:: In.a.Mirror.Dimly ::

When Should Christians Part Ways?

Yesterday I mentioned that in our family relationships we can usually figure out when we need some distance from relatives who hurt us. When we withdraw from one another for a season, our long-term goal is healing and restoration.

Sometimes we need to cut ourselves off from ongoing conflicts in order to heal and to gain some perspective that will help us sort things out in the future.

I believe that Christians, especially evangelicals may be at such a point.

In my own evangelical family, there is a lot of concern about the warring of progressive and conservative factions.

The conservatives fear the progressives aren’t committed to the Bible and are tossing aside ancient doctrines in favor of the cultural flavor of the day.

The progressives have been damaged by some of the misguided theology and practice of their conservative pasts, ask hard questions based on their study of scripture, and fear that evangelicalism will be defined by the narrow parameters of the “truly” Reformed camp. They fear that evangelicalism will lose it’s broad consensus that has historically included both Arminians and Calvinists.

Both sides wring hands, worry, and write blog posts about some looming threat or danger.

Will evangelicalism split? Will there be even more division in the church?

Lately I’ve noticed so many blog posts where Christians are worried about being condemned or judged or excommunicated by someone else. From what I can tell, the minute someone sets himself or herself over me as a judge, that person is irrelevant to me.

If the leaders of some convention, coalition, board, or generative friendship want to pass judgment on me, I really don’t care. I have a diverse group of friends, pastors, and colleagues that I trust to confront me if I step out of bounds.

If someone wants to play heresy detective by evaluating how I interpret the Bible’s teachings on salvation, hell, women in ministry, homosexuality, war, inerrancy, or politics and then issues some kind of decree that I’m out of the family, I have no trouble ignoring that person.

There are plenty of Christians out there who should be ignored.

And here’s the thing, if reading what I write upsets you, you can ignore me too. I won’t take it personally. To be honest, if college-age me met 30-something me, both of us would probably need a time out.

God can use all kinds of Christians to do a lot of great things. God could use fundamentalist me to accomplish his work, and he can use progressive me to accomplish his work. The cross and resurrection retain their power even if my answers to the Christian theology quiz have evolved.

For who I am, where I’m at, and what God is doing in me, sometimes I need to shut myself off from those who are too combative and can’t see beyond their own narrow limits for the faith. I’m sure that I exasperate others who need to do the same to me.

As I mentioned yesterday, we find in the New Testament Paul and Barnabas separating over John Mark, and even in the case of Peter and Paul, there’s an understanding that each was called to a different people group. Given the ethnic tensions found elsewhere in the New Testament between Jew and Greek and Peter’s own waffling on the Jew/Greek issue, I think it’s safe to presume they could have been agreeing to disagree.

Everyone was reconciled in the end, but they needed the perspective that only time could give.

Though I see parting ways as a last resort, there are times when I think it’s necessary. If the evangelical camp is a kind of diverse and sometimes dysfunctional family, I think we’re at a place where certain parties need to keep their distance from other parties—at least for now.

If someone says I’m not a real Christian, I’ll continue to pray with prisoners, share the Gospel daily, read scripture, and deliver food to the local soup kitchen. Whatever some conservative watchdog says, nothing really changes. I’ll continue following Jesus, regardless of what label is being stuck on me.

Faithfulness to Jesus is what matters, and that’s why we sometimes need to ignore criticism.

Christianity teaches, among other things, that God can change us and that disciples of Jesus should live different. In keeping with the teachings of the Bible, Christian leaders are held to a high standard, but what should happen when our leaders fail?

We can debate our ideals on this matter, but Pastor and author David Trotter knows what it’s like to follow Jesus, to lead a church, and to then abandon himself to a series of sins that tore apart his church, his family, and eventually himself. He writes about his experiences with powerful, raw honesty in his book Lost and Found: Finding Myself by Getting Lost in an Affair.

I won’t lie to you, this book is difficult to read. It’s hard to watch a Christian make so many destructive decisions. It killed me to watch Trotter’s wife suffer through his neglect and unfaithfulness. I hated to read about Trotter’s indulgence in an affair with his wife’s best friend. I became upset as Trotter became depressed and suicidal, eventually checking himself into a hospital for three days.

This is a book that I can’t say you’ll “enjoy.” However, David has worked hard to sharpen his writing in this self-published book. He presents more details than necessary for the purpose of his story, but the book is important because he raises issues about leaders, churches, sin, and restoration that are essential topics today.

It’s a well-written account that I found hard to put down.

