1) ok

2) I didn’t say “adjudicate”… I’m neither mediator nor a personal friend nor member of the Board, so, no I don’t bear responsibility to “adjudicate” that way, but neither does my pastor or most pastors in SGM; in fact, due to deficient polity, we have no idea who bears responsibility to adjudicate. However, we are all

3) I’d have problems with the analogy. My work emails are subject to examination by my employer, and, if I work for the government, are potentially subject to FOIA. My personal emails are different. I’ve no indication that Brent used personal emails or private conversations unconnected with official duties to compose his documents. Really, I care most about CJ and the board’s response to them though… I care about apparent intransigence and a different standard for some people than others… I care when apologies given are so vague that they would never be accepted as apologies by any SGM pastor I’ve interacted with… that is most revealing… I’m not aware of harboring a double standard. I’m not arguing that someone should have uploaded the documents to wikileaks (I’d rather they hadn’t been but in God’s providence they were). Now that they are there, as a member of the SGM family, should I do due diligence to understand some of the sin patterns that have affected my family of churches, to consider where I may have been part of the problem or can be part of the solution in some – in any way – or if I’m in faith to remain under the leadership of these men at all. I think so.

1) His post isn’t directed to folks who are primarily apart of SGM. It is to non-SGMers. So, in this regard, these documents are most certainly gossip & slander.

2) In an organization of churches that are comprised of probably 50,000, do you really believe it is the responsibility of all 50,000 of us to adjudicate this matter? If so, where do you find that in the bible?

3) Would you want 50,000 people to read your personal emails between you and a friend, that dates back nearly 12-15 years ago? What were you doing 12 years ago? What sins were your confessing over email? Are you okay with your emails being published by someone who is in conflict with you and questioning your role as a leader (work, church or home)? If you wouldn’t want it done to you, then you probably shouldn’t have a different standard for someone else.

It’s possible that some, even many, reading Brent’s documents have no good reason to do so. Challies may be one of those people himself – though he offers his blogging pursuits as a reason why he may have been justified in reading. However, those who are SGM family and friends may have a responsibility to consider these things soberly and prayerfully. Those who do so are not furthering gossip and slander or being scandal-mongers but are fulfilling their responsibilities as members of local churches that are under the leadership of a group of men whose integrity as leaders of God’s church is being called into question by one who shared close fellowship with them not so long ago. We who are in SGM need to know who we are being led by, need to be Bereans, need to ascertain whether we are in faith to follow these men as they follow Christ; and, if we are, what changes we may still be convicted to advocate and appeal for within our local churches.

Challies does not make this distinction and neither do the SGM pastors who would push Challies interpretation as the final word for SGM members on this subject.

As an SGM member, I am involved: I am family and this is family business.

Thanks for clearly articulating what I have observed but could not put into words!! (I think Challies was merely addressing the documents as opposed to the larger issues within SGM churches.) I appreciate your thoughts on what this means for the wider conservative evangelical crowd in the near term but am left contemplating how we who are committed to the “purity and unity” of the church (to borrow language from Wayne Grudem’s “Systematic Theology”) are to serve our churches in growing. For starters, we are all praying desperately that God will use this for great good within our congregations. Is there anything else we can/should be doing?

Thanks again!

Warmly,
Elizabeth

(Romans 8:28, NASB)

And this is what is so personally difficult here: That someone I have respected and loved for many years has acted poorly (at best) and detrimentally (at worst) by using someone’s personal emails against them. This whole thing is quite tragic, indeed. What is most tragic is that Brent had a fruitful ministry (not perfect, yes flawed but fruitful). I don’t even know how he can ever recover from this.

Not trying to be offensive but why not? Why can’t someone create the system and realize after becoming a “victim” of a flawed system. Also, this isn’t about Brent’s culpability – If you’re right, then he’s culpable and he needs to take care of his own business. You should reach out and speak to him about it.

@MarkCrater – I’ve been in workplace for many years too and I’ve also been the boss for some of those years. Here’s what I know – sometimes I might not like the way my faults are highlighted publicly but there is something good at play that’s bigger than my immediate comfort. I’m not interested in defending Brent at all but I can understand how from his potentially flawed perspective, he is merely expanding the circle of accountability since there is no other documented way to raise grievances against the leadership structure. In a corporate environment, you have Human Resources department or sometimes Corporate Ethics Committees that function in that role.

I have been in the work force for 34 years. Even in the healthiest of environments, someone holds a grudge against the boss. It is not a stretch for me to believe the documents would be leaked even IF the conditions your describe in points a, b, c, and d did not exist.

