Sovereign Grace Ministries Sued; Sex Abuse Alleged

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20121018/FEATURES10/310180079/Sovereign-Grace-church-group-sued-abuse-alleged

Sovereign Grace church group sued; abuse alleged

 

Sovereign Grace now based in Louisville

First worship service of Sovereign Grace at Christ...: Sovereign Grace Church of Louisville holds its first worship service at Christian Academy’s English Station campus on Sept. 30, 2012, following the relocation of Sovereign Grace Ministries’ headquarters to Louisville.

Written by

Peter Smith

The Courier-Journal

An international church group now based in Louisville allegedly fostered a climate of fear and unquestioning obedience that allowed sexual abuse to persist among members, according to a new lawsuit.

Three plaintiffs filed suit Wednesday in Montgomery County Circuit Court in Maryland alleging that Sovereign Grace Ministries “created a culture in which sexual predators were protected from accountability and victims were silenced.”

The denomination moved its headquarters to Louisville from Montgomery County earlier this year. Less than a month ago, it launched Sunday services at its new congregation, Sovereign Grace Church of Louisville, led by longtime President C.J. Mahaney.

The plaintiffs, using pseudonyms, allege that church elders mishandled the sexual abuse of children at congregations in Maryland and Virginia between the late 1980s and 1990s.

The suit describes the plaintiffs as a Virginia teenager and a Maryland college student, both sexually assaulted by church members as young girls, and a young Maryland woman whose family was allegedly shunned by her church for refusing to seek leniency for her sister’s assailant.

The lawsuit seeks class-action status for what it claims is a wider pool of victims and a continued culture of cover-up.

“Over time, the families realized that they weren’t the only ones,” said Washington attorney Susan Burke, who is representing the plaintiffs.

“There’s a real concern about reaching existing members so that the children do not remain vulnerable,” Burke said.

The lawsuit alleges that sexual-abuse victims as young as 3 were forced to meet with and “forgive” perpetrators who had displayed repentance.

The suit alleges that church leaders “taught members to fear and distrust all secular authorities, and expressly directed members not to contact law enforcement to report sexual assaults.”

Claims in a lawsuit give only one side of a case.

Sovereign Grace Ministries said in a statement that it had not been served with the lawsuit and could not comment on specifics.


It added: “Child abuse in any context is reprehensible and criminal. Sovereign Grace Ministries takes seriously the Biblical commands to pursue the protection and well being of all people, especially the most vulnerable in its midst, little children.”

The denomination includes more than 90 churches, mainly clustered in Atlantic coast states, with about 28,000 members worldwide.

The lawsuit alleges negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, conspiracy to obstruct justice, negligent hiring and supervision, and misrepresentation.

In addition to Sovereign Grace, the lawsuit names eight people, including Mahaney, pastor of the new Louisville congregation, which began meeting Sept. 30 at Christian Academy’s English Station campus.

Some of the defendants were elders at the churches involved and were accused in the lawsuit of taking specific actions to cover up sexual abuse.

Others, such as Mahaney, were named because the incidents occurred under their leadership, Burke said.

The lawsuit did not name the congregations involved as defendants — Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Md., and Sovereign Grace Church of Fairfax, Va. — but Burke said the lawsuit holds the denomination responsible for them.

Pastors at both churches said they could not comment on the specifics of the cases. Covenant Life Church Pastor Joshua Harris added in a statement that the church has “labored very hard over the years to protect the safety and well-being of the children we care for, counsel, and instruct.”

Mahaney co-founded Covenant Life out of small groups formed in the 1970s, and it eventually became the base for the denomination. But the move to Louisville came amid growing strains between leaders of Sovereign Grace and Covenant Life since the summer of 2011.

That came as part of a wider upheaval in the denomination.

Mahaney took a leave of absence of several months in 2011 and early 2012 because of accusations of prideful and abusive leadership.

