DALLAS (TX)
The Roys Report [Chicago IL]
October 29, 2024
By Julie Roys
Phil Johnson, a pastor at John MacArthur’s Grace Community Church (GCC), stated five weeks ago that the woman with whom Steve Lawson “had a 5-year relationship” lived “nowhere close to any of the ministries Steve served.”
However, when recently accused of lying, Johnson admitted in an email that the woman was “a student at The Master’s College (University) during some of the time that (she and Lawson) were engaged in this adulterous affair.”
Lawson, a former dean at GCC’s The Master’s University and Seminary (TMUS) and a teaching pastor at Trinity Bible Church of Dallas, was removed from his church in September due to “an inappropriate relationship” with a woman.
Since then, there has been much speculation on social media regarding the identity of the woman and whether Lawson’s “affair” classifies as clergy sexual abuse.
To date, Trinity Church, TMUS, and GCC have not identified the woman.
They also have not responded to questions by The Roys Report (TRR), concerning whether the woman, whom Phil confirmed was in her “late 20s,” was under the spiritual authority of Lawson, who’s 73.
According to abuse experts, “any sexualized behavior by a church leader/spiritual leader toward someone under their spiritual care, who by nature is in a position of less power and authority” is clergy sexual abuse.
Texas has a law criminalizing clergy sexual abuse; California does not.
On Oct. 20, Casey Staats, a longtime donor to Ligonier Ministries, where Lawson served as a teaching fellow and board member, confronted Johnson on X for his claim the woman didn’t live close to any of Lawson’s ministries.
In her post, Staats included a picture of Lawson with a woman purported to be the woman with whom he was involved, which had been posted on the Instagram account of GCC’s college ministry. That IG post has since been deleted.
“It seems maybe you weren’t telling the truth here?” Casey wrote to Johnson. “This picture was scrubbed from the Crossroads IG but word on the street is this is the girl who was nowhere close to Steve’s ministries. Care to confirm or deny?”
Johnson responded that if Staats felt she needed more details, she should contact him “directly by email or phone.”
Two days later, Staats did just that.
“I am the woman who posted on X today wanting to know if you were being truthful about Steve’s young mistress not being ‘close’ to any of his ministries,” Staats wrote in an email she recently released to TRR. “If the young woman in the photo is, in fact, his mistress, she was apparently very close.”
Staats added, “People are desperate for transparency in a world that gets crazier by the day. Whether GCC knew about this or not, there is MUCH speculation that many there DID know about this and did nothing. Do you want this rumor floating around social media if it’s not true?? PLEASE help people understand what exactly went on with 100% honesty and transparency.”
The next day, Johnson responded and appeared to confirm that the woman in the picture was the one involved with Lawson. (TRR is not identifying the woman because it is not clear whether she is a victim of clergy sexual abuse or not.):
What I said is that she does not live close to any of Lawson’s ministries. Obviously, given that they were having an affair, they were adjacent to one another at SOME point, so a picture of her sitting next to him doesn’t actually nullify the facts of what I said. Grace Church is in Los Angeles. Lawson was preaching at a church in Dallas. The woman Lawson was romancing lives in Washington State. What I said was absolutely true. (You publicly accused me of dishonesty before you even asked for that clarification.)
The point is that this was not a case of pastoral abuse as defined by Texas law. She was not a parishioner of his. Her family (who live in Orange County, CA and are members of a church down there) were donors to Lawson’s ministry and personal friends with him, and that is how the connection was made. On more than occasion he even stayed in their home while he was in California. She was a consenting adult in her mid-twenties when the relationship began. She was also a student at The Master’s College during some of the time that they were engaged in the adulterous affair. But her connection with him originally came through her family’s relationship with Lawson and had nothing to do with her student status.
Though Johnson denied Lawson was in a position of spiritual authority over the woman while she was at TMUS, other documentation suggests otherwise.
Until recently, the woman was also featured on TMUS’s website “Alumni Focus“.
According to the webpage, which was deleted after Sept. 28, the woman attended Grace Community Church as a child and returned to the area to attend The Master’s University, where Lawson had a profound impact on her.
The website stated, “More than anything, though, (name redacted) says she was impacted spiritually by her time at TMU. ‘Getting to hear preachers like Steve Lawson or Dr. MacArthur on a weekly basis encouraged my faith and grounded my beliefs in truth,’ she says.”
Also, the post states that the woman graduated from TMU in 2018. This would mean that Lawson’s misconduct went on for at least six years, not five as Johnson stated in a now-deleted, Sept. 25 X post.
TRR reached out to Johnson via email to confirm the woman’s identity and to ask how he knew her relationship with Lawson “had nothing to do with her student status.”
Johnson did not reply to our email.
TRR has also confirmed that the woman worked at Grace Books, GCC’s bookstore, in 2021. We called and spoke with an employee at Grace Books today, who stated that only GCC members are eligible to work at Grace Books.
So, the woman involved with Lawson apparently was a GCC member while the misconduct was happening.
Johnson also claims in his email to Staats that none of the GCC elders knew of Lawson’s misconduct with the woman as some have claimed on social media.
Johnson adds that a Grace Church secretary told him after the scandal broke that she had “observed some overly-familiar behavior between Lawson and his mistress. (This girl had straightened his tie and combed his hair in a public setting.)”
However, Johnson said the woman took her concern to an employee of Lawson’s ministry, OnePassion, not to an elder at Grace Church.
“As far as I can determine, no one who says they witnessed inappropriate behavior between Lawson and the woman ever brought any concern to our elders,” Johnson writes.
TRR reached out to OnePassion Ministries and asked if any of its employees heard a concern about Lawson from a GCC secretary, and if so, when and what was done?
OnePassion did not respond to our inquiry.
The only employees listed on OnePassion’s 2021 990 tax form are Steve Lawson and his daughter, Grace Anne Bills, who serves as OnePassion’s ministry coordinator and vice president.
Steve Lawson’s wife, Anne Lawson, received $30,000 from OnePassion, according to the 990. But the only position mentioned for her is as a director of OnePassion, which is a non-staff position.
The money paid to Steve and Anne Lawson, as well as Grace Anne Bills, account for about 70% of the total $557,668 paid by OnePassion in salaries and other compensation in 2021.
On Oct. 20, John MacArthur discussed the Lawson scandal in a Q & A session at GCC. The 85-year-old pastor said he believed God was purifying His church by exposing Lawson but did not mention the TMUS graduate Lawson was involved with.
He also called on GCC to band together in the crisis.
“We’ve got to circle the wagons . . .” MacArthur said. “Because when we’re exposed like that, all the enemies are going to come at us with a vengeance. And if they can pit us against each other, they can do some real damage.”