UNITED STATES
Pilgrim’s Road Trip
May 5, 2014 By Michelle Van Loon
Even when the truth comes out about a spiritual leader’s secret life, the kinds of lawyered-up semi-confessions that they and their team use to respond to their victims, congregants and the general public seem to be missing a key element: true regret. Leaders like Doug Phillips or Bill Gothard engineer almost-apologies. As I’ve followed these cases over the last year or so, it strikes me that those apologies are loaded with exit-clause “buts” as a way to leave wiggle room for their defense if they know they’re going to end up in court. Others like C.J. Mahaney or Mark Driscoll have exhibited long-standing patterns of denial, deflection and repeated attempts from their current positions of power to diminish or destroy their accusers.
The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, led the way a few years ago in giving a voice to the voiceless by creating a place for those who experienced sexual abuse by priests in the Catholic Church. But the internet’s redemptive side is best shown via the online connections at various ministry-specific websites that have been used to bring overlong-delayed justice to those who’ve experienced abuse at the hands of a pastor, church leader or teacher. Bloggers like Warren Throckmorton, Wenatchee the Hatchet, and sites such as The Wartburg Watch or Recovering Grace have served a prophetic role in exposing the sin of toxic leaders. Some of their guests may veer into bitter territory, their words particularly difficult to hear. But hear them we must if these hurting people are to be able to move toward healing, and the rest of us in the body of Christ are to move toward true maturity. What these leaders have done in the darkness has been brought to the glaring light of a computer screen. Though the method is modern, the message in the exposure is as old as Genesis: getting caught in your sin is meant to be a means of restoration and grace for these leaders.
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