Together For Mahaney at Southern Baptist Convention!

Well it seems the Brotherhood of Mega Pastor’s feel its okey dokey to dig their hole just a little bit deeper!  I honestly don’t understand WHERE their logic is!  If you remember Together for the Gospel, and the Gospel Coalition wrote letters of support to a partner in their old boys club, CJ Mahaney.

Sadly, their bad behavior is continuing.  What they seem to be doing is trying to scare others into NOT coming forward for help.  They seem to have forgotten their ‘biblical role’, because it should be the opposite.  They know this as well. 

Keep in mind the lawsuit is still going on, and everything is still ‘alleged’ at this point.

Changes to letters of Support of CJ Mahaney

Together for the Gospel wrote their letter of support on Facebook, and it was taken down after over 100 negative responses were received.  They moved the letter to their website where it can safety stay with NO comments from anyone.

In line with how they tend to control their environments it didn’t surprise me to find that they also decided to change their letter around a bit.  Wartsburg Watch and Spiritual Sounding Board is who I noticed sounding the charge! 

When first posted on May 23, 2013, the statement included this paragraph:
“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 …”
Checked on the morning of June 6, it was discovered that two sentences — “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” — had been removed from the statement. This is how the new version reads: “A Christian leader, charged with any credible, serious, and direct wrongdoing, would usually be well advised to step down from public ministry. We believe this lawsuit failed that test.”
However, the date on the statement remained May 23. No reference to an update was included on the changed statement.

Shh!  I don’t think we were suppose to notice!  You have to admit the second is a better cleaned up version.  I mean their martyrhood was showing a bit to much on the original.  I guess they figured ‘charged with founding a ministry’, and teaching its doctrines and principals was a bit over the top – even for those that respected them.

What they never did mention was the fact that CJ Mahaney was the lead pastor at the churches (or one of them) while the covering up of the abuse was happening.  How he was allegedly part of the encouragement of the church members NOT to involve the authorities when this was happening.  THAT was why he was mentioned in the lawsuit, and that’s a far cry from ‘founding a ministry’.  Habitual cover up of abuse is what he is accused of after all!

Boz Tchividjian serves as Executive Director of GRACE (Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment), which he helped found.  The purpose of GRACE is "to educate and equip the faith community to correctly respond to sexual abuse disclosures, while also providing practical guidance to churches on how to protect children."  In addition to this position, he serves as a law professor at Liberty University School of Law.  Boz Tchividjian is the third eldest grandchild of Billy Graham.

He was interviewed by Janet Mefferd:

In case you missed the interview, you can listen to it here (starting at the 20:30 mark).  Janet Mefferd explained that there have been cries from a lot of ordinary Christians who are calling on evangelical leaders to address what she describes as "American evangelicalism's biggest sex scandal to date".

Documents and Audio Surface

Sadly, since all of this started Wartsburg Watch also got to listen to an audio for Sovereign Grace Ministries discussing how they as the church need to handle these cases of abuse as they come up.  The church’s policy is also on a 17 page document.  Sigh!

It was sadly much the same type of garbage that has got so many other organizations in trouble.

The church leaders feel they need to decide if its abuse FIRST OFF.  They will approach the other party – the perp I guess to get their side of the story.  They call their lawyer to see how to protect the church.  They get all their ducks in a row, and then if they feel the case has merit?  They tell the family to go to the police, because after all the authorities don’t like getting information ‘second hand’.  They will not notify anyone else in the church, because I guess they feel its none of their business.  Encourage the family to hush as well.  Then the perp and the victim get handed two different pastors to ‘counsel’ with. 

There is more to it of course, and that is my nutshell version!

Problem is they are mandatory reporters, and the reputation of the church SHOULD be the last thing on their mind!  The lawsuit happened, because they decided ‘it wasn’t abuse’ and buried it allegedly.  Sadly, of course cries for help were ignored.

SBC getting Ready for Convention, and they REALLY would rather deal with the Boy Scouts!

