In Review
Forgiveness and
reconciliation differ from one another, a topic addressed in this
previous
post. Both forgiveness and repentance involve grieving, and both
take time. Fast forgiveness can actually work against healing and
restoration through denial,
just as much as bitterness
can.
Sometimes we come to an
impasse with others because of safety or disagreement that we
can't resolve, and the wisest choice for both parties involves
separation. This can be accomplished
peacefully in the same manner by which Paul and Barnabus parted.
They could not agree and made different choices, but they affirmed
one another in a spirit of respect before they went their separate
ways. When we cannot reconcile with someone or cannot even negotiate
what looks like forgiveness, we can look to God in faith to provide
for us that which those who have offended us either cannot or will
not provide to restore us. We can release our offenders to God to be
both just and compassionate with them, but that can and sometimes
wisely should mean separation.
Christians can expect to
experience some degree of conflict with one another. Given the
number of admonishments to love, respect, and care for one another in
Scripture, I think that it attests that conflicts do arise. We
sharpen one another in the same way that iron
sharpens iron, and we are admonished to deal with that conflict.
Conflict itself is not sinful, neither does it necessarily result
from sin.
How Abusers Merge Forgiveness with
Reconciliation to Manipulate
Peacemaker
Ministries (PM), a Christian mediation organization founded by
attorney and engineer Ken Sande, purports to help Christians resolve
disagreements by keeping them out of the civil courts. This system
and organization also makes many of the same assumptions that the
Shepherding Discipleship Movement and men like Bill Gothard do about
conflict. In keeping with Shepherding dogma, they even recommend the
signing of covenants for church members and will provide churches
with one if they do not have a covenant of their own (pdf
download). Both systems suppress criticism and conflict through
the God-required duty of relinquishing rights to an authority.
The following is an excerpt from an
article that I wrote for the Wartburg Watch concerning the dangers
and problems of improperly merging forgiveness with reconciliation,
ensuring the merge by using using spiritually abusive techniques that
have been borrowed from the Shepherding Discipleship Movement's
hidden
curriculum.
Along with a review of the differences
between justification and sanctification, this material also explains
how the authoritarian focused mindset that depends so heavily upon
hierarchy can be exploited by “Christian mediation” programs. Caveat emptor.
The Following Excerpted/Adapted from
(written by C. Kunsman, August 2011 for The
Wartburg Watch)
Redefinition of the term
“forgiveness”
 |
| Thank you, David Hayward! |
Reconciliation is a different word
altogether, katallagē.
This is also a term used to describe financial transactions, and it
is very different from forgiving a debt. Reconciliation is a
reckoning that the parties make, essentially wiping away the history
of the debt. You start new books.
Consider that you go to market and pay
$1 for a pound of meal. You get home, and you realize that
you’ve only been given half of a pound. It is your right to go back to that vendor and demand that they either give you half a buck back or give you a half pound of meal. When you forgive that debt, you agree to not demand anything of that vendor. You just let it go.
you’ve only been given half of a pound. It is your right to go back to that vendor and demand that they either give you half a buck back or give you a half pound of meal. When you forgive that debt, you agree to not demand anything of that vendor. You just let it go.
When you go back to the vendor again,
what happens if they repeat this error and fail to take
responsibility for their error? You may again decide that you will
forgive the vendor, releasing your right to go back to demand
justice. But consider that when you need more meal, are you going to
go back to this same vendor to do business, or are you going to take
your business somewhere else?
If you were wronged and decided to
reconcile with this vendor (above and beyond forgiveness of debt),
that is a decision to forget that any wrong was ever done, and you
affirm them as a legitimate party who has done right by you. You
agree contractually to go do business with them, behaving as though
they’d never cheated you before.
Paul did not declare the Gospel of
Forgiveness to us in 2 Corinthians 5. He declared the Gospel of
Reconciliation to us, a far more powerful act. Forgiveness means that
we don’t have to pay the debt we owe. Reconciliation means that
Jesus pays our debt and declares us righteous before God, and then He
goes to prison for us, too. We get His righteousness and He gets our
sin, and then by the power of His Blood, He wipes those sins off the
books. That is far more than just forgiving a debt but is atonement,
expiation, and a complete extinguishing of the wrong. The Father looks at us and sees the Blood of Jesus and declares us in right standing with Him, though we are guilty and though Christ paid the penalty.
