Troubled Leaders

I understand that one is innocent until proven guilty, but the charges do make me stop and wonder. There are three or four young men who are making the charges so if they are not true then somebody has been a part of a conspiracy. The Bishop Eddie Long has been sued by these young men for taking indecent sexual liberties with them. These charges against Bishop Long make the number of religious leaders who have been involved in improper sexual conduct more than can be remembered.

We have the whole Roman Catholic Church problem with who knows how many cases of sexual abuse. We have a Colorado megachurch leader who had to resign because of a male prostitute. People may not remember Jim Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart who had their problems with sexual misconduct but they were heterosexual activities. The Rev. Tom Tewell in New York City resigned his position because of an affair with a woman.

There seems to be a twisted connection between those leaders who have been the loudest and the strongest against homosexual activities who seem to be the most tempted to it. There is much to be said for the fact that the Catholic priesthood seems to be an institution built for sexual activities to come out in a unhealthy way.

Of course, it would be wrong to think that ours is the first generation in which religious leaders have misused their positions and indulged in activities that were not sanctioned by the public and by the church. The Old Testament has stories of priest who did behave well.

There seems to be two major causes from what I have been told. One is that when we grant to a leader too much power, too much praise, too much honor and authority, they can become very tempted to believe they can do what they want. The other explanation is that when we give a person too much power, too much praise, too much authority, we also put them too far above us and do not allow them to have normal natural relationships with friends and ordinary people, and the position becomes lonely and exhausting and their need and hunger to be loved comes out in different ways.

The bottom line in all of this is that no religious leader is anything but another human being just like you and me and so should be treated like a person and held accountable as a person.

Against the wind- still running against the wind.

I don't know who wrote it and I don't know if any others sang it, but I remember hearing Bob Seeger and the Silver Bullet Band sing the song, Against the wind. Listening to a message today, that song came to my mind. The message was delivered in the l970's by a minister in Charlotte. It must have been Palm Sunday and he was talking about how the "multitude" was shouting and rejoicing about the coming of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

From that introduction his message was against the wind of almost every Christian preacher I hear today. This man said first of all, we live in a nation where we began because we disliked kings; we rebelled against kings; and we have a historic dislike for Monarchs and Kingdoms. The whole Idea of Jesus as King, if he really wants to have a Kingdom and be a real King, is an insult to our democracy and our democratic ideals.

Turns out there are at least three major cardinal convictions in American society that clash with the proclamation of the New Testament. There is this universal doctrine that we claim we believe in the abstract that all people are created equal. We can never find it in reality. Some talker, some shorter, some blond, some red hair, some smart, some stupid, some fast,others slow. But we claim to believe that all are created equal. And often we take the next step that all opinions are the same. Everybody is equal and every body's opinion is equal. You can see this in our news reports and CNN and the reading of email opinions. There is no place for an expert who knows more than others. But if Jesus is King and Lord of Lords then He says that there are some who are greater than others and you earn that greatness by service to others. Our American philosophy believes that all are equal, and Jesus knows that how we serve others makes us all different.

There is in our American creed the conviction that "free market enterprise" is the path to the great society. That unhindered competition is the right way to go. The whole Ann Rand philosophy of the individualism. The rugged man who follows his dream despite all opposition and triumphs. Of course, that is hard to hold with all of us being equal, but we do believe that all are equal and that if we lined us all up and fired the starting pistol we could let them all run the race and see who wins. There are two reasons that runs counter to Jesus. One is that Jesus calls us to deny self and become part of the community. Jesus says the way to economic justice is cooperation and sharing. Competition is not helpful. Cooperation is the nature of Jesus kingdom. The second reason is that nobody wants an equal playing field. Everybody wants an edge. Everybody thinks giving the other person an equal shot is giving them an advantage.

The third doctrine of American culture is that the majority rules. But in the Kingdom of God there is no majority rule. In our society we claim that the surest way to a just answer to our problems is to vote and see what the "people" want, but we admit that that is not always wise so we have forced upon ourselves laws that project the minority. We claim that we want to have the voice of the people determine the truth, but over and over the voice of the people has been so wrong. Southerners had the voice of the people fight for slavery and their economic way of life. But we all agree now that that was not just or proper.

Some want to claim that America is a Christian nation. Well, it is hard to be a Christian nation when our American ethos is built on a claim that all of us are created equal, that rugged unhindered individualism is the way for economic justice, and the majority rule is the solution to our problems, and Jesus claims that we are not all equal, that some are greater in the Kingdom of Heaven than others, that competition is not the way to a just society, but cooperation is, and that the majority is very often immoral and wrong about what is good and true. Jesus is King not elected Chairman.

Wasted 20 minutes

The work of communication is not easy. It is a great arrogance that preachers have that their sermons are heard and change lives. It is so often that we think we have said something significant only to discover that the congregation did not hear it. Reinhold Niebuhr once said that lots of ministers sneak up on something controversial and then slip by it and think they have been bold to get close while the congregation is grateful that the minister did not go any further. But even if you say something directly it is not always heard.

This preaching stuff is a funny experience. Last Sunday I preached on the story of Moses and God deciding what to do about the children of Israel who have just built and worshipped the Golden Calf. God tells Moses to get out of the way. God is ready to kick some butt and God declares that he is going to burn the whole lot of them up. Moses, like a great Labor leader, knows God better than God knows himself, and Moses knows that God is a promise keeping God. So Moses tells God that if God breaks his promise to the children of Israel after all these years, God's reputation as a promise keeper will be shot. God relented of the evil that he had planned. So I suggested that as Christian people our only hope is that God is still a promise keeper after all the promises we have been made by God through Jesus Christ. Our hope is not in ourselves. Our hope is not in political systems or economic arrangements. Our hope for the future is in the fact that God keeps his promises. It is not in our own ability.

I pronounced the Benediction and walked back to shake hands. The first man to greet me was one of the ushers. He shook my hand and said immediate, "You said this morning something that I believe with all my heart. You got to have faith in yourself."

I had absolutely nothing to say. I was speechless which would have been as useful as my 20 minute sermon.

Hard To Believe

Maybe it should not be too hard to believe. After all, for years many of us have been depressed by the message that was being sent out in the name of Christ from the Crystal Cathedral and Robert H. Schuller. There has to be some kind of delightful irony that the man who talks about positive thinking had to kick his son out because he was not being positive enough.

But what is really hard to believe is the publicly stated reasons why the boy got fired. Robert A. Schuller, the son, was the senior minister from 2006 till 2009. He got the Bobby Bowden treatment when the church leaders decided that his messages were not positive enough. (Perhaps that resulted in there not being enough money sent in in response to his messages) But Robert A. Schuller had actually gone to seminary and studied for the ministry. And here is the real kick in the teeth, "he was criticized by his father because the boy's sermons had too much Jesus talk." A Longtime member of the Cathedral, 83 year old Augustine Remlinger said that the boy relied on the Bible for his sermons. Can you imagine that. A Christian minister who read the Bible and thought it ought to be preached. (My information comes from the magazine The Christian Century for September 7, 2010).

Now they have made the daughter of the founder Schuller the senior minister. When will they discover that it is not a family business? Shouldn't they get a Pulpit Nominating Committee? Have a nationwide search for a new minister?

They wanted positive talk, happy endings, they wanted "the feel good" experience. The members want the "happily ever after" ending, and the son said well, let's listen to the Bible and see what it says. And they were not happy. What delicious irony that the happily ever after ending is not happening at the place where that has been the message for 60 years.