Mike Cosper Lets Joshua Harris Off the Hook in Bonus Episode: I Kissed Christianity Goodbye. Harris Uses Podcast to Conceal His Sin & Promote His Heresy. 

Friday, October 1, 2021 at 2:15PM
Brent Detwiler

Joshua Harris is dangerous!  Very dangerous!  Not in the physical sense but in the spiritual sense.  He is strongly opposed to the basic tenets of the Christian faith and bold in his promotion of evil.  

That is why I urgently wrote Mike Cosper ten days before his August 13 interview with Harris for the Bonus Episode titled I Kissed Christianity Goodbye in his series on The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill.  Here are some excerpts. 

From: Brent Detwiler
Sent: Tuesday, August 3, 2021 9:12 PM
To: Mike Cosper
Subject: Thoughts on Episode Six
Importance: High 

Hi Mike, 

This seems urgent so I’m getting it out tonight.  I just finished listening to episode six [“The Brand”].  I’ve not listened to the previous five but read about their content and people’s perspectives. … I got to 36:36 minute mark when you started talking about C.J. and me.  At that point, I sent you the message below. 

August 3, 2021
6:48 PM MST 

Hey Mike, 

Glad to do an interview for your podcast on Mars Hill.  C.J. was brought in by Piper to address Driscoll on his pride while we were addressing C.J. on his own pride.   Oh the irony (i.e. hypocrisy)!  C.J. wanted Driscoll over MacArthur for T4G 2006.  Dever wanted MacArthur.  You should consider a sequel.  The rise and fall of SGM.  FYI.  Ray Ortlund just severed ties with C.J. and SGM/SGC. 

Just let me know. abrentdetwiler@gmail.com

Brent 

After sending the message, I finished listening and arrived at the end when you talked about doing an extra episode with Joshua Harris.  That is why I am urgently writing you.  I know Josh extremely well.  He cannot be trusted.  He is as much a deceiver as C.J. and like C.J. he covered up crimes including the sexual abuse of children.  That is a matter of record. 

Before you broadcast again, you must read and study these articles (there are many others I could send).   

The Moving Account of C.J. Mahaney Turning Covenant Life Church Over to Joshua Harris – “I wanted you to have the best. I believe that God has provided the best.” 
Saturday, August 10, 2019 at 2:18PM 
 
Let’s Be Clear, Joshua Harris Is Anti-Christ In His All Encompassing Announcement of Apostasy & Far Reaching Promotion of Evil  
Friday, August 23, 2019 at 5:55PM
 
Brieta Llewellyn-Allison Calls Out Joshua Harris for Covering Up the Sexual Abuse of Children at Covenant Life Church Based on First-Hand Knowledge
Tuesday, November 19, 2019 at 2:02PM
 
The Lars Liebeler “Independent” Investigation of Sexual Abuse at Covenant Life Church Finally Exposed as Utterly Corrupt Based on Never Seen Before Transcripts. C.J. Mahaney’s Claim of Vindication Another Great Deception.   
Thursday, May 20, 2021 at 2:02PM
 
Never Released Before Correspondence with Olivia Llewellyn Provides Additional Evidence of Abuse by Her Parents & Its Cover-Up by C.J. Mahaney & Joshua Harris 
Friday, June 4, 2021 at 4:49PM 

Josh’s “deconversion” is by choice.  It is not due to C.J. or anyone else.  He knows the truth about God, Christ, the gospel, Scripture, holiness, etc. but has willfully rejected it to pursue his own selfish ends.  Sensuality has always marked Josh. 

Further, he has used his apostasy to market himself for fame and fortune and the advance of evil.  I love Josh passionately but he has made himself an enemy of Christ.  He has trampled underfoot his precious blood.  I hope you correct him and call him to account if not on air then in private. 

Josh is not brash like C.J. and Driscoll but he is every bit as deceptive and similarly loves the limelight.  In fact, he exceeds them in the ability to marketing his brand “clear and loud.”  

If you want a counterpoint to Josh’s deconversion narrative I am glad to provide it.  

I’d love to know your perspective on my thoughts.  Feel free to call me at (704) 497-xxxx or email me at abrentdetwiler@gmail.com.  Please confirm you receive this email. 

Thanks,
Brent 

I didn’t hear back so I followed up the next day.  Here are some excerpts. 

From: Brent Detwiler
Sent: Wednesday, August 4, 2021 4:04 PM
To: Mike Cosper
Subject: RE: Thoughts on Episode Six 

Hey Mike, 

A short follow up. … 

You refer to the podcast as journalism.  That is helpful to know.  It is not opinion.  It is reporting based upon evidence and eye witness testimony.  

Therefore a part of your reporting in the bonus edition with Josh must include the overwhelming evidence I’ve provided that documents his cover up of the physical and sexual abuse of children.  This included a corrupt “investigation,” the use of a “hush fund,” breaking the law, not reporting confessed abusers including fathers, damming victims, putting out deceptive statements, moving predators around, not informing families in harm’s way, allowing predators to leave SGM and prey elsewhere, etc.  All of this is a matter of fact. 

Why?  Because they didn’t want to suffer reputational harm and the loss of members which translates into the loss of money or lawsuits (which is not possible under MD law with indemnifies reporters).  Josh was central to this conspiracy to cover up abuse from 2004-2015.  All these facts have been clearly established.  This must be reported by you. 

Josh also actively covered up and enabled C.J.’s pride, deceit, lording, hypocrisy, independence, and abusive treatment of others starting in August 2004.  He even declared him fit to plant Sovereign Grace Church of Louisville in 2011 when C.J. left Covenant Life Church.  Josh was cowardly.  A man pleaser to get ahead.  He told me so in private.    

People need to understand Josh was primarily responsible for C.J. being allowed to continue in his sin like the Mars Hill elders allowed Driscoll to continue in sin.  He betrayed the Lord and many people in the process.  Don’t let Josh make excuses or hoodwink you.  I am glad to help you fact check. 

It is your choice to have Josh on your program but you must understand his apostasy is not due to harms suffered; it is due to his rebellion against God.  Romans 1 is his story. 

Moreover, you must put him to the test.  You must cite evidence.  Then you should ask him hard questions about covering up for C.J. and covering up crimes by abusers and why he lied about the victims.  It is all so serious. 

I’d appreciate a response to confirm you are receiving my emails.  Once again, I am glad to talk by phone. 

Sincerely,
Brent 

Again, I did not hear back from Cosper.  Therefore, I wrote the editors, leaders, and top writers at Christianity Today including Ted Olsen, Ed Stetzer, and Russell Moore.  I sent all the information above and more.  I copied Cosper.  

From: Brent Detwiler
Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2021 5:50 PM
To: Tim Dalrymple (tdalrymple@christianitytoday.com); Ted Olsen (tolsen@christianitytoday.com); Jeremy Weber (jweber@christianitytoday.com); Ed Stetzer (estetzer@christianitytoday.com); Russell Moore (rmoore@christianitytoday.com); Andy Olsen (aolsen@christianitytoday.com); Morgan Lee (mlee@christianitytoday.com); Timothy C. Morgan (tmorgan815@gmail.com); Sarah Pulliam Bailey (spulliam@gmail.com); Kate Shellnutt (kshellnutt@christianitytoday.com)
Cc: Mike Cosper mcosper@christianitytoday.com 
Subject: Appeal to Mike Cosper re: Joshua Harris Interview or Episode 8  

To CT Editors/Select Writers, 

I’ve made three attempts to contact Mike Cosper primarily about his upcoming interview with Joshua Harris for Episode 8.  He has not responded to me so I am forwarding my correspondence to you.  It is fine for Mike to talk with Josh but he must ask some hard questions.  I cover that below.  Please encourage him to use the traditional standards of journalism in his interviewing and reporting.  

Thanks
Brent 

I have written the top CT editors and writers many times over the last 10 years regarding the conspiracy to commit and cover up the sexual abuse of children in Sovereign Grace and many other topics. 

I did not hear back from Ted Olsen (the Executive Editor) or anyone else.  Instead, the editors set aside “the traditional standards of journalism.”  Mike Cosper did not ask Josh Harris “hard questions.”  Instead, he let Harris off the hook.  Harris in turn used the podcast to conceal his sin and promote his heresy.  Christianity Today should have called Harris to account.  Instead, they covered for him.  The unedited emails to Cosper and CT can be found at the end of this article as an addendum. 

Bonus Edition: I Kissed Christianity Goodbye 

Okay, now to Cosper’s show with Harris.  I’ve transcribed the August 19 podcast “I Kissed Christianity Goodbye” and added commentary below.  My effort is motivated by a desire to protect the gospel, help Christians discern, and secure an accurate historical record. 

COSPER: 0:30-0:56
In Collin Hansen’s 2008 book, Young, Restless, Reformed, he profiled seven inflection points for what he saw as catalysts for renewed interests in Reformed theology.  Among them were Bethlehem Baptist Church, where John Piper was the lead pastor.  And The Southern Baptist Seminary under the leadership of Albert Mohler.  Mark Driscoll and Mars Hill were chapter 7 of that book.  And chapter 6 featured Joshua Harris.  Here is Collin Hansen. 

HANSEN: 0:57-2:27
So a lot of what I was doing in Young, Restless, Reformed was focusing on that restless part.  What I was trying to capture was that this is a new, different movement.  This is not the same sort of Presbyterian circles, the same sort of Dutch Reformed circles, this was Reformed theology breaking out into places where you least expected it.  And one of the places you least expected it would have been in the charismatic community, in the Pentecostal community.  And you didn’t expect to see that in these large youth conferences.  And you didn’t expect to see it from one of the most spectacular boy wonders of evangelical history in Josh Harris.  I mean how many people are writing books before they are 18 or at 18 that sell more than a million copies and you could go certainly around the United States to any corner, especially if you grew up in the 90’s or early to the mid 2000’s, and immediately everyone you knew as a Christian had either read that book [I Kissed Dating Goodbye] or knew everything about that book and had a really, really, really strong opinion about that book.  Simply put there just weren’t many young Christian leaders who were as influential as Josh Harris. 

COMMENTARY
Hansen is mistaken about the “boy wonder’s” age.  Josh was 21 years old when he wrote I Kissed Dating Goodbye (IKDG).  It was published January 1, 1997.  Still a great accomplishment. 

Evangelicals overwhelmingly loved IKDG.  That is why it sold 1.2 million copies.  Comparatively few had negative opinions of the book. 

HARRIS: 2:38-3:33 
The premise of I Kissed Dating Goodbye was that sex before marriage was one of the worst, most dangerous things, one of the biggest deals when it came to the list of sins.  At least that is the way I thought as a teenager growing up in an evangelical church.  And I Kissed Dating Goodbye tried to play out the implications of that.  That if this is really this bad, then we really need to take this seriously.  So I was a zealous, idealistic kid who was saying “Guys we really need to love Jesus, we need to honor each other, and so dating is leading to compromise.”  There was so much fear around AIDS.  There was so much fear around the possibility of unwanted pregnancy and abortion.  There were all these bigger battles that were being waged in the culture and so I basically said we need to go a step further and dating is actually a thing we should avoid.  Why put ourselves in a situation where could compromise. 

COMMENTARY
The premise of the book was, “Guys we really need to love Jesus, we need to honor each other, and so dating is leading to compromise.”  That is an excellent reason to write a book that addresses worldly dating that leads to romance and immorality outside of marriage. 

COSPER: 3:34-5:12 
The personalities of Josh Harris and Mark Driscoll couldn’t be more different.  If Driscoll’s Christianity was defined by masculinity; Harris’ was defined by a vision of holiness.  And it you wanted to think in terms of branding, Mars Hills was bold and aggressive and Sovereign Grace Ministries, the network where Harris served, branded itself as friendly and humble.  And still there is a lot of common ground.  Both men were talented charismatic leaders who achieved a significant level of national attention before they turned 30.  Their communities had a strong vision of pastoral authority as well as a central emphasis on Reformed doctrine.  Harris and Driscoll both served as Council Members for The Gospel Coalition, spoke at many of the same conferences, including Harris speaking at Mars Hill.  They were both young, ambitious leaders in the same movement with many of the same influences around them who tried to help guide them on their way.  But just as their personalities diverged, so did their paths.  Josh left the pastoral in 2015, in 2016 he made comments on Twitter apologizing for the impact of his book, and then expanded that apology in a TED talk in 2017.  He released a full length documentary recanting much of the book in 2018.  And then in July 2019, he and his wife Shannon announced they were getting a divorce.  A week later Josh shared that he no longer identified as a Christian.  That story has countless parallels in the lives of other Christians, who experienced ruptures in their churches, abusive leadership cultures, and other spiritual disasters that led them away from the church.  That is also the story of many former members of Mars Hill.  And it is why we wanted to hear from Josh Harris.  Here is Christianity Today’s Executive Editor, Ted Olsen. 

COMMENTARY
We emphasized the doctrine of progressive sanctifcation (“a vision of holiness”) but Sovereign Grace Ministries was “defined” by the gospel of Jesus Christ.        

We had a ministry magazine for 20 years (1983-2003).  We did a column called “That’s A Great Question!”  I was asked to give a brief summary of our doctrine in 1995 when we were called PDI.  It was shorthand for “Proclaiming God’s Grace, Developing Local Churches, Influencing Our World for the Gospel.”  By “utter sinfulness” I meant pervasive sinfulness.  We are totally depraved, not utterly depraved.  Harris arrived two years later.  

Briefly Describe PDI’s Doctrinal Position?
May/June 1995 

We hold to an essentially Reformed understanding of Christian doctrine but with a significant charismatic dimension to our faith. 

The supreme majesty and transcendent holiness of the triune God is our starting point.  He is so much greater and purer than we could ever imagine.  In considering this, we see our utter sinfulness and hostile defiance toward God.  We realize our inability to change our condition or status before God.  We stand under his judgment as wretched sinners. 

As such, we are convinced of God’s sovereignty and initiative in salvation.  In ourselves we are dead in sin and unwilling to repent or trust in Christ.  Salvation is entirely the work of God.  Therefore, God’s grace is absolutely amazing to us.  

In the Cross, the overwhelming love, wisdom and justice of God is revealed.  It is astounding that Jesus, the perfect Son of God, should be crucified for our sin and credit us with his righteousness.  We can only boast in the Cross through which our sins are forgiven and we are reconciled to God.  

We believe the church universal is the showcase of God’s grace and Jesus’ finished work.  Therefore, all believers are called to enthusiastic involvement in a local church.  In this context they are to grow in holiness, be equipped for service, and witness to the saving grace of God.  All these things are possible by the presence of the Holy Spirit who is powerfully at work.  

Lastly, we long for Christ’s return and look forward to an eternity of worship and unending service. 

OLSEN: 5:53-6:43 
You know as I said before, the word platforming is a lame word.  It makes sense very much in the 2021 mode where the question is, “Why would you ever listen to that kind of person.  There is this new kind of fundamentalism of separation being the most important marker of purity.  So not just like have you separated from the bad person, but have you separated from the people who haven’t separated.  That double separation was huge in historic fundamentalism.  I’m like we can talk to people we disagree with.  That is really good.  And to talk to them, and even talk to them publicly, is not necessarily a platform or to say this person is an authority, or this person is - I’ve appreciated this whole podcast is based on the idea like, we want to hear from people, you know, who were in the room.  There is this line in journalism, “If your mother says she loves you, check it out.”  To me how else are you going to tell the Mark Driscoll story without talking to the people who were actually there in the room.  So I’m like yea, let’s talk to those guys.  I think it matters like what happens, the “where are they now?”  The extending out the story.  I think does, that does matter.  So I am eager for us to hear what happened to Josh Harris, as much in some ways, as much as I am interested in hearing what happened to Mars Hill. 

COMMENTARY
I’ve written Ted Olsen many times over the years.  He is well acquainted with me.  I offered to come on the program since “this whole podcast is based on the idea like, we want to hear from people, you know, who were in the room.”  I was in the room, the center of the room, for 27 years.  No one knows Sovereign Grace better.  I am not offended but I am troubled.  As a result, Harris was able to conceal his sin and promote his heresy.  Here is what I tweeted out after listening to the podcast.  

Brent Detwiler
@BrentDetwiler
I contacted Mike Cosper.  Offered to come on program.  No response.  I was 1 of Harris’ “victims.”  Pleaded w/ Josh to deal w/ CJ for yrs.  Instead he turned on me & protected CJ.  Also covered up crimes & damned victims.  Cosper went easy on him.  Didn’t ask hard ?s.  Left so much out.
1:51 PM · Aug 21, 2021

Brent Detwiler
@BrentDetwiler
Replying to @BrentDetwiler
I went thru Cosper’s “Mars Hill” podcast w/ Harris once.  Now going thru & making transcript.  It will take a week of work but I’ll be writing a response & making appeals to @MikeCosper, @HarrisJosh, @CTmagazine.   There was some good [in podcast] but shallow & wide of the mark.  Josh very cunning.
7:44 PM · Aug 21, 2021 

COSPER: 6:44-7:35
Frankly, we could have made three different versions of the podcast, based on difference versions of Josh I’ve been in  conversation with over the past several months.  The first one, last spring, seemed to want to stay away from being a spiritual guru.  Then last week he released a free eBook and a guided course to help others through their own deconstruction process.  You could pay $275 for that course.  Or if you had been hurt by Josh’s work, you could on the honor system, enter a code and download it for free.  And then things shifted again later in the week when after a lot of negative feedback, especially from within the community of exvangelicals online, he pulled the course, and apologized.  My conclusion is that at some level, I think Josh and I were working at the same task, trying to understand just who is Josh Harris.  One thing these events did seem to confirm is that some of the impulses that made him a star in the 90’s are still there.  

COMMENTARY
Harris released the five week course “Reframing Your Story” and “The Deconstruction Starter Pack” on August 11.  He pulled it down on August 14 when called to task for profiting from his “deconstruction.”  In the advertising he said, “The reason I charge for the course is because I’m a big believer that creators, coaches, counselors and anyone who makes content deserves to be paid for their work.” 

As I look back, Josh has always been about self-promotion.  “The impulses that made him a star in the 90’s are still there.”  Whether as a believer, or now as an unbeliever, Josh has kept himself in the limelight.  This is the key “to understand just who is Josh Harris.” 

