Another church scandal

I was so busy this past week that I failed to notice the flap over Ted Haggard until it was already a day or two old. Of course the timing of the revelation is political. The gay male prostitute who came forward admits as much.

In catching up on the details of the scandal I came across a post on Patrick's blog, Born Again Redneck in which he quoted and linked to a post by Ben Witherington:

Before we ask-- has the world gone mad, it might be good to reflect for a minute on the leadership climate in the rarified air of big time Evangelical mega-churches. of course it will vary from church to church, but there are a few things in common with most of these churches which needs to be rethought:

1) most of these large churches are not part of denominations which have a connectional enough system to hold the individual church leadership accountable through peer leaders in other churches. By this I mean there is little outside accountability. There are no covenant relationships with other church leaders, no covenant relationships with other churches, the leadership structure is entirely controlled INTERNALLY between influential lay persons and the ministers. There is normally an overseeing board of some sort. But how do they work? Are they rubber stamps? Do they contain professional counselors and ministers to whom a minister in crisis could turn? Usually not. And sometimes there is only a once a year "accountability moment". For example there is a large mega-church in California which does accountability this way--- the pastor gives the congregation in an open meeting the chance for an up or down vote on his ministry once a year. So far as I can tell this is not done by secret ballot, just by a public acclamation or vote. What's wrong with this picture? If something objectionable shows up in the ministry plans etc. during the year and the time for the accountability moment is not near, then there is no accountability. It is handled internally.

One thing that I could have predicted before this all began is that a scandal of this type would lead to finger pointing by everyone with a theological ax to grind. Mr. Witherington makes the point that a "mega-church" lacks accountability at the highest levels. This is true, but before we go into the details let's stop and define exactly what a "mega-church" is.

A mega-church, as Witherington is using the term, is a large independent church. That is, a church which does not belong to a larger denominational organization such as the Southern Baptist Conference or the United Methodists. Often the "mega-church" will have a senior pastor who has some degree of fame outside of his congregation as an author and/or as host of a radio or TV show. Usually the church will have grown to such a large size because of the "star power" of the minister.

Now, back to Mr. Witherington's point. Yes the mega-church lacks the kind of external accountability to an outside hierarchy which a church belonging to a larger denominational structure has. However to balance that it should be pointed out that the independent church (mega or micro) is not subject to corrupting influences from a denominational hierarchy which has been infected with apostasy.

There is not a denomination in Protestant Christendom which has not already compromised or is not under extreme pressure at the highest levels to compromise important doctrines or practices. In my own denomination, The Church of the Brethren, we have seen our own seminary fall under the control of the forces of theological liberalism to the degree that my own local church (and many of the Brethren congregations in the Southeast) will not allow any of the money we send up to the District and National organizations to be used to support it and we will not consider a graduate of it for a pastoral post at our church. At least now someone who graduated in the past couple of decades.

The same thing can be said of Mr. Witherington's Presbyterian Church which has been ordaining women pastors for years and defeats efforts to begin ordaining homosexuals by smaller and smaller margins every year. In fact I am reminded of a story told by R. C. Sproul, the great Presbyterian theologian, about his experience at a Presbyterian seminary. When he came home for the first time and told his family and friends about the professors who denied predictive prophecy, miracles, the deity of Christ, the resurrection and Second Coming everyone refused to believe him. They said that all of those professors were ordained ministers and could never teach such things. Sproul said that he wanted to grab them and shake them and yell in their faces, "who do you think murdered Jesus?".

It has been more than 30 years since Sproul was in seminary. If it was that bad then how bad do you think it is now?

Other denominations are even further gone. An author reported going into a large Methodist book store in a large city about 20 years ago and finding it full of books teaching the transmigration of souls and other New Age/Hindu beliefs. When she pointed this out to the elderly lady behind the counter the response was, "yes it's terrible, but that's all the young pastors what nowadays".

My point is not to attack Presbyterians or Methodists. There are many churches in both denominatins which are good rock-solid, Biblical churches. But their numbers are shrinking due in part to the influence which is trickling down from the top.

Because human beings are fallen sinners there is no way in which we can organize our churches which will guarantee that things like this will not happen. Independent or denominational. Episcopal or Congregational. Dispensational, Covenant or Charismatic. All are made up of sinful men and women and all will find their own way to fail.

When this kind of thing happens the task before us not to use an event like this as a club to beat other Christians for not being exactly like ourselves. It is, rather, to emulate the Amish who recently went out of their way to include the family of the man who had murdered some of their children in their grieving.

As Christians our priority should be offering aid and comfort to Mr. Haggard's family and congregation who have been grieved by these events and bringing about the restoration of Mr. Haggard's shattered relationship with God which is the only way to bring healing to his soul.