The denomination’s board ultimately found Mahaney fit for ministry and restored him to office

 

Earlier this year, a report by the independent conflict-resolution group Ambassadors of Reconciliation said that while many had benefited from involvement in Sovereign Grace churches, others had been hurt by the movement’s focus on correcting members’ sinfulness.

Estranged members saw an “over-emphasis of the teaching about sin without the balance of God’s grace,” leading some to be overly judgmental or despondent, the report said.

The lawsuit takes such complaints to a new level, alleging that an insular and authoritarian church culture prompted members to obey without question pastors’ instructions “in all matters, including methods of parenting, place of residence and employment.”

The suits do not allege abuse by clergy themselves. Rather, it alleges abuse by lay members and in one case a teenager who baby-sat children during small-group meetings.

But the lawsuit alleges church elders consistently interposed themselves into the process, seeking leniency for perpetrators in the courts and ordering victims’ families not to warn others of a perpetrator in their midst.

The lawsuit recounts one case in which a 3-year-old victim, brought into a room to reconcile with her perpetrator, crawled under a chair in terror.

Until this year, Sovereign Grace had no presence in Kentucky or Indiana.

Its move to Louisville has built on growing ties between Sovereign Grace and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, with which it shares many theological beliefs despite denominational differences.

Mahaney and seminary President Albert Mohler have regularly shared platforms at conferences associated with the New Calvinism — which emphasizes divine power, sinful humanity’s need for a savior in Jesus, tightly disciplined churches and male authority in churches and homes.

Also named as defendants are Larry Tomczak of Tennessee, a Sovereign Grace Ministries co-founder who split with Mahaney in another controversy in the 1990s; John Loftness, chairman of the Sovereign Grace Ministries board; Gary Ricucci, an elder in the Louisville church and formerly at Covenant Life Church; David Hinders and Louis Gallo, elders at the Fairfax church; and Frank Ecelbarger of Florida and Grant Layman of Maryland, identified in the suit as Sovereign Grace employees.

SGM-Mahaneygate: SGM Responds to Filed Lawsuit

http://www.sovereigngraceministries.org/blogs/sgm/post/Statement-by-Sovereign-Grace-Ministries-on-Reported-Lawsuit.aspx 

Statement on Reported Lawsuit

October 17, 2012 by SGM Staff

Please be aware of the following press release.
October 17, 2012

Statement by Sovereign Grace Ministries on Reported Lawsuit

LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY – Today, Sovereign Grace Ministries Director of Finance and Administration, Tommy Hill, released the statement below regarding a reported lawsuit on October 17, 2012:

It has come to the attention of Sovereign Grace Ministries through media outlets that a lawsuit has been filed against Sovereign Grace Ministries related to allegations of child abuse apparently arising in the 1980s and 90s. To date, Sovereign Grace Ministries has not been served with any such lawsuit nor does it have a copy of the lawsuit. Sovereign Grace Ministries is not in a position to comment on the allegations of the reported lawsuit. Child abuse in any context is reprehensible and criminal. Sovereign Grace Ministries takes seriously the Biblical commands to pursue the protection and well being of all people, especially the most vulnerable in its midst, little children.

Sovereign Grace Ministries is a family of over 80 churches, primarily in the United States with the goal of proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ both locally and globally.

For more information, please contact Tommy Hill at thill@sovgracemin.org

SGM-Mahaneygate (Washington Post): Lawsuit Claims SGM Conceals Sex Offenses Cases in MD & VA

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/lawsuit-claims-evangelical-church-group-concealed-sex-abuse-allegations-in-md-va/2012/10/17/75218ba8-187a-11e2-a346-f24efc680b8d_story.

 

Lawsuit claims evangelical church group concealed sex abuse allegations in Md., Va

 

By Associated Press, Updated: Wednesday, October 17, 4:10 PMAP

WASHINGTON — Three female plaintiffs claim in a lawsuit filed Wednesday that an evangelical church group covered up allegations of sexual abuse against children, failed to report accusations of misconduct to the police and discouraged its members from cooperating with law enforcement.


