Grace Chapel and Narrow Gate may have ties to Nashville-based sex shop through local politician

Narrow Gate is a Tennessee-based, evangelical wilderness program ministry that works with young men 18 – 25 who are seeking to “Discover a Life That Matters.” But the group’s slogan, “Identity. Passion. Purpose.,” took on a whole new meaning when we recently learned that the organization is hosting an event celebrating the organization’s 20th anniversary at a forum whose owners appear to own a local lingerie/ sex shop.

Narrow Gate is holding the event, billed as a free “songwriters” night, at the Davis General, located at 5600 Liepers Creek Road, Franklin, TN.

The location is a destination store, gas station, and restaurant featuring a nostalgia-based vibe, “ethanol-free gasoline,” and a “guns are welcome” sign at the entrance.

A review of public records reveals that the store recently reopened under new ownership, with one of the owners being Lisa Hayes Lenox, an area resident.

However, a further review of public records indicates that Lenox appears to be the owner of Nashville-based Lions Den, LLC. Indeed, state records reflect Lenox as the registered agent for the LLC and provide her home address for contact purposes.

So what is Lions Den? As far as we can tell, it’s a sex shop, located in Nashville, TN.

Affiliated with a national chain, Lions Den sells lingerie, sex toys, fetish and bondage gear, and more. The company purports to be inclusive and caters to men and women, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and more.

Our reaction

To be clear, while a sex shop isn’t our cup of tea (we’re more likely to be at home watching the Cooking Channel) and we have an issue with the exploitation inherent in pornography, we don’t have a problem, generally speaking, with a sex shop. As long as the store requires that customers be over 18, it’s none of our business.

But, given the conservative, evangelical worldview of Narrow Gate, it would seem that an anniversary event at a location whose owners may own a sex shop is, if nothing else, improbable.

Ties to Rob Rogers and Grace Chapel

Then we come to Rob Rogers, pastor of Grace Chapel in Liepers Fork and one of the co-founders of Narrow Gate. Thanks to his association with Christian nationalist whack-a-doodle Steve Berger, Rogers claims Jesus freed him from a heroin addiction. That strikes us as spiritual abuse, in which a so-called church leader claims special access to divine assistance–especially since, to our knowledge, people with an addiction never “get over” the challenges they face.

Be that as it may, Rogers’ encounter with Jesus was before he took over at Grace Chapel, where one of his early accomplishments was teaching church members to say the Imprecatory Psalms at Gracie Solomon, who had, just weeks before, lost her older brother Grant in what appears to have been a murder.

Soon after Grant’s death, Gracie released a video in which she shared her belief that her father, Aaron, had killed Grant and further accused Aaron of sexually abusing her.

Rogers and the other so-called Christians of Grace Chapel didn’t approve of Gracie’s claims, so natch, praying for divine retribution was a logical next step.

Nice.

It’s a small world after all

But the incestuous world of the Tennessee theocracy that swirls around Grace Chapel doesn’t stop there.

Specifically, Lisa Lenox is also a Republican council member for Williamson County. And it comes as no surprise that Lenox is a member of Grace Chapel–the spectacularly corrupt church in which former pastor Steve Berger greeted Aaron Solomon — a substantiated pedophile — as his buddy, and at Grant Solomon’s funeral, no less.

Sorry folks–anyone who abuses a child does not find their way onto our buddy list.

In the meantime, we see yet again how Grace Chapel, long an epicenter of Christian nationalism and MAGA politics, refuses to protect Gracie, Grant, and other children at Grace Christian Academy, which shares a campus and is affiliated with the church. Tellingly, Grace’s membership includes such non-luminaries as Governor Bill Lee, corrupt judge Deanna Johnson, and her husband, state senator Jack Johnson, all of whom worship at the altar of Berger’s Christian dominionism.

Up next

We’d welcome confirmation from readers that we found the right Lions Den LLC. After all, for all we know it’s Christian publishing company. But somehow we doubt it, and the ties between Grace Chapel, Steve Berger, Rob Rogers, Lisa Hayes Lenox, and corruption in Tennessee—including the state’s refusal to investigate the death of Grant Solomon—get uglier by the day.

In the meantime, Narrow Gate staff—be sure to help yourself to some delicious grub at The General. And if you’re looking for bondage gear, you know who to call.