My new piece is up at The Daily Beast (“Pastor Accused of Covering Up Abuse Returns to Spotlight“) and it looks at the uproar over having a controversial minister, C. J. Mahaney, at a large Calvinist-Evangelical conference, known as Together for the Gospel 2016. Mahaney was president of Sovereign Grace Ministries (now Sovereign Grace Churches), which has been the subject of a scandal regarding sexual abuse. The initial civil suit against he (as its then president) and other pastors was dropped due to statute of limitations, but his presence at the conference became the subject of protest this last week.
“I know in this room that C.J. Mahaney has 10,000 friends,” said Albert Mohler Jr. at Together for the Gospel 2016 last week, a Calvinist conference that regularly draws big names and large crowds.
The April 12-14 gathering held at the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville, Kentucky, became the focus of controversy when it invited Mahaney, the senior pastor at Sovereign Grace Church in Kentucky, to speak. He and other pastoral colleagues have been accused of covering up child sex abuse in their churches. The lawsuit against them was eventually dismissed on a technicality.
Maybe the irony wasn’t lost on Together for the Gospel organizers and attendees, that a conference whose 2016 theme was to celebrate the “Protest” in “Protestants” was itself under protest.