Heidelcast 142: When Pastors Abuse

And What To Do About It

I am interrupting the series on the doctrine of God (again), I Am that I Am, to talk about a recurring problem in the church: abuse of the sheep by the shepherd. Recently Julie Roys featured audio from a public conference by one of the leading figures in the Young, Restless, and Reformed movement. We listen to this audio and talk about it. Further, recently, everyone’s favorite defender of southern slavery, plagiarist, and Federal Visionist, has released a video critiquing “servant leadership. To call this Cowboy Christianity would be an affront to the men and women ride horses, Gators, and pickups, who head out to the pasture during blizzards to check on their herds and help with calving. No, Moscow Ministry has a lot more to do with smashing flower pots and setting defenseless dry grass on fire. These two episodes, the audio and the latest cinematic masterpiece from Moscow, are opportunities to think about the true pastoral ministry and masculinity.

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5 comments

  1. Very important topic, thanks Dr. Clark. This does not get talked about enough, probably because pastors don’t teach on it because they think it doesn’t apply to them and why should they warn their flock about themselves?

    As I’ve listened to different podcasts and read articles on pastoral abuse/bullying, one thing that is often missing is a clear definition for lay people of what the signs and pastoral abuse/bullying are.

    How would you define pastoral abuse and bullying? What are some signs to help lay people? What are signs to help pastors diagnose themselves?

    For those who have experienced it (myself included), you don’t know you’re being bullied… you’re just following a passionate and godly leader and being obedient to God by submitting to your elders. It can take years for lay people to see for themselves that their pastor was domineering and putting them into boxes and ruling with an undercurrent of fear. When you think about your pastor you think of so many admirable traits and all the good that he’s done for so many people and so you don’t want to be too critical of him.

    I’ve recently come out of a non-denominational, calvinistic, baptistic elder-ruled small town church and into the PCA and it has been so refreshing to see the checks and balances within Presbyterian and Reformed polity, praise God!

  2. Chandler’s behavior is absolutely disgraceful. I suspect that if Grandpa Clark, Cowboy and wheat farmer, had been spoken to in those terms, that person would have gained a new appreciation for the sufferings and banishments of the Apostle Paul.

    Chandler thinks rules are for other people. He did not go to seminary because he did not need to. He learned all he needed in undergrad. Me, on the other hand, I graduated from an excellent business school, 3.90/4.00 in my major yet not a single small company ($5 billion cap or less — Apple was there once) would hire me to be their CEO! They wouldn’t even make me a middle manager. Even though I told them I didn’t need an MBA, they went another direction!

    Seems like corporate America has higher educational and behavioral standards than the mega-church.

    BTW, John Wayne would not have cared if somebody wrote hate mail to the studio about him. What Chandler displayed was unhinged, weakness. What does he expect from 7,ooo people? That everyone would fawn over him, all the time? Where in the world did he get an idea like that? They don’t teach that in seminary!

    • Chandler thinks rules are for other people. He did not go to seminary because he did not need to. He learned all he needed in undergrad. Me, on the other hand, I graduated from an excellent business school, 3.90/4.00 in my major yet not a single small company ($5 billion cap or less — Apple was there once) would hire me to be their CEO! They wouldn’t even make me a middle manager. Even though I told them I didn’t need an MBA, they went another direction!

      Corporate America at least demands a track record graded according to metrics. It gets a lot wrong, but there are at least metrics. Chandler and those like him try to copy corporate structures and concepts without understanding them or knowing their context.

      When you scratch the surface, the main cause of Big Men is themselves. They are on a mission for themselves and they need you for their mission. They tend to baptize their mission for themselves as a mission for “the church” or “the gospel.” Even if their mission is mostly aligned with the gospel, it takes a huge ego to do this. As Tony Alva says, “Your ego is not your amigo.”

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