HANSEN: 7:40-8:04
Despite the dramatic differences in personality, I can tell you I don’t know of two people with more different personalities than Mark Driscoll and Josh Harris.  You would never think that they are in the same world in terms of their personality but both of them are gifted in other worldly ways at being able to market a message and in many ways at being able to market themselves. 

COMMENTARY
The dramatic differences in personality make Harris more dangerous than Driscoll.  I never liked Driscoll.  I liked Josh but discovered in time his “niceness” was superficial.  He would sorely betray me in 2004 and in the years following in order to maintain his “good standing” with Mahaney. 

Hansen is right.  Harris is a marketing genius.  That’s what he is doing in this interview with Cosper.  There is no talk about how he protected Mahaney, covered up the sexual abuse of children, renounced Jesus Christ, broke his marriage covenant, pursued homosexuality, and endorsed open sex.  

For example, I’ve added an excursus at the end of the article about Harris going on “the Confessional” podcast with Nadia Bolz-Weber the end of March.  She is a radical proponent of LGBTQ.  At the end of the show she “prays a blessing” upon Josh that he will enjoy sex with anyone at any time without any shame.  In an email after the program, Josh writes, “The blessing she shares at the end was deeply meaningful to me.”  Harris’s mind is so debased he considers immorality and sexual perversion a blessing from God for his life.  I can’t believe Christianity Today allowed Harris on the program without challenging him. 

I assume these kinds of questions were taken off the table during negotiations regarding the parameters of the interview.  Cosper is being used by Harris so he can tell his false narrative and promote his “deconversion” (apostasy).  His $275 course got yanked but he will be back.  His goal in life now?  Dismantle biblical Christianity.   

COSPER: 8:08-8:59
From Christianity Today, I am Mike Cosper and you are listening to a bonus episode of The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill.  This is the story of a young charismatic kid that wrote a book that had a love it or hated it impact on a generation.  A kid who became the rising star of a movement and when controversy tore that movement apart he examined his past and lost his faith.  It is a story that echoes the experiences of many who were wounded by the church or burned out by ministry.  Or otherwise left feeling like the ground collapsed beneath their feet.  And it is a story I believe about a gospel that confronts that brokenness, a gospel that is better news than the one that is shared in toxic systems.  And about a God who leaves the ninety-nine for the one.  On today’s episode we are not just looking at Josh Harris, we are looking at what happens when Christians see the fallout of broken communities and say, “I kissed Christianity goodbye.” 

COMMENTARY
There is so much wrong in this paragraph.  First some history. 

Harris came to Covenant Life Church as a pastoral intern to be discipled by Mahaney in January 1997.  He had just published I Kissed Dating Goodbye.  His celebrity was exponentially increasing.  

After four and half years of training, Mahaney made Harris his executive pastor in September 2001.  Three years later, Mahaney turned the church over to Harris in September 2004.  He was 29, soon to be 30.  He was more than ready for the assignment.  Harris successfully led the church for 11 years.  It continued to grow.  He had over 20 pastors and 30 support staff.  He was living the dream! 

Joshua Harris installed as lead pastor by C.J. Mahaney (Sep. 19, 2004) 

In November 2007, Harris was added to the Board of Directors for Sovereign Grace Ministries (now called Sovereign Grace Churches).  I had just resigned as a matter of conscience after eight years of trying to address Mahaney in private.  Mahaney planned to turn SGM over to Harris in September 2013 when he turned 60.  That never happened.  

In July 2011, I sent out The Documents to the Sovereign Grace pastors. Covenant Life Church left SGM in December 2012.  So did 40 other churches from 2012-2014.  Twenty more left in subsequent years. 

Just before CLC left SGM, a lawsuit was filed in October 2012 alleging a conspiracy to cover up the sexual abuse of children.  It was amended in January 2013 and May 2013.  Mahaney and other pastors in CLC were named as Defendants.  Harris ardently covered for them in a bogus “investigation” he commissioned in June 2013.  

Harris stepped down as lead pastor in April 2015.  He moved to Vancouver in June.  He had been covering up the physical and sexual abuse of children since 2006.  Moving to Canada assured he would never be extradited to the U.S. for conspiring to cover up crimes with his pastoral staff. 

Cosper says, “When controversy tore that movement apart he examined his past and lost his faith.”  No.  Harris did not lose his faith!  He renounced his faith and it wasn’t because the “movement” divided, or because he was “wounded” and “burned out.”  The “ground collapsed” beneath his feet because his house was built upon sand, not the rock of obedience to Jesus Christ.  “And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”  Why?  “And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.” (see Matt. 7:21-27; Luke 6:46-49) 

Luke 15 records three parables of Jesus about a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost son.  All represent sinful humanity in rebellion against God.  In his grace, Christ came “to seek and save the lost” (Luke 19:10) but being “found” by him requires repentance (see 15:7,10,18).  That is why Jesus explained, “Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents that over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”  Harris needs repentance not people making excuses for him. 

Further, the gospel confronts our sinfulness not our “brokenness” as defined by Cosper.  Biblical brokenness is over our sinful state.  Cosper misapplies this parable to Harris.  Harris is a lost sheep because he is a rebellious sheep (Isa. 53:6, 1 Pet. 2:25).  He has forsaken the Good Shepherd. 

I am not saying Christ doesn’t help us when we are betrayed and suffer at the hands of close friends.  He certainly does!  A thousand times over!  But this in no excuse to renounce Jesus Christ.  “When Christians see the fallout of broken communities,” you don’t kiss “Christianity goodbye.”  You may kiss a particular church goodbye but you draw near to the Christ of Christianity who suffered far greater pains!  Our rejection is miniscule compared to his rejection.  

MUSIC 

COSPER: 9:27-10:00
Josh’s parents were leaders in the homeschool movement and his dad was an author of several books on the subject.  When Josh was still a teenager he was speaking on that conference circuit, publishing a magazine for other homeschool teens.  1997 marked two milestones that would define most of the next two decades.  He published I Kissed Dating Goodbye and he moved into C.J. Mahaney’s basement and began serving at Covenant Life Church.  The book challenged teens to give up dating and embrace courtship.  Only pursuing romance when they were ready for marriage.  And submitting their dating lives to the oversight of their parents.  It would sell more than a million copies.  It has been the subject of a great deal of scrutiny in more recent years.  But back then, closer to its release, Josh was pretty insulated from that criticism. 

COMMENTARY
In July/August 1997 Josh published an article called “Scream the Dream” in Real magazine.  We carried it in Sovereign Grace Magazine in our September/October issue.  

Here’s an excerpt. 

“I cracked open the door to the auditorium just enough to see a glimpse of the crowd.  I caught my breath at the sight.  Close to three thousand people were finding seats on the gymnasium bleachers.  They were there to hear me speak.  “I can believe this is happening,” I said shaking my head in amazement.  It was a dream come true. 

“I was 21 years old.  The last four years [1992-1996] had been a wild ride.  When I was 17, my goal had been to build a national magazine for homeschool teens.  By God’s grace it happened.  Each issue of New Attitude was being read by thousands of people.  At the same time our teen conferences were growing beyond all my expectations.  In many cities we were met by sold-out crowds.  What I had worked for and prayed for had actually become a reality.” 

People often make Josh out to be a victim of his entrepreneurial father, Gregg Harris.  No!  Josh built New Attitude magazine and his conference ministry.   He worked for it and prayed for it.  He wasn’t under any pressure to perform.  He set the goal to have a nationwide ministry at age 17.  He achieved it in four years.  He was having a blast! 

Later in the article Josh says, 

“And that leads me to the vision that I’m throwing my life into today.  It might surprise you, but magazine publishing and conference speaking isn’t the dream I’m here to scream about.  While I’m still speaking at conferences, my growing passion and the thing that’s burning in my heart is the local church. … My dream is to be a part of bringing the church back to the place God has always meant for it to play in our lives. 

“At the start of this year [Jan. 1997] I left behind magazine publishing to pursue training for the ministry.  I moved from my hometown of Portland, Oregon, to Gaithersburg, Maryland, where I’m serving as a “pastoral intern” at Covenant Life Church.  While I’m still conducting conferences, God has graciously given me the chance to learn about pastoring by studying and working in a local church with men committed to training and discipling me.  I’m learning everything from systematic theology to biblical counseling.  But more importantly, I’m part of a growing, vibrant body of believers that is built on solid, accountable relationships.” 

Later, he continues, 

“Someday I hope to pastor a church or serve under another man in whatever position I’m best suited for.  I don’t know all that the future holds, but I want to be in on the action, and I believe that action is in the local church. 

“For some people my choice might seem inexplicable, even foolish.  Why leave something “big” and successful for something away from the spotlight?  The answer is simple.  There’s no bigger dream, no greater goal than the one God places on your heart.  Only the dreams that he gives us are worth screaming about.” 

Harris is rewriting history now.  He claims he was pressured into ministry.  Nonsense!  God birthed a dream in his heart to pastor a church.  God brought it to pass in accordance with his will.  The truth is Harris has renounced God’s calling on his life and is blaming others for falling away from the faith. 

HARRIS: 10:01-11:31
It took a long time for me to register the critique that was coming.  One of the first that I remember was Boundaries in Dating was a book that came out that specifically addressed I Kissed Dating Goodbye and that’s kind of what happened was other books on dating had to sort of address the elephant in the room which was this mindset that dating was wrong and they sought to do that in a thoughtful, you know, biblical way of saying here is a text that addresses this mindset.  You know I Kissed Dating Goodbye isn’t everything.  It’s maybe an unhealthy way of dealing with it.  And that troubled me.  I remember being in a Barnes and Noble reading this, just standing in the bookstore, reading this going, “Woe.”  And I remember going to C.J. Mahaney, who was my mentor, and communicating that I was troubled by this and he essentially challenged me, “Like Josh, you are being too concerned about people’s criticism and part of being a good leader is you don’t bow to this kind of criticism.  You’ve got to be strong.” And so I, you know, I kind of took that to heart like, “Oh boy, I need to be a strong leader and just kind of stand my ground.”  Now I look back on that, that is not C.J.’s fault, I needed to be more willing to think for myself.  That is part of the problem that I experienced.  But that was a key moment of really not listening. 

COMMENTARY
I think C.J. was right.  “Like Josh, you are being too concerned about people’s criticism and part of being a good leader is you don’t bow to this kind of criticism.  You’ve got to be strong.”  That was back in 2000.  

We always want to be open to the critique of others but we must also be willing to stand our ground when our stand is grounded in Scripture.  I Kiss Dating Goodbye was built upon the teaching of Scripture.  

As I’ve said before, if Josh wanted to dismantle his book, he should have gone through it and pointed out where is misinterpreted Scripture or misapplied Scripture.  He has never done that.  Or where he failed to differentiate between biblical command and personal application.  Or where he failed to emphasis the gospel from which forgiveness flows for sexual sin.  In all these respects, I think Josh did a great job in IKDG and his other books.  I’d recommend all of them.  

From my perspective, Josh has made a caricature of IKDG in order to demonize it when it is actually a book filled with biblical truth, grace, and wisdom.  Here are a few quotes to illustrate my point. 

“You see, I don’t want to argue with you about whether or not you should date.  Yes, I’ll be honest about the problems I see in the way most people date today.  But ultimately my goal isn’t to convince you to stop dating.  I want to help you examine the aspects of your life that dating touches—the way you treat others, the way you prepare for your future mate, your personal purity—and look at what it means to bring these areas in line with God’s Word.” (IKDG, Introduction, pp. 9-10) 

“Even though I decided to quit the dating scene, I don’t believe that dating in and of itself is sinful.  Because there’s no biblical command not to date, this is an area that we each need to evaluate in light of our own maturity, our motive, and the other person involved.  The decision requires wisdom.” (IKDG, p. 21) 

“Some people who hear about my decision not to date till I’m ready for marriage assume that my heart must’ve broken.  No, my heart was made new by my Savior.  The change in my attitude was the result of realizing the implications of belonging to Him.  The Son of God died for me!  He came to free me from the hopelessness of living for myself.  That had to change everything—including my love life.  Having a girlfriend was no longer my greatest need.  Knowing and obeying Him was.  I wanted to please Him in my relationships even if it meant looking radical and foolish to other people—even if it means kissing dating goodbye.” (IKDG, p. 18) 

C.J. corrected Josh for his cowardice in 2000.  That same cowardice was far more evident from 2004-2012 when he continually refused to be a “strong leader and just kind of stand [his] ground” in relation to Mahaney.  If Josh had stood his ground with C.J., Covenant Life Church and Sovereign Grace Ministries would have been preserved.  After C.J., no one is more responsible for the destruction that followed.  Cosper doesn’t address this crucial point.  Instead, he presents Harris as a victim. 

COSPER: 11:32-11:43
It is easy when ministry feels like a success to ignore the critics.  To throw holy water on your defense mechanisms.  And keep yourself from noticing the negative impact of your work.  Or the flaws in the culture of your ministry. 

COMMENTARY
We are called to defend the faith.  We are not called to defend our sinful practices and abusive leadership.  Harris covered up Mahaney’s “flaws.”  

In August 2004, I called together the top leaders in SGM (i.e., Dave Harvey, Steve Shank, Pat Ennis) and CLC (i.e., Harris, Grant Layman, Bob Kauflin, Kenneth Maresco) to meet with C.J. to address his serious, long term patterns of sin.  Harris was installed as lead pastor the following month.  

At the end of meeting, I called upon Josh and the pastors to make certain C.J. received the necessary care, correction, and accountability going forward that he needed to grow.  Instead, Josh bailed.  He did not follow through on any of it.  In fact, he allowed C.J. and his surrogates to come after me for the next five years.  I left SGM in August 2009.  

After this I began to write documents out of love and affection for C.J. and the ministry.  In these documents, I called for C.J.’s resignation.  Here is one exchange with Josh.  It is edited for focus.  It is from July 2011. 

From: Joshua Harris 
Sent: Friday, July 01, 2011 12:01 PM
To: Brent Detwiler
Subject: Re: Update 

Dear Brent,

You asked me about the issue of resignation based on what I see.  I don’t think that would be right at this time. … The challenge I face is that all of this documentation is coming from just one witness (you).  … 

Brent, your documents have helped me to face issues that I have not wanted to face.  I told CJ and Dave [Harvey] and Jeff [Purswell] that I have played a part in failing to challenge CJ.  If I had been more courageous 7 years [2004] ago he might not be at this same place.  I feel that I have failed many people.  And so I feel a great weight of regret and I know the Lord is disciplining me in this process too.  

I vividly remember reading the line “All of this documentation is coming from just one witness (you).”  In other words, I was the only witness against C.J.  Therefore, his resignation was out of order.  I felt so betrayed, again. 

From: Brent Detwiler
Sent: Friday, July 01, 2011
To: Joshua Harris
Subject: Re: Update 

Joshua, 

I am deeply discouraged by your response! … 

Your suggestion that I am the only witness against C.J. is preposterous. … You need to deal with the material in RRF&D, AFA, and CR.  I cannot believe you are pinning the case against C.J. on me.  What I have said most of you know to be true.  You were there.  You were part.  You contributed.  You agreed.  You expressed the same concerns.  You saw the same behavior.  You corrected him.  You experienced mistreatment.  You observed his abuse of others.  You knew about Larry [Tomczak].  You participated on August 20, 2004 and following.  You closed circle around him.  You covered up.  You heard his lies.  Experienced his deceit.  Observed his hypocrisy.        

I am distressed.  I have much more to say. 

Brent 

RRFD is Response Regarding Friendship & Doctrine.  AFA is A Final Appeal.  CR is Concluding Remarks.  They were three of the documents I sent Harris and his inner circle over a 15 month period.  RRFD in March 2010, AFA in October 2010, and CR in June 2011. 

Josh was unwilling to deal with C.J. in 2004.  The same was true in 2011.   He called attention to issues with C.J. on July 10 in a message at Covenant Life Church titled “The Father’s Discipline” and at the evening meeting for member’s only but within a week he began to retract his statements.  He was caving into Mahaney once again and capitulating to national leaders who were condemning me and justifying Mahaney.  

Then in 2012, he commended C.J. as fit to plant a church even though C.J. had divided Covenant Life Church and Sovereign Grace Ministries.  It was reprehensible.  I wrote Harris and the CLC pastors but it was all for naught.  They just ignored me and let the commendation of C.J. stand.  No one ever spoke out against him for sinfully leaving CLC or opposed him planting a church in Louisville.  

From: Brent Detwiler
Sent: Saturday, June 30, 2012 10:57 AM
To: Adam Malcolm; Ben Wikner; Bob Schickler; Braden Greer; Corby Megorden; Dave Brewer; Don DeVries; Eric Sheffer; Eric Simmons; Grant Layman; Issac Hydoski; Jamie Leach; Joe Lee; Jon Smith; Joshua Harris; Kenneth Maresco; Mark Mitchell; Matt Maka; Robin Boisvert
Subject: Question re. “I do not believe C.J. is disqualified from ministry.” 

Hello Joshua, 

This is a sincere and warm hearted inquiry.  

Here is one of your statements from the Members’ Meeting on Thursday night regarding C.J.  I have several questions about it (e.g., why Matthew 18:15-17, 1 Timothy 5:20-21 don’t apply to C.J.) but I’ve reduced them to one that gets at the core issue as biblically defined.     

“Some of you have told me that you think we should have publicly disciplined CJ or should speak against him serving as a pastor.  I disagree with that.  I do not believe CJ is disqualified from ministry.  And so I wish him success in his new church plant and pray that he will prosper.” 

I do not understand how you can possibly say “I do not believe C.J. is disqualified from ministry.”  In making that declaration, you boldly asserted that C.J. is above reproach (1 Timothy 3:1) and blameless (Titus 1:6) and meets all the qualifications of Scripture.  How is that possible given the meaning of these words? 

1 Tim 3:2 An overseer, then, must be above reproach. The word (Gr., anepileptos) literally means “not apprehended, that cannot be laid hold of; hence that cannot be reprehended, not open to censure, irreproachable,” “blameless,” “irreprehensible, unassailable.”  It bespeaks of irreproachable conduct and it also means “not only of good report but deservedly so!” 

