Maryland Megachurch Secedes from Sovereign Grace Ministries
Christian Post
By Jeff Schapiro
December 20, 2012

Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Md., announced Sunday that it is leaving the Sovereign Grace Ministries family of churches after a number of disagreements pertaining to church leadership and direction caused a rift between the two organizations.

"For the past 18 months, Covenant Life Church has been going through a time of testing which we see as an expression of the Father's loving discipline ... One of the most difficult aspects of this time has been realizing we find ourselves going in a different direction from that of Sovereign Grace Ministries (SGM), the organization that was launched within our church and whose leaders have played a foundational role in the life of our church," says a statement from the Covenant Life Church pastors on the church's blog.

The idea of disassociating with the denomination, which is led by President C.J. Mahaney, was brought before the megachurch's members during a Nov. 4 meeting. On Dec. 12, the congregation affirmed the decision with 93 percent of voting members in favor of the separation, The Courier-Journal reports.

Formerly located on the Covenant Life campus, SGM relocated its pastoral training program and offices to Louisville, Ky., earlier this year, citing economic difficulties and location, among other things, as reasons for the move. Covenant Life, which Mahaney served as pastor over for 27 years, is just one of several congregations that have ended their partnerships with SGM during the last several months.

But despite their differences, both the church and SGM seem appreciative of each other, and have publicly made positive statements about one another as they go their separate ways.

"We believe this gospel partnership has been extraordinarily fruitful, which makes it all the more difficult to see it end," Tommy Hill, SGM's director of finance and administration, told the Courier-Journal in a statement. "Though no longer in formal association as we would prefer, we nevertheless remain inseparably linked together in the same gospel mission for the glory of God and pray for continued fruitfulness for both as we pursue this mission in the days ahead."

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The pastors of Covenant Life Church agree, saying the link between the two organizations is "deeper than institutional association," and that despite their differences they are bonded by their faith in Jesus Christ.

The exit of Covenant Life Church is just one of a number of struggles SGM has been forced to deal with in recent months and years. In June 2011, Mahaney took a leave of absence from his role as president after being accused of having characteristics including "pride, unentreatability, deceit, sinful judgment, and hypocrisy" by former pastors and leaders from SGM.

But after an interim board of directors was installed and an outside organization evaluated some of the accusations – especially those of former SGM board member Brent Detwiler – Mahaney was eventually found to be fit to serve and was returned to his leadership role.

In a blog post about the church's split on Sunday, Detwiler described SGM as having "an increasingly corrupt and abusive leadership culture." He formerly served on the board of directors for 25 years, but left the ministry in August 2009.

Detwiler believes God has been disciplining SGM, but says its leaders haven't yet embraced His discipline as they should.

"As a result, we've seen ... the reaping of consequences (Gal 6:7-8) and today it multiplied with the monumental departure of Covenant Life Church – the flagship of SGM," wrote Detwiler.

Another issue the ministry is facing right now is a civil lawsuit which claims SGM both suppressed and mishandled information it received about instances of child sexual assault and abuse, which allegedly occurred in the 1980s and '90s.

The suit doesn't claim the abuse was committed by SGM pastors or staff, or that it was done on church property, but it does allege that the church gave harmful advice to victims and their families. It also claims church leaders attempted to keep information about the alleged abuses from law enforcement officials.

An SGM statement released by Hill last month says the suit "contains a number of misleading allegations, as well as considerable mischaracterizations of intent." The statement also says the ministry considers taking care of children an important and serious issue, and that its leaders only provided confidential pastoral guidance "as is a right under the First Amendment."

SGM is made up of a family of about 90 churches in the U.S., Canada, Bolivia, Mexico, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia. The organization also operates a Pastors College and is a major proponent of church planting.

Troubled ministry
Lawsuit claims leaders at Sovereign Grace Ministries covered up sexual abuse
World Magazine
by Thomas Kidd

Troubles continue to mount for Sovereign Grace Ministries (SGM), an evangelical association with about 90 churches and 28,000 members worldwide. The SGM board of directors reinstated the ministry’s founder, C.J. Mahaney, as president of SGM in early 2012 after he took a leave of absence for several months.

Accusations of spiritual pride and hypocrisy precipitated Mahaney’s leave. Now SGM is facing a lawsuit by three female plaintiffs, alleging that SGM leaders covered up sexual abuse that occurred in the 1980s and 1990s, and that they discouraged church members from cooperating with law enforcement officials.