God requires us to forgive our enemies,
but He does not require us to reconcile if there is no repentance,
contrition, or trust.
Peacemaker Ministries' Merging
Forgiveness with Reconciliation
PM
redefines forgiveness and merges it with reconciliation,
describing “forgiveness as a decision to make
four promises”:
1. I will not dwell
on this incident.
2. I will not bring up this incident again and use it against you.
3. I will not talk to others about this incident.
4. I will not let this incident stand between us or hinder our personal relationship.
2. I will not bring up this incident again and use it against you.
3. I will not talk to others about this incident.
4. I will not let this incident stand between us or hinder our personal relationship.
I have no problem with points 1 and 2
if forgiveness has occurred. I do have a problem with points 3 &
4 which define reconciliation and are not required for forgiveness.
If your child was molested, you can
forgive the offender, but is it right to never talk about the
incident with others or to be required to have intimate contact or
unhindered contact with the offender? Sometimes peace is maintained
by avoidance, a measure that resists the development of strife.
Should your child be forbidden to work through the long lasting and
profound effects that the incident created for them and for their
safety and also be forced to spend time with the offender? That’s
appropriate? It is if you’ve been following shepherding and were
raised to believe that this is proper conduct and what the Bible
demands of a Christian.
Promotion of an Inequitable Balance
of Power
In the event of a conflict between
church leaders and a 'rank and file' parishioner, the previously
stated concern over the church's interest in “reducing
exposure to legal liability” suggests and predicates an
inequitable balance of power. The parishioner has already
agreed to relinquish some rights and privileges which might
allow them legal recourse in the event of legitimate mistreatment.
More specifically, parishioners are
required to sign a commitment to church discipline and submission to church leadership in their Covenant when they join and again when they agree to use the conflict resolution services of PM. In an ideal situation when leadership is well qualified and legitimate, this system should work well. But not all situations are ideal, particularly the volatile ones. What if your leader is corrupt or has repeatedly refused to deal with your situation appropriately? What if they are lacking in true moral character and the PM mediator does not recognize your concerns?
With the added weight of the
requirement to commit to PM's system when using their services in a
conflict, the preference for leadership automatically creates an
inequitable balance of power which favors leadership. If a pastor or
a favored member of a congregation abuses a member, the leader
already holds an upper hand over that member. It is quite easy,
without any kind of formal commitment on their behalf, for the
leadership to exploit their position to get what they want and to
cover their errors. How more powerful do they become if the member is
also asked to sign a formal commitment which guarantees their
submission to their church authority? Does that balance power to
provide the opportunity for the member to find justice or does it
stack the power against them? Does not the benefit of the doubt
formally fall to the church leadership?
Commitment to Accept PM's Paradigm,
Principles, and Decisions
Complexity of the Paradigm. It is
certainly important to commit to resolve conflict amicably,
especially among Christians who are in disagreement; however, just a
cursory review of the myriad of documents and statements and
principles on the PM website alone is quite overwhelming. Imagine the
burden of a layperson who must review such information while under
the duress resulting from a personal conflict with your church. The
purpose of the group involves resolution of conflict to avoid legal
recourse but with legal recourse as a tool that the mediators take
into consideration from the beginning of their intervention. Given
all of the documents and books and other materials, should a
layperson employ their own attorney to help them?
Control of Milieu and
Criticism. One of the foundational principles of
the PM model that can be found in “The
Four Promises of Forgiveness” states that those involved in
PM intervention will never talk to others about the incident. The
paradigm deems discussion of such matters to be gossip and against
Christian principle when discussion of certain matters may be highly
appropriate.
I know a pastor who became so angry at
a church member that he picked up a metal chair and hurled it at her
(about 5 feet to the side of her), with such force that it broke the
chair and damaged the drywall. If your child was molested by a
teenager who often works for many families in your congregation as a
babysitter, should that matter not be discussed among those others
who place their children in the care of this teen? Under such
circumstances involving a lack of character which disqualifies a
church leader from their position or a situation that threatens the
safety of lambs, should such matters really be kept private? Should
church members be sworn to silence regarding these types of events?