Titus 1:5-6 …appoint elders in every city as I directed you, [6] namely, if any man is above reproach.  The word (Gr. anengkletos) literally means “that cannot be called to account, unreprovable, unaccused, blameless.” 

I know you want to be “balanced” in your assessment of C.J. but how is your conclusion biblical?  I am happy to come to Gaithersburg to discuss this matter.  It goes to the heart of the matter.  

I also observed you used the singular pronoun “I,” not the plural pronoun “we,” in stating your perspective.  Does that mean some of the pastors disagreed with you?  If so, don’t you think the church should have been told about those disagreements?  From my perspective, that information would be helpful, not harmful, to the church.  I think many would appreciate knowing some of the pastors don’t think C.J. is qualified for ministry. 

If I may give one other opinion, I think you should have made your case to Covenant Life Church as to why you believe C.J. is deservedly of good report and therefore cannot be called to account. 

Sincerely,
Brent 

From: Brent Detwiler
Sent: Sunday, July 01, 2012 8:09 AM
To: Adam Malcolm; Ben Wikner; Bob Schickler; Braden Greer; Corby Megorden; Dave Brewer; Don DeVries; Eric Sheffer; Eric Simmons; Grant Layman; Issac Hydoski; Jamie Leach; Joe Lee; Jon Smith; Joshua Harris; Kenneth Maresco; Mark Mitchell; Matt Maka; Robin Boisvert; Ken Weldon
Subject: First Anniversary - Is C.J. Above Reproach? 

Hi Joshua, 

I realize you may be too busy to provide a response to my question this week, but would you please let me know by Friday if you plan to answer at all.  A simple “yes” or “no” will suffice.  Friday is the one year anniversary of sending out the documents.  I plan to revisit the issue of “Is C.J. Above Reproach?” on my blog and I’d like to include your arguments for why C.J. is qualified to be in ministry.  I don’t agree but I want to represent you fairly. 

Thanks for your help.
Brent 

Josh never responded to me.  He knew C.J. wasn’t above reproach but he was willing to commend him to Covenant Life Church as worthy to plant Sovereign Grace Church of Louisville.  A lot of people lost respect for Josh and left CLC as a result.  He could not be trusted to do what Scripture commanded.  He was on his way to apostasy.  This was man pleasing at its highest level. 

For seven years, Josh didn’t want “to face issues” with C.J.   He wanted a life of ease.  He failed “to challenge C.J.” because of cowardice.  In so doing, he “failed many people.”  He felt “a great weight of regret [i.e., guilt].”  The Lord was “disciplining” him.  Tragically, he took the discipline of the Lord lightly.  The enablement of C.J. continued and grew after the lawsuit came out in October 2012.  

Josh never told Covenant Life Church this part of his reproachful story.  Nor did he ask their forgiveness for enabling C.J. from 2004 to 2011.  

Cosper doesn’t cover any of this important history.  Instead, he creates a false narrative.  I wished he had talked to me. 

Josh didn’t become apostate overnight.  For years, he was rebelling against the Lord Jesus Christ in ways that harmed many people.  “The flaws in the culture of your ministry” could have been addressed.  Instead, he covered them up and allowed Mahaney to go after those who were calling him to account.  

HARRIS: 11:44-13:16
And you want to hear a weird Don Miller, Mark Driscoll connection point.  I can’t remember the year but I was invited to speak at one of the events, I guess it was one of the Resurgence events or something that Driscoll was doing so I want out to Seattle.  Don had been invited to speak at that as well but he decided not to speak at it because I think he was starting to be concerned about some of the stuff that Driscoll was doing.  He was big time, like Blue Like Jazz was a huge book, it had so much cultural influence among Christians and so on.  But he drove up to just sit in and so that we could grab lunch together.  And it is just so funny to look back on this and think about this because I was in this really conservative, the truth be told, I was concerned for Don.  You know, his theology was really troubling.  And I had this real sense of superiority and I remember we went out to lunch and I was like talking about our church and how great it was and how amazing it was that we were Reformed and we were charismatic and the church was just so humble and Don just said, “Boy you guys are so humble it is just surprising that you are so aware of it.” And I was just like, inside, just like, oh crap. [laughter] And it was so true.  It was like we were proud of our humility, you know.  And he called me out on it.  I had no response.  You know years later, I went back to him and said, “Oh man you saw things I didn’t see at the time.” 

COMMENTARY
There was good reason to be concerned about the theology in Blue Like Jazz.  For example, read here.  That doesn’t necessarily equate with pride.   

Harris spoke on “Humble Orthodoxy” at Driscoll’s Reform and Resurge conference in June 2006.  That’s when he had lunch with Don Miller.  According to Josh he was proud of his humble orthodoxy.  

There was no reason for such pride.  When we first began Sovereign Grace Ministries most of the pastors were Arminian and preaching a false gospel.  It was solely by the grace of God that we came to be essentially Reformed.  And it was solely due to providence of God that we were blessed to experience the gifts and power of the Holy Spirit in the Charismatic Renewal of the 1970’s.  

In September 2005, C.J.’s book, Humility: True Greatness was published by Multnomah Books.  Josh wrote the forward and he extolled C.J.’s humility but he knew better.  While C.J. was writing the book in 2004, we were earnestly correcting him on his pride.  Harris acted deceptively.  But this was a way to promote himself by promoting the man who made Harris even greater.  When C.J. fled CLC to Capitol Hill Baptist Church, he had Mark Dever write a new forward.  Same spiel.  C.J. is humble. 

I was still on the Board of Directors in 2006 when Harris met with Miller.  It was true, Mahaney and his company were increasing proud about our understanding of the gospel in combination with our Reformed and charismatic theology though Mahaney was watering down our charismatic practice to get along with men like John MacArthur.  God raised us up by his grace!  He was about to bring us down because of our pride!  

Luke 14:11 “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” 

COSPER: 13:17-14:17
That sense of having it all together began to unravel in 2009 when a former leader of Sovereign Grace Ministries’ Board of Directors, or apostolic team, named Brent Detwiler, took a long standing conflict with the ministry’s leadership public.  In particular, he accused Mahaney of a pattern of pride, deception, and hypocrisy.  And he accused the Board of Directors of shielding Mahaney from accountability.  In the years that would follow others would begin publishing their own accounts of abuse of authority from inside Sovereign Grace churches on blogs and social media.  That controversy led to a leave of absence for Mahaney so that charges against him could be reviewed.  He was reinstated a few months later.  Josh had been the lead pastor of Covenant Life Church, which was Sovereign Grace’s flagship church, since Mahaney had stepped into full time leadership of the network in 2004.  He had been Mahaney’s protégée but the emergence of these conflicts drove a wedge between them. 

COMMENTARY
C.J. took a leave of absence under false pretense.  That is when I sent out The Documents as they came to be known.  Cosper is wrong about the year.  It was 2011, not 2009.  He is right about what they covered.  Mahaney’s “pattern of pride, deception, and hypocrisy” and “the Board of Directors of shielding Mahaney from accountability.”  The Board was comprised of Dave Harvey, Jeff Purswell and Joshua Harris!  Cosper doesn’t reveal Harris’s central role. 

HARRIS: 14:18-14:45 
We all been tied together under this brand of “We are Sovereign Grace.  You can walk into our church and you will get the same great experiences you do, you know it is the Starbucks of churches.”  Well, when you find out that some of the beans are poisoned that affects the entire brand.  Right?  And so all of that was taking place.  All of that was falling apart behind the scenes and when it did I made choices as a local pastor and it involved not just defending C.J. and the other apostles. 

COMMENTARY
Sovereign Grace Ministries was wonderfully blessed of God.  It was full of good fruit for over two decades but in 2004 it took a radical turn for the worse.  That’s when we corrected C.J. but he rebelled and plotted a course of deceit and intimidation.  He demanded unconditional loyalty and unquestioned support.  It was the only way to stay in his good graces.  Dave Harvey, Steve Shank, Pat Ennis, Josh Harris, Bob Kauflin, Grant Layman, Kenneth Maresco, and Jeff Purswell complied to maintain their pay, positions, and prominence. 

The poisoned beans were the beans of hypocrisy (cf. the leaven of the Pharisees).  These men were teaching one thing but often living another.  Their lives were increasingly full of deceit and hypocrisy and their leadership increasingly abusive.  “The other apostles” included men like Mickey Connolly and Gene Emerson.     

COSPER: 14:46-14:59
During that time Josh began to recognize there were elements of Sovereign Grace’s culture that were rigid and legalistic in ways that were extra biblical.  That included issues like child rearing, home schooling, women working outside the home, and courtship and dating. 

COMMENTARY
Cosper is foolish to trust Josh’s perspective on our teaching about child rearing, home schooling, and woman working outside the home.  He has no idea how we were addressing those vital subjects.  For instance, Covenant Life Church had a large Christian school and a small home school ministry.  There was no pressure to home school at CLC.  Our view on courtship and dating is found in Josh’s books.  Those books were “not rigid and legalistic” or “extra-biblical” in their teaching.  People should read them again. 

HARRIS: 15:00-15:28
All those years of that kind of incredible pressure and manipulation and control was just coming out in a lot of painful stories and they were sharing those and our pastoral team ended up coming to the church and apologizing for some of these practices that we started to see.  But that was the first time that I thought, “Oh my goodness, my book played a part in this.  My book was a big part of creating a culture.” 

COMMENTARY
Of course, Cosper buys into this narrative but the CLC pastors should not be uniformly characterized as men “of incredible pressure and manipulation and control.”  There were some fine pastors among them.  Harris is demonizing again.  That is not to minimize the abusive leadership of Mahaney and those close to him. 

COSPER: 15:29-16:04
Churches in crisis face a tension, it happened here and it happened at Mars Hill as well.  It emerges when members and leaders try to discern the difference between gossip or slander and the need for transparency.  Because on the one hand, gossip and slander are very real things.  And they are dangerous and divisive.  But on the other hand there is a clear pattern in churches in conflict where leaders who want to quell the conflict address it by calling it all gossip and labeling those who are sharing their stories as divisive or wolves.  This was the tension that emerge for Harris and it is what drove the wedge between Covenant Life and Sovereign Grace. 

COMMENTARY
This is a good point by Cosper.  One I have repeatedly made over the past 12 years.  After I send out The Documents I came under fierce attack by Sovereign Grace Ministries and national leaders that C.J. set against me.  It was a wicked way to cover up the sin I was exposing.  In this regard, C.J. and the pastors loyal to him “put incredible pressure” upon church members not to read The Documents.  The “manipulation and control” was cultlike. 

In response to the charge of slander, I wrote Eight Reasons Why Sending Out the Documents Was Not Slander But Necessary.  Sovereign Grace continues to label me a gossip and slanderer on their website.  That once worked.  No longer.  Today, most of the national leaders who opposed me and defended C.J. have severed ties with him and Sovereign Grace.  The latest being Ray Ortlund Jr. at Immanuel Church in Nashville. 

HARRIS: 16:05-16:19
We just had this massive fissure in this movement where one side was saying, “We need to listen to these hurt people.”  And the other side was saying, “These people need to cease and desist.  Don’t read the blogs.  Don’t listen to any of this.”  So our church ended up withdrawing from the movement. 

COMMENTARY

“The other side” was C.J. Mahaney, Phil Sasser, Gary Ricucci (C.J.’s brother-in-law & an alleged abuser), Brian Chesemore (C.J.’s son-in-law), Mike Bradshaw (C.J.’s son-in-law), Bob Kauflin, Jeff Purswell, Jared Mellinger, Mickey Connolly, et al. 

Specifically, they were telling members throughout SG churches not to read my blog.  Here are two examples from Mellinger and Connolly, top leaders in the denomination.  These attacks upon me have continued and worsened.  

Jared Mellinger
Covenant Fellowship Church
Glendale, PA

Words can do incredible damage.  A question for the discerning.  Which would be more dangerous for a Christian to be exposed to?  A website devoted to sexually immoral images or a website devoted to sowing suspicion against leaders and tearing people down.  Friends there is more than one way to ruin your soul.  Avoid ungodly speech.  Avoid speaking of it.  Avoid listening to it.  For the sake of the holiness of the church. (Nov. 6, 2011) 

He is referring to my website at BrentDetwiler.com.  My writings were worse than pornography.  Anyone reading my blog in disobedience to their pastors’ commands needed to leave their church.  

Mickey Connolly
CrossWay Community Church
Charlotte, NC 

So what I am asking you to do as a church is to avoid him [Brent] as long as he engages in this behavior: gossip, slander, scoffing, mocking…. Having nothing more to do with him.  Avoiding him would include not discussing these things with him personally, reading any of his materials on blogs or Facebook.  If that means you have to defriend him to avoid the temptation, do that, or following the story on anti-Sovereign Grace Ministries blogs…. So I want to be clear!  Not discussing this with him personally.  Not reading any of his materials on blogs or Facebook or following the story on the anti-Sovereign Grace Ministries blogs…. If you can’t trust your pastors, you need to leave.  You need to go…. If you cannot trust your pastors, if you cannot obey your pastors and what we are asking you to do biblically then you need to find another church because we cannot function without your trust.  You can’t follow pastors you don’t trust.  You can’t honor pastors that you are willing to have slandered.  And that you’re willing to go and seek out slander about.  You can’t do that. (Nov. 13, 2011)  

Sovereign Grace never sent me a “cease and desist” letter from their lawyer(s) but I was prepared to receive one.  I am confident the Lord would have used a lawsuit to expose them further in a civil case.  

I’d not be surprised if Harris and the pastors loyal to him received one to scare them into silence.  If so, it worked.  After Harris spoke out on July 10, 2011, C.J. and Phil Sasser met with him and his inner circle of pastors.  Sasser acted like C.J.’s lawyer and prosecuted the case for libel and slander.  Within one week of speaking out, Harris changed course and when silent.  He began to demean me the following Sunday, July 17.  

COSPER: 16:20-17:51
Shortly after that withdrawal a civil lawsuit was filed alleging a pattern of mishandling sexual abuse cases inside Sovereign Grace Churches going back for decades.  Eventually 11 plaintiffs would join the case in total.  Many leaders and pastors were implicated in the allegations both directly and indirectly including both Harris and Mahaney.  Ultimately the cases were dismissed.  Nine because the statute of limitations had been exceeded and two others for being filed in the wrong state.  Those were never refiled.  Sovereign Grace treated this as a vindication though but a number of outside critics reject that framing.  Rachel Denhollander for instance, a lawyer and victim’s advocate has been raising concerns about these issues since her role as a whistle blower in the Larry Nasser case brought her to the national spotlight a few years ago.  You heard from Denhollander on a previous episode of the podcast.  In her criticism of the handling of these issues she’s gone so far as to call it one of the most well documented cases of institutional cover up she has ever seen.  Covenant Life Church would eventually hire an attorney to look into their own handling of the issues.  It was not an independent third party investigation though.  And it had a number of flaws.  Including the attorney’s lack of criminal experience and close ties to the church.  In addition, many of those implicated such as Mahaney and other Sovereign Grace leaders would not participate in the investigation and the attorneys failed to interview some victims and witnesses.  And these are just a few of the handful of issues Denhollander raised.  Even so, there was a moment in the process of the investigation that struck home for Josh. 

COMMENTARY 
Cosper says, “Many leaders and pastors were implicated in the allegations both directly and indirectly including both Harris and Mahaney.”  He never asks Harris any questions about the central role he played in the illegal cover up of abuse.  It was not a “mishandling” of abuse. 

Cosper also says, “Covenant Life Church would eventually hire an attorney to look into their own handling of the issues.”  It should read Josh Harris and his inner circle of pastors would hire an attorney.  Harris was in charge of the arrangement which was corrupt.  Cosper doesn’t press Harris about his central role in hiring Lars Liebeler. 

Rachael Denhollander contacted me in March 2016 asking for help before she spoke out against Sovereign Grace.  She had studiously read all the articles I had written since July 2011.  I provided her additional evidence and put her in contact with victims from the lawsuit and beyond.  

In February 2018, I provided her a crucial transcript of the confidential oral reports Lars Liebeler gave to Covenant Life Church.  A friend made arrangements to record them for me.  I also sent the transcript to Heather Thompson-Bryant.  She was the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit. 

From: Brent Detwiler
Sent: Wednesday, February 14, 2018 6:32 PM
To: Rachael Denhollander; Heather Thompson-Bryant
Subject: The Lars Liebeler “Independent” Investigation a Fraud 

I am working on two posts that expose the scandalous investigation done by Lars Liebeler.  I’ve attached the transcripts I made from the recordings for “members only” back in October 2014.  SGC [Sovereign Grace Churches] put a lot of stock in this fraudulent and despicable investigation as is clear in their “A Response to Allegations Against Sovereign Grace Churches” from yesterday. 

By God’s grace, truth and justice will prevail in the hearts of those who love the Savior. 

Brent 

The next day, I sent her a lengthy follow up email.  Here are some excerpts for brevity. 

From: Brent Detwiler
Sent: Thursday, February 15, 2018 3:58 PM
To: Heather Thompson-Bryant; Rachael Denhollander
Subject: Information on Lars Liebeler and His “Independent” Investigation 

No one ever explained how the pastors happened upon Liebeler.  That information was concealed.  Maybe insurance lawyers knew he was corruptible and recommended him to the CLC pastors.  Here is a synopsis. 

Lars Liebeler was retained by CLC as their lawyer and asked to do an “independent” investigation regarding the conspiracy to commit and cover-up the sexual abuse of children in CLC.  The investigation took place from July 2013 to November 2014.  It was anything but independent.  

The post below doesn’t contain a lot of information because it was written before Liebeler concluded his investigation, but it outlines my concerns in advance.     

Questions for the Law Firm Thaler Liebeler LLP Regarding Investigation of Covenant Life Church
Thursday, August 29, 2013 at 12:56PM 

Liebeler gave two oral reports to CLC (but would not release his written report to CLC) on Oct 12 & 26, 2014.  He withheld evidence from CLC and did the investigation, as anticipated, with great bias and prejudice.  He vindicated alleged abusers Stephen Griney, Dave Mayo, and Mark Hoffman but didn’t even interview their victims.  Nor did he deal with the evidence against Dave Adams (pertaining to the alleged abuse of John Roberts), Charlie Llewellyn, John Loftness or Gary Ricucci. …     

I did not hear back from CLC.  I also wrote Liebeler.  He never answered my question about his qualifications and he never responded to my request to discuss the evidence he withheld. … 

The Liebeler “independent” investigation cost 100k.  Like a “good” defense lawyer, he singularly protected his clients - that is, the alleged conspirators and sex abusers.  He showed no regard for the testimony of those abused.  His report was biased, partial, prejudicial and unethical and left out vital evidence against his clients. 