Even before the lawsuit, several SGM churches, including ones in Charlottesville, Va., Sarasota, Fla., and Daytona Beach, Fla., had left the association. Jesse Jarvis, pastor of the Daytona Beach congregation, cited a “leadership culture characterized by excessive authority and insufficient accountability” as a reason for leaving SGM.

Mahaney founded SGM in 1982 out of Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Md. In 2004, Mahaney stepped down as Covenant Life pastor. Following his reappointment as the president of SGM, Mahaney relocated the ministry’s headquarters to Louisville, Ky., and planted a church there. The new church held its opening service on Sept. 30.

The lawsuit charges SGM leaders with allowing suspected child abusers to continue interacting with children, sheltering the accused perpetrators from prosecution, and forcing alleged victims as young as 3 to forgive their molesters. The complaint accuses several SGM elders and officials of actively covering up the crimes, while it names Mahaney because the offenses allegedly occurred under his leadership.

SGM released a statement saying that “child abuse in any context is reprehensible and criminal. Sovereign Grace Ministries takes seriously the biblical commands to pursue the protection and well being of all people, especially the most vulnerable in its midst, little children.”

UPDATE (Nov. 8, 2012): In a statement, Sovereign Grace Ministries noted that the lawsuit "does not allege any act of child abuse by a pastor or staff member of SGM or of an associated church."

CONTROVERSY FOLLOWS CALVINIST GROUP


Sovereign Grace Ministries, which recently moved from Maryland to Kentucky to rebuild a fractured network and strengthen ties with Southern Seminary, is now in the news for allegedly covering up allegations of child sexual abuse committed by church members.

By Bob Allen

A controversial church-planting network with ties to a Southern Baptist Convention seminary has been sued in Maryland for allegedly covering up allegations of sexual abuse of children in the 1980s and 1990s.

According to the Associated Press, the lawsuit filed by three unnamed female plaintiffs claims that Sovereign Grace Ministries did not report abuse allegedly committed by church members to police. The lawsuit says church leaders counseled suspected pedophiles about how to avoid prosecution and forced victims to meet with and “forgive” their abuser.

Sovereign Grace Ministries, which moved its headquarters recently from Gaithersburg, Md., to Louisville, Ky., released a statement saying officials had not yet received a copy of the lawsuit and were in no position to comment on the allegations.

“Child abuse in any context is reprehensible and criminal,” said Tommy Hill, the organization’s director of finance and administration. “Sovereign Grace Ministries takes seriously the biblical commands to pursue the protection and well being of all people, especially the most vulnerable in its midst, little children.”

The scandal comes at a particularly bad time for Sovereign Grace, a 30-year-old network of about 80 churches at the center of a multiple denominational Neo-Calvinist movement that emphasizes God’s sovereignty and downplays human free will.

CJ MahaneyC.J. Mahaney
Last year Sovereign Grace President C.J. Mahaney went on leave of absence for several months while his board investigated accusations of dictatorial conduct that estranged former members compared to cult-like behavior.

One of Mahaney’s staunch defenders throughout the ordeal was Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., and, alongside Mahaney, a leading figure in the new Calvinism, also known as Reformed, church movement.

As the ministry’s relationship with its former base church deteriorated, directors of Sovereign Grace Ministries decided to move to Louisville to take advantage of lower living costs and strengthen bonds with Southern Seminary.

Announcing the move, ministry leaders said proximity to the seminary would enhance Sovereign Grace’s pastor-training program and possibly allow the Pastors College to offer credits toward a master’s degree.

Mahaney has in the past spoken in chapel at Southern Seminary. Mohler, Mahaney and two other ministers share leadership of Together for the Gospel, an annual conference for young pastors. Both are listed as council members of the Gospel Coalition, a group concerned about moral and theological relativism among evangelicals. Mahaney is a former board member of the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, which is based on the Southern Seminary campus.

Recently Sovereign Grace Ministries launched a new church in Louisville, its first in Kentucky or neighboring Indiana.

Not long ago Mahaney preached at Clifton Baptist Church near the Southern Seminary campus, where, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal, he reportedly told church members “none of you are welcome at our church plant,” because he wants to reach people who don’t already have a church, not take members away from other congregations.

Southern Baptist Press

STUNNED'S STORY


The SGM machine has done so much damage to people and families. Then
and now. It is too late to save my children the lives they had. But it
isn’t too late to speak out for the sake of other children.

