Two Things Can Be True for Church LeadersOn loving our leaders and holding them accountable to a higher standard
I entered Biblical Theological Seminary in 2002 because I could think of nothing better to do with my life than serve God. This was because I had been mentored by two men at my church, Fellowship Baptist Church (now Fellowship Community Church). One had been a kind of big brother/father figure, and one was my pastor. I’m not the only person who was mentored and guided through their chaotic teen years by my pastor. It’s also safe to say that I would not have started Bible study or preaching with so much passion without his support and guidance. A lot of people have taken positive steps in ministry due to his influence. I know I’m not the only one who has been overflowing with gratitude for his ministry. When my teen years were tumultuous and challenging, Fellowship Baptist Church was a safe haven for me. When small groups rotated turns setting up the old gym for Sunday services, I’d walk over to help out because I wanted to be there if the doors were open. I doubt that I carried, stacked, or set up the most chairs at my church, but that wasn’t from lack of effort. I can’t overstate how much that church and its pastor have meant to me, even if I have taken a different path in the Episcopal church as an adult. This week, I learned that this same pastor has been accused by some of his daughters of multiple forms of abuse. It was devastating to learn but also not a complete surprise because our church was a high-control patriarchy with purity culture and Gothardism baked into everything. We shouldn’t be shocked by this situation because of the ways patriarchy and purity culture create the ideal conditions for abuse where men hold all of the power and women are taught to submit and be ashamed of their sexuality. It also isn’t shocking after seeing the secret lives of so many prominent pastors in other churches exposed. It’s devastating for sure, but it’s believable. Of course, we don’t know exactly what happened. That is something we must decide based on the testimonies of those involved. Yet, this must be taken seriously and investigated thoroughly. Calling off an investigation because a potential witness was fearful at one point is no excuse for dropping this serious matter. Processing Our ReactionsI have some experience with pastoral misconduct in a far less serious situation. As the lay leader responsible for addressing it, I had to confront the pastor and report it to other leaders. It was hard for them to believe because most Christians want to think the best about each other. They needed time to process the situation and come to their own conclusions. It was hard to see many people not believe me at first. Over time, almost everyone came around and saw the same misconduct. I’m sure many at my former church are feeling a more severe form of whiplash. It’s hard to believe, and it should be. However, that desire to believe the best about a pastor needs to also be extended to the victims.
I think the world of my former pastor, yet I cannot imagine anyone enduring so much for the sake of a made-up story. Don’t forget about the fear and uncertainty that any young woman would feel after growing up in a patriarchal, hierarchical religious community. That’s not a controversial thing to say—it’s just a fact, and facts are stubborn things. My Unusual BackgroundOne unusual perspective I bring to this situation is that I have worked as an editor for a book by a woman who endured terrible verbal abuse and manipulative control by her partner. I have also worked on two memoirs by fallen pastors who have since been restored and wanted to pull the curtain back. The thing about the victims of abuse is this: they want to be free, but it can be hard for them to imagine what freedom would look like or to step out in confidence after being attacked and controlled for so long. It’s like being stuck in a dark cave and not knowing whether you could even find your way in the blinding light of day. Victims of abuse in a religious setting by a beloved figure rightly fear being vilified and ostracized by their community. Religious leaders trying to address the difficulty of the situation write seemingly wise statements filled with Bible verses about trials, challenges, and (God help us) attacks that clearly identify the victim as the source of the trial, challenge, and attack. It’s as if they’re saying, “If only that victim had remained silent!” We all know that their lives would be easier without having to confront a beloved pastor or care for a victim who has no power, influence, or benefit to offer them. These leaders may not be actively making such calculations in their minds, but the power and influence imbalance has to be identified here. It’s real, and ignoring it means we are taking this situation as seriously as children playing dress-up church in a playroom Regardless of anyone’s intentions, real harm is done by religious leaders who center the suffering of the beloved leader rather than the victim. We would be fools to overlook the plight of victims who must weigh how much more suffering they can endure by the church if they take their accusations public. In addition, having worked on books with two pastors who lived double lives and wanted to reveal their mindsets in the aftermath, both pastors were extremely talented, high-capacity, charismatic men. It seemed they could do anything, and they were talented enough to do everything and then even more by living secret, double lives. They found great power and exhilaration while living a double life, saying