Sovereign Grace Ministries and Abuse: Time to Speak Out

For some time I've been watching with a heavy heart the progress of the lawsuit initially filed against Sovereign Grace Ministries in October 2012.  The original news articles have long since been archived, but the evangelical watchdog blog site The Wartburg Watch still has quotes from those early news reports.  In January of this year an amended lawsuit was filed.  The basic allegations were that various pastoral leaders of SGM covered up members' allegations of child abuse and sexual molestation from the 1980s on.

The current news is that due to statute of limitations issues, it has been ruled that most of the victims have brought their lawsuit too late, and the case has been dismissed.  What saddens me is that while this is not because any of the allegations have even been addressed (and some of the defendants will undoubtedly bring a new suit), supporters of SGM's leader Charles Mahaney have chosen this time to voice their support in a way that belittles the stories of the accusers and vilifies the victims. While ostensibly acknowledging that "There is no excuse, at any time or in any place or for any reason, for the use of children for sexual pleasure," the article states "we are friends with C.J [Mahaney]," and goes on to say:

He has also been the object of libel and even a Javert-like obsession by some. One of the so-called discernment blogs—often trafficking more in speculation and gossip than edifying discernment—reprinted a comment from a woman who issued this ominous wish, "I hope [this lawsuit] ruins the entire organization [of SGM] and every single perpetrator and co-conspirator financially, mentally and physically."

The problem with this quote is that it is not from some outside voice passing judgment on a "discernment blog" (which apparently means a blog set up to exercise "spiritual discernment" as to the orthodoxy of other ministries; this term is frequently used as a pejorative).  The Wartburg Watch has located the source of the original quote, and it is from a woman who was raped during an SGM home-group meeting at the age of 13.  It does not come from a discernment blog at all, but from a survivors' blog, meant to be a safe place for former SGM members to tell their stories.  For Mahaney's friends on the Gospel Coalition blog to quote this in the manner they quote it, conveys the message that they consider speaking against their friends' ministry, even if it comes out of pain, to be a more important issue than a victim's response to her rape.

However you slice it, this is outrageous.  If they didn't know where the quote came from, they shouldn't have quoted it.  If they did know-- then they have just treated a woman like garbage in order to make their powerful friend's ministry look good.

So I have to speak out too.

To the writers of the Gospel Coalition's message: look.  I recognize how hard it is to navigate the waters when someone you consider a friend has been accused of something like this.  But the fact remains that by coming out strongly on the side of the one with pastoral power at this point in the proceedings, you are contributing (whatever your protests to the contrary) to the re-victimization of the victims and the upholding of the power structures that made SGM ripe for these sorts of criminal abuses in the first place.

There are simply too many allegations by too many disparate people, for this to be merely a vindictive false attack.  And C. J. Mahaney, as the founder and leader of SGM, simply cannot hold himself aloof and claim ignorance.  The authoritarian structures that were set up and/or maintained by him directly caused an environment where abuse was aided and abetted-- and he had the power to prevent it, or at the very least stop it in its tracks.  He is the one who created the environment where leaders were given blanket endorsement and protection, while the people at the bottom were silenced.  Whether he likes it or not, by setting authority up as unassailable and himself up as the top authority, he made himself responsible for the behavior of his sub-leaders and well-being of his lowliest followers.  And you, as his friends, ought to have told him so.

As I have shared elsewhere on my blog, Sovereign Grace Ministries is one of the successors to the Shepherding Movement in which I spent my college years as part of Maranatha Campus Ministries.  I know very well the structures that uphold those in power while viewing with suspicion and disapproval anyone who dares speak against or even question them.

Virginia Knowles at Watch the Shepherd a former member of SGM, concurs.  She writes:

Unfortunately, this is not just a problem in SGM, but in a host of other religious organizations. It is the culture of shame and silence -- and women, especially young ones, are the most vulnerable to both sexual abuse and domestic violence. . . In both this lawsuit and my extensive research on abuse of authority (especially gender-based) these are some of the pastoral sentiments I've heard about...

