when power and loyalty became more important than truth

There’s a dark undercurrent in the malaise. There’s a drone that can be discerned. The end is nigh. When power and loyalty become more important than truth, the Lord is coming. (This article is so hard to write.)

I now know so many people for whom the church is a club vested in power and loyalty. Yes, I know, birds of a feather and all that. I know there are many people in the church who go through their whole entire lives happily content singing songs on Sundays, going to their small groups, having lovely afternoon teas, and are challenged regularly by the Word. That used to be many of us. We’re thankful and not just a little envious.

But when we talk about a burnout or kickout rate of pastors that’s as high as 50 percent, there’s something atrociously wrong. “Oh, those ones weren’t ‘made of the stuff’,” which properly situated highlights a narcissistic view that pastors are “special” or somehow “superior.” And when pastors who were burned out or kicked out hear that, they and their families, are abused all over again. They gave their lives to their ministries. It wasn’t Christ who expected more from them than they could give, it was the institution.

When countless thousands are sexually abused, and hundreds of thousands are spiritually abused, when churches resemble clubs, and the power is bestowed in few or one. Narcissism rises. It must because power is too much of a temptation, and loyalty wins the weak favour.

When money is the driver, and manipulation is the means, and when the faithful don’t even know. The degree of “gifting” involved in an altar call, or swooning the crowd for a “love offering”… once you’ve seen it, you cannot unsee it. Not all, but many are peddlers in the subtlest and loveliest coercion, helping the pure heart feel guilty in just the right sort of way. And then they get their relief having given many times more than they could afford, because they’re reminded about the widow and those last two mites she gave.

When abuses are forgivable, but then silences bring a mountain of contemptuous disdain. Until you’ve been there you don’t know how much worse for a survivor is the silence and lack of repentance.

When abusers garner support and use their minions to quash the empath’s sensitive spirit for the umpteenth time, and trolls patrol the fringes of “cherished” institutions.

When PTSD and C-PTSD are on the rise, and what was considered “family,” parents of which divorce their children on a whim. Oh, you “dedicated” a family member did you, into “the family,” and then burn us all the following year. How can that not create trauma? You love with the appearance of Christ’s perfect love and then behave in hateful ways. Psychologists have malevolent terms for that.

When church has utterly crucified the faith of the faithful.

When the vulnerable are gun-shy and find it tremendously difficult to know Christ through their experiences of church, let alone know his comfort, and give him their trust. Of course, the Twitter troll has an answer for that: “They never knew Jesus.” How dare you. Matthew 18:6-9 was written for people who behave like you do. 

When the captives are kept imprisoned, and when the poor have proclaimed to them a belligerent gospel, and when the blind are led by those who intentionally keep people blind, and to keep the oppressed in bondage.

When power and loyalty become more important than truth, and that’s the face of Christendom right now, that’s a “movement” that has to be crucified so Christ can truly rise again and reclaim his church.