law than man, just as Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. expressed in his classic "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" and is magnificently portrayed in the film Selma.

He assumes that everyone operates under the assumption that the Bible is God's instruction to man and that our laws fall under the strictures of said instructions.  Sorry to say Larry, I am not under God's law.  Just because you believe (and teach) that we should all live our lives under your God's rules and feel shame because of what you (and your ilk) believe, is wrong.   You are denying a basic human and Constitutional right to pursue happiness by asking "us" to go against our very nature and not be authentic. You ask "us" to accept being discriminated against for something that harms no one.

You sir are the last person anyone should be listening to in regards to values (biblical or not), consequences, truth, or moral teachings. 

The Rev. Larry Tomczak,,,was named in a Maryland lawsuit filed against leaders of Sovereign Grace Ministries, a denomination he helped found in the 1980s.

You're upset because you were characterized "as an angry, mean-spirited 'fundamentalist,'" who "[y]ears ago,,,was lost,,,but I found a path of redemption in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Forty-five years later I continue to follow Him and His revolutionary teachings. What I share with you is out of a commitment to be a faithful servant who upholds those teachings."  What you should be upset about is your own hypocrisy.  What you should have shared is this:

,,,the ruling by Montgomery County Circuit Court Judge Sharon V. Burrell didn’t address the allegations of abuse. She ruled that the plaintiffs had to sue within three years of turning 18 and that date has passed for most of the alleged victims.
,,,
The pastors and churches charged in the lawsuit could still face criminal charges because there is no statute of limitations on felonies.

You can try and distance yourself all you want from these allegations, but as Enttinger states:

Not reporting child abuse makes no sense in the “normal” world, but in a church influenced by the Shepherding Movement, once you’re sucked into their cult culture logic, it makes perfect sense.

The New Calvinists are a pretty tangled network of mostly middle-class white dudes who tend to function as an old boys’ club. Total power corrupts and these guys have charm, bald heads, melodramatic preaching tics, and Calvinist guilt on their side. There’s a lot of money to be had in this pastoring business, and there are a lot of questions to be answered about the financial ethics of Mahaney and Mark Driscoll (and these are the only two I have stuff to link to on this subject, but I’m sure there’s more digging to be done).

You may no longer be part of Sovereign Grace Ministries but you are still involved in seeding churches, ",,,and for the past forty years has given himself to planting churches,,," You helped create this monster of a scandal, your own efforts created this cult.

The problem with the Shepherding Movement influence on a generation of post-denominational Calvinist churches is that you have people in authority with too much power because they set up shop in a hurry during a emotional high of chasing “the Spirit.” The laissez-faire, trusting culture of post-denominational Jesus Movement Christians seems to have been a safe haven for a whole crop of sexual predators. And when those in authority are either predators themselves or cronies with them, you can see why the abuse often went unreported.

Your actions, and those of your peers, are reminiscent of the movie Song for a Raggy Boy in which rape, violence and murder were rationalized by men who claim to be doing God's work. 

In a recent article you claim, "Thankfully the judge dismissed the charges. They were blatantly false accusations,,," leaving out that, ",,,THE MOTIONS OF ALL DEFENDANTS TO DISMISS ARE GRANTED ON STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS GROUNDS,,,."  As highlighted above, there is no statute of limitations on felonies the accusations still stand whether you choose to sweep them under the rug or not.

And just for the sake of brevity, I won't bring up your wonderful book advocating child abuse The Little Handbook on Loving Correction, formerly called, God, the Rod, and Your Child's Bod.

A Guide to the Sovereign Grace Ministries Scandal and the End of New Calvinism

As usual I am behind in my reading, but this article as Ettinger says is a SparksNotes version of some recent events within the evangelical movement formerly known as the Shepherding Movement; it is now under the umbrella of New Calvinism.


First point that caught my interest,

"The New Calvinists are a pretty tangled network of mostly middle-class white dudes who tend to function as an old boys’ club. Total power corrupts and these guys have charm, bald heads, melodramatic preaching tics, and Calvinist guilt on their side. There’s a lot of money to be had in this pastoring business, and there are a lot of questions to be answered about the financial ethics,,,."

Second point that caught my interest,

Even the big leaders in the Christian homeschooling movement and the Reconstructionist theology circles shared a lot in common with the New Calvinists, especially their shared background in the Shepherding Movement. Names like Bill Gothard (patron saint of the Duggars), Douglas Wilson (betrothal expert and Reconstructionist theologian), Doug Phillips (Vision Forum founder and political conniver), and Michael Farris all overlap with these circles in many ways. These men have been linked to racists, are openly anti-gay, and are just plain extremist in their thinking.

This year, I’ve watched Bill Gothard resign after Recovering Grace documented stories of his sexual predation. I’ve watched Doug Phillips lose his ministry and his dignity as his alleged sexual abuse of the family nanny came to light. I’ve watched Michael Farris’ Patrick Henry College scramble to deal with their mishandling of sexual assault cases on the campus of what they claim is “God’s Harvard,” the alma mater of Josh Harris’ brothers (who wrote the book below) and many young adults from SGM churches.

Lots of very BIG names and big money.

A Guide to the Sovereign Grace Ministries Scandal and the End of New Calvinism