Free Republic

“Sexual abuse is the most underreported thing — both in and outside the church — that exists,” says Boz Tchividjian, a grandson of Billy Graham and a former Florida assistant state attorney. As a prosecutor, Tchividjian saw dozens of sexual abuse victims harmed by a church’s response to them. (In one case, a pastor did not report a sexual offender in his church because the man had repented. The offender was arrested only after he had abused five more children.) In 2004, Tchividjian founded the nonprofit organization Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment (GRACE), which trains Christian institutions...

Billy Graham’s grandson Tullian Tchividjian has resigned from his pulpit at Coral Ridge Presbyterian, a high-profile church in south Florida, after admitting he had an affair. He released the following statement to The Washington Post, saying it was on behalf of him and his wife: I resigned from my position at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church today due to ongoing marital issues. As many of you know, I returned from a trip a few months back and discovered that my wife was having an affair. Heartbroken and devastated, I informed our church leadership and requested a sabbatical to focus exclusively on...

Billy Graham’s grandson: evangelicals ‘worse’ than Catholics on sex abuse Sarah Pulliam BaileyAUSTIN, Texas (RNS) The Christian mission field is a “magnet” for sexual abusers, Boz Tchividjian, a Liberty University law professor who investigates abuse said Thursday (Sept. 26) to a room of journalists.While comparing evangelicals to Catholics on abuse response, ”I think we are worse,” he said at the Religion Newswriters Association conference, saying too many evangelicals had “sacrificed the souls” of young victims.“Protestants can be very arrogant when pointing to Catholics,”  said Tchividjian, a grandson of evangelist Billy Graham and executive director of Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment (GRACE),...

Our church was recently hit with a high-ranking moral tragedy. It was discovered that a staff member (and close friend) was engaging in marital infidelity. I was both shocked and saddened. I didn't see it coming. None of us did. Of all the crises I've faced and had to deal with over the last 17 years of pastoral ministry, this was a first for me. I have dealt on numerous occasions with husbands and wives in the throes of an extramarital affair, but never a staff member. Never someone this close to me. It'll take me a long time to...

An Open Letter To Mr. Grace-Loving Antinomian There seems to be a fear out there that the preaching of radical grace produces serial killers. Or, to put it in more theological terms, too much emphasis on the indicatives of the gospel leads to antinomianism (a lawless version of Christianity that believes the directives and commands of God don’t matter). My problem with this fear is that I’ve never actually met anyone who has been truly gripped by God’s amazing grace in the gospel who then doesn’t care about obeying him. As I have said before: antinomianism happens not when we...

OK, I admit it. A paragraph from Louis Berkhof’s Systematic Theology doesn’t have the sex appeal of the latest Rob Bell kerfuffle (if you’ve been sleeping for three days and have no idea what I’m talking about, click here). But, I’m a firm believer in something Michelangelo once said: “Oftentimes the best way to critique something is to create something better”–to focus, in other words, on the things that nourish more so than the things that distract. So, reveling in and wrestling with the things that matter most (like how to read the Bible) will inevitably protect our hearts and...

MIAMI – Hundreds of congregants have left a pioneering megachurch in Florida to form their own congregation because they were unhappy with leadership at the church that's seen as a bedrock of the religious right. The action by the unhappy members at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church was the culmination of a feud between loyalists to an evangelical luminary, the Rev. D. James Kennedy, and his replacement as pastor, the Rev. Tullian Tchividjian, a grandson of the Rev. Billy Graham.

August 14, 2005 -- LONDON — The $21.3 billion United Nations oil-for-food scandal has now widened to include the brother of U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Kobina Annan, the Ghanaian ambassador to Morocco, is said by investigators to be "connected" to an African businessman at the center of the scandal. The probe into Kobina's dealings are at an early stage and he has not been interviewed. However, investigators are understood to suspect that Michael Wilson, an African businessman, and Kobina had a business relationship at the time of the scandal. A source close to the investigation said: "We believe Kobina Annan...

The Pastoral Search Committee of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., announced on January 18, 2009 their choice for their next pastor: William Graham Tullian Tchividjian, 36, pastor New City Church (EPC) in Margate, Fla. Tchividjian is a grandson of Billy Graham.

Before a backdrop of soaring stained glass and the 6,000 gleaming pipes of a Ruffatti pipe organ, Tullian Tchividjian on March 15 preached one of the pivotal sermons of his life. Tchividjian, 36, pastor of New City Presbyterian Church in Margate, Fla., was preaching 12 miles down the road in Fort Lauderdale. The occasion: Tchividjian's nomination to succeed D. James Kennedy as senior pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church. There had been some dissent in the congregation over who would fill Kennedy's sizable shoes. Kennedy founded the church in 1959 and pastored it for 47 years. In 1974, he launched...

Washington - A widely-known megachurch founded by an architect of the religious right and seen as a national political force selected a grandson of Billy Graham on Sunday as its new leader. The overwhelming vote by congregants at Coral Ridge Presbyterian in Fort Lauderdale to appoint the Rev. Tullian Tchividjian could represent a softening of the message spread by the Rev. D. James Kennedy, who was pastor at the church until his death in September 2007. Kennedy's preaching against homosexuality and abortion made him one of evangelical Christianity's most divisive figures, and he worked to inject his faith in all...

Here is an interview with Tullian Tchividjian, pastor of New City Presbyterian Church and the author of the new book, Do I Know God?What are some memories you have of spending time with your grandparents, Billy and Ruth Bell Graham? All of my memories (and I have a lot) are wonderful. People ask me all the time, “What was it like growing up as the grandson of someone so famous, so well-known?” My answer is simply: I never knew any different. I don’t have anything to compare it to. In fact, it wasn’t until I got older that I...