I was one of those wives who was told by her SGM church that she would
be in horrible sin to leave her horrific, hellish marriage.

I remember my two small children having to watch their father going
into their room at night to remove my clothes from their closet. (Our
master bedroom only had one small closet which fit my husband’s
clothes so mine were kept in the kids’ room.) I remember him yelling
and raging as they sat up in bed, confused as to what he was doing. I
remember them watching him take all of my clothes out of the closet,
screaming about what a so and so I was. I remember him taking my
clothes and throwing them out on to our front lawn and screaming,
raging at the top of his lungs, calling me names and telling them and
the world what a horrible person I was. I tried my best to protect my
children. What should I do? Hold them and comfort them, or try to
prevent him, through my tears and begging to not throw my clothes out
in the front yard, for all the neighbors and worse, for our children
to see? And then for my children to have to see me have to retrieve my
clothes from the front lawn in what is a very humiliating act? I ran
and begged him not to take my clothes and throw them out the front
door. But out they went amid his screaming and cursing and threats.

I remember trying to get my clothes and comfort my kids and all the
while try to figure out how to make them not so scared. (Of course,
now that I am away from his controlling fog which I lived in for 22
years, I know I should have taken my precious little ones and run for
my life. Unfortunately, that realization happened 22 years too late.)
And the next day when I was in my pastor’s office, seeking his counsel
of what I could do for my family I was told that I had no right to
leave. That I would be in sin. That it was WRONG. Instead, I was to
focus on my sin. What had I done wrong to make him behave that way?

What had I done wrong? Had I betrayed him? Cheated on him? No.
Heavens, no. If I had even noticed that someone in the world was
attractive, I used to go to “confess” to a friend. So it wasn’t that.
Had I cussed at him or abused him in any way? No. Had I denied him
sex? Never. Never once in our couple decades of marriage would I have
ever denied him sex and “sin” against him in such a way.

(Wait, I take that back. Once, when I had a bad flu and he suddenly
wanted sex I had told him I was too sick. I was literally crawling
from our bedroom through the hallway and into the bathroom to vomit,
begging him to wait until I was better, then I would do what he
wanted. He came after me and rolled me over, screaming and raging at
me. He straddled me and trapped me between his legs. I begged him to
let me go so I could just vomit in the toilet instead of there on the
rug, on my back. Instead, he bent down, putting his face inches from
mine and screamed at the top of his lungs at me. My children watched
on, scared and confused. So yes, this one time I turned him down. But
this was years after the clothes on the lawn incident.)

So what was my crime which was responsible for him flying into another
rage and my children scared and me terrified? I can’t even remember. I
know how I was then with him. I know I wouldn’t have “crossed” him. I,
also, have learned that with people who are angry narcissists, you
don’t have to DO anything. Their rage and anger is within them. It’s
not your fault for getting abused. (Only my own stupid fault for
staying because I somehow believed that the only thing worse for my
kids than living in this hell was divorce. Now I realize that for
them, anything would have been better than the world we all endured
within the walls of our homes.)

But as my SGM pastor (who, to this day I believe truly loves me as a
sister, and I surely love him) reminded me, I must have done something
wrong. And I was to focus on that. And that to take my children and
leave would have been selfish and sinful.

So I stayed. And endured cheating and abuse for another couple of
decades. I would have done anything for my children to have had a dad
who put them to bed at night. I would have given my left arm (without
hesitation, my own life) for my children to have had a father who
cared for them, who wanted to be with them. I would have done anything
for my children to have had a father who loved their mother.

Unfortunately, I foolishly listened to the counsel of the wise men and
women who seemed to have wonderful family lives. (How else could I
give my children a healthy, peaceful home, if not listen and follow
the advice of those who had one? Or so I thought they had one.)

It is too late for my children to have had anything but a horrible
childhood and they still live with the ugly scars of what their world
was like. But to have someone seem to shrug (and I am not thinking of
anyone in particular) and seem to say, “Oh, that was back then, things
are fine now so that didn’t matter” when my kids and I all live with
the trauma of what was… when I still live in fear…when people who know
me and my situation well try to persuade me to buy a gun, because you
just never know when he is going to come back… when I have moved
several times but I am just too scared to change my address on my
license because maybe then he’ll find out where I am.

