Seriously, God...why do I doubt you when Christians fail so spectacularly?
"I couldn't even see. When I didn't think of you, you thought of me, so take the lead." Christon Gray "Follow You"
This week I watched a short documentary from Matt and Beth Redman (well known worship leaders…think 10,000 Reasons, Heart of Worship) regarding emotional, spiritual, and physical abuse they had experienced at the hand of a prominent Christian leader while working in the Soul Survivor ministry. I won’t go into the details here, so you can watch it on your own in the video below, but Soul Survivor had huge festivals in Europe that shaped a generation of Christians there and worldwide.
In the documentary, one theme that came up regularly was why hadn’t anyone stopped the abusive behavior while it was happening? In this case the abuse that was happening wasn’t a kind that might instantly put you in jail compared to other situations, but yet still extremely concerning and disturbing. The consensus was people felt calling out the leader of this amazing, visible, and effective ministry (Soul Survivor) could cause God’s work to stop. No one wanted to be the one to stop God’s work. Without them saying it, I can imagine the underlying logic here:
If this leader was doing something really wrong then how could this ministry flourish and be so impactful? God was working to reach thousands of people. Could God work while this leader’s character was in question?
So where I’m really disturbed and confused by all of this is when I try to reconcile how the good fruits we produce and the results we have in life relate to each other…or not. Are good fruits and results the same? So why in this case is it conflicted?
I can see why it took Matt Redman years to finally say something.
Why situations like this bother me so much is that I’m looking for a clear logic in how God works. If we do this—this will happen. If we don’t do this—this will or won’t happen. It gives me predictability and comfort knowing I can control my situation.
But of course we control so little, so what challenges my faith is when my logic of HOW I think God works breaks or doesn’t fit my expectations in situations like this. It makes me lose control.
This has happened to me a lot the last few years because of my own church struggles. It isn’t just tragedy or let down that shake me because within my own “logic” I could accept those. It’s when events in life don’t feel like they add up. Like for Soul Survivor—can you have a man whose character needs more fruits, but yet God uses him in a spectacular way in ministry? This just doesn’t seem…Godly.
I think of verses in Romans 9:18 where it talks about “God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.” Then in verse 21, “Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use.”
Many times verses like these can feel overwhelming, but now I find it comforting. What I mean is—when I see things that happen with people and God’s work that just don’t make any sense to me…within how I think God works…I can accept that God’s “logic” is way beyond what I can comprehend. That logic can look very odd or uncharacteristic from our vantage point and point of time, but yet it all comes together within God’s greater promises.1
Watching the documentary, I was saddened to hear there were some people who experienced this abuse who have lost their faith. I can understand why. One’s world crumbles when your internal logic and heart’s expectations shatter. I have certainly felt that way witnessing the last three years of what I call civil war in my own church. When you can’t reconcile events that don’t add up especially within a group of people or organization you love so much, you feel forced to have to come to some kind of conclusion. What went wrong? Was it all even real? I would have to imagine this is what happened to Joshua Harris in the last few years as well (former Christian pastor, public figure, now Ex-evangelical). Joshua Harris Interview.
So much crumbled after his church was hit with an intense scandal (Sovereign Grace Scandal) that he had to look back at all the success and wonder what was behind all of it when underneath there was so much brokenness and dysfunction. So no surprise he came to his conclusion of leaving the faith because probably nothing made sense to him anymore. One group calling the attacks the devil’s work. Others seeking justice for hurt families and children. Then you have Joshua Harris in the middle of it unable to stop it. I’m doing some guessing here on that last part for him, but I get it. If we were all following Christ, then what in the world happened here? Or maybe it was all a house of cards?
There are always at least two side to every story, fight, and scandal. We often want to believe there is only one. When I think about myself—I’m a walking contradiction. Yet, I have to believe that if God allows this kind of “chaos,” “inconsistency,” and “odd results” that these descriptions aren’t just a result of me not having faith and picking the correct side of an argument or scandal. Rather even within our “success” and “failure” there is still a whole lot of mystery of how God works. There can be success within failure. There can be failure within success. God will determine that alone. I understand sin still exists, and I believe in a spiritual war. Those explain the messiness, but it is all still beyond the cleanliness my mind wants. That is what I am letting go. The only thing I can know about God and myself is what it proclaims in Isaiah 40:6-8—
A voice says, “Cry!”
And I said, “What shall I cry?”
All flesh is grass,
and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.
The grass withers, the flower fades
when the breath of the Lord blows on it;
surely the people are grass.
The grass withers, the flower fades,
but the word of our God will stand forever.
When have you been so disappointed with Christians or your church, leaving you confused and lost? Is there still room for God to be bigger than that confusion?
In Romans, those promises are very big and long standing around Salvation to categories of peoples (read Romans 9-11…just read the whole book to be honest).
Thinking about the well known saying that there’s at least “always 2 sides to every story”… Wonder if that means both sides are not without blame.. if i understand it that way it makes somewhat when i think of my parents fights i had to grow up observing at home.. i used to take sides with my dad most of the time.. but now that I am an older woman, married, i feel so much more empathy with my mother and can understand where she was coming from as well… but what if you were the victim of abuse and crime?