KENTUCKY
The Daily Beast
BRANDON WITHROW
Pastor C.J. Mahaney and his network of churches faced protests from victims groups this week after the controversial pastor came back in the public eye.
“I know in this room that C. J. Mahaney has 10,000 friends,” said Albert Mohler Jr. at Together for the Gospel 2016 this 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, KY 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. Organized by SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (recently featured in the movie Spotlight), the demonstrators included ex-members of Sovereign Grace Ministries. Letters were written; petitions were created.
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