If there is anyone reading here, anyone who some day may have to face
a move- I don’t want them to be terrified of it. Please, if anyone
ever has that challenge, please, try it. Get help, if it’s hard. But,
please, if you can, for the sake of your family, for your kids,
please, try to move and see it as a blessing. And if your spouse is
anything like mine, please, I beg you, take those kids and run like
hell. If you’re able to, devise a plan to get to a safe place and plan
for a future for your little ones. Divorce is not worse than the hell
they are living in now.

SGM Survivors

JUST SAYING'S RESPONSE TO CRITICISM OF THE BLOGS

For decades, people like those on these blogs have been in your care
groups suffering in silence. Secretly, they’ve been threatened,
coerced, manipulated and shunned by pastors behind closed doors. Those
pastors freely slandered them behind their backs. If they breathed a
word, they were called divisive. It affected their marriages, their
children, their concept of who God was. But, to keep your fantasies of
the Dearest Place on Earth, they remained silent. Silent and terrified
at how men of God will not hesitate to dismember them. The Louisville
Loyal had their dream church while their brothers and sisters were
weeping in the dark with unspeakable devastating sorrow.

Alone after years or even decades, they found each other here.
Together, they’ve brought hope and truth and encouragement. They’ve
helped each other here dig through the shoot and find God again.

Nobody asked the happy people to start reading the blogs. And nobody
asked the content to start debating the validity of our sorrow. We
kept our sorrow from our brothers and sisters because we were silenced
for so many years. We kept our silence to protect you. But, now those
same brothers and sisters are debating our sorrow like it is politics.
Those same brothers and sisters freely spout off in people’s living
rooms and kitchen tables and Sunday mornings about the victims being
at fault. To our horror, they blame us.

We are so sorry for your unhappiness. We are so sorry the Dearest
Place on Earth isn’t what you wanted it to be. But, we aren’t the ones
that did that. If there was not decades of crap in the building, the
sewage wouldn’t have backed up down the street.

All we did was sit down the road at the coffee shop and suggest
someone call a plumber. It’s not our fault it smells the way it does.

RADICALLY SAVED'S DESCRIPTION OF DATE NIGHT IN SGM


Let me give you a quick, easy example of how this culture of
confrontation plays out in a werid way. Date Nights. We were taught at
CLC to have a routine date night (nothing wrong there) but that the
main purpose was to help one another grow -- as men we were taught to
draw out our spouse’s perspective on any sin areas, and where do we
need to grow and what sins do they see? (Afterall, as we were taught a
leopard cannot see their own spots)….As newlyweds and new believers,
“date nights” were not about fun or building a new relationship
through doing things we both enjoyed! No it was all about
sanctification and my wife and I felt a huge burden lifted when we
left CLC -- at CLC we both dreaded date nights! It is not much fun to
go into a date all tense and dreary, newlyweds correcting each
other….after we left we actually had fun being together on dates! Can
you imagine that! Going out to dinner without a pre-planned
conversation dwelling on our sins! We could…just…go out and enjoy one
another!! What a noble concept. I am sure old timers at CLC still
today would read this post and think “That guy is so immature and
lost, might not even be a Christian with that type of
attitude…pfff…having fun with his wife on a date instead of using the
golden opportunity to put to death sin."

FREE TO SEEK THE TRUTH'S STORY


My wife worked a job.

The dirty looks, the ugly comments to me and my wife by SGM people who
supposedly cared for us was nothing more than passing judgement (pure
legalism). I cant tell you the pain these interactions had on both of
us and ultimately had on our relationship.

My caregroup leader took the opportunity to call me out in front of my
wife one day and challenge me “to live a life of conviction” referring
directly to my wife needing to quit her job although I was unemployed
at the time. Not once did he offer to help. Not once did he come along
side us and share our struggles and offer to financially help. He made
a sweeping judgement about my faith based on this single issue.

BUT

What really got to me in all of this was the seeds of doubt planted in
my wife. Not living a life of conviction communicated a lot. At a
minimum, my wife at least entertained the thought that maybe I was not
a spiritual leader. Maybe I did not want to provide for my family?
Maybe I did not have the ability to provide for my family…these words
planted doubt. I felt like my relationship with my wife was being
judged through insidious seeds of doubt. At that moment, I felt like I
could be losing my wife.

Fortunately, we fled Crossway Community Church in Charlotte and have
since moved into a healthier church culture where relationships are
built up based on love as opposed to subtle judgements that create
conflict and separation.

