Wolves in Shepherd’s Clothing

 

With the scandal of sexual abuse and its cover up now reaching to the Vatican, it might be time for some appropriate evaluation and introspection among biblical fundamental Baptists.

Baptist ecclesiology (church government specifically) plays an important role in how we handle the issue of ministerial abuse. Let’s be frank, there will be wolves in shepherd’s clothing in every age. Ezekiel’s condemnation of the shepherds of Israel (Ezekiel 34) exposes the leaders of Israel as derelict in their duties, selfish, negligent, forceful, and cruel. The study of this passage had a profound impact on me when I was in seminary. It reminded me of the dangerous, and serious nature of the call that I was answering.

No denominational group is immune from predator pastors—including Independent Baptists. I have known or know of several who are now serving or have served prison sentences for predatory behavior. What we do NOT have is wide-spread institutional cover-ups of that abuse. There is a reason. We are independent local churches. There is no large institution to do the covering up. Even the FBFI is simply a fellowship of pastors. We do not police our members, nor do we have power over our members or the churches to which they are attached. That is not our purpose or design. The only real influence we have over one another is brotherly confrontation and we do that fairly often. This kind of accountability is a local church function.

Since we follow a congregational model of church authority, rather than an episcopalian model (like the RCC) and since we believe in the autonomy of the local church, Independent Baptists have avoided the wide-spread institutional corruption of Catholic Church. We believe the congregational model is the biblical pattern and this one of the reasons God, in His wisdom, chose to set it up this way.

However, we face a different danger. If a predatory pastor exerts dictatorial rule over a local congregation AND that congregation puts up with it, he can have nearly free reign for abuse in a local church and there is no denomination to hold him accountable.

So, how do we avoid ministerial abuse in an independent local church setting?

Make sure congregational government is truly that.

Even good men are tempted to veer toward a pastor/dictator model of church government—not in name but in practice—because it is easier to get what they want. The pastor/dictator model will eventually stunt the church’s growth, create an environment where abuse can thrive, and destroy the pastor himself. Pastors have to lead in creating an environment where he, and everyone else, is accountable to one another. Before 9-11-2001, airline passengers were instructed to do whatever a hi-jacker said. The consensus thinking was that the best chance of survival is just to give him whatever he wants. But United Airlines flight 94 changed all that. We now know that fighting terrorism (or abuse) is best accomplished when everyone is watching and everyone is acting. That is how congregational government works. Earlier I said that I knew of several Baptist pastors that were or had been in jail because of abuse. The difference between these men and the Catholic Church is that they ARE in jail. There was no cover-up or if there was, the circle of that cover up was limited because individual church members saw something was going on and took action.

Create a useful set of abuse protection policies and abide by them.

These policies ought to include how adult workers interact with children, criminal background checks, how and where pastoral counseling is done, and how potential abuse is reported. If you do not have these, you should. The leading church insurance companies have good information (Church Mutual, Brotherhood Mutual) and you could check with other churches in your area.

Obey the law.

Obey all mandatory reporting laws scrupulously. Especially in the case of child abuse the church, legally, is not an investigating body. Mandatory reporting laws require that police and human services authorities investigate, not the church. We ought to be thankful for that. No pastor, deacon, or church leader is trained to investigate such cases. We do know how to help victims and being free from the investigating responsibility allows us to fulfill our spiritual responsibilities more effectively.

Publish your policies widely in your congregation.

It does not do any good to have protection policies if you do not abide by them or your people are not aware of them. For our church, we have a set of policies and we do annual training sessions to teach and remind people of them. But we do have a missing piece we need to add. Every church member, not just church leaders, needs to be aware of the policies. This especially includes parents of children in our ministry.

Wolves in Shepherd’s clothing are not new. It was even a problem in the fledgling church of the New Testament (Philippians 3:19, 2 John 9-11, Jude 3-16). We must do our best to guard against them, and to remove them when they appear.