22AR27-39
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AR 27:39 - Tackling the "bully" pulpit behind spiritual abuse
In this issue:
BIAS - NPR's "idiotic leap in logic" in covering religion/trans debates
SPIRITUAL ABUSE - "We must be willing. We must look. We must see."
+ "the traps that have ensnared so many of our peers"
+ "one step to becoming more aware of how to spot abusive leaders"
Apologia Report 27:39 (1,592)
November 9, 2022
BIAS
"Please, NPR, get serious - professional, even - when covering religion/trans debates" by veteran journalist Julia Duin (GetReligion, Sep 27 '22) -- citing 'Trans religious leaders say scripture should inspire inclusive congregations' by Deena Prichep, <www.n.pr/3UACOZv> she begins: "Way back when, there was a time when National Public Radio was known for accurate, decent, cutting-edge religion stories."
Wherein we find: "Something as small as signs that say 'men' and 'women' on the bathrooms in a house of worship can shut the door to trans people. "'For me as a non-binary person, I've been to so many churches where they don't have a bathroom that I feel like I can use,' says AJ Buckley, an Episcopal priest in Portland, Ore. 'And so I'll just not go to the bathroom there.' ...
"That's why Saint David of Wales Episcopal Church in Portland, where Buckley has been associate rector for the past year, has made changes like putting up signs that say anyone can use any bathroom, including pronouns on name tags and preaching to 'siblings in Christ' rather than brothers and sisters."
Duin cites a trans Lutheran theologian who asserts: "Even though Genesis One talks about binaries in the world, we know that those binaries aren't as clean cut as they are in this one piece of writing.
"It's not just man and woman, land and water.'
"So for instance," he says, "God creates the day and the night - it says nothing about dawn or dusk."
To which Duin responds in frustration: "What an idiotic leap in logic," adding: "Why does an article like this - which uncritically repeats ridiculous assertions with no opposing point of view - get past an editor, much less get on the radio?" <www.bit.ly/3foj5ws>
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SPIRITUAL ABUSE
We were surprised how few entries were returned by a database search for this topic ("using quotes") in our ARchive <www.bit.ly/3WkgGDB> even before beginning this item. Using this title, Kyle Borg (GentleReformation, Sep 22 '22) provides a thoughtful overview.
He begins with definition citing approaches by Michael Kruger, Beth Ann Baus, Darby Strickland, and Diane Langberg - and summarizes: "With little disagreement, the common threads of spiritual abuse are defined as the use of spiritual things to silence, manipulate, coerce, control, or domineer."
Borg follows with a discussion of "warnings the Bible gives." One point that stood out for us is that "parents, in the spirit of the law, are to be honorable (see Ephesians 6:4). It's also a commandment with a broad scope as it extends itself beyond the natural parent and child relationship - it really is a command that regulates many relationships in life."
His conclusion: "Spiritual abuse is real, and it happens. It doesn't know demographics or denominations. Sound theology and biblical worship, a plurality of elders or charismatic leadership, and church government with accountability doesn't fool-proof any church from its possibility and presence. We must be willing. We must look. We must see." <www.bit.ly/3Doisv4>
Tim Challies' popular blog recently featured "When Church Leadership Goes Wrong" (Sep 23 '22), a review <www.bit.ly/3TR2ssk> that highly recommends Powerful Leaders?: When Church Leadership Goes Wrong and How to Prevent It, by Marcus Honeysett. <www.bit.ly/3zwURqZ>
Challies begins: "Powerful Leaders? is a book about what happens when Christian leadership goes wrong. 'Today's culture has become deeply sensitive to issues of power imbalance, misuse of authority and manipulation,' says Marcus Honeysett, and this puts an increased onus on faithful Christian leaders to ensure they are leading well - and to ensure they are avoiding the snares that seem to have entrapped so many others. 'My aim is modest,' he says. 'I hope to sketch a map of the slippery slope of power - the path that runs from good intentions, via lack of accountability and transparency, down into manipulation and self-serving, all the way to the most serious abuses - and put up some 'turn back' signs.' In other words, he wants to help leaders identify some of the points at which they may prove to go terribly wrong and to turn them back before it's too late." (Honeysett, founding director, Living Leadership <www.bit.ly/3NRpIEp> calls this the book's "modest aim.")