"We're all sinners. Yes, he might have hurt you, but think of how you have sinned. You have no right to complain." (I call this phenomena "psychological socialism" and some day I will write more extensively about it.)
"He said he was sorry. You need to meet with him face to face so he can apologize. Be reconciled with your brother in Christ!"
"He has apologized to you! He's really sincere! Now you can forgive and forget! You must not gossip or slander him by telling anyone else about it. If you tarnish his reputation, he'll never be able to get on with his life, keep a job, continue his ministry, and provide for his wife and children."
"Counseling? Sure, come right into my office. Oh, you mean from professional counselors? Don't bother. They'll only give you ungodly psychobabble and lead you astray."
"Call the police? No way! Are you crazy? We don't need to bring another believer before the law. This is something the church should handle, not the worldly and godless secular government system. He just needs to see the light and repent. Jesus is enough."
"Oh, you don't want to tell anyone that anything has happened at this church! What sort of reputation will that give to our ministry -- and to God? We must protect our gospel witness!"
"You are a woman. A woman is not supposed to teach or have authority over men, but to quietly support and follow them. How dare you usurp my authority and question how I run my church [or this family]?" [edited for brevity, but you get the point.]

Hannah at Wine and Marble lived the SGM life for 10 years.  She explains how this climate is created in this kind of organization:

You stop thinking critically, because questioning things is ever-so-subtly frowned upon. It’s welcomed, objectively, but you feel slight displeasure or get sidelined because of suddenly busy schedules (because. . . they have slowly, subtly made you dependent on their approval for your confidence in your discernment and spiritual maturity). . .

You have the perfect storm for socially quick, manipulative personalities to rise quickly in the ranks of the church leadership, for the depressed and hurting to beat themselves up for their sins and keep accepting any critiques of their attitudes or actions, and the insecure to always, always second-guess their own instincts and instead choose to follow the advice and corrective teachings of those in authority over them.

It’s not brainwashing, but it’s a social immersion into a culture where you lose your sense of self, your boundaries, your privacy, and your ability to reason independently in a slow fade to submissive SGM church member, fiercely loyal to the great people and genuine culture of faith there.

It’s insane.

And so, in that world, your child tells you that so-and-so at care group touched their private parts. You are furious. You confront this person, you tell your care group leader. Your care group leader tells you that he’s going to bring this up with your pastor and get back to you (because no one thinks to call the cops yet), and the pastor wants to meet with you (maybe you’ve never had any one-on-one time with your pastor before, so you feel affirmed and like he’s taking it seriously)…and then you’re angry in the meeting toward your child’s molester, and you get confronted about your anger, and, and, and…

Suddenly, the SGM sin-confrontation system has kicked into high gear, and the child abuse has take a back seat (because, it’s only on the child’s word, and children are so sinful and need to be trained to love Jesus and not walk in their flesh)…

And it never gets reported. And your child is made to hug his/her abuser. And the abuser is seen as repentant and restored, and you think, well, maybe it’ll be okay. That process of rooting out sin is really thorough. And they have so much accountability–from their accountability partner and their care group leader and from the pastor.

And nothing is done about it.

So what should have been done about it?

Ministry leaders that really cared about their congregations should have been the first to investigate the first rumor of the sexual or physical abuse of children.  SGM's leaders did not.  If a reason was found to suspect a church leader of such a crime, the police ought to have been immediately brought in.  If a church leader was found to have committed such an offense, he ought to have been permanently removed from ministry and encouraged to show repentance by serving his time as a model prisoner.  SGM did none of these things.

When a lawsuit was brought against SGM, they should have responded in open shame and horror, with the top leaders offering to step down until the investigation was complete and the perpetrators properly dealt with in the courts.   Instead, SGM instructed its lawers to assert a First Amendment "clergy-congregant confidentiality" defense.  But this was not about a minister's right to keep secrets of private sins confessed privately.  This is about the cover-up by ministers of accusations brought by victims of heinous crimes.  

And the last thing that should ever have happened was for these victims-- some as young as two and three years old-- to be forced to verbally forgive their abusers face-to-face.

Zach L. Hoag's Blog calls it "A False Gospel of Reconcilation": 

The most grotesque allegations to come out of this lawsuit have to do with the culture of “gospel-centered reconciliation” in this movement, where victims of abuse – often, children – were simply told to “forgive” and “reconcile” with their adult church member/leader abusers. I mean, it’s better than you deserve, right? So get over it. And smack dab in the center of this demonic-gospel culture were leaders who rise to levels of immense influence over their cruelly “humbled” people, all the while claiming to be humble themselves. . . 

