Many in the Christian community are criticizing the warm reception
many Christian leaders, including Albert Mohler, President of the
Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, gave Pastor C.J. Mahaney in
Mahaney’s return to public after the dismissal of a lawsuit alleging he
covered up sex abuse at his church.
Mahaney recently spoke at the Together for the Gospel conference in
Louisville, Kentucky, which is also the city of Sovereign Grace Church
where Mahaney serves as pastor.
The Daily Beast reports that the theme of the Together for the Gospel
conference was to celebrate the “Protest” in “Protestants”--a theme
which was seen as ironic by some who protested Mahaney’s presence at the
conference.
Mahaney has been accused of covering up child sex abuse scandals in
Covenant Life Church, a church he pastored for 27 years in Gaithersburg,
Maryland.
Although the lawsuit brought against Mahaney by the alleged victims of
the abuse was dismissed on a technicality, many individual Christians,
as well as organizations, maintain that Mahaney is guilty and should not
be welcomed back into the public spotlight.
“By allowing C.J. Mahaney to speak in an international place of
prominence,” wrote the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests
(SNAP) in a letter to Together for the Gospel on March 31, “you are
inadvertently sending a message to all sexual abuse victims—and in
particular those from within Sovereign Grace Churches—that their trauma
is not worth your consideration.”
Mahaney initially left Sovereign Grace Ministries in June 2011 after
being accused of “pride, unentreatability, deceit, sinful judgment, and
hypocrisy.”
At that time, Mahaney stepped down from his leadership position to
reevaluate his life, but later returned as the ministry’s president
after an internal review process and affirmation by the ministry’s
board.
In 2012, a lawsuit was filed accusing Mahaney and other Sovereign Grace leaders of covering up sexual abuse within the church.
The case was dismissed in 2013 due to Maryland’s statute of
limitations, but another case has been opened in Virginia for victims
who claim abuse in that state.
Because of the accusations against him, many decried Mahaney’s warm
welcome at the Together for the Gospel conference, and criticized Al
Mohler’s remarks upon introducing Mahaney.
“I told C.J. that in getting ready to introduce him I decided I would
Google to see if there was anything on the Internet about him,” said
Mohler, in what many have interpreted as inappropriately making light of
the situation.
Mohler went on to make a comment on the unreliability of information on
the internet, implying that the accusations against Mahaney have no
foundation.
“Mohler’s flippant remarks, like TG4’s [sic] invitation to Mahaney, are
extraordinarily callous,” wrote David Clohessy, director of SNAP, in an
email to The Daily Beast’s Brandon Withrow. In saying what he did, adds
Clohessy, Mohler and T4G “make churches more dangerous and help
predators hurt more kids.”
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