Challies shares Honeysett's conviction "that the majority of leaders who eventually go wrong set out with good desires and noble motives." This includes those who have "behaved in abusive ways without knowing they were doing so. ...
"Anyone should humbly consider whether he may be falling for some common traps. And that is exactly what this book is all about.
"In part one of Powerful Leaders?, Honeysett provides some biblical patterns of healthy leadership, emphasizing that truly Christian leadership [combines] a healthy kind of authority that is concerned more for discipleship than for coercion, more for the good of the ones being led than the pride or enrichment of the one who is leading.
"In part two he covers the slippery slope that so commonly causes leaders to become manipulative or abusive. ...
"The third and final part asks and answers the 'what next?' question for victims and survivors, for whistle-blowers, for leaders, for churches, and for cultures and tribes. ...
"Any good leader should have the self-awareness to know that he is not above the traps that have ensnared so many of his peers." This book will help you "think about biblical, spiritual leadership through the lens of Christ-like servanthood." <www.bit.ly/3zwURqZ>
After finishing this entry, we checked the ARchive for "abuse" as a search term all by itself: Up from 5 to 155. (Anyone doubt that this <www.bit.ly/3sNc4Zk> likely reveals interesting related complexities?)
Follow the link in our first item above and you'll also find that Michael J. Kruger's impressive new work <www.bit.ly/3zwqaCf> was only discussed briefly. It turns out that as a lead up to publishing Bully Pulpit: Confronting the Problem of Spiritual Abuse in the Church, he created "a new blog series <www.bit.ly/3Np5lyf> entitled, '5 Misconceptions about Spiritual Abuse.'" In his research "it became quite evident that people have a lot of misunderstandings of spiritual abuse, how it manifests itself in the church, and how it should be addressed. ...
"The last decade has not only seen a rise in cases of spiritual abuse - Mark Driscoll, Steve Timmis, James MacDonald to name a few - but it seems we are hearing about more and more cases, including those of sexual abuse. Beyond the high-profile cases of Ravi Zacharias and Bill Hybels, we have the 6-part <www.bit.ly/3gYgLwN> Houston Chronicle series, and now the newly released <www.bit.ly/3sNzGgw> SBC report, showing the problem is much more extensive than anyone even knew." (Much more to come on Francis Collins at the CDC <www.bit.ly/3Ub6oUD> as well.)
"I was so encouraged by those in the SBC who chose to waive attorney-client privilege and move toward full disclosure and full repentance.
"But, strangely, there's also been another reaction afoot. Rather than a move towards repentance, others have moved towards a posture of defensiveness." - which he discusses for the remainder of the post.
Next we come to "the #2 misconception in the series: 'Spiritual abuse is only a problem in independent churches that have no established church polity.' ...
"1. Spiritual abuse crosses denominational and theological boundaries.
"While there are no hard statistics on spiritual abuse, I saw no correlation between denominational polity and spiritual abuse. ...
"2. Sometimes systems of polity are used to protect the abusive leader" (This reminds us of the related trouble that the Jehovah's Witnesses have had. <www.bit.ly/3NlO5d2> It yields 40 hits in our ARchive all on its own.)
Kruger continues: "This is precisely what happened in the case of Mark Driscoll. ...
"3. Church polity functions best when leaders are educated and informed about spiritual abuse ...
"One of the lessons we've all learned over the last few years is that most organizations are not so good at investigating themselves or their leaders (just consider the cases of Ravi Zacharias and Bill Hybels). ...
"My prayer is that elder boards and denominational bodies would use the book as perhaps one step to becoming more aware of how to spot abusive leaders." <www.bit.ly/3Dpf9DQ>
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