As I was listening to The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill Podcast, I was floored by the truth behind what Christian counselor and psychologist for 47 years, Dr. Diane Langberg PH.D. said during Episode 2 (@23:22 min):
“When abuse is done by a pastor who has a position of power in the church, and part of that power is to tell people who God is and what He’s like, when those skills and that position and everything are used to sanction what is in God’s eyes is evil, whether it is the sexual abuses of someone in the church, whether it’s the way he (the pastor) treats people with his mouth and his arrogance and things like that, it becomes spiritual abuse the way all abuse is, but then it also means that God has been dragged into it and He (God) is on the side of the abuser. And I, after all these years, (and I’m a word person) I do not have words for the kind of damage that that does to a soul.”
Just last night at our Wednesday night Bible study of the book of Philippians, we were discussing chapter two where Paul said in Vs. 3-4
“Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.”
Then Paul gives that great Christological passage vss. 5-11 as the example of the mindset of the believer. Christ went down, down, down, down, all the way to the death of the cross. If this is to be the attitude, the mind-set to be lived out by all believers, how much more should it be exampled in the church’s leadership. Within our discussion, a generalization was expressed that many pastors seem to be set on building up their own little kingdom, instead of serving their flock. That is the exact opposite of esteeming others better than ourselves.
When that happens, when the driving force for behind ministry is building me up, my reputation, my recognition, (something that is NEVER said out loud, but is thinly veiled under the disguised pretense of doing something great for God), then the membership is less seen as people the pastor serves, but more people that serve the pastor’s purposes. And it is then the members can easily become victims of the spiritual abuse Dr. Langberg spoke of in the opening quote, causing terrible damage to their soul.
Abuse is bad enough where ever it is perpetuated. But it is extraordinarily heightened in its damage and long term detriment when it is at the hand of one representing God. Pastor, tread lightly.
