UNITED STATES
Courier-Journal
Posted on June 12, 2013 by Peter Smith
With controversy over a Louisville pastor in the backdrop, Southern Baptist messengers today voted Wednesday to call on their leaders to use the “highest sense of discernment” in affiliating with anyone with “questionable” practices or policies on sexual abuse.
The vote comes in the wake of statements by Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, and others on behalf of pastor C.J. Mahaney of Sovereign Grace Church of Louisville.
The resolution does not mention the controversy explicitly, but its sponsor did in an interview.
Mahaney and others were accused in a recent lawsuit against Sovereign Grace Ministries of allegedly conspiring to cover up sexual abuse in congregations in the denomination, which was based in Maryland until it moved to Louisville last year. Mahaney served as its president until recently and was formerly pastor at the Maryland congregation where some of the claims of cover-up are alleged to have occurred.
A Maryland judge recently dismissed much of the the lawsuit on the grounds that the plaintiffs waited too long to sue. The 11 plaintiffs now have a pending motion for reconsideration.
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