In a 2013 interview with Terry Virgo, Premier Christianity seems impressed with the international links the founder of Newfrontiers has made as part of his ministry. Favourably mentioning CJ Mahaney and Mark Driscoll, the article interrogates Virgo’s, and by extension, Newfrontiers churches’ complementarian views on women in leadership; that women cannot be leaders or preach, but that women can prophecy and evangelise. A decade later and the names of both CJ Mahaney and Mark Driscoll are associated with abuse. Driscoll was removed from the Acts 29 network he founded for bullying and abusing those in his congregation; and the statute of limitations meant a lawsuit failed against Mahaney for covering up male leaders sexually abusing children within his Sovereign Grace network churches. Not only that, but Newfrontiers failed in 2017 to hold accountable one of their pastors, PJ Smyth, after it emerged he had covered up his father John Smyth’s sadistic abuse of boys and young men in elite Christian summer camps. This only came to light in 2021 after Newfrontiers contracted Christian abuse expert Wade Mullen to investigate the situation. More recent concerns (HERE and HERE) in Newfrontiers churches raise further questions about the church network founded by Terry Virgo.
The Southern Baptist Convention kept a private list of 703 men who were pastors or ministers in their churches and who had abused children, but did nothing with this, stating that the autonomous nature of churches within their network meant that they couldn’t take action. However, this church autonomy was not enough for Rick Warren’s Saddleback congregation to ordain women into leadership positions in the church. The SBC voted to kick them about. It is a curious thing that both the SBC and Newfrontiers churches have greater confidence that God wants to keep women silent and powerless than they do in stopping men sexually or otherwise abusing children and adult members of their congregations.
On 11th July, Mike Pilavachi took to his personal Facebook page and his private Instagram account to share the news that he was resigning from Soul Survivor. I posted some reflections about his statement HERE, including mention of Terry Virgo’s Instagram comment, “Continuing to pray for you Mike, deeply grateful for the massive blessing you’ve been in countless Newfrontiers settings.” Virgo has since posted a clarification on his Facebook and Twitter accounts. My critique is in red brackets throughout his statement:
I write for clarification. I was saddened when I read Mike Pilavachi’s message regarding his removal from Soul Survivor. Like many people, I have been blessed by his remarkable ministry. Also like most people I have been uninformed of the situation he is facing. I have never been involved in Soul Survivor. I’ve not been following any online conversation that might have been taking place, nor have I studied secular newspaper reports. [Really? Is it wise or discerning for the retired leader of hundreds of churches to make a public comment without being well-informed of the situation? Christian news outlets have covered the situation and surely as Christians we should all seek to be well-informed about situations we comment on, particularly in how they are reported in “secular” media, given that affects our ability to be a good witness to those who are not Christian. Also, this is the biggest earthquake to hit evangelical Christianity in a generation, and Terry Virgo has decided to bury his head in the sand? Really?!]
I understood there was an enquiry which would clarify issues. [I am curious as to how he knew this, given that he has just told us he was “uninformed” about the situation.]
I simply prayed for him out of sympathy for his removal and wrote to tell him of my prayers. I have been shocked and saddened that my prayers have been regarded by some as an unqualified endorsement of whatever he is found to have been doing. I have been ignorant of what that is and I thought everyone was until the enquiry clarifies. [He did not “simply” pray for Mike Pilavachi. He assured Pilavachi of the massive blessings Mike had been in many Newfrontiers settings. That isn’t a prayer, that is an endorsement. Given that there is no context in which Terry Virgo could say to a female preacher or priest that they have been a blessing in numerous Newfrontiers contexts, I think we all know it was more than just a simply prayer.]
I could never endorse the unknown and l’ve always regarded prayer for a brother as a Christian response. I simply prayed for him and told him so. I have been amazed and so saddened to see this regarded online as “evil”, “despicable”, “a disgrace”. [He did endorse the unknown. He endorsed Mike Pilavachi who has had over 100 complaints made against him, including reports of Pilavachi massaging barely clothed young men on his bed and bullying and emotionally abusing young adults and others within Soul Survivor. Perhaps if he had expressed any sort of concern for those who have been hurt by Pilavachi, Virgo would not have been angrily responded to.]