I don’t believe you can create a factual argument for your position unless you can interview the person that leaked the documents and have them disclose their intent. And even if you did, and the “whistle-blower” revealed their intent was SGM reform, then their manner of accomplishing it is specious.

I’ll posit my own hypothetical in an effort to try and find some common ground. If SGM reform was the true goal, and attempts to reform through church relationship channels had broken down, then a “Wittenburg Door” type blog that addressed the systemic problems of the movement (NOT the personal sin failures of Mahaney) would have been appropriate. But that’s not what happened.

The fallout of the SGM wikileaks documents has been discussion about reform. And maybe we’ll see some positive things come out of this by the grace of God. But the ends do not justify the means.

Again – I don’t fully disagree with your observations. (Trust me – it’s been a very, very hard year for my SGM church.) I just disagree that you have seemingly defined Detwiler as a whistleblower. A person can’t help create the “system” and then blow the whistle on their own system. Many of your observations about SGM churches can be as much directly attributed to Detwiler’s leadership as others.

C.J. Mahaney’s spouse is Carolyn, née Layman. She happens to be my first cousin. According to this page– https://www.facebook.com/pages/Carolyn-Mahaney/106165416081464 –she met Mahaney at a “Christian organization” in Florida. This organization would have been one associated with the work of Gerald Derstine, an ex-Mennonite who claimed prophetic gifts and charismatic authority. This was in the 1960s, when this was dubbed “neo-Pentecostalism.”

Grant Layman, another leader in the SGM community, is Carolyn’s younger brother. Carolyn and Grant are the two youngest children of their family. (Some of the leaked documents also mention a “Roger Layman” and “Rhonda Layman”; as far as I can tell from my genealogical sources, they are not related.) Carolyn’s and Grant’s father was active in this neo-Pentecostalist community. My father always gave me the impression that he thought my uncle had “gone off the deep end.”

Two of Mahaney’s sons (a small pic of the family can be found here: http://www.girltalkhome.com/about ) were ministers in the SGM, before they resigned over the Joshua Harris’ handling of the leaked material (http://sgmrefuge.com/2011/08/09/brian-and-mr-b/ ).

The relevance of this information is that Mahaney, his wife Carolyn, and brother-in-law Grant, have deep roots in schismatic charismatic ecclesiology, which claims authority based on allegedly supernatural giftings. Mahaney’s mentor (Derstine) abandoned the authority of the Mennonite church when it became clear that that community would not accept his own claims to authority. Although Mahaney has moved in a Calvinistic direction, I doubt he has adequately thought about the theological implications of his religious shifts. He wants authority, but in my judgment lacks a clear foundation for it. That is why his own authority claims have become arbitrary. (One of the major claims of the leaked documents is that Mahaney refused to live by the same standards that he set for everyone else, especially in confessing sins in a specific manner.)

Even worse, it’s not clear if he has the *equipment* to think it through: his education is listed as one year of college. I’m not saying that college (much less seminary) is necessary for ministry (my own pastor doesn’t have it). However, for a leader of Mahaney’s stature, one would think people attracted to his teaching would expect more solid credentials. Rigorous theological education provides historical and logical tools to think through the implications of the one’s beliefs, to recognize when one is making changes that require careful and self-critical adjustment. One cannot change one set of concepts without affecting the consistency and coherence of one’s beliefs in another area.

So we have a left-over bit of Mennonite legalism, neo-Pentecostal arrogation of a ministry and authority, a need (neo-Puritan?) to constantly evaluate one’s moral condition, all jerry-built on a bed of unfocused spirituality and undisciplined theology. Is it any wonder that it turned out bad?

@nkob @Mark Crater — Suppose, for the sake of argument, that we apply a counterfactual. Let’s say it’s a situation in which the overall state of SGM’s affairs (church government and subculture) is much healthier than it is now. And let’s say that, in this healthier environment, Detwiler had still brought his charges and accusations against the SGM leadership cohort. Would we have seen a leak happen in that case? I’m not arguing that the person who leaked the information to the public was “in the right”; I’m stating that Challies’ analysis of the leak left out the overall context. One can certainly examine, as a theoretical issue, Christian ethics and whistleblowing, but one cannot address this particular leak without reference to its context. This is not conflating the issues. The ethics of it aside, this particular leak was symptomatic of much deeper problems.

Wonderful job of interpreting what has gone wrong with our “brand” of churches. Part of the systemic problem is the eroding of the “5-fold” ministry. Right now all we see at our church are pastor/teachers. Also, we have the professional clergy mentality that hinders the members from being involved in a deeper way. We love our church too but definitely want to see change. We’re hoping and praying and watching and waiting.