Exactly a week ago, Chaplain Mike asked me if I had any insights I would like to share on the Catholic sex abuse scandals. I said I’d try and have something in by the end of the week, and I made some preliminary notes.

Then I left them sitting there on top of my desk and ignored them for six days straight. Today, late Sunday afternoon Irish time, I am finally sitting down to write this post. I don’t want to, and the only reason I’m doing it is because I said I would.

I don’t want to write this. I don’t want to talk about this. I don’t even want to think about this, and that is the precise, exact “head in the sand” attitude that has caused so much harm and damage. I want to ignore the topic. I want to pretend it is all done and dealt with. I want to go on as if everything is fine now. Well, I can’t. I can’t pretend it all happened years ago and in some foreign country, and I can’t pretend all the buried secrets are not still oozing out their rottenness and polluting all that they touch.

And certainly I can’t pretend Holy Catholic Ireland is unscathed.

I won’t talk about the wider Church, since every country has a slightly different experience and reasons for what happened and the offences that were committed. I will stick to Ireland, and what follows is only my own personal opinion. I don’t have any special insight or inside information. I know as much as the rest of you do, when you read about yet another case in the papers or hear about it on the news.

The publicity at the end of February concerning the publication of the “Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee to establish the facts of State involvement with the Magdalen Laundries”  brought one aspect of the scandal about abuse committed by Church organisations back out into the open once again. If you’ve heard of these institutions, you probably know them from the movie made in 2002. To quote a 2004 review from an American newspaper which gives a good flavour of the reaction to the movie:

The film tells the story of “sinful” women who were, during the mid-1960s in Ireland, abandoned by their families for being raped and having children out of wedlock were sent to the Magdalene convent. There they would ostensibly find redemption through performing slave labor, washing clothes for the profits of the nuns in charge. The militant nuns who ran this labor camp were vile and contemptible women who spared no act of cruelty on the girls left to their care. Stripped and given severe beatings, these girls were slowly forced into obedience.

Well, so one more sordid example of wicked brutality meted out in the name of religion – so what? How can it be explained or explained away? Why even try?

I’m not going to try to explain it away. And if you want an explanation for it, the only one I have to give is “Sin.”

Though this will sound like an attempt at self-justification, I want to say only this much at the start: first, elements of that movie were exaggerated or even invented for “dramatic effect” and admitted as much by the film-maker (who didn’t see why this was such a big deal). The stripping naked of the girls who were then mocked by the nuns? Didn’t happen. But so what if it didn’t exactly happen like that, we all know that those places were hotbeds of sexual abuse, right?

Wrong. The survivors have many justified complaints of physical and emotional abuse, but sexual abuse is not part of the institutional experience in those cases.

Okay, but it only happened in backwards repressed Ireland that women were locked up for the crime of becoming pregnant, right? All down to a society ruled by a puritanical Church that fears and hates sex!

Happened in other places that weren’t Ireland and weren’t Catholic. British Protestant women also ended up in homes for unwed mothers, and so did Americans, Australians and pretty much every country you care to mention. See this link.

Right, that’s as much palliation as I am going to engage in. From here on, I will just speak about the situation as I see it. The situation in Ireland is complicated, in that the blanket term “child abuse” or “religious/clerical abuse” is perceived by the public at large, thanks to the sex abuse cases that exploded into the public consciousness in America starting in the 80s. It’s also considered to be mostly cases of “priests raping children” as I’ve seen it described in online comments.

Continue reading “Sex and Power: An Irish Perspective on the Abuse Scandal in the Catholic Church”

I asked our friend Dee Parsons from The Wartburg Watch for an update on the scandals and troubles besetting the prominent neo-reformed organization Sovereign Grace Ministries (SGM), a network of churches in North America and several countries around the world. TWW does an excellent job advocating on behalf of justice and compassion for victims of churches and ministries that perpetuate spiritual abuse. We’re grateful for her contribution today.

NOTE: You might also want to check out what Rachel Held Evans has to say on her current post, “How [Not to] Respond to Abuse Allegations: Christians and Sovereign Grace Ministries.”

* * *

What’s Up with Sovereign Grace Ministries?
by Dee Parsons

Thank you for inviting us to do a guest post for the Internet Monk. We have followed this site for years and, in our opinion, it represents the best of the Christian blogs.