one thing in public and then doing something quite different in private. What an average person would find intolerable, they took up as a kind of challenge that only solidified how special and talented they were. It was stressful, but it was also a rush. I won’t say that applies here or applies to every pastor who lives a double life. Rather, getting into the mindset of these two men at least helps me imagine what is possible from men who appear godly but abuse their power in high-control, hierarchical churches. I don’t know for certain what happened or why it happened at my former church. I do know that it is very possible because it seems to happen all of the time with church leaders who otherwise seem like models of Christian virtue. For the people who know this pastor personally and are unaware of wider trends in the church, such scandalous accusations feel like they are coming out of nowhere and appear too extreme to be true. For anyone who has spent 5-10 minutes searching for pastoral scandals and the failures of church leaders to care for victims, this situation is following a well-worn and tired script of power, control, deception, and victim-blaming. Yes, it’s true that this situation hits hard in unique ways for many of us because of our personal connections to the people involved, but it’s also true that this is far from a unique situation. Big Questions about Our FaithI wonder if one of the hardest but unspoken things for individuals to stomach about this situation is the uncertainty it creates about their own faith. If you saw a pastor model Christian faithfulness and you imitated him, what happens when you learn he may be a fraud? I gained so much from my former pastor, but what should I make of it if he was engaged in the behavior his daughters describe? I can’t reconcile that exactly. There may be things to examine, but two things can be true: a man could preach a true message while betraying it in his private life. A man could teach the truth of scripture while living a lie. This is certainly not how it’s supposed to be, but if our faith rests in the work of Jesus and the truth of scripture, then one man’s bad deeds and lies don’t undermine generations of faithfulness. It may feel like everything was a lie, but our faith does not rise and fall on the messenger. Our faith stands on the message. More True ThingsThe thing I fear the most in a situation like this is the creation of different sides: the pro-victim vs. the pro-pastor side. I would hope we can work toward truth for both sides, as well as working for the best of the church in question. However, working for the “best” does not mean working for what’s easy or comfortable, and that is where we end up dividing into different sides due to our irreconcilable objectives. Facing the statements of the victims is hard and uncomfortable, and I’m not certain the leadership of the church has done that adequately yet. At least the victims feel ignored, which is something for the church leadership to address. I don’t know what the best or most appropriate actions should be in a situation like this, but the details in the police report shared on the Daughters of Fellowship site are among some of the worst accusations a church can face. These aren’t things to dismiss on legal technicalities or to ignore because one man’s word is more valuable than the words of several young women. The hard things this situation demands may include:
I love my former church, and I still want what’s best for it, but that doesn’t mean wanting what’s easy. That means loving the people there and still asking them to do the hard things in an extremely difficult situation. I know that my seminary training never prepared me for situations like this, and I would doubt that most pastors have been prepared for anything like this. I also love my former pastor, but that love means I hope and pray he will face whatever he has done in his past and come clean. I don’t know how the events of the past line up with the accusations against him, but these are the kinds of accusations that cannot be explained away by remembering something differently. Something isn’t right here, and the pain described in detail on the Daughters of Fellowship Substack has to be accounted for. My love for my former church and former pastor mean that I’m seeing this situation beyond the pain that needs to be addressed and resolved in the present moment. I’m also looking ahead to the message this church is sending to its members and future members. These are the types of questions likely already being asked that needed to be resolved yesterday:
I could go on. I bring those up not as “gotcha” attacks. These are the tough love questions that any church would face in this type of situation. These were the types of questions I asked myself when I confronted a pastor over less serious misconduct at my current church. They’re the types of questions I would ask of a former church I love that had been a safe haven for me, even if it has been a burden for those closest to it. Two things can be true. A leader can bless many, while afflicting others. A person can love a church community and also ask its leadership to do hard things. You can take an accusation from a victim seriously, while finding it hard to process and needing time to make sense of your experience. We can love a former church and pastor while asking them to do the hard things they may not want to do. You're currently a free subscriber to Ed Cyzewski :: Author // Contemplative // Maker. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.
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