The lawsuit was filed in Maryland state court against Sovereign Grace Ministries, a 30-year-old family of churches, with about 100 congregations. Most of its churches are in the U.S., but it also has planted churches in about 21 countries.

 

The plaintiffs allege a conspiracy spanning more than two decades to conceal sexual abuse committed by church members. The alleged abuse happened in Maryland and northern Virginia in the 1980s and 1990s. The lawsuit accuses church representatives of permitting suspected pedophiles to interact with children, supplying them with free legal advice to avoid prosecution and forcing victims to meet with and “forgive” the person that had molested them.

 

“The facts show that the Church cared more about protecting its financial and institutional standing than about protecting children, its most vulnerable members,” the lawsuit claims.

The church did not immediately respond to a written message or to a phone message left on its general voicemail box. It wasn’t immediately clear if the church had a lawyer.

The suit names as defendants about a half-dozen pastors and church officials who plaintiffs say were alerted to the accusations but either failed to take action or actively covered them up. One official said he had not seen the suit and could not comment on the specific allegations. Other defendants either did not immediately respond to phone messages or did not appear to have publicly listed phone numbers.

In accusing church leaders of turning a blind eye to sexual molestation, the lawsuit bears parallels to the allegations of priest sex abuse and the resulting cover-up that have rocked the Roman Catholic church over the last decade. But while that scandal centered on sex abuse by priests, the accusations in this case involve molestation by church members instead of clergy.

Sovereign Grace Ministries grew from its mother church in Gaithersburg, Md., in 1982. It moved its headquarters this year to Louisville, Ky., where it’s also planting a new church. The group has struggled in recent years with fractured leadership and criticism over its discipline methods, especially the church’s emphasis on sins, discipline and repentance.

The suit only covers alleged abuse that occurred in Maryland in northern Virginia, but the church has faced scrutiny on other occasions for its handling of sexual abuse claims, and Susan Burke, a lawyer representing the three plaintiffs, said there are other alleged victims prepared to join in the case too.

An April report by a non-profit Lutheran mediation group that studied the church for nine months found that while church leaders showed “care and concern” about sex abuse allegations, a number of people interviewed felt the claims were handled irresponsibly and were left with “disappointments and hurts.”The lawsuit faults the church’s “Home Group” structure, in which children are provided with day care so their parents can attend services, as fostering a poorly supervised environment that enabled the abuse to occur.

The lawsuit centers on allegations of three female plaintiffs, each identified by pseudonyms to protect their anonymity.

One of the three plaintiffs, a high school student in Virginia, alleges she was sexually assaulted when she was 3 years old and that the mother of the boy who abused her revealed the molestation to the church. But church officials discouraged her family from reporting the allegations to police and, instead, repeatedly interviewed the alleged abuser and worked with him and his mother to determine how best to prevent any prosecution and publicity regarding the abuse.

A second plaintiff, a college student in Maryland, says she was sexually abused as a toddler by a church member. She says the church pastor scolded her parents after they called the police and then tipped off the accused that he had been reported to the police. She says her parents were instructed to bring her to a meeting with her alleged abuser so they could be “reconciled,” but that she was “visibly scared and crawled under the chair” after being brought into the same room with him.

The third plaintiff says her adoptive father, a member of the church, sexually abused her older sister for three and a half years. She says the church warned her mother not to pursue a prosecution, then kicked the family out of the church and denied the children reduced tuition to the school. The man was ultimately prosecuted and imprisoned, the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit, filed in Montgomery County, Md., includes claims of intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence and conspiracy, among others. It says there are other victims, both male and female, who have raised allegations but are not yet identified as plaintiffs. They include a child who was allegedly abused at age 10 by her father, a church member, but who was branded a “sinner” by the church for having been victimized.

“We view the case as an important step in holding SGM accountable for its misdeeds,” said Burke, the lawyer who represents the three plaintiffs and is also suing the military on behalf of female service members who say they were raped. “No institution can put its own financial concerns above the needs of vulnerable children.”