The Roots of Institutional Crisis: Evangelicals and Bullies

Photo by Antonio Alcántara on Unsplash

In writing about Jerry Falwell, Jr., I said that evangelicals are in an institutional crisis, a declining confidence in the integrity of our churches, schools, and mission organizations. The scandals that afflict ministries, like Falwell’s, are only part of this story. In some ways, the scandals skew the issues we need to face. We can understand failures over money or sex more easily than the insidious abuses that rob people of sleep, make them question their standing before God, or drive them out of the faith entirely.

Consider one recent story about the internal struggles of Acts 29, the church planting organization that has continued to struggle with allegations of misused authority. In the linked article about a former Acts 29 CEO, Christianity Today uncovered “a pattern of spiritual abuse through bullying and intimidation, overbearing demands in the name of mission and discipline, rejection of critical feedback, and an expectation of unconditional loyalty.” This list doesn’t make good click-bait, but the behaviors are driving many people out of churches.

Several things strike me about the list.

For starters, I can think of numerous Christian leaders in my recent personal acquaintance who have displayed these behaviors. Sometimes I have counseled them on how to stop (with limited success). Mostly, I have been involved in the containment and clean-up after they have been forced out of their positions. The behaviors are quite common.

Still, even though I can recognize the behaviors in hindsight, they are surprisingly hard to pin down in real time. The first time you’re bullied in a meeting, you resist your own perceptions. Even when you know the behavior is wrong — yelling, accusations, or insults — you do your best to understand why the leader was “frustrated” or “threatened.” You try to resolve disputes because you’re committed to the mission — and to the leader. I have tried to reason with bullies too long on these assumptions, reluctant to think that a couple of bad meetings are evidence of bullying.

More difficult yet, some of the behaviors on the list are squishy. What is an “overbearing demand?” The strains of ministry are demanding in the best circumstances. A leader who does not call his core group to meet high demands is not doing his job. Today, it is often considered abusive to conduct any church discipline at all. In real time, how would I decide that a leader’s “demands” are “overbearing?”

The problems are real in general. But specific evidence is slippery. The staff or volunteer leader who calls out a bully too soon, before the pattern is clear to enough other stakeholders, will pay dearly. We do not have secure ways to hold leaders accountable or to guard them against slander.

How did we end up in this situation? Let me suggest three trends.

1. Church and mission organizations are increasingly run by staff. A decline in volunteers, an increase in the speed of cultural change, and pastoral impatience with congregational forms of government have combined to empower staff in decision-making. (I will write more about these trends.) The problem is, when the people closest to the pastor also work for him, it is hard for them to question him, bring him up short, or say no. And a bully will not hire the sort of staff who would do any of those things.

In a staff-run church, the pastor is the CEO. The key decision makers work for him. In a parachurch or mission organization, this problem is especially pronounced. Even a strong board of directors is only responding to information assembled by staff. In a spiritual enterprise, this is a structural problem that hides bullies.

2. Christians today have unclear expectations of what it means to be part of a church. Many come to church because they have needs, not because they are committed to a mission. They come to receive, not sacrifice. Many others decide their mission individually and then look for a church to help them accomplish it. They aren’t coming to sacrifice, but to be empowered.

Leaders are trying to get people on mission who see no reason to sacrifice. The leaders get frustrated. The people feel nagged. This situation is ripe for “overbearing demands,” both real and perceived.

3. Ministry leaders often use an authoritarian theology. Among Reformed Baptists, for example, there has been a swing from congregational governance to “elder rule.” The New Testament established the office of elder, they argue, and the authority of that office needs to be reasserted. The authority is both doctrinal and practical. Nearly every decision a church makes, in this framework, reduces to submission to the elders’ authority. All discipleship reduces to submission. All truth is decided for you. Your job is to say yes.

With an authoritarian theology for church governance, the definition of a bully is very much in doubt.

In future posts, I will argue that our institutional crisis results from the interaction of these three trends. I’ll start with the theology that supports authoritarian leadership. For the sake of the souls who have had to live under this theology — and the souls of leaders trying to make it work in real life — we urgently need to recover the way Jesus’s authority actually functions among His people.