C. J. Mahaney

Mahaney was born in Maryland into a Catholic household, the middle child of five. He was the son of a metalworker in Takoma Park, Maryland. Mahaney attended Springbrook High School in Silver Spring, Maryland. He reports having been converted to Protestantism in 1972 at age 18 by a friend who shared his faith. He says that a newspaper ad motivated him to join a local prayer meeting known as Take and Give, which evolved into Covenant Life Church. ==Career==

In 1974, aged 20, Mahaney met Larry Tomczak, with whom he led and taught a large local prayer group named Take And Give (TAG), started by Lydia Little. He says his only reading in theology at that time consisted of the Bible and The Late, Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey. In 2006, Ligon Duncan, Mark Dever, Albert Mohler, and Mahaney founded the biennial Together for the Gospel conference, with their continuing participation in It was announced that he was pulling out of the 2014 T4G due to ongoing lawsuits against Sovereign Grace Ministries. He returned in 2016 but withdrew again in 2018. As of 2015, Mahaney was the senior pastor of Sovereign Grace Church of Louisville, a church he planted in the fall of 2012 with Bob Kauflin, Brian Chesemore, Jeff Purswell, and Gary Ricucci. He resigned from the presidency of Sovereign Grace Ministries in April 2013 while planting the church. His leave occurred in the wake of accusations from a former top Sovereign Grace pastor who distributed hundreds of e-mails and internal church documents that portrayed Mahaney as focusing on the sins of others below him in the church hierarchy. After Mahaney's departure, the Sovereign Grace board gave a strong vote of confidence to him, saying that he is "a qualified minister of the gospel and this board approves his pastoral and teaching ministry." After an extensive outside review by Ambassadors of Reconciliation of the charges brought against him and affirmation of the Sovereign Grace board, Mahaney continued to serve as president of Sovereign Grace Ministries. Covenant Life Church, the church Mahaney co-founded and pastored for 27 years left Sovereign Grace Ministries. ==Dismissed sexual abuse lawsuit==

In 2012, a class action lawsuit was filed against Sovereign Grace Ministries, alleging that leaders, including Mahaney, had covered up child sexual abuse. The lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice in May 2013. The Maryland Court of Appeals also dismissed the case after finding that the plaintiff's lawyer had filed the appeal too early. In February 2016, Mahaney was the subject of a Washingtonian magazine article, titled "The Sex Scandal That Devastated a Suburban Megachurch - Inside the Rise and Fall of Sovereign Grace." == Personal life ==

Mahaney met Carolyn Layman in the 1970s, while he was teaching at Take and Give and she was working as a secretary at a Christian conference ministry in Sarasota, Florida, and they soon married. Mahaney has one son and three daughters. ==Selected publications==

• ''Don't Waste Your Sports'', Crossway Publishing 2010, • Living the Cross Centered Life, Multnomah Books 2006, • Humility: True Greatness Multnomah Books 2005, • Sex, Romance, and the Glory of God, Crossway Publishing 2004, • Worldliness: Resisting the Seduction of a Fallen World, Crossway Publishing 2010, • Christ Our Mediator, Multnomah Books 2006, • The Cross Centered Life, Multnomah Books 2002, • Why Small Groups?, Sovereign Grace Ministries 1996, • Disciplines for Life, People of Destiny International 1994, ==References==