And this false gospel of reconciliation doesn’t stop here. It is not only reserved for churches fraught with sex abuse scandals. It rears its ugly head in all kinds of conservative evangelical circles, taking the similar shape of pain-denying theologies that counsel victims to get over it and get back together with those who harmed them. [Emphasis in original.]

Hoag compares this with the true reconciliation that Jesus preached:

The goal toward which the resurrected Jesus is working in the world right now is not some imaginary peace where people “reconcile” in name only while the abuse is never stopped and the wrong never righted. No, this is instead a total bending of the violent and unjust world back toward God’s shalom, until it is completely put to rights on the final day. . . And reconciliation, rightly lived as part of God’s cosmic work to restore all things, always subverts the empire of unjust power and control. It messes with thrones and powers and rulers and authorities. It takes them to task. [Emphasis in original.]

Now, unlike Zach Hoag, I don't think this is really about whether the group is Calvinist or not.  As I have said elsewhere on my blog, I think Calvinism can sometimes lead to too great a focus on authority in the church, but not always-- nor is it always Calvinism that falls into this mentality.  Maranatha Campus Ministries was basically Arminian, and yet they created an environment where abuse (not, as far as I know, physical or sexual abuse, but definitely spiritual abuse) was nurtured and grew.  On the other hand, Pastor Wade Burleson of Istoria Ministries is Calvinist, and yet I am certain nothing like this could ever happen in his church.  Here, in Burleson's own words, is why:

Jesus said that real leaders are servants, not masters. . . Let me be clear. Those kind of pastors - pastors that advocate an authoritarianism inherent in the pulpit, that stifle any and all dissent from the members of their congregations, that humiliate and denigrate the members who for the sake of conscience ask questions - could very well be considered great expositors of the Word of God and doctrinally orthodox. Yet those pastors display a character that is the antithesis of the character of Christ, an ironhandedness that is the opposite of genuine grace, and a disposition that should cause their congregations to realize that their pastors are but one step away from falling over the precipice of moral failure in terms of their church ministries or personal lives.

I think Burleson's diagnosis is absolutely correct.  It is authoritarianism that creates distance between a church leader and a congregation, so that members who bring complaints are viewed with suspicion while those with power are held to be above reproach.  It is this that creates a climate where power can corrupt, and absolute power can corrupt absolutely.

But the Bible actually teaches this:

Be shepherds of God's flock that is under your care. . . not pursuing dishonest gain, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. (1 Peter 5:2-3, emphasis added.)

And do not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness, but instead even expose them.  (Ephesians 5:11.)

So what is the right thing to do when you are a pastoral leader in a position of power and authority, and a friend who is also in a position of power and authority becomes the subject of multiple allegations of abuse by his ministry and cover-up by himself?  

Ultimately, it isn't being a good friend to close your eyes to his wrongdoings.  And no matter how close of friends two or more powerful Christian leaders are, their first responsibility as leaders must be to care for the most vulnerable members of their flocks.  The leaders of the Gospel Coalition simply cannot refuse to listen to what biblical shorthand calls "the widow and orphan" when they come pleading for justice. (Isaiah 1:17, James 1:27.)

There's still time to do the right thing.  I hope these Christian leaders decide to do it. 

Why I'm Not a Calvinist

Calvinism/Reformed Christianity is all the rage nowadays:  the belief that humans have no free will, and that God predestines some to be saved and some to be separated from Him forever, and that He only died for those He "elects" (chooses for salvation), whom He draws to Himself by irresistible grace.

I have never been able to believe this.  Not that I just don't want to believe it.  I literally can't.

It's also not that I think I am incapable of error or that I have this perfect grasp of spiritual truth.  But the person I am, with the best heart attitude I can ascribe to and the best reasoning powers I can summon, has to believe in human free will.

Here's the way I see it. 

If God alone is responsible for saving humans, and humans really have nothing whatsoever to do with it-- then all He would have to do to save all human beings is exercise irresistible grace, and they would have to be saved. Oh, I know all the arguments about how we all deserve eternal separation from God*, and it's gracious enough of God if He just chooses to save some.

But to me, it's not. Not gracious enough. 

God created human beings-- all human beings.  If God holds humans responsible for their salvation, then they have to be capable of choosing salvation.  If they are incapable of choosing salvation, then their fate, whatever it is, is God's responsibility.

