Part 7: The Reign of Robert Hahn

Let’s start at the beginning.

In 1993, a much younger Robert Hahn was an Elder at Chesapeake Church, which was at the time affiliated with the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). The church had been founded back in 1983, first meeting in a middle school cafeteria with about 40 people in attendance each Sunday. The founding pastor, John Bash, helped grow the church significantly. By the end of his tenure, it was one of the largest churches in Calvert County.  

Pastor Bash’s service at Chesapeake Church ended abruptly.  One week, he was off on vacation. When he returned, he was released from his position. 

Pastor Bash was out and Robert Hahn was in — at least as interim pastor.

(Dr. John Bash is now a Shepherd at Standing Stone Ministry. He also produces a podcast entitled Church Hurts And.)

Robert Hahn’s inauspicious rise to the top set the tone for a reign that is now approaching 30 years.

Hahn was soon promoted from interim pastor to permanent position as Senior Pastor, contingent upon his obtaining a seminary degree.  He agreed to complete his theological training, telling the Elders that he was already enrolled at Chesapeake Seminary.

Over the next few years, there were grumblings among the members and Elders of the church about Hahn’s failure to finish his seminary work. He asked for patience, insisting that he was still taking classes.

In 2001, a representative from the PCA visited the church. Robert Hahn was informed that he couldn’t continue as a pastor in the PCA unless he completed his seminary training and got a degree. 

However, at the next congregational meeting, he told the members a different story.  He said that the PCA had a problem with the church’s contemporary music. He and the Elders, Robert said, had decided it was just best to leave the PCA. 

A vote was taken and approved. The church had disaffiliated from the PCA.  Chesapeake Church was now an independent evangelical church, and Hahn no longer had to worry about the PCA insisting that he get a degree. Always ready to insist on his own “authority” as pastor of Chesapeake Church, Hahn was averse to any exercise of authority over himself.

The disaffiliation from the PCA left the church’s leadership and its Senior Pastor without the oversight and accountability that had come with the connection.  Independence from the PCA gave Robert Hahn a great deal more control over the affairs of the church – control not only over its spiritual mission, but also over the management of its business affairs.

As detailed in a previous post, the leadership arranged in March 2005 for the church membership to adopt a new Book of Church Order that (disregarding Maryland state law) eliminated the Board of Trustees and and consolidated its functions and powers in a Board of Elders over which Robert Hahn has maintained control.,

In early 2004, the church was making plans to build a new church building and campus. Attendance was increasing rapidly and the church building was bursting at the seams. The church had purchased a large tract of land at Wayson’s Corner, about ten miles north of the present-day campus, where contractors and volunteers had already installed soccer fields and made other improvements. The plan was, at some point, to build a new church on the property.

In late winter/early spring 2004, all the ministry leaders and staff attended a seminar in southern Pennsylvania. While they were there, Robert Hahn called a meeting. The leaders were shocked when Robert and the church’s former executive pastor, Ann Edwards, presented them with their big plan: they had unilaterally decided to build a “sprung building” on the Wayson’s Corner property. (A sprung building is a prefabricated, modular building designed for fast installation and flexible design.)

“This is what you’re going to do,” they said. “You’re going to go back to the church and SELL IT.”

“We all listened with our mouths hung wide open. We couldn’t believe what we were hearing,” said Peter Gordon, one of the attendees at the conference.

After Edwards and Hahn left, the room exploded. Nobody was on board. 

Peter Gordon (not his real name) and his wife Ellen (not her real name) had been active members for years. They were volunteers at the food pantry, they had helped to keep up church grounds, and they were very involved in other aspects of church life. 

When they arrived back in Maryland, Peter Gordon was asked to write an article about the project for the church newsletter. Peter, like everyone else, was opposed to the idea. He didn’t write the article.

A week later, the newsletter editor approached him, wondering where the article was.

“What do you want me to write?” Peter asked. “No one approves of this.” The article never got written. The entire plan blew up in Hahn’s face. The “sprung” building was not to be sprung.

Meanwhile, tensions among church congregants and ministry leaders were rising. People began looking into Hahn’s supposed pursuit of his seminary degree.

Things came to a head at a 2004 congregational meeting. Members were unhappy about the sprung structure and about what they saw as erratic behavior by their Senior Pastor.  They were also frustrated by his failure to obtain a seminary degree. During the meeting, it came out that Chesapeake Seminary had been contacted.

Hahn had not been attending classes.

“Robert said he didn’t need seminary,” says Peter. “He said that a professor had told him, ‘you should be teaching the class, not taking it!’”

One member accused Robert Hahn of lying.

“Robert threw a typical temper tantrum,” says Peter. “He went ballistic. Screaming, yelling …”

Many got up and left the room.  

“We never saw them again,” said Peter. “These were people we were close to, who we had served with, who were in our small group.”

Robert regularly went out evenings to “classes”. But if he wasn’t actually attending classes at the seminary, how exactly was he spending his evenings?

“There was always talk of infidelity,” says Peter.  “Not just one affair. Multiple affairs. I know about one personally, because the woman involved was a close friend of mine.” 

In 2004, the men’s ministry team thought it would be good for Robert Hahn to attend a Promise Keepers event in Arizona. They bought him admission to the conference and a plane ticket.

As many readers will know, Promise Keepers is an organization dedicated to helping men become better church leaders, better fathers, and better husbands.

Robert Hahn never arrived at the conference. 

At the airport, he exchanged his ticket for a ticket to Miami. He gave the excuse that his flight to Arizona had been canceled. The church’s Elders later learned that, instead of going to Arizona to learn how to be a better husband, Robert Hahn had spent the weekend in Florida. 

Another former staff member confirmed: “There was an affair in 2004/2005. Robert was confronted and sent to counseling. When anyone asked any one of the Elders about it, they were told that the Elders had ‘taken care of it.’”  

Multiple sources confirm that the circumstances just outlined involved different women. 

After a brief reprieve during which he received counseling, Robert Hahn was allowed to continue as Senior Pastor. Members of the congregation were told nothing about their Senior Pastor’s extramarital affairs. As the Elders saw it, preserving the image of godliness and moral rectitude that Robert Hahn projected from the pulpit Sunday after Sunday was more important than pulling back the curtain to reveal the lies, the notorious temper, and the philandering. 

Exposing the truth about the Senior Pastor might have protected other vulnerable members of the congregation – especially women – who believed in the Sunday morning facade.  But it would have jeopardized the church’s ministries and, of course, congregational giving. The Elders chose to be enablers.

Michael Lea and Paul Miller were two of the Elders who served during this time period who were aware of the nature of Hahn’s relationships with these women. His philandering appears to have been an open secret – within a close circle of church leaders.  But over the years Lea and Miller have privately acknowledged to other individuals (who have in turn been sources for this post) that these affairs took place. 

To Be Continued 

It appears that Chesapeake Seminary, which Robert Hahn still lists on his LinkedIn page under “education”, is now closed.  Earlier this month the Editor called Trinity Seminary, which Robert Hahn also lists on LinkedIn under “education.” The registrar confirmed that while Robert Hahn had once enrolled at the seminary, he never completed a single class.

We repeat our request that the leadership of Chesapeake Church hire an outside investigation team to thoroughly examine the abuse and mistreatment of those who were under the authority of Robert Hahn. 

Here is one such organization:

https://www.netgrace.org/

NOTE: The editor of this blog does not nor has ever attended Chesapeake Church, though she has been deeply hurt by the actions of Robert Hahn. Those profiled in stories were interviewed but did not write these blog posts.