Another interesting part to this story is that the Southern Baptist Convention is coming up again.  The mega pastors didn’t get the ‘support’ they were looking for, and no doubt they want to put this to bed.  It’s not going to happen, because people are crying out! 

They want to discuss the Boy Scouts agreement to allow homosexual scouts into their troops, and NOT sexual abuse within the church!  Notice how they don’t want to take that darn SPECK from their eye, but rather deal with the LOG in the Boy Scouts?  How biblical right?!

 David Clohessy, national director of SNAP -- the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests – said May 28 that religious leaders voicing support for embattled Pastor C.J. Mahaney, named in a lawsuit recently thrown out of a Maryland court for legal reasons, ought to be ashamed. (Keep in mind it was the Status of Limitations that had run out, but amended lawsuit has been filed)

Peter Lumpkins  has a Resolution on Sexual Abuse of Children - Proposed to the 2013 Southern Baptist Convention meeting in Houston, Texas.  I don’t honestly know if they will even acknowledge him under the circumstances.

Meanwhile, Amy and her husband are Houston leaders for (Snap) Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (and other clergy).   They belong to the Houston First Baptist Church.   She was planning on attending the Southern Baptist Convention, and holding up a picture of a sexual abuse survivor to being awareness of victims within the Baptist’s churches.    They already has sent a letter to the convention asking for time on this issue (letter is attached on her site).  They get a phone call from their pastor, and have a meeting with the pastor of their large church that they never spoke to prior.  Part of her transcript is below, and she also get a call from the police department concerned about her 'protest':

I saw your blog.
I'm confused. You don't see it as a problem? [speaking out about child sexual abuse by Baptist clergy, about Baptist churches that cover up such abuse, about silence from SBC leaders about this abuse, about the vocal support of another evangelical pastor C.J. Mahaney accused in a lawsuit by 11 plaintiffs of covering up child sex abuse, and planning an awareness event next week at the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting in Houston]
What good is it going to do, you standing outside the SBC?
What good will it do if the SBC president did issue a statement on abuse?
We're not like the Methodists. [each Baptist church is locally autonomous]
How can you say that? [that child sexual abuse within Baptist churches is a systemic problem]
You may be seen as fringe.

A comment from the article:

At the meeting with my husband the next day, Doug brought up the subject of me stepping down (from her role within the youth ministry), and he told my husband that I had told him I was stepping down but that he had said to think about it. Doug told my husband that after thinking about it overnight, he thought me stepping down "is for the best."

My husband asked him, "Why?" Doug replied, "You don't see it as a problem?"
My husband said "No."

Sadly, it seems her pastor feels towing the line with "Together for Maheney".   Another quote:

“They agree with us that child sexual abuse is bad, and they don't want me to stop what I'm doing, but the church doesn't support me raising awareness by pointing out the problem within SBC churches and pastors that cover abuse up by failing to report,” she wrote. “It's not a problem for me to point out these issues with Catholic churches or Penn State, just don't point the finger at my own Southern Baptist Convention.”

Here we go again with this ‘autonomous’ church stuff.  If you remember the Tina Anderson and Chuck Phelps story?  Their Independent Fundamental Baptist churches also use the ‘autonomous’ aspect to NOT deal directly with this sin as well. 

Did they NOT figure out that just isn’t going to HAPPEN? Why is it these preacher boys want everyone to face their sin, and decide where the sin sniffing needs to begin – yet can’t face it themselves?

No, Its not easy to have a friend of yours facing these awful charges.  Common sense needs to be used in these types of circumstances, and yet Chicago type Gangster stuff does instead!  Where is the benevolent leadership?

They are so WORRIED that the darn feminists were going to take them down, and RUIN life as we know it … and look who is doing it all by themselves?  Is this the ‘MANHOOD’ we have been hearing about?

Seriously.  SHAME ON YOU!



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*Post as been edited to add more detail.

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