Deb and I have never attended a Sovereign Grace church. So why are we so interested in the story of serious conflict within this group of churches? About five years ago, prior to starting The Wartburg Watch, we were involved in a rather disturbing pedophile situation at a former church. We were distressed about the response of the church and decided to do some searching to see if other churches had responded in a similar fashion. It was then we stumbled over SGM Survivors and SGM Refuge (which has since closed).

Sovereign Grace Ministries arose out of the shepherding movements in the 1970s under the leadership of CJ Mahaney and Larry Tomczak.  This Wikipedia article does a good job of  outlining the history of today’s SGM. CJ Mahaney describes himself as a former pothead who did not pursue education beyond high school. The movement underwent several name changes until it became known as SGM. It was part of the  Charismatic renewal movement and adopted Calvinism in the late 1990s. Its charismatic roots are now somewhat downplayed. This was the alleged reason that Larry Tomczak left the movement. However, as we would learn, there was a darker reason.

This group of churches prefers to be called a “family of churches” rather than a denomination. Until a few years ago, CJ Mahaney and the leaders of this “family” referred to themselves as apostles and have since ceased referring to this belief. However, there seems to be some movement to bring back the idea of apostolic ministry. They also formed a Pastors College, a nine-month training course, which would then make it possible for a man to become an SGM pastor. There was no pre-qualifying degree necessary to attend this college and even those who had advanced degrees, like a Masters of Divinity, were required to attend this “college.”

SGM was successful in planting about 100 churches, usually in upper middle income areas. This attracted the attention and support of Calvinists within the SBC along with individuals such as John Piper, Al Mohler and Mark Dever who were looking for successful models of church planting.

Several years ago, TWW uncovered large donations to Southern Baptist Theological Seminary being made by CJ Mahaney and SGM.  We predicted that SGM headquarters would somehow link to Louisville, although many would disagree with us. In fact, today SGM headquarters has relocated to Louisville and CJ Mahaney has started a new SGM church in the area.

However, there was a dark side to this group of churches which Mahaney referred to the “happiest place on earth.”

Continue reading “Sex and Power: What’s Up With Sovereign Grace Ministries?”

Labels can be tricky, but earlier this month, Roger Olson wrote a helpful, clarifying post called, “Why I Am Not a ‘Liberal Christian.'”  Positioning himself as “non-fundamentalist,” he then goes on to distinguish between those who identify themselves as “progressive” Christians, who are evangelical, broadly conservative, and primarily interested in setting themselves apart from the fundamentalist world, and those “progressives” who are truly theological liberals.

• A couple of prototypes for liberalism would be Friedrich Schleiermacher and Marcus Borg.

• Their point of view is captured in Claude Welch’s phrase: “maximal acknowledgment of the claims of modernity” in theology. That is, they recognize the authority of “modern thought” alongside or above Scripture and tradition.

Olson note six characteristics of genuine theological liberalism:

• Overall view of reality: Do they believe the universe is open to God’s special activity? Do they believe in supernatural acts of God — especially the bodily resurrection of Jesus? If not, they are likely theological liberals.

• Approach to doing theology: Do they approach theology “from above” or “from below”? Do they acknowledge special revelation and its authority? Or do they begin with human thought and experience? If the latter, they may be theological liberals.

• Christology: If their view of who Jesus is is merely functional and not ontologically incarnational and trinitarian, they are probably theologically liberal.

• View of Scripture: Do they see the Bible as different only in degree from other great books of spiritual wisdom or is it different in kind from them? Is it somehow “God’s” Word and not merely human words about religious experience? If it is only a remarkable human work, then we are likely hearing the liberal point of view.

• View of Salvation: Do they understand salvation in terms of forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God, or is it only about realizing human potential through enlightenment and moral endeavor. The latter view tends to be promoted by theological liberals.

• View of the Future: Will there be a real return of Jesus Christ to bring about a new creation, or is that code for the existential experience of progress or the transformation of society into a just and peaceful world? If Jesus’ return is only a symbol, myth, or metaphor for human advancement, then it is evidence of liberalism.

Olson warns us that all such lists are crude representations of the complex beliefs of real human beings, and that most people and groups contain within themselves a mixture of conservative and liberal elements. Theological liberals, then, would be people who lean more toward the kinds of positions above.

I agree with Roger Olson that these positions are not profoundly Christian. As he says:

Their commitment is greater to modern culture, the Zeitgeist of the Enlightenment, than to Christian sources. Their “Christianity” is barely recognizable if recognizable at all—compared with anything that was called “Christian” before the Enlightenment. Ultimately, I believe, theological liberalism robs Christianity of its distinctiveness, the “scandal of particularity,” its prophetic edge, and makes it easy, respectable and dull.

