Last week was amazing because of how spiritually nourishing it was to attend Andy Stanley’s event in Lenexa, Kansas (BIG Thank you to NewSpring Church for making that possible). Jason started listening to Ravi Zacharias and shared several videos, including one with Tim Tebow (Go Gators!!). Jason told me I would want to take notes and he was right….there were so many gems in that talk (listen to it here) that I will listen to it again. So I am reviewing my notes from Andy Stanley and Ravi Zaccahrias on Sunday and happen upon several posts on Instagram about a pastor saying there can be no women pastors and disparaged a well-known female evangelist. Why this piques my interest is twofold: 1) the content of Andy Stanley and Ravi Zacharias is fresh in my mind 2) my background consists of activism including feminism (which I have since departed from, in the sense that popular culture defines feminism) and I wanted to hear if it was as bad as they were saying.
So I found the YouTube video, which is just a picture with audio recording. The video is about 7.5 minutes long, and as I listened and transcribed, I got way more than I bargained for.
It was bad. But the reasons I would identify would be different from the others who bristled. I, too, bristled at hearing a group of men disparage a woman because it conjures moments in my past. I empathize with this woman being disparaged; I have been that woman, at many points in my life. But to distill what happened on that video to men versus women is too simplistic, too visceral, and doesn’t get to the heart of the matter.
The real issue is that someone was publicly disparaging someone else, even having some fun doing it, with seemed impunity, all under the banner of Christianity. This is what makes the video so disheartening. There are very real consequences for such a display.
The Pew Research Center just released a report, “In U.S., Decline of Christianity Continues at Rapid Pace (October 17, 2019). Graphs in this report clearly show the downward trajectory of U.S. adults who identify as Christian. Other graphs show the upward trajectory of those who are religiously unaffiliated and the growing groups of “nothing in particular.” In a culture that is already averse to faith or even anti-Christian in sentiment, all the behaviors displayed in the video did was provide fodder and yet another justification to stay away from Christianity. And to be clear, I am only speaking to the behavior of publicly disparaging someone, not to the validity of Christian doctrinal truths being espoused. I am not a theologian and, therefore, cannot and will not speak to those.
As a Christian woman, however, I can speak to the fruit of the Spirit, love, peace, forbearance, kindness, faithfulness, and joy (Galatians 5:22). I can speak to what Jesus calls us to do….love one another as God has loved us (John 13:34). Nothing in that video was loving, kind, or forbearing to the person being disparaged.
The thing is we have all been there. We have all been ugly and equally void of any fruit of the Spirit to many people, even people closest to us. I don’t believe for one minute that the persons on this video disparaging another human being are bad. They are human and, therefore, sinful, like we all are. As Christians, we are called to be ambassadors of the Christian faith. For me or most people, we don’t have positions and titles that echo our words and actions to a vast audience. Pastors, however, do and are held to a higher standard. What pastors say and do as ambassadors of the Christian faith echoes farther and wider than anything the rest of us could say or do. What we heard in this video were pastor(s) being people, under the banner of Christianity.
Some might argue that the truth cannot be sugar-coated, and what is at stake is too egregious to allow without outright rebuke. Our pastor gave a whole sermon on just that, truth and grace. Delivering truth requires equal parts of grace. One without the other misses the mark and is not edifying to our Lord and Savior. Truth without grace feels like a brick to the face and an attack on the person, resulting in the truth not being heard. Grace, without truth, dishonors both parties because anything void of truth is not good (John 14:6), and again, the truth is not heard.
Another consequence of this behavior that is related to the title and position of leadership is how this behavior sets the tone. Again, as a pastor, they can set the tone for a topic of discussion or how a person is perceived. That invective display seemingly gives license for others to echo such vitriol under the banner of Christianity. It gives license to tear others down because we disagree with them. Attacking people because we disagree with them is a recipe for divisiveness and hatred. We can disagree with people’s ideas or things they do and still treat them with dignity and respect. We can disagree and still have intelligent dialogue. After all, our intrinsic value is not contingent upon our beliefs or actions. If it were, we would all be doomed. But vitriol is what’s popular. Something else I noted was how the conviction of our beliefs has a way of sharpening the tongue, and the flesh is easily seduced by the power to cut others down. Having a cajoling audience often intensifies that seduction.
This isn’t the first and won’t be the last time something is said or done under the banner of Christianity, yet contradicts Jesus’ example. This is not about tearing down the person(s) who partook in the video. This is more about looking at the state of our country and where Christianity stands and how our words and actions contribute to the steady erosion or become part of the solution of making Christianity the logical and best answer for this country and the world.
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Image Credit: N. Poussin, Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery, engr. F. Chereau. Found on http://bq.blakearchive.org/17.2.heppner