According to John MacArthur’s Grace Community Church, it does not “respond to attacks, lies, misrepresentations, and anonymous accusations” regarding how it handles situations of abuse and marital counseling situations.
The megachurch in California’s declaration came after a lengthy piece by Kate Shellnutt was published in Christianity Today on February 9.
Interviewing former GCC elder Hohn Cho, she learns that the church, particularly with regard to at-risk women and children, is “playing Russian roulette” with counseling. Shellnutt confirms the Roys Report’s March 2022 reporting.
Eight other women she met with claim that church leaders told them to put up with their abusive spouses rather than report them to the police. It is against CT’s policy to identify abuse victims who seek anonymity.
Shellnutt tweets in reaction to GCC’s criticism of her post, saying, “I stand by my reporting, which wasn’t ‘lies,’ but was verified by documentation, court records, and [by] many sources beyond those referenced in the article.”
Former Elder: Counselling at Grace Community Church is “Grievous”
According to Cho, a lawyer hired by Grace Community Church to investigate an instance of abuse 20 years ago, the church erred and should “do justice” for the victim Eileen Grey.
David Grey, her former husband, who had worked at GCC, is currently incarcerated for offenses like aggravated child molestation and child abuse.
Eileen Grey claims that after she disobeyed church authorities’ orders to release a restraining order against her husband, MacArthur publicly chastised her for continuing to live in unrepentant sin.
Cho claims the GCC leaders acted defensively rather than offering an apology to Eileen Grey, that MacArthur urged him to “forget it.”
“I cannot ‘un-know’ it, and I am accountable before God for this knowledge, and you are now accountable before God for it as well,” Cho said in a 20-page note to church officials in March 2022.
Elders, according to Cho, “voted with a child abuser who later proved to be a child molester over a woman desperately seeking to safeguard her three innocent little children. And that was and is blatantly incorrect; it needs to be rectified. “
He said that “many elders have stated in various private conversations that errors were made” and they would make different choices if they had all of the information they had now.
However, those admissions imply that you must make amends to the person you have offended, which is fundamentally Christian.
The Number of Victims Increases
Cho claims that God “kept placing reminders in front of me after leaving GCC.” In his words, he was “horrified to discover the same awful patterns of counseling were still happening” at MacArthur’s congregation.
The former elder claims that last autumn, he was made aware of “another grievous GCC counselling case,” in which counselors advised a victim of domestic abuse to remarry.
A few GCC clergy submitted Even formal declarations in favor of the accused husband.
According to the woman in that case, church authorities advised her not to irritate her husband and claimed obtaining a restraining order would be “un-Christian.”
She admits to CT, “I hit subzero spiritually.” If God is accurate but we must obey church authorities while this is happening, I’d rather die, I reasoned.
