Thursday's
post reviewed the scandal at Sovereign
Grace Ministries (SGM) as an example of spiritual abuse. After
posting it, I found myself thinking again about my criticisms of some
of the related articles I cited by the “Rock Star” Baptist
leaders. While purporting to establish standards of conduct for
churches, they presented many of their statements in the form of
rhetorical questions which they used as talking points: “Should
we stay in our local church?” “Should we go?” “Should we
talk about why we want to leave?” Perhaps the church should
ask better questions of themselves: “Why would anyone really
want to stay here?” This question becomes especially
poignant when considering that Evangelical Christianity was
commissioned to make new disciples to faith in Jesus by sharing His
Gospel – that which is supposed to be “good news” to those who
hear it. “Why come?” “Why stay?” If people reach
out to religion to find encouragement, hope, and meaning as they
struggle with the hardships of life, why would they want to embrace a
religion that ultimately takes these things away from them?
With Dr. John Weaver's post about
nouthetic counseling waiting in this website's wings, he asks these
same questions as he pursues a noble objective: limiting the damage
done to good, earnest people by destructive ideas and practices. I
could not help but think of this again when I read a new
blog post by Brent Detwiler who commented on SGM's
decree last week. They've discerned “the truth” for the
world, noting that all charges concerning the lawsuit are
definitively false. Elsewhere online, Spiritual
Sounding Board highlighted the author's statement in particular,
such another fine example of SGM's spiritual pride and privilege:
I
am genuinely grateful to God for the clarity found in their
unequivocal pronouncement. We now know the position taken by the new
governing body of SGM. No accused leader in SGM is guilty of lying,
deception, hypocrisy, conspiracy, or abuse.
The Gospel of Church Discipline:
Reasons Not to Believe?
Some Evangelicals once popularized a
slogan that “God hates sin but loves the sinner,” to engender
discussion about the serious nature of repentance and holiness.
Those who follow doctrines of predestination to focus on God's
sovereignty will
argue that “God hates both the sin and the sinner,” if
that sinner is not part of the group of people referred to as God's
elect. Because of the unbalanced focus of their perfectionistic,
high demand churches, many young people have told me that they rarely
heard or saw anything of the loving side of God along with these
kinds of hard words. Mixing this doctrine with a lack of the love
and care for others left these young individuals with some sad
impressions and beliefs. In churches that seemed more like social
clubs for the superficial, they primarily hammered away at the
imperatives discipline and conduct above all else. All they heard
were messages about the jealousy and anger of an authoritarian God.
Something quite unfortunate resulted in
these churches and in the young people who grew up in them There are
many who became pretty certain from their own experience that God not
only hated sin, but He must surely hate pretty much everyone –
including the elect. Some believe that they had no chance at
election themselves because of how rigid and demanding the system
proved to be. Pounding away at perfection, image consciousness and
submission in the hierarchical system left many of them largely void
of knowledge of the loving kindness of God. They knew all about
Pharisee-types, but they never connected with the Good Shepherd who
was patient, tolerant of their shortcomings, and kind to them. The
rarely saw the loving, forgiving, and encouraging traits modeled for
them in the adults who created the culture within their churches that
exist for the purpose of purification.
Not Just a “Problem” with the
Millennials:
Spiritual Harlots, Juice Bars and
Skinny Jeans
For the past few decades, the subject
of the decline in church attendance has fascinated all sorts of
religious leaders. Hannah
Thomas recently commented on an article that she read at
Christianity Today's website which focused specifically on the
generation of “Millennials,” the generation that has followed
her's and mine. I've already written a great deal about this topic
from many angles: about some of this
research, the challenging
trends we see in these young adults, approaches that aim at a
family
focus as a panacea to fix the ills of church and society, and
other strategies
that reach out specifically to this generation as they figure out how
to translate the Word of God into the living epistle of their own
lives. Apparently the article's author was not very familiar with
some of the better literature and research on this subject, and they
probably never heard about the
Barna Group's resources. Instead, it “shook its finger” at
people in the “culture of critics” like Rachel
Held Evans for pointing out what I've also heard from young
people in the churches who worship the sinner-hating God: “We
don't find Jesus there.” The
article even throws in some emotional blackmail claiming that the've
taken on the characteristics of the very God that they disdain when
they criticize rock star pastors.
