..it is not okay..

**disclaimer: this is a borderline rant, which I try to keep from doing as much as possible here, so bear with me.**

***This post is brought to you by last night’s dinner conversation with Vernon and Aubrey***

So, I have this list. It isn’t a hard copy or anything, just a theoretical/spoken list of things that I have observed while living in Israel that are not okay. I’ve been talking about it and adding to it a lot this year. The things that make the list don’t necessarily have to do with Israel or the Middle East at all, although many things about life here do make the list and go straight to the top. For example, some orthodox Jewish men study Talmud all day and don’t work while their baby-making machines (read: wives) are at home with several children, trying to run a good household and sometimes have to take a paid job in order to support their families even more because their husbands don’t get paid to read the Talmud all day. If the husband ends up having to get a job because his wife can’t handle the load it’s her fault and is a disgrace. THAT IS NOT OKAY.

Something has been not okay for a long time, and I have neglected to write about it until now. I am writing about it now, publicly, because I no longer think that I need to stay silent. There is this story that I’ve been hearing from several different people over the last few years. They talk about their experience in and with church leadership. They are all different people with eerily similar stories of power-mongering through half-truths and deceptions. They involve scathing emails, threatening phone calls and restraining orders (I wish I was joking). They are stories of how pastors and elders manipulate their way to complete power over a congregation, and then “beat the sheep”, at least the ones that know too much and show themselves to be a threat to the empire.

A common thread in all these stories that I’ve heard is that eventually a pastor will work himself or herself, by whatever means, into a position where he or she essentially becomes the dictator of the local church. This doesn’t happen by force, but rather by the slow abdication of the congregation’s responsibility to hold their leaders accountable. People have become so accustom to consuming church rather than participating in it that they give up their active role as a part of the Body of Christ, thus opening themselves up to all sorts of religious abuses. They begin to rely on the pastor for everything: the interpretation of scripture, what time to meet on Sunday, what the “vision” of the church is, who is able to serve or not serve in a specific role. The church does not belong to the pastor. A local church is not pastor so-and-so’s church. The church belongs to Christ. And when the body of Christ is being mislead, abused or manipulated it is the responsibility of its members to call into accountability those who have been given the responsibility of leadership.

There’s this myth flying around that Christians are supposed to be nice. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self-control.” Nope, nice isn’t in that list. The Bible places a high priority on speaking truth in love. In many instances speaking truth is incompatible with being nice (even if it is in love). One only has to read the prophets to find that out. Jesus did some turning over of tables which I’m certain didn’t get him the “nice-guy of the year” award. What I’m trying to get at is this: it is not okay for church leaders to power-monger and then lord it over people. It is not okay for them to live as though the local church is their own little empire within an empire to do with as they see fit. It is certainly not okay for local church members to stand by and watch other parts of the body be abused by such behavior because they are afraid that people might think they aren’t nice Christians.

And it is not okay that all of this is so common.

**I realize that there is a lot left unsaid here. There are no suggestions made on how to handle specific situations. This is just a general observation and response. I’m more than willing to go back and forth about things in the comment sections.