I have been shocked and helped by my friend Matt Redman’s recent comments, which certainly shed light on my ignorance. I still don’t know what the findings will prove, but my sympathies certainly lie with any who have been troubled or traumatised. They should certainly be fully listened to and afforded the dignity they deserve. I await the results of the enquiry. If my prayers for Mike have caused dismay, I’m sorry. [It is good that he assures us his sympathies lie with those who have been troubled or traumatised, but to only apologise for the dismay he may have caused, and not for what he actually did is rather disingenuous.]
Although Virgo’s initial comment celebrated the many blessings Mike Pilavachi had offered to Newfrontiers, this apology distances Newfrontiers and Virgo from Mike Pilavachi. He personally has now merely “been blessed by his remarkable ministry”. No longer is Newfrontiers a site of Mike Pilavachi’s blessing and a reader could be mistaken for thinking Terry Virgo was simply being blessed from afar by a fellow national evangelical leader.
That too is quite disingenuous. Mike Pilavachi has spoken at Newfrontiers conferences, youth events and leaders’ weekends away. He has also been a core member of Terry Virgo’s National Gathering of Leaders that has taken place each January for the last few years.
I know this because each year, someone tweets what a joy it has been to be at this national leaders gathering and I go on a twant (Twitter Rant) about there being no women, making it a National Gathering of Male Leaders. As you’ll notice from this year’s gathering Mike Pilavachi was a key participant. On criticism of it being all male, another of the male gathering, Ian Paul, asserted on Twitter that hard complementarian Terry Virgo had not deliberately made the gathering male only, telling us that “No. These just happen to be all men.”
If Ian Paul’s name seems familiar to you, that’s because he has somehow ended up on the Archbishops’ Council and last week at Synod it emerged that while the two Archbishops had “wanted to wait a bit longer” before taking any action to remove Jas Sanghera and Steve Reeves as Independent Safeguarding Board members, they ended up voting with other council members to sack them. That same Ian Paul is in disagreement with both Archbishops, who think Church of England safeguarding is “in crisis” or “chaotic”. And it is the very same Ian Paul who this week told women priests that they shouldn’t object to misogyny and that neither would he because he’s written a booklet about egalitarian theology. Turns out being complementarian isn’t a prerequisite for being unpleasant to women. Who knew?!
We are now into Week 16 of the situation at Soul Survivor. We are in the midst of a reckoning as those who’ve had unquestioned power are required to account for themselves. We should not be surprised that we find ourselves here. Jesus’ seven woes to the religious leaders of His time ring out loud and clear all these years later. Woe to those religious leaders who shut the door in people’s faces and lead people into greater sin; who neglect the weightier matters of justice, mercy and faithfulness and are filled with greed and self-indulgence. They are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.
Perhaps it is time that we learn, as John Ellis reflected this week, “It’s taken me two decades to learn some of the deeper truths about religious faith, including one that Christian leaders seem to think is anathema: ‘if many people agree with you, you’re probably doing something wrong’. …For me, Jesus’s persistent refusal of anything other than servant-leadership is one of the many reasons why I choose to follow him. My instinct as I get older is that spiritual faith is a gentle, near-invisible way through the world, and that if you need a microphone, something’s gone awry.”
Posts about Soul Survivor:
- The Problem with Statements; Mike Pilavachi, Soul Survivor, and the importance of independence
- Firm Foundations; on statements, silencing and Soul Survivor
- Holy Saturday and Soul Survivor
- Guest Blog: Soul Survivor’s Elephant Navigating Service
- A Suggested Statement about Soul Survivor
- Silence, Soul Survivor and pushing things under the rug
- Soul Survivor and anything that needs to come into the light
- Scrutinising Soul Survivor
- Guest Post: An Open Letter to Evangelical Leaders in the UK
- Soul Survivor and those who are late to the conversation
- The Soul Survivor Situation – A Timeline
- Guest Blog: Dear Pete Greig
- We are all implicated subjects
- Trampling on the Little Ones
- Woe to you, religious leaders
- Guest Post: New Frontiers and Mike Pilavachi
God Loves Women 