…I have no problem with Christians who struggle with traditional belief; my problem is with those who “reinterpret it” so radically that it isn’t recognizable anymore.

The classic orthodox response to theological liberalism (or “modernism”) is J. Gresham Machen’s book, Christianity and Liberalism (1923).  In it, Machen argued that liberalism was not simply another variety of Christian religion, but in actuality a different type of thought and life that grows out of a different root (the Enlightenment).

It is not “the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.”

“If you are unfaithful, I will scatter you among the peoples.” (Nehemiah 1:8)

“…it’s time for judgment to begin with God’s own household.” (1Peter 4:17)

* * *

Schism.

The first recorded question a human being asked was, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Gen. 4:9). In case you are wondering, Cain was saying, “I am not.” Building on this mindset and attitude, not only did he compete with his brother, get angry with his brother, and hold a grudge against his brother, but he murdered his brother.

When people seek wisdom apart from God (the original sin of Adam and Eve), one of its first manifestations is division and contention in the human community. Cut off from communion with God, we find ourselves at odds with each other.

Which makes me wonder. Is it possible?…

Is it conceivable that the Church is under God’s judgment for our disunity?

It has been estimated that there are 41,000 Christian denominations in the world. Does our radically divided condition perhaps indicate that God has “scattered us among the peoples,” as he did Cain, as he did Israel; that he has sent us into exile where we have settled in our own isolated communities, cut off from one another, pursuing our own lives and agendas?

Are we Cain — condemned to wander the earth until we find our own little cities of refuge in which to hunker down?

The story of the Bible indicates that God’s preferred method of judging his people is to scatter them from good places where God is central and the community is unified around him, causing them to wander in a diaspora.

In other words, he boots Adam and Eve out of the garden. He sends Cain packing. He scatters the nations at Babel over the earth. He sends the murmuring children of Israel walking in circles around the desert. He allows the folks in the days of Judges, each one, to do what his right in his own eyes. He sets even the members of King David’s own household against him. Like Israel under the kings, there is division, contention, and disintegration until the day of dispersion and destruction comes.

How can we not constantly pray, as Ezra did:

“My God, I’m too ashamed to lift up my face to you. Our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has grown to the heavens. From the days of our ancestors to this day, we’ve been deep in guilt. On account of our iniquities we, our kings, and our priests have been handed over to the kings of the lands, to the sword, to captivity, to plundering, and to utter shame, as is now the case.” (Ezra 9:6-7)

For where is the “one, holy, Catholic, and apostolic Church” that we confess? Where is “His body, the church, is the fullness of Christ, who fills everything in every way,” united around “one Lord, one faith, one baptism”?

Where is the company of disciples for whom Jesus prayed, asking,

“I pray they will be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. I pray that they also will be in us, so that the world will believe that you sent me. I’ve given them the glory that you gave me so that they can be one just as we are one. I’m in them and you are in me so that they will be made perfectly one. Then the world will know that you sent me and that you have loved them just as you loved me.” (John 17:21-23, CEB)?

It seems to me we’ve given up on the idea of unity so long ago that maybe God has said, “OK, you don’t want to be unified — I get it. You each want your own way. Well, have at it. Scatter and scatter and scatter until there is no more Church, just a multitude of individual believers on the earth. Plant more and more new churches in areas where there are already congregations. Call it devotion to mission, or call it my blessing, or something cool like ‘catching the next wave.’ You have the truth, after all, and you can rescue those who just call themselves Christians but don’t really know what it means like you do.

“Oh yes, and don’t ever pray for the Catholics, the Orthodox, the Methodists, the Lutherans, the Baptists, the Pentecostals, the Mennonites or the non-denominational churches in town. Don’t ever mention their names except to describe what you disagree with them about. For heaven’s sake, don’t ever join with them in mission to relieve suffering in your communities in my name. In fact, it’s probably better if you simply ignore them altogether. They may not be real Christians after all.”

Maybe God said one day, “Hey, I have an idea. Since you don’t like each other and don’t think that other so-called Christians really understand the truth, why don’t you forbid each other from taking Communion at your tables? You can back it up with Scripture. I have given all of you plenty of room to interpret things differently in the Bible. Whenever you can, magnify those differences and make them matters for separation. Build your walls high. Just disregard all those passages about love and acceptance and unity. Consider them optional. Pretend your brethren don’t even exist.”

