UNITED STATES
Baptist News
BOB ALLEN | MARCH 31, 2016
A support group for clergy sex abuse victims is asking organizers of an upcoming religious conference to revoke a speaking invitation to a pastor accused of concealing multiple sex crimes.
The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests said March 31 that allowing controversial Pastor C.J. Mahaney to speak at the April 12-14 Together for the Gospel gathering in Louisville, Ky., would “be tantamount to re-victimizing sex abuse victims” and send a message to would-be whistleblowers: “Don’t bother speaking up. No one will care.”
“It’s reckless and callous when clergymen give prominent positions to colleagues who face charges of concealing child sex crimes,” said SNAP director David Clohessy.
SNAP leaders called on conference organizers Mark Dever, Albert Mohler and Ligon Duncan to withdraw this year’s invitation to Mahaney, a T4G founder who sat out the last conference two years ago due to publicity over a class-action lawsuit alleging he and others sheltered at least 15 child molesters while pastor of a Maryland church and director of a church-planting network now known as Sovereign Grace Churches.
“Every time an accused or admitted complicit church official is honored, it discourages victims, witnesses and whistleblowers from exposing predators, warning parents and protecting kids,” said Pam Palmer, a former member of Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Md., whose daughter was molested by a teenager while Mahaney was pastor of the church in 1993.
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