All of this was due to Josh Harris.  Harris and his executive pastor, Mark Mitchell, put Liebeler forth as a highly qualified third party independent investigator with extensive experience.  It was all a lie!  He was none of the above.  Harris was promoting a fraud! 

Here comes more spin from Harris in the interview.  

HARRIS: 17:52-19:13  
We got a call from that attorney, whose like, “I want to share the findings with you. You guys made some massive mistakes.  Some key mistakes in how you.  You should have reported things to police and you didn’t.”  And I had been in a mindset of saying, “You know what if guys on my team, you know, have made significant mistakes no matter how much I love them, even if they were well intentioned, I need to be willing to let them go.  Fire them to protect the church and so on.”  And this guy’s on the phone saying, “This is the most significant mistake when this person came back and asked this, and told you this, you should have gone to the police at that time.  You tried to handle it in a reconciliation kind of format and so on.  And Josh you were the leader at that time.”  And I, that was, that was the first time that I considered that maybe I wasn’t going to be the pastor of Covenant Life Church for 30 years like C.J, like John Piper had been at Bethlehem, like John MacArthur was at his church.  Like that was my whole structure and vision of my life.  And that moment of realizing my own failure, was really the beginning of a lot of my own self-identity falling apart.” 

COMMENTARY
The call came from Lars Liebeler.  He also wrote two reports of his findings for the CLC pastors.  Harris never released them.  It was part of the coverup. 

Here’s the background to Harris’ comments above.  Nathanial Morales came to Covenant Life Church in 1983 and began abusing multiple boys.  He was finally exposed in 1991.  C.J. Mahaney was told about the abuse but he and his staff (i.e. Grant Layman, Chris Glass, Gary Ricucci, & Robin Boisvert) refused to report it to law enforcement.  They also learned Morales was excommunicated from his previous church in 1980 for sexual predation and homosexuality. 

After Morales fled CLC in 1991, he continued to abuse boys in five states and two countries including two stepsons.  In 2007, a father of two victims contacted the CLC pastors to report that Morales was a pastor in Nevada.  Grant Layman contacted Morales.  Morales confessed to two of the sex crimes he committed in Covenant Life Church. 

All this information was passed on to Harris, Robin Boisvert, Kenneth Maresco, and Corby Megorden by Layman.  They were the governing board of elders.  They decided not to report the crimes to law enforcement.  They knew it was against the law contrary to Harris’ version of events above.  

Morales continued to abuse from 2007 to 2012 when he was finally arrested.  He was sentenced to 40 years in 2014.  Mahaney, Harris, et al. are guilty of protecting a sexual predator who abused boys for 35 years.  It is all documented.  I sent this documentation to Cosper two weeks before his interview with Harris. 

C.J. Mahaney, Covenant Life Church & the Conspiracy to Cover-up the Sexual Abuse of Children 
Tuesday, February 13, 2018 at 12:42PM 

In Lars Liebeler’s second oral report to members only, he boldly pronounced, “I did find that there was no conspiracy to try to protect child predators.  I talked about that last week.  I am going reaffirm that this week.”  

He also said, “I do believe that in 2007, there were some errors in judgment that were made by the pastors and by legal counsel.  I do not know whether they arise to the level of violating the law or not.  But as I have described to you, I do believe that there were errors in judgment made.”  

There is no question Liebeler knew Harris and the pastors broke the law requiring individuals to report suspected abuse.  But far more seriously, he knew there was a conspiracy by the pastors not to report.  That can result in jail time.  Yet, this is categorically denied by Liebeler.  Of course, that’s why they hired him in the first place! 

But while Liebeler tells the church one thing, he tells Harris and the pastors another thing.  “You guys made some massive mistakes. … You should have reported things to police and you didn’t.”  Liebeler is talking about the pastors as a group, not individuals.  They decided not to report Morales’ confessed crimes.  That is a conspiracy under the law.  Oh, one more thing!  “And Josh you were the leader at that time.” 

Harris is telling a tale above.  This was not the first time Harris “tried to handle it in reconciliation kind of format and so on.”  He should have ”fired” himself years earlier. 

When Liebeler confronted the pastors on the phone call, Harris knew he was guilty of breaking the law.  I was in the courtroom when Nathaniel Morales was found guilty.  The Assistant States Attorney told a friend Grant layman could have been arrested for conspiracy (i.e. the collective decision not to report the sex crimes).  The same was true for Harris.  He was in charge of the conspiracy.  The “whole structure and vision” for his life could end! 

“And I, that was, that was the first time that I considered that maybe I wasn’t going to be the pastor of Covenant Life Church for 30 years like C.J, like John Piper had been at Bethlehem, like John MacArthur was at his church.  Like that was my whole structure and vision of my life.”  

Harris also makes this revealing statement to Cosper.  “And that moment of realizing my own failure, was really the beginning of a lot of my own self-identity falling apart.”  His identity was being a C.J. Mahaney, John Piper, or John MacArthur.  Now he might end up in jail a criminal or brought before the public in another civil suit.  The world would know he covered up the physical and sexual abuse of children. 

COSPER: 19:14-19:56
In the years since, Denhollander and others continued to call for a truly independent third party investigation into the handling of these abuse cases by Sovereign Grace.  Christianity Today joined that call for an investigation in March of 2018 in an editorial by Mark Galli.  J.D. Greear, then President of the Sovereign Baptist Convention, and Albert Mohler, President of Southern Seminary, raised similar concerns in 2019 with Mohler in particular stating the need for an investigation.  In an email exchange with Josh he added his voice to the call as well.  Saying, “I 100% support an independent investigation into Sovereign Grace.”  As of their most recent statement, Sovereign Grace reiterated that they believe such an investigation is unwarranted and unnecessary. 

COMMENTARY

I had been sending these men evidence for over five years.  I was glad when Mark Galli and the editorial staff at Christianity Today spoke out.  Here’s an excerpt. 

We Need an Independent Investigation of Sovereign Grace Ministries
Mark Galli
March 22, 2018 

To repeat: While we find Denhollander’s and Detwiler’s allegations compelling, we are not ready to say each of their charges is the whole truth and nothing but the truth. And we are hardly ready to conclude SGC and the accused congregations and leaders are guilty of every charge brought against them. … Still a number of its [SGC’s] explanations for past events remain inadequate and leave too many questions unanswered. 

We desperately need a fresh and thorough independent investigation by an organization that specializes in these matters. … We call for this on behalf of potential victims who may have yet to be heard.  And for the sake of SGC and for the integrity of evangelical churches everywhere.  And especially for the sake of the gospel. 

Leaders around the nation having increasingly called for an independent investigation.  Mahaney, the Executive Committee, the Leadership Team, and the National Council of Elders for Sovereign Grace Churches adamantly refuse to do one.  Why?  Guilt!  As a result, Sovereign Grace has few supporters any longer.  National leaders have increasingly severed ties. 

Cosper says, “In an email exchange with Josh he added his voice to the call as well.  Saying, ‘I 100% support an independent investigation into Sovereign Grace.’”  Is this supposed to impress us? 

Harris knows there will never be an independent investigation.  If there was he’d be in big trouble.  So what should Harris do that would be commendable?  I mean really commendable! 

He should write a series of articles that document all he knows about the conspiracy to commit and cover up the physical and sexual abuse of children in Covenant Life Church and in Sovereign Grace Ministries.  He should also expose Liebeler’s fraudulent investigation which he authorized and hid behind. 

Liebeler gave his oral reports to Covenant Life Church on October 12 and 26 in 2014.  After I listened to them I wrote all the pastors at CLC.  Mark Mitchell was Harris’ executive pastor. 

From: Brent Detwiler
Sent: Saturday, November 29, 2014 1:31 PM
To: Joshua Harris; Robin Boisvert; Dave Brewer; Don DeVries; Isaac Hydoski; Jamie Leach; Joe Lee; Adam Malcolm; Kenneth Maresco; Corby Megorden; Mark Mitchell; Kevin Rogers; Eric Sheffer; Greg Somerville; Keith Welton; Ben Wikner; Bob Schickler
Subject: Concerns for Liebeler Report 

I am concerned for the Lars Liebeler report to CLC for various reasons.  The same is true for comments made by Mark [Mitchell].  I’d like to request an audience so I can share those concerns in a redemptive manner and also ask you some questions.  I am willing to drive up or talk via a conference call.  I hope you respond in the affirmative.  

Thanks
Brent  

From: Brent Detwiler
Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2014 11:30 AM
To: Joshua Harris; Robin Boisvert; Dave Brewer; Don DeVries; Isaac Hydoski; Jamie Leach; Joe Lee; Adam Malcolm; Kenneth Maresco; Corby Megorden; Mark Mitchell; Kevin Rogers; Eric Sheffer; Greg Somerville; Keith Welton; Ben Wikner; Bob Schickler
Subject: Re: Concerns for the Liebeler Report 

I assume you are uninterested in hearing my concerns since I’ve heard nothing from you.  That’s your decision but please know I genuinely wanted to help you and give you the opportunity to respond to my observations. 

From: Brent Detwiler
Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2014 9:43 AM
To: Joshua Harris
Subject: Please Meet 

Dear Joshua, 
Would you please call me or meet with me?  I’d like to talk about how you, the pastors, and the church can prosper once again.  I don’t desire your demise in any way.  I want to help.  

Sincerely,
Brent  

From: Brent Detwiler
Sent: Saturday, January 24, 2015 9:22 PM
To: Harris Joshua
Subject: Confidential 

I hope you will be honest tomorrow morning and tell the church about the conspiracy (i.e. agreement) not to report Nate [Morales] or Charlie [Llewellyn] to law enforcement.  You know this is the plain truth despite claims by Mark to the contrary.  You also know the Liebeler report withheld incriminating evidence of a serious nature from CLC.  This too needs to be confessed.  Lastly I hope you will acknowledge the many times you sinfully protected CJ, broke promises to hold him accountable and allowed him to abuse others without consequence.  You have covered up for him like you covered up for known and alleged abusers by not reporting them.  Josh, I am fervently praying you will clear your guilty conscience by acknowledging these things to the Lord and CLC as you resign in the morning.  I’d love to see you serve the Lord with gladness once again instead of living under the constant conviction of the Holy Spirit.  Put your man pleasing to death and put on integrity for the glory of God! 

Harris and the pastors were not interested in doing what was right.  I never heard from them.  Harris announced his resignation January 25, 2015 which was three months after the Liebeler reports.  He stepped down in mid-April.  He moved to Vancouver in mid-June.  He was a fugitive on the run.  It wasn’t about a seminary education.  It was about his guilt. 

I wrote this on my Facebook page the day after my email to Harris above. 

Facebook
January 25, 2015 

Joshua’s greatest need is not formal study. He needs courage, integrity and an uncompromising commitment to Christ. A good seminary will increase his knowledge of the Bible but it won’t produce truth or wisdom in the inward man.  “Behold, You desire truth in the innermost being, and in the hidden part You will make me know wisdom” (Psa 51:6).  

Going to seminary won’t relief Joshua’s conscience or end the conviction of the Holy Spirit in his life.  Larry Tomczak, C.J. Mahaney, and Dave Harvey all ran from the dealings of God.  Josh is following in their footstep.  What he needs most is to deal with the deceitfulness, broken promises and man pleasing that have often characterized his leadership since becoming sr. pastor in 2004.  

For example, Josh and his pastoral team decided not to report Nathaniel Morales to law enforcement in 2007 out of concern for a lawsuit even though they knew Morales was a serial, predatory and self-confessed child molester going back to 1980.  In this regard, crucial evidence of an incriminating nature was withheld by Joshua, Mark Mitchell and CLC lawyer, Lars Liebeler in their oral reports to CLC in October.  The “independent investigation” was neither independent nor credible.  Over the next 6-8 weeks, I hope to finish a book length exposé on the subject.  It will prove their guilt in no uncertain terms.  

For years I tried to help C.J. in private.  I never intended to send out the documents to the SGM pastors.  Only his lying and intransigence made it necessary.  Now, I am at a similar crossroads with Joshua and the CLC pastors.  I have made every effort possible to meet with them in private in order to help them.  They have no interest.  

It is now time to present the facts in keeping with Scripture.  The cover up must be exposed.  I have never desired the demise of SGM or CLC but both have come to pass.  It is the Lord’s doing.  I hope revival comes to CLC but that won’t happen until Joshua and the pastors deal with the past and pursue “truth in the innermost being” in the present.  As it stands they have demonstrated no willingness to do so. 

Here is the “book length exposé on the subject.”   

The Lars Liebeler “Independent” Investigation of Sexual Abuse at Covenant Life Church Finally Exposed as Utterly Corrupt Based on Never Seen Before Transcripts. C.J. Mahaney’s Claim of Vindication Another Great Deception.  
Thursday, May 20, 2021 at 2:02PM 

Let me reiterate a previous point.  Harris should publish a tell-all account of his cover-up and Mahaney’s cover-up of sexual abuse.  Here’s what his former wife, Shannon Bonne tweeted out in August about Mahaney’s mode of operation and “grandiose claims of innocence (re: sex abuse cover up).”  She should contribute to the exposé.  Of course, it will never happen.

shannon bonne
@shannon_bonne
Just listened to a few episodes of The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill.  I’m glad to see some exposure on a toxic church culture like this and the man [Mahaney] primarily responsible for it.  It’s time for more women’s stories, told by women. #marshill #churchtoo #sovereigngracechurches
6:30 PM · Aug 22, 2021

shannon bonne
@shannon_bonne
Sovereign Grace Churches needs to be investigated.  Looking back on my fifteen+ years with this ministry, it is clear that the culture was built around protecting leaders from inquiry & examination.  Women, the time is now to share your stories.
7:09 PM · Aug 22, 2021 

shannon bonne
@shannon_bonne
Sorry, I’m a few years late to the convo cuz ptsd but I want to see Mahaney examined.  His M.O. is deception and hiding behind the latest actors in his Truman Show.  His grandiose claims of innocence (re: sex abuse cover up) are a show.  He’s a coward and he knows it. #oz #churchtoo
8:47 AM · Aug 23, 2021 

Shannon says she is a few years late to the conversation because of post-traumatic stress disorder.  The “Truman Show” is a reference to Carl Trueman’s August 12 article, Josh Harris’s Message Remains the Same.

The day after she posted the tweets above she closed her Twitter account.  In the Cosper interview, Harris never says anything bad about Mahaney or anyone else in CLC or SGC.  I think it is highly probable Josh and Shannon signed a non-disclosure agreement with Covenant Life Church in exchange for severance that included stipulations they cannot talk about specific acts by specific people (e.g. Mahaney, Loftness, Ricucci, Layman, Liebeler, et al.).  

That’s what Sovereign Grace tried to do with me.  I refused to sign it.  Shannon may have taken down the tweets because they violated their contract.  There may also be some kind of binding arbitration between Sovereign Grace Churches and the Harris’s that prohibits both parties from speaking “evil” of one another.  

This may be why Cosper didn’t ask Harris any questions about his central role in covering up for Mahaney or in covering up sexual abuse.  Harris required it.  Cosper agreed.  Getting Harris to do the podcast would draw a huge audience. 

INTERLUDE 

COSPER: 20:03-20:40
By the beginning of 2015 Harris had pastored Covenant Life Church through five years of conflict, separation from Sovereign Grace, and significant internal revision around governance.  He had also lost his mother to cancer.  Lost his relationship to Mahaney, his mentor, and he had begun to reckon with the reality that his book had been a source of pain in the lives of many who read it or were brought up under its framework of expectations.  He was exhausted.  Uncertain about the future and for the first time since he was a teenager unsure about what he believed anymore.  So on January 25, 2015 he shared with his congregation that he was moving on. 

COMMENTARY
Harris pastored CLC through three and half years of conflict.  It started when I sent out The Documents to Sovereign Grace pastors in July 2011.  This was necessary because Harris and others would not stand up to Mahaney.  

The conflict in CLC was also due to the cover up of sexual abuse by Harris and other members of his staff.  The horrific Second Amendment Complaint was filed on May 13, 2013.  Here’s an excerpt from what Harris told the church. 

Joshua Harris
How the Story Ends - Sermon
Sunday, May 19, 2013

You know right now we are facing this great difficulty as a church and it has the potential to disillusion and confuse and I’ve heard from people this past week who have already made the decision to leave our church because of the allegations.  Maybe you’re in the same place.  Maybe you feel that you need to leave Covenant Life.  I just want you, I don’t know if I’ll have this chance to say this again so I want to say a few things to you.  The first thing is that I’d want you to at least hear from me a request.  That you stay because this church needs you.  Because the men who are seeking to lead the church need you.  This is not our [the pastors’] church this is our [everyone’s] church.  We need people to stay and to pray and together on our knees before God rebuild the places where the walls are broken down.  

But the second thing is that I want to you know and understand that if you need to leave, you go with a blessing.  But here’s the most important thing that I want to say to you.  If you don’t attend Covenant Life Church that’s fine.  But please don’t allow the circumstance to draw you away from your faith in Jesus.  Please stay close to Jesus.  Please don’t let the enemy use this moment to tell you lies about who he is because Jesus has not changed.  He is the same yesterday and today and forever.  

And the point of this is not Covenant Life Church or any leader ultimately.  The point of this is stay close to the Lord.  Keep trusting him.  Keep going to some church and I praise God that there are so many good local churches in this community.  Keep going to church.  Keep reading your Bible.  Keep praying.  Keeping pressing into faith in God.  Keep pursuing holiness and righteousness.  Keep working out your faith and your salvation with fear and trembling.  Keep believing the promise that he who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it. 

Harris was also interviewed at the time by a reporter from The Washington Examiner.  Here’s an excerpt. 

