SBC leaders stand by colleague accused in sex scandal

SBC leaders stand by colleague accused in sex scandal

 

Southern Baptist leaders in a movement that goes by names including the “New Calvinism” and “young, restless and Reformed” voiced support for a friend and colleague accused in a Maryland lawsuit of collusion in what is being called American evangelicalism’s biggest sex scandal to date.

Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., and Mark Dever, pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church, Washington, joined Presbyterian minister Ligon Duncan in a statement of support for C.J. Mahaney, one of several defendants accused of permitting and covering up the sexual abuse of children in churches affiliated with Sovereign Grace Ministries (SGM), a Calvinist church-planting organization based in Louisville, Ky.

“We have stood beside our friend, C.J. Mahaney, and we can speak to his personal integrity,” the trio, who with Mahaney started a biennial preaching conference called Together for the Gospel (T4G) in 2006, said in a statement on the T4G website.

Dever, Duncan and Mohler said they have wanted to speak publicly on Mahaney but waited until after Maryland Judge Sharon V. Burrell dismissed most of the lawsuit on a technicality. She ruled that nine of 11 plaintiffs did not sue within three years after turning 18 as required under Maryland’s statute of limitations.

Amy Smith, Houston representative of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, called it an example of “selective outrage,” where Southern Baptist leaders speak out on issues like opposition to same-sex “marriage” and allowing gay youth to be Boy Scouts but are silent when it involves one of their own.

The lawsuit alleges that Mahaney and other SGM leaders knew about sexual abuse of children occurring in homes and on church property but did not report it to legal authorities. Instead church leaders insisted on handling the problem internally in the name of “church discipline,” a practice of confronting and correcting sin adapted from Bible verses including Matthew 18:15–17.

At SGM, the lawsuit alleges, that meant that victims as young as 2 were summoned to meetings with their molester and told to forgive them for their sins. Victims and parents were told not to call the police, because civil authorities cannot be trusted in disputes between Christians. When church members ignored that advice, they were put out of the church for “gossip,” while sex offenders remained with access to children in pursuit of restoration.

The suit says church leaders interfered with legal processes by misinforming victims’ families about when to show up for court dates and telling authorities they were speaking on behalf of victims without being authorized to do so.

As pastor of one of the churches named in the lawsuit and until recently president of SGM, Mahaney is accused of knowing what was going on and advising subordinates on how to handle incidents of abuse.

Boz Tchividjian, a professor of law at Liberty University School of Law and grandson of Billy Graham, said evangelical leaders’ silence about Mahaney “was deafening and spoke volumes.”

While hoping to hear voices speaking out or expressing grave concerns about the allegations in the SGM lawsuit, Tchividjian said he found instead a lot of statements by Christians claiming that all of the individuals were innocent until “proven guilty by a jury.”

As executive director of Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment (GRACE), Tchividjian said he has heard that before. The problem, he said, is that the same individuals don’t approach any other sinful crime in the same way.

“For example, so many Christians will cry out against abortion doctors who have been alleged to have killed babies outside of the womb (horrific), but when a person alleges child sexual abuse by someone in the Church, these same Christians cry out that a person is innocent until proven guilty by a court of law,” he wrote.

“Of course a person or institution can only be held legally responsible under civil law when that has been determined by a court of law,” Tchividjian said. “I don’t think anyone has suggested otherwise. However, does this mean that a jury is required in order to determine the existence of evil?”

(ABP)