Online Reporter
Trevin Wax-Matters of Faith
Sickened. Furious. Fed up. That’s how I felt this summer when I came across a news story about a pastor arrested for sending nude pictures to a teenager on multiple occasions.
I probably wouldn’t have given much thought to this case, as I must confess a level of desensitisation at the alarming rate of such stories appearing these days, and because the offender doesn’t belong to my convention of churches.
But this time, the pastor exposed for exposing himself had been a visiting speaker at the Christian school my kids have attended. He had delivered a sermon the week of my daughter’s graduation. We had watched him extend an invitation and call students to come forward and get right with God, to recommit their lives to holiness. According to the police report, it was the very next day that this pastor initiated (not for the first time) a criminal interaction with a minor.
When news of the arrest arrived, we were angry and appalled. The sheer grossness of the allegations. The depths of hypocritical wickedness. The absence of any fear of God. How does a shepherd stand in the pulpit with the holy Word of God, and then prey on the flock, eyeing the “little ones” he can draw into the clutches of his own perverted power plays and sick fantasies?
Abuse reckoning
It’s been more than two decades since The Boston Globe published the results of an investigation that led to the criminal prosecutions of five Roman Catholic priests and placed the sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy in the national spotlight. Subsequent investigations and allegations revealed a pattern of sexual abuse and cover-ups in various geographical areas across the United States.
What had first appeared to be a few isolated cases of abuse became a nationwide scandal, then a global crisis, for the Roman Catholic Church.
Many evangelicals at the time (wrongly) assumed the reason that sexual abuse had become so widespread in the Catholic Church was the extrabiblical demand for priestly celibacy. Now, multiple denominations and churches (even churches that don’t affiliate with a denomination) all around the world have been racked with scandal as sexual abuse has come to light in recent years.
It’s as if the Lord has seen fit to expose the corruption at all levels and remove any reason for denominational or tribal pride. There’s hardly anywhere any of us can look for a church tradition or Christian organisation that isn’t, in some way, stained by this evil. The scandal of sexual abuse—the unbearable weight of story after story of spiritual shepherds abusing their authority and preying on sheep—has grown heavier and heavier.
Today, I sense a weariness among many church leaders when it comes to this issue. There’s less interest in litigating the adequacy or inadequacy in how church leaders and organisations have responded in the past. Even though a good number of churches and pastors are better equipped today than they were 10 years ago—stronger policies and procedures around childcare, more knowledge of how to handle allegations or suspicions, when to contact the authorities, and so on—there’s a sad sense of resignation because, at some point, one realises not every evil scenario can be prevented.
For example, in the case of the man arrested this summer—a travelling speaker from the revivalist tradition—the predatory behaviour wasn’t confined to a local church campus where certain protections might have been in place. In the digital age, with smartphones so prevalent, there are more ways for malefactors to engage in their evils.
Honour of the Lord’s name
When I come across new scandals, I often glance at the comments section. And what strikes me there isn’t the anger on display but the cynicism. The here-we-go-again response. The impression that the church is filled with hypocrites who not only don’t believe what they teach, but who use sound doctrine as a mask for their sinful schemes. The cynicism and disgust is palpable.
Who can blame people for such a response? The fallout from the egregious acts of bad shepherds is massive, casting a cloud of suspicion over good and faithful pastors too.
Part of me grows weary. Another part of me wants to weep for the victims. But I think roiling underneath all those emotions is a fierce desire to protect the name of Jesus, to see justice enacted against all who would smear his glory with their atrocities.
In Jeremiah 23, the Lord declares, “Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” (v. 1). The land itself is in mourning when the shepherds’ “power is not rightly used” and “both prophet and priest are ungodly,” the Lord says. “Even in my house I have found their evil” (vv. 10–11).
We are right to ask the Lord to expose the rot wherever it is, and to purify his church, and to restore those who have endured such abuse, and, most of all, to clear his name—to show he’s the One who said that anyone who would harm the least of these would be better off with a millstone at the bottom of the sea (Matthew 18:6).
