Scandalous Pastors

Great.  Another pastor scandal.  Bishop Eddie Long in Atlanta, Georgia has been accused of sexual misconduct.  Along with that accusation comes the criticisms of his lavish lifestyle.  I don’t know if he is innocent or guilty.  I dearly hope he is innocent.  I’m just really tired of hearing these stories.  I can’t be the only one.

What bothers me is that Christian pastors have a reputation because of these kinds of stories.  We can all name the fallen ones.  Haggard, Bentley, Swaggart, and on and on. We’ve seen the charlatans on television selling Jesus like a commodity that can be bought and sold as long as the price is right.  We’ve seen them selling healings to the sick, prosperity to the poor, and false promises to the hopeless.  Each story adding to the public perception that pastors cannot be trusted when the door is closed and no one is watching.

The feeble cries of “I’m not like them!  Those guys don’t represent the rest of us!” feel like screaming into the wind of a hurricane.  Or worse, like a guilty man declaring his innocence with a little too much vigor as “to protest too much” and cast more doubt upon his claims.  I often meet people that will not darken the doors of a church because they believe that what they will find inside are hypocrites with hands out waiting for the cash to come.  To them, church seems like a sort of religious sweat shop where the workers are manipulated into believing and giving even when it destroys them.  The charge of hypocrisy is the number one reason why people do not call themselves Christians.

One thing is for sure.  As long as pastors and their congregations are human beings, there will be some that rise to become celebrities and then fall from grace like stones off a cliff.  This will never change!  What matters more is our response.  Will we chalk these failures up as yet more evidence that Christian leaders cannot be trusted?  I pray not.  Rather, I suggest that we chalk these failures up as yet more evidence that all people are in need of mercy and redemption.  No person is exempt from the possibility of succumbing to a moment (or a series of moments) of weakness.  We are all broken in some way.  Infidelity, greed, and idolatry were not invented by Christians.  It’s a human problem.

What I teach my church is that without the restraint of God’s grace on us, we would all ruin our lives.  However, we also need to learn to be people with impeccable integrity.  Christians should be people that never cut corners, never lie, and always own up to their mistakes with honesty and humility.  This is the only way to repair our reputation.  Humility, integrity, and the message of grace are the only way to rid ourselves of the stigma of hypocrisy and scandal.

Finally, to anyone reading this that has been disappointed or betrayed by Christian leaders, I am truly very sorry.  In the middle of the hurricane of evidence to the contrary, please listen for those of us that are loving our churches and our city with integrity.  We are trying to shout a different message into the din.  Can you hear us?