We are in a time of the publication terrible reports of abuse by church leadership, sexual abuse and other forms of leadership abuse: manipulation, domineering leadership, intimidation, control by anger etc. Of course, sexual abuse is at the top of the list in abuse in our day.
It is a good thing to see processes whereby abusers are brought to the bar and that discipline is enforced. However, many churches and ministries have no means for the pursuit of justice/discipline against abuse. However, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. I will address the structures that are needed to pursue justice. I first want to speak to the ounce of prevention.
The New Covenant Scriptures give us our first prevention measure. In I Timothy 3 and Titus 1 we read of the standards for elders or overseers in the Body of the Messiah. It is of first importance that those being mentored for leadership prove that they have a happy marriage. Then that the children seem happy, secure, loved and obedient if there are children. One of my mentors some 45 years ago would say, I do not trust the husband alone to answer the question of the marriage and family. I ask the wife, “Do you love being married to this man?” Those who are raising leaders need to know the inside of the marriage and family, spend informal time with them. All of the other criteria of these passages are important: self-controlled, of good reputation, holding the teachings of our faith in solid commitment and clarity and of good reputation. However, note how this does not fit many independent churches. They are planted by someone wildly talented, an organization builder and an entertaining speaker, but often a person who is relationally challenged on a personal level and not able to attain real intimacy in marriage and friendships. I Tim. 3 and Titus 1 assume some system of vetting, in Timothy and Titus an apostolic person vets. Denominations often had such systems of vetting, but our independent churches often do not.
A healthy leader leads with a team, a plurality of leaders that have to come to unity together. It is requires coming to consensus. Of course, this was the way of doing things in the denomination in which I grew up. Plural leaders in covenant love relationships are a great preventative of abuse.
However, what about when a leader falls into sin? This leads us to the issue of structure. Usually, a local board of elders needs outside help to deal with a major fall into sin. Local elders can handle mutual correction for normal level failings. But serous sin? Not usually. Especially if there is a head leader. Every congregation and ministry should have a court of appeal in place to handle major sin issues. In addition, for sexual abuse, there needs to be an advocate system in place where women can hear the accuser and help her walk through the process of confronting the abuser and seeing that the sin is dealt with. Of course, for the abused, there must be an offer of helping pay for sexual abuse trauma healing.
Sadly, without these structures and protocols in place, people expose their accusations on social media. Then the accused does not have due process. But maybe no due process is offered. Then what? Does the accused respond on social media and have a trial by social media with the pubic as judge? Some say the great majority of such accusations are true. But even if there is a minor precent not true, only due process for all protects that minority. Think of Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh, certainly innocent. Think of the Duke Lacrosse players. If you don’t remember, do look it up on your search engine. We have to offer true justice processes to make the terrible social media pursuit unnecessary. There are other examples of revenge and false accusation. Think of the patriarch Joseph in the Bible. Social media accusations become a frenzy and sometimes ruins the reputation of the innocent.
In the wonderful book, The Other Half of Church, by Jim Wilder and Michael Hendricks, they note that much abuse comes through narcissistic talented leaders. How this is prevented is a great study, worthy of the pursuit in by all. But you can see by this why I do not believe in independent congregations but congregations in denominations and networks with courts of appeal.
We have sought to practice this for all 53 years of our ministry. In our congregations in our associations and networks these problems are very rare. We know of other healthy network where they just do not have problems of abuse.