SGM: Harvey Gives Interim Report on Mahaney-SGM Story

The consultation report from Ambassadors of Reconciliation

August 25, 2011 by Dave Harvey

Today we received the consultation report from Ambassadors of Reconciliation. It outlines their suggestions with how we proceed in three main areas:

1. Adjudication of allegations against C.J. Mahaney
2. Group reconciliation with others who have offenses
3. Follow-up consultation and recommendations

We plan on following their recommendations in full. The document is very thorough so for the most part I’ll leave you to review it and ask any clarifying questions.

There is one part, however, that merits some introduction. In our initial communication about this process, we said we would use a panel of outside evaluators to review allegations against C.J., which at the time we were presuming would come from AOR. In this we were following the external counsel we were receiving as we began our discussions with AOR. As you’ll see them explain in their proposal, they disagree with that approach. In their assessment, it is the board’s responsibility to do the evaluation. At the same time, they are sensitive to the perceived conflict of interest at play if the board comprised the review panel. To achieve a compromise, they have proposed that a five-person panel—four SGM pastors and one board member—hears and adjudicates the allegations against C.J.


You may note that this is different from what we originally envisioned and requested from AOR. But after hearing their arguments we believe their counsel is sound and we plan on following it. I realize that this constitutes a change from our initial expectations, but I hope you can see in their recommendation a genuine attempt to address potential conflict of interest concerns that we raised with them. They were extremely careful and deliberate about getting to know the details of this situation before issuing their proposal, and I believe they’ve served us very well with this compromise and the rest of the proposal too.

I will keep you posted as we take significant steps in the adjudication and group reconciliation process. Thanks as always for your prayers, input, and support for us as we move ahead with this evaluation.