SGM- Not that it matters now to me, but if you are going to impose
your elite “standards” on everyone maybe you, SGM, could offer real
tangible financial assistance for families making this decision since
it is such an important self-imposed standard.

New abuse allegations target co-founder, others at Sovereign Grace Ministries
Courier Journal
January 14th, 2013
by Peter Smith



A lawsuit against a Louisville-based denomination has added new allegations that ministers not only covered up the physical and sexual abuse of members but in some cases were abusers themselves.

The lawsuit accuses a co-founder of Sovereign Grace Ministries, who left in a bitter split with the current president in 1997, of physically abusing a female over a 25-year period.

The lawsuit was originally filed in October in Montgomery County, Md., where the denomination was based from its 1982 founding until 2012.

The original lawsuit alleged that church pressured victims and their families not to report sexual abuse by other members.

But the amended lawsuit, filed on Friday, adds both plaintiffs and defendants and alleges for the first time that church staff members themselves were among the abusers, and that some of the abuse occurred on church property.

The lawsuit also adds new allegations of physical abuse, in addition to sexual abuse.

Lawsuits give only one side of a complaint.

Tommy Hill, director of administration for the denomination, said in a statement Monday: “Sovereign Grace Ministries considers the abuse of any child to be reprehensible and evil. We ask for patience as we carefully review and investigate these new allegations. We continue to pray for all those affected by this lawsuit.”

The amended lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, was filed by Washington attorney Susan Burke on behalf of five new plaintiffs in addition to the original three. All use pseudonyms.

One of the new plaintiffs says she was repeatedly molested by two ministerial staff members when she attended school and worship at Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Md., the denomination's former flagship church.

The two staff members formed a pedophile ring in which young victims went on to abuse even younger ones, the lawsuit said.

Two Virginia siblings alleged they were sexually abused by a teenage son of a pastor, in one case after the perpetrator had already been charged with rape and had served time in juvenile detention, the lawsuit says.

Sovereign Grace Ministries relocated its headquarters to Louisville last year after more than a year of controversy over what critics say is an authoritarian and spiritually abusive culture. The denomination also launched its first Kentucky congregation then, Sovereign Grace Church of Louisville.

Sovereign Grace last year reported having more than 90 churches worldwide, many of them clustered in Atlantic coast states, with about 28,000 members. But several congregations have broken or distanced themselves from the denomination in recent months.

The lawsuit names defendants on both sides of the controversies.

New defendants include Covenant Life Church — where the denomination had long been based and where denominational president C.J. Mahaney had earlier been pastor — and Sovereign Grace Church of Fairfax, Va.

Covenant Life left the denomination last month.

Mahaney is among 10 current or former individual church leaders named as defendants.

The amended lawsuit repeats allegations in the original lawsuit that the tightly disciplined church fostered an environment of unquestioning obedience, discouraging victims and their families from going to secular authorities and pressuring them into reconciling with perpetrators who professed repentance.

The suit alleges that church leaders misled authorities and worked to minimize the criminal-justice penalties against abusers.

The amended lawsuit names Larry Tomczak, now of Franklin, Tenn., who co-founded Sovereign Grace with Mahaney but left in 1997 amid a dispute. Mahaney and other Sovereign Grace leaders had threatened to spread damaging information about Tomczak’s then-teenage son, who had confessed to misconduct, according to a later church report.

The amended lawsuit alleged that Tomczak physically abused a girl into her adult years over a 25-year period with bare hands and plastic and wooden sticks. It accused him of forcing her to strip, even as an adult, and receive beatings on her bare buttocks. Eventually, “she fled and escaped from the abuse,” the lawsuit said.

Tomczak said in a voice-mail message in reply to a news query: “I, like any parent, am saddened by any allegations of this nature, and I have to just trust the courts to sort things out. I had absolutely no participation or involvement in any of these areas.”

Tomczak said he would be filing a motion to have his name dismissed from the suit.

The lawsuit alleges that as recently as 2011 defendants have been giving “guidance to members on how best to prevent secular authorities from observing bruising” and other signs of abuse.

Another plaintiff alleges she was physically and sexually abused by her father, who would “submerge her into an ice bath to hide physical manifestations of the beatings.”

She and her sister reported abuse to church employees, who informed her father, leading to more abuse, the lawsuit alleges.