Credo: Joshua Harris
By LIZ ESSLEY • 5/25/13 12:00 AM
The Washington Examiner 

Covenant Life has been through hard times lately.  Has this made you doubt God? 

The challenges we’ve faced as a church have been real challenges.  My decisions have caused a lot of people to be upset with me, for different reasons.  It hasn’t caused me to doubt God; it’s caused me to see how often my faith is based on my circumstances, instead of realizing that God is sufficient and good even when things around us aren’t going the way we would like.  A defining reality for me is what Scripture teaches in Hebrews 12, that God is our father, and that a sign that he loves us is that he disciplines us, he takes us through hardship to build character in us that could not be shaped apart from difficulty.  So I am trying to, on a daily basis, receive the challenges as expressions of God’s fatherly care. 

Do you ever just want to throw up your hands and quit? 

I definitely have been tempted to want to run away at times.  But this is an odd source of encouragement ­­-- I watched the movie “Rango,” where Johnny Depp plays a lizard, and he says, “No man can walk out on his own story.”  And I thought, “That is a good truth for me.”  I think something dies inside of you when you start running away from difficulty instead of believing that God wants to meet you in the midst of that difficulty.  Several years ago I felt the Lord say to me: “This is your post.  I want you to stay here.”  I didn’t understand why that was important at the time, but that has steeled my soul in the last couple years. 

At your core, what is one of your defining beliefs? 

One of my defining beliefs is that Jesus Christ has taken all of my guilt before God, and that he has been raised from the dead.  That gives incredible hope and meaning to every day of my life ­ that nothing done in this world is wasted when it’s done for him and his glory, and that there will be a day of justice and reward for the entire world.  So how I live today matters. And I’m loved by God, amazingly. ­ 

CLC left Sovereign Grace in December 2012 but Harris never gave a clear explanation why.  He simply said in summary, “We have a fundamental difference on how leadership and pastoral ministry should be practiced and applied.” (Nov. 4, 2012).  He never defined the “fundamental difference” in biblical categories.  He left Mahaney and his surrogates off the hook again.  He was not willing to do or say hard things! 

The governance changed because Harris was concealing the abuse of children, etc. from the pastoral staff at large.  He confined that knowledge to his inner circle comprised of Grant Layman, Kenneth Maresco, Robin Boisvert, and Corby Megorden.  These men conspired with Harris to cover up the sexual abuse of children.  So did Mark Mitchell.  

Josh was not uncertain about what he believed when he published Dug Down Deep – Unearthing What I Believe and Why It Matters in May 2011.  Nor when he published Humble Orthodoxy – Holding the Truth High Without Putting Other People Down in April 2013.  Those books were written to promote biblical Christianity in truth and grace.  And there is no evidence he was uncertain about what he believed in his sermons at CLC which ended in mid-April 2015.  

Yet, I think it is true, Josh was beginning to waiver in his commitment to biblical orthodoxy.  He was being influenced by the writings of Don Miller, Rob Bell, Eugene Peterson, Brian Maclaren and others.  Going to Regent College in Vancouver was a terrible decision.  I knew he was in trouble and prayed he would not fall away from the gospel.  I realized he would be exposed to false doctrine that undermined key tenets of biblical Christianity.  Regent College was once a great evangelical school in the days of men like J.I. Packer.  No longer.  

I remember visiting the school in 2002 to thank Dr. Packer for his influence upon my life and Sovereign Grace Ministries.  Of course, I visited the bookstore.  I was shocked by the material they were promoting.  For example, N.T. Wright’s heretical view of justification.  

HARRIS: (audio from a sermon) 20:41-21:38
This is what I’m realizing: I need to hear clearly from Jesus about his purpose for me.  Losing my mom a few years ago, turning 40 last year, it has been a gut check for me.  I’m asking the question, “What does it mean for me to be faithful to fulfill God’s purpose for me in my generation with the remaining time I have in this life?”  

I’ve had many people over the years tell me what God’s purpose for my life is.  And what I am learning is that only Jesus can place a call on my life.  I can’t live someone else’s plan for my life.  I can’t even live my plan for my life.  I need to live Jesus’s plan for my life. 

COMMENTARY
This is a cop-out.  Harris says, “I can’t live someone else’s plan for my life.”  Harris has never lived someone else’s plan.  He has always lived his plan.  He wanted to begin New Attitude magazine and a national ministry in 1994.  He was 17.  He wanted to write IKDG in 1996 to impact his generation.  He wanted to come to Covenant Life in 1997 to be trained by C.J.  He wanted to become the lead pastor of CLC in 2004 for the rest of his life.  These were his goals, desires, and aspirations.  No one pressured him.  He firmly and joyously believed this was “Jesus’s plan for my life.” 

The quote above comes from “Joshua Harris Sunday Remarks” on January 25, 2015.  It is not part of the interview.  Cosper is playing a recording of his Sunday sermon.  Here are some other selected comments from Harris in that message. 

“The plan was for me to be the pastor of Covenant Life with C.J. as the apostle over our church and our movement.  I’m not going to go into the story of how that plan got derailed. But suffice it to say there were serious flaws in this structure and from the earliest moments of my tenure as lead pastor there was tension and great difficulty behind the scenes.”

I vividly remember listening to these words in January 2015 and recalling what Harris had written me in July 2011.  “The challenge I face is that all of this documentation is coming from just one witness.”  Me.  This was another moment of profound betrayal.  Harris became the lead pastor in September 2004.  From the beginning “there was tension and great difficulty behind the scenes.”  He hid all this information from me and pretended everything was wonderful with C.J.  At the same time, he watched as Mahaney and his surrogates persecuted me.

“I’ve been in public ministry for 23 years, I’ve been on staff here for 17 years and have served as lead pastor for 10 years.  In that time I’ve never set aside time for focused study.  I need a season of being poured into, a time of interacting with different thoughts and ideas, a time of gaining perspective and fresh vision.” 

It was to Harris’ shame he “never set aside time for focused study.”  He had the opportunity in our Pastors’ College.  The state of art facility was housed in the Covenant Life Church building.  

I was in charge of the Pastors College.  Harris arrived in January 1997.  The school was in full swing.  I fully expected he’d enroll for the 1997-1998 school year.  To my surprise, he was a no show. 

I went to C.J. and asked about Josh.  He said he’d be training Josh and having him attend select classes.  I challenged C.J. and told him I thought Josh should attend the entire year.  We were training a lot of men for pastoral ministry.  No one was exempted from the Pastors College except for Joshua Harris. 

The next year I returned to C.J.  This time he was offended I was again making the case for why Josh should be in the PC.  C.J. told me it was unnecessary for Josh because of his tutelage and Josh’s superior abilities.  I disagreed.  I suggested C.J. at least make certain Josh attended all the classes over time so he could complete the curriculum – for example, learning New Testament Greek.  

Over the 17 years Harris was at Covenant Life Church, he could easily have taken all the courses in the Pastors College.  He was above it.  That is on Harris, not Mahaney.  He easily could have done serious study.  Some of the finest scholars in their respective disciplines taught in the Pastors College.  We also used the best textbooks on any given subject.  The reading alone would have provided a great “seminarian” education. 

COSPER: 21:39-22:06
Just a few month later Josh and his family moved all the way across the continent from Maryland to Vancouver where he’d enrolled in seminary at Regent College.  Prior to this he’d never been in an actual classroom before.  It was all homeschool and pastoral training at the church.  But as much as education was a part of the equation, his bigger goal was just to make space, to look back on his life and figure out how he gotten to this place, tired, feeling the burden of his failures, and the sadness of his disappointments.  

HARRIS: 22:07-22:56
When I think about my own life, a lot of that was shaped by my own ambition.  It is really important for me to recognize, okay, sure people taught me things, you know they were older, they should have been more responsible, but I have to keep owning the fact that, and I wanted all this, you know, I wanted the acclaim, I wanted the bestselling book, I wanted to be famous, I wanted the security of being in the right camp that was better than all the other camps, so I bought into it.  You know, I completely threw myself into that and yea, that’s just an important thing for me to own and also to, you know now need to shift through.  What was, what is real?  What isn’t real?  

COMMENTARY
This is a significant acknowledgement.  A lot of Harris’ life was shaped by personal ambition.  It wasn’t about Jesus.  It was about Josh.  Instead of living for the audience of One, he was living for the audience of millions.  “I wanted the acclaim, I wanted the bestselling book, I wanted to be famous.”  

These were the very issues I was addressing with C.J.  His sinful ambition and love of reputation were deeply rooted problems.  He and Josh were birds of a feather.  They fed off each other and promoted each other.  This was at the heart of my concerns for both men. 

Harris also says, “I wanted the security of being in the right camp that was better than all the other camps, so I bought into it.”  That is a wretched motivation for buying in.  I want to be in the “right [theological] camp” to please Jesus Christ and honor his Word; not to be “secure” or pompous.  

COSPER: 22:57-23:40
These questions about story, and identity, were as much a motivator for this move to Vancouver as any of the theological questions, and maybe more so.  A part of what makes Josh’s story unique is that no matter what, he’s Josh Harris, or as Collin Hansen put it, “evangelical wonder boy, Josh Harris.”  A guy who sold than a million books.  And then the poster child for the purity movement.  If you average pastor moved to Vancouver, and deconstructed his faith, would anyone hear it?  Would it make the news?  Likely not.  And yet in 2016, a year into his trip out West, even the first hint that his mind might be changing about some things, ended up being newsworthy.  It all started on Twitter. 

COMMENTARY
Josh’s six books sold over two million copies and earned him approximately three million dollars in royalties. 

HARRIS: 23:41-24:48
As someone said, your book was used against me like a weapon, and I said “I am so sorry.”  And that ended up getting picked up and being broadcast on different articles, “Josh Harris is apologizing” and so then people were mad that I was apologizing, and then other people were mad because I wasn’t apologizing enough.  And I just said, wait a second, I need to do a real thorough, thoughtful evaluation of this.  And so I used the context of my seminary study to do a guided study of reading things from a sociological standpoint, from a kind of Christian history standpoint to understand like why did I think the way I did, what was the actual impact of that, and the end result of that journey, was recognizing, wow, on balance this was really negative, and if I’ve seen that it had this negative effect, I can’t support it still being out there.  The publisher agreed to discontinue publishing the book which I really appreciate. 

COMMENTARY 
The person who said “your book was used against like a weapon” was Elizabeth Esther.  In context, she wasn’t allowed to go to the prom.   I’d like to hear her parent’s perspective on Josh’s book being used like a weapon.     

Elizabeth Esther @elizabethesther
I never went to the prom. #BecauseFundamentalism
 
Elizabeth Esther @elizabethesther
@HarrisJosh honestly, your book was used against me like a weapon.  But now, I just feel compassion for the kid you were when you wrote it.
 
Joshua Harris @HarrisJosh
@elizabethesther I’m sorry.  And I’m planning to dig into that in the next year or two.  Again, I’d love to chat.
10 May 2016 

The next day the following article was written about the apology. 

Joshua Harris Apologizes
May 11, 2016
By Libby Anne 

At Regent, Harris wasn’t studying Christian theology.  He was studying sociology.  “And so I used the context of my seminary study to do a guided study of reading things from a sociological standpoint, from a kind of Christian history standpoint.” 

COSPER: 24:49-25:05
Part of the effort to reckon with the book developed after he met a fellow student at Regent named Jessica Van Der Wyngaard.  She had a background in film making and was planning on producing a documentary about deconstructing purity culture as part of her graduated thesis.  Josh showed up around a year after her and he was having a lot of conversations about the way his book had impacted other students. 

COMMENTARY
The problem with “deconstructing purity culture” is you have to deconstruct Christ.  He founded the purity movement. 

Matthew 5:27-30
[27] “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’  [28] But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. [29] If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. [30] And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell. 

And you have to deconstruct Christ’s apostles.  Paul for example. 

1 Thessalonians 5:3-8
[3] It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; [4] that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, [5] not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God; [6]  and that in this matter no one should wrong or take advantage of a brother or sister.  The Lord will punish all those who commit such sins, as we told you and warned you before. [8] For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life. [8] Therefore, anyone who rejects this instruction does not reject a human being but God, the very God who gives you his Holy Spirit. 

WYNGAARD: 25:06-25:29
The filmmaker in me was like, “Wow, this would be a really good way to tell this story.  You know you’ve got someone’s narrative to kind of structure a documentary around.  That’s going to be great.”  And he, he was kind of on the fence about it.  For about eight months we discussed it back and forth after I kind of pitched it to him and then agreed to do it. 

COSPER: 25:30-25:48
They launched a kick starter campaign and raised about 55,000 Canadian dollars  The resulting film was called “I Survived I Kissed Dating Goodbye.”  In it, Josh travels the country and meets with people who were impacted by his book, as well as theologians and other Christian leaders, who think and write about dating, marriage and sex. 

HARRIS: (audio from the documentary) 25:49-26:05
“I was afraid, afraid to face my critics, but also afraid to disappoint my fans, the people who still loved my book.  I knew I needed to jump but I couldn’t.  Leave it to social media to push me over the edge.” 

COSPER: 26:06-26:22
The project took the better part of two years.  They screened a rough cut of it in June 2018 at Regent and then premiered the finished film that fall at a film festival in Franklin, Tennessee.  It was also picked up by a faith based film distributor called Exploration Films. 

WYNGAARD: 26:23-26:51
The greatest irony for me in all of this in making this documentary about purity culture, which is really what the film is about, even though it tells Josh’s story, is that I was intent that we are making a film that shows you don’t have to throw the baby out with the bathwater.  Little did I know that Josh’s unraveling was on a far deeper level than he ever shared or he ever acknowledged until much much later. 

COMMENTARY
Harris was dishonest with Wyngaard.  She worked tirelessly to produce a film that didn’t “throw the baby out with the bathwater.”  Little did she know Harris was planning to throw out the baby too.  Jesus was as filthy as dirty bathwater.  He never told her anything about his “unraveling.”  

COSPER: 26:52-27:11
Jessica was as surprise as anyone in July of 2019 to hear the news on Instagram that Josh and his wife Shannon were separating.  And then, she was surprised again just a few days later when he announced that he no longer identified as a Christian.  Within a few days Exploration Films announced they were no longer promoting the film.  And now Jessica has a complicated relationship with him. 

COMMENTARY
This is nothing short of betrayal.  Josh didn’t care about Jessica. He should have been informing her about his “deconstruction” and apologizing profusely for the harmful  impact his renunciation of Christ would have upon her and her work.  Two years of work went down the drain.  Now she has “a complicated relationship with him.”  I take that to mean Harris has never asked her forgiveness for his selfishness and treachery. 

WYNGAARD: 27:12-27:43
One of the hardest things for me is trying to think about how do I say, how do I say sorry to people who put in their money to make this film.  The 400 people who gave out of the generosity of their own deconstruction but holding on to their faith.  And the faith they put in me and Josh to put together a film and it hurts my heart when I think about it. 

COMMENTARY
Josh is about Josh!  Pure and simple.  If Harris was resolved to renounce Christianity and destroy Jessica’s work in the wake, he should have let her know well in advance.  It was also extremely difficult for her to figure out how to say she was sorry to those who gave.  It wasn’t her fault.  It was all Harris’ fault.  He should have contacted the 400 people, profusely apologize, and paid back their money.  Jessica thought Josh was a friend.  It still hurts her heart when she thinks about it. 

COSPER: 27:44-28:46
Clearly Josh wasn’t finished with his journey when he made the film so it represents a way point for him and not a destination.  And to me, hearing Jessica’s story speaks again to the perils of celebrity.  It is so tempting to look for a mascot for our spiritual journeys and to hang our hats on them as representations of us.  That what we share with them helps validates us.  And then when they disappoint, it is disorienting and it hurts a deep level.  In spite of the fact that Jessica’ s own journey and her own work, just like that of so many other voices in the film, has a dignity and validity all its own.   I think it speaks to the way something about celebrity culture has a hold on our imaginations.  Josh didn’t leave ministry, land in Vancouver and quietly deconstruct into a new life.  Instead he broadcast his process, literally on social media and on film.  And by nature of the relationship evangelicals have with celebrity, and because of the impact he had on our culture, he had an audience for the whole thing.  Here’s Ted Olsen again. 

COMMENTARY
The first commandment in the Ten Commandments is the most important.  “You shall have no other gods before me.”  Not C.J. Mahaney.  Not Joshua Harris.  Not Mark Driscoll.  If they fall, we do not fall.  Why?  Because we don’t worship them.  We don’t live for them.  We don’t find our identity in them.  We don’t derive a sense of importance from them.  No, we worship the triune God in humility and with gratitude.  He never disappoints!  It is no wonder so many professed Christians are falling from the faith.  They’ve been worshipping idols. 

OLSEN: 28:47-29:19
You know, Josh Harris is going to be still an evangelical celebrity even if he’s not, even if he’s not a Christian.  He is going to be a hot, he going to be mostly a recognized name among evangelicals kind of no matter what his next steps are in the same way that even after someone becomes an exvangelical celebrity, there’s, like evangelicals are going to talk about that person for the next 50 years still.  They are going to be an example of something.  And sometimes not always in healthy ways. 

COMMENTARY
Olsen is right.  Harris remains a celebrity even though he is not a Christian.  People defend his apostasy as though it is understandable.  They refuse to deal with the evidence that demonstrates his profound guilt.  Harris is an “example of something.”  “Deconstructing” the faith to pursue your own sinful lifestyle.  That sells!    

COSPER: 29:20-29:35
After the break you will hear some of my conversation with Josh trying to grapple with the process of deconstruction.  Questions about misunderstanding the gospel.  And why one might want to quite evangelicalism but might not quit evangelizing.  We will be right back. 

