Read Part One HERE
In this blog post I will continue to focus on C.J. Mahaney, pastor of Sovereign Grace Church, Louisville, Kentucky, USA. He was formerly president of Sovereign Grace Ministries, now known as Sovereign Grace Churches. Their culture incorporates a strong emphasis on homeschooling, patriarchy and corporal punishment/ A civil suit was filed in 2012, accusing Mahaney and other Sovereign Grace pastors of covering up sexual abuse of children.
Testimony of a survivor:
"We were in PDI (today SGM) for 12-13 years, I started reading other books, checking out internet prophecy, looking into other doctrines and realised that what was being taught and force fed wasn't exactly what I wanted our family to hear. Each Sunday at the end of the message I would sit there feeling the weight of condemnation.... because the Lord was dealing with me to leave until I finally told Him, "Ok, I'll go." There was no joy, no victory, no Blood of the Lamb who took away the sins of the world, no love lifted me.... just focus on what a worm you are until you go crazy. We couldn't even say that someone had a good heart, no, we had to say that they had a horrible black sin-infested, disgusting, revolting, deceitfully wicked heart above all things, ad nausum, etc - on and on and one."
"I saw much hypocrisy in the leaders and didn't appreciate it... They said one thing in public but another thing in private. The standard they used to measure others was never applied to themselves. They sure loved to hear themselves talk."
"The elitism and superiority was more than I could bear. If you weren't in our church you were a heathen and going to hell. Other churches weren't even Christians."
"After I left it was such a relief--- -No more condemnation, no more double standards, no more hypocrisy."
Read Part Five HERE
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