ChosenRebel's Blog

I was having a conversation with two “deconstructed Christians.” Almost everything they had formerly confessed to believe on the great issues of human history (life, death, the afterlife, God, Christ, Christianity, purpose, meaning) they look on as unscientific or unhistorical, and therefore disrespect and disdain it now. On the flip side, almost everything that they disbelieved before, they now embrace with evangelistic zeal. At some point, one of them quoted a “government report.” At which point, partly in frustration, but largely as an expression of my general skepticism on life, I said:

“I don’t trust big things. I have a basic, visceral, and long-experienced distrust of big organizations. I’ve noticed that the bigger organizations get, the more self-protective and insular they become. The bigger things get, the more corrupt they get.

I don’t trust big churches, big denominations, big schools, big companies, big pharma, big business, big agri-business, big political parties, big coalitions, big political action groups, or big military industrial complexes.

It’s not that they can’t do great things. It’s just that the bigger anything gets the less accountable and  defensive and essentially, narcissistic they get over time. They forget their founding principles and live to perpetuate themselves rather than the people they say they serve.

As a result, for me, the bigger something gets, the more I slow down my process of buying in to what they announce. The bigger something is, the more you have to be careful to check the data, check the research, ask more questions about who stands to gain from this or that policy. This is exactly opposite of what “the big thing” wants you to do. They want you to accept their authority and move to the beat of their drum. I think that is dangerous.”

The conversation shifted at that point. My interlocutors toned their rhetoric down and found a modicum of respect for a religious figure (me) and the thinking process that kept me in the hold of my “religion.” A modicum I say, not much but it was a start of a more congenial conversation.

Recently, I have been hearing of a number of Christian organizations that have confirmed my skepticism of “big things.” I’ll just mention a few of them, IHOP (International House of Prayer), Acts29, ARC (Association of Related Churches), and North Park Seminary are the first ones that come to mind. All of them are facing scandals related to abuses of power. In addition, mega church pastors Mark Driscoll, James MacDonald, Bill Hybels, Gilbert Bilizikian, and apologist Ravi Zacharias also fit the profile of “big things” becoming narcissistic, unaccountable, abusive of power and privilege and, when confronted, instead of confession and repentance, circling the wagons, denying everything and then becoming defensive, even more insular and unresponsive to those who confront them.

People and organizations that become “big things” also spin out “big plans.” Big plans are another thing I don’t trust. The combination of big things and big plans makes most (with a heavy majority) big people and big organizations arrogant and dismissive of anything and anyone who is “smaller then them.” They tend to assume that big things like them and their plans, are more important, better and therefore, “worthy” of the masses that follow them. Show me in the Bible where this concept, “big is good, small is bad” is ever taught? It isn’t.

All of this is painful to write. 

• Not only because many of these organizations have done magnificent things for the Kingdom of God,

• Not only because it disappoints me (Over the years, I have quoted three of the men mentioned, and conceptually I resonate with many of these organizations having had personal conversations with three of the founders of Acts29 and mentored men at an ARC sponsored retreat on a couple of occasions),

• Not only because these men have wives and families that are shamed and hurting because of the behavior of their sons, husbands and fathers,

• Not only because the great good that their associated organizations are attempting to do is now compromised and more difficult because of the abuse of power these men and sometimes their organizations, are responsible for,

• Not only because, on a personal level, it makes my job of caring for faithful pastors, mostly nameless (because not famous) pastors, —it makes it harder because all of these tragic failures makes their job of teaching and shepherding their flocks harder.

• Not only because it invites the mockery of the unbelieving world, but first and most importantly,

• The glory of our glorious God is hidden, besmirched, and made to seem hollow by the behavior of men who claimed to have a relationship with the living God and yet lived like they were sons of the devil. 

Today, I was studying the Scripture with one of those pastors. We were in Hebrews 6:10-20. Here’s the text that caught my attention:

¹¹ And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end, ¹² so that you will not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

Two things that ought to be true of all believers but especially true of those of us who lead:

1. We ought to be diligent in the things of the Spirit.
2. We ought not to be sluggish in the things of the Spirit.

We all sin. It’s why we all need a Savior. But if we have believed in the Savior, we are supposed to be changed and changing. We are supposed to be diligent in running hard after the promises of God and never take for granted or become sluggish in our pursuit of holiness.

Pray for me and for the pastors and Christian leaders that I work with. Pray that no one in my care would ever become a scandal to the Lord Jesus Christ. And pray the same thing for me.