Option to Declare Others Unbelievers
to have the Option to Sue
Despite the safeguards of principles
and commitments and covenants, the PM paradigm does not also require
a blanket commitment to the principle of 1 Corinthians 6 which
requires Christians to handle their disagreements outside of civil
court. In the book The
Peacemaker by Ken Sande, Appendix D lists several conditions
that Sande believes satisfy a Christian's right to take another
Christian to court.
This tactic is well known within Reformed homeschooling circles as a means of keeping controversy quiet and threatening others into compliance through not only legal threats but through archaic and legalistic ecclesial court procedures wherein individuals are deemed nonbelievers and discharged from their churches. [If you're stooping to such means, what does this have to do with forgiveness or reconciliation?]
How simple would it be for someone in
leadership at a church use their influence to declare a problematic
member a nonbeliever? Is it not ironic that in the early process of
negotiations, parties must commit to certain rigid principles and
standards of conduct, but in the end, parties are also afforded the
option to abandon the proceedings? I've known of several incidences
where manipulators used the PM process to not only silence critics,
but to also play out the statute of limitations so that it became
impossible to pursue legal action anyway.
Please also note that the requirement
to seek the advisors within the one's church to gain permission ecclesiocentricity
(priestcraft). Is it necessary for a church member to submit such
decisions to church leaders to deem an action “worth pursuing”
for permission to follow a course of action? In that case, are these
church leaders advisors, or are they paternalistic overseers?
to pursue legal action found in Sande's book suggests a Shepherding Discipleship style model of
to pursue legal action found in Sande's book suggests a Shepherding Discipleship style model of
Summary
Peacemaker Ministries follows a model
which requires that all who participate to surrender to what is much
like what Robert Lifton described as the Sacred Science: no leader
can ever be wrong, and neither can their application of a leader's
doctrine because PM's model prefers
leadership as an a priori consideration. The group also demands
perfection
and purity from participants, and a willingness to assume blame,
even if there may be no
blame to assume. As Kris of Sovereign Grace Ministries (SGM)
Survivors pointed out in her open
letter to Ken Sande, SGM has historically favored the
manipulative practices that were and are common within the
Shepherding/Discipleship
Movement and their overt focus on submission
doctrine, factors which the PM principles seem to magnify. Any
problem suffered by a church member is assumed to be ultimately
created by that church member who must bear the stigma of failure and
sin, usually through some lack of submission or failed compliance
with unwritten and unofficial cultural demands and expectations. The
initial commitments required PM puts a heaver weight of value on the
virtuous and lofty end of the global mission of the local church
which seems to bear more weight than the needs of any one individual.
One must also understand the
shame-based culture of SGM. The principles of PM may work within a
healthy church that does not capitalize on shame and does not use
heavy-handed means to control communication within the group. One
must understand the connotation and the loaded language which creates
informal double messages and moral imperatives for those who are
members.
- “Don’t spread discord among the brethren.” (Understood: You’re never allowed to voice legitimate complaints or problems, even if people are grievously sinning and harming one another.)
- “Touch not mine anointed ('ministers'), anddo my prophets no harm.” (Understood: It is a sin to criticize any minister or voice anything remotely problematic concerning them.)
- “The gifts andcallings of God are irrevocable.” (Understood: Your anointed leaders and apostles have a higher connection with God and gifts to minister that are permanent and are not dependent on their Christian behavior, so it is sinful to do anything which might cause a minster or apostle to be removed from their position.)
Rise to the challenge and compare the
practices of both SGM and PM to David
Henke's model of Spiritual Abuse. Decide for yourself whether
the paradigms employed by both groups correspond to the
characteristics of spiritually abusive systems and the behaviors of
their leadership.
- Authoritarian: Over-emphasis on authority, submission, and chain of command and anointed leaders assume the right to command members because of their special identity and their relationship with God
- Image Conscious: Appearances validate members' and the group's specialness to God which creates a sense of elitism within the group
- Suppresses Criticism: Questioning doctrine and leadership are forbidden and punished
- Perfectionistic: Performance and conformity to group expectations and norms is rewarded while noncompliance is punished
- Unbalanced: Group majors on minor doctrines, displacing central and core Christian beliefs which become secondary to the pet doctrines and interests of the group
~~~
More posts to follow concerning
forgiving the Church, God, and ourselves.
