Together for the Go$pel

Amid backlash, evangelical leaders are finally acknowledging sexual abuse — but not a high-profile preacher allegedly facilitating it. Why?

Benjamin Sledge
GEN
Published in
17 min readJan 28, 2019

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Illustration: Glenn Harvey

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”
— Unknown, frequently attributed to Dietrich Bonhoeffer

One afternoon in late 2014, a friend told me that he’d been blocked on Twitter by The Gospel Coalition.

The sheer power and influence that The Gospel Coalition (TGC) holds is mind-boggling. The group is an online evangelical juggernaut that was co-founded by Tim Keller, a popular New York City pastor, respected by liberal and conservative Christians alike.

TGC’s online articles — which cover anything from Christian living to Bible and theology — generated 74.8 million page views in 2016. The group’s 2017 conference drew 10,000 attendees, paying roughly $200 a ticket.The TGC council boasts some of the most influential leaders in modern evangelicalism, including Al Mohler, Russell Moore, David Platt, and John Piper. We’re not talking about small fish. We’re talking about an organization with the…

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Benjamin Sledge
GEN
Writer for

Multi-award winning author | Combat wounded veteran | Mental health specialist | Occasional geopolitical intel | Graphic designer | https://benjaminsledge.com