Is There Some Type Of Scandal At Sovereign Grace?

[debrand]

As I was doing a search on Josh Harris and Mark Driscoll, I came across some sites that seem to accuse Sovereign Grace Ministries of wrong doing but I don't know what that wrong doing is. Because I just stumbled on to this, I don't know if it is old news or not. Do any of you have a good summary about this issue? I"ve just started reading about this so, at this moment, I'm a bit confused

 

http://thewartburgwatch.com/2011/08/11/ ... imal-farm/

 

http://sgmrefuge.com/

 

http://thewartburgwatch.com/2011/06/01/ ... fications/

[Joykins]

As I was doing a search on Josh Harris and Mark Driscoll, I came across some sites that seem to accuse Sovereign Grace Ministries of wrong doing but I don't know what that wrong doing is. Because I just stumbled on to this, I don't know if it is old news or not. Do any of you have a good summary about this issue? I"ve just started reading about this so, at this moment, I'm a bit confused

http://thewartburgwatch.com/2011/08/11/ ... imal-farm/

http://sgmrefuge.com/

http://thewartburgwatch.com/2011/06/01/ ... fications/

Yes; much of it appears to be coverup and blaming the victims in instances of child sex abuse.

http://arewomenhuman.wordpress.com/2011 ... ual-abuse/

[Austin]

Oh, yeah. . . big time. I've been following it for weeks, mainly in two places:

http://www.sgmsurvivors.com/

http://sgmrefuge.com/

I keep hoping didikeppel will login and give us her take as an SGM member.

BTW, Josh Harris is smack dab in the middle of all of this.

The documents take forever to read, but there is a lot of good stuff in them. It's too much to hope for that CJ Mahaney will get his comeuppance, but I hope that he's at least been taken down a peg or two.

[debrand]

Yes; much of it appears to be coverup and blaming the victims in instances of child sex abuse.

http://arewomenhuman.wordpress.com/2011 ... ual-abuse/

:cry: How horrible.

[hoipolloi]

Yes. It looks to me like the SGM leadership, including CJ, have tried to create a plea deal for themselves wherein they've confessed to their "sins" of pride & hypocrisy while barely acknowledging their complicity in covering up the child abuse and blaming its victims.

[debrand]

http://www.sgmsurvivors.com/?p=276

I'm reading Noel's story about her daughter's abuse and it's making me mad for her.

This is at the end of her story

We sent a letter saying we were leaving, they replied saying we couldn’t because mom still wanted to confront us on the 6 page document. They also said they’d find out what church we go to and tell the pastors all about us.

What ever guys. What ever.

It sounds like they are threatening to destroy the family's reputation at the any new church. SGM wanted to sweep the problem under the rug and got angry when her family refused to comply.

[hoipolloi]

It sounds like they are threatening to destroy the family's reputation at the any new church. SGM wanted to sweep the problem under the rug and got angry when her family refused to comply.

It's a pattern. The most recent story at the SGM Survivors website -- that of Taylor -- is appalling and is maybe the 5th or so to be recounted in some detail there.

[Austin]

SGM is like the friggin' mafia, just with spiritual/emotional weapons, not bullets to the back of the head.

ETA: A lot of it reminds me of how I've read that Scientology operates. They don't exactly sue people like Scientology, but they pretty much have no problem in engaging in blackmail and coercion.

[debrand]

SGM is like the friggin' mafia, just with spiritual/emotional weapons, not bullets to the back of the head.

ETA: A lot of it reminds me of how I've read that Scientology operates. They don't exactly sue people like Scientology, but they pretty much have no problem in engaging in blackmail and coercion.

I'm reading Taylor's story right now. It seems like most of these people tried to work with their church. That amazes me because I can't fanthom giving so much power to the pastors. SGM misuses biblical concepts such as forgiveness and not gossiping to shut up the vicitms.

I

was praised up and down for not calling the police but for contacting them first, for being a “Godly example†of a Christian wife, etc. When we went to church the first Sunday after the crisis, I was with two of my close woman friends, and they asked me what was going on, and I told them what had happened, feeling the need for support and help.

When I told Pastor Fred I had told them, he was quite upset with me for telling anyone, and reprimanded me for gossiping, and then had to meet with them and our care group to do damage control, to make sure no one would know what was really happening or had happened.

