Scot McKnight wrote another great blog post on why it was proper and “prophetic” for Hybel’s victims to go public:
Some pastors in autonomous churches become too authoritative. We are hearing lots about this with respect to Willow. When pastors become autonomous and authoritative and when they are as big as Willow, the church can easily become a top-down organization and become a centralized institution. This deprives the people of the church from genuine participation and of forming the sorts of associations needed for individual gifts to flourish. This kind of centralized culture deprives many of a voice.
Bingo! Although I should add that size is not necessarily a correlative factor: smaller churches can also become centralized and crowd out the voices of the congregation. And if the elders are “Yes men”, then there is a tendency to cover up for the pastor(s). Scott goes on to write:
Furthermore, top-down management promotes a lack of responsibility on the part of the people, often a lack of accountability for both leader and people, a clear absence of ownership by the people, a lethargic passivity by the people, and it creates spectators of the people and performers of the leaders. The leaders develop a persona made visible by public appearances. One does not know the genuine article; one knows the persona presented on stage. For most people there is no way to find the truth of the leader’s character. Many people are marked by allegiance to the leader rather than free-flowing giftedness set free to do the work God has called them to.
This is so true. These star Pastor Idols carefully cultivate their public image and God only knows what their true character is like. But there are clues that can serve as warning signs, such as: how well they handle questioning or criticism, how much they enjoy being in the spotlight, and how big a salary they command (would they be willing to follow the apostle Paul and be a tentmaker for a season?). The NT envisions a plurality of elders/pastors but in practice, a so-called Senior Pastor usually ends up calling the shots, with everyone else falling in line:
Autonomy at the top breeds powermongering, and that always leads to sharing authority with like-minded who think alike and behave alike and reinforce what is alike. Many of the “not likes” then are excluded, silenced, and even afraid to speak up.
The evidence of powermongering is silencing and bullying – verbally, institutionally, opportunity, and development/advancement. Success in such churches is shaped by loyalty to the autonomous pastor and his retainers. Advancement is given to those who clearly are “for the team” but many know that “team” in such churches becomes an inside group of power brokers.
That is why when a situation arises, the power brokers will do whatever it takes to protect the Celebrity and the Institution (they will stretch 1 Tim. 5:19 beyond reasonable limits). Indeed, they will attempt to turn the tables so that the victims are to be blamed. Given the asymmetry of the power dynamics, the victims are heavily disadvantaged. As Foucault observed, “In a great many cases power relations are fixed in such a way that they are perpetually asymmetrical and allow an extremely limited margin of freedom.” (Foucault Live: Collected Interviews, 1961-1984, 2nd ed., ed. Sylvère Lotringer (New York: Semiotext(e), 1996).
McKnight asks, “What happens when an individual or a group of individuals, who are disempowered and outside the power cliques, want genuine evaluation and redress for an injustice?” Well, as the women found out, their pleas for justice were met with silencing, stonewalling, and self-serving and self-righteous denials: “If they follow the autonomous church’s process the accusers far too often learn that appealing to the structured authorities falls into silent dismissals or pretentious evaluations or lengthy delays that wear down the accusers. This is what happened at Willow.”
That’s why the women had no choice but to go public:
So people went public because Willow should not have asked people to wait this long. Four years was (more than) enough for these women.
We would not know any of the truth of this problem at Willow (Association and Elders) had they not gone public. Four years of silence, four years of nothing being known, four years when others may have spoken up. We know what we know only because the women had the courage to go public.
I unequivocally agree with Scott “that what the women did was soundly biblical and patient.” Let’s pray that justice, repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation can take place.
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