Perhaps God just got fed up with us taking natural differences and cultural variety — things that he loves — and turning them into parochialism. So he’s scattered us like the nations from Babel into our own little enclaves.

Maybe all the power plays and self-advancement that has gone on in the name of Christ finally got to him and he gave us up to our own devices and let us put our own rulers on the throne.

Maybe the “scattering” of the Church, the schisms, the divisions, the contentions, the wars, the nationalism, the parochialism, the territorialism, the dogmatism and separatism is the result of God abandoning us to our selfish and short-sighted ways.

Maybe God has judged us. Perhaps we have been under his judgment for so long we don’t even recognize it any longer.

Is there any other explanation for why we just keep on going down the same path of disintegration and disunity?

Do we even know to whom we are praying when we say, “Our Father…”?

Though with a scornful wonder
Men see her sore oppressed,
By schisms rent asunder,
By heresies distressed:
Yet saints their watch are keeping,
Their cry goes up, How long?
And soon the night of weeping
Shall be the morn of song!

– “The Church’s One Foundation,” Samuel J. Stone

* * *

Money, Sex, and Power: this is the triumvirate that rules “the world.” These are what “the flesh” craves. This is what “the devil” uses in his attempts to set us against God. They are described in 1John 2 as “the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life” (NASB) — I want to experience what makes me feel good, I want to possess what looks good to me, I want to control things and be honored.

We can pursue and abuse money, sex, and power in any number of ways and in a variety of contexts, including religious communities. In fact, religion often provides the perfect context in which the world, flesh, and devil may work, because those involved in the spiritual life are often trusting and devoted toward their leaders, and leaders learn quickly that there are many places and ways to hide in the world of the sacred.

From the earliest days of following Jesus, this has been part of the Church’s story. He chose twelve followers, one of whom betrayed him and never came back. Eleven ran away in fear and eventually returned, showing all subsequent disciples that even the best of us live by forgiveness and grace alone.

The New Testament, if read honestly, is a series of messages sent to people who came to faith and came together, only to find that the world, flesh, and devil tend to make their presence known even at the Communion table, in the person behind the pulpit, when leaders come together to make decisions, and among the members of the congregation when people who are different and have different ways want to join in and be part of the community.

Ananias and Sapphira threatened to bring a financial scandal upon the Church in its earliest days. The Corinthians brought a world of sexually immoral practices into the sanctuary. A host of people in and around the Church followed the path of Diotrephes, who “liked to put himself first” and have the power. Etc., etc., etc.

Sometimes, when I consider not only the NT testimony but also the long and tawdry story of Christian history, I wonder that God has not judged us as he did the kingdoms of Israel. Ephesians says, “[God] has put all things under [Christ’s] feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” Our “reign” as the King’s ambassadors in this world has often proven disastrous. And still today, the Church is beset by scandal, schism, heresy, and crimes against the defenseless and weak through the abuse of money, sex, and power.

Surely, from the beginning of the Christian way, it has been necessary for every believer to pray the words of Nehemiah: “Both I and my family have sinned.”

If our hearts know anything of God’s love in Christ, we will advocate for those who “hunger and thirst for justice,” the poor and meek who mourn and suffer under the leadership of those who are not merciful nor pure of heart, who seek power not peace, and who cause suffering by playing the part of persecutors rather than following the way of the Cross.

This week, we will get some updates on scandals that are currently troubling the Church, causing pain to victims, and besmirching Jesus’ reputation in the world.

As a way of introducing this topic, here are a few websites devoted to truth, justice, and compassion in the context of Church scandal. Listing these sites here does not mean we automatically share every perspective written on them. Just like we hope you read Internet Monk with discernment, we urge you to do the same with everything you read. But we appreciate the work these kinds of blogs and sites do, especially in helping us hear the cries of the abused.

• Wartburg Watch
• Battered Sheep
• Mars Hill Refuge
• Istoria Ministries (Wade Burleson)
• Wenatchee the Hatchet
  
• Bishop Accountability
• Blog on the Way
• Brent Detwiler
• Calvary Chapel Abuse

The first of Martin Luther’s ninety five theses states: “Our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, in saying, “Repent ye, etc.,” intended that the whole life of his believers on earth should be a constant penance.” How then can we observe Lent, the season of repentance, without acknowledging not only our own sins but also the sins of the Church?

Lord, have mercy.