The police, not the pastors, should have been immediately involved.

[debrand]

Taylor's article is really angering me.

After about two months of this kind of counseling by the pastors, I was told that in order to truly be a Godly wife, I had to forgive my husband because my sins as a less than Godly wife had also contributed to my daughter’s abuse. I was told that had I better met my husband’s needs physically, he wouldn’t have been tempted elsewhere. A meeting was held at Pastor Fred’s house, where my husband could apologize to my daughter for hurting her and ask her to forgive him. Again she was reminded by Pastor Fred that she was a sinner too, and that Jesus had forgiven her, so she must forgive her father to be a good Christian.

So I was told to allow him to move back home, and to make sure I had physical relations with him regularly, and books were offered telling me how to have a Godly sexual relationship with him, like Intended for Pleasure: Sex Technique and Sexual Fulfillment in Christian Marriage, and The Five Love Languages.

I was told to put a lock on my daughter’s door, on the inside, and every night after I had kissed her goodnight, she had to lock her door to keep her father out.

What sick people run that church!

I was told I couldn’t leave the church because as long as my husband was a member

,

Reading through these testimony it is amazing how many people forget that they can think for themselves. The church couldn't sue her for not attending and yet, she continued to pretend that everything was all right. It's like some of the victims were terrified of SGM!

[hoipolloi]

I've been following this for at least a couple of years & Taylor's story has, by far, angered & confounded me the most, almost pushing me to comment.

From what I've gathered as a total outsider & non- Christian, SGM uses small groups called Care Groups (sovgracecc.org/care_groups.aspx) to extend the hierarchy's control over members. In addition to bible study or whatever else they do, care group participants are encouraged & expected to be completely honest about themselves, particularly sin. As far as I can tell, members must belong to a care group; it's not optional.

So, in some ways, you could see how a longtime member might be reluctant to buck SGM pastoral hierarchies particuarly if s/he had been rendered fairly vulnerable & dependent through years of this small group crap.

[Austin]

I, too, cannot fathom the control some people are willing to let a church have over their lives. I suspect it creeps up on them gradually and they just don't realize it until there's a problem.

SGM has many of the hallmarks of a cult. From a recent list of hallmarks, they seemed to have almost all of them. They love-bomb like crazy, make people dependent upon them emotionally and socially, and then use that dependence to keep them in place. If people leave, they are pretty much shunned. Since the church, by design and intent, becomes people's families, leaving for them is hugely difficult emotionally. And then the church smears the errant ex-members.

[debrand]

I'm reading online that Joshua Harris stepped down from his church's board. What exactly was his role in all of this?

[Joykins]

I'm reading online that Joshua Harris stepped down from his church's board. What exactly was his role in all of this?

He's the senior pastor of Covenant Life so he can't be totally uninvolved IMO.

On the other hand, he seems to be taking the scandal more seriously than the rest of the board, which is I think why he resigned.

[Austin]

I'm reading online that Joshua Harris stepped down from his church's board. What exactly was his role in all of this?

IIRC (I've read so much on this in recent weeks), Joshua Harris, perhaps surprisingly, dissented in some fashion with how the rest of the board wanted to handle CJ Mahaney after Brent Detweiler posted all of "the documents" that exposed Mahaney for the corrupt ass that he is. There's a lot about it on both SGM recovery boards, the documents are here at SGM Refuge:

http://sgmrefuge.com/page/4/

http://www.scribd.com/sgmwikileaks

I think, at last count, there were seven different documents. They are voluminous with emails, Brent's recount of conversations (he is apparently an obsessive note-taker) and Brent's thoughts on these issues as they occurred.

eta: link

[aubrietta]

one of the pastors mentioned in some of these scandals is a long time friend of my parents. Growing up my parents often lamented that we didn't have a church as wonderful as Fairfax to attend. Now that all this has come out, I'm pretty glad that wasn't. (not that I escaped completely unscathed, we ended up attending another "apostolic movement" that was the same shit different pile as SGM)

[hoipolloi]

Kris, one of the site owners at sgmsurvivors.com, has a post up today with an extensive explanation on how SGMS's small groups work to the benefit of pastors (and abusers) and the detriment of church members and victims: sgmsurvivors.com/?p=2891