If humans are incapable of resisting His saving grace, then He is responsible for not saving them all, since it's completely within His power to do so, and no one else has any say in the matter. It's not a matter of what we humans deserve so much as a matter of impartiality in justice, and completeness in mercy. I can't believe that God exercises partiality in justice and limited mercy.  I can believe God could be infinitely better than I am able to conceive; I cannot believe that He could be worse.  That I, who love my children equally and would never set one up to receive my love and the best inheritance I can leave her, while consigning the other to total abandonment, could in my refusal to do this, be better than the God I worship.

But this doesn't mean I think humans can save themselves. (Non-Calvinists are often accused of believing this, but it isn't true.)  I don't think there's anything we can do or add to God's grace in order to be saved.  But I don't think grace is irresistible.

I think we can't come to God unless He draws us-- but when He draws us, we can choose to come towards Him, or resist and insist we don't want God. Simple as that. I think the image of God remains in us, distorted though it may be by sin. We are capable of responding to the Holy Spirit's influence for good, though incapable of moving towards the good on our own. But there are moments in our lives-- probably many, many more than one, for each of us-- where God draws us towards Himself, and that act of drawing suspends us momentarily between good and evil, allowing us to be capable of choosing -- either giving in to the drawing of God, or falling back towards wrong. He alone can make us free to choose, but He does make us free, and the choice is ours.

Could not God have enough skill and finesse to move a human heart into a state balanced between two choices so that we are in that moment free to make a choice?  Is God really incapable of drawing human beings gently enough that they don't have to come?

The idea that we have nothing whatsoever to do with it, that it's all God and there is no free will, as far as I can see, turns God into something awful. I have examined the argument that God's justice is so high above ours that what looks like injustice to us, really isn't; but I can't buy that-- especially for we who are redeemed. We can see what justice is-- and if it totally looks like something else, even after our eyes are opened to God's ways-- how can we call it justice? A God who makes creatures, claims to love them all, and then refuses to save some, is not a God of love or justice. I have tried, but the Reformed perspective simply makes no sense to me. In fact, it seems like an example of what Michael Spenser was talking about in his iMonk post, "More, Better, Most, Highest":

What I see happening . . . is an escalation of terms into the potentially useless. . . And the person willing to say the most, to make the highest claim. . . feels justifiably proud that he's climbed further out on the limb of faith than anyone else. . . 

We're justified by faith, right? Not works? Not any kind of works?

Not by saying "I believe in justification" MORE and LOUDER and with BIGGER WORDS and MORE ARGUMENTS than the other guy?

The language of the Reformed seems like that to me.  Do we believe grace alone saves us? Apart from any works? I mean ANY works? The highest we can go is to believe that it is somehow a "work" even to just give in when God draws us-- and therefore we can't even believe in humans just giving in to God, as part of grace.  No, He has to cause us to give in, or it's not grace.  But I don't think it's necessary to go that far in my belief that grace alone saves us. In fact, I can't.  My brain won't go there.

But some Reformed believers say that if I'm not willing to go as high as that, I must not really believe in "the doctrines of grace." Because they can do one better than me, with my insistence on free will.  That even surrendering to the grace of God is too much of a "work" on my part.  But I just can't see surrendering to grace as salvation by works.  It doesn't make sense to me. 

You see, I would call what I adhere to "the doctrines of grace," too-- so I disagree with appropriating that term for one particular expression of Christianity, with the implication that other traditions (such as the Wesleyan/Arminian) don't really understand grace.

The question then arises, what do I do with Romans 9:18-24? 

So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.  You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles?

Fortunately, I don't have to try to figure this out on my own.  Arminius and Wesley, and many other free-will believers, have gone before me.  (Roger E. Olson is a well-known modern example.)  I agree with them that this passage is not about salvation-- not in terms of individuals going to heaven or being with Christ in eternity. Arminians start at the beginning of chapter 9 instead of at verse 18, and note that after Romans 8, which is about individual salvation, Paul switches focus. He begins talking about Israel as a nation, and Israel's original covenant with God. Then Paul goes on to talk about Jacob and Esau, and then Pharoah-- but in terms of where their respective nations fit in God's earthly plan. The passage then begins to speak of Christians as God's new "nation," which is actually comprised of people from every nation. 