The article suggests that the “culture
of critique,” is a negative trait. But taking a Berean's
approach to beliefs IS a negative trait in a high demand system
– because challenging ideas and voicing criticisms are considered
to be “unofficial
sins.” Thomas' Juice
Bars and Skinny Jeans post points out the problem of most of
these types of churches: they are completely out of touch with all
members, because they said and did the same things with us in the
previous generation, too. Thomas points out also that the author
offers a short and tidy “to do list” of “shoulds” for
Millennials and critics for their “theologically false”
perspectives. How can a perception be false? A perception is what
the perceiver says that it is. Why can't the author just come out
and say what they think? The whole generation is sinful, but
“theologically false” sounds less offensive on the surface of it.
The Christianity Today article ends
with a rebuke that the author tries to hide under his attempt at a
soft coating that says to just love the church anyway, and to try
doing a little evangelism. Why on earth would you want to be
evangelistic and how can you be if you are disenchanted with a
superficial, discipline-obsessed church to which you can't relate let
alone love? If you're insulted by the church foyer juice bar as a
bone that's been thrown down to placate problems, you can wear your
skinny jeans to a juice bar down the street, and no one will “smack
you down for Jesus” there because you asked hard doctrinal
questions or criticized one of the unquestionable rock stars.
Authoritarianism Encased in a
“Culture of Silence” is the Problem
Just like the leaders in groups
affiliated with SGM and the system itself, the article also misses
the major points of contention that Millennials have with these
spiritually abusive churches. These places and big organizations and
parachurch groups exist to perpetuate their own existence, even
though they likely did not start out with that objective. They blame
the fallible members
who have always been and will always be fallible for their
fallibility, and they put the onus back on the member as the source
of all problems. Yet these groups scapegoat the very people for whom
they're called to provide and care – to protect and perpetuate the
system, not the individual.
In the upcoming article by John Weaver,
I see the very same kinds of problems of the “gospel of discipline”
with the system of nouthetic counseling. All people encounter
complex and painful problems as they traverse life, and we turn to
things like religion and the answers that religion offers to help us
overcome our problems. It is also true that some problems can't be
overcome, and it is especially in such situations that we need
religion to help us transcend those problems. We look to religion to
help us find meaning in the lives that we have, despite the suffering
– and sometimes because of it.
But what happens when systems stop
offering help to people, and their “cures” for our our problems
become far worse than the “disease” we had What if their ideas
about religion are treated as absolutes, and we are told that if we
don't fit the man-made paradigm that we are hopeless and helpless?
What do we do when we are cooperative, humble, and contrite in the
most healthy of ways, but we are too honest to settle for a “cure”
that does little but create an alternate set of problems?
What if those who proffer these systems
turn to denial when we tell them honestly that we are suffering?
What does one do when the leaders of the system are so blind or
afraid or controlling or perhaps even dishonest that they will not
even look at us when we bring our burdens to them, particularly when
they've heaped those very burdens on to us? What do we do when they
show us their complete lack of empathy and accountability? What if
they take things even further by wrongfully blaming us for
wrongdoing, scapegoating us as the problem because their closed
system of authoritarianism demands it? And what if we are told that
we're not permitted to talk about what happened to us or the problems
that we see in the system that we do love (otherwise we wouldn't say
anything but would simply walk away from it)?
We see some of these leaders asking
questions to use them as talking points to indoctrinate their
followers so that they will curtail their criticism and yield
themselves more deeply to their system of hegemony. They need to ask
themselves why any of us would want to stay or why new people would
want to join. The answer to that question is not more
authoritarianism. It's not more hierarchy. It's definitely not the
juice bar in the foyer. We crave accountability and brutal honesty, but people (leaders) must participate in mutual respect to manifest them.
That's why people are walking away from churches. Jesus' traits of honesty,
accountability, sacrifice, and mutual respect are no longer there.
More
to come soon about nouthetic counseling,
and
a guest post by Dr. John Weaver.