BREAK 

COSPER: 30:43-32:08
In his Instagram post Josh about losing his faith, Josh described it as a process of deconstructing and it not hard to find that language in a lot of conversations right now among people who grew up evangelical but don’t identify with it anymore.  The whole idea is nothing new though, there is a long history, even a rich tradition of Christians wrestling with doubt and deconstruction.  Both in those who wrestle and fall away and those who come back.  Evangelicalism has its own history of this too including Charles Templeton, a good friend of Billy Graham who partnered with him in ministry throughout the 1940’s but began to lose his grip on faith in the 1950’s.  That was a critical time in Graham’s life as well.  Coming to the brink of his own doubts and insecurities.  But Graham experienced a kind of spiritual renewal while reading Scripture and praying in the San Bernardino mountains, Templeton lost is faith.  And because of his close relationship with Graham was a controversial figure amongst evangelicals for the rest of his life.  Today you will often hear the word exvangelical in these conversations and that represents a pretty wide spectrum of people who no longer want to identify with evangelicalism.  Some simply want to reject the term.  Others have rejected the faith altogether.  And some of them going so far as to gather online around hashtags like emtythepews arguing that the church itself is a destructive force in the culture.  What seems consistent though is the degree to which people’s stories and experiences have driven their process.  

COMMENTARY
Cosper doesn’t address apostasy in biblical terms.  He should study Jeremiah, Hebrews, Jude, Revelation to mention a few books of the Bible.  Apostasy is willful rebellion against God who clearly and wonderfully reveals himself in creation, our hearts, and especially Holy Scripture.  There are no reasons not to believe, only excuses.  In contrast, there are countless reasons to believe. 

Hebrews 3:12 Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. 

I wrote this article about Harris’s post on Instagram “about losing his faith” and “process of deconstructing.”  I address his apostasy in biblical terms. 

Let’s Be Clear, Joshua Harris Is Anti-Christ In His All Encompassing Announcement of Apostasy & Far Reaching Promotion of Evil 
Friday, August 23, 2019 at 5:55PM      

HARRIS: 32:09-33:02
It wasn’t for me this theological question came up and I couldn’t reconcile it and that type of thing.  It was really, I think the outworking of the hurt that was there, processing what we experienced in this church was traumatic.  The decisions that we made in trying to do what we thought was right, causing us to lose all these relationships, you know, literally, like if you are not loyal you are cut off, and so the shift from being the sort of being the golden boy of Sovereign Grace and C.J.’s protégé to being essentially blamed for things falling apart.  Like if you had just stood up and rebuked people for gossip and slander and told them not to read things on the internet and you know defended the leadership we would have held the line. 

COMMENTARY
First, none of this would have occurred except for the fact Harris enabled and covered up for Mahaney from 2004 to 2011.  

Second, what Harris experienced was mild compared to what I experienced in terms of severity and longevity.  

Third, Harris took a stand only after I sent out The Documents in July 2011.  He had no choice.  The evidence was overwhelming.  Even then his stand was weak and short lived.  He quickly capitulated and accommodated Mahaney even commending him to plant a church. 

Fourth, what Harris experienced was difficult but I would never call it trauma.  He has no idea what it means to suffer for Christ.  Paul called his sufferings “momentary light afflictions.”  During his defense before Nero all his friends deserted him.  Soon after he was executed.  He writes Timothy. 

2 Timothy 4:6-7 For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. [7] I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 

Fifth, serving Christ is going to involve the loss of relationships, being cut off, and blamed for things not your fault.  So how do with respond?  With joy.  

Matthew 5:11-12 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. [12] Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. 

None of what Harris experienced was grounds for leaving Covenant Life Church.  And it was certainly not a reason to leave the faith.  Again, I think of Paul’s counsel to Timothy at the end of his life.  He was enduring persecution of his own.  What does Paul tell him?  “Endure hardship.” Harris represents a soft generation of “evangelical” Christians who do know how to suffer and endure.  He also represents a generation renouncing “sound doctrine” so they can pursue their “own desires.”  That is why Harris fell away.  

2 Timothy 4:3-5 For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. [4] They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. [5] But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry. 

Sixth, what Harris references is accurate.  It is how Mahaney and his surrogates operate.  “If you are not loyal you are cut off.”  They demanded Harris do three things.  Condemn The Documents as gossip and slander.  Instruct people not to read them.  Defend Mahaney as humble and pious.  Harris took a middle of the road approach.  His opposition to Mahaney was muted.  

This three pronged attack has not changed.  It is still what Mahaney and Sovereign Grace leaders demand of their pastors. 

COSPER: 33:03-33:11
By moving away from Covenant Life Church and taking the pressure of ministry off for a season, it allowed him to ask questions that pastors are often afraid of asking. 

HARRIS: 33:12-34:20
You know step one was, “I don’t want to be a pastor anymore.”  Like that was huge to be able to admit that when so much of my identity was wrapped up in that.  Step two, was starting this process of listening to people who had been hurt by my book and recognizing that even with good intentions you can build something that’s actually damaging to people.  You can think you are loading people up with grace and you are actually loading them down with man-made rules.  And you know behind the scenes there was a lot that was falling apart in my marriage.  My wife and I ended up deciding to end our marriage and when that was made public [by them], again a whole other level of identity and I think that my practice of deconstruction is so wrapped up in all of those things, you know so much of what I gave myself to, so many of the people, you know, that kind of presented all these truths to me, so much of that fell apart that I just needed to be at a place of saying, “I need to step away from all of it.”  I don’t want to be trying to justify, explain, defend anything, I need the space to begin to figure out what is and isn’t real apart from all of that pressure. 

COMMENTARY
Harris’s identity was “wrapped up” in being a pastor and a husband.  Those are good things.  He got rid of both.  He also got rid of “man-made rules.”  Yet IKDG was built upon the clear teaching of Scripture.  Harris has also got rid of “so many of the people…that presented these truths to me.”  Most of what was passed onto Harris were the truths of Scripture.  Harris also got rid of the Bible.  That is necessary if you are going to divorce your wife so you can pursue causal sex with anyone you wish.  

Deconversion for Harris is about forsaking his calling, divorcing his wife, and jettisoning the truth of Scripture.  All of “that pressure” is left behind so Harris can “figure out what is and isn’t real.”  This is the garden of Eden all over.  Harris will figure out “good and evil” apart from divine revelation and accountability to God. 

In Harris’s explanation of his deconversion he never explains why he got rid of Jesus Christ.  That is the fundamental issue.  Everything else is irrelevant.  

INTERLUDE 

HARRIS: 34:29-35:33
You know sometimes people they talk about deconstruction as if it is like this beautiful, you know perfectly guided process of like, you know a Lego Castle that you step by step, you know, you take one Lego off, you deconstruct it.  I think some people might have that experience.  My experience was circumstances coming and just stomping the hell out of my Lego Castle [laughter].  Just my own failure, and things falling apart, and relationships being broken, and I’m just like trying to pick up the pieces but I don’t want anybody telling me, “Well you’ve got to build back the castle exactly like this.”  I’m just like, “Please leave me along and let me try to figure some of these things out because the way I have been living has not led to life and expansion and love.  It leads to a narrower and narrower, controlling, fearful outlook.”  And I know that doesn’t represent all Christians but it represented the brand of Christianity that completely shaped me for so long. 

COMMENTARY
Harris justifies his apostasy on “circumstances coming and just stomping the hell out of my Lego Castle.”  Belief in the sovereignty of God is so fundamental to the Christian faith.  He rules over the circumstances of our lives and uses them for good.  That includes “my own failure, and things falling apart, and relationships being broken.”  

Harris does not divulge his “own failure.”  For example, not dealing with Mahaney’s sins and covering up the sexual abuse of children in Covenant Life Church and Sovereign Grace Ministries.  He became a SGM board member in November 2009. 

Josh Harris has lived a life blessed of God from the beginning.  The Lord has been exceedingly kind to him.  He is most ungrateful.  In particular, Josh has known the grace of God revealed in the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ.  This gospel led to “life and expansion and love.” 

Harris moved to Covenant Life Church in 1997.  In that context, he experienced tremendous blessings.  He is rewriting history and making it sound like his experience was dreadful.  It was not!  Nor was mine.  I loved so many things about Sovereign Grace Ministries.  

Harris says, “It leads to a narrower and narrower, controlling, fearful outlook.”  He is referring to Christ and Christianity not perceived legalisms at CLC.  That is why he renounced Jesus and the New Testament gospel.  Christ is narrow, the Bible is controlling, and hell is a fearful outlook.  This become clearer later. 

That why Harris posted this message on Instagram on July 26, 2019 

“I have undergone a massive shift in regard to my faith in Jesus.  The popular phrase for this is “deconstruction,” the biblical phrase is “falling away.”  By all the measurements I have for defining a Christian, I am not a Christian.” 

Harris’s problem is not with Mahaney or Covenant Life or Sovereign Grace Ministries; it is with Jesus Christ and the Bible.  He will figure things out without them. 

COSPER: 35:34-36:10
I remember hearing a pastor a few year ago.  I mean he was a megachurch pastor, he left his church, he hadn’t left the faith, but he was deconstructing the whole sort of mega- church phenomenon which is fine but what struck me when I heard him talk, he said, “It was such a performance for me.  I lived this performative life and I pushed these performative doctrines and his framing at the end of the day, his framing was I just want to try and make it right.  But there is a part of me that wonders for you, and maybe this is like the old pastor in me, putting his hat on.  

COMMENTARY
Cosper’s wondering is misplaced.  Harris did not live a “performative life” and we did not teach “performative doctrines.”  We preached the justification of sinners by faith alone in Christ alone.  

HARRIS: 36:11
Love it. [laughter] 

COSPER: 36:12-37:49
Forgive me.  But I wonder for you.  It’s almost like this.  Like when we realized we’ve failed as leaders and caused wounds and hurt and all of this, particularly like when I think about your story and the degree to which part of your journey was this discovery that for as many times a week as you probably used the word gospel, there was a whole lot of law in the culture you were teaching.  And a very sort of moralistic set of expectations.  And there’s a part of me that wonders again, like the Reformed guy in my heart is running the show at the moment, like the solution to your awakening could have been, well I need the gospel, instead of the floor coming out.  Right?  The answer being, I need to be Reformed again.  Like I need the reformation of my own heart in the sense that what was exposed was the power of law that had been at work and had been incredibly destructive.  And I say that because like what I then worry about again is that the reactivity could be, “Well this is the new law.  This is the new path.  I want to invite people to walk this way because this way will liberate them.”  When again, the gospel would go, “Man that way is not going to liberate them either.”  That way is going to, you know, your vision quest isn’t going to - you know what I mean? 

COMMENTARY
Cosper doesn’t know what he is talking about.  He clearly has no idea what we taught.  The gospel, not law, was the motivating factor for all we did.  Further, I don’t think Cosper’s understands the rightful place of God’s law in the life of the believer.  It does not justify us but it teaches us how to please God.  It sets out a “moralistic set of expectations” by God himself.  Harris didn’t need the gospel.  He had the gospel, preached the gospel, and wrote about the gospel for two nearly decades.  Cosper should read Harris’s last two books on doctrine.  Dug Down Deep (2011) and Humble Orthodoxy (2013).  Both are gospel centered.  Both he has now renounced.  Harris was not injured by the “incredibly destructive” “power of law.”  Cosper doesn’t understand the different functions of law or their relationship to the gospel.  The “Christian” Harris could help him out. 

The Books that Brought Joshua Harris Fame and Fortune
Saturday, August 10, 2019 at 11:17AM 

HARRIS: 37:50
Yea. 

COSPER: 37:51
You know all the metaphors.
 
HARRIS: 37:52
Yea.  
 
COSPER: 37:53-38:05
Where I feel, where I feel like exposure of failures is an invitation to go, repentance is the way of life here.  Like man we blew this.  Like that’s reform.  Let’s call out the sins of our organization.  And then I think. 

HARRIS: 38:06-39:33
Yea.  Which we, which we definitely tried to do.  You know I think that is, I think that was the good response, and I think the Christian message, provides that life, that pathway of constant repentance.  So I mean when I put my Christian hat on, I would just say absolutely.  I mean the church should be known for its repentance.  Right?  I mean if it believes everything you are describing about the gospel and that reforming work of the Holy Spirit, it should be known for constantly repenting.  So I think that, I think that that’s, I think that’s beautiful.  And I would love to be a part of encouraging that response in people who are still in churches and I might end up in the church again down the road.  You know I don’t want to shut the door to that.  I still do struggle with even the, what you described as the gospel over and against law.  There is still of part of me that says, “It’s still a ‘good news’ that if you don’t receive you go to hell forever.”  If that is at the very core of the message does that justify the kind of manipulative, controlling, abusive behavior.  

COMMENTARY
Cosper says, “Let’s call out the sins of our organization.”  Harris says, “We definitely tried to do.”  It was a feeble effort.  Harris and the pastors at CLC refused to call out Mahaney’s sins.  He should have been removed from ministry.  The church should have disciplined him.  Instead the pastors let him flee to Capitol Hill Baptist Church with Mark Dever and then to Louisville with Al Mohler.     

For Harris “the pathway of constant repentance” means turning away from biblical Christianity.  “I think that’s beautiful.”  Harris would “love to be a part of encouraging that response in people who are still in churches.”  He speaks like a cultist.  He uses biblical terms but with a completely different meaning.  For him, repentance means turning away from the teaching of Scripture.  

Then Harris says, “and I might end up in the church again down the road.”  That is his biggest market.  I have no doubt Harris will infiltrate the evangelical church with a false gospel and false Christ and seek to turn people away from “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3).  In the process, there is money to be made.  Just wait.  

Harris continues, “There is still of part of me that says, “It’s still a ‘good news’ that if you don’t receive you go to hell forever.”  Absolutely!  The fault is not the gospel, the fault is the sinner who will not receive the gospel and turn from their sin!  

Moreover, man is completely undeserving of the gospel.  God could justly leave us in our sins and sentence us to hell.  It is amazing anyone goes to heaven.  It is a gift of grace made possible by Jesus Christ.  God is holy.  Man is sinful.  Christ took my sin.  He suffered my punishment.  I am reconciled to God if I believe the message of reconciliation.  If not, I receive what I fully deserve.  Eternal retribution.  

Finally he says, “If that is at the very core of the message does that justify the kind of manipulative, controlling, abusive behavior.”  No!  The command to repent and believe the gospel because there is salvation in no one else is an expression of God’s kindness.  That is why Jesus said, “No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish” (Luke 13:3,5). 

This is why Harris got rid of Jesus.  He was “manipulative, controlling, abusive.”  And let’s not introduce Jesus’ extensive teaching on the dreadful reality of hell.  Josh Harris is a false teacher!  He is dangerous.  Very dangerous.  If he comes back into the church it will be with a designer Jesus.  One of his own making. 

COSPER: 39:34-41:41
I mean I think part of the reason we are on this project is that, to try to sort of as strongly as we can say that it absolutely doesn’t.  The way that evangelical celebrity culture in particular has allowed the fall out of bad leaders get framed in a transactional way is massively problematic.  The heart of our repentance is the fact that we have allowed this sort of calculation to take place that goes.  It’s in the quote in every interview I did for Mars Hill was, “Yea I mean this was a disaster and everybody knew it was  but hey look at the fruit.”  Right?  And you hear that in church after church after church.  But I don’t think that is inherent to the message.  I think inherent to the message is lay down and die.  Inherent to the message is Philippians 2 and the story of the gospels and Jesus going to the weak, and the oppressed, and not favoring the rich, and not favoring the religious.  I think so much of where we are is this syncretism around cultural power and influence and I would even go so far as to say this, I think the phenomena of celebrity, and this is where I would challenge you, in a secular age, celebrity itself is the closest thing we have to sort of spiritual transcendence.  It is the one place we still believe in it.  Because it is the one place where people last.  Right?  You know a president lasts.  We literally, like “icon” is a sacred term, like icon is a reference to sacred art, and we use icon today all the time for celebrities, and so I think there is this gravity towards sort of charismatic celebrity types because by nature of the fact they are famous they carry an authority that has a gravitas in our culture that Joe pastor down the street of First United Methodist doesn’t have.  And so it is a window to transcend[ence].  So again, like icon is such a perfect language because the icon is the art that you look through into something sublime.  I think celebrity kind of functions the same way. 

COMMENTARY
Cosper totally misses the fact that Harris has introduced a false gospel.  He is hung up on “charismatic celebrity types” not heresy.  “This is where I would challenge you, in a secular age, celebrity itself is the closest thing we have to sort of spiritual transcendence.”  Celebrity leaders like Harris are a serious problem especially if they preach false doctrine.  Cosper should have asked Harris, “What is the gospel?”  Then challenged him assuming the podcaster understands the gospel. 

HARRIS: 41:42-42:05
Yea, if could just push back a little bit maybe on what you are saying.  The issue of celebrity is something that at times bothers me.  And maybe it is being defensive because obviously, I’ve had, I would say maybe 13 minutes of fame.  Not even 15. [laughter]  

COSPER: 42:06
You are definitely evangelical fame even now.  Right?  

HARRIS: 42:08-43:19
Well, I think, you know, I think the thing is that, I guess I can feel like it is an easy out for Christians who I think need to ask deeper questions about poor theologies and systemic issues.  And I am not saying it is not problematic, I’m not saying it does go against some of the ideals of the Christian faith.  But I am just saying that I think it’s a scapegoat at times, in a way that allows them to write off the systemic issues and not evaluate them.  And I think you have to ask the question, if it is such a problem, then are the kind of core celebrities of the Bible problematic.  Because while Christians can emphasis the message of the gospel is lay down your life and you know be the meek and mild humble servant and so on, why are we all still talking about Jesus?  Because he is the most famous person in world history. 

COMMENTARY
Harris agrees that pursuing greatness can be “problematic” and sometimes goes “against ideals of the Christian faith” but then he questions whether the “core celebrities of the Bible” are also “problematic” including Jesus whom he implies is a hypocrite.  

He is making the point that these celebrities are not questioned about their “poor theologies and systemic issues” because of their celebrity.  That includes Jesus.  He can’t be let off the hook just because he claimed to be the God-man and only mediator between God and men.  His “poor theologies and systemic issues” need to be evaluated. 

COSPER: 43:20
Now okay, now that’s it.  Right? 

[Laughter] 

HARRIS: 43:25-43:50
What I am saying is, what I am saying is that Jesus.  Okay, let’s assume he is the son of God, the path of cross is the path to exaltation.  And the exaltation of Jesus does involve, if you want to use the word celebrity, celebrity.  Now I think that is a really flippant way of describing it, but I think we use celebrity in flippant ways to criticize other people as well.  