"Jacob I loved and Esau I hated" (v. 13) is not about God literally hating a human being that He created-- any more than when Jesus said we must "hate" our father and mother and even our own life in order to follow Him (Luke 14:26), He was speaking of literal hate.  This is part of a kind of poetic hyperbole which is a common feature in the Bible. Also, it's my understanding that the word "hardened" referring to Pharoah's heart would better be rendered "strengthened."  In Exodus 9:12 God strengthened (in the Scripture-4-All Online Interlinear, "made steadfast") Pharoah's resolve to do what Pharoah had already chosen to do.  But the Romans 9 passage is about Paul's looking back to the Old Covenant (which was with a nation, not individuals), and about whether God's plan for Israel as a nation has been nullified.  Paul's answer is "no."

The "vessels of wrath" are not individuals facing eternity, but nations in God's plans on the earth-- and the "vessels of mercy" are "us whom he has called" into a new covenant nation.  The destinies of these vessels are destruction vs. mercy on earth as nations-- but even though earthly nations may be "vessels of wrath," Paul goes on to show in Chapter 10 that "whoever believes in Me will not be disappointed" -- whether from the Jewish nation or a Greek one, any individual can receive eternal salvation and become part of the new covenant. Nor is this something they accomplish on their own-- but "faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Chapter 10:17). Then Paul talks about how some form of "the word of God" has gone forth to everyone on earth-- through nature, when they cannot hear the the gospel (10:18).

In Chapter 11 Paul goes back to talking about Israel's calling as a nation again, and how a partial hardening has happened to that nation while mercy is being extended to the Gentiles to become part of the new "holy nation" which is the kingdom of God.

In other words, Arminians believe that God's earthly callings of nations, not the eternal destiny of individuals, is the topic of Romans 9. I think we miss this because of our overly individualistic mindset in the West. We tend to think it's all about individuals going to heaven-- but God is also interested in His kingdom, His holy nation, spreading on the earth.

With regards to other verses, this website briefly summarizes the Calvinist and Arminian positions on various Bible verses about predestination and calling.  There's no reason why any of the Reformed "clobber verses" have to be read as denying all human free will. 

The other issue I have with Calvinism has to do with "sovereignty."  I believe God is sovereign.  But I think Christians can at times get over focused on one attribute of God to the exclusion of other attributes. I think Reformed movements sometimes focus so much on God's authority and sovereignty, that they hardly have any room to think about God's humility and the freedom that Christ came to bring us. Ask some Christians what they are free from, and they'll simply say, "I'm free from bondage to sin. I'm free to live the way God wants me to." But the fact is that that we are also free from having to live in bondage to what Paul calls "the elements" of this earthly life, "do not handle, do not taste, do not touch" (Col 2:21) or the observation of "days and months and seasons and years" (Gal 4:10) or other things that are "destined to perish with the using."  Not understanding this can result in rules-based living-- though of course not all Reformed believers are legalists.

I find that sometimes a focus on God's sovereignty to the point where it almost shuts out any other attributes, seems related to a certain hierarchical view of the world-- a view that focuses on who is in authority over who, more than on service and love.  We can come to think God is all about enforcing His own authority, and that proper submission to authority is what the Christian walk is all about-- rather than, "righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." But I see God as One who would deliberately choose to be born in a manger, the Son of a lowly carpenter in backwoods Galilee. I see a Kingdom of mutual submission and service, of each of us having a mind like Christ's-- in lowliness of mind considering others better than ourselves, as per Phil. 2.  I see a God Who limits His own exercise of sovereignty, by His own free will-- in order to allow us ours. 

And I believe this spirit of humility which is a true characteristic of Kingdom living, can be manifest just as much in the Reformed tradition as anywhere else.  Just because Calvinism doesn't make sense to me doesn't mean I think I have a corner on the truth and I couldn't possibly be wrong.  You see, I am not saying all this to condemn Calvinists or Reformed theology. I am simply explaining my own journey, the way my mind works, and why limited atonement and irresistible grace do not sync, in my mind, with the God Whom I have, in my human, limited way, come to know and love.

When Christ returns and we become "like Him, for we will see Him just as He is" (1 John 3:2), then these sorts of disagreements will be over and done.  But for now, I'll believe in free will.  There isn't anything else I can do. 

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*Note: as an annihilationist, I don't think eternal separation from God involves eternal conscious torment, either-- but that's a post for another day.