Excerpt from my newest novel, Pushing Jesus: The Lords & Ladies of Evangelicalism
Being in such a situation became increasingly untenable, but I knew the problem was greater than what was happening at Ludlow Randolph. Pete and Acy recognized this as well. Nothing was as it seemed at nearly every ministry we served. What we saw was a disturbing trend that was occurring across America—a trend that required addressing—a pattern of darkness that needed to be exposed to the light. It was a pattern that most people don’t believe exists. If they did, they would be appalled.
In America, some people are so skeptical of religious leaders they refuse to give them a chance, choosing instead to ascribe ulterior motives to everything they do. Such people can’t seem to help themselves. Cynical by nature, they decline having faith in anything. I suppose it’s just a part of their natures to be this way. There are many people like this—those who reject the idea of believing in anything. They are the doubtful, the dubious, the distrustful, and the jaded. They refuse to be fooled; but by doing so, they also miss out on much of life’s richness, choosing instead to be cautious and suspicious, never letting down their guard about anything involving faith.
There is another type of person—those whose natures allow them to believe freely and easily, perhaps too easily. It’s why people refer to them as “believers.” Because it’s in their nature to believe, they can also be easily hoodwinked—fooled by those they come to trust, by those who claim to speak for God. Unfortunately, their open-heartedness, which is a positive character quality, can be used against them; and it often is. The world is full of such people, and I’m one of them.
Frequently, people like me choose to bury our heads in the sand, when our leaders fail to meet acceptable standards of behavior. We refuse to call a spade a spade. When we finally recognize that something is amiss, we don’t speak out. Most of the time, we don’t make a conscious decision to behave this way—not really. Instead, we just drift along, trying to make the best out of a difficult situation, without overtly admitting how destructive it has become. Always trying to think positively—trying to “look at the glass half full”—we accept behavior by our spiritual leaders we normally wouldn’t. We make excuses for them to everybody, including ourselves. We behave like a frog in a pot of water. Before we realize how hot it has become, the water is boiling.
Nefarious Christian ministries thrive on people like us because we routinely give our leaders a pass for conduct we would never tolerate in others. This is especially true when we work for them. As part of our unspoken job description, we are expected to hide the truth, to camouflage what is really happening “behind the curtain,” and to put a positive spin on questionable ethical behavior. Occasionally, we are even required to turn a blind eye to various forms of sexual deviancy.
We do this to protect the religious leader and the ministry from suffering the natural consequences of inappropriate behavior. Without thinking through the ramifications, we tell ourselves we are protecting God’s Kingdom, but this is a mistake. We are deceiving ourselves. When we operate like this, our loyalty becomes our weakness rather than our strength. Even worse, we rarely perceive reality as we should. Not wanting to hurt the work of the Lord, we maintain a stiff upper lip, while keeping our mouths shut, particularly about the sinful behavior of our leaders behind closed doors.
We act like a woman who believes it’s her responsibility to protect her alcoholic husband from facing the legitimate consequences of his drunkenness. Our behavior could also be compared to that of a longsuffering wife of a scandalized politician—a woman who stands by her spouse at a news conference, while he admits to being involved in adultery, homosexuality, or graft and corruption. By so doing, like these women, we believe we are validating the person but not the behavior. Again, this is a mistake because the problem is usually much deeper than simply acting out. Essentially, we end up enabling the fox to return to the henhouse, once minor penance has been satisfied. I know this is true. I’m not guessing.
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