COMMENTARY
Harris is all over the map.  Now Harris justifies celebrity.  For the sake of argument only, he “assumes [Jesus] is the son of God.”  He is an exalted celebrity.  So if Jesus is a celebrity we should not be “flippant” in referring to others as a celebrity.  Like himself. 

Cosper is all over the map too.  He justifies celebrity when it is “about virtue in action.”  He condemns it when it is “fame without virtue” and “fame without action.”  So being well known can be used for evil or good. 

COSPER: 43:51-47:03
You know there is this idea.  We will take Jesus out of it for a moment and maybe we can come back to it. Right?  Like why will Churchill be remembered for generations, for millennia probably?  Well Churchill is going to be remembered because he was a man of a certain kind of virtue.  Obviously a man with a ton of flaws.  But a man with a certain kind of virtue and fortitude and courage, who actions sort of erupted into the world in a way that was transformative to the world.  And that’s why everybody knows who he is.  Right?  And so you can take that and go okay that’s a kind of fame that’s about virtue in action.  The flip side of that is like the kind of fame that you know would be like Hitler.  I realize we are at Godwin’s law cause we are now at Hitler again but it is a different kind of fame.  It is the same principle, which is someone acted out of their character, they acted in their world, they effected it, they transformed it.  Well we live with, and this is where I think the celebrity thing becomes problematic, and where I think Christianity in particular, but culture in general needs to ask it, is that there is a new phenomenon of fame which is fame without, not just fame without virtue, but fame without action.  What we have is like, and this would be my challenge to you, we have a culture where gathering a following and broadcasting yourself is a skillset and like the best embodiment of it, there is this great quote, the best embodiment of it is Kim Kardashian.  Right?  Because what’s Kim famous for?  Well she beautiful but there’s lots of beautiful people in the world.  You know, and you can say this that and the other happened to her, but there’s lots of people who did those things, who have parallels to Kim, but there is some unique about her.  So anyway, the reason I always think of her is - The Guardian did a profile of her years ago, and this reporter spends like a couple days just trying to sort of understand how she works, and how her empire works, towards the end of his time with her, he got kind of exasperated and says to her, “I don’t understand, I still don’t understand you and your world.  What is your talent? “ And her response to them.  Her response to him is, “You can teach a bear to stand on a ball and juggle and he is talented but he is not famous.”  That’s her answer, right.  So there is a fame and celebrity thing that is about sort of knowing the mechanics of gathering a crowd, of marketing yourself, and I guess I would say, like, what I wonder for you in this transition for you is like, whether it was intentional or not, you totally had those skills as like the young, gifted communicator, that was like the embodiment of the purity movement.  Cynically, and I recognize this is cynical, and I like you, so I am not trying to be harsh. 

COMMENTARY
This is funny.  Is Cosper comparing Harris to Hitler or Kardashian? 

HARRIS: 47:03
[Laughter] 

COSPER:
47:04 So don’t take it that way but this is like the rebrand.  Right?  But the mechanics of it are going to be the same skill set. 47:12 

COMMENTARY
The rebrand is the new brand surrounding his “deconversion” and false doctrine. 

HARRIS: 47:13-47:38
I mean I don’t, I think all your statements are accurately in terms of people’s giftings and how that can be used and all those things, and I think that is something I think I have to, I have to wrestle with and kind of deal with you know, myself, you know, it’s like, am I doing that, maybe, I could be. 

COSPER: 47:39
Uh hum. 

HARRIS: 47:40-49:07
Those kind of deep motivations I think are still, there’s just enough Calvinism in me to really be distrustful of myself and say, “Yea, maybe that could be me.”  I think it is interesting though, I would just say even someone like a Churchill, would we know about Churchill if Hitler hadn’t, you know, invaded.  Like circumstances create opportunities for people, and I think you are absolutely right in terms of his virtues and strength in those moments.  I also think he was not bad at turning a phrase, you know from a marketing standpoint, he was able to move people with words and ideas in a way that causes us to remember him and appreciate him in a unique way.  So it is just a fascinating thing about the way that humans work.  The ability to understand how to capture people’s attention, to focus that in a particular direction, to maintain it, it’s an incredible, if you have it, is it better to bury it, because it is so possibly dangerous.  But it is a scary thing.  I feel that.  I feel that, I feel that for the stuff that I am doing. 

COMMENTARY
Harris gives a nod to the possibility of “deep motivations” for fame and fortune but moves on to the power of celebrity for good.  Harris owns a marking company.  It’s call Clear and Loud.  His occupation is about “turning a phrase.”  He knows how “to capture people’s attention, to focus that in a particular direction, to maintain it.”  That’s what he’s done all his life.  That’s what he done since he left Covenant Life Church in June 2016.  That’s what he will continue to do.  I hope the “possibly dangerous” “scary thing” he feels is the dread of God for “the stuff [he} is doing.”  He is leading people astray.  

COSPER: 49:08-49:27
And so you feel the confidence than that as someone who was an evangelist before, and now in a sense, like your still evangelizing, but you are evangelizing in another direction.  You feel confidence, you feel convictions now are the right convictions. 

HARRIS: 49:28-49:44
I definitely don’t have that confidence that I used to have.  I definitely do not have that.  I think that I feel a sense of unique responsibility because of what I propagated in the past, to raise awareness that there are alternatives to it. 

COMMENTARY
The “confidence” Harris once had came from Scripture.  What Harris “propagated in the past” was the evangelical faith.  Now he feels a “unique responsibility” “to raise awareness that there are alternatives to it.”  That is his mission.  He’s not certain what the alternative is but he is confident it is not biblical Christianity. 

Harris has left the faith because he loves the world.  He is like Demas, Paul’s longtime friend and coworker.  “For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me.” (2 Tim. 4:10) 

Harris released his deconversion curriculum online on August 11 but was forced to take it down.  See the articles below.  He will be back with a new one.  

Joshua Harris offers deconstruction course for $275
Cara Bentley
August 12 2021 

UPDATE: After ‘Valid Criticism,’ Josh Harris Takes Down His Deconstruction Course
Jessica Lea
August 16, 2021 

‘I kissed dating goodbye’ author Josh Harris offering ‘deconstruction class on Christianity for $275
Michael Gryboski
August 13, 2021 

COSPER: 49:50-51:54
This conversation happened a couple of days after Josh released his curriculum on line.  A $275 guided study to help people understand their own deconstruction.  A couple of days later, after lots of push back, he pulled it down.  As I thought about Josh’s story there are two things that come to mind for me.  The first is the degree to which it is shaped by his status as a celebrity or in more modern terms an influencer.  The whole influencer phenomena is unique and it is about modeling a lifestyle and a worldview usually through the lens of social media.  It makes me think again about the word icon.  To what degree are Instagram posts from influencers a window into the divine for a secular age?  Ways of worshipping a little pantheon of gods that represent sex, or money, or beauty, or power, or spiritual enlightenment including the enlightenment of having deconstructed.  Broadcasting yourself in that way is a skill set and Josh has had instincts for doing that since he was a teenager.  It does seem like the launch of his deconstruction resources was a miscalculation but I also imagine that is not the last time we will see him working through that on line.  The other thing that comes to mind for me is how the exvangelical phenomena is itself an expression of evangelical culture.  It has its own gathering of celebrities, its own code of ethics.  Its own sense of whose in and who out and as Josh learned the hard way last week, its own gatekeepers.  What I think is visible in the phenomenon is the centrality of people’s stories and experiences as the core impetus for the movement.  Part of my hope in telling the Mars Hill story is to highlight how deep the spiritual and psychological damage of church related hurt can be.  I hope that conservative evangelicals can listen to those stories before they go about defending their doctrine.  That we can grieve the pain and repent of the ways we have contributed to it.  At the same time, I hope that those who have been hurt by the church can have a hunger for the truth as they are going about their deconstruction.  I spoke to Matthew Lee Anderson about this, a scholar of ethics and theology at Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion and author of The End of Our Exploring, a book about asking good questions in the search for truth.  

COMMENTARY
“Broadcasting yourself in that way is a skill set and Josh has had instincts for doing that since he was a teenager.”  Yes and that is the reason for his apostasy.  God opposes self-ascendancy and judges it. 

Cosper says, “Part of my hope in telling the Mars Hill story is to highlight how deep the spiritual and psychological damage of church related hurt can be.”  I have worked with many people who felt deeply the pains of church related hurt.  I weep with them.  I encourage them.  And I point them to Jesus.  I don’t treat them as damaged goods.     

Cosper says, “I hope that conservative evangelicals can listen to those stories before they go about defending their doctrine.”  I have listened long and hard to many stories of abuse and betrayal of the worse kind.  Listening is vital.  It comes first.  But doctrine is essential.  You can’t help people without it.  Sometimes you must defend it.  Why?  Because it is the ultimate source of encouragement starting with the gospel of Jesus Christ.  A person cannot process their suffering except through lens of Christ’s suffering and God’s sovereignty. 

ANDERSON: 51:55-53:02
They had a certain sort of experiences of the community and that experience was very bad.  I don’t think it is the mainstream of evangelical experience, I think a lot of people who have experienced, who are now exvangelicals, who are reacting against this thing, had sociologically actually quite marginal experiences within inside of evangelicalism.  But you know, they were very bad experiences and they are trying to make sense of that in finding people who can sympathize with them, who they can identify with, and that provides a certain kind of comfort and security for them.  And I understand that, and I appreciate that, but that seems to me something very different than deep, difficult self-examination in order to find the truth.  In the sense that there is the sort of quest for understanding the world and making sense of the world around us that I think gets corrupted once it takes this sort of publicized form and when it takes a deliberately contrarian form, what you are trying to do is actually critique and take down the structures that you have left behind.  

COMMENTARY
“Difficult self-examination in order to find the truth” is not necessary.  Just read the Gospel of John. 

I agree that many exvangelicals leave the faith over “quite marginal experiences.”  Why?  They never had any root in themselves.  The Parable of the Sower is about soils more than seeds.  The hardened, rocky and thorny versus the good soil. 

Luke 8:15 “But the seed on good soil stands for those with a honest] and good heart, who hear the word, hold it fast, and by persevering produce a crop.” 

There are bad leaders and people have bad experiences.  Sometimes really bad.  The pain and agony can be great.  In those times of life they draw near to Jesus.  They don’t renounce him or walk away from him. 

COSPER: 53:03-54:06
To me this raises an important question for those of us who might have deconstructing impulses at heart.  What are we after?  What is our motivating spirit?  The contrast Matthew [Anderson] kept reinforcing in our conversation was the gap between a reactionary spirit that wants to reject the community of our youth, and a spirit driven by the quest for truth, whatever it might cost to find it.  I’ll confess that I think negative church experiences are maybe more pervasive than Anderson does and that’s one reason why I am making this podcast.  But I also agree whole heartedly that the answer to our pain shouldn’t be to turn it into a weapon to tear down all communities of faith.  I get that impulse.  I’ve felt it myself.  And I still feel it at times while reporting on these stories.  But when we are feeling that mix of sorrow and anger, we should also ask ourselves critical questions too.  Like what are we seeking?  What do we hope to find?  Are we simply engaged in a project of deconstructing the places and people that hurt us or are we genuinely seeking the truth and willing to embrace it however it may reveal itself to us? 

COMMENTARY
One must differentiate between those who are “deconstructing” leaders from those who are deconstructing Christ.  The former is often necessary.  By that I mean addressing issues of unrepentant sin.  But even when this is done it must be done with the right motive.  Not out of bitterness or hatred.  Far too many evangelical leaders fail to live the doctrine they proclaim.  Hypocrisy is widespread.  It must be addressed.  Still this is not an excuse to give up on the Church.  Jesus founded it.  True believers are members of it and seek to build it.  

ANDERSON: 54:07-54:57
I think we have to think a lot about what constitutes a satisfactory answer to our questions.  What would you have to see or understand?  What does it feel like to get an answer to your question?  And there is a kind of depth and coherence and beauty and goodness that a really satisfying answer provides you.  A sense of stability and place and home.  It is a place where you can sort of rest.  It’s not a finally resting place.  You are still going to move again.  But you can rest for a moment.  And I think that the types of Christianity that tend to rush into the void when people asks those questions don’t have that sense of rest about them.  There is a great deal of anxiety within them.  And I think the anxiety is, you know manifests itself in all sorts of destructive ways. 

COMMENTARY
All our questions are answered in Scripture.  It alone has “a kind of depth and coherence and beauty and goodness” that provides “a really satisfying answer.” 

COSPER: 54:58-55:29
What I like about this way of thinking is that it challenges all of us when we face a crisis of belief to see it as a challenge to not only address our pain, as essential as that is, but to address the doubts themselves by seeking truth.  This isn’t to say that we master our fears and our doubts, particularly on the other side of deep woundedness, but it does mean that there is a kind faith filled willingness to look to God, to the Scriptures, to the church and to seek the truth where it may be found even in the midst of despair.  Here’s Ted Olsen again. 

COMMENTARY
Amen.  “Look to God, to the Scriptures, to the church.”  That is a church with leaders who are submitted to the normative and causative authority of God in Scripture.  

OLSEN: 55:30-56:50
We don’t think of it in John Bunyan’s time, but there’s atheism in Pilgrim’s Progress.  There is a character named Atheist, who is like mocking those guys.  Like, “Oh, your off to the Celestial City or whatever.  It doesn’t exist, you know you guys are idiots for trying to get there.”  And as they talk to Atheist, they find out like oh, well Atheist, he says, “Hey listen, I only know that there is no celestial city because I went looking for it.”  And you know, he says, “I went to go find it further, further than you have gone and if I hadn’t believed in it or wouldn’t have gone looking for it.”  And he has this whole talk about “I looked and I didn’t find it and now I am just going back home and I am going to entertain myself with the stuff that I threw away when I thought there was a city.  Oh I thought that this was going to stop me from getting to the city.”  It turns out that Christian is not, he is not all that tempted by that atheism at that moment but he does hit despair and that is what puts him in Doubting Castle in that narrative.  And that’s what kind of, eventually kind of, maybe tempts him toward joining Atheist back in, back in, back in the home town. 

COMMENTARY
Here is what Pilgrim said to his brother Hopeful about Atheist.  He was not tempted to doubt.  Harris is like Atheist. 

Pilgrim’s Progress
By John Bunyan 

Christian: My brother, I did not put the question to you for that I doubted of the truth of our belief myself, but to prove you, and to fetch from you a fruit of the honesty of your heart.  As for his man [Atheist], I know that he is blinded by the god of this world.  Let you and I go on, knowing that we have belief of the truth, “and no lie is of the truth.” 

Hopeful: Now do I rejoice in hope of the glory of God.  So they turned away from the man; and he, laughing at them, went his way. 

COSPER: 56:51-58:14
Christians have been wrestling with deconstruction and doubt from the very beginning.  Maybe the most famous example of how to reckon with it comes in the Catholic mystical tradition.  Particularly from St. John of the Cross’s work, The Dark Night of the Soul.  There John of the Cross describes the dark night as an experience in which the joys and comforts of spirituality are taken away.  And we experience the kind of despair that is like darkness.  Wisdom and maturity come when we press on through that darkness in faith continuing to seek God even in the absence of the comforts we’ve known before.  And discovering something richer and deeper on the other side.  Something less dependent on those comforts.  I think this is something we could do better with in our communities.  Helping Christians know that their pain is valid and that darkness is a normal part of the Christian life.  That God has a tender heart on those who are struggling.  That it is the heart of God as Jesus revealed to leave the ninety nine for the one.  When we don’t make the space for that kind of struggle, we do a tremendous disservice to the church.  Leaving people to feel as though their own darkness is a sign that either something is wrong with them, or something is wrong with the faith they’ve invested in.  Instead, instead moments like that should be a time when we invite people to press back into the church.  To know that it is a safe place, to struggle, to ask real questions, and hopefully to see in that context that there are still reasons to believe. 

COMMENTARY
Cosper says, “Christians have been wrestling with deconstruction and doubt from the very beginning.”  

There is a huge difference between “deconstruction” (apostasy) and doubt (lapsing).  It is the difference between Judas and Peter.  The former leaves the faith.  The later holds on to the faith. 

Cosper needs to study apostasy and doubt in the four gospels.  Then the epistles.  That’s the very beginning.  Apostasy is anathematized.  Doubt is rebuked. 

There are times when we don’t understand the plan and purpose of God as it is being worked out in our lives.  And that plan can involve intense pain and suffering.  Yet we do not despair.  “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed, perplexed, but not driven to despair.” ( 2 Cor. 4:9)  Why?  God is good, sovereign and wise.  

Cosper says, “Helping Christians know that their pain is valid and that darkness is a normal part of the Christian life.”  I agree with “pain is valid.”  I have wept with a lot of people over the past 12 years.  Their pain is real and it is valid. 

I don’t agree “that darkness is a normal part of the Christian life.”  Light is a normal part of the Christian life.  Not darkness.  We’ve be transferred out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light.  

Professed Christians often live in darkness because they do not know the light of the gospel.  They don’t know the deep, deep love of Christ revealed in his substitutionary death on a cross for their sins. 

OLSEN: 58:15-1:02:01
We received our key tip about Ravi Zacharias that he, not all the details, but that there was certainly some sort of sexual and possible abusive behavior going on.  We received that tip and 24 hours later we got a tip about Bill Hybels.  That Bill Hybels was involved in some inappropriate and abusive behavior.  Sexually abusive behavior with people who were, that he was in authority over.  And that, those two stories, because both of them were major Christian leaders, they were devastating.  I‘ve been at Christianity Today for two decades so like I am use to stories of moral failure and especially of leaders, “surprise” is less of a word, but I mean disappointment every time and sadness every time.  And just like it hits you in the gut every time especially when you hear victim’s stories as I am sure has been the case with this podcast for your Mike.  But then those were bad, but then those started for me an unbroken month [Sep. 2020] where every day I would come into work and there would be an additional story of a pastor’s moral failure or some Christian leader’s moral failure.  Sometimes it was connected to the Zacharias story or the Hybel’s story, but every day, most of my day had to be taken up with these stories.  And at the end of the month, I was praying every day, “God, I need a break, I need to go a day without these stories” but it kind of sent me to a place, despair is too strong a word, but I didn’t lose my faith in God but I definitely started to lose my faith in, the real question was are there any Christians.  Like are there real Christians, are there real Christians who actually believe this stuff.  I know I believe this stuff but are there Christians out there, other Christians who believe this stuff and act on it?  Or is this whole, you know, or are most people doing this as, just like, you know either as a grift or because they have been grifted you know.  And that was a hard place to come out of and I came out of it.  Community meant a lot.  It started with people in my immediately congregation.  Some men who were retired and who because of relationships, I know their stories, I know their faults and failings, and I could see them, and those dudes, they are real Christians.  Okay let me identify these two guys, at least these guys are real Christians.  And then that kind of opened the door for me, okay, and I know my wife is a real Christian, now its slowly coming back to realizing, yea okay, you know, there is a community here, there are people, there are definitely people in the church who are being abusive.  There are people in here to deceive folks.  There are people in here who have been deceived and who are still leading and then there are people who are serving faithfully and they are broken people but they’re real Christians.    