Messages left with Covenant Life and Sovereign Grace Church of Fairfax were not immediately returned Monday.

Sovereign Grace’s move to Louisville built on growing ties between the denomination and Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, with which it shares many theological beliefs despite denominational differences.

Mahaney and seminary President Albert Mohler have regularly shared platforms at conferences associated with the New Calvinism — which emphasizes divine power, sinful humanity's need for a savior in Jesus, tightly disciplined churches and male authority in churches and homes.

FREE TO SEEK THE TRUTH'S STORY


y wife worked a job.

The dirty looks, the ugly comments to me and my wife by SGM people who
supposedly cared for us was nothing more than passing judgement (pure
legalism). I cant tell you the pain these interactions had on both of
us and ultimately had on our relationship.

My caregroup leader took the opportunity to call me out in front of my
wife one day and challenge me “to live a life of conviction” referring
directly to my wife needing to quit her job although I was unemployed
at the time. Not once did he offer to help. Not once did he come along
side us and share our struggles and offer to financially help. He made
a sweeping judgement about my faith based on this single issue.

BUT

What really got to me in all of this was the seeds of doubt planted in
my wife. Not living a life of conviction communicated a lot. At a
minimum, my wife at least entertained the thought that maybe I was not
a spiritual leader. Maybe I did not want to provide for my family?
Maybe I did not have the ability to provide for my family…these words
planted doubt. I felt like my relationship with my wife was being
judged through insidious seeds of doubt. At that moment, I felt like I
could be losing my wife.

Fortunately, we fled Crossway Community Church in Charlotte and have
since moved into a healthier church culture where relationships are
built up based on love as opposed to subtle judgements that create
conflict and separation.

SGM- Not that it matters now to me, but if you are going to impose
your elite “standards” on everyone maybe you, SGM, could offer real
tangible financial assistance for families making this decision since
it is such an important self-imposed standard.

Suit Accuses Sovereign Grace Ministries of Covering Up Alleged Child
Sexual Abuse
Washington Post
By Michelle Boorstein
January 15

A Montgomery County Circuit Court lawsuit accuses past and current
leaders of a 100-church evangelical denomination of covering up sexual
abuse of minors, forcing small children to “forgive” abusers and
ostracizing families who wouldn’t hide the alleged crimes.

The lawsuit filed Friday adds more accusers and more accused to a
complaint filed last fall against Sovereign Grace Ministries, a
movement founded in the 1970s in Gaithersburg. Among those named now
is co-founder Larry Tomczak, who was a key figure in the movement’s
early years but split from it bitterly in the 1990s.

Eight alleged victims are named. Tomczak is the only alleged abuser
named. He is accused of forcing a victim over a period of 25 years to
strip “against her will” and assaulting her .

Tomczak became well-known with Sovereign Grace leader C.J. Mahaney
years ago for launching what is now a thriving trend of neo-Calvinism.
Neo-Calvinism teaches that people are steeped in sin and need strict
spiritual oversight.

Tomczak is a pastor in Tennessee. Mahaney moved Sovereign Grace’s
headquarters last year from Gaithersburg to Kentucky amid controversy
within the churches over his leadership.

The movement’s flagship church, Covenant Life in Gaithersburg, became
independent a few weeks ago after public disagreements over views of
pastoral authority.

Tomczak said his family experienced “spiritual abuse” decades ago, at
the hands of other clergy who publicly criticized his actions. In a
Post story in 2011 about rifts in the Sovereign Grace movement, he
called for more openness and contrition about behavior within the
group.

In an e-mail Monday, Tomczak said he “had no participation or
involvement in these areas that were cited” and plans to file a motion
to remove his name from the suit.

Sovereign Grace spokesman Tommy Hill said the abuse of a child is
“reprehensible and evil. We ask for patience as we carefully review
and investigate these new allegations. We continue to pray for all
those affected by this lawsuit,” he said in an e-mail.

The suit names Sovereign Grace churches and schools in Fairfax County
and Gaithersburg, including Covenant Life. It also names various
leaders of the movement and accuses them of covering up the alleged
crimes.

“Defendants failed to report known incidences of sexual predation to
law enforcement, encouraged parents to refrain from reporting the
assaults to law enforcement, and interposed themselves between the
parents of the victims and law enforcement in order to mislead law
enforcement into believing parents had “forgiven” those who preyed on
their children,” the complaint says.