Pastor in alleged sex abuse cover-up returns to preaching conference roster

By Bob Allen - Posted at Baptist News Global:

C.J. Mahaney takes the stage at the Together for the Gospel conference in Louisville.
(Image from Baptist News Global)

Organizers of a major preaching conference this week in Louisville, Ky., ignored calls to disinvite a founder of the conference accused of participating in a cover-up of child sexual abuse.

C.J. Mahaney, pastor of Sovereign Grace Church in Louisville, took the stage April 12 at the Together for the Gospel conference at the KFC Yum! Center in downtown Louisville, while leaders with the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests staged a protest outside.

SNAP, an advocacy and support group formed in response to the pedophile priest scandal in the Roman Catholic Church, previously called on the other three conference founders to disinvite Mahaney. Allegations were made against Mahaney, former pastor of Covenant Life Church in Gaithersburg, Md., and other leaders of Sovereign Grace Ministries in a 2012 lawsuit dismissed on a legal technicality.

One of the protestors, Pam Palmer of Hagerstown, Md., told local media that after her 3-year-old daughter was abused by a teenage boy who was eventually convicted, a pastor serving under Mahaney told her family not to call the police.

In introducing Mahaney at the conference, Albert Mohler, president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, praised his friend as a model of Christian endurance.

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