COMMENTARY
Olsen asks, “The real question was are there any Christians…. Are there Christians out there, other Christians who believe this stuff and act on it?”  That is a question many have asked given the widespread “grifting” by leaders in the evangelical church.  Grifting means swindling or taking advantage of people for personal gain.  Jesus used the word “lording.”  These same leaders are abusive and deceptive in how they relate to people. 

Our days are not unlike the days of Elijah.  Listen to Elijah’s description of Israel and himself.  

1 Kings 19:14 Then he said, “I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of armies; for the sons of Israel have abandoned Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword.  And I alone am left; and they have sought to take my life.” 

Here’s God response. 

2 Kings 19:15,18 The LORD said to him, … Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal and every mouth that has not kissed him.” 

There were approximately 2.5 million Israelites.  Only 7,000 were faithful.  There are 205 million professed Christians in America.  God knows how many are genuine disciples of Jesus Christ. 

It is most disillusioning to discover abusive, deceptive, and self-serving leaders who teach God’s word.  Their doctrine is good.  Their life is bad.  They need to be confronted. 

MUSIC 

COSPER: 1:03:19-1:05:01
Thanks to Josh Harris for making the time to come talk to me.  Josh, I’d be remiss if I didn’t say it one more time, even though I said it to you in person.  I just don’t get the sense that Jesus is done with you yet.  Thanks for coming on the show. 

Meanwhile we’ve got plenty of Mars Hill story to tell but we are taking next week off to continue our reporting.  So in the meantime check out some of our other podcasts from CT.  The Viral Jesus with Heather Thompson Day, Steadfast with Sandra McCracken, or you might check out my other podcast, Cultivated: Conversation About Faith and Work.  It is on hiatus at the moment but fans of this show might enjoy conversations in the archives with people like Makoto Fujimura, Steve Taylor, Beth Moore, Bret Lott, Lecrae, and many more.  If you like the show please leave us a rating and review on iTunes.  It will help other people find us.  Subscriptions to CT are one of the best way to support this kind of journalism.  If you want to help us to continue doing this work, consider joining it today at orderct.com/marshill.  There is special deal available to our listeners.

The Rise and Fall of Mars Hills is a production of Christianity Today.  It is executive produced by Erik Petrik.  It is produced, written, and edited by Mike Cosper.  Joy Beth Smith is our associate producer. Music and sound design for this episode is by Kate Siefker and Mike Cosper.  And this episode was mixed also by me.  Our theme song is “Sticks and Stones” by King’s Kaleidescope.  The closing song this week is “Spirit (Keep On)” by Jeremy Casella.  Graphic design by Bryan Todd, social media by Nicole Shanks, editorial consulting by our online Managing Editor Andrea Palpant Dilley.  CT’s Editor in Chief is Timothy Dalrymple. 

Thanks for listening.  We will see you in couple of weeks. 

COMMENTARY
I hope Jesus isn’t done with Joshua Harris but he may be.  You don’t renounce Jesus Christ and trampled underfoot his precious blood as worthless without severe judgment. 

Hebrews 10:26-31 For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, [27] but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. [28] Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. [29]  How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? [30] For we know him who said, “Vengeance is mine; I will repay.” And again, “The Lord will judge his people.” [31] It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. 

Deconversion is not cool in the sight of God!  I hope many turn away from Josh Harris and those like him and return to Jesus Christ.  

Cosper has been preoccupied with celebrity, branding, and self-promotion.  He chastises Harris.  And yet he does the same thing in closing out the podcast.  He repeatedly calls attention to himself and promotes all his products.  There are even special deals for his listeners.  Then the pitch for subscriptions “if you want to help us to continue doing this work.” 

EXCURSUS: JOSH HARRIS ON NADIA BOLZ-WEBER PODCAST 

Harris went on “the Confessional” podcast with Nadia Bolz-Weber on March 31, 2021.  He sent out an email about it on April 27, 2021. 

From: Josh Harris
Sent: Tuesday, April 27, 2021 11:43 PM
To: [Mailing List]
Subject: New project I’m excited about 

Just a quick note to pass on two things...

1. The Confessional with Nadia Bolz-Weber: Listen here. 

2. Message-Clarity Coaching: I’ve started a new small-group coaching group.  It’s an 8-week program for aspiring writers, speakers, thought-leaders—anyone who wants to refine and share an idea with the world.  If you are ready to take the plunge and give attention to your own story and how to share it, you can learn more here.

Nadia Bolz-Weber (NBW) is a radical proponent of LGBTQ and open sex.  It’s shocking Harris went on her program and absolutely reprehensible he says her “blessing” to have “passionately consensual, unselfconsciously joyous, deeply transformative sex” with anyone he pleases was “deeply meaningful.”  

Bolz-Weber is a false prophetess like Jezebel who was “teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality” in the church at Thyatira.  Josh is one of her “children” (see Rev. 2:20:23).

Here are excerpts from their podcast.  Why didn’t Cosper ask Harris about his total renunciation of Christian sexual ethics?  This is not old information.  It is recent.

303 Joshua Harris
The Confessional 
March 31, 2021 

JH: Well, for me, there is sort of a middle point in my life where I really rebelled against that in the homeschool version of rebellion, very tame. 

Not even, not even PG 13, maybe PG 11, where I  was on a gymnastics team, I started hanging out with all these people that weren’t Christians and weren’t home schooled.  I discovered that girls were into me.  I was making out with these girls behind the school.  I stole pornographic magazines and was doing all these things that were very inappropriate for a Christian home school boy to be doing. 

NBW: But developmentally appropriate for a teenage boy. 

JH: Well absolutely. … And so I broke up and I felt so much guilt around, you know, dry humping her, touching her boobs, saying that I loved her and that we would be together forever and then breaking up. …

NBW: God is the one who developed these human bodies to start connecting sexually with other people at the exact time that you were connecting sexually with other people like it.  It’s a totally natural thing. 

JH: So just to even hear you describe the naturalness and the goodness, it’s just striking me like I never got that message. 

NBW: Yeah. … 

NBW: How have you experienced healing [from sexual repression]? 

JH: I think for me, it’s.  It’s been a process of just letting go of a lot of shame, um.  I just allowing myself to enjoy and appreciate sex, without, all of the baggage that I piled on myself. 

NBW: Yeah. 

JH: I think I have actually experienced a healing through conversation and stories with other people [LGBTQ], and I feel like I’ve been able to be a student of people who are further along in this than me, and you know, so letting go of just that, the self-righteousness and judgmentalism that I carry towards other people [LGBTQ].  But I’ve also carried towards myself for so long. …

NBW: Yeah.  I’m so grateful.  Thank you so much.  

A BLESSING FOR JOSH:

So, I’m sorry you thought you had to shut down your own sexuality in order to earn something that was already yours to enjoy, and that the applause of adults led you to put a price tag on it for others as well.  And maybe it’s not too late to hear now what you should have heard when you were a teenager: Josh, the ability to connect deeply with another human being, to touch and be touched, to give and receive pleasure is a gift.  Our creator didn’t have to include it as a factory installed standard feature, and yet they did.  So I hope you and everyone else hurt by purity culture have passionately consensual, unselfconsciously joyous, deeply transformative sex. …

And I want queer folks who have been told by the church that their sexuality is offensive to God to know that God is not ashamed of her children.  Not only that, but your queerness is a gift we need. … We need you to show us what we can’t see, and you deserve love and sexual flourishing as much as anyone does.  I want that knowledge to bless you. 

ADDENDUM: UNEDITED EMAILS TO CHRISTIANITY TODAY 

From: Brent Detwiler
Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 2021 5:50 PM
To: Tim Dalrymple; Ted Olsen; Jeremy Weber; Ed Stetzer; Russell Moore; Andy Olsen; Morgan Lee; Timothy C. Morgan; Sarah Pulliam Bailey; Kate Shellnutt
Cc: Mike Cosper
Subject: Appeal to Mike Cosper re: Joshua Harris Interview or Episode 8

To CT Editors/Select Writers, 

I’ve made three attempts to contact Mike Cosper primarily about his upcoming interview with Joshua Harris for Episode 8 (Aug. 16).  He has not responded to me so I am forwarding my correspondence to you.  It is fine for Mike to talk with Josh but he must ask some hard questions.  I cover that below.  Please encourage him to use the traditional standards of journalism in his interviewing and reporting.  

Thanks
Brent 

From: Brent Detwiler
Sent: Tuesday, August 3, 2021 9:12 PM
To: Mike Cosper
Subject: Thoughts on Episode Six
Importance: High

Hi Mike,

This seems urgent so I’m getting it out tonight.  I just finished listening to episode six.  I’ve not listened to the previous five but read about their content and people’s perspectives.  I gave six a listen after I was notified by this tweet.  I replied.

Elizabeth Klein
@ElizabethOstli1
Replying to @MikeCosper
Excellent podcast series on Mars Hill, but I'm disappointed that TGC leaders such as John Piper & Tim Keller were handled with kid gloves. This by @BrentDetwiler asks some key questions that have never been answered:
http://brentdetwiler.com/brentdetwilercom/tim-kellers-double-standard-for-mark-driscoll.html…
4:24 PM · Aug 3, 2021

Brent Detwiler
@BrentDetwiler
So true. Keller & Piper platformed & promoted a man they knew didn’t qualify for Christian ministry. What happened at Mars Hill could have been avoided if they acted w/ integrity. Instead covered for Driscoll & advanced greatness. Are one reason for great fall. Did same w/ Mahaney.

I don’t know Elizabeth Klein but she is correct.  You were easy on John and Tim.  Please read this article I wrote in 2014.

Tim Keller’s Double Standard for Mark Driscoll
Friday, October 24, 2014 at 4:41PM

Age or generational difference had nothing to do with Keller covering up for Driscoll.  You should call him to account.  Piper also.  And of course, Piper and The Gospel Coalition covered up for C.J. in countless ways.

I also received this tweet from CJ Koeninger whom I do not know.  I replied.  

CJ Koeninger
@purplesiege08· 2h
I’m very disappointed about this too. John Piper also admitted he knew of MD’s flaws but did not regret platforming him anyway. Of course JP has a bit of a habit of platforming very problematic men.
Do You Regret Partnering with Mark Driscoll?
What should our response be to Mark Driscoll’s failures? Pastor John unpacks some lessons from his partnership with the former Seattle pastor.
desiringgod.org

Brent Detwiler
@BrentDetwiler
Replying to @purplesiege08 @ElizabethOstli1 and  @MikeCosper
Mahaney, Piper, Keller, et al. saw Driscoll as an asset for the gospel among the young, restless & reformed. Wanted to use his gifts even tho he was abusive & arrogant. CJ wanted Driscoll over MacArthur at beginning of T4G 2006. The Bible’s qualifications set aside for Driscoll.
5:44 PM · Aug 3, 2021

These tweets caused me concern so I listened to your podcast.  I got to 36:36 minute mark when you started talking about C.J. and me.  At that point, I sent you the message below.

August 3, 2021
6:48 PM MST

Hey Mike,

Glad to do an interview for your podcast on Mars Hill.  C.J. was brought in by Piper to address Driscoll on his pride while we were addressing C.J. on his own pride.   Oh the irony (i.e. hypocrisy)!  C.J. wanted Driscoll over MacArthur for T4G 2006.  Dever wanted MacArthur.  You should consider a sequel.  The rise and fall of SGM.  FYI.  Ray Ortlund just severed ties with C.J. and SGM/SGC.

Just let me know. abrentdetwiler@gmail.com

Brent

After sending the message, I finished listening and arrived at the end when you talked about doing an extra episode with Joshua Harris.  That is why I am urgently writing you.  I know Josh extremely well.  He cannot be trusted.  He is as much a deceiver as C.J. and like C.J. he covered up crimes including the sexual abuse of children.  That is a matter of record.

Before you broadcast again, you must read and study these articles (there are many others I could send).  

The Moving Account of C.J. Mahaney Turning Covenant Life Church Over to Joshua Harris – “I wanted you to have the best. I believe that God has provided the best.”
Saturday, August 10, 2019 at 2:18PM

Let’s Be Clear, Joshua Harris Is Anti-Christ In His All Encompassing Announcement of Apostasy & Far Reaching Promotion of Evil 
Friday, August 23, 2019 at 5:55PM

Brieta Llewellyn-Allison Calls Out Joshua Harris for Covering Up the Sexual Abuse of Children at Covenant Life Church Based on First-Hand Knowledge
Tuesday, November 19, 2019 at 2:02PM

The Lars Liebeler “Independent” Investigation of Sexual Abuse at Covenant Life Church Finally Exposed as Utterly Corrupt Based on Never Seen Before Transcripts. C.J. Mahaney’s Claim of Vindication Another Great Deception.  
Thursday, May 20, 2021 at 2:02PM

Never Released Before Correspondence with Olivia Llewellyn Provides Additional Evidence of Abuse by Her Parents & Its Cover-Up by C.J. Mahaney & Joshua Harris
Friday, June 4, 2021 at 4:49PM

Josh’s “deconversion” is by choice.  It is not due to C.J. or anyone else.  He knows the truth about God, Christ, the gospel, Scripture, holiness, etc. but has willfully rejected it to pursue his own selfish ends.  Sensuality has always marked Josh.

Further, he has used his apostasy to market himself for fame and fortune and the advance of evil.  I love Josh passionately but he has made himself an enemy of Christ.  He has trampled underfoot his precious blood.  I hope you correct him and call him to account if not on air then in private.

Josh is not brash like C.J. and Driscoll but he is every bit as deceptive and similarly loves the limelight.  In fact, he exceeds them in the ability to marketing his brand “clear and loud.” 

If you want a counterpoint to Josh’s deconversion narrative I am glad to provide it.

I’d love to know your perspective on my thoughts.  Feel free to call me at (704) 497-xxxx or email me at abrentdetwiler@gmail.com.  Please confirm you receive this email.

Thanks,
Brent

From: Brent Detwiler
Sent: Wednesday, August 4, 2021 4:04 PM
To: Mike Cosper
Subject: RE: Thoughts on Episode Six

Hey Mike,

A short follow up. 

FYI.  At minute 41:14 you refer to T4G 2006 as a “small conference” of around “600.”  It was actually a large conference of over 2,000.  We met in the Grand Ballroom of the Gait Hotel.  It has a maximum capacity of 2,288.  It was packed.

Todd Pruitt records the same.

An Appeal to the Organizers of Together for the Gospel - Reformation 21
Todd Pruitt
April 9, 2016

The Gospel Coalition has never removed the statement of support for C.J. by Don Carson, Kevin DeYoung, and Justin Taylor.  It remains on the website.  That is unconscionable.  By allowing it to stand, they continue to deceive the Body of Christ.  The Board and/or Council Members should vote to remove it.

Long ago Carson, DeYoung, and Taylor should have renounced their support of C.J. and asked forgiveness of the Body of Christ.  Instead, they have defended him for over a decade.  It is only their pride that prevents them from acknowledging their sin.

Please read this evidentiary article. 

Don Carson, Kevin DeYoung and Justin Taylor Defend C.J. Mahaney Against Charges in SGM Sex Abuse Scandal
Saturday, May 25, 2013 at 11:51AM

And this one also.

Conclusive Evidence the Investigation of C.J. Mahaney’s Confessed Sins by Kevin DeYoung, Ray Ortlund, & Carl Trueman Was Thoroughly Corrupt
Tuesday, November 29, 2016 at 12:54 PM

You refer to the podcast as journalism.  That is helpful to know.  It is not opinion.  It is reporting based upon evidence and eye witness testimony. 

Therefore a part of your reporting in the bonus edition with Josh must include the overwhelming evidence I’ve provided that documents his cover up of the physical and sexual abuse of children.  This included a corrupt “investigation,” the use of a “hush fund,” breaking the law, not reporting confessed abusers including fathers, damming victims, putting out deceptive statements, moving predators around, not informing families in harm’s way, allowing predators to leave SGM and prey elsewhere, etc.  All of this is a matter of fact.

Why?  Because they didn’t want to suffer reputational harm and the loss of members which translates into the loss of money or lawsuits (which is not possible under MD law with indemnifies reporters).  Josh was central to this conspiracy to cover up abuse from 2004-2015.  All these facts have been clearly established.  This must be reported by you.

Josh also actively covered up and enabled C.J.’s pride, deceit, lording, hypocrisy, independence, and abusive treatment of others starting in August 2004.  He even declared him fit to plant Sovereign Grace Church of Louisville in 2011 when C.J. left Covenant Life Church.  Josh was cowardly.  A man pleaser to get ahead.  He told me so in private.   

People need to understand Josh was primarily responsible for C.J. being allowed to continue in his sin like the Mars Hill elders allowed Driscoll to continue in sin.  He betrayed the Lord and many people in the process.  Don’t let Josh make excuses or hoodwink you.  I am glad to help you fact check. 

It is your choice to have Josh on your program but you must understand his apostasy is not due to harms suffered; it is due to his rebellion against God.  Romans 1 is his story. 

Moreover, you must put him to the test.  You must cite evidence.  Then you should ask him hard questions about covering up for C.J. and covering up crimes by abusers and why he lied about the victims.  It is all so serious. 

I’d appreciate a response to confirm you are receiving my emails.  Once again, I am glad to talk by phone. 

Sincerely,
Brent

Article originally appeared on (http://www.brentdetwiler.com/).