David and his wife Laura are opening up their lives for the benefit of the church, and whatever your first impressions may be of their story, you’ll be a better leader or church member for having read it. I don’t mean they have all of the answers for us. I wouldn’t be surprised if some readers disagree on certain points. However, if we read David’s book we’ll be much better prepared to handle pastoral affairs with greater compassion and understanding.

The subtitle suggests that David “found himself,” but that isn’t really the point of this book. In fact, the subtitle almost turned me off to the book. Trying to find himself was the problem in the first place. He got lost because he was consumed with himself and what he wanted. What he found at the conclusion of this book wasn’t necessarily himself. He really found a core group of reliable friends, his two children, and a wife who simply defies description with her character, strength, and grasp of forgiveness.

While this is David’s story, his wife Laura outshines everyone else in the narrative.

She endured one devastation after another, and yet she was willing to work with David and to eventually take him back (something you’ll know since she wrote the afterword to the book). After taking him back she lost a number of friends who were not willing to forgive him, thereby adding to the tragedy of the story.

I don’t want to minimize David’s pain and suffering, which were severe. However, Laura’s strength to continue working and serving her children, to reconcile with David, and to even edit this book leaves me amazed.

The reconciliation of David and Laura alone makes the book worth reading.

While watching David’s painful downward spiral will alert us to the personal hell that engulfs pastors in the midst of scandals and will help us prayerfully consider ways to help them, the restoration of David and Laura’s marriage shows us that God is able to change lives, to heal, and to restore what is broken.

Whatever you think of this book, David and Laura are worthy of respect for so openly confessing and sharing their story. I can’t imagine willingly reliving such a terrible time for the sake of a book, and that alone makes this book an important source for our discussions about leadership, accountability, expectations, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

You could say that this book proves that the Gospel is true.

If we truly believe this stuff about Jesus, then we have to believe that David and Laura can be reconciled even after he ran away from her, demeaned her, and suffered a breakdown. We need to talk about the expectations we place on pastors, the power and control that pastors demand, and how we are all complicit in such scandals. However, the most important lesson from this book is one of healing and reconciliation.

Besides my qualms with the book’s title, I also noticed that David often mentioned prayer and different points of growth with God, but the details were lacking. Since David personally sent me a review copy and I’m more interested in letting him tell his story than saying “Gotcha”, I asked him to flesh that out in a blog post. His post also raises the important matters related to the ways that pastors can misuse scripture and prayer as part of the “God business.”

Super-blogger Chad Estes has another review of David’s book and an interview that gives an excellent introduction to the book and to David’s heart.

I have previously addressed pastors and affairs in the following posts:

Why Pastors Fall Into Affairs

The Dark Side of Pastors

Note to authors/readers: I don’t review many books. If you read my blog and think I may be interested, drop me a line. However, I may take a pass on it. If I do review your book, I will try to be a critical reader.

Yesterday’s post brought up a lot of great discussion in the comment section that serves God’s Kingdom and Christian unity. I’m about to wrap up a series of posts from the book of Romans, and it’s apparent in that book that in bringing salvation to all through Christ, God was also reconciling two races or people groups: Jews and Gentiles.

When we create divisions or cause offense along lines of racial or gender differences, we are in essence undoing part of Christ’s work. And if anything, this incident shows that white American male Christians are very capable of offending those of another race without it being intentional or obvious. I think the same goes for the way white American male Christians treat women sometimes.

The undetected, unintentional nature of this is enough to keep me up at night.

Let’s be honest, there will be offenses made in the future. There may be some women or ethnic minorities who are smarting right now who perhaps don’t feel comfortable bringing up their grievances because they fear they’ll be met with further insults to stop whining, criticism that they’ve chosen the wrong path to conflict resolution, or that they’re simply misrepresenting those who offended them.

We saw it in the Deadly Viper scenario, and it can and will happen again. From where I sit, I think our next step is to create dialogue channels, safe places for folks to go, and catalysts for reconciliation. We need folks in either the majority or in the minority who will commit to help others reach reconciliation with their offenders and to help offenders reach the point of repentance and forgiveness.

Catalyst is a flashy word, but I don’t believe this is flashy work. This is hard, costly work, but I think I myself and others need to commit to doing this. This means working hard toward justice in the body of Christ, while committing to listen, to hold back on judgment, and to approach others in love.

If you feel that a part of the body of Christ is offending you, I’ll do what I can to hear you out, to help you take steps forward, and to even confront someone in love with you or on your behalf. Even if our reaching out crashes and burns, at least we’re not failing alone. I have no idea where this will take us, but I encourage you today to think of how you can become a catalyst for reconciliation, how you can right your wrongs, or how you can approach those who have wronged you.

We can do this because Christ is working for this within us. We are moving in step with his Spirit in his Kingdom purpose.